Ch 97
Became a swordsmanship instructor at the academy
Chapter 97
Speaking in hindsight, if I hadn't asked for the inauguration ceremony to be held on a weekday just because it would be more convenient for me...
If I had accompanied the kids on their practical training, this kind of thing wouldn't have happened.
"Lee Jae-hyeon, are you going to keep crying? Stop it and get some rest. You're a patient too."
"Compared to the class representative, I'm nothing..."
"Nothing my foot. The doctor said if you had been just a little later, you would have been limping for the rest of your life."
When they explained it to me, they said it was sprained, but it wasn't just a simple sprain, his ankle was fractured and dislocated.
Even now, the kid has a metal support device attached to his foot.
Since everyone else's condition was so bad, they put on a temporary one, but I heard he needs to have surgery soon - something called open reduction and internal fixation surgery.
He wouldn't have been able to run, let alone walk...
"It's really not your fault, so stop blaming yourself and get some rest. Your parents are coming too."
"Teacher..."
"Stop crying, I said."
I patted his head once and left the hospital room, thinking he would keep crying if I stayed longer.
"Teacher Kang, did you hear the whole story?"
"Ah, yes."
"Any new information or anything..."
"Nothing. As you said, Jae-hyeon didn't even see the person who collapsed and just moved based on what Minha said... We'll have to wait for the others to wake up to know more."
Sigh... Just who the hell did this?
Thanks to Jae-hyeon, I've grasped the situation to some extent, but the culprit behind this incident is still a mystery.
We'll only know something once the collapsed people and Minha regain consciousness, but those who were poisoned still haven't recovered consciousness.
Minha also successfully finished surgery, but whether it's due to the anesthetic or not, she hasn't regained consciousness yet.
No, even if she regains consciousness, I wonder if she'll be able to have a conversation...
"Teacher Kang, let me make a phone call real quick."
"Understood."
The vice principal returned in less than a few seconds.
"Who was it?"
"A nurse from the poison treatment room. The parents just arrived and they're quite agitated..."
Ah...
I followed the vice principal to the poison treatment room.
"Oh my, Jae-jun!"
"Gang-seo! What is this..."
"No, our Jae-hyeon... Why isn't our Jae-hyeon here? Where is our Jae-hyeon!"
"Excuse me, mothers, please calm down first..."
It's a complete pandemonium.
"Vice Principal Kim Man-dong!"
At someone's shout, the parents rush toward us.
"You're Jae-hyeon's homeroom teacher, right? Our Jae-hyeon isn't here. Our Jae-hyeon... That's not right, is it?"
"This person, really, what kind of ominous thing to say...! This is Jae-hyeon's father. Where is our Jae-hyeon?"
"Jae-hyeon needs surgery soon, so he's not here. If you go to room 304..."
"Surgery? What do you mean? Why only our Jae-hyeon..."
"It's not a difficult surgery, he injured his foot but there's no danger to his life. If the surgery goes well, he should be fine..."
Before I could finish speaking, they immediately left.
"Are the kids really okay?"
"According to the treating doctor, the poison has been completely detoxified and there's no danger to their lives, so if you could just calm down a bit and wait..."
"Do we look like we can calm down right now? The kid has an oxygen respirator on!"
"Is it really okay? Then why isn't our Jun-su waking up?"
"I'm sorry. But they said there's no danger to life, so please calm down..."
"Nurse... No, doctor! Doctor, come quickly! Our Yeon-su's face color looks strange!"
When I went to the bed where Yeon-su was, her face indeed had a distinctly green tint.
A doctor rushed over and used detoxification magic, but it only became slightly lighter and didn't completely disappear.
"Th... This can't be right."
He looked completely flustered.
"What's wrong? Didn't you say the detoxification was completely finished earlier?"
"Yes. Earlier, the center director used detoxification magic and completely removed it, but the poison has spread again. It seems much more vicious than before... Nurse Park, where did the center director go?"
"The center director said he felt like he was going to collapse from exhaustion and went to the recovery room..."
"Call other departments and get A-rank professors who can use detoxification magic... No, I'll do it."
"Doctor! Our Jun-seo's face color looks strange too!"
"Our Ho-yeol's face color too...!"
