By 7:30 a.m., Shin was back in his apartment.
The city outside was already alive. Trams hissed along the rails, scattering pigeons like loose paper. A neon coffee sign flicked on downstairs, releasing steam like it had a vendetta. Somewhere nearby, a university student cursed violently at a printer jam, followed by the dull percussion of desk abuse.
Shin sat barefoot on the floor, hair still damp from a rushed rinse. A simple cord tied his long brown strands back. He hadn't bothered with breakfast.
The apartment was minimal. It had a mattress, a desk with no chair, a cracked electric kettle, two cups, and one spoon. A stack of generic cardboard boxes—secretly filled with diamonds—sat neatly in the corner, and several gold bars were hidden behind the sink. You know. The usual.
For a student house, the place was practically empty. There were a few books here and there, but no posters or decorations. The walls were bare except for shadows and the faint smudges left by the previous tenant.
On the table sat his university certificate.
Bachelor of Engineering. Final GPA: 7.1
He stared at it—not fondly. Just curiously, like something he'd left in the fridge too long. He remembered hovering at 6.5 for most of his academic life. The forgettable average. The float zone.
"Guess I broke the curse," he murmured.
It wasn't pride. Just data. A shrug from the past landing in the present.
In truth, he'd stopped caring halfway through his final year—right after the Wind Tower rewired the definition of "future goals." Since then, the idea of lectures, assignments, and deadlines had felt like echoes from a different world. A background noise, like bureaucratic theater.
And yet ironically, his grades had soared. Not because he studied more—but because he didn't need to study at all. Lightning's gift granted him absolute focus. Skimming a textbook replaced weeks of study. Concepts fell into place like trained soldiers. So much so that he rarely even attended class.
Sometimes he could forget what course he was registered for. But when he did engage, his mind sliced through material with surgical ease.
Ultimately, the only reason he stayed in the program was for insurance. A backup. If the towers vanished or the rules changed, he'd still have a certified piece of laminated paper to wave around. A placeholder life. Something that means something in a world that is no longer relevant.
And now, that life was over.
He folded the certificate once, neatly, and slid it into a drawer. Then closed it for good.
Shin walked over to the kitchen cabinet and pulled out a small metal tin. Inside: a cracked phone, a cheap prepaid SIM card, and a sealed plastic bag filled with raw gemstones—uncut sapphires, rubies, and antique diamonds—all looted from the Wind Tower's internal cache.
He held one of the stones up to the light. It glimmered faintly in the gray morning hue. Beautiful, yes, but inert—a dead shine compared to the living power of authentic artifacts—like a corpse dressed for a ball.
Shin sighed. He had enough wealth to crash an economy, but not a single cent to his name. He exhaled through his nose. A rich man with no money.
Selling them wasn't simple. Artifacts were too risky—not that he ever planned to part with them. But raw stones? With the proper channels, they were currency. The problem was finding those channels.
He'd already begun to feel out possibilities: quiet inquiries through encrypted boards, off-market jewelers, whispered connections to people who still knew people—a black-market merchant who owed a favor to someone who owed a favor to someone else. The wheels were turning—slowly.
But for now, he was unemployed, and his savings were starting to run out. Luckily, one name stood out. A small shop near the edge of Kromme Waal, open odd hours, cash only. He slipped the gem back into its pouch and stood.
The shop was easy to miss, tucked behind an old tram terminal and squeezed between two storefronts that had long since given up on business hours. One claimed to sell clocks but the only Shin saw in the window was dust and resentment. The other offered "Instant Passport Photos" and looked like the kind of place you went in but didn't necessarily come out of.
Shin stepped inside the jewelry store without much ceremony. A faint chime rang above him, a hollow sound that felt like it hadn't been heard in weeks.
The interior was dim, smelled like glue and lemon polish, and had the ambiance of a taxidermy museum that had given up halfway.
Display cases lined the room in crooked rows, filled with cloudy stones and rings that had clearly seen better centuries. Behind the counter stood a man with thick glasses and a buttoned vest, his eyes squinting like he was still waiting for his morning coffee to kick in.
Shin was already starting to regret coming here.
Still, he reached into his coat and placed the uncut sapphire on the velvet mat with the care of someone dropping a live wire. Then stepped back and waited.
The man picked it up, turned it in the light, and grunted once. Then he ran a small jeweler's loupe across it in slow, exaggerated motions, the kind of dramatic flourish that screamed: Look at me, I'm being professional.
"Well," the man said finally, in the tone of someone delivering bad news wrapped in self-importance, "it's uncut, obviously. The color's too uniform. Probably synthetic. Pakistani knockoff, maybe Thai."
He rolled it between his fingers once more, then set it back down with the carelessness of someone returning a used napkin.
"I'll offer you eighty."
Shin blinked. Once. Slowly. His expression didn't change, but in his head, a very different response occurred.
