The All-Time Best Talent was F-Class Purification - Chapter 32

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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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32
Chapter 32 – An Elite Talent Awakened as an F-Rank Purifier
“Let’s go!”
With Park Jae-jung’s shout, we charged headlong into the sea of monsters.
Boom!
Park Jae-jung’s shield bash struck the crystal golem at the front, slamming into its chest. The heavy impact cracked across its torso, and the creature staggered backward.
“Clear the way!”
He didn’t pause, swinging his shield in a relentless arc. Crystal golems towering over two meters were flung aside like autumn leaves caught in a gale. The perfectly restored B-Rank Gigas Shield proved its worth—its impact absorption and reflection function shattered the monsters’ formation, sending their attacks ricocheting back at them.
“Two o’clock, three scorpions.”
Lee Ji-young’s voice cut through the chaos as gunfire erupted. Bang! Rat-a-tat! Her bullets pierced through the scorpions’ eyes and joints with surgical precision. Her Eyes of Truth hunted for weak points even in the pandemonium of battle.
“Finish them.”
I seized the opening, weaving between the collapsing golems and scorpions, driving my purification dagger deep into their cores.
“Purify.”
Ssshhh— With each touch, the monsters erupted in blue smoke and crumbled to nothing. It wasn’t mere destruction. I was striking directly at the mana cores that powered their very existence.
Our initial momentum was flawless. We advanced like an unstoppable tide. A hundred meters remained to the cocoon. But their resistance was relentless.
“Roooaarrr!”
The elite golems guarding the cocoon stirred to life. They were twice the size of ordinary golems, their entire bodies encased in obsidian-black crystal.
As they struck the floor, a seismic shockwave erupted, anchoring us in place.
“Ugh!”
Park Jae-jung staggered. In that instant, a fist the size of an elevator plummeted toward him. He couldn’t dodge—not without Lee Ji-young and me being crushed behind him.
“Hyaaah!”
Instead of fleeing, Park Jae-jung raised his shield overhead and met the blow head-on.
Crash!
The deafening impact shook the entire cavern. Park Jae-jung’s feet shattered the bedrock beneath him, sinking down to his ankles.
“Cough!”
Blood sprayed from his mouth. The B-Rank shield remained pristine, but his body—the flesh that bore the impact—had reached its limit. The obsidian golem’s raw strength was at least mid-tier B-Rank. For a C-Rank Hunter like him, it was an impossible weight to bear.
“Park Jae-jung.”
“Don’t… come… closer!”
He screamed through the blood pouring from his lips.
“I’ll hold them! Guild Master, push forward!”
But I couldn’t. Scorpion swarms were converging from both sides. Lee Ji-young was laying down suppressive fire, but it wasn’t enough. We were completely surrounded.
‘Damn it. I have to break through.’
I was at my limit too. My core energy was nearly depleted from constant purification. At this rate, we’d all fall.
Then the obsidian golem pinning Park Jae-jung raised its other arm. A finishing blow. Park Jae-jung’s limbs trembled violently. His vision was beginning to blur.
‘Is this the end?’
Park Jae-jung felt his limit closing in. Ten years. For the past decade, he’d always hit this wall—the barrier of C-Rank. A talent ceiling he could never breach, no matter how hard he struggled.
‘Am I just going to crumble again?’
As despair threatened to consume him, Lee Tae-hyun’s words flashed through his mind.
‘You’re not weak, Park Jae-jung. Your body was simply rusted.’
‘Now you’ve returned to your true form.’
That scorching sensation deep within Lee Tae-hyun’s body—the one that had pierced through the clogged corruption residue. Those newly opened meridians now thrashed violently under the strain of fierce combat and pressure.
‘That’s right. There are no more blockages.’
Park Jae-jung clenched his teeth. The taste of blood flooded his mouth. My body is open. My vessel is no longer C-Rank. I can grow. No—I must grow.
Because there are people behind me I need to protect.
“I am!”
Scorching heat erupted from Park Jae-jung’s mana core near his heart. That inferno coursed through his veins, spreading across his entire body. The C-Rank shackles that had bound him for ten years shattered with a resounding crack. His muscles swelled, his bones screamed as they reinforced themselves.
“Moonglade’s… shield!!”
Boom—!
The azure mana that burst from his body transformed into golden light and exploded outward. The Gigas Shield resonated with its master’s awakening, emitting a magnificent harmonic tone.
