Full-Scale Training (2)
One week. Then two.
Time was flying by.
Still, everyone's keeping up nicely.
Standing on the rooftop of the training grounds, Baek Jinwoo gazed down at it all with a look of deep satisfaction.
"Uzazaza!"
"Run! Just a little more, push!"
"Hah... hah!"
Honestly, they had every excuse to give up, yet not a single one of them had fallen behind.
"Keep up, now. Just a little more and you'll reach the benchmark!"
"Boss! You're doing great!"
Ki Jaehyeok and Kang Jiho. Those two, without a doubt, were killing it.
Maybe it was the sense of belonging that came with the SKY name. They didn't just finish their own share and call it a day — they pulled along everyone who was lagging, advancing together as one.
Yeah. That much, they should be doing.
Baek Jinwoo couldn't drag the entire team forward on his own forever. He needed personal training to grow himself, and he had a whole roster of summons to look after. He couldn't afford to spend every session playing teacher.
"Hoo."
Tipping his head back, he let out a long, slow sigh.
Founding Yubaek. Founding SKY. Raising the national team. He was doing right by all of it... wasn't he?
The truth was, Baek Jinwoo had never been much of a patriot. What had the country ever done for him? He'd simply been born in South Korea, and his family happened to live there. All he wanted was for it to become a strong nation where people could live safe and happy.
At the very least, if I want to keep riding high and living well, they'd better go conquer that World League.
In the Cold War era, nuclear weapons had been the deterrent. But the board had been completely redrawn since. A top-ranked player standing firmly behind his country — that was a deterrent now. That was peace.
And for South Korea, that symbol of peace would be Baek Jinwoo.
For his family.
And for the people he loved.
Alright. Let's try that again.
Sitting down cross-legged on the rooftop, Baek Jinwoo let everything go.
Fsssshhh...!
Exhaling low and slow, his eyes drifted shut.
The Clear Sky Heart Technique.
The breathing art that drew the energy of the clear sky itself into one's dantian!
Hungyo had said so. That his natural martial gifts were second only to Aso's.
Granted, he'd also warned that with qi so sparse in this world, bringing a breathing art to full mastery here might prove difficult...
Then I'll just have to do it anyway.
Want to go further? Then you do what no one else can. That was the kind of thing Baek Jinwoo knew better than anyone.
A one-day miracle. The F2P Rank 1. The conquest of the Tower of Ordeal's hundredth floor. And on, and on — every time he stacked another feat onto the pile, users had marveled, rated him like some kind of monster, and hyped him to the moon.
Could the me of right now beat Rachel?
He honestly didn't know. Back in his Jinugod days, he'd have answered with one hundred percent certainty. Now? No telling.
If I had to clear the Tower of Ordeal's hundredth floor again... could I?
Frankly, he wasn't confident. He'd thrown himself at it countless times, and luck piled on top of luck was the only reason the hundredth floor had ever fallen.
But if he had to face that hundredth floor in reality? Just knowing he'd have a single Life Coin would come down on him like a ton of pressure.
More than anything—
No one knows how reality is going to unfold from here.
Just as no one could explain why Battle of Summoners had bled into reality, no one could say what ordeal might swallow this world next. A transcendent could appear tomorrow, declaring that unless the Tower of Ordeal's hundredth floor was cleared within some deadline, the world would end.
To shield his family from threats like that — threats no one could see coming — he had to keep getting stronger. Stronger than anyone else alive!
He had no intention of coasting just because Pokryongi had learned Predation. No intention of neglecting his breathing arts just because his summons were powerful.
The Clear Sky Heart Technique? He didn't know exactly what kind of art it was, but if he couldn't even master this much, what business did he have dreaming of being the world's strongest?
Hungyo had said so himself. That this was the heart technique best suited to him as he was now.
"Hooooooh..."
Baek Jinwoo's eyes settled into calm.
Up above that sky. Picturing a crisp, pastel-colored heaven, he began to breathe once more.
