100 Floors All Master - Chapter 309

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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All Master of 100 Floors Episode 309
70th Floor. Battlefield of the Past (5)
He tries.
He tries again.
And tries once more.
Then he fails.
Endless attempts and failures cycle through. Kang Jun-hyeok doesn’t merely watch—he actively helps Dokgo Jun.
“You’re having trouble grasping the feel of it, aren’t you? Let me help.”
Kang Jun-hyeok places his palm against Dokgo Jun’s back and channels his Internal Energy into him. As he traces the incantation of his Divine Art, carving a pathway, Dokgo Jun gasps aloud.
“Ah—ah, ah! So that’s how it works.”
Dokgo Jun is a genius, after all.
He succeeds in grasping both the flow Kang Jun-hyeok created and its meaning.
“I’ve got it! Thank you!”
Dokgo Jun immediately mobilizes his Internal Energy. Following the path Kang Jun-hyeok had shown, he begins executing the incantation exactly as demonstrated.
“……Wait?”
But it doesn’t manifest.
Even though he follows the path Kang Jun-hyeok created precisely, even though he executes it faithfully, the Mental Cultivation Method refuses to emerge. Dokgo Jun’s eyes flicker with confusion.
“Why?”
[Merely discovering the pathway is not enough to walk it. This is not a path so simple.]
Manbyeonggi speaks quietly. Kang Jun-hyeok tilts his head.
“Did you not understand it properly?”
“No. I understood. It’s simply that adaptation takes time.”
Dokgo Jun clenches his teeth and pushes his Internal Energy to its absolute limit.
He drives himself to the edge of his capabilities.
Falling into an exhausted state, he achieves successive insights—revelations that even ordinary geniuses might not touch once in a lifetime, erupting from him like a fountain.
Dokgo Jun is clearly ascending to a higher realm.
Yet still, he cannot reach it.
Kang Jun-hyeok, watching, mutters as if struck by a fresh realization.
“As I suspected, he can’t even grasp the fundamentals.”
[This one is exceptional. One could say he stands above even that child Taesaek Jicheon or that child Taesaek who I observed in the Tower.]
Dokgo Jun was undoubtedly among the finest prodigies in the entire Universe.
And precisely because of that, he possessed talent capable of touching Manbyeonggi’s Divine Art.
Yet that was merely—touching. Nothing more.
[If fortune smiled upon him—extraordinarily. For instance, the sort of miracle wherein a madman wildly swinging his blade executes every form of the Taiji Wisdom Sword, then perhaps.]
It would require a miracle of the magnitude needed for life itself to be born in the Universe.
[He could manage something like what Taesaek does—recreating it through his own Ultimate Principle. But grasping this Lord’s Divine Art? That lies far beyond his reach.]
Kang Jun-hyeok regards Manbyeonggi with a peculiar gaze.
[What is it?]
“Nothing. Just struck anew by how remarkable you are.”
There was no one who could deny Dokgo Jun’s talent.
The God of Martial Arts, Hwacheongrang, had even sought to make him his Avatar in a previous life.
He had intended to bestow upon him all his power and majesty.
Even a great deity of martial might had acknowledged Dokgo Jun’s genius.
Yet this same man could not even grasp the fundamentals of Manbyeonggi’s Divine Art, let alone master it.
‘What exactly have I learned?’
A Divine Art that controls and suppresses power itself. This transcended the mere concept of martial arts or technique. It approached something far more fundamental.
It felt almost like a concept of the very nature of martial arts itself.
“Just who were you?”
[I am merely an unnamed Defeated One. Who knows? Perhaps as you climb the Tower, you will come to understand what I am.]
“Huff, huff, huff.”
While Kang Jun-hyeok speaks with Manbyeonggi, Dokgo Jun exhales in ragged gasps. His eyes tremble with shock.
‘This… this… what on earth is this?’
He is surely a genius.
He begins to dimly perceive the value held within Manbyeonggi’s Divine Art.
And because of that perception, he can know.
This is not a technique a human can learn.
It carries a fundamental Profound Principle and principle that no mortal can contain.
