Chapter 11 – Elixir

After he declined the request for cooperation in the research, Professor Kim-jahong called him often.  It seemed he wasn’t going to give up easily.  Hahn-suhjin was tired of his persistence.  In the end, he had to change his phone number.

Fortunately, the professor didn’t come looking for him at his house again. Maybe the professor realized he would be put in a bad spot if he sowed more ill feeling.  In the worst case scenario, Hahn-suhjin had thought about moving to a different place.

“He’s only a professor affiliated with the hospital yet why is he being so tenacious?”

He was grumbling to himself for awhile, when a laugh suddenly escaped him.

“Maybe he is so tenacious, because he is a professor at the hospital.”

He lay down on his bed, and he vacantly stared at the sapphire colored liquid within the bottle called the Elixir.

Currently, he had about 500cc of the Elixir left. He thought about the money he gave to Jinsung Pharmaceutical’s deputy head Park-hyunjoon.  If he considered the amount of money he had to pay to make this Elixir, he had about 1 million dollars worth of Elixir left.

However, the real value of this item couldn’t be a mere 1 million dollar.  It had completely healed him in couple days.  Modern medicine hadn’t been able to do anything for his terminal cancer.

What kind of reaction would the tyc.o.o.ns show if they found out about its effectiveness?  Wouldn’t they give millions of dollars to buy it?

“Uh…… Still, will they really buy it?”

All of a sudden, he saw a report about tax evasion on TV.  Hahn-suhjin mumbled to himself as if he wasn’t confident.

Wealthy tyc.o.o.ns used all kinds of methods and tricks to make money, so will they treat him in a gentlemanly manner?  Wouldn’t they use some other method to acquire what they want?

“……uh. Somehow that sounds really scary.”

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought about contacting wealthy people to sell the Elixir.  However, those thoughts retreated as if it was snow melting.

Every human desired life and health. If the wealthy customers purchased the Elixir for the price it was worth, then it wouldn’t be a problem.  However, if they pulled off something shady, then he would be in danger.

“I can’t really approach them, and it’ll be difficult to explain what the Elixir is.”

Moreover, he was sure the rich people wouldn’t even give him the time of day.  Even if he somehow got in contact with them, it was questionable as to whether they would believe the efficacy of the Elixir.

“Even if they believed the Elixir worked, they might not want to stop after a single use.”

After the wealthy person experiences the effectiveness of the Elixir, will they really stop after using it once?  Or would they try to find out the secret of the Elixir?  Will they try to monopolize the Elixir?

“Ooh.  I think I watched too many movies.”

His mind kept drifting towards negative thoughts, so Hahn-suhjin shook his head fiercely.

He already knew how to make the Elixir.  Moreover, he didn’t have to worry about the method being leaked to another person.

The Insight had informed him about the chemical composition, and the Elixir wasn’t formed from just mixing the 3 chemicals.  The chemicals by itself was useless.

His blood had to be mixed in to be able to concoct the Elixir.  His blood was the catalyst.

“If it became known that my blood is the catalyst…….”

In a flash, a chilling thought pa.s.sed through his mind.

It was an image of him locked away somewhere for his whole life, and people drawing on his blood to make manufacture the Elixir.  He would live a life where he wouldn’t even be able to kill himself.

Would such a tragedy scene form a movie not happen just because he stopped thinking about it?

“Still, I think I’ll have to discard that idea for now.”

Hahn-suhjin made a firm determination.

Calamity will befall those, who didn’t have the power to protect the treasure.  He didn’t even have to think about it.  He didn’t have the power to protect the Elixir.

It wouldn’t end after the recipe was stolen.  He was afraid he would be imprisoned, so they could extract his blood.

‘Still, the catalyst…….’

Hahn-suhjin thought hard on it.

The recipe for the Elixir given by the Insight said the catalyst was the blood of a king.  He had mixed in his blood on a hunch to make the Elixir.

What was the meaning of those words?

“Does that mean I’ll become a king?”

Maybe he had some blood of a Middle Eastern king mixed in along his lineal ascendant.  He even thought about such ridiculous thoughts.

He was a king?  It was more unbelievable than his power of Insight.

“No.  Wait a second…”

Hahn-suhjin fell into a deep thought.

The power of Insight.  A normal person wouldn’t possess such a power. This mysterious power was given to him out of the blue.  Maybe he was an alien.  Or maybe he had the blood of a royal  from a different dimension.

