Chapter 102: Training with Irene and the Spearmanship Manual
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 102: Training with Irene and the Spearmanship Manual
"I'll leave this poll up for two days. If one side heavily outweighs the other, I might end it early."
Looking at the chat, they were already debating among themselves about which option was better and which was unrealistic. The content was so provocative and explicit that people were occasionally getting banned by the AI.
"Uh... I'm turning off the chat again."
- Aww
This time, I really turned it off and looked at the next item on the agenda.
[Please choose an advertisement you like]
Advertisements.
I'd been getting a lot of offers for a while now, but I never had the time to deal with them one by one, so I just rejected them all.
But now, I needed a lot of money. I still hadn't gotten a proper set of gear, so I wasn't getting the full effect of the Illusionary Garment.
My assistant, Ji-hye, had selected a total of five ads. They were organized from one to five in order of usefulness.
'Wow, hiring just one person makes things so much easier.'
First up. A men's underwear ad.
"Huh...? Why would I be in a men's underwear ad...?"
I'm a woman, so shouldn't I be doing an ad for women's underwear? Then again, advertising women's underwear didn't seem to make much sense either...
"Ah, but most of my viewers are male, so maybe it's fine."
I opened the little memo Ji-hye had attached like a footnote.
[This is a money-printing machine of an ad! Just accept it!]
"Oh..."
Worried the viewers might see this, I checked the broadcast screen. It was just a close-up of my face and chest.
'Okay, good.'
I casually agreed and looked at the next ad.
Second. A full-body onahole ad.
"What...!"
An onahole company had contacted me, wanting to release a product modeled after the insides of my vagina, anus, and mouth.
"I mean..."
I was speechless, so I checked Ji-hye's memo first.
[You just need one body scan and that's it! They say you'll get 10% of the sales revenue for every unit sold! It's a total freebie!! This is another money-printing machine!!]
"Haaah... I-Is that so?"
They said they couldn't replicate my face.
[For the face, we can just release detachable photo merch! That's double the money printing!! Let's go!!]
"......"
Right, my assistant Ji-hye had it all planned out.
Getting a body scan once isn't hard, so I accepted.
The third ad was for an instant army stew pack for the Awakened.
'They even have instant army stew these days...'
It even came with white rice and instant noodles, so I accepted it as if I were possessed.
The fourth was an ad for a milking machine.
It was a full-body milker that supposedly extracts breast milk pleasantly and comfortably. It even had a sleep mode, making me suspect it was custom-made for me. Since I'd be using it anyway, I figured I might as well advertise it, so I accepted.
The fifth was just a normal beverage ad, but I had to sing the jingle and even dance, so I couldn't... refuse.
Two billion won.
It was too much money to turn down.
"What, I accepted all five...?"
My assistant is more competent than I thought, isn't she?
The rest were probably ads that I would have had to think hard about or would have rejected.
"That's it for the ads, but there's still one more thing to do?"
This time, it was appearance offers. Casting requests from broadcasting stations and YouTubers.
Only three had been selected and sent to me.
First. A massage shop.
"A m-massage?"
I thought it might be something lewd and checked Ji-hye's memo.
[It's run by an Awakened who has a professional license! They say you can even get extra stats from it, though it varies from person to person! Isn't that a steal? You just have to go get a massage and that's it!]
'It's really just a massage, right...?'
I searched for it on MyuTube and found it easily.
It was a massage called chiropractic, but it was actually a procedure closer to bone alignment than a typical massage.
With a satisfying crack!, they'd align the body, and the person receiving it would let out relieved moans while enjoying the comfortable massage.
'Ooh... I want to try that!'
The fact that they had a professional license and the relevant skills and traits made it seem trustworthy.
I scheduled it for after my visit to the World Awakener Association.
Second. A sparring request from the Awakened streamer, Kang Han-gil.
"Oh... this guy?"
He's a very famous Awakened streamer. In Korea, he's a male streamer with an average viewership similar to mine, and he's also one of the few solo streamers to have cleared the 50th floor. He's a great talker and always clears trials in the most bizarre ways, so he's discovered several hidden and true endings.
