Chapter 47: The Neutral Zone part 7

After María left, I checked the time and saw that it was already 3:14 pm, so I headed to my room to see everyone's progress. When I opened the door, I was immediately assaulted by large gusts of air from different directions.

When the people in the room saw me, the gusts of air stopped. The gusts of air were caused by the 9 people who are training their mana. The only way to increase the body's mana capacity is by spending it and replenishing it, and I taught them how to convert mana into air.

In this way, they can spend it quickly. Mana can be converted into many physical phenomena such as fire, water, and others, but I am not going to teach them something destructive when I have them training in a closed space like a room, so I simply taught them to produce air.

"Don't stop for me, only do it when you show symptoms of overheating, that way you can rest for several hours until you recover and train again. You only have this month to increase your mana capacity as much as possible, this is your golden opportunity, don't waste it," I said and looked at them seriously, they just nodded and continued.

What happens with mana is that when you use it for a long time without rest, the body's mana circuits, which are the conduits through which mana normally passes, start to heat up, and the first indication of this is that one feels dizzy and nauseous, the second is a slight headache, the third is a stronger headache, and after that, if you continue using mana without letting the circuits cool down, then there is a serious risk of damaging them as happened to Seol Jihu in the novel.

Apart from overheating the mana circuits and damaging them, using mana until it is depleted does not present any risk unlike Chakra in Naruto where if it is all spent the person dies. That does not happen with mana, if it is all spent, one only feels as if they had a bit of mental exhaustion.

**

The days have been passing and my routine is the same, I dedicate myself to supervising the group's training while I myself keep my [Physical Reinforcement] active to the point that it causes me muscle damage and slight bone fractures that I heal with [Self-Healing]. Although it is not enough to improve my [Self-Healing], it still helps to improve my [Physical Reinforcement] and to improve my physical Stats instead of long and exhaustive training.

When I finish this first month and we go through the Class awakening, I will stop using the [Normal Competencies] and will use the special ones that I bought in the VIP zone to start my real training in the special basic training zones that open along with the class awakening, so I will benefit the most in my training with the [Special Competencies].

At this moment I am on my way to a restaurant where Kim Hannah has summoned me, apparently she finally finished the tasks I asked her to do and came to report the situation to me. As the privileges of being a Gold Mark allow an assistant in the Neutral Zone, in this case, Kim Hannah occupies that role and can enter and leave the Neutral Zone thanks to that privilege.

I entered the restaurant and went to the private room where she was waiting for me. I saw her sitting there. She is wearing her business attire and has a tired but happy expression on her face and there was already a banquet prepared on the table, unlike our first meeting where we gave priority to business, it seems that this time it is the opposite and we will go for the food first.

"You know, when you told me that the deities sought you out for your innate abilities and you gave me your little demonstration of abilities, I had already made an expectation of your performance in the Tutorial and the Neutral Zone. But when I saw you in action in the Tutorial, I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised to see that I was wrong in my expectations when you completely surpassed them," she said as she poured wine into 2 glasses while I was taking a seat.

"It's always a pleasure to put on a good show for a woman like you, Hannah," I said as I took a sip of wine. And I continued, "but I must admit that I was not totally focused on the results of the Tutorial at that time."

"Your uncle, right? Congratulations on finding a cure for his situation. I have already taken care of explaining everything he needs to know about this side and everything he cannot say on Earth so that he does not risk losing his memory, I did the same with Mrs. Ha Neul and little Ha Minyu. I took care of taking your uncle safely home and preparing the living arrangements for Mrs. Ha Neul and little Ha Minyu," said Hannah quite satisfied with fulfilling her tasks.

I am glad, it is good to know that uncle Jung arrived home safe and sound and was able to reunite with everyone, I suppose I have to finish the important matters of Lost Paradise as soon as possible to be able to return home and celebrate uncle's recovery with everyone. It has only been a few days here and I am already missing everyone. Especially the girls, being without them feels horrible.

It is also good to know that the mother and daughter pair are now safe and have their problems solved.

