Finally Found One
Finally found one.
Fourth floor of the National Academy Library.
At the far end of the corridor hung a door plaque engraved with these words.
Martial Research Society
A gathering of students who researched martial arts.
It sounded respectable enough. As if there was a single student at the National Academy who wasn't researching martial arts. Of course, the reality was something else entirely.
It was a social club that carefully selected only students with the best backgrounds—heirs of major guilds, children of political and financial elites, third-generation chaebols.
“Things have been noisy lately.”
“Because of that contract professor, right?”
“Don't even start. It's practically an urban legend at this point. There's even a rumor he's not some parachute hire but a murder weapon the Bureau is raising.”
“Even tabloid trash has to know its limits. A murder weapon that drinks?”
“Still, if just one burst of killing intent was enough to send most of the kids to the infirmary, there's got to be something to it, right?”
As the various reactions flew back and forth, someone's gaze drifted toward the window.
“Yu-sik, what do you think?”
At the curious female student's question, every eye in the room turned as one.
“You took that class too because of the last suspension, right? Are the rumors true?”
“…….”
Cha Yu-sik did not answer. He simply sat with his legs crossed, staring out the window.
“Ahem. Looks like Yu-sik's tired today.”
She retreated awkwardly.
They had no idea. Under the table, the muscles of Cha Yu-sik's crossed thighs were still twitching and trembling like mad even now.
Is this even right?
Cha Yu-sik chewed his lip.
From the very first class on Sunday, the contract professor had made them hold nothing but the horse-riding stance for three hours every single day. That was truly all he made them do. He taught them not a single other thing.
Maybe he just doesn't have the ability to teach and is killing time by making us stand as punishment?
Even so, he couldn't quit. The others were enduring to the end. If he gave up and that professor actually handed out some secret manual the moment he left, the sheer resentment might drive him insane.
It really does feel like I'm being scammed.
What irritated him even more was that he couldn't completely write it off as a scam either.
“Yu-sik? Are you really not feeling well? Your face is pale.”
The voice of the student across from him finally pulled Cha Yu-sik back to reality. The corner of his mouth twisted.
“If you're so curious, go ahead and register for it next semester yourselves.”
“……What?”
“Assuming you've got the guts to cross the line that man drew, of course.”
Where did students crowd the most?
Grab anyone walking by and ask, and a hundred out of a hundred would point to the New Building. A massive, majestic structure that rose as if to flaunt the Academy's prestige.
Whoooosh!
A fountain stood in the center of the plaza in front of it, and countless people crossed paths without rest—students hurrying to major classes, groups of young high schoolers on field trips, ordinary tourists clustering in threes and fives to take photos.
Where are you?
Kang Hyun sat lazily on a bench in a corner of that plaza. His gaze looked idle, but in truth he was scanning the bone structure and constitutions of every student who passed.
Come on out. Anyone whose constitution matches the martial arts of the seven elders even a little will do.
Every day, once the dawn class ended, his real work began: wandering the Academy in search of vessels that could complete the Chilyojin.
Why isn't a single one showing up?
Suddenly the faces of the old men who had found him at thirteen—when he still possessed the Heavenly Ignorance Body—rose in his mind. Was that why? Was that why they had danced and laughed like madmen?
Sometimes he dreamed. He would open his eyes to find himself young again, and the deranged old men would beat him senseless. He would take the blows, break, cough blood, and wake just as he felt his breath about to stop forever.
Damn old geezers.
Even dead, they still tormented him?
Gulp.
He was just about to force down the nausea with a mouthful of whiskey from his tumbler when—
“Kang Hyun-niiiiim! Hah, hah!”
Someone came running from far off, gasping for breath. It was Lee Se-ah.
“Chick?”
“Why do you keep wandering around like this? Hah, hah.”
“I told you not to follow me.”
She wiped the sweat streaming down her face and collapsed onto the opposite bench.
“Following you around is my job.”
“I keep saying you can take a break from that job.”
“My direct superior is the Director, though?”
“Give me the Director's number.”
“Never mind.”
She backed down because she genuinely believed Kang Hyun would do it.
“Anyway, why are you roaming outside so much?”
“What if I told you? Would you solve it for me?”
“Of course I would! Just say the word. I may not look it, but I entered the Bureau at the top of my class. I'm on the special task force, so I've got information networks too. What do you need?”
“That so? Then find me some constitutions. Someone with the Cheonmaegan, or Guumjeolmaek, or Nine Yang Ruined Meridians, or Gwian. Ah, Heavenly Calamity Body or Geumgangche would be good too.”
“……Excuse me?”
Lee Se-ah's eyes went blank.
“What even are all those?”
“You said you had information networks.”
“Ah—I'll look into it.”
“Forget it.”
As if she would know. These were rare physiques that appeared maybe once in a thousand years even in the martial world that was obsessed with martial arts. He hadn't expected anything anyway.
Kang Hyun stared steadily at Lee Se-ah, whose breathing was gradually steadying.
Why does she work this hard?
He knew. When he had recently moved into the faculty residence, she had set up everything from the furniture to the liquor cabinet. On top of that she had moved into the residence right next door and still hadn't clocked out. Truly staggering patriotism.
There were people like that in Murim too.
Loyalty, mission, great cause—people who slapped grand labels on themselves and ground their own lives into dust.
“You can take it easy, kid.”
