Chapter 56 - Turning Point (3)
Cool air brushed through his lungs.
The faint light of dawn was just breaking.
Kim Sun-woo arrived at the Mugung Guild headquarters.
"Good morning."
He exchanged a light greeting with the security guard on night duty and boarded the elevator right away.
Unlike usual, instead of heading to the Night Team's office, he pressed the button for the underground levels and held yesterday's ID card up to the panel.
Authenticated.
The elevator jolted and began to descend.
Unlike when it went up, the speed was noticeably slow.
Kim Sun-woo lightly tapped the back of his neck and reviewed his conversation with Han Kang-seok from the day before as he watched the floor numbers slowly change.
"I'm not going to teach you anything. No, I can't teach you."
"...Pardon?"
Kim Sun-woo was genuinely taken aback.
He'd been waiting all this time, expecting to receive various pieces of advice from Han Kang-seok, only to hear this.
Had he somehow offended the man?
But the atmosphere of their conversation up until moments ago had been perfectly cordial.
"Skipping sections in an existing system to reach the desired point. Possessing an intuition that sets you apart from ordinary people. For a martial artist, intuition is an indispensable element. Once you reach a certain realm, it becomes something that can't be explained in words or writing."
"Intuition..."
"What were you thinking when you first manifested sword gang?"
"There was no time for thinking. If I couldn't produce sword gang, I would've died."
The only technique capable of dealing significant damage to Ga Hwa-ryong was Full Moon, a sword gang strike.
He'd wrung every last drop of effort from himself and ultimately succeeded in inflicting a fatal wound on the beast.
If he hadn't produced sword gang, he wouldn't have bought enough time until Han Kang-seok and the others arrived.
"Right, that makes sense. Others would say the same. But do you know what sets you apart from them?"
"All I know is whether it succeeds or not."
"That's the most important part."
Han Kang-seok looked at Kim Sun-woo with meaningful eyes.
"If desperately wanting something meant you could obtain it, there'd be no such thing as lack in this world. You were in a situation where failure meant death? Most people would have just died. But you succeeded and survived. Because of the intuition you possess."
He tapped his temple with his finger.
"Going from existence to existence or from existence to nothingness isn't hard, but reaching existence from nothingness is as difficult as splitting heaven and earth. Your intuition accomplished something close to that level. This isn't praise. You need to look at your own talent more coldly and objectively."
"...Then what should I do?"
Kim Sun-woo straightened his posture.
There was no need for false humility or modesty anymore.
It would be disrespectful to others, too.
Seeing the shift in Kim Sun-woo's demeanor, Han Kang-seok nodded with a satisfied expression and gave a simple answer.
"Do what you want."
"Pardon?"
"Do you really need to seek teachings from others? Reference what they say, but don't blindly follow. Don't create your own limits. Intuition shines brightest in its raw form. Everyone I've seen so far has been like that."
Leaning back on the sofa, he gave a wry smile and continued.
"Take what I'm saying now as reference only—don't engrave it in your mind. Believe only what your intuition understands and accepts. Treat the rest as trash. That's the basic mindset a true martial artist should have. The martial artists of this era are far too frail. They know too much and get trapped by their own knowledge, regressing instead. Don't follow in their footsteps. Beyond that..."
Han Kang-seok snapped his fingers as if struck by a good idea.
"It'd be good to accumulate diverse experiences. Not just with martial artists—interact with mages and hunters from other fields as well. Those experiences will surely help you."
Han Kang-seok didn't just tell him to gain experience with words.
He'd made him an ID card granting access to a special facility in the guild's basement.
Ding-dong.
Lost in thought, Kim Sun-woo realized the elevator had arrived at its destination.
Basement level 5—the emergency shelter and Mugung Guild's highest-security facility, the Main Assault Team's exclusive training hall.
He stepped through the open doors.
He'd barely entered the corridor when a vivid residual trace of mana hit him from further in.
Someone's already training?
The Mugung Guild's Main Assault Team.
Every member was an active hunter at minimum B-rank.
He'd heard there were even a few A-rank hunters like Han Kang-seok.
It was probably a suggestion to gain much from sparring with them.
With the recent dungeon break resolved, raid schedules were practically nonexistent anyway.
Emergency protocols hadn't been fully lifted, so the guild wasn't running any raids either.
While the hunters enjoyed this rare downtime, Kim Sun-woo had been feeling antsy, his body itching for action.
Robert, whom he'd just had refine his spear techniques, had holed up saying he needed time alone.
For someone whose hunter connections were all low-rank, where was he supposed to find a suitable sparring partner?
He couldn't very well go to the Huashan Sect Dongdaemun Branch just to ask Baek San-hu for a match.
Han Kang-seok's suggestion scratched exactly where it itched.
"Huh?"
Entering what looked like a waiting room, he spotted a young woman with a towel around her neck, drinking water.
She tilted her head curiously, but Kim Sun-woo recognized her.
Chae Eun-seo.
A genius mage who'd reached B-rank at the young age of 26.
Rare even among mages, she wasn't from the Magic Tower.
