The Demon of the In-Seoul Class
The conference room of the In-Seoul class at the retake academy. Several staff members sat in chairs, observing the movements of the instructor wearing a crop top. She swung her arms, stomped her feet loudly, exhaled deeply, then moved her body again. Already two hours in, the motions were pushing her body far beyond normal limits, and sweat poured from the instructor like rain.
One staff member raised a hand. "Stop."
"...Yes." The instructor collapsed onto the spot.
"Any changes in your body?"
The instructor shook her head. "The more I repeat it, the worse the full-body pain and fatigue become. My stamina is just being drained further. This can't be called training."
The staff members murmured among themselves after hearing her words.
"But the person in question supposedly trained through this method. From morning until lunch, no less. Doesn't that mean you simply failed to master the technique properly?"
The instructor gritted her teeth. They order me to steal a student's technique on a whim, and now they're blaming me for it.
She forced herself to swallow her anger. These staff members still had money she could squeeze out of them. She couldn't afford to treat them carelessly.
"I can perfectly replicate any movement I've seen once. You know that. If there's any meaning to those motions, then what the new student did wasn't simple physical training—it falls under the category of magic."
"So stealing it is difficult?"
"Yes. Magic isn't just moving the body. It draws out the mana and mental imagery of the entire system. Without learning directly from the practitioner, it's impossible to master. Occasionally, those with godlike talent can grasp an opponent's mental imagery and mana flow just from fingertip movements, but that's the stuff of legends."
The staff fell silent for a moment. A new student with the lowest specs in the In-Seoul class, yet producing bottom-tier grades among the top universities. They had recruited the instructor to uncover the secret of her technique, but all they had were worthless guesses.
Then a staff member in the corner spoke up. "Administration sent over the files. The woman named Lee Se-rin was apparently placed here by Taeguk Shingun."
"Taeguk Shingun!"
"Taeguk Shingun!"
"Taeguk Shingun!"
Everyone gasped. Taeguk Shingun. A transcendent who had reached the Deity Realm and now gazed toward the Heaven and Earth Realm. The empress who controlled one corner of the Samjin Group.
Shit. Should I run over and grovel right now?
What do we do? Should I go offer money immediately?
If she's connected to Shingun, we should be buying low right now...
Just as those thoughts swirled through the room, someone crushed their expectations.
"Something feels off."
All eyes turned to her. Every staff member gathered here was in charge of the In-Seoul class. However, they only handled the middle and upper ranks. Only one top-tier staff member provided extreme limb destruction techniques or intermediate elixirs to the highest-ranking students. Naturally, a hierarchy had formed, and when she spoke, the others could only watch in silence.
She raised one finger at a time.
"First, her attitude is far too low-class to be someone Taeguk Shingun is personally raising. The way she mingles with the lower-ranked kids and bows her head to others doesn't look like someone under proper management."
"Second, if she were someone Taeguk Shingun was personally raising, why are the other students in the class still able to harass her? She should've used Taeguk Shingun's name to dispose of those trash immediately. The fact that she hasn't means she doesn't have that kind of power."
"Third, Taeguk Shingun would never send someone she favors to Hyeseong Academy. Someone like that would be kept close and raised personally—that's her way."
Surprisingly, every single point was wrong. He was a man guaranteed the highest privileges in society. The reason the other students' harassment continued was simply because he wanted to hide his strength. And the reason Taeguk Shingun had sent him to the academy was because he himself had found it burdensome and refused.
The top staff member revealed the information she had uncovered.
"Lee Ah-rang has enrolled at Daejeon Hyeon-go and is preparing for university entrance exams. In other words, the new student Lee Se-rin is nothing more than a practice opponent Taeguk Shingun prepared for her granddaughter. She's receiving management, but not favor."
"Then what about the strength test?"
Crack! The top staff member snapped her fingers.
"It's a special constitution. A body capable of producing power beyond its muscle strength. She received a certain level of support after that was recognized. Then how do we explain her inability to pay the 108 Forms tuition and receive private lessons?"
"!"
"!"
"!"
That settled the matter. The new student was a disposable sandbag for a chaebol family's child. No matter how they treated her, there would be no repercussions. If she was ruining the academy's atmosphere without spending money and threatening their female students—thereby affecting their evaluations—then they would gather again and decide her fate.
Watching this, the instructor quietly slipped away.
She sighed inwardly. What idiots.
There's no way lowlifes like us could understand the deep intentions of Taeguk Shingun.
If we carelessly interfere with the plans laid by those above, our lives will clearly be in danger.
This instructor had once been caught up in the schemes of upper-realm transcendents before. Nearly ten thousand people had almost lost their lives in a dark cave. The only reason she survived was pure chance—a soldier from the opposing side had attacked the cave.
That incident was never reported anywhere. If they had wanted to silence it, I would've disappeared too.
The instructor recalled that time and sank back into her seat.
Their battles aren't fought with simple fists. They deploy people, use money, twist each other's fates, and in the end, the conflict transforms into a fight that changes the world itself.
"Hah, hah, hah......!"
Transcendents who can control the lives and fates of ten thousand people with a single gesture. Before them, we are nothing but grains of sand.
Behind their seemingly foolish actions always lurks a terrifying malice.
The instructor barely managed to stand, leaning against the wall.
I should run away now, while I still can. At least save my life.
That very day, the instructor submitted her resignation, collected her remaining pay, and left the academy. She never returned.
