Manager Han Seok-yul's jubilant voice continued.
-It's a jackpot, a jackpot! You know Woo Ha-na? We entrusted her to our Yu-jun, and I'm telling you, we hit the jackpot! After only three training sessions, she took off as if she'd grown wings!
Our Yu-jun.
In Manager Han's mind, Yu-jun had already become a Sky Guild trainer to be proud of.
Naturally.
He had trained Woo Ha-na until she could pull her weight. No, he had properly brought out her potential.
It was something the trainers who had passed through Sky Guild, and those who still worked there, had failed to do.
Yu-jun had managed it in just three days. Of course Han could not help being fond of him.
-I'll treat you to a big meal. See you soon!
As soon as the call ended, Min-seok blinked several times.
“……What on earth has he been doing? I've never heard Manager Han praise someone this much.”
It had not even been a week.
To receive such an evaluation in only three days.
Manager Han, in particular, was sparing with praise.
Even Min-seok had been praised only once while working with him.
“Is he really going to do something big?”
Min-seok had become certain when Yu-jun solved his knee problem in an instant.
Yu-jun might have failed as an Awakened, but the brilliant talent he had shown as a child remained.
“At this rate, he might become an S-grade trainer.”
Min-seok needed to see him again before that happened.
“He still needs to fix my knee!”
***
“Trainer Kang!”
Sky Guild's training room.
Woo Ha-na approached Kang Yu-jun with a broad smile.
“Thank you so much!”
“I heard about your debut.”
Yu-jun looked at her with satisfaction.
“I did exactly what you told me. And…… they say I came first!”
Woo Ha-na had ranked first by far among the Awakened called up to the team.
She had left even the runner-up far behind.
She had received an award for it, too.
“I won the Vanguard Ace Award.”
She held out the award to Yu-jun.
“It's all thanks to you, Trainer Kang. I want you to have it.”
“No. This belongs to you, Trainee Woo Ha-na.”
Yu-jun politely declined her gift.
“Thank you for following my instructions so well.”
He could not tell Woo Ha-na, but he had already been rewarded enough.
‘Thanks to her, I've earned plenty of points too.’
“The Team 3 leader said I should go straight to Team 1. He offered to write me a recommendation. I think I'll be joining Team 1 soon.”
Team 1 was the tower-climbing team.
Joining it meant being fully recognized as an Awakened in her own right, rather than a youth trainee.
“I did very little. I only drew out a bit of the potential you already had, Ms. Woo. It was yours all along.”
Yu-jun's modest words brought tears to Woo Ha-na's eyes.
“I…….”
Emotion welled up in her.
“If it weren't for you, Trainer Kang, I would have been expelled. Many trainers taught me, but I was too stupid. I couldn't understand them well. I was born with a good ability, but I couldn't make use of it…… I was only becoming a burden to the guild.”
She had a good ability and had been given good trainers, yet she had not produced results worthy of the support she received.
That was why she had worked hard.
“I tried hard, but it didn't go well. I really wanted to do better.”
Woo Ha-na struggled to hold back her rising emotions as she went on.
“I didn't know what to do, but you showed me how.”
Yu-jun's training had changed everything.
Meeting him and reaching this moment had been the most important turning point in her life.
Would she soar?
Or fall without ever spreading her wings?
Kang Yu-jun had enabled her to spread them. Today, she had spread them and flown, if only for a short time.
“You spread the wings I already had. You taught me how to fly.”
Woo Ha-na expressed her thanks with all the respect she could muster.
Drip. Drip.
The floor grew wet.
‘She probably doesn't want me to see her cry.’
Yu-jun did not try to raise her to her feet.
‘I felt the same way.’
In the end, Yu-jun had failed.
So he hoped others would not.
At the very least, he wanted the people he taught to succeed.
If only he could help one person.
‘Shouldn't someone pull people out of the pit they've fallen into?’
Looking at her, Yu-jun realized what path he wanted to follow.
‘How many Awakened despair in the shadow of those who shine so beautifully?’
He would become someone who reached out a hand to them.
He wanted to show the world that no Awakened was a failure.
“Ms. Woo.”
Yu-jun called to her gently.
“Lift your head.”
She had wiped away her tears, but could do nothing about her reddened nose and eyes.
Yu-jun looked straight at Woo Ha-na as she fought back her sobs.
“This is only the beginning. The most important moments start now. What I taught you is not absolute. I merely put something slightly out of place back into alignment. So be even more vigilant.”
