The Academy’s Unrivaled Professor - Chapter 56

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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 Absolute Professor Episode 56
Leave the team, or become the team leader
The open ground behind the New Training Hall buzzed with activity from the earliest hours of dawn.
“Come on! Come on! Stop!”
Massive heavy machinery roared as it tore into the earth, while workers moved with practiced urgency, laying the foundation for construction.
Taejeong Materials had launched into full-scale development work.
Thanks to Yun Tae-jung assembling the nation’s top construction teams, the project was slated for completion before the next semester began.
Because of this, the students’ dawn training had to be conducted in one corner of the open ground where work hadn’t yet started.
“Is everyone here?”
Kang Hyun, holding a Whiskey Bottle, perched on the fence.
“Yes, Professor!”
Oh In-bang straightened up in unison with the others.
Incidentally, Do Jeong-hyeok had already climbed up to the Peak and was striking at a boulder.
Night or dawn—it made no difference to him.
Do Jeong-hyeok could only advance to the next stage once he destroyed that boulder.
“I’m here, Professor! The meal yesterday was excellent!”
Gwak Do-jin held out the card he’d settled the previous day, and Kang Hyun caught it with casual ease, tucking it into his pocket.
“So, you’ve all thought about team names?”
“Of course!”
Gwak Do-jin stepped forward first.
“You said you’d teach me the Demon-Breaking Sword, didn’t you, Professor? So I decided on Demon Slayer Squad—to symbolize vanquishing demons. Is that acceptable?”
“Demon Slayer Squad?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.”
The corners of Kang Hyun’s mouth lifted.
His original concept had been something like an independent martial school—a name in the classical martial tradition—but what this kid had come up with sounded more like a subjugation unit under the Martial World Alliance.
“Well, the name is the team leader’s prerogative anyway.”
Once Kang Hyun nodded his approval, Gwak Do-jin exhaled in relief.
Next came Yun Hyun-jong.
“Mine is Twin Dragons.”
“Twin Dragons?”
“I was going to use my name—Hyun-jong, like my father—but I decided against it. It wouldn’t be fair to future team members.”
“That’s right. Twin Dragons suits it better.”
It aligned well with the Undefeated Twin Swords he’d be learning.
Then, the youngest, Han Tae-ho, who had been watching quietly, suddenly raised his hand.
“Seniors! May I offer a humble opinion as the newest member?”
After sharing a drinking session yesterday, he’d already grown considerably more bold and confident.
“These team names are far too old-school martial world in style. If we’re building a new organization, shouldn’t we prepare for global expansion down the road?”
“…So what’s your idea?”
Gwak Do-jin asked as if baffled, and Han Tae-ho puffed out his chest and declared confidently,
“Team Blossom!”
“…What?”
“Plum blossom is ‘Plum Blossom’ in English, right? But that’s a mouthful and doesn’t roll off the tongue, so—sleek, trendy, Team Blossom! Doesn’t it have a nice ring to it?”
The seniors were dumbfounded.
What was he doing, bragging about learning the Plum Blossom Sword Technique?
And naming it like some game guild.
“Let me be clear again: the team name is entirely the team leader’s choice.”
Kang Hyun emphasized this.
“The moment you lose the team leader position, the name changes too. Remember that.”
“That will never happen!”
Though, of course, if the Professor’s disciple learned the Plum Blossom Sword Technique, things might be different!
When it comes to grinding forward through effort alone, without talent, I won’t fall behind anyone!
Because that resolve was genuine, Kang Hyun laughed.
Yeah, at that level, he could bulldoze through with sheer effort.
Last came Cha Yu-sik.
He still seemed to be deliberating.
‘Cheonlang.’
One of Korea’s three greatest guilds, and the wolf pack he’d wanted to command since childhood.
But last night, a thought kept circling back.
‘Could the seat of Cheonlang’s leader—the one I’ve been grasping for—actually be nothing but a narrow, cramped well?’
If I could begin with the Cangqiong Wuya Swordsmanship under the Professor and eventually see the pinnacle of the Imperial Sword Form… would there really be any need to scramble for the position of pack leader?
What if, instead, I left the pack, grew stronger on my own terms, and became a protector wolf for the entire family someday?
