Not A Regressor - Chapter 398

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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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I Am Not a Regressor Chapter 398
Interlude – Fate Flows Like a Rapid Current (1)
Crimson mana erupted in a violent surge, spreading like mist across the space.
Isabella, who had been curled up within the blood-red haze, slowly rose to her feet.
The mana that had blanketed the air like fog flowed into her body.
“…Ah.”
As Isabella regained her senses, she let out a soft gasp and gently pulled down her white blouse.
Upon her pristine skin was inscribed the stigma of the Lyra Constellation.
Beside it, the eleventh stroke gleamed with a crimson light, pulsing with power.
“Oh, Kwon O-jin, I…!”
Isabella rushed toward me with an expression of pure excitement.
She leaped up and clung to me like a cicada, wrapping both arms and legs around me as she let out a cry that was almost a scream, pressing her cheek against my head.
“Kyaaaa! Eleven stars! I’ve really become an 11-star!”
Shedding her usual elegant and courteous demeanor, Isabella burst forth with an excited shriek.
Well.
She had consumed my blood and reached the threshold of 11-star, but the period where she remained blocked by that wall, unable to cross it, had stretched on quite long. For her, excitement was inevitable.
“Gasp, ugh, cough.”
Because Isabella had leaped up and clung to me like a cicada, I found myself sandwiched between overwhelming mass and could only flail helplessly, unable to even offer words of congratulation.
A rich rose fragrance wafted to the tip of my nose, and through the thin blouse came a heavy, pressing sensation.
I could barely breathe, yet when the foolish thought crossed my mind that dying like this might not be so bad, it filled my entire being.
“What are you doing with such poor manners?”
Cassia frowned and peeled Isabella away from me like a cicada.
“Huh, Elder Sister?”
“I understand you’re happy about becoming 11-star, but clinging to him so recklessly—won’t that damage the Colgrand Family’s reputation?”
“Ugh.”
Struck by the pointed remark, Isabella bit her lip.
I gently patted Isabella’s shoulder as she stood with a dejected expression.
“Congratulations.”
“Ahem. I’m sorry, Kwon O-jin. I got carried away without thinking….”
“No, it’s fine. You’ve finally reached the 11-star you’ve been longing for—it’s worth getting excited about.”
And besides.
To be honest, it wasn’t an experience bad enough to warrant an apology.
“But you really did become 11-star?”
Ha-eun approached Isabella and gently pulled down her blouse to examine the stigma.
The eleven strokes inscribed beside the stigma came into clear view.
Ha-eun stomped her feet as if indignant and cried out.
“How does touching them once make you a 11-star? That doesn’t make any sense!”
“Excuse me, Elder Sister.”
Your phrasing is far too crude.
“Me too! Strengthen me with that Heukcheon thing or whatever!”
“Am I some kind of enhancement NPC?”
“What do you mean? You drank my blood and got stronger, then you messed with my stigma a bit and became an 11-Star—if that’s not an enhancement NPC, what is?”
“Huh?”
What’s this about?
Now that she mentioned it, it did sound plausible.
“Anyway! If you can infuse Heukcheon’s power into stigmas, then you could do it with Lyra Constellation’s stigma too, right?”
“That would be…”
It would probably be possible.
The technique for infusing Heukcheon’s power into a stigma would be the same regardless.
However, if that happened, Ha-eun would fall under the influence of my ‘dominion’.
‘Even if she said it didn’t matter.’
The Heavenly Demon had told me that if my Heukcheon were to be completely annihilated, all beings who received its power would perish alongside it—and the same would likely apply to me.
In other words.
If my Heukcheon, not the Heavenly Demon’s, were to be destroyed, Cassia and Isabella would die with it.
If Ha-eun’s stigma were to be infused with Heukcheon’s power, she would die as well.
“…No.”
“Why not!”
“We don’t know what side effects there might be. Besides, the Lyra Constellation might get angry if she found out someone touched her stigma.”
“She just sleeps in the Divine Temple all day anyway—what does it matter?”
“Still, no.”
With Cassia and Isabella, they’d already been affected by the Heavenly Demon’s Heukcheon from the start, so there was no helping it—but I couldn’t cover Ha-eun’s brilliantly shining stigma with black clouds.
“Ugh.”
[I said no, so stop whining. Besides, receiving Heukcheon’s power doesn’t automatically make you stronger, does it?]
“Still, it feels unfair that only I’m stuck at 10-Star.”
[Power gained easily fades just as easily. Don’t rely on luck like the young master does—instead, cultivate your strength diligently through constant effort.]
“…But if that’s the case, didn’t Kwon O-jin become 11-Star this time because he received power from Polaris?”
[That, well…]
Vega fell silent, gauging my reaction.
I chuckled and nodded.
“Well, honestly, I did become stronger through luck.”
The effort I’d accumulated over time hadn’t been entirely useless.
But it was also embarrassing to call this a realm I’d achieved through my own power.
‘So.’
I needed time to make this power I’d gained by chance truly my own.
Even if you obtained the sharpest blade, if the swordsman wielding it lacked skill, it would be no better than a kitchen knife.
“Tch… Fine. I’ll give up on receiving Heukcheon’s power.”
Ha-eun sighed and turned away.
“Let’s head back and grab dinner then. I’m starving.”
“No.”
I shook my head quietly.
“Why? Do you need more time?”
“I’ve been thinking about it. I want to stay here for a while.”
“…What?”
“Well, I’m not sure if you’d call it closed training, but since I’ve gained so much, I want to focus on training until it becomes completely mine.”
Kwon O-jin’s eyes gleamed as he traced the stigma carved into his left chest.
There was no way to know when the Heavenly Demon would move again.
I had to make this power completely my own as quickly as possible.