“Ah, enough! Stop it! I’ll keep coming up with weird ideas. No more.  Let’s stop imagining impossible scenarios.”

Hahn-suhjin lightly slapped his two cheeks. He chased away the delusions from inside his head.

“Anyways, this is all the money I have left.”

Currently, he only had $150,000 left inside his bank account.

Not too long ago he wouldn’t have even dreamed about owning such a large sum of money.  However, he had the memory of holding almost 1.7 million dollars only several days ago.  He couldn’t help, but feel $150,000 was infinitesimal compared to that amount.

“Will it be too difficult to redeem another lottery ticket?”

Hahn-suhjin looked at the large stack of lottery tickets.

In a short amount of time, he had won $500,000 and 2 million dollars.  If he won another large ticket, then wouldn’t he invite suspicion?  This was why he could only stash the lottery tickets away.

“Third time…… Yes.  This will really be the last time.”

Hahn-suhin found several foreign articles about a man, who had won the lottery three straight times.  This was why he wanted to try his luck at turning in the lottery ticket for the last time.

“I have no choice.  This is the limit of the power of Insight.”

Insight.

Depending on how he used it, the possibility was endless.  Still, he couldn’t come up with a method that allowed him to safely use his power of Insight.  The only idea he could come up with was the lottery tickets.  He was powerless right now, so he couldn’t even ma.s.s produce the Elixirs to sell them.

After agonizing over it, Hahn-suhjin picked a lottery ticket worth 80 thousand dollars.

In the span of one month, he had won 5 hundred thousand and 2 million dollars.  If he won another lottery ticket worth over hundred thousand dollars, it would make him too noticeable.  Even if this was the last time he would do this, he refused to make too much noise.

He had $62,400 left after taxes were subtracted. Hahn-suhjin used the money in his account to buy a new apartment.

“The neighborhood is nice here, and the facilities around here are also excellent.  You made a really good purchase.”

He paid the balance in a single payment as he signed the contract.  The real estate agent was very happy, and he kept congratulating Hahn-suhjin.

It was a small studio apartment, but this was the first home he had bought.  It filled him with pride. Unlike the previous one room he had lived in, this place had a security guard, and a neighborhood patrol.  He really liked this place.

“What should I do now?”

He had about 50 thousand dollars left in his account. It gave him a sense of security inside his heart, but if he did nothing, he would go through the money in a flash.

“Should I study?”

He bought several books to look over it, but he soon lost his confidence.  He wasn’t talented in studying in the first place, and it had been 4 years since he had stopped studying.

“……the only thing I’ve learned to do is steal.”

In the end, he chose to be be reinstated into a factory’s production line.

Of course, he didn’t plan on staying at the factory forever.  He needed to find a way where he could use the Insight safely.  Until then he just wanted to make enough to cover his living expenses.  He had lived such a poor life that his frugal mindset was seeped deep within his bones.

He didn’t go to his previous workplace, Jinsung Electronics.  He had resigned after getting a terminal illness.  He didn’t know how he would explain his situation.

Moreover, it bothered him that the section chief, and the head of the human resources half-forced him to sign a waiver.

So, he was able to get a job at a rival company.  He got a job at the factory owned by the H Semiconductors.

He worked diligently everyday on the 3rd shift.

If he could name what was different from before, he would have pointed out his whole outlook on life had changed. He wore a protection suit, so he could wash off the strong chemicals used to produce the semiconductors.  It was repet.i.tive work, but he was happy that he was alive and able to to this work.

‘So what should I do with the Insight?’

Today he was washing off the liquid chemicals, when he fell deep into his thoughts.

‘I won’t be able to use the lottery tickets for awhile, and the Insight doesn’t activate at all for the horse races….  It isn’t as if I could see into the future.  Moreover, the Elixir is too incredible, and it would put me in an awkward position…  Ah.  What should I do??’

He wanted to use his Insight in a safe manner.  He wanted to be unnoticed as he inched along the road to success.  What could he do?

It was at that moment.

“Uh?”

He was startled when his gaze landed on the robotic arm.  The Insight was showing the truth about the robotic arm….

「Heat caused by excessive work.  Highly combustible chemicals came into contact.  Possibility of Fire.」

In a flash, the robotic arm let out a spark.  The moment the robotic arm let out a spark, it was soon engulfed in flame.  At the same time, the fire alarm went off, and the sprinkler system started pouring water out.

He absentmindedly stood there in the midst of the falling water, and Hahn-suhjin made a fist.

“This is it.”