The Academy’s Unrivaled Professor - Chapter 25

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

Academy’s Absolute Professor, Episode 025
A Measure of Standard
Cha Yu-sik’s mind held nothing but the Jewoang Geom-hyeong.
After dawn training ended, even during regular class hours, he burrowed into the annotated text he kept hidden beneath his desk.
‘What an extraordinary sword technique.’
The more he read, the more wonder consumed him.
Merely imagining himself executing this martial art flawlessly made his chest swell with longing.
‘My brother must be studying it in earnest by now.’
Cha Du-sik was the top graduate of the 17th cohort.
That made him all the more anxious.
His brother wouldn’t waste his time on meaningless lessons like these.
A few days later, at the Old Building Training Ground.
“Hah!”
Cha Yu-sik was practicing the Earth stance of the Samjae Geom-beop as he always did, when—
‘What’s this?’
Kang Hyeon’s eyes, sipping whiskey from atop the platform, narrowed to slits.
‘His heart is chasing after a different sword.’
His body was here, but his spirit wandered elsewhere.
The other students might not see it, but Kang Hyeon saw everything.
Click.
Kang Hyeon set down his whiskey glass.
“Stop.”
All movement ceased at his cold voice.
Every cadet’s gaze snapped toward the platform.
“Cha Yu-sik. Come forward.”
“Yes, sir.”
Cha Yu-sik wiped the sweat from his brow and stepped ahead.
Kang Hyeon looked down at him with indifference and spoke.
“Today I had planned to advance to the third stage of the Samjae Geom-beop—the Heaven stance. But you’ve made that impossible.”
Sudden silence fell over the training ground.
“Sir… did I make some mistake?”
Cha Yu-sik asked carefully, his confidence shaken.
“You seem to know exactly what I mean.”
His posture had been flawless, despite his distracted thoughts.
So did this professor read minds?
“Where did you get hold of some plausible secret manual?”
“!”
Cha Yu-sik’s pupils trembled.
‘How could he possibly know?’
It happened every time—uncanny.
No matter what he did or thought, Kang Hyeon had a knack for calling it out precisely.
So Cha Yu-sik decided it was better to press forward boldly than to hide.
“To be honest, sir, I know full well that your Samjae Geom-beop is excellent. There’s nothing better for building a foundation. But.”
Cha Yu-sik spoke with clenched teeth.
Certain that the other cadets harbored the same thoughts.
“After all, the Samjae Geom-beop is merely the Samjae Geom-beop. Compared to other advanced sword arts, its limitations and level are clearly inferior, aren’t they? If you yourself employed a different sword art instead of the Samjae Geom-beop, wouldn’t you be far stronger?”
Kang Hyeon twirled the whiskey bottle.
He understood why Cha Yu-sik was acting this way.
In truth, Kang Hyeon had grasped in an instant from just one faltering motion which secret manual had captivated the boy.
‘The Jewoang Geom-hyeong.’
The ultimate secret art of the Namgung Clan.
A tyrannical martial art that unleashed overwhelming pressure from the blade to crush an opponent utterly, rendering them helpless, before severing them in a single stroke.
Alongside the Changung Muwae Geom-beop, it was Namgung’s signature sword technique.
It suited well the elite sensibilities of Cha Yu-sik.
‘If he’s seen that, it makes some sense his mind would wander.’
Even Kang Hyeon, blessed with a Cheonmu-ji-che, had taken half a year to master the Jewoang Geom-hyeong—so profound and magnificent was the art.
‘But.’
The greater the martial art, the more unshakeable its foundation must be.
If he learned the Jewoang Geom-hyeong in his current state, it would amount to nothing but a hollow shell dressed in borrowed finery.
So Kang Hyeon resolved to administer a decisive shock treatment to Cha Yu-sik.
“The Jewoang Geom-hyeong?”
“……What?”
Cha Yu-sik’s breath caught in his throat.
It made no sense.
It was a secret transmission his family had obtained in the strictest confidence.
And he’d only just begun reading the initial interpretation, with only the briefest, unconscious fragment of the form slipping out moments ago.
How could that name have come from Kang Hyeon’s lips?
“It’s a swordform that suits you well enough, I’ll admit.”
He swallowed.
Kang Hyeon downed a mouthful of whisky and issued his warning.
