Infinite Evolution Hunter - Chapter 219

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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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219
“Good morning, Sil!”
Sergeant Johnson, guided by Alice, snapped to attention and saluted his commanding officer, Captain Tim.
“At ease. What’s the matter, Sergeant Johnson?”
Captain Tim, buried beneath a mountain of documents, scratched his head as he asked.
The towering stack of paperwork obscured his view, preventing him from seeing Alice standing beside Sergeant Johnson.
“I’ve located and am protecting a missing person, sir.”
“Missing person? What are you talking about? How could there be a missing person on Mars?”
The officer rose from his seat, attempting to peer over the mountain of documents to see who was there.
“Oh! Good morning, ma’am!”
Captain Tim shot to his feet and saluted Amy with crisp military precision.
“Captain?”
Sergeant Johnson stared at the captain with a bewildered expression.
“You fool! This is Alice, the supervisor of the Mars Development Management Division under the Korean Awakened Nation!”
The captain rattled off Alice’s affiliation and rank without stumbling over a single word.
“What? Is that really true? But she’s so young….”
“Watch your tongue! Miss Alice, I apologize for the rudeness.”
“No, it’s fine. Sergeant Johnson was very kind in showing me around. Sergeant, you may go now.”
Alice waved her hand dismissively at Sergeant Johnson.
In stark contrast to Alice’s composure, Captain Tim sweated profusely, as though standing before a predator.
“Yes, ma’am….”
Sergeant Johnson tilted his head in confusion as he left the room, watching the notoriously fearsome Captain Tim stammer before a young girl.
“Captain Tim, I noticed the perimeter of the base differs from the design submitted to the Management Division.”
“Ah, you mean the northern perimeter. The terrain at the base proved different from our preliminary survey.”
“If the terrain is different, you should report it, revise the design, and redo the work. Or you could simply alter the terrain, couldn’t you?”
“Y-yes. You’re absolutely right, ma’am.”
“Would you like to abandon the base?”
“No, ma’am!”
“I have faith that you’ll do an excellent job.”
“Thank you, ma’am!”
“I’ll be waiting for the revised design or terrain map.”
“Understood, ma’am!”
Hearing the captain’s energized voice from beyond the door only deepened Sergeant Johnson’s confusion.
Alice stepped out through the doorway, waved goodbye to Sergeant Johnson, and withdrew a staff from within her garments.
“How…. How did she pull that from such a small frame?”
Sergeant Johnson’s jaw dropped as he watched Alice produce a staff embedded with a sphere roughly twenty centimeters in diameter from her clothing.
Alice’s staff gleamed with light, and a geometric magic circle materialized before her, followed by the opening of a Gate.
Alice leaped directly into the Gate she had opened, and it sealed shut immediately after.
“Is that…. a Gate-generation artifact? Such an expensive item, and she’s just a girl?”
“Yeah, there are only a few of those in the entire US Military.”
The captain emerged from the room and wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.
“But what’s truly terrifying is that it doesn’t work just by pressing a button. She possesses magical control abilities far superior to A-rank mages at her age, which is why she can use it.”
“Huh… At that age? She’s no ordinary person.”
“Of course not, Sergeant Johnson. Let me explain it to you kindly—first, bury your head in the ground.”
“Pardon?”
“I said bury your head.”
“Yes, sir!”
Sergeant Johnson, recognizing the captain’s deadly serious expression, slammed his head into the ground hard enough to crack it.
“Didn’t I tell you to memorize the faces of key personnel?”
“I’ve committed them all to memory, sir!”
“Then you forgot about Miss Alice?”
Sergeant Johnson’s mind raced. Had he seen such a face, he would have remembered it for certain.
“Ah! But the photograph…”
There was indeed a person named Alice. However, she was not a child. Now that Sergeant Johnson thought about it, the photograph showed Alice’s face from five to ten years in the future.
“She apparently disliked looking young, so she touched up the photograph a bit.”
“…”
The words ‘Then this isn’t my fault, is it?’ nearly burst from his lips, but Sergeant Johnson, a disciplined soldier, clenched his teeth and held them back.
“She enjoys the favor of Hunter Lee Ji-seok and Director Park Jae-in, and she’s been entrusted with a crucial role in this Mars development. In other words, she has the authority to shut down our base. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, sir!”
Now he understood why Captain Tim had been so flustered.
“Rise.”
“Rising, sir!”
“We begin reconstruction immediately. Assemble all personnel.”
“Yes, sir!”
The US Military Mars development unit sprang into frantic activity.
* * *
The Elves cultivated trees through magic, hardened them into structures, and reinforced their base with magical formations.
The Dwarves struck the earth to raise walls and construct buildings. When a Dwarf, beloved by the land itself, struck the ground with their hammer, pillars rose as smoothly as if carved, and structures materialized—feats impossible through magic or science alone.
Though the architectural styles of each faction differed markedly, their treatment of Alice was largely the same: they underestimated her as merely a child.
But such treatment would not last long.
“A… a dragon…”
Annoyed by their condescension, Alice summoned Albert and rode him into the Elf settlement.
Albert’s existence had been revealed during the inter-faction tournament, and the collar-like ornament he wore made it clear to the Elves at a glance that he was no wild monster. Yet all who gazed into those massive, cold reptilian eyes felt their hearts freeze and sink within their chests.
“It’s Supervisor Alice. Is Phillarion here?”
“Ah! Yes!”
The Elf warrior immediately escorted Alice to Phillarion.
“Albert, I should have brought you along from the start.”
