Only Wisdom Awakened - Chapter 98

Chapter 98: Lars Jensen
Lars Jensen, the Danish man who is said to be so blinded by greed that he won’t even be able to notice what’s going on around him.

The media has always pictured him as a righteous warrior, whose ethics were strong.

They downplayed a lot his obsession for wealth and fortune, to keep him on their good side.

To truly understand his character, his story has to be told from when he was little.

His obsession with money was created the moment his father’s company crumbled among the competitors, and his family accumulated a huge debt from which they never managed to free themselves.

His father couldn’t handle the stress anymore and made the irresponsible decision of leaving behind his child and wife, with nothing but a letter of apology.

Finding his body first was Lars, thirteen at the time.

After his traumatic childhood, his mother raised him to be a perfect man, his school grades were always at the top of the class, and everyone spoke nothing but praise about him.

His life, even if dull, had retaken a normal cycle, and he had finally gone back to living like a human being.

But when during college, his girlfriend left him because of his financial situation, the desire for money that had been silent for all that time finally woke up.

Everything bad that happened, that was happening, and that could’ve happened, he blamed it all on the lack of funds and richness.

He founded his own construction agency and with time, he managed to make it rise up to a great value, by the time he was thirty, it had become big and important enough to be listed.

And it was exactly a few days after the listing of his company, that the catastrophe broke out.

He also awakened early on, with the rare class: {barrier expert}.

A class that didn’t specialize in fighting, but in stable large-area defense.

His most famous skill: { rainbow barrier }

Soon became his signature trait, and his popularity grew fast in just a matter of a few months.

However, he still wasn’t satisfied, hearing that others could make more money than him just because of their combat classes discouraged him many times, but still, he never gave up.

Around this time, he had a stroke of Illumination, in which he realized the best way to make money was to simply make use of both his already-acquired abilities:

His previously founded agency, and his incredible spell capabilities.

With those, he managed to create the one and only: Immortal Construction.

The name of the agency wasn’t the original one but as people started to call it like that they decided to change it.

Construction obviously stood for the type of agency.

As for Immortal, that was a title they gained for their security:

While building any type of structure, Lars would’ve passed by and cast a barrier.

This, especially during the few years after the catastrophe, when gate breaks were common and unidentified monsters roamed all over the world, was considered an incredibly useful ability.

The low-ranking monsters wouldn’t have even been able to scratch it, and even against monsters that at the time were considered high-rank, the barrier could hold on until the arrival of awakened.

Why would a client even want to pay more for the security of their workers? You may think.

It’s because there was something even more important:

The barrier cast by Lars…

It remained even after the construction was finished.

His barrier absorbed mana from the atmosphere, and it didn’t even require much of it, since his best barrier at the time was still tier-4.

This meant that it would’ve lasted even if he died, or if was partially destroyed.

A school, a sports center, an Academy, even some apartments, whenever someone needed to build a safe place, public or private, the first agency that came to mind was the Immortal Construction.

He quickly became richer and richer, making it all the way to becoming one of the thousand richest humans on earth.

At that point, the money he had was enough to last him a couple of hundred lives without any problem, so he began collecting rare materials.

Whatever was unique and came out of the gates could be traded with him, but he never gave away his money, the only thing he used to trade was his ability, more specifically, his barrier.

He also took in an apprentice, who had the same class as him, in order to completely monopolize the barriers.

The apprentice started to do his work, going around and casting barriers, and he stepped in only when the request was too big for his disciple to handle.

The name of the disciple is Henriksson Bergstrom.

And that young man…

is currently in my office.

The dean was quite nervous, but her face was emotionless, and the young man in front of her, who didn’t look older than twenty-five, was admiring her beauty.

The boy was accompanied by an escort, a muscular man in a black suit, that looked really strong.

The young man began to speak, and questioned the dean:

“What do we owe the honor, Mrs. Rivera?”

He said, with a hint of irony in his words.

“I’m sure you must’ve heard about it already”

Replied the dean smiling, even if she was quite annoyed by the useless chat.

“You need a barrier right? I am sure you already know the price, we don’t discriminate, so it’s always equal for everyone.”

“Yes, I’m well aware of it”

She was still patient even if the person in front of her had shown close to no manner when talking to her, she was desperate after all.

The required price for Lars’s barriers was well-known all over the world, he personally handled only tier-5 or higher barriers since his apprentice could take care of all the lower-tier ones.

His apprentice took the following price:

Low rare-grade materials for tier-3 barriers.

Medium rare-grade materials for tier-4 barriers.

And going on, Lars took the same price for barriers:

Tier-5 barriers required high rare-grade materials.

Tier-6 barriers required top rare-grade materials.

And finally, the highest and sturdiest out of them all, the seventh-tier barrier, required an item or a material of low epic grade or above.

“Here it is, the azure tranquil mind pearl”

She handed over a box, containing a shiny and smooth blue pearl.

“It is a low epic-grade item, as promised and required”

The young man looked really annoyed and angered when he saw the item.

“This… it seems like you don’t know about it, we have recently changed our prices”

The man pushed the box that was on the table away, almost making it fall off, before continuing.

“From now on, seventh-tier barriers cost mid epic grade materials”

‘This b*tch! I didn’t know she had any epic-ranked items besides ‘those”

“This!…” she finally let herself go, showing the annoyance that had been piling up from the start of their conversation.

“What kind of bullsh*t is that? The prices have never changed, do you really think I would be such a fool?”

“The prices have indeed changed, this was an order from the teacher, do you think you can go against him”

Replied the young man smiling.

She squeezed her fist strongly, to the point where she almost bled.

And then, a threatening voice took over her normal one, as she spoke to the arrogant young man.

“Hey, don’t cross the line, otherwise you’ll face the consequences, do you think I can’t do sh*t to you just because you have your master’s backing?

We are not in your happy European kingdom here, you are in America, engrave that in your damn mind”

The guy, scared by the aura released by the dean, was shivering, but still gathered up the courage to insult her one last time.

“Bitch! Do you think you’re something, look at you now, you’re so angry that even your pretty face is gone.

I’ve been gentle up till now just because of that, but I’ll get straight to the point since you can’t understand it yourself.

Just hand over the fucking scales will you?! They don’t even belong to you, we should’ve taken them at the time.”

‘The scales?’ thought the dean.

‘Is that what they were after? Such a fool I was when I planned to give them away just to build a relationship with this kind of people.

They would’ve just taken them for granted’

The aura emanating from her body grew, and the bodyguard took place in front of the young man to shield him from the pressure.

In the meantime, this sudden release of aura also alerted Hans.

“That’s right, don’t look at me like that old bitch!

the only reason you managed to obtain them was because the teacher was in seclusion at the time, and I didn’t have permission to bid anymore, otherwise, someone like you would’ve never been able to take what rightfully belongs to us.”

‘Ha?! Look at this fucking kid…

I swear I’ll kill him’