The Regressed EX-Class Martial God Decided to Become a Thousand-Star Hunter - Chapter 59

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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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Episode 59
59.
The value of crossing that threshold was undeniable.
‘My Mana recovery speed has increased dramatically.’
Cheongyeol Ki-gong, sixth star.
The reward was accelerated Mana recovery.
Even before, Cheongyeol Ki-gong’s recovery speed had been among the fastest.
But now it surpassed even that.
Ju Do-gyeom, having emptied and refilled his Dantian several times, finished his calculation without difficulty.
‘Even at the same C+ Rank, the total amount of Mana I can deploy in actual combat will be nearly double.’
Mana, in the end, is a resource you spend, refill, and spend again.
Even if the vessel is the same size, if the filling speed differs, the gap widens the longer the fight goes on.
Indeed, Cheongyeol Ki-gong.
It was truly the pillar that had sustained him before the Regression.
And then.
Jigyeol Ki-gong, standing face to face with that Cheongyeol Ki-gong.
As Ju Do-gyeom alternated his gaze between the two pillars, the next step naturally rose in his mind.
‘Fusion.’
Cheonji Muguk Singong.
The conditions were already met.
Only one thing gave him pause.
‘Outside Dungeons, new Skills cannot be acquired.’
Training was possible.
Raising Star Levels was possible.
But obtaining a new Skill was permitted only inside Dungeons.
That was the rule of this age.
Yet that rule had begun to unravel in recent months.
The Unryong Daepai-sik, acquired on Earth.
The secret art that had emerged in the Training Room.
It was before entering the Eroding Plain that he had sensed the System’s rules beginning to crack.
‘This change might apply only to me.’
Either way, there was only one method to verify it.
To try it directly.
The materials, the time, and the reason were all in place.
‘There’s no reason to hesitate.’
Ju Do-gyeom adjusted himself into a seated lotus position.
Then he activated both martial arts simultaneously.
Cheongyeol Ki-gong, which reads Heaven’s patterns.
Jigyeol Ki-gong, which reads Earth’s patterns.
Two different currents began to face each other and rotate within his Dantian.
It was not difficult.
Ju Do-gyeom possessed memories from his past life.
And above all, Cheongyeol and Jigyeol were originally a single martial art.
The two currents that had been divided recognized each other.
Heaven descended, and Earth rose.
The two patterns interlocked, drawing a great Tai Chi, and began to merge with elegant grace.
His first fusion in the past life had not been like this.
That had taken months.
Each time the patterns misaligned, he had suffered internal injuries, and had to begin again from the start countless times.
This was different.
He remembered every step of the path to completion, and his vessel was far better prepared than it had been then.
It was like solving a problem while holding the answer key.
With each rotation, his power did not diminish but grew.
One plus one became not two, but something beyond.
The amplified force enveloped both mind and body, washing through him entirely.
With each breath, Heaven’s pattern opened; with each breath, Earth’s pattern supported.
The body standing between them became still, like the pivot of a scale.
That was when it happened.
Deep within his consciousness.
‘……!!’
Psychosis, driven back by the dragon’s blood, stumbled backward once more.
This time, finding nowhere left to retreat, it let out something like a whimper of distress.
Another development Ju Do-gyeom hadn’t anticipated.
Ju Do-gyeom laughed.
‘Getting cramped in here.’
The dragon’s blood had taken root within his body, and now the god of war’s forbidden martial art was moving in as well.
Psychosis’s space to stand was shrinking by the moment.
It was good news.
He wanted to savor it a little longer.
‘But this isn’t the time for that.’
Ju Do-gyeom pushed aside idle thoughts and surrendered himself entirely to the rotation of the Tai Chi.
To complete the Cheonji Muguk Singong.
Time passed.
How much, he couldn’t say.
And when he opened his eyes again.
The sun was already rising beyond the window.
He had spent the entire night refining his martial arts.
As if waiting for this moment, a message appeared before his eyes.
『Cheongyeol Ki-gong (6-Star) and Jigyeol Ki-gong (6-Star) have fused into one.』
『You have acquired the skill: Cheonji Muguk Singong (1-Star).』
“……As expected.”
Ju Do-gyeom murmured softly.
In the skill section of his status window.
The two names that had held the front positions were erased, and a single new name had taken their place.
Cheonji Muguk Singong.
The forbidden art that had made him a god of war before his regression had now been perfected at this point in time—and outside a Dungeon, at that.
‘Skill acquisition has become possible on Earth.’
Now it was confirmation, not hypothesis.
Of course, it wasn’t omnipotent.
Even after cycling through internal energy cultivation all night, his Mana hadn’t increased dramatically.
Which meant Earth wasn’t becoming a Dungeon.
But the fact that acquisition had opened at all meant one rule had definitely shattered.
He rose from his seat, organizing his thoughts.
Despite having stayed awake all night, he felt no fatigue.
Rather, refreshed.
Perhaps it was the difference in the quality of energy flowing through his body compared to yesterday.
Each step felt infused with vitality.
No—in fact, with every breath he took while moving, his Mana was rising, albeit very slightly, in real time.