Yu-jun spoke with a serious expression.
“But enjoy this moment. Let yourself be happy. And be sure to tell your parents.”
“Yes…… Yes!”
“You can always come back to me. I will work with you as much as you want.”
“I will!”
Woo Ha-na beamed through her tears.
She thanked him again and again before leaving.
Yu-jun watched her go with a contented smile.
Even by his own reckoning, he had just looked like the ideal trainer.
Watching her retreating figure, he clenched his fist.
“Woo Ha-na will succeed. Then she'll come back like the swallow that repaid a kindness.”
Yu-jun smiled.
A good image would bring good results.
Woo Ha-na would build his reputation, and he would turn another trainee into a second Woo Ha-na.
“A positive cycle. That's the way forward.”
***
The guild master's office at Sky Guild.
KNOCK, KNOCK—.
Yu-jun had knocked and entered.
“Yes, Guild Master. I heard you sent for me.”
“I received the report, Trainer Kang!”
The guild master wore an affectedly stern expression, but his eyes were smiling.
The corners of his mouth kept twitching, too. Merely seeing Yu-jun seemed to put him in a good mood.
“I hear Woo Ha-na's training went very well! She has improved even more since I saw her train! The Team 3 leader could not praise her enough. He was beside himself telling me about it! He can be a rough fellow, but I have never heard him praise anyone like that.”
He took an envelope from his coat and handed it to Yu-jun.
“A performance bonus. I look forward to working with you.”
Yu-jun glanced inside the envelope.
It appeared to hold roughly five million won.
That was a considerable performance bonus for a trainer who had joined the guild only three days earlier.
“Thank you.”
“You brought out Trainee Woo Ha-na's potential. Our trainers had tried everything just to get her to pull her weight, and none of them succeeded. We assigned so many trainers to her because her potential was tremendous. You have seen it yourself, have you not, Trainer Kang? Extraordinary talent.”
The guild master continued with a bitter expression.
“We spent a great deal of money on Woo Ha-na. We wanted to make something of her no matter what. Yet we could not.”
Guild Master Lee Hyeok-jun raised an eyebrow as he spoke.
Yu-jun understood that better than anyone. To the Promise Guild, which had been unable to abandon its sunk costs, he himself had been a hippo devouring money.
“You trained Woo Ha-na when no other trainer could. You accomplished that by yourself.”
The guild master then played a video for him.
It showed Woo Ha-na.
It was footage of the Tower of Clouds' fifth-floor raid.
Yu-jun knew the fifth floor well.
‘I trained there every day, after all.’
Because he had not awakened, Yu-jun had never been able to enter the tower.
He had only run simulations.
He had spent countless hours running through the tower's early floors on the Promise Guild's VR simulation machine, so the fifth floor was familiar to him.
As a joke, he could claim he had practiced there so often that he could clear it with his eyes closed.
‘Oh.’
Woo Ha-na moved exactly as Yu-jun had trained her to move.
Her mana circulation.
Her movements.
All of it followed what he had instilled through training.
‘Moving exactly as you trained is no easy thing.’
Old habits did not change easily after one or two sessions. Yet Woo Ha-na was executing perfectly what she had learned from his training.
“This was Woo Ha-na's first climb. To move like that on her first…….”
Everyone froze on their first climb.
Lee Hyeok-jun himself had. He had frozen before a monster clearly weaker than he was and embarrassed himself.
He had even forgotten movements ingrained in his body and performed terribly.
Woo Ha-na, however, was different.
She had faith in her ability.
And perhaps faith in her trainer as well. With that certainty, she had remained calm instead of freezing.
“That must mean her trainer taught her exceptionally well.”
“No. I only did what I was supposed to do.”
Lee Hyeok-jun could not help smiling at Kang Yu-jun's modesty.
A trainer this talented who was humble as well?
How could Lee not find him endearing?
He was skilled and had achieved a major result. Lee would have understood if Yu-jun had acted a little arrogantly. In fact, he almost wished he had.
Then Lee might have been able to secure him properly.
But when he saw Yu-jun's clear eyes, the guild master rubbed his forehead.
“So, about that…….”
After clearing his throat a couple of times, he offered Yu-jun a document.
“I would like to renew your contract. I want to revise the contract we signed a few days ago with substantially better terms. I would also like you to take charge of our youth trainees. What do you say?”
Yu-jun shook his head.
He had expected this response.
He had no particular reason or need to belong to a guild.
“I am sorry. For now, I would like to work through the contract we have and decide afterward. Thank you very much for the offer!”
