Fourth Training (2)

It was a crisis from the start.

The seven specters each had completely different attack styles, so he could not find any unified traits.

The fact that they could be grouped together under the single title of “specter” was their only common point.

Some specters fired dark-red spheres like mages, some swung sword-shaped energy, and others constantly fired things like qi blasts.

He was busy dodging.

Of course, there was no way he would be full from the first spoonful, and he spent what was easily half a day doing nothing but failing.

That was because whenever he felt satisfied that he had dodged the specters’ attacks several times, he was hit by the very next attack.

Failure, failure, and failure again.

Without even having time to pile up frustration, he kept rolling and rolling, and Kang-hoo gradually adapted to the situation.

Of course, adaptation did not immediately mean success, so every ending was his master’s thunderous scolding.

“If you decided to become an assassin with skills like this, it would be better to give up now!”

“Hoo. Hoo.”

“How long do you think the world will paint the picture you want, you brat? Do not be mistaken. You are not the only one who can design things.”

“I know, Master.”

“If that is all someone who knows can do, then I can only say you are pathetic.”

Today, every single word from his master dug deeply into his chest. However, they were not wrong.

There were countless hunters who surpassed the level of the specters he was currently facing.

And there was also the possibility that he would have to face several hunters of this level by himself.

When that time came, it was not as though he could complain that he was outnumbered or that this was unfair.

A battlefield was like a constantly moving living creature. There was no way to know how it would change, and predictions were meaningless.

“Master.”

“Do not try to stall for time.”

“Can I use…… the drug chance?”

Kang-hoo brought it up, thinking of seriously removing his sandbags.

Until now, he had not touched Solarkium, Mad Solarkium, Mua-je, Gaksinhwan, or any other medicine.

Because of that, as the training time continued to pass, the intensity of the pain induced by his congenital Mana Hyper-Sensitivity grew stronger.

This lowered his concentration when using skills and shaved away his stamina more rapidly than expected.

His master was right. The battlefield did not always paint a pleasing picture according to his wishes.

However, conversely, he could also decide what means he used to paint the picture. That was his freedom.

So he intended to use every possible thing he could touch, whether it was medicine or anything else. There was no need to deliberately wear sandbags.

“Who told you not to? It was your paltry pride that arrogantly thought you could endure without medicine.”

“Then I’ll take it.”

“Hmph, pathetic fellow. Do you plan to ask the enemy for permission and take it in actual combat too? I am telling you not to say it.”

“……Yes.”

Kang-hoo took Mua-je out of his subspace and gulped down the contents in one go.

Thinking back, he had consumed a great deal of Solarkium and Mad Solarkium until now.

Since eating them whenever he went to a dungeon had become a habit, at some point, there had even been times when he forgot the fact that he had taken them.

Was that why?

When he glanced into his subspace, Solarkium and Mad Solarkium were also already showing their bottoms.

Since he had come all the way here, he thought he should buy a generous amount of the necessary medicines from Master K before leaving.

Until he fundamentally solved his congenital Mana Hyper-Sensitivity, supplementary medicines were fellows he always had to keep beside him like friends.

If he did not prepare plenty of such friends, he could suffer at any time. It was better to be prepared.

“Hoooo…….”

Even though it had not been long since he had taken it, the medicinal effect spread explosively throughout his entire body.

Only now did he feel as though he had been freed from the weight pressing down on his whole body. The real training started now.

It was not easy.

Since there were seven specters instead of one, he could not target and respond to any single one of them.

That was only natural. If some specters were strong while others were somewhat inferior, then perhaps it would be different.

However, because he had no prior information on them, he had to gather all information by directly clashing with them.

So he had no choice but to focus solely on dodging, and he could not seize the timing to counterattack.

Perhaps thinking that Kang-hoo had forgotten one fact, Celestial Assassin, who had been watching, emphasized the contents again.

“If you use Dark Energy to stab the specters’ center points, they scatter. You have not forgotten, have you?”

“I know.”

“Then why are you hesitating?”

“I am hesitating because I might be hit in reverse while trying to counterattack. The moment I am hit, the training resets to the beginning.”

“You do not even think of taking the initiative.”

“I have no excuse.”

He did not think his master’s criticism was wrong at all. Rather, it struck the exact point.

He knew.

He knew that his master was not stimulating him to condemn him, but for the sake of natural realization.

Rather than catching fish for him, he was guiding him to awaken the skills and thoughts needed to catch them himself.

After all, nothing was more certain than something realized on one’s own. His master’s training always aimed for that.

‘Do I have to distribute my thoughts evenly to all the specters? No, that’s impossible. I can’t do it like a machine.’

While continuously dodging the specters’ attacks, Kang-hoo fiercely studied how to draw this situation in his favor.

At present, he wanted to divide his concentration on the seven specters into 1/7 for each and respond to them.

However, he knew better than anyone that a person’s mind did not operate in such an arithmetically divided way.

‘There’s no need to rush. I have plenty of time. As long as I’m confident I can endure, let’s keep exposing myself to variables and follow the flow my awareness catches.’

