The Incubation Skill
The system interface shimmered before his eyes.
Points, achievements, and performance are required to unlock the next level.
“Looks like I’ve finally reached the starting line.”
Awakened Training System Level 2.
Yujun had successfully unlocked his first skill.
The skill was called Incubation.
Incubation: Receives a portion of the stats from awakened individuals you have trained. Your own stats will increase.
It was an incredibly simple skill, yet Incubation was the very essence of what it meant to be an awakened trainer.
At its core, an awakened trainer’s role is to make awakened individuals stronger.
However, there would always come a point where the trainer hit their limit.
Teaching lower-ranked awakened is no burden, but the higher the target’s rank, the greater the physical and mental strain on the trainer.
The gap in physical ability and overall capacity simply grew too wide.
This skill was what allowed him to bridge that gap.
There are things you can only understand once you become stronger yourself.
It wasn’t just about power. To speak with true authority, one needed strength that matched their words.
Incubation made that possible.
I get to grow stronger alongside them.
Yujun had never been particularly interested in raiding towers. The reason he wanted to become stronger was so he could teach awakened individuals more perfectly, more quickly, and with greater ease.
“Let’s do this properly.”
Yujun immediately sent a message to Lee Suyeon.
* * *
Sky Guild, Guild Leader’s Office.
[Guild Leader Lee! It’s me!]
The person calling Lee Hyeokjun was the Guild Leader of Lightning Guild.
[The thing is…]
[I was wondering about that trainer of yours.]
“You’re calling to ask about our trainer, right?”
[Ah, yes. That’s right! That trainer, Kang Yujun! Is he a full-time employee?]
“……”
Lee Hyeokjun paused for a moment.
“No, he’s on a short-term contract. He doesn’t have a license.”
[I see. Then that’s all I needed. Thank you, Guild Leader Lee. You’ll be at the golf gathering next month, right?]
“Of course. By the way… how’s Seokjae doing these days?”
[Huh? Didn’t you already hear? Trainer Kang Yujun trained our Seokjae.]
[He made it to Team 1. He’s now part of the main tower raiding team.]
“……!”
[He’s still at the training ground today… Just what kind of trainer is this Kang Yujun? How did he change so much?]
At the Lightning Guild Leader’s words, Lee Hyeokjun let out a bitter smile.
A needle hidden in a pocket was bound to show eventually.
He was beating around the bush, but it was clear he wanted Kang Yujun for himself.
If he was going to lose him anyway, it was better to let him go cleanly.
In a direct competition of conditions, Sky Guild had no chance of winning against Lightning Guild.
Besides, since it was only a short-term contract, there was nothing to stop him from leaving.
It wasn’t an exclusive contract, after all.
“Why don’t you see for yourself? No matter what I say, you probably won’t believe me.”
[…Is that so?]
The Lightning Guild Leader knew Lee Hyeokjun’s personality well.
[If you’re reacting like this, Guild Leader Lee… it must be the real deal.]
The Lightning Guild Leader swallowed hard.
[Thank you, Guild Leader. See you next month.]
After the call ended, Lee Hyeokjun smiled brightly.
There was no helping the fact that he was losing him.
He had known from the beginning that he wouldn’t be able to keep him for long.
“Still… if I think of it as us being the first to hire a future S-class trainer, it doesn’t feel so bad!”
When Yujun eventually became an S-class trainer and gave interviews, he would at least mention the name of Sky Guild and himself.
If they couldn’t keep him, the best thing to do was to build the strongest possible connection while they still had the chance.
* * *
Yeouido.
Yujun stood with Lee Suyeon in front of the Neverland Guild headquarters.
“This is our guild’s main building. Have you seen it before?”
“I have. I visited once before.”
Yujun had come here once in the past for an exchange.
It’s gotten even bigger.
Neverland Guild had expanded significantly since then. They had previously occupied three floors; now they took up ten floors of the building.
His phone buzzed.
“…It looks like the situation is really bad.”
“What happened?”
“The message says they’re firing all our trainers.”
Oh?
Yujun’s eyebrows twitched slightly.
“That’s an opportunity for me, then.”
He didn’t know the details, but it seemed the guild’s trainers had made a serious mistake.
“Let’s head inside.”
* * *
Neverland Guild.
The guild, based in Yeouido, had been facing a major crisis recently.
“Why are we suddenly getting so many injuries?”
Guild Leader Lee Shinjun clutched at his hair.
“We haven’t been able to enter a single tower for three months now.”
To maintain their guild ranking, they needed consistent results.
The most representative achievement was tower raiding.
There were many different types of towers in South Korea.
Towers required periodic clearing. If left uncleared, the monsters inside would go into a frenzy and pour out into the outside world.
That was why the government managed the towers, and each guild bid for exclusive clearing rights.
These exclusive rights were a double-edged sword. Successful clears earned points, but even the slightest delay would result in massive point deductions.
Recently, Neverland Guild had secured exclusive clearing rights for two towers.
If they couldn’t clear those two towers immediately, the rights would transfer to other guilds.
“We’ll take a penalty. This can’t happen. We have to stop it somehow.”
The guild’s score would drop, and it would affect their revenue as well.
All the hard work they had put into climbing the rankings would become meaningless.
“After everything we did to raise our rank…”
The Guild Leader ruffled his hair in frustration.
The higher a guild’s ranking, the more benefits they received.
Tax benefits were the biggest, a government policy designed to increase national competitiveness.
Naturally, a drop in rank meant losing those benefits.
On top of that, once a guild’s image was tarnished, high-ranking awakened individuals stopped joining.
