Climbing the Tower with Multidimensional Avatars - Chapter 16
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 16. Galactic Martial Arts World – Reincarnation (7)
At my sigh, Siu wiped away my perspiration with a towel and asked with concern.
“What’s troubling you? Are you hurt somewhere? Should we go to the Hospital?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Ordinarily, even when a child claims they’re not hurt, adults assume they’re lying to avoid the Hospital and drag them there anyway.
But unlike most children, I spoke the truth plainly, so Siu believed me.
Still, suspecting that young children sometimes don’t understand their own condition, she took my temperature while asking.
“Then is the training too exhausting?”
“Well… it is tough, but that’s not why.”
“Then why are you sighing?”
Because I can’t return to my original body, that’s why I’m sighing.
I couldn’t explain it since I couldn’t reveal anything about multidimensional avatars.
Even if I could explain multidimensional avatars, I couldn’t tell her why I can’t return to my original body.
How could I possibly say that I can’t go back because there’s no toilet on Tower Floor 1? That would be far too embarrassing!
Tower Floor 1 has nothing.
The only things there are myself and a crystal that serves as a passage to the second floor or Earth.
There was nothing to address the basic necessities of life.
Of course, I’m already wearing clothes, and I can obtain food through my Tower avatar or my reincarnation avatar.
Tower Floor 1 has no wind or rain—nothing at all—and the temperature remains constant, so shelter isn’t needed.
The problem is that as a living being, my body performs biological functions, so even sitting still I must eat, and if I eat, I must also excrete accordingly.
Yes. Right now my original body is in dire straits.
Facing a crisis that threatens my very dignity as a human, I had no choice but to flee my original body and come to this reincarnation avatar.
I’ve escaped for now, but this is a problem I must solve somehow.
No matter how vast Tower Floor 1 is—stretching beyond sight—there are still things a person should and shouldn’t do.
When the crisis first struck, I thought I’d bury it and mark the location.
But staring at the solid ground, I had to abandon that plan.
I tried striking the earth forcefully with my one-handed sword, but it didn’t even leave a scratch.
In fact, if I’d miscalculated slightly, my real body might have been injured.
If an avatar gets hurt, I can simply create another, but my original body can’t be remade, so I must be careful.
Thus, in that moment of crisis, I chose to flee and have been agonizing ever since.
Hmm, should I send plastic bags to my inventory to handle this?
No, if I make a mistake, I can’t even wash up.
Since this affects my future, I must be cautious.
“I just have something on my mind.”
As I fell into a predicament I couldn’t easily resolve, Siu spoke.
“I don’t know what troubles you, but wouldn’t it help to hear my humble advice?”
At Siu’s suggestion, I circumspectly described my situation.
“What do you think Siu would do if she were alone on a deserted island?”
“I’m not sure? Are you asking about a shipwreck scenario?”
“Something like that.”
Siu paused thoughtfully at my question.
“If I were adrift during a voyage, would there be a survival kit available? Camping equipment would be ideal, but in a sudden situation, such things wouldn’t be obtainable. I would need to know how to camp with minimal tools in the wilderness….”
“That’s it!”
I bolted upright from my seat.
Camping equipment! Camping gear includes portable toilets and shower facilities, doesn’t it!
My inventory has weight restrictions, but if something is too heavy, I can disassemble it into components and send it piece by piece to my main body.
Good heavens, such a simple solution existed all this time, and I never thought of it!
After my excitement subsided and I thought about it more carefully, I realized why I hadn’t considered it.
It was because I had no way to obtain camping equipment until now.
The Tower Shop doesn’t sell portable toilets, and I’m not even two years old yet.
I don’t have the money to buy camping gear. Should I ask Siu to purchase it for me? Would she actually buy it?
As I looked at Siu, she blinked and answered.
“I’m not sure what you mean, but I’m glad it was helpful.”
Hmm, she probably wouldn’t buy it, saying it’s dangerous.
Camping equipment contains many sharp blades and heavy, pointed objects that would be unsafe for a young child to handle.
But I couldn’t just ask her to buy a portable toilet and shower facility.
If she asked why I wanted them, I’d have no answer.
Throwing a tantrum without reason would be throwing a fit.
If I continued throwing fits, there was a risk that when something truly important came up, she wouldn’t listen to me at all.
With a computer, gathering information was valuable enough to justify throwing a fit, but a portable toilet was different.
In the end, economic independence was what mattered.
As time passed, my needs would only increase, and I couldn’t keep asking Siu to buy things for me every time.
That meant I had to try persuasion instead.
“Siu, what money are we living on?”
At my question, Siu hesitated for a moment before answering.
“It’s the money your parents left behind, young master.”
“Exactly.”
“…!”
Siu hesitated in her response.
“Don’t lie to me.”
At my firm words, Siu reluctantly answered.
“…The money we’re living on now is the inheritance your parents left to you, young master.”
Siu seemed to be hesitating, unsure whether it was right to inform me of my parents’ death.
With an ordinary child, she would have lied and said my parents were away on a trip abroad.
Ah, in this world, would she have said they went to another planet instead?
But when I told her not to lie, she realized that I already knew about my parents’ death.
“Since when have you known?”
I couldn’t say that I’d known her from birth, when the loose-tongued Nurse first introduced herself to me.
Who would believe that a newborn who couldn’t even open their eyes properly could understand speech?