Slowly in, slowly out, tracing in order each of the minor meridians Hungyo had shown him.
Stray thoughts? He let them go, one by one.
He forgot gravity entirely and sent his consciousness soaring up into that sky.
"My Lord, breathing is meant to be natural."
Hungyo's teachings rose in his mind like a whisper. Right. Breathing was the process by which the body took in energy — qi. No living creature ever breathed by force. If you had to consciously mind your breathing just to do it well, then what you were doing was nothing but a counterfeit.
Like flowing water.
Let it enter and leave entirely of its own accord.
Huuuumph!
In.
Hooooooh.
Out.
Baek Jinwoo simply left his body to its own devices. Even as he sank deeper toward the subconscious, he kept faithfully applying the method Hungyo had drilled into him — because merely letting go of everything didn't make something the Clear Sky Heart Technique. His body responded on its own thanks to months of blood-and-sweat effort.
And then, at that very moment—
the right corner of Baek Jinwoo's mouth curled up, ever so slightly.
God, this feels incredible.
It was like drifting weightlessly through that boundless sky, swimming through open air. The sky really was cool and free up there — vast, warm, soft, and kind.
His subconscious flitted through that place, roaming at large like some carefree immortal sage.
How long had he drifted?
Ssssshh...
His consciousness came trickling slowly back.
No. Don't go.
Was this what it felt like to come off a drug? The blissful sensation faded away, lonely and cold, as though it had all been an illusion.
What was that?
Baek Jinwoo opened his eyes, struck by the sheer unfamiliarity of the feeling.
"Hooooooh."
The haze burned away, and his mind snapped into perfect clarity.
Is this it?
If he kept at it like this, would the Clear Sky Heart Technique's qi really start pooling in his dantian? He closed his eyes and probed around in there, poking at his dantian for any sign of something — anything — but he couldn't get a read. Had it accumulated or not? Hell, you couldn't check the balance on an empty account.
"...Hungyo."
At Baek Jinwoo's quiet murmur, only a moment passed before — swish! — Hungyo appeared.
"Yes, My Lord."
"Did it work? Could you check whether any qi has settled into my dantian?"
...
Hungyo examined him briefly, then shook his head.
"Not yet, My Lord."
"I see."
"Do not be impatient, My Lord. This is the first art you have ever trained in, is it not? The Clear Sky Heart Technique in particular is known to take far longer to master than other heart methods or breathing arts."
"Hoo."
Disappointing.
Well, fair enough. If it were easy, every other player out there would have mastered it ages ago.
Baek Jinwoo gave Hungyo a rough account of what he'd felt — how he'd briefly lost himself mid-breath, and how strange it had been. Far too vivid and too pleasant to have been a dream.
"Is that truly so?"
Hungyo's eyes went wide.
"Indeed. Such phenomena are known to occur as one trains in the Clear Sky Heart Technique. Ooh! As expected of you, My Lord — you are a monster of talent!"
"...And yet no qi has built up, you said."
"My Lord, the Clear Sky Heart Technique is an exceptionally pure and gentle art. It is precisely because it is so hard to learn, so slow to accumulate, that it will one day grant you tremendous power. Continue! Keep at it, I say!"
Yeah, yeah.
Keep talking like that and I'll start feeling strength I never had.
Baek Jinwoo grinned.
"You're busy, so get going. I'm going to see if I can find that feeling one more time."
With that, he closed his eyes again. Still — it felt like he'd finally gotten his hands on a thread to pull.
Another week later.
"Madam CEO!"
Baek Ajin pushed open the door to the CEO's office at the very top of headquarters and strode in.
Inside, Baek Jinwoo and Yoo Jia were enjoying a warm cup of coffee. Well — "enjoying coffee" was a polite fiction; this was report time for Yubaek. By now Jinwoo had grown close enough with Yoo Jia that the two of them would trade jokes between briefings, laughing away.
"Huh? Oh — you're here too, big bro?"
