“What brings you here?”
“I have a connection with Guild Master Lee Hyeok-jun, so I visit fairly often. I happened to hear about you while I was here.”
“I see. It’s been a long time!”
“So it really was you. I thought it couldn’t be.”
“A few things happened. I’ve switched to being a trainer now.”
Yu-jun smiled and gestured.
“Let’s get some coffee.”
The complicated look on Im Seok-jae’s face.
And the enormous crack.
Yu-jun thought he knew why Seok-jae had approached him.
***
Yu-jun had known as soon as he saw him.
‘He’s grown up just as he was back when we were youth trainees.’
Im Seok-jae was a friend Yu-jun had made while he was a youth trainee at Promise Guild.
Seok-jae had been a Sky Guild youth trainee, and they had first met at a youth exchange.
‘I remember it clearly.’
Like Yu-jun, Im Seok-jae had been a highly regarded prospect at the time.
He was considered Sky Guild’s best youth trainee, and people said he was certain to reach A Grade once he joined the first team.
‘I was the first to give him advice.’
Everyone else praised Seok-jae, but Yu-jun had seen quite a few things he could improve, so he had offered advice from time to time.
‘I was always sticking my nose into other people’s business back then.’
Yu-jun smiled bitterly and examined Im Seok-jae’s body again.
‘He looks like an A Grade Awakened.’
A Grade was so high that Sky Guild had only five Awakened at that level.
The government issued Free Pass Cards to let Awakened climb the Tower freely, and reaching A Grade was the requirement for receiving one.
‘To have reached such a high level with his body in this state......’
That was quite surprising.
Seok-jae had certainly grown stronger, but his body did not look to be in good condition now.
No, it looked terrible.
‘He’s only pretending to be fine.’
The countless cracks visible across his body proved it.
They were darker than other people’s, to the point that he looked as though his whole body had been split apart.
“Have you been well?”
“I’ve been well enough. What about you?”
“You know my story without me telling you, don’t you?”
Seok-jae looked a little uncomfortable at Yu-jun’s words.
“Don’t worry. I’ve made a proper change now, and I’ve found my resolve again. So what brought you here?”
“Well......”
Im Seok-jae explained his situation.
“So I’m with Lightning Guild now.”
“Lightning Guild? Weren’t you a Sky Guild youth trainee?”
“I transferred for certain reasons.”
Lightning Guild was quite unusual.
Most top guilds tried to recruit large numbers of members, but Lightning Guild operated with a strictly small, elite roster.
“They don’t recruit anyone below a midlevel Awakened. If you joined them as an A Grade Awakened......”
It meant Seok-jae had abundant potential to reach the upper ranks of A Grade.
“That’s true, but...... Why did you ask whether something was wrong with my heart earlier?”
Seok-jae could not stop thinking about those words.
‘Because the crack there looks severe.’
Yu-jun frowned slightly and focused on the area around Seok-jae’s heart.
Beginning with the large crack over his heart, fractures ran across his entire body as though it had been broken into pieces.
“It looks bad.”
Yu-jun kept his answer simple.
“......”
Thinking Yu-jun had discerned something about him, Im Seok-jae let out a deep sigh and spoke.
“I saw you training that first-team Awakened just now. It was incredible. I never expected you to train him in ten minutes. And, I don’t know if you remember, but I once broke through a wall thanks to your advice.”
“Of course I remember.”
The memory was vivid for Yu-jun too.
It had been the first time his advice had changed someone so dramatically.
“The truth is, I’ve hit a wall again. I joined Lightning Guild, but I’ve reached my limit.”
Im Seok-jae looked deeply frustrated.
“And you’re right about my heart. It isn’t in good condition. More precisely, my mana isn’t circulating properly. So......”
After hesitating, he forced himself to continue.
“Could you train me?”
“You want personal training?”
“Yes. I heard you’re a freelance trainer now. You aren’t under an exclusive contract, are you?”
Even setting their personal connection aside, training an A Grade Awakened privately was an attractive prospect.
‘It’ll add to my experience. And I can develop the Awakened Training System.’
The job might also give him a connection with Lightning Guild, which ranked far higher than Sky Guild.