[Blooming.]
[C-Rank Hunter Park Jae-jung’s rank elevation.]
[Unique Skill Guardian’s Wall evolves into Iron Fortress.]
The System Message appeared only to me, but everyone witnessed the phenomenon.
A golden barrier extended from Park Jae-jung’s shield, forming a massive dome that enveloped the surrounding ten meters.
Crash!
The obsidian golem that had been crushing him couldn’t overcome the repulsive force and was hurled backward. The swarms of scorpions surrounding them were likewise swept up by the powerful shockwave and sent flying through the air.
“What is this?”
Lee Ji-young couldn’t close her mouth. Her crimson eyes swept across Park Jae-jung.
“The mana reaction… it’s skyrocketing. He’s not C-Rank anymore. This is… B-Rank energy, or even higher!”
She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was extraordinarily rare for a Hunter to break through their limits and advance their rank during combat. It was something close to a miracle.
But I knew the truth. This wasn’t a miracle—it was the inevitable result of Park Jae-jung’s ten years of accumulated effort meeting the potential I had unlocked.
“Haa… haa…”
Park Jae-jung, now wreathed in golden energy, slowly rose to his feet. His body no longer radiated defeat or fear. Only the overwhelming majesty of a guardian enveloped him.
Without turning back, he shouted.
“Now, Director!”
He charged forward, shield leading.
[Shield Rush – Chariot Mode]
Crash, crash, crash, boom!
He was a moving fortress wall. Enormous golems scattered like bowling pins. The path was open. All we had to do was run along the golden path he had carved.
“Let’s go!”
I pulled Lee Ji-young forward and ran along the path he had opened. My chest swelled with emotion. My first comrade. My shield. He had finally broken through his shell and been reborn as a giant.
Thirty meters remained to the cocoon. Now there were no obstacles.
“Let’s see this through.”
I gripped the purification dagger in a reverse grip. The pulsing red cocoon of the queen was right before my eyes.
Boom—!
The golden path created by Park Jae-jung. At its end lay an enormous crystal cocoon, pulsing red as if it would swallow all light. With each contraction and expansion, like a living heart beating—thump, thump—the entire cave trembled as if seized by an earthquake.
“Guild Master! Hurry!”
Park Jae-jung pressed down the obsidian golems swarming from behind with his shield, his voice urgent. His Iron Fortress, awakened to B-Rank, was formidable, but it couldn’t indefinitely hold back hundreds of monsters. Time was running out.
I ran toward the cocoon. The closer I drew, the more the mana pressure radiating from it pushed against me like a typhoon. My skin stung, and breathing became difficult.
“Stop!”
Lee Ji-young, who had been following behind me, cried out urgently.
With her Eyes of Truth fixed upon the Cocoon, cold sweat dripped down her face.
“You can’t just stab it! It’s a mass of highly concentrated mana compressed to a critical threshold. Any external impact will cause it to detonate immediately.”
“Detonate?”
“The blast radius would vaporize everything within 500 meters. A physical strike would be like pressing a self-destruct switch.”
Her warning froze me in place. My plan to shatter the shell with my dagger and pierce the core had fallen apart. Stab it and it explodes. Leave it alone and it hatches, bringing down the entire mine. I was caught between a rock and a hard place.
‘What do I do?’
I looked up at the Cocoon. Crimson mana veins like blood vessels covered its surface. Inside, a Queen on the verge of birth was coiled and waiting.
It was furious. Enraged at being denied the pure energy it had been consuming, and desperate to break free into the world to destroy. Those negative emotions were making the energy increasingly unstable.
‘Wait… desire?’
A thought flickered through my mind. The root cause of this disaster was the purified ore vein I had cleansed. They had been drawn to that clean energy and, after consuming it excessively, were now running rampant. In other words, their true nature wasn’t malice—it was uncontrolled hunger and system overload.
Then there was no need to kill it. I just needed to calm it down. Cool the overheated circuit and release the tangled energy.
“Park Jae-jung! Hold on for just one minute!”
“One minute… I’ll try. Hyaaaagh!”
I sheathed my dagger and approached the glowing red Cocoon with my bare hands.
“Are you insane? Your arm will burn off if you touch it with your bare hands!”
Lee Ji-young screamed, but I didn’t stop.
‘I trust myself. I trust my ability.’