"Thank you for your work, you have no idea how much weight I feel I have taken off my shoulders now that I know that my uncle is safe and sound at home," I told Hannah quite sincerely.

"I suppose all that was quite an impactful experience in your life, when I investigated you I knew about the accident they suffered and that you were in the car with your uncle and auntie. I suppose it was quite traumatic for the 12-year-old boy you were at that time," said Hannah sympathizing with what happened.

"It's worse than you can imagine, because of my abilities, I knew to some extent that something bad would happen, but I was very inexperienced at using my abilities and also very weak at that time. I could not prevent it from happening, I always blamed myself for it.

But better to leave the past behind, I don't want to ruin our little celebration meeting with that, I only mentioned it to vent a little with one of the few people I can talk about it," I said a bit melancholic. After all, in the family no one but Roe knows about my real abilities, and outside the family only the master, Eun Yuri, Taciana, Claire, and now Hannah know about my situation, although Taciana and Claire seem to have a funny misunderstanding of everything.

"I can't say I understand, but I can tell you that you don't have to feel guilty about it even if you knew. It's not like you were a superhero who can solve everything. Even if you are quite capable, there will always be things that are out of your reach.

But you have done what you could and now you managed to heal your uncle, you broke the Tutorial records, and from what I have heard you managed to complete the 'Very Difficult' missions, you swept through most of the VIP store items and even managed to gain the support of those violent Sicilian gangsters in some way. All of that is a reason to celebrate completely," said Hannah trying to cheer me up as she raised her glass of wine to propose a toast.

"Thanks for the support, so shall it be a toast to good results?" I said as I clinked her glass of wine with mine while we both said "To good results."

We ate and talked about various things, she talked about how her coworkers were dumbfounded as they watched my performance in the Tutorial and I told her a little about how I impressed Taciana and Claire by completing the very difficult missions.

Which is true, but obviously that is not the reason why they are supporting me, that reason I have not yet told Hannah.

After eating and chatting a bit, she became more serious and switched to business mode.

"Certainly, you have put on a great show in the Tutorial and the Neutral Zone, but since you got rid of all the participants that Sinyoung recruited for this Tutorial except for Yun Seora and demonstrated great ability, the high command of Sinyoung is pressing for us to recruit you no matter what, and I can't think of many ways to get rid of them.

The only good thing in all this mess is that the first lady of Sinyoung has not shown her interest, but if she does, there will be no way out of this. No doubt they will offer you good things, but they will find a way to exploit you as a slave for their benefit and accepting would be the same as breaking our partnership," Hannah said quite seriously while trying to hide her anxiety.

"Don't worry, we are partners and I will not betray you. Our partnership will be harder to break than the marriage of the most in-love couple you know, you could say that not even death will separate us, Hannah," I said the first part quite seriously and the last part with a rather flirtatious and joking tone while I put my hand over hers to lighten the mood a bit. And by her reaction, it seems to have worked.

She blushed a little and said, "You should not joke with a woman in that way or you may end up having to take responsibility, Seol Jihu."

"I will always be more than happy and willing to take responsibility for a beautiful and capable woman like you, Hannah," I replied.

She blushed more, but quickly released her hand from mine while giving me a light pinch and said, "Silly womanizer, it takes more than that to make me fall, but I must admit, it worked to relieve the atmosphere. But back to the topic, we need to find a solution to this problem. Sinyoung should not be taken lightly, it is the most influential and strong organization currently in Paradise on the human side and we cannot afford to have them as enemies without having the proper backing."

"I just need a little time to establish a solid base here in Paradise so that Sinyoung can't cause problems, so we just need to win that time. When the Neutral Zone ends, bring me a contract with these specifications," I said and wrote a note with several instructions of what I want the contract to contain and passed the note to her.

The note has simple instructions to make a contract specifying that I will join Sinyoung after a year in Paradise as long as Sinyoung still exists, but only if they can pay me fairly for my abilities and potential.

