Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 187

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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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187
“Chairman, at this rate, when will you ever finish? Stop wasting time and use this instead.”
As I typed away at the keyboard, Jae-in handed me a sleek helmet covered entirely in magical inscriptions.
“This will extract the information directly from your brain. Your mental barriers are quite strong, so you’ll need to lower your guard a bit. Even so, we won’t be able to access your deepest consciousness, but we should be able to retrieve the information you’re willing to share.”
“That’s more than enough for now.”
I put on the helmet, and the moment Jae-in activated it, the monitor beside us began displaying the contents of the books I’d read at incredible speed.
Text and images streamed across the screen hundreds of times faster than my typing could manage.
“…How many books have you read?”
“Quite a few? But it’s still less than a hundredth of what I’ve absorbed.”
“At this rate, it’s going to take forever…”
Jae-in tapped away at the computer, adjusting the program, and the helmet began humming loudly.
Dozens of monitors around us flickered to life, and data started flowing into all of them simultaneously.
“Your head… it’s not hurting, is it?”
“It is. But why are you asking after you’ve already started?”
Transmitting multiple books at once at this accelerated speed had brought on a headache, though it was nothing compared to when Eres had forcibly crammed language into my mind at the beginning.
Even at this rapid pace, it took over an hour before the transmission finally completed.
“This book here—it’s about sealing techniques. Check the other books to see if there’s anything else we need.”
I pointed to the screen displaying materials related to sealing.
I don’t fully understand the magical formations or the underlying principles. I simply copied and pasted the books into my mind.
“Leave it to us. Go see Bae Na-young now.”
“Thank you.”
I left the research facility after entrusting the work to Jae-in and Alice.
“Yang Sang-heon.”
Yang Sang-heon was waiting for me outside the research facility.
“Let’s talk for a bit.”
“You were speaking casually in the Mental World?”
“…I apologize.”
“I’m joking. Speak freely. Should we go somewhere quiet?”
I walked slowly with Yang Sang-heon toward the World Tree. Neither of us said anything else.
No one could enter the World Tree without permission, so the area was deserted.
“Was what we saw in that gap… not an illusion?”
“It was an illusion.”
Many of the things that happened in my past life, I didn’t witness directly. I only heard about them.
And what Yang Sang-heon saw couldn’t help but differ slightly from reality, since it was mixed with my emotions from my own memories.
“Don’t play word games with me.”
“What are you trying to ask?”
“Do you have precognitive abilities?”
“No.”
“Tell me the truth.”
I hadn’t felt the need to tell anyone, and I doubted they’d believe me anyway. But as Yang Sang-heon stared directly at me, I found I couldn’t lie to those eyes.
“…I died once.”
“What? When?”
“Five years from now.”
“Huh?”
“I died in 2033. And when I opened my eyes again, it was ten years in the past.”
“You’re saying you traveled backward through time?”
“I don’t know. How it happened or what caused it. I don’t possess any ability like that.”
“So…. all of that is real? Hunters dying and the world crumbling to ruin?”
Yang Sang-heon’s face drained of color.
“That’s precisely why I’m working to prevent it. History has already diverged significantly from what I knew. It’s changing in a better direction. Through this incident, I’ve even confronted the true enemy—the Manager. I survived and returned, so next time I’ll be able to land a real blow.”
Yang Sang-heon pondered my words carefully. I sat quietly, allowing him space to think.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“The world is ending? Would anything have changed if I had?”
“That’s…. then why didn’t we believe you?”
“You do believe me. I’ve been training you all this way because I trust you’ll keep up.”
“That’s not what I mean. We think we’re useless to you. In the dream, we were weak and a burden, always needing your protection.”
“Dreams are always exaggerated by nature. I have faith in all of you.”
“I know that sounds good. But just wait and see. I’ll change that perception of yours.”
Yang Sang-heon turned and left the World Tree, heading not toward the Research Facility or Residential District, but toward the Training District.
“If you grow stronger, that’s fine by me.”
There’s no need to overthink it.
“Oh, but hyung.”
Yang Sang-heon, who had been walking ahead, turned back.
“Was Bae Na-young originally supposed to become a villain?”
“You…. don’t go near Bae Na-young.”
“Why? Things have already changed anyway.”
“Does that make you happy?”
“… I can’t keep avoiding her forever, can I?”
“Ask Jae-in for a mental defense item and wear it. It won’t hurt, right?”
“Got it. I knew she was a scary person…. but in the dream she was truly terrifying. That was exaggerated, right?”
“It was.”
I’ve never witnessed Jung Min-gi’s death or the Destruction God’s form. But I have seen Bae Na-young kill someone from a distance. That was the one memory Yang Sang-heon witnessed that wasn’t exaggerated at all.
“Impressive, marrying someone like that.”
“Tell me about it.”
I parted ways with Yang Sang-heon and returned home.
At home, I held the frozen hand of Bae Na-young and sat in silence for a long while.
* * *
Though I had slept for a year, Earth and Telus remained stable against my worries.
The emergence of the World Tree Academy had thickened the Hunter ranks most significantly.
Second, Rigen had exerted considerable effort in my absence. They distributed items at low cost to solidify Hunters’ equipment, and entrusted lower-level Hunter education to the Guild overseeing item supply agreements.
In my previous life, the exchange with Telus—who would have been my enemy—brought tremendous synergy. Item levels rose by one or two stages, and I could now mass-produce them.
