Chapter 484
“...Huh?”
A startled Park Yong asked back.
Then Su-ho smiled.
“Just kidding, idiot. Oh—looks like you finished loading. Say hello. You know him, right? This is Yasuda Hiro. Japan’s hero, and the chairman of the Sumiyoshi Guild.”
“I’m Yasuda Hiro. Nice to meet you.”
Hiro, whose loading had finished, offered a handshake first.
Park Yong hurriedly took his hand and greeted him.
“I’m Park Yong from the Korean Hunters Association Special Division. It’s an honor to meet you.”
When the two exchanged greetings, Su-ho rested a hand on each of their shoulders and said,
“I’ve been thinking I should introduce you two someday. And the timing just happened to be perfect.”
“Haha. I’ve heard a lot about you. I heard there’s someone in Korea who lives for the sword as much as my master does.”
Hiro continued smoothly.
But in that moment, Park Yong’s eyes went wide.
“Master?”
There wasn’t any big problem with the three of them talking.
Not because they were great at foreign languages, but thanks to Infinity’s automatic translation function.
So Park Yong heard it loud and clear.
The fact that Hiro was calling Su-ho “Master.”
“Ah...!”
Only then did Hiro realize his mistake and slip a hand over his mouth, but it was already too late.
Because even if they tried to gloss over it here, Park Yong wasn’t the type to just let it go.
Su-ho let out a sigh.
“I told you over and over to watch what you say, seriously... yeah, it’s like that. We crossed paths while I was in Japan, and I decided to take him as my official disciple.”
“What in the...”
Park Yong was shocked.
And the expression and emotion that followed was an indescribable sense of betrayal.
But it wasn’t like he could complain about feeling betrayed.
Because Park Yong had never once spoken about “master” or “disciple” out loud—he’d only swallowed it down inside.
Maybe that was why.
“T-Then how can I become one too?”
“Hm? Become what?”
“A-a master-disciple relationship. I want that too.”
“...Huh?”
Park Yong opened his mouth with great effort.
A master-disciple relationship with the Sword God.
How many swordsmen in this world could possibly endure that?
So Su-ho was momentarily stunned, then he snickered.
“What, you want to be my disciple too?”
“Yes.”
“Then do it.”
“...Huh?”
“Do it.”
“...Huh?”
“Don’t want to? Then forget it.”
“Aaah—n-no! That’s not it! I do! I want to! Please let me!”
“Alright, then. You’re my disciple now too. Don’t go blabbing it everywhere. Hiro being my disciple is officially a secret too.”
“Yes, sir!”
Park Yong’s face brightened instantly.
Kid, in my previous life you were desperate to kill me, and now you’re that happy about becoming my disciple?
At that moment, Hiro, who’d been listening, grinned and said,
“Then I become your senior brother.”
“Senior brother?”
“The first disciple under the same master is the senior brother, and the next is the junior disciple.”
“Ah... understood, senior brother.”
“Hehe. Thanks, junior.”
Seeing Hiro playfully swagger like that, Su-ho clicked his tongue in disbelief.
“Senior brother, junior disciple, what are you talking about. Just do hyung-and-dongsaeng. What is this, a martial arts novel?”
“Haha, why not? It’s fun. And honestly, if you think about it, the world we live in and martial arts novels aren’t that different—we swing blades, we use qi, it’s all the same.”
“Well... fair. Fine, handle that part yourselves.”
“Thank you, Master!”
“If you’re going to unify the form of address, do it properly. If you two are going to do senior brother and junior disciple, then shouldn’t I be ‘Shifu’ instead of ‘Master’?”
“Is that so? Hahahaha!”
At Su-ho’s words, Hiro burst into laughter.
Honestly, whatever it was, it didn’t matter as long as they got along.
Then Su-ho continued,
“Anyway, Hiro, I told you earlier too—among the people around me, you two are the only ones who cling to swordsmanship and nothing else, so I’ve been thinking it’d be great synergy if you trained together. So that’s enough talk... how about you two go at it once?”
Seeing once was better than hearing a hundred times.
There was no need to talk longer.
At Su-ho’s words, the two took some distance, and when Su-ho snapped his fingers once, the number 100 floated above each of their heads and their combat power was unified.
Hiro, who’d heard the explanation beforehand, smiled as he looked at the Overall Combat Power number.
“So Infinity can be used like this too. Interesting.”
“Don’t smile. Stay sharp. In reality you’d win because of level and stats, but in an equal Infinity environment, you might lose.”
“Come on. Even so, I’m the senior brother.”
“Then go experience it yourself.”
Scorching Blade Hiro, and Light Sword Park Yong.
A match that could never have happened in their previous life was bound in this life by a strange thread of fate.
“I’m coming.”
“Come.”
Thud!
Park Yong moved in on Hiro first.
*
How much time passed?
After a long exchange, an unexpected result came out.
Honestly, in terms of age and time spent in swordsmanship, Su-ho thought Hiro would have the edge.
But watching Park Yong fight Hiro, he started seeing things he hadn’t seen when # Nоvеlight # Park Yong fought him.
Especially Park Yong’s obsession and hunger for victory—whether in his previous life or this one, it was neck and neck.
Because of that, the score between the two was running almost even.
'Good call bringing Hiro here.'
He expected the synergy would be good, but he didn’t think it’d be this good.
Su-ho asked with satisfaction,
“How is it, you two? Worth it?”
“It’s the best.”
“It’s amazing.”
The two were so exhausted they were sprawled on the ground, but at Su-ho’s question, each of them lifted a thumb and expressed huge satisfaction.