The moment he entertained that thought, his heart beat a little faster.
The position of Cheonlang and the position of a guardian wolf.
A breath escaped him.
Cha Yu-sik stepped forward, exhaling deeply.
His eyes had cleared of all hesitation.
“I choose to be the Lone Wolf.”
“The Lone Wolf?”
Kang Hyun’s eyebrows flickered.
“A wolf that has left the pack?”
“Yes, sir.”
At his resolute answer, the other Students’ eyes widened.
In a sense, it was as though he were declaring he would shed the Cheonlang label entirely.
Knowing how desperately he had once wanted Cheonlang made them all the more stunned.
“However, there is something I would like to ask you, Professor.”
Cha Yu-sik spoke carefully.
“If someday I wish to return to my original pack, will you permit it?”
By the standards of the Hunter industry, it was a presumptuous thing to say.
He was declaring that he would learn Martial Arts Techniques under the Professor, but his roots remained with Cheonlang, and he might one day return to them.
Yet Kang Hyun simply let out a soft chuckle.
“Didn’t I tell you yesterday? It’s your freedom.”
He continued in a languid voice.
“Make all your own choices. I won’t meddle. That’s precisely why I refuse to take you on as formal Disciples.”
It was his genuine conviction.
‘You don’t need to become my shackles.’
The old masters of his past had locked Kang Hyun away in hell for twenty years.
Under the guise of master and student, armed with the responsibility to save the world.
‘Nonsense.’
Kang Hyun had no intention of passing that grating, detestable habit down to these young Students.
‘They are merely proof.’
Proof that Kang Hyun had returned to this world and was living a new life reasonably well on his own terms.
After he cut off Asura’s head, if they flourished and returned to their own packs to live their own lives?
That satisfaction alone would be enough.
But Cha Yu-sik, unaware of what lay beneath Kang Hyun’s surface, felt his heart thrashing violently.
‘How can he remain so detached?’
Normally, a Guild demanded bone-deep loyalty just to obtain a single Martial Arts Technique.
Yet this man taught them extraordinary techniques while displaying not the slightest possessiveness or attachment.
‘Is his spirit that magnanimous? Or…’
Could the Imperial Sword Form be as trivial to the Professor as a pebble rolling in the street?
Either way, it mattered little.
What mattered was that reverence was blooming in his chest.
A soft rustling sound.
Cha Yu-sik bent deeply at the waist.
“Thank you.”
His voice rang across the Open Ground.
“For as long as I bear the name of the Lone Wolf and belong to a team… I will honor your orders as solemnly as my father’s.”
It was no longer a Student and Professor relationship.
It was the relationship between a Team Leader of a Guild and its Master.
Cha Yu-sik had drawn that line with precision.
“Um, Professor?”
In the silence, Seo Hae-in raised his hand.
“What is my team’s name?”
Ah.
Kang Hyun chuckled softly, as if only now remembering.
The truth was, his refusal to criticize the childish naming sense of the others before him had a separate reason.
Compared to the team name Ma Chul-ung had created and left last night, Demon Slayer Squad and Team Blossom were actually quite respectable.
“You’re the Tiger Research Lab.”
“Pardon?”
Seo Hae-in’s eyes went blank with bewilderment.
A look of disbelief crossed his face, as though his own ears had betrayed him.
“The Tiger Research Lab?”
“Huh.”
The other students’ eyes went wide in an instant.
Some clapped their hands over their mouths in shock; others bit their cheeks to keep from laughing.
Ma Chul-ung’s obvious satisfaction meant they couldn’t laugh outright, but inwardly they were reeling.
‘The Tiger Research Lab?’
‘What, some animal handler club?’
The very thought of explaining it to his parents someday made him cringe.
Son, what’s the name of the guild that scouted you?
The Tiger Research Lab, Mother.
……Did you seriously take a job at the zoo?
Yes.
The possibility alone made his head spin.
“What, don’t you like the team name?”
“Oh, no, not at all!”
Seo Hae-in lowered his head meekly.
“It’s, it’s actually quite cute. Ha ha.”
But her expression had already crumpled into a grimace that belied her words.
“If you don’t like the team name, there are two things you can do.”
Kang Hyun held up two fingers.
