[Daesung Group Chairman Choi Chang-sik's Youngest Son Regains His Health — Once Again, the Key Player Is Luktic]
(Goryeo Daily)
Chairman Choi Chang-sik, the man leading Daesung Group—one of South Korea's representative conglomerates—is often called a giant of the nation's business world.
Yet even a man like him had a painful vulnerability:his youngest son, who had lived his entire life undergoing treatment for a rare immune disease diagnosed in childhood.
Recently, however, news broke that the chairman's youngest son had fully recovered from the rare immune disorder that modern medicine had deemed untreatable—and had begun living a normal daily life.
According to sources at this paper, the company that treated Chairman Choi's youngest son was the startup Luktic.
Yes—the very same company that had recently perfectly healed the severe burn scars of the famous influencer Min Seo-ah.
At present, little is publicly known about Luktic or its founder in detail.But one thing is now unmistakably clear:
Their technological capability is anything but ordinary.
South Korea has long been criticized for lagging behind in pharmaceuticals and medical innovation relative to its national standing.Whether this marks the rise of a new company destined to elevate K-Pharma and K-Medical onto the global stage remains to be seen—but all eyes are now watching.
[Comments — 3,793]
toto**:** What the hell is this company? It just shows up out of nowhere like a meteor and starts curing everyone left and right.
nisa**:** Burn treatment and immune disease treatment… breaking modern medicine's limits twice in a row. If the immune treatment is real, isn't this Nobel Prize–level tech?
rise**:** Was this done with pure domestic technology? If so, that's insane.
sulm**:** I'm telling you, there has to be a once-in-a-century genius in that lab. Big Pharma pours hundreds of trillions into this stuff every year, and a Korean startup beats them to it? No way otherwise.
inve**:** IPO WHEN?! I want to buy stock!! Nasdaq burned all my money!! Time to come back to K-stocks!!
dogh**:** Looks like another traitor who leaked foreign currency—bring the doghouse!
Articles had already appeared across major national dailies.
Public reaction was loud and chaotic once again, and media outlets doubled their requests for interviews and on-site coverage.
If I agreed to interviews now, my face would be plastered across the entire country.
I was starting to understand—deeply—why Dong-sik had so readily handed over the CEO position.
After curing Chairman Choi's youngest son, Dong-sik and I stepped back from directly overseeing packaging and shipping and shifted our focus toward laying the foundation for business expansion.
We selected several part-time workers with relevant experience and strong initiative, assigned them to supervise on-site operations, and offered generous additional pay.We also promised that if operations continued smoothly under their supervision, they would be hired as full-time employees at Luktic.
After offering salaries at the top end of the industry, they began working with extraordinary dedication—to the point where they might have been working harder than Dong-sik and I ever had.
I returned home and sat down in front of the quantum computer.
The decryption of the new knowledge that had unlocked alongside the Stage 1 Elixir should be complete by now.
I vaguely remembered it being related to the galaxy.
[Knowledge decryption complete!][Would you like to view it now?]▶ Yes No
[Knowledge About the Galaxy I] (Tier 1)
Our galaxy is vast beyond comprehension.
Its diameter spans 100,000 light-years—a distance that would take light one hundred thousand years to cross.
Over the course of 13 billion years, this immense galaxy has given birth to hundreds of billions of stars.
Because of this, we were certain.
That within our galaxy, there must exist countless interstellar civilizations—civilizations possessing the technology to traverse space.
But this expectation proved catastrophically wrong.
No matter how extensively our exploration vessels surveyed the galaxy,not a single trace of an interstellar civilization was found.
Primitive civilizations—those unable to leave their home planets—were discovered from time to time.
But advanced civilizations capable of colonizing other stars?
None.
Not one.
This was mathematically impossible.
A galaxy with hundreds of billions of stars, existing for 13 billion years—and only a single interstellar civilization?
Even after mobilizing every super-quantum computer we possessed and running endless simulations,the result never changed.
By all calculations, the galaxy should have been teeming with interstellar civilizations.
In the end, after countless deliberations and deductions,we reached a single, terrifying conclusion.
Every interstellar civilization that had ever arisen in our galaxyhad, without exception, collapsed and gone extinct—so completely that even their remnants were nearly impossible to find.
Yes.
In truth, we were traveling aloneacross a vast black ruin.
What, then, was the cause of their extinction?
Different causes for each?Or the same cause for all?
If every interstellar civilization met destruction,was extinction an inevitable fate of such civilizations?
And if so—
Would we one day share the same fate…?
When this report reached the leaders of our civilization,they were seized by a deep and ominous fear.