I pressed my trembling hands against the Cocoon’s surface.
Sssssizzle—!
“Ugh!”
A searing pain washed over me as if my palms had touched a hot griddle. The smell of burning skin filled the air. The swirling corrupted crimson mana inside the Cocoon rejected me as an intruder and resisted fiercely.
But I didn’t retreat. Instead, I pushed my consciousness deeper into that scorching torrent of energy.
‘Calm down.’
I drew forth every last drop of purification energy remaining in my core. My D-Rank core spun ferociously.
“Purification: Resonance.”
It wasn’t simply burning away corruption. My white wavelength seeped into the Cocoon’s crimson wavelength, forcibly merging with its violent flow. Like mounting a wild stallion and seizing its reins.
[Warning: Target energy level excessive.]
[User core overload.]
System warnings flooded my vision. Blood trickled from my nose. My head felt like it would split open. But I didn’t release the reins.
‘Everything you consumed… I made all of it. So listen to me.’
I poured energy out in a commanding torrent. And then, a miracle happened.
The crimson mana that had been thrashing wildly began to be tamed, bit by bit, by my pure white energy. The murky, viscous corruption was washed away, replaced by a cool, clear azure radiance.
“What is… this…?”
Lee Ji-young, watching from behind, was speechless. Through her Eyes of Truth, she could see it—the internal structure of the Cocoon, which had resembled a nuclear bomb on the verge of detonation, was being perfectly rearranged into a flawless geometric form by Lee Tae-hyun’s touch.
It wasn’t hunting. This was attunement. This was dominion.
Uuuuummmmm—
The Cocoon’s red glow gradually subsided. In its place, a lustrous sapphire light enveloped the entire structure. The thundering heartbeat transformed into a calm, rhythmic pulse.
And then.
Crack!
A blinding flash erupted, and the cocoon’s shell cracked silently. There was no explosion. Instead, the fragments unfurled gently in all directions, like petals blooming from a flower.
At its center crouched a living creature. Not a monster the size of a house. A beautiful scorpion, no larger than a child, its entire body gleaming like transparent diamond.
[Purified Crystal Queen]
[Status: Larval (Hatched)]
[Disposition: Neutral / Obedient]
The Queen slowly opened her eyes. Not with a vicious cyan gaze, but with clear silver pupils that fixed upon me. Instead of attacking, she curled her pincers and lowered her tail, bowing her head. It was the posture of one greeting a parent or master.
“Kee-rick.”
The Queen uttered a soft cry. And then something extraordinary happened.
Hundreds of golems and scorpions that had been assaulting Park Jae-jung froze in unison. They seemed to lose all will to fight, standing vacant for a moment before slowly backing away and vanishing into the darkness of the Crystal Forest. The Queen’s control had been severed.
“…Is it over?”
Park Jae-jung lowered his shield and asked. His entire body was drenched in sweat and exhaustion, yet his expression seemed relieved.
I had no strength left to answer. My legs gave out, and I collapsed where I stood. Before me, the transparent Queen scorpion approached and gently rubbed her head against the back of my hand. The sensation was cold yet strangely comforting.
“Haa… haa…”
I breathed heavily, looking up at Lee Ji-young, who stood motionless in shock. She didn’t even notice her glasses sliding down as she stared back and forth between me and the Queen.
“I asked you to disarm the bomb… and you turned it into a pet instead.”
She let out a hollow laugh.
“What’s your real identity? Being F-Rank is a scam, isn’t it?”
“My official rank is indeed F-Rank, but…”
I stroked the Queen’s head and smiled faintly.
“My job is simply rather unusual.”
[Emergency Quest Complete: Master of the Mine.]
[Reward: Ownership of the Crystal Queen Acquired.]
[Privilege: Monster Control Enabled Within This Territory.]
System Messages materialized in the air. This mine was no longer a mere extraction facility. It had become Moonglade’s most formidable fortress and arsenal, moving at my command.
“Let’s return. To Ground Level.”
I staggered to my feet. Park Jae-jung approached and steadied me. We didn’t need to tunnel through the collapsed mine shaft again. When the Queen struck the wall with her tail, monsters swarmed in and began clearing the blocked entrance.
On the path back to Ground Level. Behind my back stood a dependable B-Rank shield, beside me an A-Rank analyst, and beneath my feet, the Queen of the Dungeon followed.
There could be no more perfect a return than this.

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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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