As always, on Earth it was only a meaningless amount.
But in a Dungeon, it would be different.
‘Now that it’s functioning properly as an Active Function.’
The surge in his Mana Ability Stat was guaranteed to accelerate.
Right after confirming his own growth like this.
Ju Do-gyeom picked up his Encrypted Phone.
He’d confirmed that skill acquisition was possible on Earth, but one problem remained.
‘Is this happening only to me?’
Or has the same thing occurred for others?
The odds of the latter were low.
If there were another skill acquirer besides him, it would have already spread through Hunter communities and made the news.
‘Still, I need to be more certain about it.’
With that decision made.
He sent a message.
The recipient was Kim Han-ryul.
* * *
Taesung Training Center, VIP Training Room.
The one who greeted Ju Do-gyeom, who had arrived first, was neither the staff members he’d seen before nor the manager.
“Oh, VIP sir! How long has it been!”
Chief Development Researcher, Seon Woo-gyeol.
He came rushing over as if to clasp both hands together, his eyes sparkling.
“I’ve been waiting since I heard you were coming. Hehe……!”
“……What about the facility director?”
“When I said I wanted to bring him along, he seemed quite pleased.”
Pleased? Really?
Wasn’t it simply that he had no choice?
Ju Do-gyeom tilted his head slightly but didn’t dwell on it.
It didn’t matter much who came to meet him anyway.
“I’m making excellent use of that day’s data. It’s the kind of data that keeps getting sweeter the more you chew on it. Ufufu…….”
“……That’s fortunate.”
“It seems like a new level of training system will be completed soon. Once it is, I’ll contact you first thing. You absolutely must come when I call, yes?”
“I’ll be waiting.”
At his terse reply, Seon Woo-gyeol withdrew with a satisfied expression.
From his departing figure came the faint sound of him humming.
And not long after.
“Team leader—! I’m here…… Whoa, what is all this?”
Kim Han-ryul stepped into the training room and gazed around with his mouth hanging open.
A sprawling training floor, magitech equipment covering every wall, drone docking stations arrayed across the ceiling.
Most guild training facilities would look laughable by comparison.
Kim Han-ryul’s jaw dropped.
“Incredible…… Something like this exists in the country?”
Indeed, Taesung was unmistakably Taesung.
“Being a conglomerate certainly has its perks…… But why did you call me here? You said we were taking a few days off from Dungeons.”
Exclamations tumbled out in succession.
This wasn’t a place just anyone could enter.
But he quickly dismissed that thought.
The public might not know, but Ju Do-gyeom was different.
The man who’d saved Taesung’s prized golden child.
Rather than answer, Ju Do-gyeom retrieved two practice iron staffs from one of the training center’s storage racks and tossed one to Kim Han-ryul.
“Huh?”
Catching it unprepared, Kim Han-ryul looked back and forth between the staff and Ju Do-gyeom.
“There’s something I need to verify.”
“Verify? But what’s with the staff?”
“I’ll explain later. Just follow my lead for now.”
“……All of a sudden?”
Ju Do-gyeom assumed a stance, staff in hand, without another word.
Kim Han-ryul regarded him with an exasperated expression, but eventually let out a sigh, adjusted his grip on the staff, and mimicked the posture.
Grumbling spilled from his lips.
“This is seriously out of the blue…….”
Regardless, Ju Do-gyeom began demonstrating slowly.
A downward strike, a flowing deflection, a half-step backward, twisting the staff to set the endpoint.
At first glance, it looked like basic staff technique.
But it wasn’t.
The Yu Yun Bong Law.
A genuine martial art that wove force through the wood as smoothly as clouds flowing across the sky.
『You acquire the Skill: Yu Yun Bong Law (1-Star).』
‘……Again.’
For Ju Do-gyeom, the technique registered in the system immediately.
He felt the power increase palpably, independent of his proficiency level.
Glancing to the side, Kim Han-ryul was managing to follow along quite well.
‘Doesn’t seem like he’s acquired it yet, though.’
That was only natural.
He’d already learned this in his previous life, whereas Kim Han-ryul was encountering it for the first time.
Still, Kim Han-ryul’s progress was far from poor.
The first few repetitions were clumsy, but after ten or so attempts, the transitions between movements began noticeably smoothing out.
By the time he’d passed thirty repetitions, the sound the staff’s tip traced had changed.
‘Hm…….’
A flicker of interest crossed Ju Do-gyeom’s eyes.
He’d taught martial arts before in his previous life.
To comrades, to juniors, to countless others who’d needed to survive.
Among them all, few had absorbed a technique this quickly.
‘He has more talent than I expected.’
Now that he thought about it, that was true.
Kim Han-ryul had always been physically gifted.
The way he handled wire hooks, his balance on a motorcycle.
Above all, his marksmanship was excellent.
It meant his eyes and fingertips were precise.
‘Maybe I should teach him some martial technique related to archery.’
It could prove surprisingly effective.
It was while he was thinking this.
“Hey, team leader?”
