The Academy’s Unrivaled Professor - Chapter 82

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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, Episode 82
Found it.
“Similar to Yu-seol?”
“Yes.”
“Wait, come here.”
Kang Hyeon brought Baek Yu-yeon to a nearby cafe.
He gave Lee Se-ah one Card and sent her to buy one more for Min Seo-jun.
What he’d given her was far too modest compared to his other students.
“Explain it to me in detail.”
“Ah, yes. So, the thing is…….”
Baek Yu-yeon carefully recalled the events from the Martial Arts Medicine Conference she’d attended all week.

* * *
Last Monday.
The Martial Arts Medicine Conference had brought together forty-eight of the most promising young minds representing various nations.
It was a gathering to present their research, exchange questions and answers, and broaden the horizons of their disciplines.
Baek Yu-yeon drew the eyes of the other students from the very first day.
“Is she the one from Mongolia this time?”
“Professor Chend praised her so highly…….”
“Her Acupuncture is supposed to be incredible.”
No matter how promising these students were, they were still only trainee physicians.
It was virtually impossible to find anyone who’d experienced actual battlefield conditions—directly commanding and saving dozens of lives.
And yet.
There was another female student who drew attention.
‘Who is she?’
She was from China.
In the very back row of the conference hall, there was a barrier of caution tape around her desk, and two stern-faced Chinese Public Security officers stood guard beside her.
She sat isolated, wearing what looked like an uncomfortable mask.
Baek Yu-yeon’s blue-green eyes flashed with sudden clarity.
‘Her Qi Meridian is strange……. If Yu-seol has Yin Energy, does she have Poison Energy?’
The fact that the energy pooled around her mask area made it clear it was a special Anti-Poison Mask.
Baek Yu-yeon felt a chill run through her.
How could a person’s body emit such virulent toxins?
At the same time, she felt a surge of pity.
How much must she be suffering?
The image of Yu-seol crying at night, her voice hoarse with pain, overlapped with what she saw before her.
Baek Yu-yeon had watched her sister endure that agony more closely than anyone.
‘Hm?’
The moment their eyes met, Baek Yu-yeon swiftly turned her head away.
‘Did I stare too hard?’
It might be rude to show such keen interest in someone uncomfortable, so she refocused on the conference proceedings.
Several students began their presentations.
There was a question-and-answer session, and though Baek Yu-yeon spotted many points worth raising, she held back.
‘I should keep quiet.’
She had no desire to boast about the Heavenly Meridian Comprehensive Theory or the Heavenly Physician’s Precious Acupuncture that her master had taught her, and listening to less refined perspectives was an education in itself.

