Star Instructor, Master Baek

TL: FoodieMonster007

"Senior! Senior Wonkang! Wake up!"

Hyonwon Kang tossed and turned at the sound of a distant voice, mumbling, "Mmm… Just a little longer…"

For days, he relentlessly used his movement arts without a moment's rest or sleep, unable to sit still while the Blood Cult attacked the Namgung Clan where Baek Suryong and the other instructors were.

Thankfully yet perplexingly, Baek Suryong was perfectly fine to the point where Hyonwon Kang couldn't describe how relieved yet stupefied he felt at that moment.

Did that man not get injured at all despite fighting the Blood Cult?

Frowning in his sleep, Hyonwon Kang mumbled, "Fuck… I'm definitely going to beat him up one day…"

Just when will I finally be able to land a solid hit on that monster of a teacher?

Anyway, he wasn't going to wake up now.

The familiar voice called out to him again, and this time, they was shaking him as well. Judging by the honorific, it must be one of his juniors.

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"Five more minutes…" Hyonwon Kang muttered, brushing off the hand on his shoulder.

His body felt strangely heavy and listless, probably thanks to the uncomfortable bedroll that affected his sleep quality and gave him a nightmare. Moreover, it was a nightmare where Baek Suryong was still beating him up even after graduation…

SMACK!

Feeling a sharp pain on his cheek, Hyonwon Kang flinched. Who the hell slaps someone who's asleep?

Suddenly sensing that he was about to get hit again if he didn't wake up immediately, Hyonwon Kang half opened his eyes, feeling both confused and irritated.

"Hey, I'm awake…" he began, but it was too late.

There was a palm right in front of his face.

"Wake up!"

SLAP!

The blinding pain jolted Hyonwon Kang into a sitting position. Clutching his reddened cheek, he glared at the person who had just slapped him. "Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing?!" he yelled.

Yeo Min stared at him with her hands on her hips and a pitiful expression on her face. "I only did that because you wouldn't wake up no matter how many times I called you. If you had been any slower, I'm willing to bet that a wild animal would have dragged you off and eaten you." ʀа

"You little… Eh? What's wrong? Why is your face like that?" Hyonwon Kang blinked in confusion. Yeo Min's face was unusually pale. Beads of sweat trickled down her forehead, and her breathing seemed ragged.

Yeo Min replied irritably, "I'm out of breath from running all over to find you. How can you sleep in this situation? If a wild animal had come, you wouldn't even have noticed."

"…Eh? What?" Hyonwon Kang gaped, dumbfounded.

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Yeo Min let out a sigh and raised her hand. "Sigh, talking to you like this is meaningless. First, let me wake you up properly."

"I'm awake! I'm already awake!" Hyonwon Kang screamed, jumping to his feet.

Finally wide awake, he desperately looked around. It didn't take him long to realize that something was very wrong.

"…Huh? Where are we?!"

Before he fell asleep, he vaguely remembered being reunited with the new instructors returning from the Namgung Estate, and the Principal telling him to get a good rest since they had all suffered so much in the past few days, smiling oh so kindly and going hohoho…

And so he had fallen into a deep sleep… only to wake up in an unfamiliar forest.

"Where are the teachers?"

"I was alone when I woke up, and I found you after searching for an hour. I didn't think you'd still be sleeping though…"

"That's why you hit me? Back in my day, we never so much as stepped on our seniors' shadows. We were always polite and careful even from ten meters away…"

"Shut up and try gathering your inner qi."

"Why?" Grumbling, Hyonwon Kang did as he was told, but his face soon paled. "…Eh? What the fuck?"

As if there was a blockage in his qi center, he couldn't move his qi at all. In addition, his body felt strangely heavy and stiff. While such symptoms could have been the result of days of accumulated fatigue, he had the feeling that some external force was acting on him.

"You can't use qi either, right? Looks like our acupoints have been sealed," Yeo Min sighed, her deepest fears confirmed.

Still wholly confused, Hyonwon Kang asked with a bewildered expression, "Our acupoints are sealed? By who? Why?"

