The Academy’s Unrivaled Professor - Chapter 29

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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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Academy’s Absolute Professor 029
I need to earn some money too.
Every time I come to the Old Building training grounds at dawn, I feel good.
It’s the fresh mountain air.
The Academy was built twenty years ago, above Pyeongchang-dong’s city streets,
and I heard the opposition was quite fierce since they had to carve away the foothills of Bukhansan.
‘Perfect for settling in.’
I blew the horn as I climbed onto the platform, and five cadets were waiting there.
“Have you all been keeping up with the Horse-Riding Stance consistently?”
My abrupt question drew different reactions from each of them.
Cha Yu-sik and Yun Hyeon-jong nodded without hesitation, Seo Hae-in scratched his head, while Gwak Do-jin and Han Tae-ho flinched.
‘Look at these fools.’
When I began teaching the Three Disasters Sword Technique in earnest, I’d told them to manage their basic physical training on their own.
But as their sword skills improved, they’d clearly grown slack about the tedious lower-body work.
‘I need to filter out these mental weaklings.’
No matter what advanced martial arts you learn, if your body can’t support it, you can do nothing.
“Originally, I was going to recite the foundational secret formulas of the Heart Method for you today.”
All five cadets’ eyes widened at once.
They’d been told that real martial arts would only be taught after the midterm exam, and only if they met the standards.
But now I was teaching them the Heart Method early?
That meant I’d already decided which martial arts to pass down to each of them.
“But only the prepared can seize their opportunity.”
I grinned and pointed to the peaks behind the Academy with the whiskey bottle.
“That peak.”
It was clearly a steep cliff face where no one trod.
“I’ll be waiting at the summit. Once you arrive, I’ll recite the formulas for you.”
“That… that place you mean?”
Han Tae-ho asked in alarm, but I ignored him and continued.
“Don’t forget that my class ends at nine in the morning.”
That was all.
Whoosh!
I vanished before they could protest.
The cadets stood there with stunned expressions.
Current time: six in the morning.
If they didn’t arrive within three hours, there would be no formulas today, and the faster they arrived, the more they could learn.
“Run, run!”
“Hyaaaaah!”
The cadets began running like madmen.

* * *
After the training session ended, I entered the Faculty Office.
“Oh, you’re here, Professor!”
Lee Se-ah, who’d arrived early, was wiping down the inkstone.
I was baffled.
“Why are you cleaning that?”
“It’s my job, so…”
“Who assigned you that job?”
“I assigned it to myself.”
Does the public know?
That the Management Bureau’s chief operative, drawing state salary, spends her mornings cleaning her professor’s inkstone?
“Stop wasting time and come sit here.”
“Yes, sir!”
As I sat down in my chair, Lee Se-ah naturally took her place across the table.
Premium paper was laid out with practiced ease.
Grind, grind.
She began grinding ink on the inkstone that Yun Tae-jung had gifted me.
It was our morning ritual.
Creating Martial Arts Manuals.
Swish, swish.
As I wrote across the paper like a man possessed, Lee Se-ah stood beside me, laying down fresh sheets with perfect timing, replenishing the ink, and gathering the dried pages to bind them together.
“What’s this Martial Arts Manual about, Kang Hyeon?”
“Water-Day Formation Method.”
“What’s that?”
Just then, Kang Hyeon’s brush completed the title on the cover.
⪡Water-Day Formation Method⪢
“You’re better off not knowing.”
“Ugh, you always say that. Look, despite what you think, I know how to keep my mouth shut.”
She pouted as she spoke, but her hands were already moving nimbly to present the next sheet of paper.
There were countless manuals left to create.
From the formation manual for the Seven Luminaries Formation that would need to be deployed once all seven disciples gathered, to the Internal Cultivation and sword technique manuals that needed to be given to each of the five students currently training on the mountain outside, and the martial arts medical texts that had to be handed to Baek Yu-yeon immediately.
“Wow, you really are fast…….”
Without those rapid hand movements, the sheer volume would have taken a lifetime to complete.
“Sigh…….”
Lee Se-ah let out an exaggerated breath as she bound a completed manual with thread.
“I didn’t pass that grueling national exam just to run a cottage industry! Here I am, supposedly a top-ranked agent, and all I do is grind grain and do bookbinding.”
Kang Hyeon chuckled softly at her complaint, brush still moving.
“Keep at it. Something good will come your way soon.”
“What good thing? Getting muscles on my forearms from the work?”
As Lee Se-ah grumbled, Kang Hyeon shifted his gaze and looked at her.