* * *
After Isabella reached the 11th star, Kwon O-jin intensified his training even further.
A grueling schedule of twenty hours of training per day.
Even for an Awakened User with a superhuman body, it was a terrible regimen that would normally break someone within days, yet it had continued for over two months.
Kwon O-jin even ate and slept inside the Training Facility, unwilling to waste the fifteen-minute commute, and devoted himself entirely to training.
Mastering the power of the stigma that had surged upon reaching the 11th star, controlling Heukcheon after its twelfth bloom, and expanding the range of the Sacred Domain’s deployment.
Even amid training that would have been reasonable to collapse from exhaustion, the smile never left Kwon O-jin’s lips.
How could it not be enjoyable?
The primary reason training as a repetitive act causes stress is that growth is difficult to perceive because it progresses so slowly.
The body is exhausted enough to collapse, yet there’s no sense of daily progress—who could possibly enjoy training under such conditions?
Of course, everyone knows that such daily accumulation becomes the foundation for growth, but humans easily lose motivation when there’s no visible reward before their eyes.
However, in that regard, my training was somewhat different.
Because I had achieved such dramatic growth all at once by absorbing Polaris and the Milky Way Spring, I could grow stronger day by day simply by learning how to handle the power I wasn’t yet accustomed to.
It was like suddenly receiving cutting-edge weapons in an army that had only rusty, outdated equipment.
Without needing to grow stronger, simply learning how to wield the power alone caused my level to rise dramatically.
For three months, fueled by the endorphins flooding my mind, I devoted myself to training in the private training room, forgetting day and night.
After a season had changed and I had barely left the closed training ground for three months, my limit finally arrived.
“Ugh….”
Upon waking, I felt a splitting headache and clutched my head.
‘Where am I…?’
A soft, cushioned mattress and blanket enveloping my body.
This wasn’t the sleeping quarters attached to the Training Facility where I’d been taking brief naps for the past three months.
That place didn’t have such a soft bed.
As I looked around with these thoughts, what I saw was….
“…My room?”
Having been cooped up in the Training Facility for three months, it felt somewhat unfamiliar.
But it was definitely my room.
Looking around the dust-free room—someone must have been cleaning it regularly during my absence—I lifted myself from the bed.
“Ugh.”
A sharp headache rang through my skull.
As I squinted and clutched my head.
Click.
The door opened and Isabella stepped into the room.
“You’re awake?”
“Why am I in my bedroom?”
The question sounded odd even as I spoke it.
But for someone like me who had been cooped up in the Training Facility for the past three months, doing nothing but training day and night, it was a perfectly reasonable thing to ask.
“Sigh.”
Isabella exhaled deeply, her fierce eyes fixed on me with obvious irritation.
“You really don’t remember?”
“…Remember what?”
I had finished my Sacred Domain deployment training, showered, and lay down on the bed in the rest chamber for just a moment.
“After that, we received a report that your vital signs were abnormal, so I sent Elder Sister to bring you home right away.”
“My vital signs were abnormal?”
“Yes. The Training Facility has sensors installed to constantly monitor your physical condition.”
“Ah.”
I hadn’t paid much attention to it, but apparently such things were installed.
‘So something suddenly went wrong with my body while I was sleeping.’
I narrowed my eyes and fell into thought.
“…Did deploying the Sacred Domain put strain on my mana circuits?”
Over three months of training, I had succeeded in expanding the range of the Sacred Domain I could deploy to several dozen meters around me.
But as the amount of mana required increased, it was possible that my mana circuits had developed some abnormality.
‘Or it could be the influence of Heukcheon.’
Even though I barely managed to control it with the power of the Lyra Constellation stigma, the Heukcheon I currently possessed was in a precarious state that could explode at any moment.
It was possible that while I slept, Heukcheon had thrashed about trying to seize my body.
“No, that’s not it.”
Isabella shook her head firmly.
“According to the analysis by the Colgrand Family’s specialized medical team of your current condition, it’s neither a problem with Sacred Domain deployment nor Heukcheon.”
“Then what?”
What on earth had happened to my body without my knowledge?
I swallowed hard, my expression tense with anxiety.
“Your current condition is….”
After a brief pause, Isabella’s face contorted as she continued.
“Exhaustion.”
“…What?”
“Exhaustion, I said! Don’t you know what rest is?! Of course your body breaks down when you’re only sleeping two or three hours a day and grinding yourself to dust!”
Isabella’s nagging poured out like machine-gun fire.
“In any case, you need absolute rest for the time being! Do you understand?!”
Faced with Isabella’s furious gaze, I could only nod obediently.

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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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