Mana Cultivation Begins (1)
Tomorrow’s schedule was dormitory assignment.
After finishing weapon selection and position choice, Class 1-A followed Kim Joohee toward the academy’s outer edge where the student dormitories stood.
Throughout the entire walk, Kang Seojun endured stares that felt like needles aimed directly at him from every same-level cadet.
“Ha… F-rank lowest is supposed to be an All-Rounder?”
“Willpower A+? Even if you’re loaded with mana, what good does it do you?”
“He can’t even kill himself alone, so he must want everyone else to die with him?”
“Then why the hell did he even enter the academy?”
“He’s openly trolling and I’m serious—someone should report him.”
“Ha… even in the counterattack match, if he drags the team into a mission he’ll be in real trouble…”
Every voice dripped with distrust and worry that he would somehow soil his own and his teammates’ scores.
[Constellation The Sympathetic Hermit is sponsoring Dimensional Currency in support of you.]
At this rate he was going to become rich.
Meanwhile, Jin Serin walked right beside the limping Seojun, her face puffed with displeasure as she muttered under her breath.
“Even without knowing anything…”
Her expression made it clear she found the cadets gossiping around them unbearably annoying.
And a few steps behind them, Lim Chaewon trailed along, watching every move.
“What exactly don’t they know?”
She caught every word of Serin’s tiny mumble thanks to her B-rank sensory perception.
“Wait a second… he wasn’t a close-range fighter type?”
At the morning commute accident, the man had clearly blocked a dump truck with nothing but his bare body.
Her high-sensory stats and mana had left no room for doubt.
That wasn’t magic at all—it was raw, pure physical power.
“Then what the heck is that magic staff he’s carrying…? And why F-rank lowest? Why that position…?”
She wanted to burst over and ask right now, but the timing wasn’t right yet.
“…For now, I’ll just keep watching. I don’t know what that guy’s intentions or abilities are, but if it turns out he was hiding the strength I saw back then, I can use that as an opening. First, I should observe his stance.”
“Cough! Cough!”
Park Sinhu and his cronies walked at the very back of Class 1-A.
“I thought he’d go fighter position, but…”
“Look at those legs—fighter? The guy’s got no mobility at all.”
“Still, he can fight. Remember last time…?”
“Ziiit!”
Park Sinhu’s eyes flashed open in shock, and the bully who had been speaking stumbled over his words.
“L-l-last time… the…”
“T-that hamburger you ate last time was delicious~”
“Ah, yeah~ It was a gourmet spot~”
Park Sinhu’s face remained sour, but the bullies’ friendship had gotten him through the crisis.
“Cough! Cough!”
“Trip! Trip! Limp! Limp!”
Park Sinhu glared at the back of Seojun’s swaying figure while coughing.
“So he’s trying to get the extra points by choosing All-Rounder.”
Ever since someone in his group had picked All-Rounder, Park Sinhu had known it was Seojun.
At the time he had agonized over whether to choose it himself to stay ahead in extra points, but…
“If the team’s role balance collapses, no matter how many talented people you gather, they’ll never function properly.”
Destroying the team’s proper balance was too risky, so he had backed down.
Shooters and mages had devastating attack power, but without anyone to protect them they would be swept away helplessly.
Fighters had decent offense-defense balance, yet their middling stats and lack of utility meant they hit hard limits the moment things got serious.
Tank, support, and jungler roles would become completely useless the instant their protectors or supporters disappeared—exactly the same.
“In the end I’m just carving out my own weakness. I don’t know what he’s thinking, but when we face each other I’ll bite into that weakness until it bleeds.”
Park Sinhu ground his teeth, dark circles twitching with rage.
While everyone carried their own thoughts and hustled forward, Class 1-A soon reached the dormitories.
“Wow…”
“Whoa…”
It was far too grand to be a student dormitory.
Enormously large, opulent, and overflowing with architectural beauty.
It was nothing short of a seven-star hotel.
Kim Joohee gathered the attention of every 1-A cadet, then handed out individual room security codes one by one.
Each cadet received their own room number, and once Kim Joohee shouted “Dismissed,” today’s schedule ended.
Until morning classes tomorrow, they were free.
The sun was just beginning to dip toward lunchtime.
Serindidn’t linger when she invited him to eat together; instead he slipped into the dorm early.
He wanted to conserve energy for tomorrow’s training, and he still had things to plan back at his old house.
When he pressed his smartwatch against the dormitory door’s sensor, the machine responded.
“Beep. Beep. Unlocking…”
“Click!”
