You All Stake Something Too
Lee Se-ah’s eyes went round as saucers.
“Wait—that!”
The Comprehensive Treatise on the Heavenly Meridians.
She had been right there helping Kang Hyun write the thing; there was no way she wouldn’t recognize it.
That’s when I learned, she thought.
Black’s calligraphy wasn’t the only thing that was monstrous—his drawing skill was on another level entirely. Watching him sketch out intricate meridian charts and organ diagrams without a single hesitation had nearly made her jaw drop. Even if you gathered every eccentric genius in the world, that kind of talent would still stand alone.
And yet—
There’s another freak like that sitting right over there.
She had memorized that entire thick tome? In a single week?
“Did you really memorize all of it?” Kang Hyun asked.
“Yes. You’re free to check.”
“I’m not asking about rote memorization. I’m asking whether you understood the principles inside it.”
“If I were just going to memorize without understanding, it would be faster to scan it with a phone and search. Memorizing bare text is meaningless.”
“Is that so?”
The corner of Kang Hyun’s mouth curled upward.
“Then let me ask you one thing. If excessive yang energy boils the pericardium, and that heat climbs the Governing Vessel until it’s about to burst the cerebral vessels—what do you do?”
Lee Se-ah blinked blankly.
What the hell is he even talking about?
Baek Yu-yeon answered without the slightest pause.
“The usual approach would be to needle the Dazhui point to vent the heat. But trying to cool rampaging yang energy all at once risks a violent clash of qi and blood that could rupture the heart meridians.”
“Then?”
“Open the Shaochong and Shenmai points simultaneously to create a detour that gradually expels the yang energy from the body, while injecting yin energy into the Ququan point to neutralize the boiling heat of the pericardium.”
“Correct.”
Kang Hyun nodded, clearly satisfied.
If she had only memorized the printed words, she would have said to prick Dazhui. But she had grasped the underlying principles so completely that she had arrived at a superior prescription on her own.
Perfect recall plus genuine insight. She was the real deal.
“Ugh, this is giving me an inferiority complex,” Lee Se-ah muttered, clutching her head. “I graduated top of my class as an agent, and yet the world is just full of monsters…”
Kang Hyun ignored her completely and turned to Baek Yu-yeon.
“You pass. Go back to the dorm and get some proper sleep tonight. Starting tomorrow, report to this office.”
He pulled one of the secret manuals from the shelf behind him and set it on the table with a soft thud.
“You’ve finished the Treatise, so return it. Your next lesson is this. When it comes to acupuncture, nothing else comes close.”
It was the needle art of the Divine Physician who, in the old Murim, had been said to raise even the dead.
A spark of life flickered briefly in Baek Yu-yeon’s exhausted eyes. Curiosity had won out. The Treatise had already been shocking enough—what secrets did this one hold?
Honestly, she wanted to flip the cover open right that second. But her body simply refused to keep up with her mind.
I’m so sleepy I could die…!
She pinched her thigh hard to stay awake and bowed.
“Thank you, Professor! I’ll rest well and see you tomorrow!”
The door closed. Silence settled over the office.
“Chick.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Think we can get another desk in here?”
“A desk?”
Lee Se-ah’s gaze swept the professor’s office. It was a single-occupancy room; space was already tight.
“…If I don’t find one, you’re going to kick me out of my own seat, aren’t you?”
“You catch on quick.”
“I’ll get one. Top of the line.”
She nodded rapidly. When the man was casually tossing out secret manuals that could save Bureau agents’ lives, scoring a single desk was nothing. First she needed to report the Shadowless Art matter to the Director right away.
Deep into the night at the training grounds.
“Hah… hah…!”
Cha Yu-sik held a horse stance, breathing hard. His mind was still completely occupied by what had happened during the dawn training.
This is insane… completely insane.
A sheer cliff face with no trail whatsoever. He had scrambled up the rock like a madman, nearly tumbling off more times than he could count, yet he had still been the first to reach the summit in two hours.
