The Eighth Transcendent
The entire Academy was in an uproar.
Of every place touched by the government’s announcement, this one might well have been hit the hardest.
It had been a while since I’d set foot here, and an unnameable tension and restlessness brushed against my skin the moment I arrived.
Monday morning, and I was already buried in work. I went through the messages I’d been ignoring for days, sorting out only what absolutely had to be done. On top of that I still had to show up for class—how busy could one person get?
At this point I wasn’t sure what an Academy diploma was even worth anymore. Still, if I was going to acquire a company and run it properly, having one was better than not. Dungeon entry permits—especially for higher-rank dungeons—required the matching licenses, and every one of those licenses started with an Academy diploma.
“Kang… Jung… hyeok…”
“…Sorry, Senior.”
“Hmph. Fine. You look busy right now, so we’ll talk tonight!”
“Yes.”
Senior Ahn, sulking because she hadn’t been able to reach me for several days. Tonight my waist was almost certainly going to be wrecked trying to soothe both her heart and her body. When I’d messaged her late last night saying we’d meet at the Academy, she’d been furious. Overnight, though, her anger seemed to have cooled. Thanks to her understanding, I could finally focus on everything else.
The most urgent item on that list was the meeting with Blue Dolphin Company.
“I’m truly sorry. Something unavoidable came up last week.”
“It’s fine. We’re just glad we could lock in a time today. Still—can you really handle all twenty of them in a single day?”
Blue Dolphin had originally booked consecutive meetings for last Thursday and Friday. I’d promised to raise their mana and had already taken a sponsorship fee of a full 2.7 billion won. From their perspective it must have looked like I’d simply taken the money and run. How the hell had I forgotten something that important? Maybe because the payment had already hit my account. If it had been post-pay, I never would have let it slip…
The second it came back to me I called their side and told them to come in today—Monday. After two empty trips on Thursday and Friday, both the Awoken and the company’s upper management were apparently seething. All I could offer was an apology. Monetary compensation never even crossed my mind. I needed cash right now. If I wanted to win any potential acquisition war cleanly, I needed plenty of ammunition first. Until then, not a single won could be wasted.
So the deal was reset for today: I would raise the mana of every Blue Dolphin Awoken present. If I no-showed again, I’d agreed to refund the entire sponsorship fee—so they couldn’t exactly refuse.
And now twenty Awoken stood in front of me.
“We’ll move quickly. Once again, I apologize for last week.”
I gave a short bow, then immediately began enhancing their mana. I put on a bit of a strained act, but I didn’t drag it out. Manipulating the mana of twenty people finished in a single, smooth sweep.
“This can’t be… What? Just from a handshake…?”
“Hwaaang! …Oh my? I didn’t mean to—hoho.”
“Whoa! Is this real?! My mana just spiked!”
Reactions like that, more or less. They’d already gathered plenty of information about my ability to raise mana, but experiencing it firsthand was something else entirely. Every last one of them looked stunned.
Good. They should be stunned. This was an absurdly powerful ability. They ought to be falling over themselves in awe and looking up to me.
“W-what? I heard it took longer and involved a lot more… groping around?”
Where the hell had this bastard heard that rumor?
I played it cool and dressed my ability up as something even more impressive.
“Ah—my own ability has improved somewhat, just like your mana. Twenty people a day is no trouble now. Anyone who wants further enhancement can contact me privately. Ten billion per person, up to two additional boosts. Of course, if I’m busy that day, calling won’t help. And anything beyond this level of enhancement puts a real strain on my lifespan, so I’ll be carefully selective about who I take.”
“I distinctly heard it was five billion…”
“The effect has improved, so of course the price rises with it. And this is extremely taxing work. It’s only because my own mana has risen further that twenty a day is now manageable. What about you? Are your mana and your lifespan not even worth ten billion? Or does my ability look that trivial to you?”
“N-no… But your mana rose suddenly? You were clearly at Elite Stage 50…”
“Yes. From there it rose several times over.”
“What?”
“Come on… that’s impossible.”
“I-is that true? How?”
