Chapter 184 (1/2)

Training Fight (2)

When the skill effect was proved through Hibiki, the next to take on the challenge was Nate.

He asked Hibiki, as if he was afraid, digging into the details of the illusion. Including what was the hardest.

She replied.

“As soon as I entered, I knew that everything was just a fantasy- like a lucid dream. Since time flowed without eating, sleeping, or Mana running out after the battle started, I was aware that it wasn’t real. However, it was still hard despite that.”

She said that her mind and emotions felt worn out.

“And no matter how fake it is, if you fight and kill, isolated from the world for years… you’ll start feeling like your mind is burning out. Honestly, I think I was half crazy considering my condition just before I came back. When I came back to reality, that madness disappeared like a lie, but when I think about it, it still scares me a little.”

Hibiki said the scariest factor was that she felt like she was becoming a ghost immersed in slaughter and was drifting away from people she left behind in reality.

She suffered from the fear of not knowing how much longer one had to be locked up there.

When Nate heard that, he smiled and replied.

“Really?”

He turned his head and looked at me.

“If that’s the case, I think I’ll be fine, Jin-Wook. I’m ready. Cast it on me.”

“…”

His tone told me he didn’t worry about the side effects and pain Hibiki talked about.

He had an expression seemingly stating that he could endure years of suffering in isolation, away from the people in reality.

Perhaps that was the case since he’d already been through such a situation.

I asked him if he would really be okay because I was worried that it might provoke his trauma, but Nate didn’t seem to mind.

“Then, here I go.”

Eventually, I used the skill on him.

Similarly, it was merely a moment for us, but Nate’s face changed beyond recognition and showed a similar reaction to Hibiki.

“Cough!”

His knees bent and fell.

And Nate vomited blood on the floor.

“Cough! K-eup!”

The result of the ordeal was a success once again.

His potential had increased by more than 20,000.

But his appearance, though he assured that he would be fine, wasn’t ideal.

No, to be exact, it was as messed up as when Hibiki had just returned.

“My…”

Euclid assisted him.

Nate murmured.

“I thought I would be all right…”

He mumbled and vomited blood a few more times as he coughed.

“Being stuck somewhere for years, it’s something I’ve done before, so I thought I could do it again.”

He spoke in a solemn voice.

“But why is it so hard now? It wasn’t even real.”

He said that the situation of being left alone was more difficult than the endless fight.

Next, I also tried it on Genograche, but as he expected, the skill didn’t work.

I could only think of one reason.

The difference between him and others was that he had no soul in the body where his Mana Heart was.

‘That means it’s a skill that interacts with the soul.’

And the Dragon, Euclid, had only lived for hundreds of years and hadn’t yet activated all of her potential Mana, so she wasn’t a subject that I could use the skill on yet.

After experimenting with the most important people that way, I contacted the guild members.

Of course, I did it in secret.

Hunters, whose growth was blocked due to the vessels’ limitations they were born with, causing them to be obsessed with despair, had always existed.

Their classes were not important.

Whether it’s F or SSS class, the desire to be stronger was no different.

Since there would be nothing good resulting from the news leaking out to other dimensions, conducting experiments on Awakened beings while practicing extreme security resulted in more than a 90% success rate.

The failed cases also had something in common. Everything stopped when they explicitly expressed their willingness to “give up” in the virtual space.

Of course, those who gave up once had been given the penalty that they couldn’t challenge the ordeal for a long time.

It didn’t take long to experiment with all the applicants. From my point of view, I only used a little Mana using the skill, and the activation time and the duration of the skill were close to an instant.

All that remained for them was to individually activate the increased potential Mana and then prepare to challenge the ordeal again.

*

The impact of my newly learned skill on the guild was greater than I thought.

The Hunters who suffered due to their limits trained, hunted and went on quests incomparably harder than they used to when the road opened up for them.

In particular, the Hunters who had hit the plateau for years expressed their gratitude to me with tears or wailing as if it moved them even more than the others.

The greater the desire for strength, the more dramatic the reaction was.

Not all of the members were aware of it, but the changed atmosphere was noticeable and turned our guild even more lively.

Satisfied with the result, I visited the residence of the magic species.

They were also playing a part in the rising trend of our guild atmosphere lately.

“Guild Master, as instructed, limited to volunteers among the magic tribe, they are being dispatched to the dungeon Clears with the existing guild members. The response is very good. Both the humans and the magic species seem to be motivated.”

The devils couldn’t enter the dungeon Gates by themselves because they weren’t Awakened who agreed to a System contract.

Therefore, they entered after being recognized as a possession belonging to other guild members. The magic species, who were puzzled at first, also showed great performance by reawakening their unique fighting instincts when the hunt began.

“The magic species’ fierce combat style and persistent enthusiasm seem to have stimulated even the old guild members.”

And so they were keeping their heads straight and setting their motivation on fire.

Meanwhile, the magic species were shocked as well.

Having been isolated in the forest for a long time and living close to primitive life, they had forgotten most of the high-quality spells used by their ancestors.

However, although it was a skill that the System instilled into the Hunters conveniently, witnessing the advanced spells said to have made the magic species show expressions as if they had entered a new world.

However, the superior characteristics of the magic species were also revealed there.

“They are said to imitate A-Rank magic or so on the spot just by looking at it. At first, the power was a little weak, but… They say that as time goes by, they make perfect modifications based on their own liking.”

Ordinary human beings without [The Successor’s Eyes] couldn’t immediately imitate skills by glance alone.

They were Hunters who had become accustomed to the existing system wherein they became capable of using skills just by filling in the slots.

But the magic species were different.

The Mana-specialized race, which was used to creating and controlling spells on their own by observing their Mana Hearts (Core), used the Hunters’ spells as a reference to reproduce the results similarly.

Of course, it wasn’t a perfect copy like in the case of [The Successor’s Eyes], but it showed 40-50% efficacy. Due to individual characteristics and talents, they had different areas that they could copy, but that alone was outstanding.

That format wasn’t limited to magic but also applied to sword movements acquired in the form of skills.

The Terran Hunters felt as if their secrets were stripped bare.