"What's up?"
"Perfect timing, actually. Glad you're here! You know those summons you listed for me back then? I got every single one!"
"...Seriously?"
Baek Jinwoo's eyes went round.
About three weeks ago, he'd drawn up a list of A-rank summons to reinforce the guild members. It read:
— Acquisition List —
Black Knight (A-Rank)
Phoenix (A-Rank)
Poison King (A-Rank)
Goblin Master (A-Rank)
Mad Demon (A-Rank)
Five of them, no less. He'd figured she'd spend a year or so keeping an eye on the market, and he'd told her to buy them no matter what they cost...
And she'd already secured every last one?
They hadn't been listed on a single market anywhere in the world!
"Wow. You're the real deal, Baek Ajin."
Who'd have thought? Maybe there really was a merchant's blood running in her veins. How could anyone be that good at both selling and buying?
"Got lucky. Turns out they were all sitting on the market in North Korea."
"N-North Korea?"
Yoo Jia's jaw dropped.
Even with the world turned on its head, relations between the two Koreas hadn't budged. As long as the Kim dynasty drew breath, reunification would stay a pipe dream.
"Most countries and guilds cling to their A-ranks however they can once they get their hands on one, you know?"
"North Korea doesn't?"
"Oh, they do. But things are tight over there these days. Play your cards right with the Chinese brokers, and you'll find plenty of officials dying to trade for dollars."
"Wow..."
Baek Jinwoo broke into applause.
My little sister. She went as far as Chinese brokers... all to get her hands on some summons.
"Well, me? I figured I can always summon you if things go sideways, so I moved fast and moved big!"
Baek Ajin winked and struck a triumphant pose, grinning ear to ear.
Fair. This time, she'd earned the right to strut.
Very, very well done.
"So you've already paid for them and brought them all in?"
"Yep."
Technically, the one trillion won each national team member received in support from their government had to be spent through headquarters, which meant wading through a mountain of red tape. Yubaek had no such need.
Good old Park Chang-seok. This is why connections matter.
He only had to file a rough request for the amount, and someone would cook it into a convenient budget line, push the paperwork through, and release the funds on the spot. Advance payment, no questions asked.
Baek Jinwoo took delivery of the summons immediately. Before handing them out, though, he planned to put every one of them through Hungyo's boot camp first.
One more week after that. Exactly one month to go until the World League.
"Huaah! Huaaaah!"
"We — we did it! We did iiiit!"
"BWAAHAHA! BWAAHAHAHAHA!"
Ahn Gijeong, Hwang Juwon, Kang Geonho, Song Yeonhee, Hwang Jiwoo — all five threw their arms around one another and roared in celebration. Hwang Jiwoo, in particular, was crying outright.
At last! Every single one of them had cleared the minimum fitness threshold Hungyo had set.
It had taken just one month, and in that month the fat on their bodies had been burned away to nothing.
Dieting? Who needed it. The training had been so savagely intense that the calories going into their mouths had simply stopped mattering.
Hamburgers, ramyeon, pizza and the like — they could stuff themselves with every instant food under the sun and it would all be incinerated in moments.
Wouldn't that wreck their bodies? Not a chance — the recovery-specialist summons dispatched to the team handled their care on every front.
"Boss, have you always been this handsome? That jawline of yours is seriously back."
"Worry about your own gut. And cut it out — since when does everyone in this room have abs?"
"Anyway, this means we can finally start learning properly, right? We've only got a month left before the World League."
"...True enough. Maybe we should just write off this league?"
"Exactly. If simply being in shape were enough to conquer it, they'd have recruited athletes instead of players, wouldn't they?"
The guild members were still bantering when—
Clap. Clap. Clap!
"Wonderful work, everyone."
Baek Jinwoo walked in, applauding.
And then—
WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUUUUMP! WHUMP!
One after another, he began summoning creatures none of them had ever seen before.
Every eye in the room went wide with curiosity.
Those...
What... what were all of those?