I got into school for nothing - Chapter 15
I got into school for nothing (15)
Lesson 4. Rebellion - 3
Rumors spread throughout the entire school in an instant.
Dokgo Yeon and Oltima's duel was being broadcast live on the intranet, so by lunchtime, there wasn't a soul in the academy who didn't know Dokgo Yeon's name.
"That guy Oltima was supposedly the most anticipated first-year student. But since she fought him to a standstill, her reputation was bound to skyrocket."
"No, more than that, there was at least one more capable person. In that class."
To Ban Yuwon, who summarized what the students were chattering about on the free bulletin board, Dokgo Yeon, who had taken As Light's seat beside him, retorted.
"I thought you'd be able to find him."
"I was too engrossed in your duel."
The distance between Dokgo Yeon and Ban Yuwon had decreased even further compared to that morning.
Ban Yuwon wanted to maintain an appropriate distance, but it was more accurate to say that Dokgo Yeon was completely ignoring that and closing the gap.
Thanks to that, the distance with Rucell, with whom he had barely managed to get a little closer, only widened.
This was because Rucell was now openly afraid of Dokgo Yeon.
He couldn't even imagine how the two of them managed to live in the same room.
"More importantly... there's a lot of talk about you too."
"Yeah, they can't disparage you, so they're disparaging me instead, right?"
One person desperately fled from the duel, while the other pushed the most anticipated first-year student to the limit.
Since both of them were from the Special Admissions for Lower-Rank Dimensions, how much would people have to talk about!
"Indeed, there are many here who don't realize how foolish it is to judge without seeing with their own eyes..."
"I appreciate you thinking highly of me, but it's true I'm still a nobody. Just wait and see in a week."
Ban Yuwon replied casually, spreading the jam he had brought onto a piece of crispy baked bread and eating it.
Seeing the jam, Dokgo Yeon's eyes changed.
"It smells incredibly sweet."
"Want some?"
Instead of answering, Dokgo Yeon subtly pushed forward the bread on her plate.
Ban Yuwon chuckled and spread a spoonful of jam for her, and Dokgo Yeon carefully brought the bread to her mouth, cautiously opening it to take a bite.
"...!"
The moment she tasted the jam-smeared bread.
The cross in her eyes spun round and round.
It had been scary at first, but after seeing it a few times, he had gotten used to it.
Dokgo Yeon, who had thoroughly chewed and swallowed it, extended her remaining bread and requested.
"Could I have more?"
"It's not that expensive."
In fact, it was the concentrated essence of tens of thousands of fruits, making it unimaginably expensive, but it was cheap if the goal was to curry favor with Dokgo Yeon.
More importantly, because it was so sweet, even a single spoonful spread with a teaspoon was enough to experience its exquisite sweetness.
"This is truly... I've tasted all sorts of sweet delights from the Central Plains, but this, even among those, is in a class of its own... Is this your ability?"
"That's right."
"It's intriguing. ...Extremely intriguing."
No, couldn't she just say thank you docilely?
He couldn't understand why, every time, she ended up looking at him with the expression of a lion eyeing its prey!
But what was even funnier than that was As Light and Rucell, who were subtly holding out their bread towards him from the opposite side.
"I'll give you some, so don't look so desperate."
"Sorry, it just smelled too sweet."
"Thank you...!"
As Light and Rucell, who quickly bit into it after he spread the jam, simultaneously slumped their shoulders with expressions as if they had ascended to paradise.
"What kind of taste is this...?"
"Fruit, it's fruit itself. The essence of incredibly delicious fruit...!"
Amidst that, at Rucell's surprisingly incisive remark, Ban Yuwon flinched.
Of course, the jam he had just taken out and shared with his classmates was that very elixir he had made in his previous home.
In sharing it with his classmates, there was also the calculation that it wouldn't hurt for those who would eventually grow alongside him to become stronger.
"I feel like I've received something too precious."
"We're a team. Let's share good things. You can also see it as repayment for the kindness you showed this morning."
"Hmm, but it's still too much..."
Since things had come to this, Ban Yuwon decided he should share the jam with his classmates every day.
Even if it was just a low-grade elixir, an elixir was still an elixir, and consistent consumption would surely be helpful.
More importantly, now that he could consistently go outside, he would be able to manufacture elixirs here as well.
'I could also try adding various other concepts to enhance their effects.'
Should he browse the market today, looking for materials imbued with good concepts?
As he thought this, closing the jam and putting it into his inventory, Dokgo Yeon clapped her hands, a sharp *clap*.
"Alright, I'll teach you a technique."
"Huh?"
"As repayment for the elixir I received from you, I mean to teach you a martial arts technique."
"Elixir?!"
"Cough."
As Light, startled by the word 'elixir', and Rucell, who choked.
So she had figured it out, after all, Ban Yuwon thought, but retorted despite his surprise.
"It's not that precious. Its effects are probably negligible too."
"Of course, they are negligible. But elixirs that have absolutely no side effects and boost one's potential are extremely rare. Of course... I'm not just giving away a technique for free either. That... could I keep getting a little bit of it in the future?"
"I was planning to do that anyway."
"Just as I thought. Then, since we've decided, shall we start right away? ...That place should do.'"
Dokgo Yeon, who had already finished her meal and stood up, held her student ID and vanished from the spot.
She had left without even waiting for an answer, so he couldn't stand her up.
Ban Yuwon, biting into the remaining ham, hurriedly followed her to that place, Professor Yumina's classroom.
As Light and Rucell, suddenly left alone, stared blankly at the meal trays the other two had left without clearing, but recalling the word 'elixir' that Dokgo Yeon had uttered earlier, they sighed and collected the trays together.