Eighty euros. For a sapphire that could've bankrupted small monarchies a century ago. Not to mention, the stone hadn't been mined or forged—it had manifested inside a divine vault as part of a metaphysical treasure system designed by an alien elemental intelligence. But sure. Pakistani knockoff.
Even if ignoring the source, the stone was worth at least €80,000—assuming the man even could appraise it properly. He stared, debating whether to dignify the insult with words.
He didn't. Just reached out, picked up the stone, slipped it back into his pocket, and nodded faintly.
"Appreciate it," he said, voice neutral.
The man grunted again and turned his attention to something beneath the counter—probably a sandwich or a crossword.
Shin walked out without looking back.
Outside, the light felt a little too honest. He exhaled softly as he turned toward home.
If ignorance were valuable, he thought, that man would be worth well more than the gem.
He returned home. The apartment hadn't changed in the thirty minutes Shin had been gone, but something about walking back into it always made the space feel slightly smaller. Maybe it was the walls. Or the silence. Or the several centuries' worth of forbidden treasure that were hidden between the rice cooker and the spare socks.
Man, He sighed. If only they fit in the damn ring.
Stupid control.
Shin dropped the gem tin beside a half-eaten protein bar, then moved to the desk. His notebook waited, spread open like a crime scene, filled with tight, orderly handwriting and enough arcane diagrams to summon either enlightenment or a fire hazard.
He didn't sit. Just hovered, flipping pages with the care of someone turning live wires. Diagrams, pressure readings, seismic overlays—each one tracking the slow, calculated growth of the dajin phenomenon across the globe.
A voice chirped from his cracked phone, still open on a self-help video he'd clicked on earlier out of curiosity—or maybe masochism.
"Step one: Set an intention for your day," said the woman's voice, upbeat and suspiciously serene.
Shin uncapped his pen. His intention was to figure out whether the elemental towers emerging around the globe were part of a pre-scripted divine sequence or an escalating series of semi-conscious system anomalies waiting to tear the planet into moderately blessed chunks.
So… kind of similar?
"Try something small, like 'Today, I will breathe calmly,'" she added.
So he did. He took a long, steady breath, drawing in a ribbon of divine energy from the air around him, letting it settle through his veins like cool mist. His head cleared immediately.
Huh, he thought. It is useful.
The notebook in front of him was open to a page labeled Uncategorized Entities.
The voice continued, cheery and serene: "Remember, the universe is your ally. The world never wants to harm you."
Shin's eyes slid to the top of the page where three bold words were underlined in red ink:The Stag
He circled it again. Slowly.
"Well," he muttered, "the world maybe not. But I can't say the same about the wildlife."
He scribbled underneath:
Unknown affinity. Strong enough to make Wind worried. Potential existential threat?
"Next," the video said cheerfully, "clear your physical space to reflect a clear mind."
Shin glanced at the cluttered desk: dried blood on a relic shard, two half-used incense sticks stuck inside an empty glue stick, a forgotten silver ball that hummed like it was about to burst whenever you looked at it wrong.
Yeah, he thought, definitely feels like clarity.
The video continued: "Remember, big change starts with small wins!"
He flipped to the next page and updated the tower map:
Wind – Confirmed, Cleared
Lightning – Confirmed, Stable
Fire – Unknown
Water – Unknown
Earth – Thommo?
He paused and made a new category: Tertiary Events.
Under it, he scribbled:
- Seismic misfires in the North Atlantic Rift
- Temporal compression near Tower 048-GR
- Something that might've been a firestorm, or possibly a very angry mountain
"Take a moment to appreciate the little things," the woman said.
Shin leaned back, pen still in hand.
Appreciate the little things, he repeated mentally.Sure. Like the minor cosmic tremor that folded a satellite's orbit by eleven degrees. Is that small enough?He frowned thinking about Wind's last words.Are spiders small? I sure hope so.
"Let go of control," she continued, her tone soft and wise. "Surrender the need to manage everything. Trust the universe."
Shin blinked at the last diagram he'd just drawn—a hypothetical scenario flowchart for what would happen if five elemental beings merged into a global resonance loop and condensed all breathable air into unstable divine mist.
Yes. Let's definitely trust the universe.Sure worked great for the dinosaurs.
He took a sip of lukewarm tea, made a face, and scribbled another line:
"Lightning bursts unstable over long durations. Wind pressure bypass: efficient, but only under direct focus. Unknown why divine power reacts to commercial-grade ceramic cookware. Investigate later."
The video shifted gears. "And finally… find joy in connection. Call a friend. Text a loved one. Smile at a neighbor."
He stared at it a moment.
Then tapped the tip of his pen lightly against the word Thommo.
A vessel. Not subtle. But tough. Surprisingly tough. And more importantly—uncomplicated.
Useful, in the right hands.
"Excellent work," the video praised. "You're making progress already."
He circled "Lightning bursts effect on humans? Testing required."
"Use your friends, for they will be happy to assist."
"You got it," he muttered, reaching for a cheap instant noodle cup.
He'd forgotten to buy bottled water again.
Tap it was.