The All-Time Best Talent was F-Class Purification - Chapter 10

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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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10
Chapter 10 – An Elite Talent Awakened as an F-Rank Purifier
The few hours of rest I spent on the cold floor of the Management Office meant far more than simple physical recovery. That time transformed us from mere contractual party members into trusted partners willing to watch each other’s backs.
“Preparations are complete.”
Park Jae-jung spoke after finishing his maintenance work. His voice carried absolute conviction. I nodded in agreement. My core energy had fully recovered, and my body was in peak condition.
We stood before the Steel Door that the Golem had been guarding. The aura seeping through the cracks was incomparably deeper and more sinister than anything we’d encountered before. Park Jae-jung took his position beside me.
With a grim expression, he began pushing the Steel Door open.
Creeeeeak—
The door, sealed for ten years, groaned with a bone-chilling sound as it swung wide. When the landscape beyond was finally revealed, neither of us could speak.
It was no ordinary corridor. The entire Underground Cavern was overrun with grotesque organisms. Mushroom-like growths the size of human heads sprouted from the ceiling, walls, and floor without discrimination.
Green mycelial networks blanketed the walls, pulsing like a living heartbeat. Each time the spore sacs swelled, a pale powder rose like mist, obscuring our vision. It was beautiful yet deadly—a forest of decay that rotted everything it touched.
“Good heavens.”
Park Jae-jung let out a gasp. The contamination meter in his hand had already surpassed the red danger zone, its needle nearly at the maximum.
“Even breathing is dangerous here. Those spores—they’re far more than simple poison.”
I nodded. They were crystallized pure corruption energy, gnawing at the very essence of life itself.
The greater threat, however, came from the creatures patrolling through that spore forest. Bat-like beings with thin membranes instead of wings moved silently through the air. They followed set patrol routes, their single red eyes surveying the entire forest with mechanical precision.
Park Jae-jung closed his eyes briefly, concentrating. A faint aura shimmered across his entire body.
‘Is that… a skill?’
When his eyes opened moments later, they gleamed with far sharper intensity as he spoke.
“My skill, Veteran’s Instinct, is warning me.”
His voice dropped even lower.
“Those spore nests are essentially mines. And those sentries are the triggers that detonate them. If even one of them spots us, this entire cavern will fill with spores. It’s an instant-death trap.”
The information his skill provided crystallized the danger I’d been vaguely sensing. He experimentally threw a small steel fragment that had broken off from the Golem earlier into the densest part of the spore cloud.
Sizzzzle—
The steel fragment corroded violently the instant it touched the spores, dissolving in seconds. It was clear that even a B-rank Gigagas Shield wouldn’t last a minute in that cloud.
“How do you propose we cross, sir?”
He posed the question to me. He was no longer making all the decisions and giving orders alone. I paused to think. A trial unlike anything we’d faced before. I asked Park Jae-jung.
“Jae-jung, can your skill show you a route to avoid those sentries?”
“I can see one, but it allows no room for even a single mistake.”
“Then let’s take that path. You lead the way, and I’ll follow right behind you.”
Park Jae-jung stared at me for a moment, then nodded with resolve.
“Understood. I’ll use my Concealment skill. Stay directly behind me and make no sound except for my footsteps.”
A shimmering aura rose from his body, fading gradually into the surrounding darkness. I held my breath and took my first step, following in his wake.
Our careful infiltration began. Park Jae-jung read the sentries’ patrol patterns perfectly with his Veteran’s Instinct, finding a precarious safe passage through the shadows of machinery, beneath pipelines, and along the narrowest margins. My heartbeat felt like the loudest sound in this silent space.
Halfway through, one of the sentries that had been moving in a consistent pattern suddenly veered off in an unexpected direction. Another sentry, clinging to the ceiling directly above the Tank where we were hiding. A variable that even Park Jae-jung’s Veteran’s Instinct hadn’t predicted.
‘We’re discovered.’
The red eyes of the sentry hanging from the ceiling locked onto us.
“Damn.”
Just as its jaw opened to emit an alarm, Park Jae-jung’s shield cut through the air. His Shield Bash skill. With a sickening crack, the creature was obliterated. But that was only the beginning of our troubles. The impact caused an old pipe to collapse with a thunderous sound, and that pipe struck directly into a spore nest below.
Crash—
The spore nest ruptured.
An enormous cloud of deadly toxic spores exploded before my eyes.
“Sir!”
Park Jae-jung cried out desperately and threw his body toward me. He shoved me aside and blocked most of the spore cloud with the Gigas Shield on his back.
Ssssshhhhh— The surface of the B-rank shield melted away with a horrific sound.
But he couldn’t block everything. Some of the spores that scattered past his shield descended upon my left arm.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
I screamed.
It wasn’t mere pain. It was a terrible sensation I’d never experienced before—flesh and bone dissolving together. A burning agony as if seared by red-hot iron. Where the sleeve of my newly purchased combat suit had bubbled away, blackened skin and exposed muscle twisted together. Worse still was the horrifying realization that my arm was losing sensation, as if it no longer belonged to me.
“Sir, stay with me!”
Park Jae-jung helped me to my feet. But it was already too late. Our infiltration had ended in catastrophic failure. All the Watchers had detected us, and every spore nest around us was flickering in unison, preparing for a second massive explosion.
“…We need to retreat, now!”
Park Jae-jung practically dragged me toward the Steel Door we’d entered through, running desperately. Behind us, a world-ending roar erupted as the spore cloud engulfed us. We barely rolled through the doorway and slammed the heavy Steel Door shut.
Boom.
We’d barely escaped with our lives, the door between us and oblivion. I collapsed on the Floor, groaning as I watched my arm dissolve. Despair overwhelmed me far more than the pain. Park Jae-jung frantically pulled out a premium antidote potion from his bag and poured it over my arm. But the potion’s blue light turned black the moment it touched the wound, showing no effect whatsoever.