Kang Hyun put the tumbler to his lips and spoke lazily.
“No one will thank you for grinding your life away like that.”
That was the bitter truth of a man who had spent twenty years in Murim rolling like a beast under the banner of saving the world. Country, loyalty, whatever—if you couldn't even look after yourself, how were you supposed to do any real work?
“I don't care if no one else knows.”
“What?”
“I know, don't I? That I'm doing something incredibly important right now.”
“That so?”
A mission she had given herself…… He had seen plenty of that type too. Cool, but foolish.
“Do as you like. Once you've rolled around enough, you'll start to feel—”
Kang Hyun cut himself off mid-sentence. Strength suddenly entered his previously languid eyes.
What?
On the opposite side of the fountain, a female student was walking through the dense crowd. Glossy black bobbed hair. And in stark contrast, pale blue eyes.
Holy shit.
Kang Hyun's heart gave a heavy lurch.
Cheonmaegan!
Eyes that intuitively pierced through the flow of blood vessels and qi! Kang Hyun had eyes like that too, but his had been forcibly developed later in life by those lunatic old men pouring toxic herb juice into them. That was a congenital spiritual eye!
This is genuinely amazing.
A sharp thrill ran through him. A legendary rare physique that appeared maybe once in a thousand years even in Murim was casually walking right in front of him only a few days after he arrived at the Academy? Did that make any sense?
“You said you didn't want to clock out, right?”
“Pardon?”
Lee Se-ah blinked and asked back.
“That student.”
Kang Hyun's chin pointed past the fountain toward the short-haired girl.
“Look into her a bit.”
“Who?”
“The one over there with the black bob and blue eyes.”
“Ah, yes sir!”
Among the seven elders, the physician who had been in charge of the Wednesday Array, Mad Hand. Even he himself had constantly lamented that without the Cheonmaegan it was hard to fully draw out the power of the Wednesday Array. With that girl?
She might be able to wield the Wednesday Array even more perfectly than Mad Hand. Exactly the formation he needed most right now to wash away Asura's poison qi!
A deep smile settled on Kang Hyun's lips.
Not long after, Lee Se-ah returned after asking for the student's name.
“Baek Yu-yeon, nineteenth batch.”
“Details?”
“One moment.”
Tap, tap!
Lee Se-ah checked the records on her tablet and began the briefing.
“Wow, this student is a huge genius inside the Academy. Top-tier grades, and more than anything she has perfect memory—she never forgets anything she's seen even once. So the students have a nickname for her.”
“Nickname?”
“The Walking Encyclopedia. They say she memorizes any complicated formation or mind-method formula just by glancing at it once. Even the professors are left speechless.”
Kang Hyun silently swirled his tumbler.
Unforgetting Talent, huh.
The talent of never forgetting what one has seen. In truth, that was an ability anyone who possessed the Cheonmaegan inevitably acquired. The Cheonmaegan saw through essence rather than appearance. That was why something as superficial as complicated formulas or the deployment of formations could never be forgotten even if one tried.
“Major?”
“Martial arts medicine.”
Nice!
Kang Hyun cheered inwardly. It matched Mad Hand Grandpa's specialty perfectly.
“As a special note, she's Professor Hwang Ye-rim's favorite disciple. Professor Hwang Ye-rim is the top expert in martial arts medicine in the country.”
He understood the old men's feelings just a tiny bit. So this was what it felt like to discover a vessel. Of course, understanding them didn't mean he had the slightest intention of copying their methods.
Then what should I do?
That was something he would have to think about slowly from now on. A genius majoring in martial arts medicine would inevitably have unusual intellectual curiosity and thirst for that field. And in that field, Kang Hyun was confident he would not lose to anyone in the world.
The evening glow painted the Academy grounds red.
Kang Hyun sat on the roof of the New Building with a bottle of whiskey, leisurely looking down.
There she is.
The black-bobbed female student walking while hugging a pile of major textbooks as big as her own body. The prospective disciple who possessed the Cheonmaegan, Baek Yu-yeon. He had already marked her firmly in his mind, so other students didn't even register.
He had been following her back with interest for quite a while when—
Thud.
Someone blocked Baek Yu-yeon's path. A tall, sleek-looking male student.
Does she have a boyfriend?
Kang Hyun propped his chin and watched with interest. But the atmosphere was somehow off for the fresh current between a boy and a girl.
“Baek Yu-yeon.”
At the man's call, Baek Yu-yeon, who had been adjusting her books, flinched.
“M-Min-woo.”
“Have you thought about it?”
The man called Min-woo pulled a crisp paper document from his coat and thrust it in front of her eyes. Even from a distance it clearly took the form of a contract.
“It's an agreement that after graduation you'll work for ten years in our guild's affiliated medical unit.”
“…….”
“You just need to stamp your seal here.”
“Mmm.”
Baek Yu-yeon chewed her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. Watching the scene from the roof, Kang Hyun's brow twitched.
What the hell is this situation?
A ten-year exclusive contract? Who decided that?
Just as Kang Hyun's previously languid gaze was about to turn cold—
“What the hell are you two doing here?”
A rough, delinquent voice cut between the two of them.
Huh?
Kang Hyun's eyes went round.
Kwak Do-jin?
Why was that guy here again? This situation was getting interesting. He had been drinking alone and feeling the lack of a proper side dish. Looks like an excellent drinking spectacle had just appeared.