Not long after, several doctors came and used detoxification magic again, but the green tint didn't completely disappear from the children's faces.
"This doesn't seem like ordinary poison magic..."
"Doctor, vitals are dropping little by little."
"What the hell is this? You said there was no danger to life earlier!"
"Excuse me... Doctor, our Jun-su isn't going to get worse like this, is he?"
"Our Yeon-su is only 18 years old."
"No, I'm a doctor..."
The angry parents corner the vice principal.
"Everyone, stop it!"
"Who are you to say that?"
"You're a teacher too, aren't you?"
"Birds of a feather flock together, what are you being so loud about when you haven't done anything right!"
"I said stop it."
When I mixed a bit of killing intent and released my aura, the room instantly became quiet.
"Teacher Kang, what are you doing?"
Even the vice principal blames me, but to calm down parents who have lost their reason because of their children, this was the only method I could think of right now.
"Will arguing with the vice principal cure the kids? Vice Principal, please call Director Ma right now and ask him to come."
"Director Ma Bongpal?"
"Yes. If A-rank magician can't treat them, we need to call an S-rank magician. Do you happen to know Director Cha's number?"
"Director Cha said he went abroad."
Come to think of it, he went to the Middle East and didn't even come to my inauguration ceremony today.
"Then do you know Director Seo's number?"
Seo I-gyeong, the master of Rain Guild, is also an S-rank magician like Cha Su-hyeok and Ma Bongpal, and came to my inauguration ceremony today.
"I'm not close with Director Seo..."
"Then I'll ask the secretariat, so please contact Director Ma quickly."
"Ah, understood."
I took out my phone and called the secretariat.
―This is the Hunter Association secretariat.
"This is Kang Shin-hyeok. Could I get Director Seo I-gyeong's number? If she's still at the association, you can connect me directly."
―Ah, Director Kang, just a moment. I'll check.
"It's urgent, so please hurry."
―She's in her office right now. I'll connect you.
―Director Kang?
"Yes, this is Kang Shin-hyeok. Director Seo, my school students went on practical training and were poisoned. I'm at the hospital now, but even A-rank magicians can't treat them. Could you help us? If you help us, I will never forget this favor and repay it."
―Not at all. Of course I should help with something like this. Which hospital?
"Korea University Hospital."
―Korea University is quite far. It'll take at least 30 minutes even if I hurry. Will that be okay?
I'll somehow manage until you arrive, so please come as quickly as possible, I said and hung up.
"How long did they say it would take?"
"Since it's from the association, they said it would take at least 30 minutes. Did you talk to Director Ma?"
"Fortunately, Bongpal is in Incheon right now, so he said it would take about two hours."
"Doctor, 30 minutes should be fine, right?"
"Uh... Well, this is the first time we've seen this poison, so we can't guarantee..."
"Doctor! Patient Mun Yeon-su's vitals are dropping rapidly."
"Yeon-su! Yeon-su!"
Following the rushing doctor, I came back to the bed where Yeon-su was.
When the doctor used detoxification magic, the vitals went back up, but then other patients started getting worse again.
The doctors keep taking turns using detoxification magic, but you can see they're getting exhausted.
"Doctor, patient Mun Yeon-su's vitals are dropping again."
The doctor who was casting detoxification magic on Yeon-su again staggered and sat down.
"Teacher Yeon!"
Magic exhaustion... Sigh, this is really driving me crazy.
At this rate, we won't last even 15 minutes, let alone 30. What method... Ah!
"Ma'am, could you step aside for a moment?"
In martial arts novels, there are quite a lot of scenes where internal energy is used to drive out poison.
Of course, I've never heard from my Master that such a thing is possible, nor have I learned it separately.
But in a world where detoxification magic exists, wouldn't that be possible too?
I'm not certain, but now isn't the time to worry about such things.
I have to try anything I can do.
Perhaps because I threatened them slightly earlier, they obediently step aside without saying anything.
"You must not touch her."
I immediately grabbed Yeon-su's arm and injected internal energy.
Although it's not much, there's also magic, so I feel resistance, but I injected a bit more internal energy to suppress it.
Since I haven't learned martial arts separately, I can feel stagnant energy accumulated in various acupoints.
