Growth

"There is only one thing you lot need to remember."

The Fist King raised an eyebrow without even uncrossing his legs.

"Land a single touch on my body. From this day forward, that is your goal."

"...Anywhere counts?"

"It does. Arm, leg, torso—so long as you make contact anywhere, you graduate."

The assignment looked surprisingly light, and Shin Min-woo tilted his head.

Really? That's all it takes?

He'd heard plenty about Kang Hyuk-jin to know better. An ultra among ultras, the First Fist of the Peninsula—a hunter with no weak corner anywhere on the board. A man hailed as the strongest, plain and simple.

And yet, grazing him didn't seem impossible.

"Kwahahat!"

As if he'd read Shin Min-woo's mind, the Fist King burst out laughing.

"Everyone reacts the same at first. Right up until their very first attempt, that is."

"......"

"Better to experience it for yourselves than to hear it from me."

He rose from his seat, massive frame unfolding with lazy slowness. Only a single man was standing up—and yet the illusion was of a mountain moving.

"Come at me."

"Then I'll take the lead—"

The moment Baek Seo-ha stepped forward, the Fist King raised a hand to stop her.

"There lies a misunderstanding. What I meant was for the two of you to come at me together."

"Excuse me?"

"Unleash combined attacks, scheme all you like—it matters not to me."

His two colossal fists collided, and the air itself shuddered.

"Come at me, both of you!"

A two-on-one duel. A match where a single graze meant victory.

This is...

I think we can do this.

Baek Seo-ha and Shin Min-woo traded furtive glances, quietly readying themselves for battle. And then—

They shot toward the Fist King in a blur.

Baek Seo-ha's blade. Shin Min-woo's fist. Both attacks converged on a single point at once.

"Tsk, tsk. How dreadfully monotonous."

The Fist King drove the sole of his foot into the ground.

In an instant, the great bulk of him simply vanished.

"Wha—?!"

"He disappeared!"

"Behind you, brats."

The deep voice had already crept in at their backs. The instant they recovered their wits and tried to react—

"Move that slow, and even a man who wants to hit you can't be bothered!"

He reached out, seized Shin Min-woo, and flung him.

"Waaahhhh!"

BOOM!

Shin Min-woo face-planted into the ground and went limp, out of the fight. Left alone, Baek Seo-ha swung her sword—

"Unstable. There's hesitation clinging to the very tip of your blade."

The form that traced through the air was far clumsier than her usual self.

"You have a habit of deciding every action in advance before you move."

"...!"

"A bad habit! Root it out!"

Having slipped past every strike, the Fist King rested his thumb atop his middle finger. The infamous forehead flick—the kind of thing you'd only see in children's squabbles.

But when the one performing it was the Fist King, that was another story entirely.

CRACK!

"Don't react to what you see! Is sight the only sense you possess?!"

His finger snapped against Baek Seo-ha's forehead, unleashing power that belonged nowhere near a childish prank.

"Kahk...!"

Baek Seo-ha's consciousness flickered out for three seconds before returning. When she came to, she was sprawled on the ground, her forehead throbbing as if seared by fire.

"Uuugh..."

"An absolute shambles."

The Fist King planted his hands on his hips, having neutralized them both in a single exchange.

"Fight like that, and not in a lifetime will you so much as graze one strand of my beard!"

Overwhelming. I figured it wouldn't be easy, but...

She hadn't imagined it would be this one-sided. He didn't seem to be committing even a tenth of his real strength, yet they'd been swatted aside like toys in a child's hands.

"No time to rest. Get ready and come at me again!"

Baek Seo-ha pressed her lips tight and rose to her feet. Shin Min-woo, face still planted in the dirt, pushed himself up and dusted himself off.

"B-but, Grandmaster, sir."

"What is it?"

"Hyung isn't training with us?"

"Hmm? Kwahahat! You mean that disciple of mine?"

Just as Shin Min-woo had said—Lee Tae-hyun was nowhere in sight. The one facing the Fist King was Baek Seo-ha and Shin Min-woo alone.

"That boy is on a different plane from the two of you. How could a tadpole ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and a frog go splashing about in the same pond?"

"Is he really that good?"

"If that boy were standing here right now..."

The Fist King crossed his arms and spoke, for once with quiet gravity.

"My teaching would have ended within half a day."

The back courtyard of the Fist Sect.

"Haaam."

While those two were getting enthusiastically pummeled, I sat on the wooden veranda, yawning my jaw off.

Your lesson begins this afternoon! First I must whip my disciples into proper shape!

Fair enough, if you thought about it. I'd been assigned ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a separate class from those two—in other words, I was skipping the basics entirely and heading straight into the advanced course.

The Fist King's lessons are ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠worth their weight in gold.

The Sword Sect may boast the largest number of disciples and produced the most hunters, but when you compared individual hunter quality, the Fist Sect overwhelmed them.

Because every single disciple of the Fist Sect is taught by the Fist King himself.

He passed down all his hard-won know-how and combat experience, firsthand. Properly absorbed, there was no better opportunity for explosive growth.

"Looks like I've got time to kill."

Which was why my schedule sat empty right now—but wasting this time was never in the plan.

I can grow stronger on my own, after all.

First order of business... this.

I pulled out a crimson orb packaged in a small box—the item I'd finally gotten my hands on through my deal with the Hunter Bureau.

