The Knot Unraveled
Kim Gyucheol couldn’t focus on the practical exam at all.
He wasn’t in any state to concentrate on the test. His mind was in complete turmoil.
‘He said he could fix it?’
It was because he couldn’t forget what Yujun had said before the practical exam began.
He gently touched his arm. On the outside, it looked perfectly fine, but in reality, it was anything but. The inside was completely broken and no longer functioning properly.
Back when his arm first stopped moving properly and he couldn’t even use his ability, he had gone straight to a doctor. The physician had examined him with a grave expression.
“I’ve treated and examined countless Awakeners, but this is the first time I’ve seen mana rods and mana circuits burned out like this. Do you have any idea what might have caused it?”
Kim Gyucheol had been just as frustrated as the doctor. He had no idea what he’d done to end up like this. So he asked instead—why had this happened? Why had all his mana rods and circuits burned out?
In the end, the doctor recommended a detailed examination. The results were far from good.
“I’m sorry to say this, but…”
Every Awakener specialist had given him the same troubled look. After much deliberation, their answer was always the same.
“I don’t know. I can’t figure out the cause.”
It was the same no matter which hospital he visited. No one knew what was wrong with Kim Gyucheol.
“Can it be fixed?”
“It’ll be difficult.”
It couldn’t be fixed. How could they fix something when they didn’t even know the cause? Kim Gyucheol had fallen into despair.
The Geumgang Kim Family. His clan was one of the great houses, and those who belonged to it were expected to be great themselves.
“What? You can’t use one of your arms anymore?”
“You know what it means for a blacksmith family to lose the use of an arm, don’t you?”
The elders of the family had not been pleased with Kim Gyucheol. No, it went far beyond mere displeasure.
“Judge for yourself. For the glory of the family.”
They already disliked that he had broken a taboo and gotten injured, but now he couldn’t use one arm at all. They cursed it as a curse upon the family. A cursed one. They said the cursed one would ruin the family and had to be expelled. After all, he had only half-awakened, so there was nothing to regret.
“It would be cleaner if he just died and settled things that way.”
In the end, Kim Gyucheol had left the family on his own. He abandoned his hammer, his forge, everything he had cherished. He wanted to distance himself from the family. He never wanted to work as a craftsman again, so he turned to becoming a trainer instead. It wasn’t that he looked down on the field—he simply wanted to learn directly and fix his own hands.
‘But he said he could fix it?’
His head was a mess. Whether it could be fixed or not—that question already had an answer. It couldn’t be fixed.
‘There’s no way some random trainer can fix this. I’ve already met all the famous specialists. This isn’t an illness. It’s a curse.’
Kim Gyucheol closed his eyes. This wasn’t an illness. It was a curse.
‘Because I… got greedy.’
In truth, he had a rough idea of the cause.
‘I thought it might be because of the Geumgang Furnace.’
Kim Gyucheol had once sought out the Geumgang Furnace that had been passed down in the family, hoping to reverse everything. That furnace was the family’s treasure—the tool used by the first Awakener of the Geumgang Kim Family, the founding ancestor. Now it had melted and could no longer be used properly. But to Kim Gyucheol’s eyes, it still looked like a crafting tool that could be revived and used.
So he had tried to light it. But the fire wouldn’t catch. The Geumgang Furnace had become an artifact symbolizing the family and no longer served its original purpose. He thought that was the end of it. But from that day on, his arm stopped moving. Eventually, even sensation disappeared to the point where he couldn’t feel pain anymore.
A curse. He believed it was a curse placed upon him for daring to use the ancestor’s furnace. But at the same time, another thought had occurred to him.
Why would the ancestor place a curse on a descendant who only wanted to do better?
Kim Gyucheol had been confused. He couldn’t tell what was real and what was fake. It was easier to just think of it as a curse. Because it couldn’t be undone. There was no point agonizing over something irreversible—it would only make things harder for himself.
But then…
‘He said he’d fix it?’
