Ahn Sangmin

Past his prime in years, Ahn carries a friendly look anchored by brown eyes and a pair of noticeably high cheekbones. A staffer's role at the guild keeps him dressed in suits and other professional clothing nearly all the time.

Easy to be around and remarkably perceptive, Ahn possesses an instinct for spotting potential that others overlook entirely. That very gift is what allowed him, with no help from anyone, to reason out that Jinwoo's actual power ran well past the rank he had been given.

At the guild's headquarters, a report came in that someone had been pouring vast sums into purchasing clearance rights across the C-Rank dungeons. The cash, Ahn discovered, belonged to Myunghan's young son, Yoo Jinho; but it was the mention of Sung Jinwoo that caught his attention and suggested a chance worth taking. He dug into the rookie's background and charted a series of impossible survivals, namely the Double Dungeon, the destruction of the team led by Hwang Dongsuk, and an episode with a surveillance hunter who turned out to be an assassin. From these threads he reasoned a Reawakening had to have occurred, most likely in the first incident, with others later covering for the young man. His assistant Hyun Kichul shared the assessment, and together they went to observe. Idle hunters loafing outside a reserved gate told Ahn that Jinwoo and Jinho were clearing the dungeons by hand, settling his judgment that the rookie was top class.

Ahn led with a recruitment offer, doubling whatever Yoojin Construction had put forward, and was thrown when Jinwoo instead expressed interest in the guild's building. Yoojin had offered a thirty billion won property; White Tiger could answer with one valued at fifty billion. A deal that large required approval from his superiors first, and Jinwoo cornered him into confessing how the secret had been uncovered. The rookie had camouflaged himself and even nicked Ahn's cheek, which removed any doubt about the Reawakening. Ahn explained his full reasoning and promised to keep quiet, then brokered a one-time arrangement for the three reserved C-Rank gates at two hundred million won apiece, having flinched at the initial figure. As a token of trust, Jinwoo gave him a Healing Potion that sealed the cut.

Trust did not last. Soon after the payment cleared, an alert reached Ahn that bargain C-Rank gates were suddenly flooding his guild's territory at ten million won or below, exposing that Jinho had booked no future raids whatsoever. A text from Jinwoo framed the whole thing as payback for the background check and called them even. Rather than rage, Ahn felt impressed by the trick. Undaunted by the loss and now holding Jinwoo's number, he pledged to keep pursuing the hunter for the guild at any cost.