RIP—
The moment I tore the selection ticket, a new message appeared.
[Using Armament Selection Ticket.]
[Selecting recommended Armaments.]
As the space before me rippled, I instinctively clasped my hands together despite not being religious.
“An Armament with a Mana-increasing effect would be nice……”
I had not purified myself with a ritual bath, but at least in terms of reverence, I could probably have put any monk to shame.
The results appeared as quickly as my pounding heart.
[Presenting recommended Armaments.]
[1. Lancaster’s Robe]
[2. Nagamoto’s Matchlock]
.
.
[Please select one.]
Out of the ten options, four were mana-related Armaments that suited my needs.
That seemed like a decent result, so I examined them one by one.
“Hmm……”
If I had to choose the best one, it would undoubtedly be the first Armament, Lancaster’s Robe.
It increased concentration and raised Mana by 0.3, so in terms of pure performance, none of the others could compare.
……However.
“Ha, this is a little……”
I could not bring myself to choose it so easily.
The problem was that it was a robe.
As for me……
If it raised my stats, I would gladly wear it even in the middle of summer.
What frightened me was everyone else’s attention and prejudice.
Someone from the Sorcery Arts System, and a blood descendant of the Origin Sorcerer Family no less, wearing a robe—the quintessential symbol of magic, which stood in direct opposition to sorcery arts—while casting sorcery arts?
It would be like wearing a ssireum belt while competing in wrestling……
The incident would be shocking enough to attract not Min Youngji, but reporters from national television networks.
“Yeah. Absolutely not.”
I excluded the robe and examined the remaining options again.
Perhaps because I was looking more carefully this time, one Armament I had initially dismissed because of its grade suddenly caught my eye.
[Three Powers Art]
[Grade: Common (High)]
[Description: An internal cultivation method created by an unknown individual. It is so exceedingly abstruse that no one has ever properly mastered it. If successfully cultivated, mana can be accumulated artificially.]
[Effect: Acquire purified mana.]
I had thought it looked strangely familiar.
“Is this not something from a martial arts setting?”
That was right.
I was hardly an expert on the genre, but it sounded like one of those methods martial artists used to accumulate internal energy.
Confused by the sudden shift in genre, I reviewed the setting.
As expected……
This was a modern fantasy world, so the very concept of internal cultivation methods did not exist.
A person’s quantity of mana was determined at birth, and the setting established that it increased naturally as their overall ability improved.
“So this is an Armament from outside the setting……”
But was it even correct to call an internal cultivation method an Armament?
The thought briefly struck me as strange, but the more I considered it, the more appealing the possibilities became.
Sorcery arts and weapon Manifestation powered by purified mana……
Judging from the wording alone, it seemed far more likely to help than harm me.
No matter how abstruse it was, Reading should make mastering it far less problematic.
In the end, there was only one answer.
[You have selected ‘Three Powers Art.’]
[The recommended Armament list will now disappear.]
When I closed the shop, a small cluster of light immediately gathered before me.
The shimmering light soon transformed into a reddish wooden bracelet and an old, thick book.
***
Six in the evening.
After the diagnostic assessment had ended, the Comprehensive Training Ground had become quiet.
Few rooms remained lit.
Inside Room 3, a lone figure shot forward as though taking flight.
The man kicked off the ground, radiating a piercing force like the tip of an awl.
He cut down every enemy blocking his path with a single strike, opened a route, and charged forward like a gale.
RUMBLE—
An enormous wall rose before him.
He did not hesitate for even a moment.
He charged directly toward it, broke through in a single burst of flashing light, and stepped onto the objective point.
[Lap Time: 1:53.48]
Apparently, however, it was not the record he wanted.
The man bit his lip and muttered quietly.
“Reset it.”
Then the scene repeated itself like a dream from which no one could awaken.
“Again.”
Again.
“One more time.”
And again……
The man showed no intention of stopping.
Not until he seized the miserable goal that hovered just beyond his reach—the record belonging to the man who had pushed him down to second place.