Had Dokgo Jun encountered this Divine Art anywhere else, he would have judged it impossible to master and abandoned the attempt immediately.
Yet here, directly before him, Kang Jun-hyeok wielded this Divine Art.
By Dokgo Jun’s judgment, Kang Jun-hyeok’s talent was not particularly exceptional. Compared to himself, it would be fair to say the difference was like a firefly before the sun.
In other words, if Kang Jun-hyeok had mastered such a divine technique, then logically Dokgo Jun should be capable of learning it as well.
Dokgo Jun found himself profoundly unsettled by the gap between Kang Jun-hyeok and the divine technique.
Then Kang Jun-hyeok drove the wedge deeper.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t just teach you outright. You need to clear the quest first.”
“I know. I can participate in the battle myself—”
“No need. I’ll summon a spirit for you instead.”
[Spirit Summoning. Shadow Spirit of the Mirror. Muu.]
Kang Jun-hyeok gestured at the summoned Muu. The shadow spirit fashioned a sword from darkness, then gradually assumed a stance.
“…What?”
Dokgo Jun’s eyes widened.
A mere shadow spirit was unfolding Manbyeonggi’s Divine Technique.
A divine technique he himself had never managed to master, no matter how hard he strived.
“It’s only crude mimicry. It doesn’t touch the essence at all. But it should help you well enough.”
Kang Jun-hyeok patted Dokgo Jun’s shoulder lightly.
“Keep at it. I believe you can master this divine technique.”
……
The strength drained from Dokgo Jun’s grip on his sword.
What followed was nothing but endless repetition. Attempt, fail. Attempt, fail. After more than a week, a look of bewilderment began to creep across Kang Jun-hyeok’s face.
“Hmm. You still haven’t mastered it? Why is this taking so long? As you’ve surely noticed, my talent for martial arts isn’t particularly extraordinary. I’m nearly ordinary. Even someone like me managed to master it.”
So why can’t you?
If you can’t master even this, are you truly exceptional?
That questioning gaze fixed itself upon Dokgo Jun.
Dokgo Jun wanted to deny it.
To insist that he was wrong. That he himself was exceptional.
But there was no way to refute what was plainly true. He had not even grasped a fragment of the divine technique.
Dokgo Jun’s spirit was being driven to its limit.
At that breaking point, he made a single resolve.
“…I will participate in the battle.”
“Are you sure? Shouldn’t you focus on learning the divine technique?”
“No. This way is impossible. Solitary training will never get me there.”
Dokgo Jun clenched his fists.
“I will face a powerful enemy.”
For it is only through mortal combat that one can reach the next realm.
Kang Jun-hyeok nodded.
In accordance with Dokgo Jun’s request, his opponent held the rank of captain and belonged to the 4th Tier. Dokgo Jun was 3rd Tier. Between them yawned a chasm.
Dokgo Jun did not retreat. He advanced forward with his life on the line. The captain’s attacks came in a torrent, tearing through his entire body.
Before death itself, Dokgo Jun perceived it.
The Supreme Realm, higher and higher still.
“Ahhh. Ahhhhhhh!”
The ultimate realm came into view before his eyes. Ecstasy flooded Dokgo Jun’s face. He set foot in the domain he had so desperately sought.
With victory assured, he thrust his blade forward.
Crack—!
And his blade shattered against the captain’s attack.
The force of a mountain struck him; Dokgo Jun reflexively braced himself. But he could not deflect the full weight of that rank difference, and he was driven into the earth.
“Ugh!”
The ecstasy vanished from his face, leaving it rigid and cold.
Boom—!
The euphoria shattered. Reality crashed down upon him. The captain moved to crush his head. In that instant, Dokgo Jun sensed death.
[Annihilation Village Mirror.]
Crash—!
The captain’s body flew backward as if flung away.
Kang Jun-hyeok had saved Dokgo Jun. Dokgo Jun stared at him blankly.
“Splendid.”
A challenge waged with one’s life.
That was truly a worthy thing.
Indeed, Dokgo Jun had managed to reach a higher realm than before.