Still, perhaps because she's still young, it's not completely blocked, so if I spread the internal energy as thinly as possible to make it like thread, it seems I can pass through.
Since it's not my body but someone else's, controlling the internal energy consumes quite a lot of mental power.
It feels harder than using Yigieogeum.
Still, I concentrate as much as possible and continue searching every corner... Huh, is this it?
I felt resistance at the Kidney Shu acupoint located next to the second vertebra of the spine.
Thinking of the cute level of magic I felt when I first injected internal energy, this seems to be the poison.
First, I wrapped the Kidney Shu acupoint with internal energy to block the poison from escaping to other meridians.
"Vitals are gradually rising."
Certainly, blocking the poison is effective, but this is only a temporary measure.
Of course, maintaining this state until the S-rank magician arrives is no problem.
"Ho-yeol! Doctor, please look at our Ho-yeol."
There are 6 more poisoned patients besides Yeon-su.
If I carelessly mess with them, the poison might spread even more. What should I do?
I did hear from Master when learning mutual generation and destruction that poison is weak to fire, but I can't create Samadhi True Fire in the meridians.
I retraced the stories I heard from Master, but unfortunately, I can't think of anything that would help in this situation.
I guess this is the best I can do...
It can't be helped.
I'm sorry to the other patients, but Yeon-su, who is a student in my class, is most important to me.
Still, if I at least hold onto Yeon-su, it will be somewhat better for the doctors.
To protect Yeon-su more certainly, I inject a bit more internal energy... What's this?
It was very brief, but I felt a heterogeneous energy from the internal energy.
Thinking it might be my imagination, I injected internal energy again... Huh? The same feeling again.
It's a slightly tingling sensation, but why is this happening...
I'm perfectly blocking the poison... Hm?
When I first blocked it, I could feel the resistance of the poison trying to break through, but now I don't feel anything.
With some hope, I sent part of the internal energy I was using to block to the Kidney Shu acupoint, but there was no resistance at all.
I searched every corner of the Kidney Shu acupoint, but the quite heavy poison had disappeared without a trace.
The machine connected to her finger also stopped making noise, and the green tint completely disappeared from her face.
Just in case, I searched through the meridians thoroughly, but couldn't see any poison, so I tried withdrawing the internal energy, and her face was peaceful without any problems.
This... Seems to be cured?
Without any special measures, just by blocking with internal energy, it was cured?
It's not like the poison is some living being that dies when it can't breathe after being blocked...
Of course, in some drama I saw in my previous life, there was a line saying cancer cells are also life, but it was heavily criticized as nonsense... Wait, could that be it?
In this world, it's called magic, but what is called Qi in Master's world exists in the atmosphere.
It's a very common setting in fantasy novels.
When I roughly said I understood and tried to move on, mischief struck and I asked if that meant internal energy would accumulate just by breathing, and got my first flick on the forehead with a "don't talk nonsense."
Anyway, the reason you can't accumulate magic just by breathing a lot is due to the nature of Qi.
Originally, Qi flows from where there's less to where there's more.
Therefore, no matter how much you breathe in, it all escapes when you exhale.
The means to capture Qi with such properties and process it so it can be stored in the human body is precisely internal energy cultivation methods.
To summarize, the principle of internal energy is to process the Qi existing in the atmosphere with cultivation methods and store it in the Dantian.
This isn't important right now, but what I thought of is that the more internal energy accumulated in the Dantian, the better the efficiency becomes.
When there's a lot of Qi accumulated in the Dantian, the absorbed Qi tries to move toward the high-density Dantian when operating internal energy cultivation methods.
Due to this principle, it seems the poison in Yeon-su's body was naturally absorbed when it met my high-density internal energy.
Come to think of it, the slightly tingling sensation I felt earlier was probably because the poison was being absorbed.
Although the doctor said it was quite dangerous poison and drove the kids to a serious state, if the target is me, the story has to be different.
I'm a transcendent master who has surpassed the limits of internal energy and have immunity to ten thousand poisons.
Of course, it's speculation, so I could be wrong, but I think my thoughts are correct... Well, I'll know if I try more.
There are still 6 more patients.