“Yungi, how about taking a short break?”
Eventually, the spectators who could no longer bear to watch spoke cautiously.
They were the rough-looking group of aristocratic students who usually followed him around.
“Yeah. Drink something first.”
“Right. Nothing has changed even though you keep trying. You might as well…… Hup!”
But then the man’s cold gaze swept toward them.
The moment Seol Yungi’s eyes flashed sharply, they flinched and shut their mouths.
[Usage will be restricted for 5 minutes to prevent system overload.]
The message appeared at just the right moment.
Had the training system not refused to cooperate, his endless challenge would probably have begun all over again.
“……Nothing is going my way.”
Seol Yungi reluctantly turned away.
The moment he returned to the waiting room, the others reacted noisily.
“Here, drink some water.”
“Your record will probably improve once you rest.”
“That bastard Baek Sayoung just got lucky.”
They were comforting words, but Seol Yungi’s expression did not improve.
Unlike the people around him, who were forcing easy smiles, he remained almost unnervingly indifferent.
“Oh, and I took care of the girl who wrote that article.”
“……?”
Only then did Seol Yungi turn toward Lee Dongwook, who frequently caused trouble with his careless behavior and loose tongue.
His lowered gaze was filled with reproach.
“W-Why? Did I do something wrong?”
Realizing that his attempt to curry favor had backfired, Lee Dongwook became flustered.
“Ha. Who the hell told you to interfere?”
The reprimand came instead from a broad-built man with short hair.
His name was Kang Cheolmin.
In terms of ability, he was the second strongest among them, so the others hesitated to intervene.
“Are you going to take responsibility if this blows up?”
“No, I only did it for Yungi……”
“What kind of bullshit is that? You think that helps him? You are screwing him over instead. Use your head before you act. Stop creating problems like an idiot.”
Under the pretext of defending his friend, Kang Cheolmin wielded his twisted sense of justice like a weapon and continued speaking harshly.
“Kang Cheolmin, enough. Stop.”
Eventually, deciding that it had gone far enough, the person at the center of the matter intervened.
Seol Yungi looked at Lee Dongwook and issued a warning, biting off each syllable.
“Do not interfere on your own again.”
“O-Okay. Sorry.”
He was not usually in such a foul mood.
That alone showed how deeply today’s events had affected him.
After all, Seol Yungi had spent the entire vacation sharpening himself for the sole purpose of defeating Baek Sayoung……
“All right, all right. Let us not turn on each other, okay?”
The blond-haired student who usually served as the group’s mood-maker broke the awkward silence.
“Did you guys hear the news?”
“What news?”
“Apparently Park Hayul got selected as a Special Scholarship Student.”
He threw out the latest controversial topic in an attempt to change the subject.
“That bastard did? Wow, what a joke.”
“At this point, did the Origin Sorcerer Family pull strings for him?”
“No way. What influence does that family even have at Taehak?”
“True. They lost their clout a long time ago.”
Once a convenient target appeared, everyone eagerly added their own comment.
Everyone except the silent Seol Yungi and Kang Cheolmin, whose expression had twisted.
“……Are you sure about that?”
“Oh, right. Kang Cheolmin, you are the biggest victim here.”
“Exactly. If Park Hayul had not used that loophole, would you not have gotten the scholarship?”
There was good reason for that.
Kang Cheolmin had been the unfortunate applicant who placed fifth, missing the final position by only five seconds.
He did not show it outwardly, but he had secretly hoped Park Hayul would be disqualified, since becoming a scholarship student would have brought him plenty of benefits.
“Stop wasting your energy on something so trivial and go home.”
Seol Yungi, who had remained indifferent throughout the conversation, stood the instant five minutes had passed.
“Ha ha, I do not care either. I only applied because I was bored. You think I got shot in the head or something? Why would I willingly get involved with Lee Taekjin……”
Kang Cheolmin shrugged, pretending not to care.