Because of that, Su-ho also felt deeply satisfied.
“Good. Then from now on, you two keep in touch and meet up in Infinity. Then you don’t have to come all the way to Korea or Japan to see each other, right? I’ll leave the program settings I used too, so use them well.”
“Yes. Thank you, Master.”
“Okay, good work. I’ve got something to do, so I’m heading out.”
At the mention of him leaving, the two who’d been lying down sprang up and bowed at the waist.
Kids. Even so, as a master-disciple relationship, your manners are insanely proper.
After that, Su-ho connected to Kunlun on a different channel and decided to start the training he’d originally planned to do.
“First, Hard Strike Flow.”
When he snapped his fingers, a training spear was summoned.
Hard Strike Flow is all about thrusting.
Of course, spear techniques also had slashing methods like swordsmanship, but what Su-ho wanted from Hang Yu’s Hard Strike Flow was only an extreme, honed thrust.
So what was summoned in front of Su-ho was a single massive boulder, purely for thrust training.
'Then shall we start?'
Kang!
Su-ho’s training spear began striking the massive boulder.
*
How much time passed?
Kang! Kang! Kang!!
He struck the boulder for a very long time.
The combat power had long since been adjusted, and in empty Kunlun, the only sound echoing endlessly was Su-ho’s spear thrusts striking rock.
His hands hurt.
Maybe because of the adjusted combat power, whenever he struck the boulder, the force rebounded up through his hands, and the accumulated damage made them swell and blister.
But even so, he endured and kept striking.
Thrust, push, rebound, endure, thrust again.
After spending days doing nothing but spear thrusts, he entered a state of empty-mindedness.
A state where he was the spear, and the spear was him.
Kang! Kang! Kang! Kang!
But it wasn’t like he was only empty-minded the whole time.
While striking the boulder, Su-ho thought about many things.
Of course, those thoughts weren’t about current worries or future plans.
There was only one thing he thought about while striking the boulder.
Thrusting.
'How can I create a powerful thrust?'
With the Rune of Succession and his innate charm, he managed to obtain Hard Strike Flow.
And he knew what forms the previous-life Hang Yu had in Hard Strike Flow.
But he didn’t know the principle by which Hang Yu developed those forms.
'He liked bragging, so I watched plenty of related interviews, but...'
If you summed up the content, it was basically, “I’m Hang Yu’s incarnation, I was a genius from birth, so I achieved everything easily.”
How would that help?
So he was agonizing anew.
How could his Hard Strike Flow become even stronger?
'But no matter how I think about it, I don’t know anything besides repeating thrusts.'
With Void Flow, it wasn’t that hard because he knew the know-how: take existing sword skills and transform them into Void Flow.
If needed, he’d even eat a Qi Ascension Pill to raise the rank.
But in the case of Hard Strike Flow, he didn’t have any existing skills.
If anything, only Form 1: One Strike, which he mastered at the beginning.
So until he thought of the underlying principle, he kept thrusting and thrusting.
That was when it happened.
Crack!
“...Huh?”
The spear broke.
He hadn’t expected that at all.
Because he thought a training spear made by the program would have infinite durability.
He was dumbfounded.
Su-ho lowered the spear—only the handle left—like he was tossing it down.
“Hoo.”
A sigh came out.
What was the problem?
Since the spear broke, he sat down on the ground and tried to rest.
His eyes were still on the boulder.
The boulder was fine.
Only the spot that had been stabbed for days was slightly dented.
'It’s not like I lack strength...'
Then what kind of principle would let him achieve the ultimate thrust?
Su-ho glared at the boulder like it was an enemy.
A boulder.
If you think about it, it wasn’t even anything special.
For example, if he’d been holding a sword instead of a spear, he could’ve generated several times more power than now.
'Wait. A sword?'
Su-ho’s thoughts stopped.
Yeah.
If you think about it, that’s right, isn’t it?
Why did he learn Hard Strike Flow in the first place?
To wield a spear well?
No.
He obtained Hard Strike Flow to add the power of thrusting onto his swordsmanship, which was specialized in cutting.
So even if he gained an upgraded thrust skill, in the end he’d be using a sword, not a spear.
Then why had he been training while holding a spear this whole time?
Because Hard Strike Flow was a spear technique skill?
'Return to the Origin.'
In the end, all streams return to one source.
He’d struggled to obtain it in the martial library—so why had he missed this fact?
Su-ho stood up again.
Then he summoned the Blood Sword and held it, staring at his sword for a while.
Then he drove it into the boulder with all his strength.
Boom!
A heavy and short—yet unbelievably concise—impact.
It was a thrust that felt different from when he’d been striking in empty-mindedness.
It wasn’t because it was the Blood Sword.
The combat power was still adjusted.
'Don’t tell me...'
One time.
Just one time.
And yet, something like a violent sensation transmitted into his fingertips, and his head buzzed.
Su-ho thrust the sword again.
Boom!
Another reverberation.
And then—
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Thrust after thrust.
As if possessed by something, Su-ho executed thrusts like a madman.
And strangely, this time it didn’t feel like the boulder was pushing him back.
Not only that—it didn’t send force rebounding to stimulate his grip, either.
It was bizarre.
How could that be?
After he stabbed the boulder a few more times—
Kwaaaang!
“...!”
A huge explosion.
At the same time, the boulder that seemed like it would never break suddenly shattered into pieces.
That was when it happened.
[ Your understanding of thrusting is higher than anyone else’s. ]
The long-awaited notification began to appear before Su-ho’s eyes.