“Does your Management Bureau have any representative martial arts or techniques?”
“Representative martial arts?”
Lee Se-ah froze for a moment.
They did, of course.
The expensive manuals purchased from overseas for the agents.
But since it was a state secret, even ordinary civilians and most large guilds didn’t know about it.
‘Should I tell him? Shouldn’t I?’
Her pupils wavered.
Her mind was screaming with warning signs that she absolutely shouldn’t say anything.
Rule number one for agents!
Maintain confidentiality!
But her instincts were crying out loudly.
‘I have to tell him. Absolutely.’
After all, wasn’t Black himself a top-secret classified secret?
What was the harm in sharing one secret with another secret?
Besides, if she reported this fact to the Director?
A hundred percent, he’d light a double wick and tell her to spill everything and extract whatever she could.
‘Should I say I’ll go ask the Director first and come back?’
No.
That would be too amateurish.
The moment she hesitated like that, wouldn’t this indifferent man just say, “Never mind, why are you being such a bother? Forget it”?
Ah, Director.
If something goes wrong, I’ll take full responsibility and resign!
“We do!”
“What is it?”
“Shadow Art and Shadow Step, and the Soul-Chasing Short Sword Technique. Combat agents learn those.”
“That so?”
Kang Hyeon frowned.
“Shadow Art must be pretty crude demonic martial arts.”
“You know about it?”
Of course he did.
It was a crude technique created by that insane organization, the Demonic Cult, to raise the Shadow Team members.
“Yes—it tears through the energy channels rapidly, delivering quick results, but the more you cultivate it, the shorter your lifespan becomes.”
“What?!”
Lee Se-ah’s mouth fell open.
Could the combat agents’ unusually high early retirement rate actually be caused by the Shadow Art?
The government had always framed it as the result of excessive missions and training, but thinking about it now, major guilds trained just fine and stayed healthy.
Look at Academy Director Seo Il-hyeon.
He’s seventy this year and still robust.
“That said, Shadow Step and the Soul-Chasing Short Sword Technique are fairly serviceable skills. The footwork erases even your shadow—perfect for someone sneaking around behind people. The short sword technique isn’t bad either as a killing technique for surprise attacks.”
Despite Kang Hyeon’s explanation, Lee Se-ah’s mind was elsewhere.
He needed to call Director Yun right now and stop this insane training at once.
“Shouldn’t we stop the training immediately?” Lee Se-ah asked.
“Don’t panic. Will it change anything if I call now?”
“Well, even so…”
“Listen first, kid.”
Brush, brush!
Kang Hyeon continued speaking, still painting.
“I’ll give you the perfect interpretations of the Shadow Step and Soul-Chasing Short Sword Technique that you use, and the original and interpreted texts of the Hidden Meridian Heart Method to replace that garbage Shadow Art.”
“The Hidden Meridian Heart Method?”
“It’s an Internal Cultivation that pairs perfectly with the Shadow Step. It’s a heart method that doesn’t expose the flow of Qi to the surface. Once you master it, it won’t consume your lifespan, and it’ll be far more compatible than what you have now.”
Lee Se-ah’s breath caught.
Her mind began to spin.
It was clearly an extraordinary offer.
But why would Kang Hyeon suddenly present such favorable terms?
“There’s no such thing as a free lunch, though, is there?”
“That’s right, kid. You’ve got a sharp head on you.”
“Tell me. Within the limits of what the Management Bureau—or the state—can do…”
“It’s not that grand.”
A smile played at the corners of Kang Hyeon’s mouth.
“When you provide those interpretation texts, just put my name as the Martial Arts Manual Interpreter, and have the state do some promotion for it.”
“Your name, sir?”
Lee Se-ah’s eyes widened.
“May I ask why?”
“I need to make some money too.”
Once Tae-jung Material Company stabilized, he intended to throw himself fully into the martial arts manual business.
But he couldn’t dump everything in his head onto the market overnight.
Think about it.
If a never-before-seen martial arts manual suddenly appeared on the market, who in their right mind would shell out tens or hundreds of billions for it without question?
Few would recognize its true value, and nine times out of ten it would be dismissed as a counterfeit and become a laughingstock.
So trust had to be established first.
‘Martial Arts Manual Interpreter, Kang Hyeon.’
Those three characters would become a brand name in the Hunter market.
Kang Hyeon was confident.
Once his hand had touched them, even shoddy techniques would sell like hotcakes.
The very framework and caliber of interpretation were incomparable.