“If you don’t lay your foundations properly, you won’t wield the sword—the sword will drag you along behind it.”
Cha Yu-sik’s mind reeled.
He barely heard Kang Hyeon’s instruction.
What consumed him was how this man had come to know something his father had forbidden him ever to reveal.
“H-how did you know that, sir?”
“Good.”
Instead of answering, Kang Hyeon smiled and descended slowly from the platform.
His gaze swept across all five of them.
“I know what you’re thinking. How long must you fumble with street-level tricks? You want to grow visibly stronger, right now.”
He stopped in the center of the training ground and spoke with finality.
“But a castle built on sand crumbles at the first wave. The reason I drill you relentlessly in the Samjae Geom-beop is to temper your vessel into steel capable of holding any martial art.”
After a brief silence, his eyes flashed with cold precision.
“Very well. If you truly desire it, I’ll give you a benchmark.”
His gaze sharpened.
“When is the midterm examination?”
The Academy’s midterm exam was conducted in the format of a year-by-year martial competition.
It was a tradition of long standing.
“In two months, sir,” answered Gwak Do-jin.
Gwak Do-jin replied.
“Excellent.”
He’d promised the dean as much.
To show concrete results that would silence the dissatisfied professors.
Since he’d said he would teach them how to grow strong, showing them actually growing strong would suffice.
“Within two months, at that competition, each of you will place within the top five of your year.”
“……!”
“Do that, and I will transmit to each of you the true martial arts suited to your individual constitution and temperament—what you’ve been longing for.”
All five students’ eyes widened simultaneously.
Finally!
They would finally escape the Samjae Geom-beop and learn genuine secret techniques?
Anticipation was flooding the training ground when—
“But.”
Kang Hyeon dampened their excitement with a cold condition.
“In the competition, you may use only the Samjae Geom-beop. Nothing else.”
“……Sir?”
It was unreasonable.
The Academy gathered the finest talents Korea had to offer.
Breaking into the top five there was a bloodbath, and he wanted them to fight using only the Samjae Geom-beop?
“Professor! That’s impossible!”
Cha Yu-sik immediately protested, his voice rising.
“No matter how important fundamentals are, how can we place in the top five of our year with only the Samjae Geom-beop?”
And there was another problem.
Cha Yu-sik needed to master the Jewoang Geom-hyeong for the succession struggle within his family.
He’d assumed Kang Hyeon might know of it, but couldn’t possibly teach it.
Had he read that thought?
“I will teach you the Jewoang Geom-hyeong.”
Kang Hyeon spoke first.
“You know of it, Professor?”
“Come out.”
“……Sir?”
“Come. I’ll show you.”
Cha Yu-sik swallowed hard and stepped forward.
His expression was still clouded with doubt.
“You’re probably reading some shoddy interpretation, so don’t let your mind wander—keep your eyes sharp and watch.”
Slowly.
Kang Hyeon raised the wooden sword he’d been holding up toward his head.
It was a simple, deliberate motion.
No energy erupted from it.
But the moment the wooden sword reached its peak and hung suspended in the empty air.
Boom!
A sound like a phantom roar crashed through Cha Yu-sik’s ears.
‘What?’
His breath caught.
The air in the training ground seemed to have become dozens of times heavier in an instant.
Kang Hyeon, who came into his field of vision, appeared not like a towering mountain range, but like an absolute sovereign who commanded all creation beneath him—transcendent, immovable.
‘I… I can’t move…!’
Cha Yu-sik’s legs trembled like aspen leaves.
His instincts screamed at him to flee, but his feet seemed rooted to the earth—he couldn’t lift even a single step.
The invisible pressure emanating from the sword alone had seized the space and completely crushed him.
That was the first stage of the Jewoang Geom-hyeong: Jae-ap.
“I’m cutting.”
Kang Hyeon’s languid eyes suddenly flashed cold as steel.
The raised wooden sword fell vertically down toward Cha Yu-sik’s crown.
Cha Yu-sik understood instantly.
If this had been a real blade, he would have been split in two.
Yes.
This couldn’t be false.
It was the true Jewoang Geom-hyeong he’d read about in those texts!
The wooden sword stopped just above Cha Yu-sik’s head.
“Hah… haah…”
Cha Yu-sik collapsed to the floor, his legs giving way beneath him.
