<User Information>
1. Name & Rank: Choi Chi-Woo (EX)
2. Sex & Age: Male & 23
3. Height & Weight: 180.5 & 73.5kg
4. Class: --
5. Heavenly Title: Three Lines
6. Disposition: Neutral
<Physical Attributes>
[Strength D]
[Durability D]
[Agility D]
[Stamina D]
[Mental Fortitude C]
<Basic Ability (2)>
1. [Basic Blunt Attack F]
2. [Basic Hand-to-hand Combat E] - form of martial arts that involves clashing one’s physical body against another. While categorized as a form of martial arts, it’s more accurate to describe it as grappling.
<Class Ability (0)>
<Innate Ability (10)>
1. [???? ??? EX]
2. [Blessed Luck S]
3. [Spirit Eye S]- Supernatural eyes. With the body’s recent awakening, it now allows the user to observe other people’s mind and body.
4. [Great Four Tiger Sword S]
5. [Deus Ex Machina S]
6. [Core of Balance F] -The backbone of the central circulatory system that serves as an engine for imperishability. It seeks absolute balance. As it develops, it evolves existing abilities or creates new derivatives based on them.
7. [Divine Blood F]- The awakening of the blood thanks to the ‘Core of Balance’. It protects the mind and body by providing resistance to anything that can interfere with the heart’s functions and the ability to heal oneself. Not yet fully developed, its effect is still very weak.
8. [Golden Ratio AAA] – A temporary vessel reassembled by the ‘Core of Balance’. It is based on the golden ratio, said to create the most beautiful and balanced harmony since ancient times. After the body achieves perfect balance, all physical attributes increase by one rank, and the same actions become more efficient by several-fold.
While the skill creates the best body a mortal could have, if the user’s physical abilities are originally low and lacking, the effects of this ability will be only semi-permanent, and the user will only be able to maintain it through continuous training.
9. [Extrasensory Perception F] – Sixth sense obtained through the mind; Whereas synesthesia evokes sensations through perceived physical stimuli, this ability perceives external and internal events without going through sensory organs. Among the various extrasensory perceptions like telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition, it is closest to telepathy.
Unlike synesthesia, it doesn’t come with an automatic increase in rank, and is not yet fully developed, so its effect is still very weak.
10. [Halo F] -An ability that invokes a sense of wonder and trust in those around the user. A nation’s king or a military general may possess the ability, ‘Charisma’, while ‘Halo’ takes it a step further; it is religious in nature and often seen in figures such as saints, who are revered for performing miracles. Not yet fully developed, its effect is still very weak.
<Special Ability (3)>
1. [Sharing S]
2. [Synesthesia A+]
3. [Insight into the Unknown C]
Chi-Woo’s mouth dropped wide open after he saw his user information. Inherent abilities were supposedly very difficult to get, but he had ten of them. After he calmed himself from the surprise, he read through each ability carefully. No matter how good these abilities were, there was no point if he didn’t know how to make use of them.
First of all, he now knew why he had seen a grayish light around Hawa. It was thanks to his evolved ‘Spirit Eyes’, which allowed him to not only see people’s physical conditions but also their state of mind. Of course, he still needed to figure out what the colors meant. Continuing on, it seemed ‘Core of Balance’ played the role of the human heart. The ability itself didn’t do much, but it seemed necessary for other abilities to evolve and newly form. Meanwhile, ‘Divine Blood’ was a useful, easily applicable ability; it could prevent his whole body from outside interference and allow self-heal. However, since its rank was low, he couldn’t rely on it too much yet.
Among his abilities, Chi-Woo liked ‘Golden Ratio’ in particular. Seriously, it increased each physical attribute by a rank. For someone trying his best to transcend beyond an ordinary human like Chi-Woo, this was an extremely precious gift.
[An increase to physical attributes without relying on potential strengths…You have hit the jackpot, and that’s not even the only thing the ability does.]
Mimi added.
The description, ‘the same actions become more efficient by several-fold’ was also noteworthy. Mimi explained that from now on, when Chi-Woo trained, he would be hitting milestones much faster than other people. On the other hand, Chi-Woo still didn’t really know what ‘Extrasensory Perception’ was about; its description was hard to understand, and it seemed he would only get the sense of it after putting it to use—The same went for ‘Halo’.