She saw the note but frowned and said, "This can buy us time, but later you will be obligated to comply, so it makes no sense, explain to me how it will work?"

"That will buy us 1 year of time in Paradise, after that time it is true that I will be obligated to join Sinyoung, but under the conditions that they have to pay me based on my power and potential at that time. That will force them to have to give up on me for not being able to pay me or to hire me under an astronomical cost. You have seen my abilities, if you give me 1 year I will easily become a high rank and with my growth potential they will be the ones cornered and not me," I replied.

Although the truth is that the important part is not the compensation, but the part where it says that I will join 'only' if Sinyoung still exists. Obviously, I will make sure that they do not exist by that time and thus I will not have to join them, but I cannot tell her that right now because she will not believe me and it will be a very big and useless effort to try to convince her now of it, but later when she knows my true abilities better, that will not be a problem.

"I am sure they will be willing to pay a lot to buy someone capable and promising, but I will trust your judgment and decision, so far you have not failed me once in what you have told me and you have exceeded all my expectations, so I will continue to trust you, partner," she said more relaxed and calm than I thought she would be.

"Thank you for the trust, I assure you that everything will go well, now leaving that aside, I need you to get the contracts of Hyun Sangmin and Shin Sang-Ah and find a way to buy the rights to recruit the Yi siblings without causing enmity and leaving the people who invited them as satisfied as possible. And finally, I need you to prepare a contract for Odelette Delphine since we will also recruit her," I said.

"Getting the contracts of Mr. Hyun and Miss Shin will be easy, but the Yi siblings were invited by a strong group in Paradise called Rosa Blanca, and although their invitation was only bronze, it is still an invitation and it will be a bit expensive to get the rights to hire them.

But I must ask, why do you want to recruit them? Did you see something in them with your ability? I need to know what we are working with to know how much I should invest to get their contract rights in the best possible way, especially if you want us not to cause enmity with that group," Hannah said quite seriously, it seems that the Rosa Blanca group is more influential than I thought. In the novel they mention it very little before it is destroyed by the death of most of its members.

"They have the potential to at least be Clerics and with luck, they may even become Mages during the awakening, I checked with my ability," I lied, I obviously cannot tell her that I am training them with mana before the awakening and it is practically guaranteed that they will obtain the mage class during the awakening, that is information that I do not want anyone to know for a while.

"Clerics at a minimum and with the possibility of being Mages? It is definitely worth investing in them, moreover, if others knew, it would start a great war to recruit them, but seeing that they were only invited with a Bronze Marks, I can say that they could not see their full potential like you. It is good for us, that will facilitate negotiations with the Rosa Blanca group, I have to get their rights before the awakening so no one will suspect anything, leave it to me. As for the contract of Miss Delphine, it will be difficult, she has a very powerful background both on Earth and here in Paradise and has a very influential and powerful group backing her. I fear to say that we will not be able to recruit her, they will not let her go in any way," Hannah said quite happy to know about the potential of the Yi siblings, but clearly against the idea of recruiting Odelette because she fears the organization that invited her.

"Don't worry, I already talked to her and she said that as long as she wants to join us, her organization cannot prevent it, just prepare a contract with fair benefits, she will also be a mage, that is a 100% certainty," I said.

"God, everything you say sounds too unreal, better not try to think about it or I feel like my head might explode. Well, I will arrange everything. Is there anything else you need help with?" she said while rubbing her forehead as if she had a headache.

"Just one more thing, can you take things out of here, from the Neutral Zone?" I asked with quite a curiosity, I know that entering and leaving the Neutral Zone has many restrictions, and I know that they cannot enter with things from outside to prevent someone different from those in charge of administering the Neutral Zone from obtaining benefits, but I am curious to know if they can take objects out of here.

"Yes, I can, except for entering with objects, I am quite free to leave with them, after all, there is no benefit to taking almost anything out of here, so they never restricted that," Hannah said quite curious about the topic.