Lunchtime. Lee To-ha and the lower-ranked students dragged me toward the cafeteria. The food sold there was magic cuisine. However, according to my Hephaestus, both the quality and level were below average. Of course, the cost-performance ratio itself was superior to my own cooking.
They must've lowered the unit price through mass production.
"Here, unni. I've saved you a seat. Hurry and eat."
Amid the women who had cheerfully secured a spot while smiling, there was an empty space, and my tray was filled with noticeably higher-quality magic cuisine than theirs.
...I want to eat alone.
But lately, I've noticed something.
I feel resistant to rejecting someone's pure goodwill.
If I answered "I don't want to" here, they would naturally reply, "Huh? Did I do something wrong?" Then I'd have to either make up some excuse while pointing out their mistake, or say "I just don't like you." The result would be watching them say "Ah, unni, I'm sorry" with those pitiful expressions. That was painful to witness.
But... honestly, isn't this their fault?
If they reacted with a simple "Okay, got it" when I said no, I wouldn't be agonizing over this. But women always reacted in extremes. When I said something, Llywelyn immediately tried to commit suicide, and Lee Se-rin started banging her head and sobbing the moment I refused to live together. They acted as if refusing made me the bad person, which made me feel like the villain.
"Unni? What's wrong?"
"...No. Fine, I got it."
Forcing a smile, I sat in the seat they had just prepared.
"Hm?"
The chair still held the warmth of a living person. A chill ran down my spine.
"I was sitting there until just now to warm it up for you!"
My hand trembled as I gripped the spoon, shocked.
"Ah, unni?! Did I do something wrong?!"
The female student immediately prepared to slam her head against the floor.
"...No. I'm just grateful. You're really kind...."
"...You're even tearing up. It wasn't that big of a deal. Ehehehehe."
The lower-ranked female student grinned foolishly. I looked at the table. All the magic cuisine on my tray was F-rank. The taste was ordinary, but in exchange, it had effects that helped improve stamina, strength, and mana. It was a gesture of goodwill toward me.
"...Thank you. For helping me adjust."
Lee To-ha, who had been eating, chuckled. When I turned my gaze, I saw Baek Seol carrying her tray and sitting down. Surrounding her were the top-ranked female students, and their trays only contained food near D-rank.
"Are those guys rich?"
"Ah. Some of them are. Some take out loans, and some earn money doing hunter work. In our case, we do part-time jobs after academy hours."
Yeah, the costs really aren't cheap.
The one saving grace was that ability users earned quite a lot. Even Refined Realm users could easily surpass world records set by ordinary people. They could make over a million won a month just doing manual labor at construction sites.
...Still, charging thousands for three private lessons is ridiculous.
And the instructors' level isn't even that great. I could probably teach better myself.
I took out the business card the instructor had given me. Many staff names were listed, but after searching, I found that even the lectures and elixirs these staff could sell were quite mediocre.
For now, I should raise my level quickly and get into the top university class.
If I'm in the top ranks of the top university class, I should be able to obtain some decent hidden magic. Of course, the price will be expensive.
After lunch, I prepared for afternoon classes. In the afternoon, the magic-subject instructors who had been kicked out in the morning returned and finished the Korean language class. Then a new instructor came and demonstrated the 108 Forms. According to her, she had trained in nothing but the 108 Forms for about five years. She was slightly better than the previous instructor, but she still didn't seem to have reached Lv.10. Observing with the senses from training the Universal Destruction Fist-Kick Method, she was roughly between Lv.8 and 9.
Is raising the level of possessed skills really that difficult?
I continued training the Universal Destruction Fist-Kick Method.
Acquisition Complete
Universal Destruction Fist-Kick Method Lv.6
As the level rose, my understanding of the magic improved as well. Flaws in myself that others wouldn't realize even after ten or twenty years of training, and the true meaning of each movement, were gradually awakening within me. Moreover, as my stamina grew stronger, the daily training limit increased. Even when I pushed my body to its limits, I recovered quickly. My growth curve from here on would rise exponentially.
I trained until my body gave out and collapsed.
The rate of increase went up even more.
Thanks to reaching Lv.6, where previously increases of 0.3 were normal, stamina rose by 0.44 and strength by 0.5. Great.
However, the instructor's gaze wasn't kind.
"That's not the 108 Forms."
"Ah. Yes. This is my own method."
"So you're saying the training method you created is better than Hyeseong Academy's finest technique? Then does that mean all the women paying money to learn the 108 Forms are idiots?"
"......."
"If you're not going to train the 108 Forms from now on, don't come to class. I'll handle your attendance appropriately. If anyone questions your attendance, tell them I said it was fine."
Hyeseong Academy originally had a rule that expelled students who missed too many attendance days. But if the instructor was saying this much, then skipping shouldn't be a problem.
"...Understood."
I packed my bag and left the classroom.
...Well, I guess it's fine?
There was nothing to learn from that instructor anyway. What mattered was raising my rank during the ranking test and moving to a higher classroom. If I raised my rank, staff would approach me with better magic.
I returned home and changed in the parking lot. Wearing women's clothes all day had been stifling, but once I took them off and returned to my original appearance, I felt much more comfortable. I continued training, then sparred with Lee Se-rin and Han Ye-jin. The training effect was much better that way. I had originally planned to stay at the academy until night, but being kicked out midway actually increased my efficiency.
After about two hours of training, I lay on the floor when a message arrived.