It was a vicious cycle.
He fiddled with his phone, debating whether to contact a mercenary guild.
Mercenary guilds specialized in dispatching freelancers. They selected awakened individuals according to each guild’s requests.
It seemed like an easy solution, but for upper-tier guilds, there were several downsides.
First, it cost far more than using their own members. Second, it revealed that their own forces were insufficient.
In other words, it damaged the guild’s prestige. But at this point, they had no luxury to worry about appearances.
Just as he was about to make the call, there was a knock at the door.
“Guild Leader.”
“Come in.”
The chief secretary entered, bowed politely, and immediately began reporting.
“What about the trainers? Have all the rehabilitation trainers gathered?”
“Yes, they’re waiting in the conference room.”
Lee Shinjun practically kicked the conference room door open as he entered.
Inside were numerous staff members—training trainers who worked with awakened individuals, and rehabilitation trainers who handled the injured or those at risk of injury.
Their expressions were grim.
“I’m sure you all know why I called you here.”
The Guild Leader’s face was twisted in displeasure.
“If the injuries had happened inside a tower, I could understand. Towers are always unpredictable. Even if you’re clearing the same tower every day, irregular dungeons can appear and spawn stronger monsters.”
Even towers that were cleared daily could suddenly become irregular.
“But what is this? Getting injured during training? All these guild members?”
The problem was that none of the injuries had occurred inside towers.
Every single injured person had been hurt during training.
That was why he had summoned all the trainers.
The head of Neverland’s trainer team looked extremely flustered.
“I don’t know how to resolve this… I’m truly sorry, Guild Leader.”
“Explain to me exactly what happened, Team Leader. What is going on here?”
“Well…”
He hesitated before finally speaking.
“It’s actually related to Awakened Yu Jena…”
Neverland’s ace, S-class Awakened Yu Jena, whose Volcano ability was among the highest tier of fire-based powers.
“Because of Yu Jena?”
“Yes. She recently started a new training method with one of our A-class trainers. It seems the method didn’t agree with the others.”
“……”
The Neverland Guild Leader was speechless.
All of this had happened just because of a training method?
“Then shouldn’t we just revert to the original method?”
“We did. We confirmed that the new training method only worked for Yu Jena herself and immediately corrected it, but…”
The existing awakened members had already followed the flawed method, and their internal mana roads were damaged.
“The team doctors treated them, but…”
They had put out the immediate fire.
The real problem was rehabilitation.
“Rehabilitation isn’t progressing easily.”
Restoring collapsed internal mana roads required intense rehabilitation training.
“It looks like rehabilitation will take time.”
“…How long?”
“At least six months…”
At least six months.
The Guild Leader ground his teeth.
This was the end of the year. It was the time when they absolutely had to produce results.
There was no room to rest. They had to keep clearing government-commissioned towers and new towers to accumulate points.
Yet the majority of their guild members had suffered long-term injuries and needed rehabilitation?
“It could take even longer?”
“Yes.”
The team leader couldn’t lift his head.
“Ha…”
That meant some might need up to a full year of rehabilitation.
“Are you saying every single injured awakened is in this state, Team Leader?”
“Yes.”
In truth, the team leader had led this entire initiative.
“Team Leader.”
The Neverland Guild Leader rubbed his face.
“You do realize I could fire the entire trainer team right now and there would be nothing you could say, right?”
The team leader clenched his jaw.
There was no excuse. This was directly tied to his honor and reputation, so he had done everything possible to fix the problem.
But the more they trained, the worse the situation became.
Rehabilitation wasn’t working. In fact, the injuries were getting more severe.
Since rehabilitation training wasn’t effective, they had to either match the pace of the body’s natural healing or call in production-class awakened for specialized treatment.
But that wasn’t an easy solution.
Specialized treatment was extremely expensive. Even if they reduced costs by finding alchemist-class awakened who primarily made potions, they would still operate at a loss.
“Hoo…”
If things continued like this, it was over.
The guild they had worked so hard to build was on the verge of collapse over mere injuries.
“How did it come to this…”
Ding! Ding!
At that moment, the Guild Leader’s phone alarm rang.
“…This is the worst possible timing.”
It was a message from Lee Suyeon, Neverland’s promising awakened who had just returned from studying abroad.
But the message contained strange words.
“…A domestic trainer?”
Lee Suyeon was the second-most heavily invested awakened in Neverland after Yu Jena.
Her Iron Wall ability wasn’t just a simple defense-type power.
It had at least S-class potential, which was why they had poured so many resources into her.
The odds of success had been fifty-fifty. No, even lower.
Yet the message said it had been fixed.
Actually, it said she had returned and then gotten it fixed.
“What is this?”
The Guild Leader pressed his forehead, unable to make sense of the message.
That was one thing. This was another.
“For now, focus on recovering them as quickly as possible. We must resume tower raids within a month. Otherwise we’ll have to use the mercenary guild, and the compensation claims will come out of your paychecks.”
“W-wait…!”
“G-Guild Leader…!”
“You heard me.”
The Guild Leader turned away as if he didn’t want to hear another word and left the room.
Ring ring ring—
“Suyeon? Come to my office first. I don’t quite understand the message you sent. I’d like a more detailed explanation.”
“There’s no need for that!”
Lee Suyeon’s voice came from behind him.
“We’ve already arrived, Guild Leader.”
Standing beside her was someone he had never seen before.
No. Actually, he had.
“…Kang Yujun?”
“It’s been a while, Guild Leader.”
It really was Kang Yujun.
“I heard the situation isn’t good. I believe I can be of some help.”