"Excellent! Then I want you to take this and find a buyer; business is your thing. I could try to sell them myself, but surely I would not make as much profit as you," I said as I took the [Pneuma's Sky Boots] out of my bag. These boots are incredible and allow you to walk in the air for 30 minutes every day, but I no longer need them.

I studied and tested them these days and learned how to channel my mana to replicate their function, and I was able to create the [Air Surface] skill that allows me to create a small solid surface of mana in the air and thus walk in the air without the boots. So, it is more convenient for me to sell them and get resources that I will need in Paradise.

"Wait, this is an invaluable artifact, it's from the VIP store and they are unique. In Paradise, there are few who have something that allows them to fly or fight in the air, it really is better to keep them, even if at this moment they may not be so useful to you, but when you level up and become more powerful in the future, I assure you that they will really be useful to you," Hannah said, totally against the idea of selling these boots.

"I understand what you're saying, but I assure you that they will not be useful to me and instead I will get more benefit from their sale. I need resources to start many things and I assure you that no matter how much you have it will not be enough, so don't worry and sell them at the best possible price. I will also need you to get me the best storage bag with increased space that you can, this bag that I got in the Tutorial will disappear with the Neutral Zone, so I will need one when I leave," I said trying to convince her that we will need all the money possible and that we have to sell the boots to acquire it.

"Seriously, everything you do and ask for is more outrageous than the last. Well, I already said that I will trust your judgment, and so I will, but don't fail me, I have high expectations of your abilities and I will blindly trust your judgment for that. So don't fail me or I will fall into a very deep hole for going in blind, do you understand?" she said with a determined tone.

"I would never dare fail you, after all, you are my partner in crime, and don't worry about falling, I will make sure to catch you before you touch the ground, Hannah," I said once more in a flirtatious tone and she blushed again.

"Fool, get serious or I will get angry. Since we finished everything we had to discuss, I'm going to prepare things. I don't think I'll come back unless something out of my hands happens, so we won't see each other until the Neutral Zone is over. Make sure to take advantage of it and become as strong as you can, and whatever you do, don't challenge the impossible mission, that mission can't be done without a necessary talisman and you already used the only one you had, so don't try it or you will die," she said showing more nervousness than annoyance at the flirting and became very serious in the warning about the impossible mission.

Then she stood up and walked towards the exit, when she was about to open the door, she stopped and turned to look at me, it seemed she wanted to say something but changed her mind at the last second and said "I expect great things from our partnership, so don't you dare die."

Usually, I would not have paid much attention to her behavior and her change of mind about wanting to say something, but since I evolved the [Nine Eyes] with the necessary box in the Tutorial, I have kept them active whenever I can to adapt and master the new changes as best as possible.

Thanks to that I could see it, the Gold color that Hannah has had since the day I met her and even during our entire meeting today had a change, the Gold is always there, but now, just at that moment, when she hesitated to say something... A layer of Blue color was added over the Gold. And over the Blue layer, 2 screens were projected showing me 2 different scenes.

In one screen Hannah is shown in a private room drinking alcohol, she looks disheveled and there are plenty of indications that she has been crying for some time. She is seen continuing to take large swigs from a bottle even though she is clearly very drunk.

The room also looks like a messy mess, as if someone threw furniture and things in a fit of hysteria, but you can still appreciate many things and judging by the decorations in the room, I can say that it is in Lost Paradise since there are several paintings and some statues of the Seven Deities, plus I don't see any appliances or anything similar to Earth technology.

After taking another sip of alcohol from the bottle in her hand, Hannah begins to speak and says, "You can't trust humans; they are all either rotten, liars, or both. First, there are those damned Sinyoung people, despite dedicating my entire working life to doing the best I could and getting them great results, they threw me out as if I were nothing, without any reason.

