The Genius Every Academy Has (03)
The results of the first exam were in.
"Aaaagh!"
"M-my arm!"
About four of them had failed badly enough to be screaming — broken arms, broken legs, eyes black with bruises. They were ordinary students who didn't properly know an aura cultivation method. Even among those who didn't, the ones who had done some physical training, or simply kept their heads, either scraped through the subjugation by a hair or failed without ending up quite so wrecked. Looked at that way, the difficulty seemed about right.
"Seventy-eight passed, twenty-two failed. Confirmation is complete. You may go."
Officially, Cheonryong Academy recorded only pass or fail. People being people, though, put a crowd in one place and they want a ranking — all the more so when the records come out as times.
The time engraved on a bracelet was personal information. Unless someone went around bragging the way Cheon Dae-seong did, they only checked whether you had passed, so I wasn't going to be hassled over mine.
Cheon Yu-rin was another matter. She was of the Cheonryong Sword Family, and even if she never announced a thing, the other students had clocked the moment she went in for her. Call it a misstep. Word had already spread that she finished the exam in around five minutes, and Yu-rin didn't bother to confirm the five-minute record or deny it.
"Nothing done by human hands can ever be perfect! Haha! Our little sister must have drawn an easy exam!"
Cheon Dae-seong said it with his face beet red. A quiet congratulations would have done. Instead he threw a pointless fit of jealousy, and it only made him look more pathetic. His own time of nine minutes and eleven seconds was a little lacking for a scion of the Cheonryong Sword Family, but not bad in its own right. Yu-rin's record was simply so broken that I almost felt sorry for him.
Me, of course, I had slipped in and finished while no one was looking, so no one knew about one minute and thirty-seven seconds. I had even destroyed the evidence — clenched the bracelet in my palm and burned it off with a flick of aura — so there was nothing left for anyone to find.
Cheonryong Academy itself kept no rankings. Since no one had beaten Dae-seong's nine minutes and eleven seconds, he was first for the time being.
"Yes, well — something must have gone wrong, because this esteemed one found twice as many kobolds as anyone else! It wouldn't do to march into another testing ground and raise a fuss, so this esteemed one cleaned them up personally!"
It was an insult to the Cheonryong Academy faculty. A few teachers flushed red, but they didn't dare take it up with the young master of the Cheonryong Sword Family, and swallowed their anger in silence.
Already acting like that as a first-year. No wonder he was practically a tyrant by third year.
"Our little sister, too — not quite this elder brother's level, of course, but she surely left a fine record of her own! What a shame she happened to lose her bracelet!"
He said it without a shred of shame, even though he had watched Yu-rin tear the bracelet off and crush it right in front of him. She awkwardly avoided his eyes, then hers met mine. She seemed to be checking the place where my bracelet had been, but the evidence was already gone.
Once the exam ended it was free time anyway, and idiots hoping to hitch themselves to the Cheonryong Sword Family swarmed Dae-seong, singing his praises. Thanks to that, I could sidle off into a corner and not a single person looked.
That bastard Dae-seong comes in handy sometimes.
He pulled aggro that openly, so for someone who needed to step away for a bit, dodging people's eyes was easy. It wasn't only the students, either. The teachers were walking on eggshells around him too.
I had something to do before Sena, assigned to me today, came to collect me.
I'd better get my hands on the second fortune first.
I slipped out of the clearing by the dungeon entrance and vaulted the wall of Cheonryong Academy.
At my current level — an awakened Aura Heart — there wasn't a student in the school who could stand against me. Even Cheon Dae-seong and Cheon Yu-rin, called the strongest of them, wouldn't awaken an Aura Heart until much later. For now, that made me the strongest, didn't it?
But the danger around this Cheonryong Academy isn't limited to the students.
Cheon So-hyeong was too busy worrying about Dae-seong bullying him inside the academy to notice. While he wasn't looking, the conspiracies encircling the place were stacking up one by one, and in time they would come down as a serious threat. To prepare for that, I needed to get stronger first. It wasn't as if only So-hyeong had to grow, was it?
The fortunes he never managed to claim, the ones that slipped through his fingers — I could take those in his place without much problem. And for a fortune that could be used more than once, I could use it and put it back where it belonged later. That would be enough.
The fortune I was after now was this.
Imoogi Ointment.
Imoogi Ointment, one of the Cheonryong Sword Family's secret medicines, was — true to its name — made by hunting a thousand-year-old imoogi, a great serpent on the cusp of dragonhood, and boiling down its inner core. That was the rumor, anyway. In truth it was a precious ointment compounded from all sorts of complex ingredients and special materials. The recipe had been partly lost, and ingredients common in those days could no longer be found, so the thing was impossible to reproduce.
The effect itself was nothing much. Rub it on, and your skin got harder. Imoogi Ointment had been common once. Even in Cheon Gyu-seong's time the recipe was already lost, and the stuff was mediocre enough that no one bothered trying to recreate it. That was before anyone knew about its synergy with aura cultivation, of course.