Those accustomed to rough translations scribbled by mediocre interpreters would receive a shock like being struck hard on the head with a hammer the moment they opened his work.
Of course, there was the matter of how to counter counterfeiting, but he’d address that later.
“Is that possible?”
“Well… that’s the thing.”
Guidelines regarding Kang Hyeon flashed through Lee Se-ah’s mind.
The current Korean government and the Management Bureau were desperate to hide Black by any means necessary.
When he said he’d enter as a professor, there had been a reason he’d only revealed it to Dean Seo Il-hyeon.
Currently, South Korea was a minor hunter nation.
Looming directly above was China, a superpower eyeing the Korean Peninsula at every opportunity, and beyond the sea, Japan and America possessed numerous S-Class Hunters and controlled the world at their fingertips.
What if, in such circumstances, rumors spread that someone stronger than an S-Class Hunter had appeared in South Korea?
One of two things would happen.
They would either try to poach him through coercion.
Or international strife would erupt.
With Korea’s current national strength, preventing that would be difficult.
No matter how absolute Kang Hyeon’s power was, it made no difference.
A blade hidden silently in the darkness was far more threatening than one displayed openly for all to scrutinize.
“Um, sir…”
Lee Se-ah swallowed hard and spoke carefully.
“Does the interpreter’s name have to be Kang Hyeon specifically?”
“Hm?”
“What I mean is… do you really need to use your real name?”
“Why not?”
Lee Se-ah’s face fell as she began to explain, at length, South Korea’s dire geopolitical circumstances.
How China was aggressive, how there could be diplomatic friction, how the state couldn’t protect him, and all the rest.
Kang Hyeon, listening in silence, let out a quiet scoff.
“Come at me, all of you. I’ll handle whoever wants to try.”
From the start, he’d never harbored even a shred of intention to hide his strength.
He was simply tired of the trouble.
The moment he’d returned to Earth, government organizations had clung to him like leeches, offering him a house, money, and daily tributes of whiskey while promising to manage his affairs carefully—there was no reason to refuse.
For someone who’d despised bothersome matters even in the Martial Arts World, it was a fairly comfortable life in seclusion.
Of course, that didn’t mean he wanted to boast about his strength or broadcast it to everyone.
Kang Hyeon was simply indifferent.
Whether the world knew of him or not—such things held no importance to him.
“Professor Kang Hyeon, we know you’re strong! Of course we do! But there’s no need to actually fight, is there?”
“Why can’t I fight?”
Kang Hyeon tilted his head in confusion.
When the weak ones yapped, you simply found the strongest among them and beat them down overwhelmingly.
“Not so much can’t, as… I was worried it might be too much trouble for you, Professor.”
“What?”
“Well, obviously! As more Martial Arts Manuals are deciphered, the Hunter community will turn upside down—and you want to put your real name on them?”
Lee Se-ah’s words tumbled out in a rush as Kang Hyeon’s eyebrow twitched.
“Right now, the three major Guild Masters of Korea will show up with truckfuls of money blocking the faculty office door! Chinese and American spies will cling to you like leeches every time you go to the restroom! Your name will pop up on news bulletins every single day, and politicians will swarm you just begging for a photograph—!”
“Fine, fine.”
Kang Hyeon relented.
That did sound sufficiently aggravating.
“Then we’ll use your name.”
“…I’m sorry?”
Lee Se-ah’s eyes went wide as saucers.
“My name, suddenly?”
“When you think about it, you’re helping me anyway, aren’t you? It works as co-authorship.”
“But that’s…”
“Weren’t you planning to use an alias anyway? The way you told it, once the Manuals hit the market, people will line up with truckfuls of money—are you going to parade around some fictional person and handle it all as ghostwritten transactions? Eventually, some real person has to meet them face-to-face, handle the actual work, negotiate, sign contracts, and collect the money. Who’s going to do that?”
“…”
Lee Se-ah opened her mouth.
Now that she thought about it, there was no one else who could do it.
Every other agent had always been reluctant to communicate with Black!
“If you don’t like it, forget it. I’ll just use my name…”
“I’ll do it! I’ll use my name!”
Lee Se-ah cried out, her eyes squeezed shut.
Tap-tap.
A cautious knock sounded at the door.
“Come in.”
The cadet who stumbled through at Kang Hyeon’s permission was none other than Baek Yu-yeon.
Her face bore all the marks of a week spent without sleep.
With a zombie-like expression, she extended the ancient text and spoke.
Heavenly Meridian Comprehensive Theory
“Professor…”
Her voice was hoarse.
“I’ve memorized it all.”

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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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