"Hello. I'm Kim Sun-woo."
"Ah! You're that guy who shone in the recent incident, right? You got access here?"
"Yes. The guild master told me yesterday to come down here and train."
"Must've been promoted to B-rank? I saw an article saying you were C-rank not long ago."
Chae Eun-seo's eyes sparkled.
The Mugung Guild's underground training hall.
It was like Han Kang-seok's treasure chest.
It was a rite of passage that aspiring Main Assault Team members had to clear.
Chae Eun-seo had likewise been recognized for her talent by Han Kang-seok and begun training here.
The news said it'd been a little over a month since she started learning martial arts...
She'd lived as an F-rank for ten years, then by chance awakened to her martial aptitude and skyrocketed.
Even so, jumping from F-rank to B-rank in a month seemed too abrupt.
Meeting her in person, he realized the rumors couldn't keep up with her reality.
"Do you know how to use this place?"
"Is it different from upstairs?"
"Yeah. I was about to start another round anyway, so I'll show you. Follow me."
Chae Eun-seo tossed her sweat towel into a basket and gestured as she led the way.
Her pink wavy hair swayed above her shoulders.
She was famous enough to appear in TV ads and online.
Her skills were top-notch, and her looks could rival any celebrity.
But the moment they met, he instinctively sensed it.
Her mana is enormous.
Kim Sun-woo inwardly clicked his tongue.
After gaining internal energy equivalent to 100 days' worth, he'd thought his mana reserves wouldn't lag behind others.
But as if mocking him, Chae Eun-seo's mana dwarfed his by a vast margin.
He followed her out of the waiting room.
Ahead were doors leading to different training rooms. Chae Eun-seo glanced at the panel, then nodded.
"Room one's still in use. Second room's better."
"Got it."
It didn't look much different from the upstairs training hall at first glance.
But the moment he stepped inside, the sudden change made Kim Sun-woo's eyes widen.
"...!"
He'd clearly been at the underground training hall entrance moments ago.
In an instant, a vast plain stretched out around him.
Whoosh!
A cool, dry wind blew across his cheeks.
He cautiously bent down and touched the ground; the rough texture of parched soil met his fingertips.
"Pretty great, right? It's a training ground built with subspace and barrier magic. You can form any terrain or environment you want. Even training dummies."
Chae Eun-seo, now floating in the air, manipulated a panel in midair. The landscape shifted to a desert in seconds, hot sunlight beating down.
Rumble.
The sand heaved, revealing a massive sand worm.
Kim Sun-woo drew his Black Flow Sword to respond, but Chae Eun-seo snapped her fingers first.
Crackle!
A black trajectory shredded the sand worm's body.
Not content with that, it devoured chunks of flesh voraciously, leaving only a skeletal husk in moments.
Thud.
The empty shell rolled down a sand dune, kicking up dust.
She reset the panel to the plain and looked down at Kim Sun-woo from midair.
"The panel controls are similar to the regular hall. Just inject mana to activate—that's the key difference."
"...Understood."
A training ground on this scale.
Did even Essential Armory know about this?
Their training system suddenly felt insignificant.
"And..."
"...?"
Chae Eun-seo hesitated, looking at Kim Sun-woo.
She seemed a bit embarrassed, pondering before speaking shyly.
"There's an initiation rite down here. You have to go all out with the first person you run into. I've done it once before, but this is my first time leading one..."
"Initiation rite, huh."
"Yeah. Sorry to do this to someone older like you, oppa, but it's tradition."
"No problem."
Kim Sun-woo nodded.
Like at the team leader seminar, hunters sure loved their traditions.
"Oh, don't worry. There's an illusion field, so physical damage is minimal. The effects are just super realistic, that's the issue."
"Realistic?"
"Yeah. Like this."
She drew her hand across the palm of her other hand.
Flesh split along the path, crimson blood spilling out.
"It doesn't hurt that much, but cuts and stabs look real. Training's still training—you gotta get hurt, right? They say it's unfiltered for realism. So don't freak out."
"Noted."
Kim Sun-woo slowly raised his Black Flow Sword.
Senior on the Main Assault Team or not, he had no intention of going easy.
Just like the team leader initiation...
"Alright, let's start light. I'll use just 10% of my power, so no worries."
Ten percent?
As Kim Sun-woo let out a hollow laugh at the underestimation—
Boom!!
A massive hand crashed down from the sky, crushing him.
A pitch-black hand.
The shockwave rippled across the entire plain, pulverizing everything beneath the palm.
"...Was that too much?"
Chae Eun-seo scratched her head.
The initiation here was about crushing the newbie's spirit.
Anyone approved by the guild master to enter this treasure chest was a genius, one way or another.
But the net had already caught far bigger fish—monsters hailed as geniuses long before.
They'd grown even stronger in isolated training, far beyond their peers.
First show the gap, then build up gradually...
"...!"
Suddenly, Chae Eun-seo whipped her head around.
It was empty air, nothing there.
Slash!
A single sword blade jutted out, slicing across her back.