A red sun floated above thegate.
“Wasn’t it supposed to be a blue sun?”
“I figured you would pick that up.”
Next to Kang Shin-hyuk, Lee Na-hee spoke softly and tilted her head.
“Isn’t there a hidden clear condition? At least, it hasn’t been found sofar.”
With a wave of her hand, she pulled out a few drones from her subspace bracelet (it seemed that she had succeeded in making it herself) and floated them into the air. The drones spread out in all directions to find out the hidden clear conditions for the gate. Kang Shin-hyuk was also interested in finding it out himself, but that wasn’t their purpose in entering the gate, so he decided to refrain from doing so.
“It’s hot.”
“It gets very cold at night, enough so that it can damageyou.”
“So, that’s the environmental damage.”
“No.”
At that, Eleanor pointed at the ground. From the moment they entered the gate, they were standing atop golden sands, but even if they remained still, their feet went completely inside the dunes. The problem was the beating of life weakly vibrating through it.
“This isn’t…”
“Hold thecenter.”
In the middle of the desert, a huge swamp of sand emerged to begin to suck in theparty.
“What?!”
“Is this the hidden clear condition?”
“Don’t be stupid and resistproperly!”
Kang Shin-hyuk wrapped himself in the energy of the Golden Dragon and struck the ground. As a bonus, he carried out Lee Na-hee, who seemed like she might be able to get out by herself.
“Ah.”
“Don’t pretend to becute.”
Anyway, the S-rank didn’t seem to be helpful for training by itself, so it would be okay for him to take responsibility for Lee Na-hee to help in his training.
“Huh?”
He jumped up and touched the air in the sky, but it felt like something was tightening around him from all sides. He used his spiritual power in his sword as his intuition told him to. Something was beaten back and fell down to his eyes. It looked like grains of sand.
‘…Am I going crazy? What is it?’
He clearly recognized the power contained within the grains of sand. It was comparable to an attack from an S-rank monster. He could detect traces of weak magic in it, which meant it was no ordinary sand. He used Wind Mastery to build temporary support in the air, stepping onto it so he could examine them closer, but then Eleanor cried out from below.
“The scorpions!”
Underneath him, scorpions had been mixed into the desert sand that was trying to drag them down. Their level wasn’t that high, but they were difficult to deal with in addition to the sand spinning crazily around them. Eleanor was fending them off with her spear while Baek was riding the current and taking them out. Oh Hye-na, with Baek’s help, was able to hold on.
“Then, I’ll try to take care of it fromabove!”
“Take care ofNa-hee!”
Eleanor shouted valiantly, but he felt anxious at the prospect of leaving her be. It seemed too difficult to completely stop the scorpions as they were.
“I’ll help!”
“Kh.”
“By the way, our Ellie is very jealous.”
Although Lee Na-hee was being treated as a burden, she was laughing like she felt good. Kang Shin-hyuk briefly thought of throwing her away for being so ridiculous, but instead just pulled her up into a more comfortable position tocarry.
“So, why were you following up to this point?”
“It was awkward to see her boasting that she was going on a date.”
He laughed at the thought of that. Eleanor really was an honestwoman.
“By the way, this… it’s not reallyeasy.”
Kang Shin-hyuk swung his sword again to cut down the grains of sand flying towards them while holding Lee Na-hee in one arm. The sight of him successfully wielding his sword to cut down the sand coming from all directions made him realize that it was by his swordsmanship that he had gained the title of Rookie King in the first place.
“Junior, can I kissyou?”
“Should I just throw you into the sand like this?”
“I’m kidding,kidding.”
The speed at which the sand flew at them was growing faster by the second. He stepped through the air using his wind mastery as he struck down the sand, flying towards them. There was a better way to block the attacks, but his purpose here was to train, so instead, he focused on correcting his posture in the air and using his sword to cut down the attacks.
“Junior, do you know what theseare?”
“Not yet. It’s a bit difficult to analyze when there are so many flying in this fast.”
“I think Iknow.”
That was surprising. Kang Shin-hyuk smashed down the sand that had been coming for his eyes, stretching out his sword and stirred it to scatter the sand away with a temporary gust of strong wind.
“So, what isit?”
“Isn’t this a golem?” He frowned at her.
“What are you talking about?”
“Each grain has strong magical power, and it is clearly aiming for us. Isn’t the most obvious explanation that it’s a golem? Besides, my trait is a rune.”
To be precise, it was also an outrageously high rarity trait of S+ rank. Of course, these days, traits of SS-rank had become a little commonplace, but among the rare and powerful magical traits, the rune was dominant in terms of mystery andpower.
“I think traces of runes remain on them.”
“Ah.”
It was a plausible theory. A golem was a magical creature deeply related to runes and enchantments. The more he considered it, the more likely it sounded.
“How about it, why don’t you catch a piece?”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
He had to consider how he would catch the tiny grains of sand, but he soon found the answer by temporarily freezing them with his blade using Wind Master and the WaterOrb.