I fully intended to spread the fact that I was a Transcendent far and wide. There were a few reasons. First: I’m strong, so don’t touch me carelessly. Second: it was time to start shaping public opinion.
Elite Stage 50—the highest mana value the Academy could measure. In other words, A-10. I had just announced that my mana had risen several times beyond that. At that point, people would have no choice but to think Transcendent. Plenty of people had already been whispering the word just from the nature of my ability alone.
“No way. That’s ridiculous…”
“You don’t have to believe me. The transaction is finished, so I’ll be on my way.”
Hard to believe? Well, what could I do about that. I’d be suspicious too. I could have demonstrated my power right there to prove it, but why bother? It would spread soon enough on its own.
Starting with this afternoon’s class, in fact.
Using the lunch break to finish a deal worth 2.7 billion, I headed straight for the next class location.
Magic training this time. When I’d announced I intended to learn magic on top of archery and swordsmanship, Hong Eunyoung had been the first to look shocked. Archery and swordsmanship could be pushed to a certain level by anyone who could handle mana properly, but magic was widely believed to require innate talent. Healing was the same.
“Kang Junghyeok. Can you truly use magic? I’ve heard your mana is formidable, but…”
The instructor eyed me with open doubt. The students were no different—until the moment I actually used magic.
KWAANG—!
The instant they saw the mana bullet leave my hand, every person in the training ground went wide-eyed, mouths hanging open.
KWAGWAGWAGWANG—!
Next came Magic Missile. The mannequin standing at the target vanished without a trace.
“Wasn’t that oppa an archer?”
“I heard he was a swordsman…”
“Insane. So that’s what they mean by genius… I thought I was one…”
Among the Academy’s elites, the magic students were the most arrogant group of all. Simply being able to use magic had been enough for them to look down on everyone else—until they started bowing their heads in front of me of their own accord. Especially these ones. A-Class. There weren’t even twenty A-Class mages per year; they were that rare. And every last one of those self-important bastards was now staring up at me in open admiration.
Didn’t it bruise their pride? Pride only mattered when the gap was close enough to close. When the difference was dimensional, who the hell was going to stand on ceremony? Even if the thought crossed their minds, they’d bury it deep. Get close to me and I might raise their mana for free, after all.
“Oppa, you’re so cool. What other magic can you use? I want to see.”
“Hyung, I use fire magic. What’s your attribute? Not the basic stuff.”
“Um… I’d like to see too.”
“Is your mana really Elite Stage 50? How did you train?”
This was getting annoying.
With the instructor’s permission, I decided to try something a little stronger. Caution was required. Magic burned through mana far more violently than I’d expected—a completely different scale from swinging a sword or loosing an arrow. My lack of familiarity with magic probably played a part as well.
Ahn Jihyun’s skills were mostly ice-attribute. Most of them were what you’d expect, but one skill carried a particularly special name.
Blizzard.
That was almost certainly the skill she’d gained upon becoming a Transcendent. With the instructor’s permission already secured, I wanted to test it now. Using it cold in real combat and discovering it didn’t do what I wanted would be a disaster. Something like that had already happened a few days ago.
“I’m going to try something fairly powerful. Everyone, please clear the training ground. You too, Instructor.”
“Just what… are you planning to do…”
“There’s a skill I haven’t used yet. Better safe than sorry.”
“A-all right…”
Magic could be extremely dangerous depending on the skill, which was why the Academy’s magic training ground sat at the far western edge, out over the sea. Every spell I’d used so far had been fired toward the water, and the targets were set up that way as well. There wasn’t even a wall on the seaward side—only open ocean—so that any explosion debris would fly harmlessly outward rather than toward the Academy.
The instructor and students climbed up to the observation seats on the Academy-side building and sat down. At that distance, nothing should go wrong.
“What’s that hyung trying to do?”
“He said it’s a spell he’s never used. What could it be?”
“Hmm… if he’s going this far, it has to be something huge, right?”
“He’s definitely about to show us something incredible. Oppa~ fighting~!”
The instructor, the students who had already completely fallen for me—everyone was starting to expect something. Great. If the skill turned out to be underwhelming, I was going to look like a complete idiot.