…That was an unsettling way to end.
It read like a fragment of a cosmic horror sci-fi novel.
Why would they leave knowledge like this behind for me?
I couldn't understand their intent in recording such information within the Akashic Records.
Come to think of it, in [Knowledge About the Akashic Records I],it was stated that the civilization which left behind the Akashic Records and the quantum computer had also perished.
Did they, too, fail to escape the "inevitable extinction of interstellar civilizations" they so feared?
What exactly destroyed them?
There was no answer yet.
But for now, what mattered was continuing to decrypt further knowledge.Perhaps these questions would be answered as more records were unlocked.
And above all—
I wanted to decrypt the method for the next stage elixir as soon as possible,so I could treat my father's illness more effectively.
He had overcome the critical phase, yes—but he still hadn't regained consciousness.
Just as expected, a familiar screen appeared.
Beep—
A crude electronic tone echoed as a window appeared on the quantum computer's display.
[Stage 1 Elixir] (Tier 1)
Progress to next knowledge:[1 / 500]
* Progress accumulates each time a certain quantity of Stage 1 Elixir is manufactured.
So once again, unlocking the next knowledge required producing a large quantity of the Stage 1 Elixir.
And at a glance, the required progress was far greater than what had been demanded during the skin regeneration phase.
To unlock the next tier, mass production on an even larger scale was necessary.
In that case—
Just as we had done with the skin regeneration agent by commercializing a diluted version as Luktic Cream,it would be best to weaken the elixir's effects and sell it as a consumer product that didn't require special approval.
I already had a plan.
By increasing the ratio of purified water during manufacturing,I could reduce the potency of the Stage 1 Elixir and sell it as a fatigue recovery supplement or health drink.
Just like cosmetics, such products had far simpler approval procedures than pharmaceuticals.
First, mass-produce and sell a diluted Stage 1 Elixir to accumulate Akashic Records progress.
At the same time, with help from Daesung Group's experts,work toward securing official pharmaceutical approval for both the skin regeneration agent and the original Stage 1 Elixir.
I called the number Chairman Choi Chang-sik had given me.
Chief Secretary Park Jae-seok answered.
[CEO Hyun Si-woo, how have you been? What can I help you with today?]
I asked whether he could introduce experts who could help us obtain pharmaceutical sales approval for the drug and cream used to treat Chairman Choi's youngest son.
[Of course. As Chairman Choi instructed, we will always respond proactively to Luktic's requests.I'll arrange for the appropriate experts to visit you shortly.]
The next day, Park Jae-seok called again, informing me that Daesung Group's pharmaceutical approval specialists would soon head to Luktic headquarters.
…Calling a warehouse "headquarters" felt a bit generous—but I appreciated the courtesy.
Soon after, I met the dispatched expert in the small office at the corner of our warehouse and began consultations regarding pharmaceutical sales approval.
I explained the situation carefully.
We wanted to sell Luktic's skin regeneration technology and new drug as pharmaceuticals—but did not want to disclose the ingredients or manufacturing process.
Was there any way to do that?
The expert paused, reviewed materials on his tablet, and replied:
"I don't know your exact reasons for not wanting to report the ingredients and manufacturing process to the government,but I'll explain the options that do exist."
He brought up a world map on the tablet.
"One method multinational corporations often use is to obtain approval in countries with looser pharmaceutical regulations, then manufacture there and export to the target market. However…"
"Is there a problem with that approach?"
"Yes. Typically, companies use countries like China, India, or Turkey as intermediaries.But considering the extraordinary effectiveness of the drugs Luktic has developed,building production facilities in those countries would be extremely dangerous.There's a high risk their governments would attempt to steal your technology."
He was absolutely right.
Even Korean electronics firms had suffered repeated technology theft after building factories in China.
If we built production facilities there for technology that vastly surpassed modern science,it was unthinkable that the Chinese government would simply stand by.
They would use every method—industrial espionage, forced inspections, outright seizure—to uncover our recipe.
"There's another issue," the expert continued."South Korea requires strict approval procedures even for imported pharmaceuticals.Achieving your goal that way would require extensive legal and strategic maneuvering.It wouldn't be easy."
As expected—no simple path.
Seeing my troubled expression, the expert smiled slightly.
"But… in this case, there is a much easier and simpler path."
"…A simpler path?"
"Yes. Frankly, I don't think you yet fully realize the value of the technologies Luktic possesses."
"The value…?"
"Yes.Now, I'll explain how you can obtain pharmaceutical sales approval in South Koreawithout reporting the ingredients or manufacturing process—exactly as you wish."