“When did you get the ability to freeze things?”
“It’s an artifact. I’ll make you shaved ice later, so focus for now.”
“Wow, you really know how to treat me… hmm, then where?”
She activated her ability. Her ability was to plant the seeds of runes into an object to ignite their possibilities, and, in the process, she could grasp the details of other runes that had already beenimplanted.
“Well, uh…ah.”
The sand in Lee Na-hee’s hand broke and began to splash around. Kang Shin-hyuk was quick to extend the Guardian Golden Dragon to protecther.
“Oh, thankyou.”
“So, how aboutit?”
“Yes, I can deal withit.”
He nodded calmly, and Lee Na-hee looked up into the sky. Her eyes twinkled as she watched the red sun abovethem.
“Junior, you have to go upthere.”
“I thought the sun might be the answer, but I can’t right now.”
Kang Shin-hyuk deflected the incoming sand that was still flying towards them and pointed to the scorpions and their party below. Eleanor and Baek In-ha had already adjusted considerably well given the short amount of time that had passed, and even Oh Hye-na’s movements were markedly different.
“If I call out the golem now, the training will end. We came here to practice.”
“Oh, it was like that. I wanted to be helpful to my junior, so I started to rush alittle.”
“You’re saying that prettyblatantly.”
“Yes, don’t I seem a little cute?”
She met his eyes, and Kang Shin-hyuk decided to take specialmeasures.
“Eleanor senior, I’ll throw you Na-hee senior!”
“I’m waiting!”
“Ah, wait a minute, stop! I’m sorry, I’ll stop!”
The party struggled for several hours in the flowing desert sand. After a few hours, the sun had set, and complete darkness came over the land. At the same time, the flowing sand and the flying grains that had been attacking disappeared, a silence settling upon them. The scorpions continued to appear, however, so they couldn’t completely rest.
“Is this the only monsterhere?”
“Yes. The level of the scorpions increases with each passing day, and S-rank ones will appear after a few days. Even some very large ones will show up.”
They made a bonfire in the middle of the desert, then gathered together the scorpions they had hunted today for food. Among them, there were ones that had poisonous bodies and some that only had poisonous tails. While the party appraised which ones could be eaten and which ones couldn’t, Kang Shin-hyuk gathered those with poison and baked themseparately.
“What about those? Will you eat them?”
“Don’t you know that resistance skills are basic for high-rankers? Of course, I’m no exception.”
It wasn’t just poison resistance, either. It had evolved to the point where he could use soul poison. As Kang Shin-hyuk kept his pride hidden in his heart, Baek In-ha waved at his eyes with a leftover skewer.
“Being a high-ranker, I envyyou.”
Even Baek, who said as much, had a poison resistance skill. That was how he had survived in Paris, after all, although it wasn’t strong enough for him to roast and eat the poisonous scorpions himself.
“If you had properly measured your rank, you would be a high-rankertoo.”
“Isn’t it normal for students not to bother with measuring their rankings? What a load of crap.”
Baek had the ambitious dream of being certified as a high-ranker the moment he entered superhuman society after sharpening his abilities at Shinyoung for three years. But who would’ve known that his friend would become a high-ranker first, and one ranked number fourth atthat?
“High ranker…”
On the other hand, Oh Hye-na, who had been run ragged fighting against the sand and scorpions, listened to Kang Shin-hyuk and mumbled next to Baek.
“Please give me onetoo.”
She put her hand over the skewer Kang Shin-hyuk was grilling.
“Don’t do somethingpointless.”
“No, I also have poison resistance.”
Kang Shin-hyuk tried to wave her off, but she took the grilled skewer and bit into it. The scorpion’s baked skin was just like the crispy skin of a chicken for a superhuman who had strengthened their body. Kang Shin-hyuk was waiting with his soul poison skill at the ready in case something went wrong, but she swallowed it down despite that it seemed like she wassuffering.
“Are youokay?”
“Okay… I’m okay. Poison resistance also increases with training.”
It was said that this scorpion had a high level of poison among the A-ranks, so to endure it, it seemed that Oh Hye-na had a lot invested into her training as the only daughter of Vanguard’s former guild master. Still, she was suffering as she couldn’t completely overcome it, but her skill was growing in the process. It was an ignorant but efficient way to grow.
‘Well, of course, it’s fine.’
Kang Shin-hyuk watched her eat the scorpion and bit into his own. Seeing him, Oh Hye-na began to eat faster as if she was in an eating competition with him.
“Don’t hurt the durability of thebracelet.”
“I’m fine.”
Oh Hye-na replied with clenched teeth. The bracelet he gave her had the trait of reducing its own durability by taking damage instead of its wearer. Of course, it had various additional effects, such as raising the status, but it was an experimental work that was insufficient to the original he had given toShu.
‘It’s a good thing if I can retrieve data from it…’
Finishing his food, he stood up.
“You said you came to me to learn how to use a sword. Let’s get to it, junior.”
“…Ugh.”
The group class was now over. It was now time for private lessons to begin.