“Damn it, it’s not working!”
His face was filled with despair.
“What the hell… why isn’t it working!”
He cursed and searched for another type of potion, but I already knew the truth. This wasn’t simple poison. It was a force akin to a curse—one that destroyed and corrupted the fundamental matter composing my body. No ordinary antidote would suffice.
My left arm had already lost all sensation below the elbow. The darkened, discolored skin was grotesquely melting away, and that decay was slowly creeping upward toward my shoulder. If this continued, I wouldn’t die from blood loss or sepsis—my entire body would dissolve.
‘Am I dying? So pathetically…’
When I’d held that fifteen million won in my hands, I’d thought everything would change. I’d believed I could protect Mother and escape this suffocating life. But reality was merciless. An F-rank body couldn’t even withstand a single trap in an E-rank Dungeon.
Then I noticed Park Jae-jung’s stern expression as he looked down at me. His eyes held despair mixed with the grim resolve of someone who’d made a decision. He drew his dagger from his belt.
“Sir.”
He gripped my shoulder firmly. His trembling hand held the dagger, his eyes swirling with guilt and determination.
“Forgive me. I have to cut it off. If not now, it will spread to your heart.”
His voice was cold, but it wavered slightly at the end.
It was ruthless but the only solution. I nodded silently. Yet a voice from deep within my heart insisted I couldn’t give up.
‘No… there has to be another way.’
I raised my right hand, stopping Park Jae-jung.
“Wait, Jae-jung.”
“There’s no time!”
“Just… let me try once.”
Enduring the pain, I focused on my only hope—my Purification ability.
‘It eliminates contaminated matter.’
These spores consuming my body were undoubtedly contamination. So couldn’t I purify my own body with my ability?
Park Jae-jung understood my intention and hesitated for a moment. But then he lowered his dagger. He’d decided to silently witness my final struggle.
I placed my trembling right hand over my dissolving left arm. Then, drawing together every remaining bit of Core Energy, I cried out.
“Purify.”
Pure white mana flowed backward through the corrupted blood vessels. The collision of destructive force and restorative force. I could hear blood vessels bursting and muscles twisting within my arm. I fought the urge to scream, clinging desperately to consciousness.
“Aaaaahhh!”
But I screamed nonetheless. The agony was incomparable to anything I’d endured before—a pain that transcended imagination. My flesh tore, my bones seemed to dissolve.
My vision blurred, consciousness slipping away. Yet I couldn’t surrender. If I lost myself here, everything would be finished. I gritted my teeth and endured.
Just as my core energy bottomed out completely, the crimson aura engulfing my arm began to fade. And the moment my purification energy expelled the final spore, something extraordinary happened to my body.
Ding—
A System Message materialized before my eyes.
[You have overcome critical contamination through [Purification]!]
[By surpassing your physical limits, your body grade has risen from [F-rank] to [E-rank].]
[All physical abilities increase slightly. Your damaged body is reconstructed.]
My body, having experienced the extremes of destruction and regeneration, had forcibly evolved one tier higher for survival.
With the message, all pain vanished as if it had never existed. And before my eyes, a miraculous sight unfolded—the skin, muscle, and bone of my left arm that had melted away were reconstructing themselves. The wound disappeared without a trace, replaced by skin far more resilient and smooth than before.
I slowly rose to my feet. My body felt incomparably lighter, brimming with strength. The shackles of F-rank had been severed. I was no longer a fragile glass cannon.
Park Jae-jung stared at the miracle before him, his expression behind the gas mask one of speechlessness. He alternated his gaze between my newly reborn left arm and my intact combat suit, unable to believe what his own eyes witnessed. After a prolonged silence, he spoke in a hushed voice.
“Director…”
The tone in which he addressed me had changed. He scanned my entire body, not just my arm. His eyes were sharp, as if analyzing an entity he was seeing for the first time.
“The amount of core energy flowing from your body has… suddenly changed.”
At those words, I turned my attention inward. A sensation I hadn’t felt before—a solid, subtle power emanating from within my body.
“It’s far more… stable and stronger. The unstable magical fluctuation that enveloped your body has vanished. It feels as though the vessel itself has grown larger and more resilient. Did you perhaps break through a Wall?”
With the keen senses of a C-rank veteran, he had detected the fundamental transformation that had occurred within me. Instead of answering, I checked my own status. As I summoned the status window in my mind, the familiar blue panel appeared before my eyes. And there, an unbelievable change was recorded for me to see.
[Lee Tae-hyun]
– Body Grade: E-rank
– Unique Trait: Purification (Lv.1)
‘…It’s real. I’ve reached E-rank.’
“Yes, E-rank…”
I nodded quietly at Park Jae-jung.
A faint smile crossed his face.
“…Now, at last, your impossible attack power has found proper balance, Director.”
I clenched and unclenched my newly reborn left fist. My body felt incomparably lighter, overflowing with strength. I was no longer F-rank. I turned my gaze toward the Steel Door once more. There was no fear. Only confidence surged within me.
I turned back to Park Jae-jung and spoke in a measured voice.
“Let’s begin round two, Jae-jung.”
Park Jae-jung shook his head.
“No, Director. We cannot proceed recklessly.”
He regarded me with eyes that had transformed into those of a completely serious strategist.
“The situation has changed. Now that you’ve become E-rank, we must devise new tactics. I’ll enter first to confirm a different route and the spore nest locations once more. This time, we’ll go in fully prepared.”
At those words, I reflected on my own recklessness. Growing stronger in power didn’t mean I’d also grown in the wisdom to command the situation.
I nodded.
“Very well. I’ll defer to your judgment, Jae-jung.”

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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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