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"Who else would do this to us?"

"Wait, you don't mean…"

Hyonwon Kang's eyes widened in disbelief and panic. No way. Surely not. Would that guy really seal his students' acupoints while they were asleep, rendering them unable to use qi, and then leave them stranded in the mountains? He couldn't be that much of a scumbag, could he?

Seeing Hyonwon Kang's expression, Yeo Min immediately understood what he was thinking. She had cursed Baek Suryong countless times on the way here as well.

"Look behind you."

"Behind me?"

"Where you were lying down."

Hyonwon Kang followed Yeo Min's gaze and turned his head to see some writing next to where he had been sleeping.

Starting today, you will be having an outdoor practical lesson. Spend a week living in the mountains.

I don't care what you do there, but going down the mountain is forbidden.

If you can't take it anymore, light the signal flare. I'll come to rescue you.

p.s. Watch out for wild animals. You'll have a hard time against them without inner arts.

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Next to the message was a signal flare, the only lifeline Baek Suryong had left them.

"What kind of crazy teacher abandons his sleeping students in the mountains?! He could have at least warned us beforehand!"

Livid, Hyonwon Kang kicked the message, but it only hurt his foot.

Thankfully, he soon regained his composure. It wasn't the first or second time he'd been put in this kind of situation, and in the end, he had no choice but to accept reality.

"So, to summarize…"

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Both of them were currently unable to use inner arts, and Baek Suryong had taken all their weapons. The only things they had left were their bare bodies and the signal flare Baek Suryong had left them.

"So he's telling us to survive a week in the mountains like this?"

"Something feels weird here."

The two looked around. A thick fog had gathered, making it hard to see more than ten meters ahead. Furthermore, a strange energy was flowing through the mountain, reminiscent of some kind of taoist or demonic sorcery.

For the two students with little jianghu experience, this was a surreal adventure.

"First, let's find the others."

"Got it."

Unable to use their inner arts, they had no choice but to rely on their five senses.

The two expanded their senses to the maximum, dilating their eyes, focusing on what they could feel with their skin and feet, straining their ears to pick up the slightest sound, even sniffing the air to catch every subtle scent.

SNIFF SNIFF!

Suddenly, Hyonwon Kang, who had been sniffing the air, looked down and stared at his own armpit. "Hey, don't I smell good?"

"……" Yeo Min glowered at Hyonwon Kang as if he was a lowly, filthy bug.

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Hyonwon Kang protested, "No, I'm serious, I smell good!"

"Disgusting…"

"Please, just listen to me. There's a sweet smell…"

"Stop talking nonsense and keep a lookout," Yeo Min snapped curtly.

Hyonwon Kang pouted. "I'm serious! Come to think of it, you have the same smell on you…"

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"Come any closer, and I'll kill you."

"S-Sorry."

The two scouted the mountain in silence for a while.

"Hey, trust me," Hyonwon Kang reassured, thumping his chest and playing the senior. "I can take down most wild animals without any inner arts."

"……" Deep down, Yeo Min agreed, but she didn't want to fuel Hyonwon Kang's ego. Her companion's body, tempered by the Eighteen Strikes of the Viridian Forest, was as strong as most external art masters. It was probably true that he could take down most animals with his bare hands.

Most animals, that is.

GROWL…

The moment a huge shadow loomed over them, Hyonwon Kang and Yeo Min instinctively took a few steps back.

"No way…"

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"N-No, it can't be…"

Slowly, they raised their heads, only to find a tiger's bright yellow eyes staring down at them from the top of a large rock.

Breaking out in a cold sweat, Hyonwon Kang muttered, "A tiger right from the get go? That's overkill."

"S-Senior, what should we do?"

"First, let's back away slowly. We're still pretty far away, so…"

The two backed away to avoid provoking the tiger.

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Seeing them, the tiger tilted its head, then twitched its nose and sniffed them. Next, it stuck out its tongue and licked its lips, as if saying, "Wow, these humans look delicious!"

"…RUUUUUN!" Hyonwon Kang turned and bolted.