The interior was even more spacious than the office apartment he had left behind.
One-and-a-half-room layout—kitchen, living room, separate bedroom—yet it was a single-person unit.
Plus, the TV, microwave, sofa, table, and refrigerator were all already in place.
The bed looked like it could swallow a queen mattress whole; it promised enormous softness.
When Kang Seojun pulled open the curtains to light up the dark bedroom, the clean and elegant scenery of Korea Hunter Academy unfolded before his eyes in vivid detail.
“Heh… it’s really there…”
His room was on the eighth floor.
Looking down from there, the view he had seen countless times in the game felt brand-new when viewed with his own eyes.
“Swish~”
First, Kang Seojun placed the “Breath of the Busy World” breathing device he had bought from the Dimensional Shop in his mouth and took a deep breath.
After just two weeks of breathing outside air, his lungs had dried up and become painfully difficult to use.
“Cough! Cough!”
“Trip! Trip!”
Then, using his twisted legs and body to move as best he could, he headed toward the sofa.
On the coffee table in front of it sat paper and pens, thoughtfully provided.
“Good. Let’s start.”
Kang Seojun felt the need to revisit both his final goal and the long process required to reach it.
First, he wrote his ultimate objective in the center of the paper.
“A Happy Life in Another World”
The absolute final goal was, of course, a happy life.
But in this cruel and dangerous world, it would never be handed to him for free.
If he had been an ordinary person or if his willpower had been below 30, he might have quietly compromised and lived a modest existence—but the road to this happiness would have been far too harsh and painful.
The flow of Grand Hunter Academy grew increasingly grand as it progressed into the latter half, eventually threatening not only the nation but also global-scale disasters.
Surviving those disasters would not be enough to secure a happy life.
Even if Kang Seojun alone survived, the world would be half-destroyed.
To build a happy life, he needed power strong enough to personally resolve every disaster with his own hands.
That was why he had to push his own physical strength to its absolute limit, and the most important element he could obtain from this academy—the one that would allow him to become truly strong—was the Fruit of the Sun.
“Most importantly…”
Only by eating the Fruit of the Sun could the other skills and traits reach Transcendent tier.
Because the Stigma awakened by the Fruit of the Astral Rank had a small vessel, it hit a clear growth limit.
Trait
[Eye of Providence Lv. Transcendent], [Dimensional Shop Lv. Transcendent], [Favored One Lv. Transcendent]
Of course, even without eating the Fruit of the Sun, the already-Transcendent traits would not vanish.
These were traits he had added before his vessel hardened.
But even so, they were only half-finished.
If Kang Seojun spent his entire time at the academy jumping around and somehow managed to clear all his debuff traits and raised his stats comfortably, yet still hit a clear growth limit, he would merely become a slightly more special hunter than an ordinary one.
The very thought of such a future sent his expectations plummeting straight to the ground.
“That’s not the concept I picked up.”
Therefore, obtaining the Fruit of the Sun was non-negotiable.
He had to eat it no matter what.
And to acquire that Fruit of the Sun, what was required was…
“Graduating as the valedictorian of the academy.”
To become valedictorian, he had to score the absolute highest marks in every upcoming class, exam, and performance evaluation.
So what Kang Seojun had to do right now was clear.
“Do not lose the sparring class tomorrow.”
The academy graded not only exams but also attendance and participation in every single class.
If the goal was valedictorian, no class could be half-assed.
“That means I need countermeasures against long-range shooters and mages.”
If the opponent was a fighter, Time for Counterattack would handle it, but against a ranged shooter or mage he would be mercilessly crushed.
Even with perfect luck, he could not rely on it alone and leave his weaknesses exposed.
Since luck was something he could not control, he had to anticipate every possible failure and prepare accordingly.
Kang Seojun looked at the magic staff leaning against the wall beside the TV.
The answer to dealing with long-range shooters and mages…
was mana cultivation.
[Basic Mana Cultivation Lv. Low]
His current mana stat was 4.
“If I push it to just 6, even if I lose tomorrow’s sparring I can’t actually lose.”
Once mana reached 6, Mana Insensitivity would upgrade to Mana Blunting, unlocking a new ability of the Eye of Providence.
With that, he would have a response even if the opponent turned out to be a ranged shooter or mage.
The only immediate problem was how to raise his mana stat by two points before afternoon training tomorrow.
“Easy.”
He still had about 24 hours left.
With Mana Slime’s power, that was more than enough.
The plan was perfect. Preparation was perfect. Time was sufficient.
Whatever opponent he faced tomorrow in training, that person would become his prey.