He said it could be fixed. Yujun was just an Awakener trainer. A trainer who had come to take the licensing exam, no less. And that trainer had claimed he could fix Kim Gyucheol’s arm—something even specialist Awakener doctors couldn’t cure. He had said it wasn’t a curse, but simply an illness. Instead of saying he didn’t know or couldn’t fix it, he had spoken with absolute certainty that it could be fixed.
‘It can really be fixed?’
“Examinee!”
The examiner shouted loudly. Startled, Kim Gyucheol looked ahead. The world that had turned white returned to normal. The examiner standing before him looked slightly irritated.
“Examinee, begin.”
“Ah, I’m sorry. I’ll start right away.”
If he had come to take the exam, he needed to focus on the exam. He couldn’t let himself get lost in strange thoughts.
‘There’s no way it can be fixed.’
Kim Gyucheol didn’t believe it. Deep down, he still thought that someday he would definitely fix his arm, but realistically, he knew it was impossible. He was broken. Since no one could heal him, he had to find a new path. He focused on the examiner in front of him.
* * *
Thud!
The next place Yujun moved to after the shoulder was the waist.
‘He’s twisted it quite thoroughly.’
The intentional abnormality in the body had overlapped with other issues and become severely tangled.
‘He could’ve gotten seriously hurt.’
It was astonishing how serious he was about the exam.
‘That’s what makes it fun.’
Yujun continued poking the examiner’s body with his staff, as if unraveling a tangled thread. Correcting posture. Aligning the mana rods inside the body. At the same time, he released the mana that had been deliberately clumped up in the arm to block it.
“Wait, this…”
Examiner Lee Jihun was momentarily flustered.
“How…”
The clump in the arm had been hidden so subtly that it was nearly invisible. He had made the mana clump so faint that the mana rod would weaken, just to test how sharp someone’s eye was. He had asked several examiners if they could notice it, but none of them had.
“Arm correction complete. Upper body correction finished.”
Yujun gestured toward him.
Focus skill proficiency has increased!
The Focus skill needed to have its proficiency steadily raised.
‘Training starts with observation, after all.’
Theory alone couldn’t train an Awakener. Awakeners were diverse. A training method that worked for one Awakener often failed with another.
“Next, I’ll proceed with lower body and overall ability correction.”
At Yujun’s words, Examiner Lee Jihun spoke urgently.
“Aren’t you going to use the VR machine?”
“It’s fine.”
The VR machine was ultimately just a training tool used to better understand an Awakener. By observing how they fought monsters, one could analyze their natural movements and quantify the data. But Yujun didn’t need it.
‘It would be nice to have, but…’
Right now, Yujun intended to show overwhelming skill.
“Please move while using your ability, assuming there’s a monster in front of you.”
“The VR machine would make it feel more realistic…”
“It’s fine even if it feels awkward. I can see everything just from your posture.”
Examiner Lee Jihun’s brow furrowed slightly at Yujun’s words. This confidence. From the correction he had just witnessed, he had confirmed that Kang Yujun had skill. But excessive confidence wasn’t necessarily a good thing.
“Do as you wish.”
Examiner Lee Jihun moved with clear intent.
Whoosh!
His ability was a skill that enlarged the weapon in his hand. The wooden sword he held instantly grew to the size of a greatsword. When size increased, weight increased as well, but his Awakener ability allowed him to withstand that weight.
Thud.
BOOM!
He brought down a single strike.
Training Hint [Mana density decrease, size balance uncontrollable]
Training hints began appearing in Yujun’s eyes. Due to the decrease in mana density and the massively enlarged size, his balance had collapsed, and cracks had already formed in the wooden sword before he could even swing it.
‘It’s because he’s simply enlarging the size. He couldn’t properly infuse it with mana.’
Yujun approached him. Then he began correcting his posture from the very beginning.
“You mustn’t be swung around by the weapon. It seems your ability is supporting the weight, but just because the ability supports it doesn’t mean the weight disappears.”
Yujun said this and told him to swing again.
Linguistic Correction is being used!
Following Yujun’s training command, Examiner Lee Jihun swung the enlarged wooden sword. At the same time, Yujun swung his staff.
Smack! Thwack!