At Siu’s question, I shrugged my shoulders.
“It’s been a while. There hasn’t been even the minimum contact. In an age where video calls between planets are possible within the same star system, it’s strange that there’s not even a video message.”
“…I see.”
Siu seemed convinced by my explanation.
It was easy for her to accept because I frequently displayed behavior unbefitting a baby.
Even in the 50th century, where could you find a baby lounging on a sofa watching documentaries and skillfully browsing the internet during leisure time?
“Who’s managing the inheritance I received?”
“A specialized asset manager under the Cheon Family Clan is managing it.”
“Can I trust them?”
At my question, Siu nodded.
“Until you come of age, any transaction of a certain scale requires the consent of both myself, your proxy, and Cheon Gyeong-ho, your legal guardian. They cannot embezzle funds. Even if they attempted to, they would face pursuit by the Cheon Family and could not survive within Orthodox Faction territory.”
“Still, the asset manager can only maintain the assets without diminishment—they can’t make major investments.”
“That is correct.”
Then the earnings would likely be limited to fixed deposits and low-risk funds.
“Of course, I also cannot move large sums until I come of age.”
“That is correct.”
Well, since I didn’t need large sums immediately, it wasn’t a problem.
“Can I see my assets?”
“Of course. You can review your asset details transparently at any time.”
Siu turned on the computer in the Living Room and showed me the details of my inherited assets.
“Your inherited assets fall into three main categories: liquid assets, real estate, and investment assets.”
The numbers displayed in the account details were quite substantial.
The problem was that I didn’t yet know the cost of living here, so I couldn’t tell if this was a large or small fortune.
If someone asked me to choose between 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars and 100 US dollars, who would pick the former?
Since I had no need to spend money, I’d never thought to investigate the prices.
“What can you buy with one liang?”
Liang was the currency unit of the Galactic International Currency Alliance.
Simply put, it was equivalent to the euro in the eurozone.
Within Orthodox Faction territory, liang was certainly standardized, but I couldn’t be certain if it was usable in Heterodox Faction or Demonic Cult regions.
I understood that the Demonic Cult used its own single currency, while Heterodox Faction regions, lacking a currency alliance, used either unique currencies issued by the Major Sects dominating each star system or the Heterodox Alliance’s currency as their base currency.
Still, liang would likely be usable and exchangeable even in Heterodox Faction and Demonic Cult territories.
“You cannot buy anything. These days, even the snacks you eat cost at least 1,000 liang.”
Should I roughly equate 1 liang to 1 won?
No, the snacks I eat are fairly expensive-looking, so maybe 1 liang is worth about 6 won?
This is tedious—I’ll just think of it as a 1-to-1 ratio.
In the first place, the productive capacity and technological level between my home world and the Galactic Martial Arts World were so incomparably different that simple price comparisons were meaningless.
It would be worse than comparing rice prices in the Joseon Dynasty with rice prices in the 21st century.
“One, ten, hundred, thousand… Wow, I’m rich?”
At this rate, I could live my entire life off just the interest income alone, couldn’t I?
“Was Father really that skilled at earning money?”
“As a member of the Cheon Family Clan’s martial forces, he wasn’t incapable of earning money, but from what I understand, he spent just as much as he earned and never accumulated significant wealth.”
“Then where did all this money come from?”
“Young Master, this is the inheritance your father received from your grandmother.”
My grandfather, Cheon Gyeong-ho, lived for over 500 years and married a total of 27 women.
Naturally, there were no simultaneous marriages—though apparently about half his married life was spent committing infidelity, and he had a history of divorces when caught.
Naturally, the news outlets covered the fact that he had several illegitimate children.
In any case, Cheon Gyeong-ho spent time with his 27 wives and an unknown number of mistresses, fathering a total of 63 children, and my father was born as the youngest of one son and two daughters from his 24th wife.
My father died at the age of 76.
He fell in battle while on a mission in a war zone, having just recently reached the Hwa Gyeong realm.
Since my father was 76 when he died, my grandmother was naturally much older.
My grandmother never managed to reach the Hwa Gyeong realm and passed away from old age about five years ago, with her estate inherited by her biological children.
My grandmother was one of the heirs of a conglomerate family, and when she divorced the unfaithful Cheon Gyeong-ho, she received a substantial alimony settlement.
According to rumors, the alimony she extracted from Cheon Gyeong-ho was several times greater than the money she inherited as a member of the conglomerate family.
During her lifetime, my grandmother invested that vast fortune without hesitation to help her children advance in their cultivation realms.
Apparently, Siu herself was a training android that my grandmother had invested in for my father’s sake.
According to Siu, surprisingly, my father was a devoted husband, unlike Cheon Gyeong-ho.
Because of this, Siu had to spend more time caring for Seo Gyeong-ae, my father’s younger wife, than serving as his training partner.
Returning to the matter of the inheritance, after my grandmother’s death, the estate was divided equally into three parts among her children, but my father barely touched his inherited share and only spent the money he himself earned.
As a result, that inherited fortune came to me entirely, as his only child.
Of course, I had to pay inheritance taxes, so it wasn’t entirely intact.
Siu added as an afterthought:
“The liquid assets comprise roughly one-fifth of the total wealth. Most of it is in real estate.”
(To be continued in the next chapter)
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————