“Leave the team, or become the team leader yourself and change the name.”
Seo Hae-in’s face went pale.
‘But I’d have to become stronger than Hunter Ma Chul-ung to be team leader!’
She resigned herself to being the Tiger Research Lab’s number one researcher for life.
But Kang Hyun’s thinking was different.
‘That’s a problem for later.’
Ma Chul-ung couldn’t afford to let his guard down.
Seo Hae-in had considerable talent, even if not quite at the level of a true disciple.
Of course, he didn’t voice that observation aloud.
‘Overconfidence is poison.’
When Seo Hae-in continued to pout, Gwak Do-jin felt compelled to defend her.
“Still, the Tiger Research Lab is a bit much…… I thought a kindergartener had come up with the name.”
In that very moment.
Thud, thud!
Heavy footsteps echoed from the distance.
In a flash, he turned his head—Ma Chul-ung was walking toward them.
“Eep!”
Gwak Do-jin stumbled backward, and the now-approaching Ma Chul-ung thrust his face directly at him.
“You? You just called me a kindergartener?”
A towering figure over two meters tall, with a long scar running down his forbidding face.
Gwak Do-jin felt the blood drain from his legs.
“N-no, not at all! I was thinking it was such an intuitive name that even kindergarteners would find it easy to remember!”
Ma Chul-ung ignored his desperate excuse and approached Kang Hyun, bowing his head.
“Brother.”
“Yeah.”
“Like you said yesterday, I’ve come to pick up the team members. We’re going to train together.”
Kang Hyun nodded.
“Go ahead, take them.”
This was far better for Seo Hae-in as well.
Kang Hyun’s martial arts level was so far beyond reach that for someone still laying the foundations of her training, listening to his instruction would likely feel abstract and disconnected.
Instead, learning the same martial arts as Ma Chul-ung and gaining practical experience through sparring—when they both hit a wall and needed guidance, that was when Kang Hyun would unblock a crucial meridian point for her. That approach would accelerate her growth far more effectively.
“Let’s go, squirt.”
“Y-yes! Understood, team leader!”
With Ma Chul-ung leading the way, Seo Hae-in followed close behind, tense and alert.
Envy flickered across the other students’ faces.
‘Training with an active S-Class Hunter?’
‘……Now I want to walk into the Tiger Research Lab myself.’
While everyone was swallowing hard with longing.
“Hey.”
Kang Hyun’s languid yet weighty voice carried across the Open Ground.
“Everyone, no weapons.”
Dawn training had begun.
* * *
“You want me to register teams?”
Lee Se-ah’s eyes widened.
“Yeah, five of them. Separate entities.”
Kang Hyun explained it roughly, and Lee Se-ah, true to her position as chief of the Management Bureau, grasped his intent perfectly.
“I can set them up as independent guilds and then allocate a 20% stake to you, and the team leader’s 10% share separately?”
“That works fine.”
“And then for you, I’ll create an administrative holding company—independent but with administrative support!”
“That’s exactly it.”
For now the team was small, but once it grew larger, they’d need an organization to manage it all.
After all, the real goal was to extract information from the guilds.
“This is getting huge, isn’t it? If even Ma Chul-ung is joining…”
An exclamation escaped Lee Se-ah’s lips.
‘What exactly is Black’s purpose?’
Someone with such immense power, yet all he does is teach students.
On top of that, he’s building up Taejeong Materials and creating guilds.
Not just one guild, but multiple ones—laying the foundation for a future alliance that would dominate the world.
‘Is he trying to become some shadowy puppet master controlling the world?’
“Do well. You’ll have your cut when you leave the Management Bureau.”
“Ah, please stop tempting me with money.”
“Should I not give it to you then?”
“No, I’ll do my absolute best!”
Just as Lee Se-ah was playing along,
Whoooom!
The sound of an engine rumbled in the distance beyond the Professor’s Office window.
Two large buses were entering through the Main Gate.
“Oh, they’ve finally arrived!”
Lee Se-ah exclaimed.
Kang Hyun stretched and rose from his seat.
‘The Mongolian exchange delegation.’
At last, the students from foreign academies had come as exchange students.
‘The principal asked me for a favor, so I should go greet them.’

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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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