The words the professor had spoken then still hit him like a physical blow.
The Emperor’s Divine Art?
Cha Yu-sik had stared blankly, so the professor explained: to properly master the Emperor’s Sword Form, one needed the supporting internal art called the Emperor’s Divine Art. Without it, the Emperor’s Sword Form was nothing more than a steamed bun without the filling.
At first he had been half-skeptical. But the moment he settled into a lotus position and circulated energy according to the formula Kang Hyun recited, goosebumps raced across his entire body.
This is it!
In the translated manual, certain sequences of the Emperor’s Sword Form had always felt like the energy pathways simply cut off. He had assumed that was just the nature of such an overbearing sword style. He had been wrong.
When he applied the formula the professor had given him, those broken sections linked together as smoothly as flowing water, as if the discontinuities had never existed.
A sudden chill of fear ran through him.
Just what is the professor’s true identity?
This was a secret manual his own S-rank hunter father treated as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and kept under the tightest secrecy. Yet Kang Hyun not only saw straight through it—he even seemed to know the matching internal art that completed the set.
And he said he’d give the other cadets comparable high-level arts as well, didn’t he?
Cha Yu-sik understood now. Even if every random professor here pooled their strength, they still wouldn’t be able to match Professor Kang Hyun alone.
He had no intention of spreading the word. Honey tasted best when only a few people got to suck it. If cadets started flooding in, the already limited class time would shrink even further—and the minutes the professor spent looking after him would dwindle.
Better not tell Father either, for now.
Whether his father already knew this divine art or not, his older brother definitely did not. And Cha Yu-sik wanted to become stronger than his brother.
Anyway—
The professor had spent the remaining hour teaching the formula and guiding his energy circulation, but the time had been far too short. Had he ever wanted a class to continue this desperately before?
The professor, however, had been merciless.
With those words he was already plummeting down the cliff face—ghost-like lightness skill that would make even spirits weep. Anyone who still doubted after seeing that had a brain that was purely decorative.
“Hah… hah…!”
Cha Yu-sik still refused to break the horse stance.
I need more stamina.
From now on he would climb that peak as fast as humanly possible so he could hear even one extra second of the professor’s formulas.
“Hyaaaah!”
He clenched his teeth and sank even lower into the stance.
“Head Professor! Have you heard the news?”
The middle-aged professor who had once slapped Seo Hae-in’s cheek was seething in front of Jin Myeong-hoon.
“What news, exactly?”
“The contract professor! AcaNet is going completely insane!”
AcaNet was still boiling over.
“We can’t just sit back and watch any longer. This isn’t some game with the cadets. How long are we supposed to leave that lunatic alone?”
“Hmm.”
Jin Myeong-hoon folded his arms. He found the whole affair thoroughly distasteful as well. This was the National Academy, not a playground for amusing the students.
Even the Dean won’t have a justification this time.
His gaze settled on the middle-aged professor’s right hand.
“Professor Kim.”
“Yes?”
“What happened to your wrist? Are you injured?”
“Ah, this…”
The man hastily tried to hide the white bandage.
“…I overdid it a little during personal training and cut myself.”
He was far too embarrassed to tell the truth. How could he admit that he had been so intimidated by a mere contract professor that he had nodded like a beggar? That was exactly why he was venting his rage in front of Jin Myeong-hoon now.
“Tsk. Be more careful. You’re an A-rank hunter, after all.”
“Haha, true. It’s embarrassing.”
“In any case, as you say, we cannot simply stand by.”
“Right?”
“First we settle this with the Dean. Professor Kim, gather the professors who share our view.”
“I’ll start contacting them immediately.”
Not long afterward, a full ten tenured professors had assembled in one place—nearly half the entire faculty of the Academy.
“You have all gathered because you are furious at Professor Kang Hyun’s outrageous behavior,” Jin Myeong-hoon said, sweeping his gaze across each face. “So I will ask you directly. Are you prepared, in the worst case, to refuse to teach in order to pressure the Dean?”
“A-a strike? You’re suggesting a strike?”