Kim Han-ryul, who had been swinging the staff, exhaled a breath grown slightly ragged and spoke.
“How much longer do I have to do this?”
“No sign of progress?”
“What kind of progress?”
There was nothing but genuine confusion in the counter-question.
Ju Do-gyeom let out a short sound.
“Hmm.”
Then he walked to the control panel on the wall and tapped the interface with practiced ease.
Hum—!
The air in the training room grew heavy.
The gravity setting had increased to 1.5 times normal.
At the same time, drones lit up and rose from their mounting points on the ceiling.
“What, what are you—”
“Knock them down using only the staff techniques I taught you.”
“…What?”
“Don’t use Manifestation. Not even once.”
“Why!?”
“I’ll explain after.”
“…Team leader, if I happen to throw this staff at you by accident, you’re saying that won’t actually be an accident.”
“I’ll take it as one. Now start.”
“Man, seriously—!”
But even so, the moment a drone swooped down, he’d readjust his grip and charge forward.
Crack—!
Soon the sound of the iron staff striking drones echoed through the room.
* * *
‘…He definitely has talent for this.’
It was a thought that surfaced in Ju Do-gyeom’s mind again and again as he watched the training.
At first, it had been a mess.
Without his usual gun or Manifestation constructs, given only a staff to grip, he’d flailed about helplessly, unable to find his footing.
There was a stretch where the drones drove him back and forth across half the training room in pure flight.
But at some point, something shifted.
As he took hits, rolled across the floor, and cried out.
Kim Han-ryul’s staff began to gradually recover the rhythm of the Yu Yun Bong Law.
More precisely, his body began to follow the flow of the technique’s movement sequences.
It wasn’t just the level of remembering taught movements and pulling them out.
It was the level of understanding through his body why the flow connected, and tying the next half-beat himself.
This was not the kind of form that should emerge from someone holding a martial technique for the first time today.
It seemed Kim Han-ryul himself felt it.
From midway through, the groans of pain diminished, and instead something like laughter began to mix in.
Admiring gasps accompanied each drone he brought down.
Starting with complaints, ending with enjoyment.
If that wasn’t talent, then talent meant nothing.
After all the training was finished.
Kim Han-ryul emerged from washing and approached, shaking water from her damp hair.
She held an ion drink in one hand and resentment in her eyes.
“All right, explain now.”
She dropped into a chair and fixed Ju Do-gyeom with a stare.
“Why put me through all that? I could accept it if you said it was just physical training, but that wasn’t the look in your eyes earlier.”
She was quick-witted, as always.
Ju Do-gyeom gazed at her for a moment, then opened his Inner Power instead of his mouth.
A Telepathic Transmission.
—outside a Dungeon. I acquired a Skill.
“What!?”
Kim Han-ryul shot to his feet.
He glanced around frantically, then caught himself and sat back down.
She lowered her voice to a whisper.
“What are you talking about? Outside a Dungeon? How is that even possible?”
Ju Do-gyeom’s eyes were calm.
Kim Han-ryul met that gaze and fell silent.
It wasn’t the look of someone joking or lying.
Besides, this man would never lie about something like that.
Which meant that training session just now…
“Don’t tell me—it was because of that staff technique? You wanted to see if I could do it too?”
“Yes.”
“But… I couldn’t?”
Even after learning the new martial art and pushing herself to the absolute limit.
No Skill acquisition message had appeared in her mind.
She’d even opened her Status window just now to be sure.
The Skill section remained unchanged.
A hollow laugh escaped her.
“Wow… you’re already like a monster, and now you’re becoming even more of one.”
At the same time, her lips pouted.
Her face was a mix of envy and amazement.
Completely ignoring her expression, Ju Do-gyeom sank deeper into thought.
‘Based on everything so far, it’s clear that Skill acquisition on Earth applies only to me.’
Could he accept that as fact?
No.
The sample size was too small to draw conclusions.
Still, he’d already thought of several martial techniques that might help Kim Han-ryul, so there was no harm in pushing forward a bit more to verify.
Ju Do-gyeom spoke.
“I’d like your help for just a few more days. There are some things I want to confirm.”
Kim Han-ryul’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Ju Do-gyeom was about to open his mouth to persuade her further when—
her answer came back.
“Okay.”
Then.
“But there’s a condition.”
“What?”
“It’s still a secret. You have plenty of secrets too, don’t you?”
Words that left him without a response.
Ju Do-gyeom, who had been pondering it, nodded.
“Fine.”
The moment those words left his lips.
“Really? You promise?”
Kim Han-ryul’s delighted voice cut through as she sprang to her feet.
As if her exhaustion from training had been nothing but a lie.
She even bounced up and down.
“Hehe, you promised! Captain. You won’t back out later, right?”
“…….”
He’d grown a bit anxious, but he couldn’t take back what he’d already said.
‘…….’
His lips twitched slightly of their own accord.
He wanted to say he was canceling.
But he couldn’t do that either.
“Yes! Really! Get ready! After I finish this job… ehehehe!”
The sight of Kim Han-ryul laughing so happily prevented him from saying anything.

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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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