Cold sweat already drenched his spine.
Kang Hyeon withdrew the wooden sword and spoke flatly.
“Does that answer your question?”
At those words, light returned to Cha Yu-sik’s eyes.
‘This means…!’
I can surpass my brother!
No—with the professor, I’ll definitely surpass him!
“I-I’ll absolutely place in the top five…!”
“The rest of you, listen up.”
The shoulders of the four cadets who’d been watching blankly flinched in unison.
“What I have to teach you will be equal to this swordsmanship, so if you want to learn, reach the standard.”
For the first time in a while, light kindled in the eyes of all the cadets.
“We’ll do it with everything we have, Professor!”
“Top five in the year? We’ll crush them all!”
Though they burned with determination, Kang Hyeon knew the truth.
It was far from easy.
Making it into the top five in half a semester—not even a full year.
“All mouth, no action. Say things like that after you’ve actually done them.”
As the five left the training ground, he noticed Baek Yu-yeon still in a horse stance in the corner, trembling violently.
“Hah… haa…”
“Stop.”
“Pant… pant!”
She finally collapsed to the floor, sweat pouring down her body.
“So, what difficult question do you have for me today?”
For the past week, Baek Yu-yeon had been grappling with a puzzle that Professor Hwang Ye-rim had given her.
No matter how hard she racked her brains or how many books she searched, no answer came—so she’d come to Kang Hyeon.
Of course, she didn’t truly expect him to provide the solution.
Even Professor Hwang, called the supreme authority on martial medicine, hadn’t found the answer.
She’d come on a desperate whim.
Grasping at straws.
“Is there a way to clear the cold Qi congested in the meridians without damaging the heart vessels?”
“Is that a question?”
“Yes.”
“It depends on how many meridians are blocked.”
“Nine of them.”
“The Nine-Sealed Meridians.”
In that instant, a flicker of recognition crossed Kang Hyeon’s languid gaze.
It made perfect sense.
The Nine-Sealed Meridians.
A congenital disease so rare that even the martial world treated it as legend.
Those afflicted were born with an extreme abundance of yin-energy that congealed within their bodies, and that bitter cold sealed nine of the vital meridians throughout their entire frame.
With Qi unable to circulate, they spent their whole lives wracked with bone-deep aching cold, slowly withering away until they never lived past twenty—a cursed constitution that demanded an early grave.
Yet Kang Hyeon had been searching for exactly such a person.
‘The only constitution capable of wielding the Lunar Array.’
Among the old villains who had bent him to their will, there was only one woman.
The Sword Empress—Seol Mu-wol.
She was the one with the Nine-Sealed Meridians.
‘That pretentious old witch—utterly revolting.’
She had regained her youth through the Circulation of Boundless Return, and in the martial world she wore a mask of kindness and grace, bathing in the respect and affection of countless men.
But in front of her only disciple, Kang Hyeon, she was entirely different.
When training began, her elegant smile vanished without a trace, and she transformed into a merciless demon who beat him with furious intensity.
For Kang Hyeon, the true devil was never Asura—it was that old woman, Seol Mu-wol, herself.
Irritation welling up inside him, Kang Hyeon took another sip of wine and asked,
“Why are you digging into that?”
Baek Yu-yeon opened her mouth, then spoke.
“……To cure my younger sibling.”
“Your sibling has the Nine-Sealed Meridians?”
Kang Hyeon’s eyes widened.
He was stunned.
How could one family possibly contain both the Heavenly Meridian Eye and the Nine-Sealed Meridians?
Only then did Kang Hyeon understand.
Why Baek Yu-yeon had been so obsessed with martial medicine.
“And the Elixir Refinement technique you were studying—was that also for…?”
“Yes, to create an elixir capable of clearing away the yin-energy.”
“Hah.”
Kang Hyeon exhaled softly and closed his eyes.
“So that’s why you clung to it so stubbornly. Even enduring the horseman’s stance.”
“If it means saving my sibling’s life, I can do anything.”
Kang Hyeon felt the sincerity in those words.
In truth, sincerity reveals itself through action more than speech.
She was quite literally grinding her entire existence into powder for her sibling’s sake.
Kang Hyeon stared at Baek Yu-yeon for a long moment, then spoke without feeling,
“Even if it costs you everything you have?”

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