A bit of tougher skin was all it offered on its own, weak beside the countless medicines flooding the modern world. The catch was that while the standalone effect was minor, its harmony with aura cultivation was absurdly good. The synergy with the Dragon Scale Heart Sutra, which grew scales across the body, was especially outrageous — living with a ballistic plate bolted over your heart, you might say.
By the time the protagonist, Cheon So-hyeong, found it, someone had already used it, and only a trace remained at the bottom of the jar. He used what was left to reinforce the area around his heart, and thanks to the ointment his heart held when his Aura Heart ran wild instead of bursting. Even in a mutual kill, both of them driving swords through each other's hearts, his own was tough and dense enough that he only took a hole and lived, while the other man's heart ruptured and he died. An ointment you couldn't ask more of.
The problem is that someone already used it.
When So-hyeong obtained this fortune, at the start of the second semester, someone had already opened the lid and used it. The story never reveals who. What is certain is that someone used it before the protagonist enrolled. If it had already been used even now, and only enough remained for So-hyeong, I meant to leave it untouched and hide it. I didn't practice the Dragon Scale Heart Sutra, so for me the effect would end at slightly tougher skin. If only enough was left for him, handing it over would be the better play.
With that in mind, I was tearing through the infirmary of Cheonryong Academy's old school building.
"Let's see..."
This fortune: after a fight with Cheon Dae-seong left him beaten, So-hyeong dragged his aching body all the way here and hid in the old building's infirmary. The same beating where he obtained the Black Dragon Yeouiju. He had gone to the proper infirmary first and asked to be treated, only for the nurse — wary of Dae-seong — to refuse him. He snuck in here looking for medicine, found an ointment rolling around at his feet, and figured he might as well put it on. That was how the fortune began. He applied it to treat his bruised chest, found it worked, and came back for more, and in the process his heart was reinforced and his chest hardened. Because of that he could train his aura cultivation recklessly without trouble, and even use an Aura Heart as if it were running wild. So-hyeong's skill improved by leaps and bounds.
My cultivation method is simple enough that it isn't going to rampage, but still.
You never knew. The more safeguards, the better.
Rattle.
I had been searching the old infirmary long enough to end up covered in dust. Broken supply cabinets, drawers — I opened them, and nothing came out.
"Figures. If it were easy to find, someone would have used it already."
Hadn't the protagonist found it by chance, catching it underfoot while he frantically dug through the medicine?
Maybe I should flip this whole place and clean it properly later.
Abandoned patient beds, desks buried under cobwebs and dust — finding anything here was bound to be hard. I was just deciding to set aside real time later, clean the place, and search properly.
Hm?
Into the abandoned old building, where no one ever came looking, a whole crowd of presences entered — and started searching for something. They wore the ordinary uniforms of Cheonryong Academy staff, but the pressure coming off them was nothing a civilian could produce. A few were even hiding power greater than the faculty. The moment I sensed them, I slipped out the window, jammed my hands into the wall, and hung there. Clinging to the outer wall, I ran my Aura Heart at a low burn and killed my presence.
Eyes could still find me. Presence alone could not — I had blended into the surrounding aura, and sensing me that way would take someone who had awakened an Aura Heart.
Or if they saw me with their own eyes...
Even if someone spotted me outright, the excuse that fools like high places would work, right? I had already fallen out of a persimmon tree twice.
Rustle. Rustle.
They were clearing out the old building's belongings, hunting for something, flipping every object without caring whether they ended up covered in dust.
"An ointment with a tacky snake drawn on it. If anything looks suspicious, bring it."
Don't tell me. These people?
I was watching them closely, wondering if they were the ones who had used the Imoogi Ointment.
If they're stronger than the academy's top teachers, then...
Two villain factions from the original story flashed through my head. Whichever they were, they weren't likely to use that ointment for anything good. I was weighing whether to burst in and take it when a voice cut in.
"Found it."
One of them pulled a plastic container out of a trash bin, so caked in ground-in grime that you wouldn't want to touch it. The middle-aged man who seemed to be their leader wiped the dust away with his hand, and the image on the lid finally showed — a childish snake mascot in a very old-fashioned style.
"I'll confirm it."
As the man moved to open the lid, I drew up my aura and prepared to seize the Imoogi Ointment. Whichever organization they belonged to, nothing good would come of that thing falling into their hands. I meant to take it and hold onto it.
"What are you people doing in there?"
From the entrance of the old infirmary came a voice that had no business being heard here.
Why are you here?
Cheon Yu-rin had opened the door and come face to face with these suspicious people.
"You..."
"Yes, sir!"
The man who looked like their leader leapt for the window at the same moment the rest drew their weapons.
"Ha... damn it!"
Thud.
"Kh—!"
I caught the leader by the scruff as he tried to bolt with the Imoogi Ointment and hurled him back into the infirmary.
Ah, crap!
All I had to do was grab the runner and take the ointment. Instead I just threw him.
"Damn it!"
The water was already spilled. I went in through the window too.
"Keuk—!"
At the sight of their fallen leader, the suspicious men's eyes turned on me. Quietly walking away was no longer an option. What was I supposed to say? And what was I supposed to do here?
Ugh. What a headache.
My head was pounding. When the head doesn't work, use the body — with that thought, I crooked a finger and called them over.