Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 163

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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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163
It had been a long time since I’d sparred with Jung Min-gi. In our first match, the gap between us had been so vast that I couldn’t even reach him without a desperate resolve.
Unlike my past life, his daughter no longer died, and thanks to my ascension to S-rank, he didn’t have to protect Korea alone. This allowed him to dedicate himself entirely to his own growth.
I wasn’t certain how far he’d progressed in my previous life, but seeing him now, I was confident he’d surpassed even where he’d been before his death.
However, my growth dwarfed his by an incomparable margin.
“…You’ve become a monster.”
Wrinkles formed between Jung Min-gi’s brows as he faced me.
“You’ve grown stronger than before as well, sir.”
“Still with the formalities? Just call me brother.”
“Understood. Brother, come at me.”
I turned my palm upward and curled four fingers inward in a taunting gesture.
Jung Min-gi, who had been about to provoke me, found himself provoked instead—a vein bulged across his forehead. This wasn’t an act; genuine heat rose within him.
Jung Min-gi gripped his sword lightly and swung it horizontally.
His movements had become more economical, and a crescent-shaped aura—Lunar Slash—flew toward me with doubled speed and power.
Boom!
I flicked out a light jab and shattered the Lunar Slash. The densely compressed aura shattered like glass.
Though the Lunar Slash’s power and speed had increased, my growth far exceeded his by several magnitudes.
Seeing the Lunar Slash break so easily, Jung Min-gi’s eyes widened. But before he could react in shock, I rushed forward. He gritted his teeth, created distance, and unleashed a barrage of Lunar Slashes.
The man who had kept Korea alive longer than any other nation in my past life was no force to be underestimated. Even with Boost active, I could only close the distance gradually.
Until now I’d pushed off the ground, but I kicked against the air itself to accelerate, closing the gap far more rapidly.
As I seemed about to catch him, Jung Min-gi planted his feet and held his sword parallel to the ground.
With lightning speed, he drew his blade, and a beam of light—Moonlight Slash—flew toward me.
I raised my arm and deflected the beam of light aimed at my face with the back of my hand.
The concentrated aura tore away part of my gauntlet. For him to damage my upgraded armor was proof he’d already transcended the S-rank barrier.
“…If I hadn’t blocked that, it would’ve hit my face, wouldn’t it?”
“A shame.”
I stared at him briefly before kicking off space again to close in. I deflected another incoming Moonlight Slash with my hand and drew near.
Jung Min-gi swung his sword repeatedly, deploying a spherical barrier—Full Moon.
I smashed the Full Moon with my fist, but the recoil slowed my punch’s momentum.
Jung Min-gi swiftly recovered his blade and drew it from his waist.
As my fist closed in on him, his sword swung out.
“Lunar Severance!”
With his shout, a thin thread-like slash—more compressed than the Lunar Slash—flew toward me.
Crack!
Jung Min-gi’s body flew backward from the direct impact of my fist, tumbling across the ground.
And my armor at the solar plexus was torn, the blade cutting into my skin beneath. It wasn’t a deep wound, but the fact that he’d cut through my stomach while I was wrapped in aura-reinforced armor was remarkable.
Jung Min-gi tried to rise from the ground after taking my punch head-on, but he couldn’t regain his balance.
“Rest for a moment. Your head’s spinning.”
“I’m no match for you… Thank you.”
Jung Min-gi didn’t even look back at me, using his sword as a cane to stand and descend from the Training Facility.
“Why are you acting like that?”
I asked Yang Sang-heon, who had recovered and was resting.
“It seems you’re feeling the pressure now that your juniors are catching up. Especially lately, with S-rank Hunters coming to the World Tree Academy for training—it must be difficult for Jung Min-gi, who was once Korea’s strongest Hunter, right?”
It made sense that someone who had stood at the pinnacle of Korean Hunters would feel that way.
“So why are you training so intensely?”
“…”
“Akiko?”
“…Japan produced another S-rank Hunter. Not some trash like Takahashi—a young, handsome one.”
“Does Akiko have to be an S-rank Hunter?”
“No, that’s not it, but….”
“It’s good that you want to grow stronger. But weren’t things going well with Akiko? Why don’t you trust her a little?”
“I suppose you’re right.”
Yang Sang-heon scratched his head.
Finally, I visited the World Tree Spirit.
“You’ve grown quite a bit taller.”
Before, it had been about the size of a small child, but now it looked like a middle school boy.
“What does it matter if you don’t even come visit?”
“Huh?”
Why is everyone I meet today picking a fight with me?
“You don’t come. You just leave games behind.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been busy.”
“No one else can see me but you, and when you don’t come, it’s so boring.”
The spirit didn’t just look like a middle schooler—it even spoke like one.
“I’ll bring Bae Na-young next time. She might be able to see you too.”
The divine power that arose in Telus disappeared when I came to Earth, but Bae Na-young wasn’t someone who would forget something once she’d realized it. Perhaps she could see the World Tree Spirit now.
“Your wife, you mean?”
“Wife…. Well, something like that.”
“Should I bestow a blessing?”
“A blessing?”
“Yes, so you two can be happy.”
“Sure.”
There was no reason to refuse a blessing from the World Tree Spirit.
Light emanated from the spirit, enveloping me. It felt warm, almost hot.
“Is it done?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t feel much different.
“Now play games with me.”
The World Tree Spirit handed me a controller.
I played games with the spirit for several hours until it was satisfied, then left.