"Kgh, gorgeous."

A storm of fire swirled and coiled within the marble. An S-rank item—same grade as the True Dragon Sword, no less.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Even so...

Within the Hunter Bureau it had been treated as a white elephant, a cursed curiosity no one could offload. Not a sword, not a shield, not even a wand—just a plain marble orb. And for all its S-rank pedigree, instead of a single benefit it carried nothing but a bizarre curse:

Scorching Sin: While carried, the holder's body catches fire.

Hold it, and your body slowly burns alive. A demented power. The Bureau had thrown every study imaginable at it, desperate to uncover a hidden element—and in the end, discovered nothing beyond the fact that it cooked whoever held it.

Still, an S-rank is an S-rank. They couldn't just toss it, could they.

Because if a hidden piece they'd failed to uncover ever surfaced later, it would broadcast the Bureau's incompetence to the world.

"And thanks to that, I got it for free."

Someday, when the secret sleeping inside the Crimson Flame Jade came to light, the Hunter Bureau would pound the earth in regret. Because within it slumbered something that had never once been discovered in the entire age of hunters.

"Nothing left to put off."

I stretched out my fingers and took the Crimson Flame Jade firmly into my hand.

Along with the warning, flames roared up across my body in an instant.

"Khhhgh!!"

For the record, this flame had no physical substance. To the eye it looked no different from real fire—but the only thing it burned was the one holding it. My clothes didn't char, and the fire never leapt anywhere else.

IT HURTS LIKE HELL!

Substance or not, to the one under the effect it felt exactly like the searing agony of real flame. Even plunging into ice-cold water wouldn't spare you a lick of the pain. I grit my teeth as hard as I could and refused to release the orb—

then brought it to my lips.

Gulp.

And washed it straight down my throat.

My body's core blazed hot, as if I'd swallowed a ball of fire.

What kind of lunatic move is this?

There was a plan to all of it. At its core, the Crimson Flame Jade was best understood as a kind of miracle elixir.

The jade's energy unraveled, and a monstrous wave of heat churned through my insides.

"Khhuk...!"

The pain and heat threatened to knock me flat if I lost focus for even a second—and yet, at the same time, I could feel it vividly reactivating my body.

Melting away impurities and purging them from the body.

The life force braided into the flames drummed against every inch of me, waking my senses one by one.

The stats were soaring. I endured the searing heat with everything I had, right up until the limit finally arrived.

In one bound, I'd reached the C-rank growth limit. Even granting that my earlier growth had served as fertilizer, it was a result worth marveling at.

But this isn't the end.

The Crimson Flame Jade's true value began, if anything, right now. Left as it was, the heat would keep scorching my body, and at some point the fire would turn and devour me instead.

Which is why I smother it with the opposite property.

The power I'd once gathered and sealed away, unable to fully absorb back then. Unlike the jade, an essence pure, elegant, and bone-cold.

I unsealed its energy and let it loose.

A cool, creeping chill surged up from the deepest part of my body, all at once—as if to drive out the uninvited guest.

The fire roared! The frost hissed! It was as if a war had broken out inside my body. Two ferocious energies bared their fangs, each trying to swallow the other whole.

If I just sit here, I'm the one who dies first.

The power an S-rank item carried was astronomically vast. Even the current me couldn't hope to withstand its full shock intact.

Before my regression, it was Ji Yeon-ha who uncovered the truth of this jade.

Her S-rank body could take the Crimson Flame Jade's power head-on. I, on the other hand, was merely C-rank despite my growth. A paper cup catching water from a washbasin doesn't just overflow—it tears apart.

That's why I secured it in advance.

The Celestial Dragon Elixir—same S-rank, opposite property. Originally I'd planned to bid for it at auction, but with me entering that gate in person, I'd ended up claiming two at once. Almost as if it were fate.

I guided the two energies—no longer to rend each other apart, but to interweave. They began to rotate in the shape of a perfect yin-yang spiral, fire and frost chasing each other in an endless circle.

This is the most harmonious state.

I held the balance, taming the energies as they grew wilder. And once they achieved flawless coexistence—

Compress!

The vast energy that had claimed my whole body began to shrink, smaller and smaller. Every time one of the two threatened to thrash loose, its opposite immediately steadied it.

Like this... keep going...!

The great storm gradually died down, condensing until it was no bigger than a palm-sized ball of flame. Redder than blood, hotter than molten steel. This was the distilled essence of the flame hidden within the Crimson Flame Jade.

...I did it.

"PAHAH!"

Only after confirming the long-awaited alert did my lungs finally open. The faint heat still clinging to my body vented out through my mouth.

"For a second there, I thought I was getting cooked through."

Without the Celestial Dragon Elixir to hold it down, that might genuinely have been the case.

"But either way—"

It was mine now.

A growth-type skill.

A fire that burned fiercer the more enemies it consumed. Without ever touching one of those Skill Grade Upgrade Tickets from the quest random boxes, the grade would rise on its own the moment its conditions were met.

Max rank was S, as I recall.

That was what Ji Yeon-ha, the Flame Soul's eventual owner, had told me.

"Wrong."

I knew better. There was a grade beyond S.

"This life, I'm taking Flame Soul to EX-rank."

And it wasn't impossible. This world had more than enough things that deserved to burn.