What's With This Guy? First Time Seeing Training? (1)
The academy classes had just ended, and Cheon Seong headed toward the academy training field.
“What the hell is that? Did they even have those weapons in the training grounds?”
“Must’ve brought his own personal weapon. But it’s weird. A staff?”
Cheon Seong had transformed the Thousand-Face Weapon into a staff and was training with it, yet everyone was staring at the staff in pure astonishment.
“Maximum speed, maximum power. Start.”
[Combat has begun.]
Seong set speed and power to the absolute maximum and launched the fight.
A wooden practice dummy charged at him with blinding speed, swinging its blade upward.
Seong leaned his body slightly to dodge the rising strike aimed at his jaw, then slammed the staff against the blade to lock it in place. A sharp kick to the dummy’s torso sent it flying backward.
The dummy crashed to the ground and immediately recovered, launching another attack without pause.
“Better than I thought… Haa… Not bad performance.”
They exchanged blows a few times, and Seong’s breathing grew heavier and sweat beads formed across his forehead.
WHOOSH—CRACK!!
Cheon Seong’s staff shot forward like lightning, striking the dummy’s wrist and knocking the blade away.
The disarmed dummy instantly countered with grappling arts, wrenching the Thousand-Face Weapon from Seong’s hand and driving a palm strike straight into his jaw.
Seong staggered for a split second, but before he could recover, a powerful punch crashed into his abdomen, launching him into the air.
Seong hovered in mid-air, snatched up the fallen blade, and smiled as he faced the dummy still rushing toward him.
“Good situational awareness.”
Even in an academy training ground, the dummy’s performance had left him doubtful. Yet its instinct for reading the battlefield had exceeded all expectations.
“Still, it’s over now.”
Seong’s body in the air spun at lightning speed. He grabbed the blade and viciously kicked toward the dummy’s neck.
CRACK!!
The neck’s durability shattered under Seong’s strike, sending the head flying.
THUD.
The headless dummy collapsed to the ground, body limp. Seong wiped away the sweat pouring down his face and let out a long breath.
“Huu… As expected, fighting without mana is rough.”
Exhausting himself against a mere academy training dummy because he hadn’t used even a drop of mana felt ridiculous.
Mana was as fundamental to a person’s body as blood. Fighting without using even a speck of mana was practically impossible without artifacts or magic tools.
Just as one couldn’t stop breathing, one couldn’t help letting mana raise basic physical abilities. It was the same as intending to exhale while breathing in.
“But I have my Five Colors.”
Artifacts and magic tools inside the academy strictly suppressed mana flow, so they couldn’t be used. The method Seong had devised was to tap into the properties of mana itself.
Mana opposed mana.
Precisely, mana resisted the mana flowing through its circuits. The backlash caused the mana circuits to swell to the point of bursting, making it nearly impossible to maintain balance.
Even Beatrice hadn’t been able to use mana and mana together.
Yet a difference existed between her and Seong.
That difference was his innate ability: Five Colors.
The power to control and fuse all five types of mana.
Right now, Seong had fused mana and mana to the point where all physical reinforcement on his body had been completely wiped away.
Of course, this was a kind of cheat.
His current skill level couldn’t handle full fusion, so he had maximized the mana quantity to barely sustain the backlash and then fused it into a complete dismantle.
If he increased the mana quantity or decreased the mana quantity even slightly here, the balance would shatter and the backlash would erupt immediately.
“Seong, you worked hard.”
After a short break, Yuna approached and wiped the sweat from his face.
“You didn’t have to. Thanks, Yuna.”
“It’s fine. I just wanted to do it.”
BOOM!!!
At that exact moment, while savoring the way Yuna spoke so lovingly, the same wooden practice dummy he had been using exploded into splinters and rolled across the ground.
Seong turned to look. A burly, pitch-black-skinned student was walking over, staring at him as if to boast of his victory.
‘Who is this idiot?’
Curious about what the guy was doing, Seong watched. The student stepped closer and spoke.
“I will never give up.”
Actually, he was looking directly at Yuna.
Seong wondered who the guy was as he watched him turn and resume training on the dummy, then asked the uneasy Yuna.
“Something happen?”
“Ah, no? Nothing at all?”
Yuna’s eyes kept avoiding his gaze, making it obvious something had occurred.
While Seong continued staring at Yuna, Yoo Hwa-young walked over from afar.
“Hey~! Yuna! Hi! I didn’t know you’d be here. Huh? You’re here too? You didn’t show up yesterday. What’s the occasion?”
Upon spotting Seong, Hwa-young asked why she hadn’t come the day before and laughed teasingly, calling him human as she said she had just been too tired.
“Uung… Ann-yong.”
“Hey~! It’s Hae-sol! Hi!”
“Hello, Hae-sol.”
Because Hae-sol, who never seemed to have a limit to how much she could eat, kept snacking, the murmurs among the trainees grew louder.
The Lucinus and second-year students had appeared.
Of course, Seong, who had been wedged between them, could not escape notice.