* * *
“Chairman, you’re always asking me to do this and that for you, aren’t you?”
Jae-in found me while I was taking a rare moment of rest.
“…Well, I suppose I have.”
“Then, can I ask you for something too?”
“What is it? You’re making me nervous.”
“Would you take me somewhere?”
“Where?”
Jae-in pointed at the night sky with her finger.
Following her gesture, I saw the full moon.
“…The Moon?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You can fly, can’t you?”
“…It sounded absurd at first, but thinking about it, there’s no reason I couldn’t.”
“I want to research things on the Moon that we can’t study on Earth. All I need is to open a Gate, but since I need to open one there first, I have to go at least once.”
“You could just launch a rocket.”
“It’s expensive and takes too long.”
“And I can’t open a Gate.”
Simple magical artifacts don’t require much mana control. However, artifacts for opening Gates were extremely complex and impossible to activate without considerable mastery over mana manipulation.
“Learn it. I’ll design the artifact so you can compensate with magical formations as much as possible. You’ll only need to learn a little.”
Following Jae-in’s request, I began receiving intensive training from Bae Na-young.
“Brother, it’s not like that. You move your mana like this, see? Like this.”
Bae Na-young demonstrated by drawing mana out like thread, repeating the same instructions. I couldn’t even manipulate my vitality with such precision, and using mana—which I rarely employed—proved far more difficult than expected.
After repeated practice moving mana, I made some progress, but it still fell short of Bae Na-young’s expectations.
“This is strange… Why isn’t this working?”
Bae Na-young looked genuinely puzzled. Even when she controlled the mana in my body and circulated it once before asking me to try again, I still couldn’t manage it.
Training under Bae Na-young, I realized something: she was an even worse teacher than I was.
“Let’s keep trying.”
Bae Na-young refused to give up on me and continued teaching.
“I’ll just try on my own.”
I said I’d practice alone to avoid an argument. This is why couples don’t teach each other to drive.
While frustrated, I was grateful that Bae Na-young had silently followed along when I’d trained her before.
After sending Bae Na-young away, I held the artifact inscribed with the Gate-creation magic circle and began circulating mana through it.
All I needed to do was rotate the mana at just the right amount—not too much, not too little—but I kept applying too much force, destroying the circuit, or too little, causing it to deviate from the designated path.
I sighed, but I had confidence in my persistence, so I continued.
* * *
“How many are you going to break? At this rate, launching a rocket would be cheaper.”
The artifacts I’d destroyed were piled high on the desk.
“I’m frustrated too. I didn’t think it would be this difficult.”
Despite all that practice, my mana control didn’t improve—instead, my vitality control grew stronger.
“Should I just tear it open?”
Jae-in asked, lost in thought.
“Tear it?”
“Gates have always been opened from both sides—that’s the established method. Opening from only one side makes it impossible to create a Gate at the destination across dimensions. However, if we use the core’s enormous energy to forcefully push the destination, we might be able to create a gap even if we can’t open a complete Gate.”
“You could do that all the way to the Moon?”
“It’s easier when we can observe it. Other dimensions or locations we can’t observe are the difficult ones. So…”
Jae-in continued explaining the theory at length.
“Let’s just try it.”
As the explanation became increasingly incomprehensible, I cut her off, and Jae-in looked disappointed, smacking her lips regretfully.
“Let’s test it on Earth first. Will you go to the peak of Baekdu Mountain?”
“Got it.”
I climbed to the peak of Baekdu Mountain and waited for Jae-in’s signal.
[Going now.]
Jae-in opened a Gate from the World Tree Research Institute.
“Nothing yet.”
[Hmm… Let me increase the output.]
The energy overflowing from the World Tree Research Institute several kilometers away was palpable even here, showing just how much power she was drawing from the core.
“Jae-in, it’s forming!”
A thin blue crack appeared—barely the width of a fingertip.
I grasped both sides of the crack and pulled. Thanks to my strengthened spiritual form, it opened without me needing to exert all my strength like before.
I tore the gap wide open on both sides.
However, unlike Eres or Aither’s Origin where darkness and light flowed out to maintain the gap, this one rapidly shrank the moment I released it.
“We won’t be able to maintain it this way, will we?”
I grabbed it again and spoke.
[No problem~]
Jae-in, who had been communicating via radio, passed through the Gate and slipped out beside me.
“This is enough! When do you want to go?”
“You’re sending me right now?”
“What’s there to wait for? All the other preparations are done.”
“Should we go now?”
“Let’s head to the World Tree Research Institute. I’ll give you a transceiver that can communicate all the way to the Moon.”
Back at the research institute, I strapped on the helmet and portable oxygen tank Jae-in provided.
“You’re not giving me a spacesuit?”
“Do you need one?”
“…I guess not.”
Truth be told, I don’t even need the oxygen tank. I can survive a full day without breathing.
Perhaps it was karmic retribution for how harshly I’d treated Jae-in until now, but she showed no hesitation in ordering me around.
“I’ll be back.”
“Be careful, oppa.”
“There’s no one up there to worry about.”
I lifted my body using my spiritual form and soared into the sky.
It felt different from simply pushing off the air and leaping upward. When you push off the air, your speed gradually diminishes, but now, with each thrust against the empty space, my velocity only accelerated.
The air resistance was fierce, yet I pushed through it with even greater force.
The sky transformed from blue to deeper navy, then to black.
Looking down, I could see the blue Earth below.

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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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