“Huh?”
And then I spotted even more spectators. Today was the day of the sponsors’ gathering—the day they announced the top two sponsors of the week and selected the company that would handle mana enhancement. Those officials, plus the twenty Blue Dolphin Awoken I’d met at lunch, were all sitting in the stands looking down at me.
“Well… not bad.”
Actually, this worked out perfectly. Yes. This was exactly the moment to show them clearly—my skill, and my power. If the magic turned out weaker than expected, I could just demonstrate something else on top of it.
I still wasn’t fully comfortable controlling magic, so I moved a little farther from the stands and faced the open sea before activating the skill. Mana… with an audience watching, I’d load it generously—exactly half.
Fifty percent. Fifty percent of S-Class Stage 10 mana, poured into a single skill activation.
“Blizzard!”
The instant I invoked the skill, a colossal surge of mana roared up through my entire body. Good thing I’d tested it in advance. It didn’t fire immediately—it needed time to charge. If this had happened in real combat, I would have been in serious trouble again.
Mana boiled up through me like seething liquid, spilling light in every direction. A steadily deepening cold began to claim my whole body. Then, from the tips of both outstretched hands, I felt something being pulled out of me in a long, continuous rush. Other magic had felt similar, but because the volume of mana consumed this time was on a completely different scale, the sensation of being robbed of something—exactly like the moment after climax—hit far harder.
Fuck. Sage mode had arrived.
“Hah… hah…”
I’d done nothing but stand in place and cast a spell, yet my stamina had plummeted. The mass of blue mana that left my hands drifted forward, struck the sea with a heavy splash, and erupted in a violent spray of water and fierce azure light.
Jjajajajak.
The spray froze solid in midair.
KWAGWAGWANG—!
A tremendous explosion roared out from the sea, and a ferocious wind began to howl toward us—an ice-cold wind that stung the skin like a sheet of frozen metal.
“W-what?”
Body temperature is dropping sharply.
Suddenly a blizzard began to fall—so thick I couldn’t even open my eyes. If I hadn’t instantly wrapped my entire body in mana, I would have gotten frostbite on the spot. The weather had been edging toward early summer, and now this…
Jjajajeong!
Lightning kept striking the surface of the sea. Ice shards kicked up by the blasts pelted my body like hail. The snowstorm shoved me bodily backward. I couldn’t open my eyes, so I twisted around—only to find the same white flurry raging behind me as well. The observation seats had vanished behind the snow. Heaven and earth were nothing but snow, snow, snow.
“Fuck. I’m screwed.”
I sprinted toward the Academy. Several centimeters of snow had already piled on the ground. The clothes I was wearing had frozen solid and shattered with every movement, raining frozen fragments around me.
Energy consumed to restore stamina.
I hastily restored my stamina as well and ran all the way to the observation seats.
“Hah… hah…”
Fortunately, the spell’s effects barely reached this far. Only pure white snow was falling. I kicked lightly off the ground and vaulted up onto the stands.
The moment I arrived, every single person there turned a scorching stare on me.
Sorry. Even I hadn’t expected the magic to turn out like this!
Some of the non-Awoken scouts were shivering violently from the cold. The Awoken simply stared at me with eyes and mouths wide open. The instructor was the first to speak.
“Kang Junghyeok. What in the world is this…”
“I apologize. I used far more mana than I intended. Please continue to instruct me well from now on.”
“…M-me?”
And the students—especially the female students—screamed.
“Kyaaaaaaah—!”
“A-a pervert!”
“Wow—!”
Because every last scrap of my frozen clothing had shattered and fallen away during the run over here. I had just flashed something truly unspeakable at a bunch of young students.
—Click!
“Put the phones away! No filming! Looking is fine—recording is not!”
From now on, I was definitely only using this spell while wearing a proper suit.
That afternoon I was so swarmed by people hunting me down that I barely had time to breathe. Still, the operation had worked. The results were exactly what I’d wanted.
The internet was in an uproar over me.
South Korea’s eighth Transcendent had appeared.