* * *
The Chinese student’s name was Dang Soyu.
She was the same age as Baek Yu-yeon.
Since Baek Yu-yeon had felt Dang Soyu’s gaze on her since Monday, by Tuesday afternoon she’d gathered the courage to approach her.
“Stop! Don’t come closer!”
The security officer stepped forward to block her.
The warning was clear—do not approach, step back.
Because Baek Yu-yeon possessed Perfect Memory and had committed most foreign language dictionaries to memory on a single reading, she understood their meaning.
“Don’t come near. It’s dangerous.”
Dang Soyu herself also tried to dissuade her from approaching, but surprisingly she spoke in Korean.
Her pronunciation was quite fluent.
“You speak Korean?”
“Yeah, I picked it up from dramas. Found it interesting, so I studied it seriously. You’re the angel from Mongolia?”
“That’s kind of an embarrassing nickname……. Anyway, is it okay for us to talk here?”
“Well, about that.”
Dang Soyu glanced at the security agents.
They had maintained a certain distance, which she didn’t bother to obstruct.
After all, they were inside the conference hall.
Baek Yu-yeon had approached first, but it was Dang Soyu who began steering the conversation with purpose.
“You heard that French student’s presentation earlier, right? The one who said you should push out Qi with Yang Energy when it clogs up? What do you think about that?”
Her eyes spoke volumes.
How do you feel hearing such nonsense?
‘Hmm.’
Baek Yu-yeon paused before answering.
“It’s a temporary fix. Eventually it just comes back anyway, and you risk damaging the Qi Meridians. Yin and Yang need to achieve harmony—you can’t let one side dominate.”
“Exactly.”
Dang Soyu laughed.
As someone from the Dang Clan, she’d trained in the Poison Arts, and Martial Arts Medicine was only a hairbreadth away from that discipline.
To her eye, this entire conference looked like kindergarteners showing off their talents.
The two of them continued talking.
The more they spoke, the more impressed they became.
Baek Yu-yeon’s insights pierced straight to the heart of matters Dang Soyu hadn’t even considered, while Dang Soyu’s perspectives held toxicological angles that didn’t appear even in the Heavenly Meridian Comprehensive Theory.
They grew absorbed in each other’s knowledge.
Wednesday. Thursday too.
During every break, they talked while keeping their distance.
Then came Thursday afternoon.
“Soyu.”
“Hmm?”
“My sister was afflicted the same way you are.”
Baek Yu-yeon openly admitted she’d already assessed her condition.
In that instant, Dang Soyu’s body went rigid.
She hadn’t even taken her pulse, yet this girl had read her state?
Even the renowned physicians back in China hadn’t managed that.
“What exactly are you……?”
“Funny—I was about to ask you the same thing.”
Just as their real conversation was about to begin, the conference ended.
The security agent standing watch stepped between the two women, and Dang Soyu felt genuine disappointment.
“We’ll see each other again Monday, right? Can we pick this up then?”
“Yeah, see you then.”

* * *
“And that’s how it happened.”
Baek Yu-yeon laid everything out before Kang Hyeon—every detail of her experience.
The venom in her breath, the Anti-Poison Mask, all of it, including her medical knowledge.
Kang Hyeon felt chills run through his entire body as he listened.
‘It’s absolutely the Heaven-Slaying Body!’
The constitution of Mok Yo-jin, the old monster who once oversaw the poisoning arts in the Martial World—the Poison Hand of the Yellow Spring.
What other reason could there be that he’d reigned supreme in poison and assassination, unchallenged by anyone in all of Martial World history?
His saliva always carried traces of Formless Poison.
And if one took that essence, refined it properly in an alchemical furnace, they could extract one-hundred-percent pure Formless Poison directly from the body—poison potent enough to annihilate the entire world.
The Heaven-Slaying Body was catastrophe incarnate, walking on two legs.
‘How remarkable. To discover the Heaven-Slaying Body first.’
In truth, Kang Hyeon had held almost no expectation of finding a Heaven-Slaying Body at this exchange conference.
In this modern age, the Heaven-Slaying Body could scarcely survive.
From infancy, poison mixed with every breath—nursing would have been impossible, and any bottle would have dissolved.
It was the standard course for such children to be abandoned by their parents or cast out as monsters.
So he’d planned to search first for Flame Prison Heart Body or Nine Yang Broken Meridian, and yet here one had walked in of its own accord.
Clink.
Kang Hyeon set down his coffee cup and spoke.
“Next Monday. I’ll be attending that conference myself.”
“Pardon, Master?”
“Each student can bring one observer along, isn’t that what they said?”
He wouldn’t be able to do more than observe from a distance, but there was certainly such a rule in place.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“I’ll verify it with my own eyes.”
At the Master’s unexpected declaration, Baek Yu-yeon tilted her head for a moment, but her expression soon brightened.
‘If it’s the Master, perhaps she could actually help Soyu.’
Wasn’t Yu-seol gradually improving thanks to the Master’s instruction?
She wanted to be of help to a friend whose thoughts aligned with her own.
She wanted to see that girl breathing freely without her mask on, outside these walls.
“Understood, Master! I’ll register myself as an observer.”