“Tenured professors of the National Academy walking out as a group? If this backfires we’ll take a serious hit…”
As the professors wavered, Jin Myeong-hoon clicked his tongue inwardly.
Idiots. Who said we would actually strike? It’s just pressure.
But the words that left his mouth were different.
“If we collectively refuse to teach, it will inevitably leak to the outside press. The National Assembly and public opinion will demand an investigation. The target will become Kang Hyun, who ran a scam against the cadets, and the Dean who shielded him will not escape responsibility either.”
“……!”
“I am asking whether you are prepared to go that far to drive out a drunken professor.”
A brief silence fell. Then, led by Professor Kim, the others began nodding one by one with grim resolve.
“Very well. I would rather risk my position than watch our authority as educators sink into the dirt because of that madman.”
“I’m with you!”
“Good. Then let’s go.”
They stormed into the Dean’s office with hard faces. Seo Il-hyun, who had been reviewing documents, shot to his feet in surprise.
“What is the meaning of this sudden visit?”
“Dean.”
Jin Myeong-hoon stepped forward as spokesman.
“I will be blunt. We can no longer tolerate Professor Kang Hyun’s antics. We have therefore resolved that if the Dean continues to protect and cover for him, we will refuse all regular classes starting tomorrow.”
“What do you think you’re doing? Tenured professors of the National Academy staging a collective strike?!”
A rough wave of pressure exploded from Seo Il-hyun’s body. The air in the office grew several times heavier, yet the professors clenched their teeth and endured.
“The ones who created this situation are Professor Kang Hyun and the Dean who indiscriminately shielded him.”
Seo Il-hyun found himself at a loss for words. His head throbbed.
I can’t exactly tell these thick-headed people about Kang Hyun’s true value.
Yet he also could not allow a strike to proceed. The nation’s premier hunter-training institution grinding to a halt would be a national scandal, and every arrow would fly straight at Kang Hyun. That was not a situation the Bureau wanted either.
“Enough for now. Let us at least summon the man himself.”
Seo Il-hyun called for Kang Hyun. Not long afterward—
“You called?”
He strolled in at a leisurely pace, whiskey bottle in hand.
“What’s all this? Why the big crowd?”
That utterly carefree attitude made every professor’s face twist in unison. The sheer arrogance of walking into the Dean’s office with a liquor bottle clinking!
“Professor Kang Hyun. Your talent for stirring up trouble at the Academy seems to have improved lately,” Jin Myeong-hoon snapped coldly.
“Trouble?”
“I heard you ran a low-grade scam against the cadets. Make the top five of the year using nothing but that neighborhood scrap technique, the Three Talents Sword Style, and you’ll receive a high-level martial art?”
Veins stood out on Jin Myeong-hoon’s neck.
“You wasted the cadets’ time with that absurd condition. Are you prepared to take responsibility for the results?”
“Responsibility? What responsibility?”
Kang Hyun tilted his head.
“I only set the conditions. They’re the ones who chose to follow them.”
“This is not a game of wordplay. Do you not understand that an educator’s words and actions are themselves a responsibility? If you led the cadets down the wrong path with empty conditions, you must pay the price.”
“That’s exactly what I’m asking. What do you propose that price should be?”
“If even one of those five fails to meet the standard, you take responsibility for deceiving the cadets and resign of your own accord. How does that sound?”
Jin Myeong-hoon twisted his lips. The moment Kang Hyun refused, he would be admitting with his own mouth that his teaching was nothing but a hollow scam.
Every eye locked onto Kang Hyun.
“Fine.”
“What?”
Jin Myeong-hoon’s brow furrowed. He was accepting it this easily?
“If those kids fall short of the standard, I’ll step down from the professorship.”
The corner of Kang Hyun’s mouth, which had been answering so languidly, lifted ever so slightly.
“But it’s a little unfair if only I’m putting something on the line, don’t you think?”
He slowly looked around at the gathered professors.
“You all stake something too. Then we have a deal.”