It was too soon to discuss renewing his contract, but Yu-jun felt pleased.
Raising the subject already meant that the guild had clearly recognized his ability.
Even so, he had no intention of renewing with Sky Guild.
‘Staying in one place for too long isn't a good idea.’
An Awakened trainer employed by a guild.
That was not what Yu-jun wanted.
‘I've felt it before.’
Early in his years as the Promise Guild's Golden Youth, life had been very stable.
It had felt good to be sheltered from every worry and problem beneath the umbrella of a huge guild.
But now he could not settle for that.
‘I have to aim much higher.’
Sky Guild was not a bad place, but neither was it somewhere he could stay, satisfied with what he had.
‘I'll achieve results quickly, then move on to the next stage.’
Once he had more accomplishments, he could receive any number of better offers.
But he did not intend to join another guild, either.
Yu-jun thought that working as a freelancer, as he did now, suited him perfectly.
‘My Awakened Training System can only grow if I teach a great many Awakened.’
If he joined one guild, he could not train Awakened from another.
That was a matter of professional ethics among Awakened trainers and guilds.
‘But freelancers are different.’
As a freelance trainer, he could sign short-term contracts and freely teach a great many Awakened.
That would feed directly into his own growth and expand his influence.
The Awakened he taught would go on to become central members of their respective guilds.
“Guild Master, there is something I would like to ask about guild member Kim Gyo-jun.”
With the contract matter settled, Yu-jun turned immediately to Kim Gyo-jun.
“Kim Gyo-jun?”
“Yes. Do you have any information about him?”
Kim Gyo-jun, an Awakened of the Weapon Enhancement type.
He was the young trainee Yu-jun had trained just yesterday.
‘He's the perfect trainee to take on after Woo Ha-na.’
Of Sky Guild's twenty trainees, Kim Gyo-jun ranked twentieth.
‘But he definitely has potential.’
His Mind grade was an impressive A.
Even if his other grades were the lowest, his mind remained strong. He should absorb whatever Yu-jun taught him.
‘That means he can endure any amount of hard training.’
And after enduring it?
‘There'll be nothing left but a vertical climb.’
The guild master sighed as he watched Kang Yu-jun move straight on to work.
It only made him want to keep Yu-jun close all the more.
Lee had thought a glittering rough gem had joined the guild, only to discover that it was already a finished jewel.
But no matter what he did, he would not be able to persuade Yu-jun. He would have to be grateful that the jewel would shine as a member of Sky Guild for a little while.
And above all, Woo Ha-na had finally blossomed, had she not?
The guild master smiled faintly. It seemed best to focus on the time they had together.
“Choosing Kim Gyo-jun, are you? That is a very difficult path. Are you sure?”
Lee Hyeok-jun knew all the youth trainees.
He could hardly fail to know Kim Gyo-jun in particular.
“All the better.”
At the light in Yu-jun's eyes, Lee immediately handed over the information on Kim Gyo-jun.
“Thank you for the performance bonus!”
The guild master had a feeling he would soon need to prepare another one.
***
“Oh, Woo Ha-na has moved up?”
A scout community's scouting board.
Several scouts took an interest in the information on Woo Ha-na posted officially on the notices board.
“Hmm. Doesn't she have a fatal weakness?”
Woo Ha-na had once caught the attention of many scouts.
But they had lost interest after discovering her major weakness.
It was not something she could overcome quickly.
“Huh? She cleared the Tower of Clouds' fifth floor alone?”
“How?”
“A-grade? No, did she overcome that weakness completely?”
Some scouts, however, had changed their evaluations of Woo Ha-na from D to A.
They gave her a strong assessment that she would certainly become A-grade in time.
Other scouts questioned the basis for that evaluation.
“What happened?”
A little later, they obtained footage of her fifth-floor raid.
“Good God.”
“Impossible. Her movement is completely different from before.”
“She is on another level from the Awakened who went in with her.”
This was no longer the Woo Ha-na they had once dismissed because of her weakness.
“That changes things.”
The scouts' attention converged on her.
“We need a closer look at this.”
“But…… what on earth did she do to change overnight?”
The scouts gathered more information and soon found the reason.
“A new trainer……?”
“Huh?”
“Uh……?”
The name was familiar.
“What is he doing here?”
Kang Yu-jun, the fallen elite prospect.
He had become an Awakened trainer and was training Woo Ha-na.
“That Kang Yu-jun trained Woo Ha-na?”