Striking the shoulder and coming down, he touched the mana rod and struck the waist once more. The overall movement became far more efficient than before. At the same time, the mana density concentrated once again.
“……Huh?”
Whoosh.
He brought it down exactly as before. However—
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The power itself was different.
“……What?”
Trainers who had been conducting training sessions began sending shocked glances. No, some had been watching since earlier. Yujun’s training was different from the other trainers. It was precise, swift, and immediate.
“The power……”
“Didn’t it become much stronger than before?”
“Did he swing harder?”
But they knew from continuing their own training. Examiners showed no consideration for examinees. This could be seen as a competition between examiner and examinee. That was why what had just happened was clearly training.
“Huh……?”
Everyone murmured while looking at Examiner Lee Jihun.
“Even the examiner looks flustered. Look at that.”
“Crazy, no, and over there……”
Examiner Lee Jihun was the most veteran among the current examiners. That was why the trainers couldn’t hide their surprise while watching him. Because he had the highest difficulty.
“I’ll do it one more time.”
Examiner Lee Jihun was genuinely shocked. Right now, Yujun had already resolved the problems that Examiner Lee Jihun had ‘staged.’ What he had just corrected was the real issue with Lee Jihun’s own Awakener ability.
For a moment, the examiner confused the situation. Was the Kang Yujun before him really an examinee without a license?
“Examinee……”
Before he could even finish saying “examinee,” Yujun’s command flew out again.
“Do it the same way again. This time, pay attention to the mana density. Don’t spread it throughout your entire body—concentrate it only in your hand and the weapon. Don’t be conscious of your ability supporting the weight. Imagine you’re holding it with your entire body, and furthermore, with nothing but your own strength.”
The most important thing for an Awakener was materialization. Making what they imagined into reality.
‘I need to make that happen naturally.’
Thud!
Yujun corrected him once more. He corrected even deeper than before, making the body more flexible.
Linguistic Correction is being used!
The effect of Linguistic Correction worked properly. Just as Yujun had instructed, Lee Jihun’s enlarged wooden sword came crashing down.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The power was so great it felt as if the building itself was shaking.
“This is ridiculous……”
Lee Jihun was flustered. What was this? This had turned into a different kind of test. Yujun smiled faintly.
“I like solving real problems.”
Lee Jihun looked at Yujun with a dazed expression.
“Then I’ll continue.”
Yujun gripped his staff tightly.
“Whoa.”
“What?”
“It got corrected in an instant……”
“He didn’t even use the VR machine.”
The sight of him solving problems alone during the written exam overlapped with this moment.
Focus skill proficiency has increased!
Yujun moved his staff.
‘It’s definitely easier.’
Perhaps because he had also raised his Physical Enhancement level following Incubation, correcting Examiner Lee Jihun’s movements had become incredibly easy. Correcting even the smallest movements with the staff and moving his mana rods was considerably effortless.
‘He’s an A-class Awakener.’
Examiner Lee Jihun was an A-class Awakener. Same rank as Lim Seokjae, but slightly below him.
‘Considering how difficult it was to teach Seokjae…’
Even though his opponent was a slightly lower-tier A-class Awakener than Seokjae, being able to train an A-class Awakener this easily…
‘As expected, the Incubation skill is different.’
The Physical Enhancement skill was the same.
Thud!
Yujun’s staff struck near the heart one final time and stopped. The correction was complete. If this was repeated, the real problem Examiner Lee Jihun had would also be resolved.
“Correction complete.”
Awakener Lee Jihun has been trained!
Training Score: 8 / 10
35P obtained.
There were no more problems left for Lee Jihun. It was an overwhelmingly dominant performance.
“……”
“……”
All the trainer examinees kept their mouths tightly shut. Of course, there were also those whose mouths hung open.
“Hah……”
Examiner Lee Jihun couldn’t close his mouth at his completely transformed movements. Since Yujun’s training was finished, scores needed to be tallied. Scores were supposed to be determined based on three factors, but his mind simply wouldn’t work. However, it wasn’t difficult for Examiner Lee Jihun’s mouth to open.
“……Full marks. Full marks.”
Because there were no other points he could give besides full marks.