No one pushed him on the back and told him to hurry as quickly as possible. He had merely made himself feel chased.

So what if realization took half a day? So what if it took a day? So what if it took a month?

It was important to steadily build the process. Kang-hoo wisely avoided letting all his thoughts be buried by time.

Then he began to concentrate again on the training itself.

With the thought that he would gladly fail as many times as needed. That was exactly why it was training.

As time passed, Celestial Assassin watched Kang-hoo as the number of times he was hit by the specters’ attacks converged toward “0” and thought.

‘As expected, a born one is a born one.’

It was not that he was biased because Kang-hoo was his disciple. Kang-hoo’s learning speed was fast beyond comparison.

Of course, there had been trial and error. He had failed, naturally. But he did not repeat the same mistakes.

‘He realized that being buried in specific motions or features themselves was the problem.’

Around 12 hours after beginning the ambitious fourth training Celestial Assassin had prepared, a change occurred.

It was a change that had happened much faster than originally calculated. In truth, he had thought it would take several weeks.

What he had wanted Kang-hoo to realize was the perfect objectification of the enemy fighting right in front of him.

In other words, Celestial Assassin’s teaching was that he had to be able to perceive combat itself as though observing it from afar.

Because combat was unfolding at such close range, paradoxically, he needed the vision to see it from afar.

To an ordinary hunter, it might sound like chasing clouds, but his disciple was not such an ordinary hunter. He was a hunter full of talent.

That was why, from a certain point onward, Celestial Assassin believed Kang-hoo would surely create breathing room.

However, he had not thought the timing would be today, that it would be something finished in a single day……

His expectations were pleasantly shattered.

His disciple’s astonishingly cold and level-headed composure constantly produced rational judgments about the situation.

And he absorbed the most optimized movements he had created himself like a sponge.

He absolutely did not forget them, nor did he miss them. Even realizations he stumbled upon by chance were not passed over carelessly.

As a result.

‘You have realized it.’

In Celestial Assassin’s eyes, he noticed that Kang-hoo had begun to judge the current situation as one large picture.

The specters were not one but seven, but he had become able to see those seven attacks as “one bundle.”

Order that had to be found within disorder. It was clearly visible that realization had come to his disciple.

‘Yes. That is it! No one can overlap and use the same space. Because they are many, there are openings that exist precisely because they are many!’

The inner words he had wanted to emphasize and tell him several times but had endured because he could not do so boiled up.

From that moment onward.

Kang-hoo began counterattacking the specters using Dark Energy. Even while doing so, he was not hit.

Pseut! Pseuseut! Pseut!

Soon, the specters scattered and disappeared one by one.

The more that happened, the faster the specters’ movements became, and their attack repertoire also became faster and more varied under Celestial Assassin’s mischievous hand gestures.

However, Kang-hoo did not panic and raised his speed even higher than that, crushing the specters one by one.

‘Interesting. Very interesting.’

The student surpassing the master had already ended long ago.

Seeing his disciple absorb every realization like a sponge, Celestial Assassin became even more excited.

Originally, he had intended to continue training at this level not only today but for several more days going forward.

However, since he had already achieved the first objective, there was no need to keep the level low.

He thought it would be fine to raise it higher.

For example, to a level where he handled not seven specters but fourteen, making it several times harder.

Papat! Pat! Pat!

Kang-hoo saw the specters, which had seemed to be decreasing in number, suddenly increase explosively with his master’s hand gesture.

“Haaak.”

He let out a sound like his breath was about to stop.

He had thought he had reached the end of the gates of hell and that escape was just around the corner.

He was wrong.

Behind the door opened again at the end of the gates of hell, an even more desperate hell than before was waiting.

The fierce training continued without even a moment to catch his breath, skipping even time for rest and meals.

Like that, Kang-hoo trained for a full day, and the same was true of Celestial Assassin, who carried out the teaching.

In many senses, the insane training between the assassin master and disciple, who had both lost their minds, only ended after a full day had passed.

Of course, it was a time of great satisfaction for both of them, satisfaction upon satisfaction.

It was only that their bodies had become rags.

“Haaak. Haaak. Haaak.”

“Kkeul-kkeul-kkeul. Are you very tired?”

“Are you teasing me?”

“I know. I know. But the sight of you suffering like that is so pleasing to see. It is the picture I wanted.”

“Master, your tastes are really…….”

Kang-hoo lay sprawled out.

As Kang-hoo lay on his back with his body spread out in the shape of the character 大 and looked up at the sky, what he saw was his master’s face.

Celestial Assassin was standing while only bending at the waist, looking down at him upside down. His entire face carried a benevolent smile.

Was that why?

Seeing his master looking more satisfied than ever, Kang-hoo naturally smiled too.

He could feel the corners of his mouth, which did not rise easily, curling upward.

Emotions could not be hidden.

Seeing his master happy as he looked at him, Kang-hoo could not help but feel proud as well.

However, separate from his current happiness, there was one thing that continued to bother him whenever he looked at his master.

“Master. Since your last meeting with December, has Shinwol perhaps been bothering you?”

It was the matter of Shinwol.