* * *
Dang Soyu entered her private quarters after finishing her schedule.
“……Hmm.”
It was a Five-Star Hotel, technically.
But it couldn’t be called an ordinary guest room.
Specialized glass walls encircled the entire perimeter.
Anti-poison-coated dishware.
Security officers stationed outside the door.
She had no freedom.
“Ahhh, might as well watch some dramas.”
Though she was being classified not as a person but as a hazardous substance, Dang Soyu forced a bright smile.
The Korean dramas she’d been watching lately contained stories that filled the voids in her life.
A mother kissing her child, a family eating an ordinary meal, coworkers sharing drinks, a lover wiping her lips, followed by a kiss.
All things she could never do.
‘My saliva carries poison.’
Having lived in isolation since childhood, in a sense she’d grown accustomed to such moments.
Of course, that didn’t mean familiarity was comforting.
The things we lack are always the things we crave most.
‘Just look at my parents.’
She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been held in an embrace.
Even now, she was only allowed to see them through the glass.
She wanted to be ordinary.
She wanted to do the things others did, exactly as they did them.
That was why.
When the state intervened and taught her the Poison Arts, she’d thrown a tantrum demanding to learn Martial Arts Medicine instead.
And why she’d obsessed over it like a person possessed.
All of it was to fix herself.
Then, through the World Association app, she saw an article that introduced her to Baek Yu-yeon.
It turned out they were the same age.
But how could someone possess such acupuncture techniques?
Since she’d hit a wall in her studies of Martial Arts Medicine, Dang Soyu wanted to meet her.
So she threw a tantrum at the government.
She demanded they get her into the exchange tournament however they could—whether by pretending she was a student or any other means.
And if they didn’t, she’d cooperate with nothing, or they could just kill her.
The Chinese government reluctantly yielded to her demands.
After all, they couldn’t afford to lose this walking Formless Poison production factory.
“Hmph.”
Dang Soyu knew the truth.
The nation didn’t see her as a person.
The regular collection of her saliva made that clear enough.
Were they manufacturing biological weapons with it?
‘Meanwhile.’
That girl, Baek Yu-yeon, hadn’t treated her like a monster.
Rather, she’d looked at her with sympathy, the way one might regard a suffering patient.
Dang Soyu’s eyes softened with a gentle curve.
‘I wish Monday would come faster.’
In truth, this was her first real conversation with someone her own age.
She was genuinely glad she’d learned Korean.

* * *
At the same moment.
Outside the quarantine chamber door.
The public security officer pressed the communication device wedged in his ear, speaking with someone on the other end.
“Yes, we have her in isolation now. She’s adapting well.”
A dry voice filtered through the device.
— That student. Did you see her yesterday as well?
“Yes. She’s shown interest in Baek Yu-yeon, a Korean student. Should we block them from communicating?”
A brief silence followed.
It was ambiguous to judge—neither a rival power like America or Europe, but a minor nation like Korea.
Soon, the decision came through.
— Do it. Dang Soyu is a valuable national asset. Control the situation so no unnecessary variables arise.
“……Understood.”

* * *
Time passed, and finally Monday arrived.
The second week of Arc Field Dungeon conquest had begun, but Kang Hyeon headed straight for the conference hall instead.
He could watch the matches on screen anyway.
As he took his seat among the observers in the distance, Baek Yu-yeon approached with a bright wave.
“Dang Soyu!”
How badly had her fingers itched all weekend—desperate to talk to Dang Soyu!
But then.
“Stop!”
One of the security officers extended an arm, blocking Baek Yu-yeon’s path.
“What?”
Baek Yu-yeon’s surprise drew a response from the officer.
Starting today, they couldn’t speak. She was to go no further and return to her seat.
Dang Soyu’s eyes widened in equal confusion at the situation.
“What is this? Why are you doing this all of a sudden?”
She protested, but the officer remained silent.
And watching the scene unfold, Kang Hyeon’s eyes darkened with realization.
‘So that’s it.’
His fists clenched tight.
‘I’ve found Mok Yo-jin’s successor.’

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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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