“Oh, then should we not celebrate? Let us go have some whiskey. I brought a good bottle.”
“Sure. Let us go have a drink. Yungi is probably getting tired of us by now anyway.”
As though nothing had happened, the group left the training ground laughing among themselves.
Perhaps everyone’s attention had simply been elsewhere.
“……That bastard struts around just because of his family. I will deal with him one of these days.”
No one saw the cold expression on Kang Cheolmin’s face as he followed behind them—the same person who used the ID SteelMan.
***
The day after the diagnostic assessment.
[Time remaining: 3 days, 1 hour, 54 minutes.]
“Today, we will examine the state of Goryeo in the year 999, following the day known as the Day of Punishment. According to surviving records, three red moons appeared at the time……”
Like a new seed beginning to sprout, the semester at Taehak had finally begun in earnest.
Our first class today was History, notorious for being painfully dull.
Since it was a mandatory subject for all second-year students, I had little choice but to sit through it as well.
“Humanity did not know. No one imagined that all the negative emotions accumulated since primordial times had given birth to creatures known as demons……”
The professor in charge was Cha Myeonghwan.
An elder among elders who consistently received the lowest scores on course evaluations thanks to a teaching style as rigid and old-fashioned as his abundant white hair.
“In any case, once the gate separating the Demon Realm from the Human Realm opened, countless demons and magical beasts poured through. Humans responded by undergoing the strange phenomenon known as Awakening, but……”
Now that I was actually listening to him, the class really was boring.
Part of the problem was that it was entirely theoretical and lecture-based.
The other part was his voice, whose cadence remained as relentlessly steady as a heartbeat.
It was enough to make me yawn automatically.
And I was far from the only one who felt that way.
NOD, NOD—
A head bobbed rhythmically like a woodpecker pecking at a tree.
It belonged to Cheon Seoyoon.
I kept trying not to pay attention to her, but she constantly did things that stood out, making it difficult not to notice.
SLURP—
Cheon Seoyoon suddenly jerked awake, wiped the drool from her mouth, and looked around guiltily.
Then our eyes happened to meet.
“……!”
She furrowed her brow as though she had just spotted a mosquito on a summer night.
I did not even have time to react.
A few seconds later, her head was already bobbing again.
Seriously.
Whatever else I could say about her, she certainly remained faithful to her character settings.
“I should train.”
I had already allowed myself to get distracted and waste a fair amount of precious time.
Even if I had more time than before, I was hardly in a position to waste a single minute or second.
[Activating the trait ‘Manifestation.’]
A moment later, sunlight streamed through the windows at the front of the classroom.
Particles of Manifestation gradually emerged within its warmth.
I imposed my will upon them and envisioned the shape I wanted.
SWIRL—
Soon, a virtual anatomical diagram resembling one of Leonardo da Vinci’s studies appeared before me.
It was a form of supplementary learning.
Yesterday, I had alternated between using Reading on the Shaman’s Bracelet and the Three Powers Art, yet my comprehension of the latter had reached only about three percent.
It had said the method was abstruse……
But I had not expected it to be this bad.
At this rate, it would easily take me a month before I could actually begin cultivating it, so I decided to enlist Manifestation whenever I had spare time.
Visualizing those vague sensations made them considerably easier to understand.
I stretched a clump of particles into a long strand.
After dyeing it blue, I slowly guided it along a predetermined route.
“In terms of the final outcome, humanity emerged victorious. The rise of the prestigious families and the narrowing of the dimensional rift made that possible. But life changed drastically. Magical beasts began swarming throughout the country, and demonic beings carrying the blood of demons began to appear……”
Using Professor Cha Myeonghwan’s voice as white noise, I quietly recited a passage from the Three Powers Art.
“Pass through Jeonjung and Jungan, two major acupoints of the body, then form a circuit at Singwol……”
For now, things were relatively peaceful.
But it probably would not last long.
If the quests continued following the original story’s progression, the second Main Quest would appear this afternoon.
Soon, I would be too busy to spare a moment.