“That guy’s amazing… What’s he doing in here?”
“I want to be in that group too.”
“…Makes sense. Of course the Lucinus and second-years would attract attention.”
Yoo Hwa-young noticed Seong receiving envious glances from the male students and doubled over laughing.
“Aaaah my stomach hurts. Seriously, you make me laugh a lot thanks to you. Huh? Oh, there she is too.”
Hwa-young turned at the sound of the dummy exploding and spotted the burly pitch-black student. Her face twisted in displeasure.
“What? You know him?”
“What? You don’t know? That’s a joke, right?”
Seong had no idea who the guy was. It felt like he had seen him somewhere before, but he had terrible memory.
“Tch. You really don’t know? That’s the guy. The one in the same Lucinus as me and Yuna.”
“Lucinus?”
Upon hearing the word, Seong recalled the entrance ceremony.
“You’re really dense. Remember even something as small as Lucinus.”
“I’ll remember it myself. Hey, do you know what that guy did to Yuna?”
At Seong’s question, Hwa-young glanced at Yuna, who violently shook her head no.
Yuna’s pleading gaze and Seong’s earlier teasing made Hwa-young grin like a little devil as she answered.
“Hmm~? If you’re curious, just ask Yuna.”
Seong’s face tightened. He already knew everything yet showed reluctance to speak, clearly trying to make Yuna suffer just like he had.
He could have forced the answer out, but Seong clenched his fists and cooled his anger.
“Uung… He, he confessed to Yumi yesterday. Asked her to have his baby.”
At those words, Seong’s body froze like stone. Beside him, Hae-sol kept munching on barbecue-flavored popcorn.
“...What? He asked Yuna to… have a baby?”
Seong’s killing intent surged. Hae-sol ignored it completely, swallowed the remaining popcorn in her bag, and said again while chewing.
“Glurk. Asked her to have my baby.”
CRACK, CRACK.
Veins popped across Seong’s forehead.
Even after repeating the question, he received the same answer, making his killing intent thicker.
Hwa-young looked at Seong with a devastated expression and asked Yuna.
“Heh… You got wrecked, Yuna?”
“AAAHHH! Why are you saying that, Sol!!”
“Huh? Isn’t it bad?”
“I didn’t know, so I asked!!”
Yuna shook Hae-sol violently and exploded with frustration.
“Haha… Haha! Ah… What should I do about this…”
“Hmm… Hey. I’m asking because I was curious. What are you going to do?”
Seong’s killing intent had vanished. He stared at the Lucinus student and contemplated. Hwa-young cautiously asked.
“Should I just smash him so he never says it again? Or maybe just cut it off…”
“Hey hey!! What the hell are you talking about! Snap out of it!!”
Even though Hwa-young spoke, Seong muttered as if none of it registered. Hwa-young startled and grabbed him.
“Fuck, let go right now. Do I have to endure this? You think I should?”
He had to endure it.
In this situation, it was only logical.
No matter what the guy said to Yuna, he was a Lucinus—a genius in an academy that only accepted geniuses.
For Seong, who had already been in the spotlight, avoiding conflict with the guy was the correct choice.
But no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t hold back.
‘What? Asked Yuna to have a baby?’
Seong had to endure something that a man said to his woman, Yuna?
“Uwaaak! This bastard is insanely strong! Yuna! Sol! You guys stop him!!”
Even though Seong hadn’t used mana to reinforce his body, Hwa-young had grabbed him and was being dragged across the ground. She called for Yuna and Hae-sol for help.
“Seong! Wait just a second! I’ll explain everything, please!”
With Yuna and Hae-sol also clinging on, they finally managed to restrain Seong. After Yuna had talked to him for several minutes, Seong calmed down.
“Huu… So, what happened?”
“You’re calm now, right?”
“Yeah. I’m calm. Now tell me what happened.”
Seong had indeed calmed down. It had stopped right before he exploded. Hwa-young and Yuna had successfully calmed him, and Seong himself had acknowledged it.
Hae-sol…
“Uung. Popcorn.”
She kept eating the popcorn she had somehow brought while watching the three of them.
Barbecue flavor.
“Hmm… Still, I think you should tell Yuna instead of me.”
At Hwa-young’s words, Seong quietly looked at Yuna.
His eyes asked whether she would tell him everything without hiding.
Yuna looked at him and begged, “I’ll tell you. Don’t get angry.”
“...I’ll hold back as much as possible.”
Unable to even lie about it, Seong’s words made Yuna sigh and eventually explain what had happened yesterday.
“So, what happened was…”
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Two wooden practice dummies charged toward the pitch-black-skinned student.
“HUP!!”
BOOM!!
A massive pitch-black fist slammed down on the dummy like a meteor, crushing it to pieces.
The fragments flew everywhere.
KING!
“Um, you… What are you suddenly doing?”
A black-haired man stepped beside the pitch-black student.
The black-haired man asked the pitch-black student what was going on, and the pitch-black student replied as if it was obvious.
“What are you staring at? Haven’t you ever seen someone train?”