But there was a reason more important than either of those.
‘I want to find out.’
Training Kim O-jung had been similar to his earlier training sessions.
That alone could not give him an objective measure of his present ability.
‘But an A Grade Awakened is different.’
Would his training work on someone at that level too?
‘I can find out what I’m lacking and how much.’
When Yu-jun fell silent for a moment, Im Seok-jae spoke first.
“Don’t worry about the money. I’ll give you the best terms I can.”
Seok-jae was that desperate.
Twenty million won a month.
That was not the kind of money one paid a new trainer.
Yu-jun immediately nodded at the extraordinary offer.
“All right. Let’s draw up a contract.”
***
“Ha, this is absurd. Kang Yu-jun? A new trainer? You think that rookie can fix what I couldn’t? You’re going to listen to someone who couldn’t even Awaken, ran away, and became a trainer? Tch!”
After returning to Lightning Guild’s office, Im Seok-jae immediately summoned his trainer and told him he would be working with a new one.
The reaction was, predictably, fierce.
Lee Dong-jae, the personal trainer Lightning Guild had assigned to him, grew red in the face with anger.
It was only natural.
“I’ll lodge a formal complaint with the higher-ups!”
“I’m sorry.”
Im Seok-jae bowed his head.
He understood Lee Dong-jae’s anger and his doubts.
Kang Yu-jun’s advice, given with those sharp eyes, had been a very long time ago. A great deal had happened since then, and Yu-jun had failed to Awaken.
Then he had switched to training.
“Ha...... Seriously, why are you doing this?”
Lee Dong-jae asked.
“I saw a flash of brilliance.”
But Im Seok-jae trusted his instincts.
That flash he had seen at the training ground belonged to the Kang Yu-jun of the past.
He still remembered it vividly: the flash he had seen when Yu-jun turned his life around.
It overlapped with his childhood memory. How could he do anything but trust it?
Now he stood at a crossroads, every moment like walking along the edge of a sharp blade.
One misstep, and he might never climb back to where he was.
Would he finish at A Grade?
Or would he rise beyond A Grade?
For such a consequential choice, he needed training unlike anything he had experienced before.
“Do not regret this!”
Lee Dong-jae left the room with a curt remark.
Im Seok-jae headed to Lightning Guild’s training ground.
“You’re here?”
Kang Yu-jun was waiting for him.
“Lightning Guild seems to expect a lot from you.”
“They’ve invested a lot in me.”
“Is that so?”
First, Yu-jun used Awakened Scan on Im Seok-jae.
-[Im Seok-jae] Overall Grade: ?
-Body: [A]
-Mind: [A]
-Attributes: [Strength ?/?] [Stamina ?/?] [Agility ?/?]
-Awakened Ability: Super Strength
-Potential: ?
-Special Notes: ?
This time, however, Awakened Scan left too much hidden.
‘This won’t be easy. Maybe because he’s an A Grade Awakened, Awakened Scan isn’t working very well.’
But Yu-jun had expected as much.
‘For now, I’ll train him based on what I can see and what I know.’
He immediately handed Seok-jae a VR device.
“Let’s do it as if this were a real fight.”
‘His approach was wrong in several ways back then too.’
Yu-jun checked the information on Im Seok-jae on his smart pad.
‘He’s developed exactly as I advised him to when we were young. But......’
That was the advice Yu-jun had given him then.
He had told Seok-jae he was too fixated on the word “strength.”
‘I told him to control his strength instead of using all of it.’
After that advice, Im Seok-jae had grown quickly. Of course, his success had also given him the freedom to transfer to another guild.
The situation now was similar in character.
‘This time he’s too fixated on controlling his strength.’
It was the same pattern.
‘Just like Mr. Kim O-jung.’
His situation was quite similar to Kim O-jung’s, who could no longer use his full strength because of an injury.
Perhaps the advice Yu-jun had given him had left him trapped in this approach.
In that case, fine.
‘Let’s take it all apart first. I’ll give him proper after-sales service.’
“Seok-jae, stop controlling your strength for now.”
“Stop controlling it?”