‘I should try them out right away.’ Chi-Woo turned away from Hawa and stepped outside of the spring pool to get dressed.
Although his physical attributes had improved, Chi-Woo did what he normally did, going to the upper floor immediately and running until the bottom of his feet burned. While escaping from the mud monster, he experienced first-hand the transformation he had undergone.
‘It’s different.’
Before, he had been too preoccupied with the monster chasing him to even think while running. He was in a constant state of anxiety since the slightest mishap could lead to his death. He wasn’t less nervous than before, but he now had the effort to spare to choose his paths and sometimes look back. Furthermore, if he focused only on running, he was able to maintain a good distance between the monster and him even on a straight path. The monster was still a bit faster than him, but Chi-Woo was able to increase the distance between them by turning at corners. He also lasted longer. Usually, he would have to run back down after at most ten minutes on the upper floor, but today, he managed to run for dozens of minutes.
After running a good amount of time, Chi-Woo returned to the lowest floor and leaned his back against the wall, watching the mud monster go while twitching in anger. He burst into laughter after collecting his breath. It was hilarious that he felt so proud of running away better. After undergoing such a dramatic improvement, he wanted to do something big like beating this monster. However, Mimi told him it was still too early for him to face it head-on. Chi-Woo thought the same. Even if it was weakened, Chi-Woo believed he only stood a chance of winning after his physical attributes reached rank C.
It was possible for him to beat the monster now if the conditions were right, but his life was too precious to leave it to pure luck. There was no need for him to make such a big gamble. Still, Chi-Woo didn’t feel a sense of inferiority as he had last time. He was in a similar boat as the other heroes on Liber. They had been reduced to nothing but a random ‘Villager A’ with the annihilation of the World; likewise, Chi-Woo had to accept his limit.
‘So what?’ Even Villager A could come up with their own ways; they could join efforts or survive by running away. If they lacked the power to accomplish something, they could back away for the moment and grow stronger. That was what Chi-Woo planned to do, and compared to when he had first fallen into the storage room on Liber, he had progressed so much. At the same time, there was something Chi-Woo couldn’t help but wonder.
‘If it was Mr. Ru Amuh, I wonder what kind of decision he would’ve made.’ As he progressed, it became clearer to Chi-Woo how impressive Ru Amuh was. Chi-Woo had barely made it to rank D with all the support and benefits he’d received, while all of Ru Amuh’s physical attributes were C even after he had lost his powers. Of course, D wasn’t a low rank. A hero’s physical attributes were on a whole different ball game compared to an ordinary person’s.
According to Mimi, an ordinary human would have to train for more than ten years to raise one physical ability up to C rank. However, as Ru Amuh had, Chi-Woo no longer thought that C rank was out of his reach. He was confident that he could reach the limit of human potential with more time.
However, considering what the limits of humans were… ‘Once I reach C rank…should I stop training?’
[No.]
Mimi immediately refuted.
[If you were human, it would be difficult for you to reach B rank or higher through ordinary training alone.]
If he wanted to reach that level, he needed to get help from a god that sponsored him or gain power through other means, such as medicine or chance encounters—but only if he was ‘human’.
[Do you seriously consider yourself still human?]
Pushing aside the thoughts, Chi-Woo raised his hand and firmly pressed it on his left chest. He could feel the strong beats of his heart.
[A physical awakening also improves your potential.]
[Read your user information, and you’ll be able to see for yourself.]
Now that Mimi mentioned it, Chi-Woo recalled his various new special abilities, the Golden Ratio being an example. This ability could only be maintained semi-permanently by endlessly training his body with the aim of reaching perfect balance and harmony. Chi-Woo got up, finding himself in full agreement with Mimi. Even though he had gotten stronger, he was still lacking. There was now a new path for him to get stronger, but nothing had fundamentally changed—he needed to train again and again.
* * *
Hawa added the paths she had discovered while Chi-Woo kept the monster occupied to the map on the ground. When she finished drawing, she stared at Chi-Woo, who was eating a fruit with his shirt off. Hawa had never paid any attention to his body before. In the first place, Hawa had lost all interest in romantic relationships since a long time ago, and Chi-Woo’s past physique hadn’t been anything to write home about. However, after that incident in the spring pool, he had gone through a complete physical transformation.