Alice stroked Albert’s neck, and the dragon rumbled contentedly.
Alice had not relied solely on the dragon’s aura.
Those who had initially dismissed Alice based on her appearance soon changed their minds once they witnessed her composed, sharp judgment as a supervisor.
“Did you observe the mana flowing through her body?”
The Orange-haired Elf Elder exhaled deeply after Alice left.
“Yes. The power was not what one would expect from a young girl. She had multiple layers of constant defensive magic in place.”
The Purple-haired Elder released a breath he’d been holding.
“Right, but can you believe she’s only been studying magic for three years?”
“Three years?!”
Elves trained for centuries just to reach a level of magical mastery worthy of recognition, and only rarely did one become a true master.
“Another monster has been born in Newus.”
The expressions of the Elves who had cultivated their power on Mars, intending to stand above Newus and Earth, darkened.
* * *
“Sigh….”
Hee-chul stared at the marble-sized mana stone before him and heaved a heavy sigh.
“I can do this!”
Hee-chul picked up the mana stone and popped it into his mouth.
Thwack!
Hee-chul’s head snapped back from the blow, and the mana stone flew from his mouth.
“Cough… Who—?!”
Hee-chul spun around.
“S… Sang-heon hyung.”
“What are you doing?”
“Hyung, it’s not like that….”
“What do you mean it’s not? Don’t you know you could die eating a mana stone? Do you want to die?”
“No! I just want to get stronger….”
“Hee-chul, why are you in such a rush?”
“I can’t even use skills. If I don’t get stronger soon, I’ll fall further and further behind Alice.”
“Ah.”
Yang Sang-heon scratched his head.
“Alice isn’t your average girl, you know.”
“So you’re giving up?”
Hee-chul fixed Yang Sang-heon with an intense gaze—the burning eyes of a boy in love.
“Well, I….”
Yang Sang-heon felt a twinge of embarrassment, but also found himself envying that passion.
“Fine, I’ll train you myself.”
“Really? But hyung, you’re so busy….”
“How can I just leave you alone when you’re eating mana stones? Come on, follow me.”
Hee-chul eagerly followed. Yang Sang-heon’s training methods resembled Lee Ji-seok’s so closely that most Hunters avoided his sessions, but Hee-chul, raised in difficult circumstances, adapted well to the rigorous regimen.
“Aren’t we supposed to be training?”
Hee-chul, seated at a desk, asked Yang Sang-heon, who stood before a whiteboard.
“Hee-chul, you seem to have gained some strength, but you’re not using your head.”
“….”
“First, you need to understand the relationship between different levels of power. Without that knowledge, using your strength is meaningless.”
“Studying isn’t fun. And I’m not even good at it.”
“Are you giving up, Alice?”
“No, I’ll do it!”
“Good. I’ll explain using a Warrior as the baseline. Humans are originally weak beings, right? Before the Gate incident, if a human encountered a ferocious beast like a lion, running away was the only option.”
Even though Hee-chul had been able to hunt lions effortlessly since childhood, he opened his notebook and began taking notes.
“Weak humans can grow stronger through training. Athletes and martial artists are examples. That’s the most fundamental form of physical enhancement. The second stage is when a body becomes strengthened by infused mana.”
“Like me?”
Hee-chul pointed to his own face with his finger.
Looking at his massive frame—so large that chairs seemed small beneath him—no one would ever mistake him for a thirteen-year-old boy.
He had acquired such a physique because he had eaten monster meat for survival and miraculously lived through the ordeal despite the infinitesimal odds.
“Exactly. After the Gate incident, those who awakened, or people like you who were exposed to mana, gained superhuman strength that ordinary humans could never achieve through training alone. The third stage is the emission of mana and aura.”
Yang Sang-heon created a sword-shaped white aura in his hand.
“I’m at this stage right now. Being able to emit aura means compressing the mana within your body to its absolute limit and releasing it.”
Yang Sang-heon dispersed the aura he had created.
“The fourth stage is the awakening of the soul—also called elevation of rank. Without achieving this, you can’t even fight opponents of higher rank.”
“But Amy blocked the Demon King’s attack with lightning, didn’t she?”
“Mana compressed to its extreme contains a person’s will and soul. It’s inefficient, but it can block attacks to a certain degree. However, that’s not enough, is it?”
“That’s true.”
“Finally, the fifth stage is called unity, or unison. It’s when someone who can freely control the power of the soul fully manifests both their trained body and soul’s power. That’s the case with the Demon King you just mentioned, or Lee Ji-seok.”
“How can I reach that level?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know if you or I can reach unity. But I’m certain you can climb to a higher stage than you are now.”
“Just tell me what to do!”
“Good! That’s the attitude I want to see. You’re at stage two right now. You have mana infused in you, but you’re not utilizing it. The best method is to expose yourself to more mana. Since you have beast-like abilities, if you keep getting hit, you’ll awaken to it instinctively.”
“Huh? Brother? Is that right?”
Yang Sang-heon grabbed the wooden sword beside him and rushed at Hee-chul.
Hee-chul kicked away his chair and desk, blocking the wooden sword with his arm.
The impact was loud enough to cause pain, but not enough to break Hee-chul’s arm.
“This is what a purely physical attack looks like. From now on, I’ll gradually infuse mana into the wooden sword with each strike. You can either block it or counterattack. But if you don’t awaken, you’ll just keep taking hits.”
Yang Sang-heon’s sword gleamed with a faint white light, and Hee-chul steeled his resolve.

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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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