Sang-hyeok's collection of herbs accelerated as time passed, and as a result, Sang-hyeok was able to obtain more gold than expected. However, there was no gold left in Sanghyeok's hands.
Sang-hyeok searched the gold-producing auction house and purchased an item... The item that Sang-hyeok had been buying and collecting for several months was an item called 'Sealed Crystal'.
At this point, this item was called a so-called trash draw item among retail users.
The only thing that had to be called that was that most of the items that came out by opening the sealed crystals were junk items that users rarely used.
Occasionally, an enhancement stone came out, but the probability was low, and the non-attached enhancement stone itself was not very expensive, so no one tried to get an enhancement stone by cracking the sealed crystal.
As a result, the auction house was overflowing with sealed crystals. The drop rate of the sealed crystal itself was not that high, so the number of sealed crystals that users acquired was not very large, but the problem was that these crystals were not consumed and piled up in the auction house.
Sanghyeok purchased as many sealed crystals as possible while adjusting the market price of the sealed crystals. There were quite a few users whose main job was to buy and sell things at the auction house, so I couldn't let them know that someone was buying sealed crystals.
Most of the auction house vendors were 100-dan, so if they were found out that they were stocking up on sealed crystals, the price of sealed crystals could skyrocket.
Sang-hyeok collected and collected the sealed crystals step by step, being as careful as possible.
The reason Sanghyeok was collecting these sealed crystals was because of one important change that was included in the 4th major patch for sleeves.
The storm of sealed crystals that all users were astonished at and cursed at the developer... In fact, the content of the patch itself could have been simply expressed in one line, but the ripples caused by that simple one line patch were enormous.
'In the future, you can obtain a Blessed Enhancement Stone with a low probability from the sealed crystal.'
It wasn't exact, but it was most likely something like this. Since Sang-hyeok had been playing sleeves since his 4th large-scale patch, he had vaguely picked up a rumor floating around like a legend on a community bulletin board, so he didn't even know the exact wording of the patch.
But the important thing was that after the patch, a blessed enhancement stone would come out of the sealed crystal. Since the sealed crystals that existed before the patch were scheduled to have the same blessed enhancement stones, users were even more swearing at the patch as a meaningless patch.
The Blessed Enchantment Stone was an item on a completely different level from the normal Enchantment Stone. The Blessed Enhancement Stone was an extremely expensive item, so it was mainly traded for cash.
In terms of cash value, the normal enhancement stone was about 20,000 won, and the blessed enhancement stone was an item worth 2 million won. It meant there was no comparison in the first place.
And although the patch said it was a low probability, people who accessed the patch on the first day of the patch and took out the sealed crystal got a blessed enhancement stone from about one out of ten sealed crystals, and eventually, the developer hurriedly patched it in an hour. After that, there was also quite reliable information that it had changed to a level of about one out of a hundred.
Of course, Sang-hyeok did not personally experience this, so he did not know whether it was accurate or not. However, even if one were to come out of a hundred pieces, at this point, buying and collecting sealed crystals was an unconditional huge benefit.
The current cash market price of the sealed crystal was approximately 5,000 won.
That's why even if you crack 100 of these and get 1 Blessed Enhancement Stone, you have no choice but to reap great benefits.
So, as people say, this sealed crystal hoarding is a super hit if you get a lot of non-ideally blessed Enchantment Stones on the first day.
Sanghyeok's goal was to collect more than 3,000 sealed crystals. Of course, it won't be easy, but Sang-hyeok climbed the cliff like crazy to pick herbs for that goal.
* * * *
Time passed quickly, the sun changed in an instant, and spring came in full swing.
September 11, 2027.
Finally, as Sang-hyeok knew, the 4th large-scale patch of Sword & Magic, 'The Advent of Voloyan' has begun.
As soon as the patch was over, Sanghyuk was fully prepared to connect.
The number of sealed crystals that Sanghyeok collected over the course of seven months was a whopping 3,116.
If only one blessed enhancement stone could come out for every ten sealed crystals, as rumored, Sang-hyeok could get about 300 blessed enhancement stones with simple calculations, and their value was about 600 million won.
Of course, I didn't think it would come this far, but I was expecting to get at least tens of millions of won anyway.
Sanghyuk accessed the game as soon as the patch was over. Since he had already closed the connection in front of the warehouse before the patch, Sang-hyeok opened the warehouse and began to open the sealed crystal.
After opening about a few hundred sealed crystals, he knew that the rumors he had heard were not 100% accurate. But that wasn't entirely wrong either.
The Blessed Enhancement Stone, which is said to come out about one out of 100 sealed crystals, came out about one out of 40. It was originally at this level, but it seemed that people exaggerated it a bit and said that there was one out of 10.
In any case, Sang-hyeok broke all 3,116 sealed crystals he had in an instant, and as a result, he was able to obtain exactly 74 Blessed Enhancement Stones.
Although it was somewhat different from 300, it was possible to obtain about 150 million won through cashing out with only 74. Excluding the commission, it was about 130 million won, but it could be said that it was a lot of money for a high school student who had no skills for six months.