“Yes. You’ve spent all this time concentrating on controlling your strength. Try going all out, just once.”
Yu-jun gestured for him to try.
Monsters crowded the space ahead.
If Seok-jae took just a few steps forward, they would attack him in earnest, as they had in Sky Guild’s internal evaluation.
“I can’t. I’ve tried over and over.”
Seok-jae struggled with the request.
He could not stop controlling his strength.
Put simply, he could not let go of everything and deliver a decisive blow.
He had tried again and again. No, hundreds and thousands of times.
Even with numerous Lightning Guild trainers giving him personal training, the problem had not been corrected.
“I even tried hypnotherapy.”
“Seok-jae.”
Yu-jun gave him a pat on the back.
“It doesn’t matter if you can’t do it. Try.”
Seok-jae sighed.
Yes. Had he not decided to trust Yu-jun?
“All right.”
Im Seok-jae stepped forward.
SWISH-.
Super Strength.
His mighty power came into play.
“SKREE—!”
The monsters before him were monstrous birds that appeared from the twenty-fifth floor onward. These birds did not fly; they moved across the ground.
They had sharp claws and beaks, and their eyes fired Petrification attacks.
The monsters descended on Im Seok-jae in an instant.
He planted his foot hard and charged forward.
In the Tower, he always stood in the center.
While the tanks in the vanguard withstood the monsters’ attacks, his role was to deliver a powerful blow.
In short, he was a melee damage dealer.
But Im Seok-jae had been unable to fulfill that role properly.
On the lower floors, he had been fine.
“Hup!”
But as the floors rose higher......
WHOOSH—!
“Damn it.”
His fists became less effective.
The fine control of his strength, which he had always considered his greatest advantage, was the problem.
On higher floors, one devastating blow mattered more than controlling his strength.
The tanks could only hold the front line for so long. The monsters had to fall before they did.
But Seok-jae’s restrained attacks could not deal meaningful damage to monsters on the higher floors.
It was the same now.
Even after being told to use his full strength, he could not......
WHOOSH—!
That was when Kang Yu-jun moved.
“Relax, and let your full strength flow out naturally, like water.”
-Word Magic Correction activated!
As Word Magic Correction took effect, Kang Yu-jun lightly tapped Im Seok-jae’s shoulder with his staff.
Seok-jae’s body tilted forward.
But the correction did not take hold properly.
‘As I thought, first-team Awakened aren’t easy to train.’
A sculpture carved and polished over more than a decade.
Yu-jun had to mold a sculpture with its own degree of completion all over again with his own hands.
For that, he needed a method different from the one he had used with youth trainees.
‘So I need to look more closely.’
And correct him more forcefully.
Yu-jun opened his eyes wide.
He stared at Im Seok-jae as though trying to see deeper into him.
-Awakened Scan improved!
-You can see more!
-Proficiency increased!
Yu-jun’s mind began racing.
-Awakened Analysis improved!
After scanning and analyzing Im Seok-jae, Yu-jun touched his shoulder.
A crack he had not been able to see before ran across it.
‘A red crack was hidden there. I need to get rid of it.’
The red crack was blocking the flow of blood toward his heart.
‘It’s similar to Woo Ha-na.’
Her mana pathway to the heart had been in poor condition too.
‘Mana isn’t flowing. Fixing that will help. But there’s another problem.’
Unlike Woo Ha-na, Im Seok-jae had an additional problem.
“Go limp like a corpse. Imagine you have no joints, and don’t resist my force. You know I’m a non-Awakened, right? If you keep tensing up, you’ll send me flying.”
-Word Magic Correction strengthened!
JAB-. JAB-.
Yu-jun jabbed precisely five spots at once.
Im Seok-jae’s posture changed even more dramatically.
And then......
SWISH—!
An immense wave of mana spread from his shoulder.
His Super Strength, blocked for so long, burst forth.
CRASH—!
Incredible power.
Power truly worthy of the name Super Strength.
“Nnnngh!”
Im Seok-jae groaned as he poured out his full strength for the first time in a long while.
But then his eyes widened and he looked at Yu-jun.
Yu-jun was grinning.
“How’s that for a correction?”