And then there's the idiot Jihu who lied to me and broke our deal even though I trusted him completely. He did not say anything and went off to die like some tragic hero. All that about not betraying me, not failing me, and not letting me fall was a pure lie. To hell with this stupid place, to hell with Sinyoung, and to hell with the liar Jihu, I don't care about anything anymore," she said as she finished the contents of the bottle and began to stagger towards the exit. The scene changes and then Kim Hannah is seen with a different appearance, her skin is much paler, her eyes are white, and her lips are purple, but it does not end there, she is seen leading an army of the undead and they are attacking a village, killing and eating everyone in their path, the scene ends there.

On the second screen, there is a completely different scene, it also starts in a room, but this time it is clearly on Earth as I can see a television and a cell phone on a table.

In the room, it is not Hannah who is there, but me. I am looking out a window towards the ground, apparently the room is on the fourth floor, but the door of the room opens and in enters Hannah who saw me and sighed with relief at the sight of me, but at the same time she became nervous to see that I am looking out the window. Then trying to feign calm, she said, "I know that right now you feel empty, as if you've lost something. But I assure you that you will recover it, so please don't think about jumping and stay away from that window."

"Yes, it definitely feels much worse than I imagined, it's not like not knowing something, it's the complete opposite. I feel like I know something but I can't remember it, and the worst part is that it's not a little, but a lot. It's not an emptiness, it's like a wall that blocks my memories and I can't knock it down no matter how hard I try. It's frustrating, and now I understand why people take their lives when they feel like this.

But don't worry, Miss Kim Hannah, I won't jump, as tempting as the idea was for a moment, I know that even if I jump from here I will hardly hurt myself and after all, I know what happened to me and I'm almost sure that if the plans went well, then I left measures to solve my current situation. But I must apologize, I can't remember much about you, the last thing I remember about you is that we were about to meet to discuss our business partnership and after that I don't remember anything.

But judging by the fact that you are here I must assume that our meeting went very well and that we are now business partners...? No, not just that, if you were the first person to find me at this moment, it means that our relationship is closer than that. Tell me, are we perchance more than business partners?" said the me on the screen.

Hannah blushed a little and hesitated to say something, but it seems she made up her mind and said, "Well, you're a good business partner but a terrible life partner, look at you forgetting one of your fiancées," and then the image stopped and showed no more.

All of this took me only a couple of seconds to process, thanks to my brain's ability to handle information at very high speeds. It appears that the projected image's speed adjusts to match my processing speed, allowing me to see every detail without missing a beat.

I focused all my mental capacity on analyzing and understanding what just happened. I can conclude that the Blue color of the [Nine Eyes] represents a choice that can alter a person's destiny. The images shown now indicate that depending on my actions at this moment, one of the two scenarios projected will inevitably occur.

After extensive training and years of using this ability, I've learned many things about it. One key aspect is that it responds to hypothetical scenarios. For instance, if there's an enemy in front of me armed with a medium-caliber firearm, envisioning a scenario where I use all my strength against them would make the enemy appear green. Conversely, if I imagine not defending myself at all, the enemy would appear red or even black, representing a higher threat level under that scenario.

With this knowledge, I quickly simulated hypothetical scenarios, attempting to eliminate the screen where Hannah is drinking alcohol. Due to the limited time, I could not simulate much, but I found one that worked. While I could not make the screen disappear completely, it became translucent to the point of almost vanishing. Meanwhile, the other screen intensified, becoming much more visible, indicating that it's the correct path to follow.

Hannah was about to leave the room, but before she did, I addressed her: "Hannah." She stopped and turned to look at me. Taking a deep breath, I locked eyes with her and continued, "There are many things I have not told you yet. It is not because I don't trust you. Our partnership may have started recently, but that doesn't matter. From the moment I accepted us as partners, I decided to trust you completely, and you have demonstrated the same trust several times. However, right now, I can't reveal everything. I'll share it on the day we sign the contracts. But be mentally prepared, it'll be hard to believe."

She stared at me surprised, but only for a moment. Then she flashed the most sincere smile I have seen from her so far and said, "Very well, then I'll eagerly await that day, partner." With enthusiasm, she turned and left, swaying her hips provocatively. I can't say whether it was intentional or not, but it was undeniably tempting.