[He's not on good terms with the major guilds either. Apparently, he got beat up in the Neutral Zone for talking to himself T_T. If you two team up, it might be easier to stand against the big guilds, and he was also one of the people who supported us during the last protest.]
'Okay, I should repay the favor.'
This wasn't urgent, and for a spar, wouldn't it be more fun if I fought him when I'm a bit stronger?
I decided to accept for now and postpone the date for a few months.
Last, the third one. A drinking stream with Jay, who does provocative broadcasts.
"Hmm...?"
Aren't provocative broadcasts usually those shady streams that toe the line between a 15+ and 19+ rating?
'No, wait... it's pretty funny for me to be calling someone else's stream shady.'
The problem is that they often cause social issues, so public perception of them isn't great. Ji-hye would never recommend something like this, so I wondered why she even listed it as an option. Then I checked the appearance fee...
Five billion won!
'Crazy. They're burning five billion on a single collab with another woman...? With that money, they could just join a guild... Ah, I guess for them, it's more profitable to stream instead of spending that time attending an Awakener academy and training...'
It's too much... money... to refuse...
'No.'
I sent a reply to Ji-hye.
[Tell them I'll accept as long as we just drink and talk on stream, with no sexual contact.]
Five billion won is too much money to turn down just for the sake of a woman's pride, especially when it's for doing almost nothing. With that kind of money, I could easily buy a piece of gear that raises my agility by 40 or 50.
'Hoo... I guess that's most of the backed-up work done...'
"Alright everyone, we're going to do something else now."
The time I've been waiting for has finally come.
Irene's SSS-rank spearmanship manual. The Moon God Spear Record.
'A record of a spear that transcends the gods... I've been so curious about this.'
I summoned the first volume and began to read with a reverent posture.
- Ah fuck, I came back because she said she was doing something else lmaooo
- Well, it is something else lol
- Just shut up, you bitch
- Reading, seriously?;
- What's different from before? She went from muttering to herself while looking at the screen to shutting up and reading? lmaooooo
- These fuckers are always pissed if there's no sex lol
- fr lol
- When are you going to meet Irene?
- Let us know when you're going for some scissoring, bitch
"She told me to read the entire manual first, didn't she? I'll just read the first volume and then go to the training space. Just be a little patient!"
You have to prepare before a meeting.
I'm going to do the homework she gave me and face her with confidence.
First, volume one.
The First Form: Straight Heart One Spear (直心一槍).
"This... uses Divine Power?"
The introduction wasn't so much about spearmanship as it was a lengthy discourse on various energies like mana, ki, and Divine Power, and how they are all ultimately connected as one.
Most of it was beyond my understanding for now, but the important part was that this spearmanship didn't really care what kind of energy you used.
What this manual emphasized was the application of energy.
The key wasn't to use a fixed amount of Divine Power every time you used a skill, but to control and wield it yourself, like an Aura Blade or Sword Ki.
'Yeah, this makes sense.'
The enemies I met in the trials, every Tom, Dick, and Harry used aura, but in reality, not many Awakened can.
The reason is efficiency.
For example, if you look at the Aura Blade used by a mana user,
<Aura Blade Lv.1>
Consumes 1% of mana per second to increase attack power. The amplification of attack power is proportional to the mana consumed and the skill level.
It seems simple and good, but its biggest drawback is that you can't control the degree of attack power amplification.
Losing 1% of your total mana per second is basically on the level of an ultimate skill, but it's too ambiguous to be a true ultimate, and the consumption is too high to use continuously.
Moreover, if you don't consistently level it up, its power is pathetic compared to the mana it consumes.
So, to use it properly, you need various other support skills and equipment to make it viable. But even then, there isn't a huge difference between someone who got strong that way and someone who got strong by investing in other skills. Plus, it's affected by your own swordsmanship, so you also need a swordsmanship manual.
The most important thing is that you can't control it at will. We haven't trained since childhood to attain enlightenment like people from the middle ages, nor do we have bodies that can freely manipulate mana like they do, so control isn't easy.
There are some who can control it, but they're extremely rare. In Korea, only the recently returned Sword Saint and his direct disciples are capable of it.