Everything I had done until now held meaning.
And thanks to everyone’s consideration, I was able to spend time with my family at home until the sealing magic circle was completed.
While I spent time with my family, the entire Rigen Research Team was mobilized to seal the child’s abilities before birth.
Many materials were needed, but since my influence on both Earth and Telus was considerable, most substitute materials were procured with ease.
However, some materials didn’t exist on Earth. Jae-in and the research team cross-referenced other texts and found the most similar materials possible, then proved the magic circle through repeated experiments.
Finally, they crafted a large, high-purity mana stone.
“I never thought the technique we used to make cores would be applied here.”
Yang Sang-heon melted the selected quality mana stone in a furnace. Melting it with a catalyst, compressing it, melting it again, and compressing it repeatedly reduced the mana stone to a fraction of its original volume.
A heavy mana stone slightly larger than a baseball took shape. A magic circle was engraved upon it once more with special processing.
“Chairman.”
Jae-in placed the mana stone at one end of the magic circle carved into the floor and called to me.
I laid Bae Na-young at the opposite end of the magic circle and placed my hand on the item hanging from my wrist to release the freeze.
“Jae-in, we don’t have much time after the freeze is released. Please work as quickly as possible.”
“It will work.”
Jae-in nodded solemnly, and Alice stood beside her with a tense expression.
As I released the freeze, Bae Na-young slowly awakened.
“Ugh…! Where…? Did you find a way, oppa?”
Bae Na-young, awakening with a pained expression, realized the surroundings were different from when she had been frozen.
“That’s right. We’re almost done now.”
I grasped Bae Na-young’s hand.
“Chairman, get out!”
I reluctantly released her hand and stepped out of the magic circle.
The magic circle glowed, drawing a red light from Bae Na-young’s abdomen.
“Yes!”
Jae-in cried out. It was extracting only the child’s abilities as intended.
“Kyaaahhh!!!”
The red light was pulled from the abdomen, but it resisted, clinging to Bae Na-young’s belly.
“Please! Just a moment! Stay inside just a little longer!”
I shouted.
“It’s okay… I’m not trying to hurt you…”
Bae Na-young stroked her abdomen, cold sweat dripping as she endured the pain.
Whether the child or the resisting red light felt our hearts, the resistance weakened.
“Yes. Good. Mom will protect you. Just wait there a little longer.”
The red light completely ceased its resistance and was slowly drawn into the prepared sealing stone.
The sealing stone glowed brightly red, as if heated by fire.
Bae Na-young’s pain seemed to diminish gradually.
“Almost there!”
Jae-in cheered.
“Ah… Director…”
A researcher pointed at the seal stone, which was cracking with fissures spreading across its surface.
“Stop! Stop!”
I urgently halted the magic circle’s operation, and the stone shattered with a sharp crack, splitting in half as the crimson light was sucked back into Bae Na-young’s abdomen.
“Chairman! Freeze her immediately!”
Jae-in shouted, and the moment all the crimson light entered Bae Na-young’s abdomen, I froze her again.
“Damn it….”
“…What happened?”
It wasn’t anger, but I had thought I would see Bae Na-young again, and now that I couldn’t, my heart sank and my expression hardened.
“The seal stone’s capacity was too small.”
Jae-in spoke with a discouraged expression.
“Didn’t you say that stone could seal even the Blue Dragon?”
“That’s true…. But with this seal, while the size of current power matters, potential plays an even larger role. Your child’s potential exceeds that of the Blue Dragon.”
“Then couldn’t we use more magic stones to make the seal stone larger?”
“Increasing the size won’t change the fundamental quality of the material. We need to find something qualitatively superior yet hollow inside.”
Jae-in seemed to have an idea.
“Minister of Science, then what?”
Alice caught onto Jae-in’s train of thought.
“Yes, let’s go to the Moon.”
“The Moon?”
“Earth is already brimming with life force and far too large. But the Moon is a dead land—rich in mana yet sparse in life force. The crimson light that just emerged from Bae Na-young’s abdomen appeared to be a mass of life force. If that’s the case, we should be able to seal it on the Moon, where life force is completely absent.”
Following Jae-in’s proposal, I moved to the Moon with Bae Na-young.
It was no longer the desolate Moon of before. Within a year, the Ark Residents had built a metropolis near the Earth Garden.
After defeating Brixel and laying soil from inside the Ark across the Moon’s surface, it became possible. However, since only part of the Moon was covered with soil and the ground beneath remained stone, we could execute Jae-in’s idea.
“Ji-seok, you’re here?! Let’s play!”
As I passed through the Gate carrying Bae Na-young, Luna came running over. But she stopped short upon seeing our rigid expressions.
“Luna, let’s play later. Could we borrow the Moon for a bit now?”
Jae-in and I explained the situation to Luna.
“Sure. Thanks to you, I’ve made many friends, so I can do at least that much.”
Fortunately, Luna agreed without hesitation.
Jae-in, Alice, and the Rigen Research Team had to redraw the magic circle they had so carefully prepared from scratch, but they prepared everything quickly without complaint.
Through an all-nighter, the magic circle was inscribed in the Earth Garden on the Moon.
“This time it’ll definitely work!”
She wore a confident expression as if to comfort me, but in truth, Jae-in also looked anxious.
After completing all preparations, I awakened Bae Na-young once more.

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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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