In the first place, Sang-hyeok was also trying to earn enough money to get out of the orphanage and become self-sufficient, so this was enough to satisfy him.
"Anyway, since this is the game we were only going to finish here, let's wrap it up and finish it."
Sanghyuk no longer had any regrets about his sleeve. It was good that he was preparing to receive EL from now on anyway.
The service of Eternal Life (EL), which Sanghyeok had been waiting for, was to begin in the next six months. If he continued to wear sleeves for those 7 months, he might be able to gain some money, but Sanghyuk thought it was more important to take a break and build a body and mind that can focus on EL.
Sang-hyeok, determined to organize everything, tidied everything up in just a few days. After selling everything he could sell, there was exactly 137.4 million won piled up in Sang-hyeok's bank account.
To Sang-hyeok, who had money in units of 100,000 won a while ago, this money was really big money. If Sang-hyeok had been an ordinary high school student, he could have spent money all over the place in excitement.
However, Sang-hyeok wasn't an ordinary high school student, so he didn't get excited at all and acted the same as usual. He was better off not being noticed now.
'I don't remember the exact day, but it must have been the end of November. So let's pretend we're dead until November.'
What Sanghyuk is waiting for. It was the visit of the scum who had plunged him into the abyss of despair.
* * * *
Sang-hyeok, who completely cleaned up his sleeves, even sold the helmet-type VR device he had. The latest capsule-type VR device was scheduled to be released in line with the release of EL anyway, so it was better to sell the old device before the price went down.
Sang-hyeok, who organized everything very neatly, suddenly started learning meditation. In a thesis published while Sang-hyeok was a director, it was stated that those who consistently controlled their thoughts through meditation had higher VRA levels than those who did not.
That said, meditation did help increase my VRA levels, albeit slightly. Of course, Sang-hyeok's VRA level was already high enough to be close to the limit, but Sang-hyeok was not vigilant.
He had already experienced firsthand that VRA levels could drop drastically for various reasons, so he had no choice but to pay more attention to VRA management than anyone else.
Sanghyeok not only learned meditation, but also started kendo. Of course, he did not intend to learn how to use a sword through kendo and use it in the game.
At first glance, it seemed that learning kendo in real life would help in a virtual reality game, but reality and virtual reality were not so simple to connect.
If the VRA is low, no matter how good you are at kendo in real life, you may not be able to wield the sword properly in virtual reality. Conversely, in reality, even people who are not good at sports can show their outstanding physical abilities in virtual reality as long as the VRA is high.
It wasn't for nothing that VRA was called a new form of talent.
The reason Sanghyeok studied kendo was not to learn how to handle a sword, but rather to learn how to control his mind and at the same time keep his body in a healthy state.
While working as a director, he had seen countless pro gamers who were obsessed with virtual reality and eventually became so damaged that they could not even access virtual reality.
That's why he always said that if you want to become a pro gamer, you must first have a healthy body. For that reason, Sanghyeok studied kendo and trained his body calmly.
Time passed quickly this time as well.
And... November 27, 2027.
Two devil-like men Sang-hyeok could never forget appeared in front of Sang-hyeok's eyes.
'Park Sang-cheol, Kim Dae-sik.'
Sanghyuk remembered their names clearly.
The moment I saw their forgotten faces again, my teeth gnashed. But now I had to be patient.
'I'm patient now. But... it never goes beyond that.'
In my heart, I wanted to report it to the police and have them arrested right away, but the problem was that the guys kept changing their residence periodically and running the workshop, so even if I wanted to report it, I couldn't report it because I didn't know where they were running the workshop.
And considering that the people who were caught by the police at the time escaped the crisis without incident with the power of money, the police were never a good way to punish them.
'In my own way... I'll take away the most important thing from you and then trample on you. That will be my punishment.'
So Sang-hyeok decided to punish them in his own way, not with the help of the police. Of course, it would take some time to punish like that, but I could wait for that much.
Park Sang-cheol and Kim Dae-shik seduced the children with their eloquent speech as Sang-hyeok remembered. Then, the VRA test started right away... Unfortunately, the children desperately tried to get a higher VRA just like Sanghyeok in their previous lives.
Sang-hyeok wanted to expose the identities of Park Sang-cheol and Kim Dae-sik to those children and stop them from following them. But he couldn't do that. In the current situation, where even the staff at the orphanage are one of them, the situation could have gotten worse if they clumsily instigated the children.
Crucially, the possibility of the children believing Sanghyuk's words was low. Sang-hyeok was at an orphanage in the Uijeongbu area, but that nursery school was closed. He hadn't had any close friends here since he came to the Paju-area nursery school a year ago.
In the first place, Sang-hyeok's personality was not a personality that fit well with anyone, so he became an outsider even more, and in the end, for this reason, there was nothing Sang-hyeok could do at this point.
Sanghyuk quietly closed his eyes and meditated briefly to control his mind. Then, when it was his turn, he slowly stepped forward and put the VR device on his head.