Not only had he shed all the extra fat, he had become perfectly fit; not too thin, and not too bulky. Rather, each muscle seemed to have been carefully carved out by the god of art to create a perfect physical beauty. Hawa found herself staring at him in awe without thinking, and she felt a strange urge to go talk to him for no reason.
“Aren’t you gonna make a contract after receiving such a great gift?” Hawa was asking if he was going to keep skirting the issue after receiving such a significant blessing from La Bella.
“Not yet.” Chi-Woo’s reply was ambiguous; he didn’t say he wouldn’t make the contract with La Bella, but he didn’t say he would do it, either. Honestly, he hadn’t thought of forming a contract as that big a deal, but he had changed his mind completely. While he knew La Bella thought favorably of him and had even sent a blessing to him, and that it would be difficult to find a god as special as La Bella outside, there was a reason he still hadn’t made a contract with her yet.
“I’m not confident yet.”
“?”
“There’s still one thing left for me to finish.”
Hawa looked at him as if he was saying nonsense, and Chi-Woo smiled brightly. Chi-Woo had a feeling that their life in this cave was coming to an end. While reflecting back on his past experiences, he came to a realization. Chi-Woo had changed a lot in this cave; not only physically, but also mentally, which was because of his first—no, second encounter with the mud monster. At that time, Chi-Woo had felt a deep sense of helplessness, but instead of giving up, he had remained firm and resolute. And then he further cemented his resolve with a crazy idea. But the important part was that this hadn’t been the only time he felt such a strong sense of helplessness.
Even though Hawa didn’t seem to remember, Chi-Woo distinctly recalled what he felt when he lost to her. Just like how he had replaced his negative emotions with a positive outcome by facing the mud monster head-on, he wanted to erase his past humiliation the same way to grow one step further. Chi-Woo had been thinking about another spar for the past few days, and decided to do it right now.
“Nuna, can we spar again today?”
“…Hmm.” Unexpectedly, Hawa’s response was lukewarm.
“Why don’t we make a bet again?”
“It’s no fun. You’re just going to defend and evade.”
“Well, you just have to break through my defense and grab me.” Chi-Woo eloquently continued, “Why? Are you not confident?”
Hawa’s eyebrow slightly furrowed.
“Scared?”
“…Ha.” Hawa got up to her feet. “It’s because I feel bad.” Hawa raised her lips in disdain. “I feel like I’m hitting a spinning, wooden doll every time I spar with you.” She wasn’t wrong. Even though Chi-Woo had been focusing on defending and evading, he couldn’t avoid every single attack; while he didn’t lose, he did end up becoming a punching bag for her. When they finished sparring, there were always bruises on his face and all over his body. On the bad days, he even got his bones fractured.
But soon after, Hawa and Chi-Woo faced each other again for a spar, and Hawa spoke in a mocking tone, “I'll be fine if you postpone the spar until after you've signed a contract.”
If Chi-Woo made a contract with a god, his mana or divinity would be activated. Thus, Hawa meant she was confident she could still beat him even if he used those powers. Even though Hawa was clearly provoking him, Chi-Woo’s expression didn’t change; he looked like he was taking on a very serious task.
“Before we start,” Chi-Woo put on a serious expression that was so rare for him and said. “There’s something I need to say to you. From this moment on—” His voice softened. “I’m going to think of you as the monster outside.” All the while, Chi-Woo had been telling himself the same thing in his mind, picturing her as the mud monster.
Hawa stared at him, her gaze befuddled as he raised both arms and got into a fighting stance. Hawa was about to say, ‘What, you’re suddenly getting serious after all this time? Did that mean you’ve been going easy on me all this time?’ And other questions to the same effect, but she swallowed her words in the end. Chi-Woo’s posture was still awkward, and there were many openings to exploit. However, his spirit was different, especially his eyes. His gleaming eyes seemed to carry actual hostility towards her; it was only then that Hawa realized what he meant by thinking of her as a monster.
Chi-Woo wanted to defeat the monster wandering outside. However, realistically, they didn’t stand a chance and had no choice but to run away. Thus, he was telling her that he was going to think of her as the monster instead and vent the frustration in his heart; he was going to treat her as his enemy while they were sparring.
Hawa felt tension slowly creep up and pursed her lips into a thin line. “Okay.” She took the same stance as him and smirked. “It’s finally starting to get interesting.”