Yeo Min ran beside him, shouting incredulously, "Didn't you just tell me to trust you?!"

"Does that look like 'most wild animals' to you?!"

"You coward! How could you run before your junior!"

"Who cares about seniority when fleeing?! And you're better at movement arts anyway!"

"I'm going to tell on you!"

"To who? The man who's the root cause of all this?!"

ROAAAAAAR!

The tiger's roar shook the trees.

Glancing back, they saw the tiger jump down from the rock and chase after them at a terrifying speed.

"UWAAAAH! HELP!"

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"BAEK SURYONG, YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!"

The desperate screams of the frantic duo echoed across Mount Tianzhu.

Baek Suryong watched from afar, arms folded, as Hyonwon Kang and Yeo Min were chased by the tiger. "…Hyonwon Kang, I'll kill you later. Still, it seems that those two have gotten a lot better at movement arts," he muttered.

CRACK! CRACK!

Trees snapped beneath the tiger's paws as it ran. Unable to use inner arts, Hyonwon Kang and Yeo Min had to use the surrounding terrain to their advantage.

Thankfully, they soon figured out how to fight back.

"This way, you idiot!" Yeo Min, the faster of the two, shouted as she lured the tiger into a narrow passage.

Meanwhile, Hyonwon Kang fashioned a thick branch into a spear, circled around and stabbed the tiger in the side.

GRAAAWR!

The tiger howled in pain. Hyonwon Kang rolled away to dodge its paw, then starting running again. When the tiger turned to chase Hyonwon Kang, Yeo Min threw a sharp rock like a dagger, aiming for its eyes.

As time passed, Hyonwon Kang and Yeo Min's cooperation improved. Using only their external arts, they slowly wore down the tiger.

Had they faced a spirit beast, it would have been hopeless, but fortunately, it was just an ordinary big tiger.

"That side seems fine for now," Baek Suryong concluded, turning his attention to the other students.

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"URAAAGH!"

"KWAARGH!"

On one side, two bears, no, a bear and Geo Sangwoong were fighting.

Man and bear clashed with pure strength, but surprisingly, Geo Sangwoong wasn't being pushed back at all. Through his torn clothes, his rock-hard muscles were visible.

"KWAARGH?" As Geo Sangwoong grabbed both its paws, the bear growled, surprised that it was being overpowered by a human.

Baek Suryong was equally astonished. "That guy's becoming less and less human…"

Shaking his head, he turned his gaze toward Wiji Cheon.

SSSSSSS…

Wiji Cheon was facing off against a huge snake big enough to swallow him whole on top of a tree. Seemingly sensing Wiji Cheon's killing intent though, the snake didn't dare attack recklessly.

"…Cheon will be fine."

There were two aims to this survival training in the mountains. The first was to improve the students' combat skills in the field, and the second was to lay the groundwork for hunting spirit beasts.

"Right now, they might resent me, but later, they'll thank me," Baek Suryong chuckled, recalling a conversation he had with the Bandit King Maeng Ho'ak in his previous life.

"You want to learn how to catch a spirit beast, you say? Heh, I'll give you some special advice."

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Maeng Ho'ak often boasted that he was the person who had eaten the most spirit beasts in history. While it might have been a bit of an exaggeration, it probably wasn't entirely untrue, as the man had spent his entire life roaming dozens of mountain ranges like they were his backyard.

"We don't call those animals spirit beasts for nothing. Catching creatures that have survived for centuries by avoiding humans is no easy feat."

Animals, birds, fish, insects, plants… Any creature that became special by surviving for at least a hundred years, and sometimes even thousands of years, was called a spirit beast.

"They're so cunning that when they sense someone stronger than them, they won't even dare to approach. Their ability to sense danger is also far superior to a human's, not to mention how incredibly good they are at hiding their qi…"

"Then how did you find them?"

Maeng Ho'ak grinned. "I lured them out with bait, of course."

Baek Suryong's eyes fell on the bait students running through the mountains.

Translator's Note: Manhwa season 3 starts tomorrow!