'But this manual explains that control is the key. Does this mean Irene will create another meridian for me when I enter the training space?'
First, let's keep reading.
Now, it was starting to explain how to perform spearmanship with this energy.
First Form: Straight Heart One Spear (直心一槍)
The purest foundation of the spear.
A form that deals with the thrust.
'Thrust with a straight heart? The spear becomes one with the heart and thrusts straight? Dammit, I haven't studied Hanja since middle school.'
I put aside the useless task of interpreting Hanja and continued reading the manual.
The book described the technique in considerable detail.
Which meridians the energy should pass through and where it should be directed to produce explosive power, the flow and differences of each meridian.
How to actually operate the energy—perhaps because it was the first form, everything was explained in meticulous detail.
'Technical terms... these are explained too.'
I looked at the last page of the book and found a helpful glossary of terms and a list of all the meridians in the human body.
'Wow... if I were a normal Awakened, I wouldn't have understood a single thing...?'
If I hadn't tried to use skills without the System in my past life, or if the Abbot and the Heavenly Demon hadn't opened my meridians, I would have lost my mind trying to decipher this unfamiliar manual.
It was considerably difficult for an Awakened, who was used to using skills received from the System with a simple 'click', to understand.
'There's nothing automatic... I have to move the energy myself, and I have to swing my arm myself.'
Even if I didn't understand everything, most of the operating principles weren't completely beyond me.
'I think I roughly understand what it means to become one with the spear. I have to infuse my energy into the spear and move it.'
I have to operate the spear as if it were a giant meridian itself. Literally, I have to insert a virtual meridian into my spear.
'But how...? Do I really have to train like some medieval person or a murim warrior?'
When I tried to move the energy inside my body, it moved, of course. I could even release and detonate it.
But it's difficult to infuse Divine Power into an external object and make it flow as naturally as it does in my own body. The slowly released energy dissipates into the air after a short while.
'Still, I can only do this much because it's me... Normal Awakened can't even move their own energy.'
Focusing on my reading, I finished the entire volume in an hour.
It seemed difficult, but it was clear that if I could master it, I would be able to unleash overwhelming power even with the same stats as someone else.
How is the reward grade of a manual determined? It's related to its destructive power, of course, but the grade goes down if it lacks versatility, is difficult to use, or has many restrictions on learning it.
That's why Irene's physical training manual, which was plastered with restrictions, only ended up as an S-rank.
But this spearmanship manual had no 'point-and-click' skills and was so difficult that even I struggled to understand it, yet it was rated SSS-rank.
That means its destructive power is likely even greater than SSS-rank.
“Hoo… This should be enough preparation, right? The important thing seems to be practical application. I'll give it a try.”
[First Form: Straight Heart One Spear]
Would you like to train this form? If you accept, you will be automatically transported to a subspace.
“Alright, Irene. I'm coming.”
Feeling my body being sucked into the subspace, I entered Irene's training ground.
*
Similar to moving within the Tower, I felt my body float slightly before my vision returned.
A white space, similar to the one from the physical training manual, appeared. When I turned around, I saw Irene sitting on an ornate chair.
“Uh… Irene?”
'Something about her aura feels a little different...?'
"So you are this generation's successor."
Her tone was authoritative and cold.
The atmosphere was so frosty it was paralyzing, and I was too stunned to speak.
'I expected she wouldn't have her memories, but...'
"No answer. Did I get an imbecile for a successor this time..."
She sighed, rose from her chair, and slowly approached with her spear in hand.
"W-Wait a minute! Who are you?"
"A strange question. I shall help you come to your senses. Come at me."
'Seriously, why the "no questions, just fight" routine here...'
She aimed her spear forward at an angle and took a stance, so I mirrored her posture, but...
Swoosh—
"Huh...?"
Crack!
My neck was pierced.
*
"Huk!!"
For a moment, it felt like my consciousness had been severed and then returned.
I instinctively touched my neck and found it was perfectly intact.
'What? I'm sure...'
And then, Irene's cold voice sounded before me.
"Take your stance. I will start by fixing that sloppy mindset of yours."
"W-Wait..."
Stab!!
I met my death once more.