But had that alone been enough to claim victory, he would never have returned to the past.
“That’s your limit, then.”
Kang Jun-hyeok muttered. Dokgo Jun could not refute him, and he lowered his head in silence.
“Ah… ah, ahhh, ahhhhh……”
A sound of breaking moans echoed quietly across the battlefield.
After that, Dokgo Jun no longer attempted to master Manbyeonggi’s Divine Art.
As if his world had shattered, he moved mechanically through the combat. Dang Jung-ryeong approached Kang Jun-hyeok with a puzzled expression and asked.
“Dokgo Jun seems different about something. Do you happen to know the reason?”
“He ran into his limits and fell into despair. Don’t worry about it.”
“Hmm. I understand.”
Dang Jung-ryeong refrained from prying further. He had glimpsed Dokgo Jun’s training from the corner of his eye, so he had a rough sense of it.
Eldyria opened her mouth.
[How different he is.]
“What do you mean, my lord?”
[From the children you’ve faced until now. You showed the others at least some mercy. You left them room to grow. But with this one—you’ve left not a shred of mercy behind.]
“That one is different from the others, my lord.”
Touvalt and Yu Jin-ha had, in their final moments, come to recognize their own shortcomings.
But Dokgo Jun had not. To the very end, he refused to acknowledge his own limitations. Because he could not do it, he believed without question that all of them could not either.
His pride in himself was so immense that it needed to be crushed at the root.
“Recovery may be difficult, but if that’s the case, then that’s simply how it is.”
He no longer trusts anyone else.
With or without someone like Dokgo Jun, he would claim victory.
His eyes went cold.
* * *
The war was drawing steadily toward its end.
Under Kang Jun-hyeok’s active participation, the Empire from Somewhere—which had once held half the planet—was pushed back and back until it held only a single city’s worth of territory.
But then a problem emerged. One of the Defeated Ones clicked his tongue.
“They’re deliberate about their defense. If they keep this up, it’ll be hard to break through.”
Dozens of warships were layering hundreds of barriers upon one another.
The Empire from Somewhere could wield power approaching the infinite through its Core.
For that very reason, a method of gnawing away at barriers bit by bit was impossible. They had to destroy it all at once and pierce through.
But if they maintained such concentrated defense, the strength would be considerable enough to exceed their own capabilities.
“Hmm.”
“We’d need several from the Fourth Tier. Or maybe one from the Fifth Tier would do.”
As they deliberated over requesting reinforcements, Kang Jun-hyeok stepped forward.
‘I could pierce through with Crevice Breaking, but.’
There was another way worth trying.
“Muu. Support me.”
The Shadow Spirit raised mana, synchronizing with Kang Jun-hyeok to stabilize the surrounding territory. Sensing danger, the Defeated Ones quickly increased their distance.
“Huu.”
After steadying his breath, Kang Jun-hyeok’s eyes blazed with light.
[Enhancement. Pixie’s Mana Control.]
[Pixie’s Mana Box.]
The mana boxes erupted. As if dividing, they multiplied in an instant, spreading to cover the sky.
And then compressed.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
The mana boxes joined seamlessly together, forming a single unified shape.
Then Kang Jun-hyeok drew his sword. Brilliant light shot forth from the compressed mana boxes, and he traced a Taiji symbol.
[Internal Energy. Supreme Infinity.]
Radiant mana light was gathered into the endless Taiji pattern.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.
All that power began to coalesce at the sword’s point.
A black dot was drawn.
“Huh.”
“Th-this is.”
The faces of the Defeated Ones shifted at the terrifyingly intense power.
Internal Energy and Mana, even Skills—
He possessed vast reserves of power.
And because of that, he could handle all those forces at once, drawing forth even more formidable might.
He grasped the power held in the mana boxes with Supreme Infinity, and used Manbyeonggi’s Divine Art to gather that strength into one.
The power contained within was not easy even for Kang Jun-hyeok to command.
So he used Skills to concentrate that power.
[One-Point Pierce.]
Body-Sword Unity, Martial Soul Solar Eclipse, Mana Black Flash.
That body became black lightning.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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