* * *
"No one's here. It's also spacious enough to move around freely."
Dokgo Yeon, who had arrived first and was tapping the air with her fingers, muttered contentedly, then turned to Ban Yuwon and spoke.
"I know you're growing rapidly. Perhaps even through actual combat. I won't bother asking where you engaged in actual combat... Is the fact that your body's posture has changed in just one day due to your ability, or your talent?"
"It's mostly ability. And maybe talent too. Though I don't know if you'd consider it talent."
"People often call 'understanding ten after hearing one' talent, but for those who wish to train in martial arts, simply having the knack of remembering what they've seen is enough. More importantly, there's too much preliminary education required to teach martial arts with fixed forms and styles..."
Dokgo Yeon raised her index finger, and thrust it towards Ban Yuwon.
"Just this one thing, first."
Slowly, steadily.
But as the finger, imbued with formidable power, cut through the air and reached before his eyes, Ban Yuwon could only stare at it, daring not to move a muscle.
[Gwan (貫)]
A movement whose sole purpose was to pierce and pass through a single point.
He was certain that if it continued to advance, his eye and head would be pierced through.
Ban Yuwon, for the first time in his life, felt completely captivated by the depth of a concept 'derived from human movement,' unable to regain his composure.
"Liar."
The finger had already been withdrawn.
Dokgo Yeon smiled cheerfully and said.
"You possess the talent to grasp a martial principle (武理) shown to you just once, yet you intend to disparage it yourself?"
"...Alright, I'll brag about it from now on."
Thanks to her speaking to him, Ban Yuwon, who had barely managed to regain his senses, replied with a hint of a joke, and Dokgo Yeon chuckled and elaborated.
"The thrust. Whether executed with a fist, a leg, a sword, a spear, it doesn't matter, but what I just showed you is the most fundamental and ultimate 'meaning' of a thrust. How many times one thrusts, from where one thrusts, what one imitates while thrusting, what energy one imbues into the thrust—there can be countless applications, but the 'pinnacle of the fundamental' is this. Don't forget it."
"The pinnacle of the fundamental (極)..."
Perhaps that was the very essence of a concept?
The concepts Ban Yuwon dealt with also all began from a single central meaning, but by mixing or adding other things to them, he could create many different concepts.
However, in Dokgo Yeon's movements—the ultimate expression of the fundamental, forged by training a single concept to its extreme—he felt a power far deeper than concepts born from the mixture of many things, ironically enough.
'So, focusing too much on just mixing concepts isn't good either.'
Of course, one shouldn't misunderstand: the movement Dokgo Yeon had just shown was not the ultimate principle of a universal thrust, but rather the ultimate principle of a thrust *to Dokgo Yeon*.
There are many Hanja characters meaning 'to thrust' or 'to pierce', so why did Ban Yuwon perceive 'Gwan (貫)' (to pierce) from her movement?
It was because, for her, a thrust was necessarily a fatal movement designed to pierce through its target.
'This is better for me. Strength is supreme.'
Ban Yuwon drew his sword from his inventory and gripped it.
Dokgo Yeon nodded and stepped aside, then gestured to him and demonstrated the Gwan (貫) movement once more.
Watching an attack coming at oneself and watching a movement piercing into the void gave a different kind of realization.
"You can do it now, right?"
"Completely, no, but..."
"If you could completely imitate it, then all the years I've accumulated would have been meaningless, wouldn't they?"
Dokgo Yeon laughed as if she had made a funny joke.
When she quietly smiled, she looked so beautiful that the fact her pupils were cross-shaped didn't matter in the slightest.
"Hoo."
Beside her, Ban Yuwon raised his sword, took a deep breath, and thrust his sword, aiming at a single point in the air.
Once more, and then once again.
At first, it was a dismal level, not even a fragment of the true meaning discernible, but the second time, a sudden momentum imbued the thrust, and by the third, the concept of Gwan was distinctly felt.
—*Swish!*
And on the fourth attempt, the air tore with a ripping sound.
However, Ban Yuwon, thinking it was still a mere drop in the ocean compared to what Dokgo Yeon had shown, frantically raised his sword again...!
"Stop. You can't control the strength yet, and at this rate, the room will get damaged."
Before he could unleash it, Dokgo Yeon grabbed his arm.
The cross in her eyes repeatedly growing larger and smaller was incredibly strange.
To Ban Yuwon, who was panting as he withdrew his sword, Dokgo Yeon advised.
"You'll remember what I showed you, won't you? Test the rest later in a wider space, or against enemies you're allowed to kill."
"Understood."
Ban Yuwon nodded frantically.
As he did so, several notifications from his Babylonia Code appeared before his eyes.
[By successfully observing, understanding, and internalizing the concept of movement, the profundity of Myriad-Reading Eye (萬讀眼) has reached 110.]
[The concept of Martial Arts (武道) is realized and assimilated. Swordplay (劍術) is absorbed as a sub-concept of Martial Arts.]
[The concept of Gwan (貫) is realized and assimilated. The profundity of Gwan has reached 16.]
'16?'
He had dueled with his sister so much, and the Swordplay he had absorbed concepts from goblins all day yesterday was 14.2?
Ban Yuwon hurriedly accessed his internal code, and after confirming the section that read 'Martial Arts (武道) 36 [Swordplay (劍術) 20, Gwan (貫) 16]', he let out a low groan of surprise.
Even though it was performed with a sword, Gwan had become a separate concept from Swordplay, and the two combined to form Martial Arts.
The fact that Swordplay had grown by nearly 6 was also surprising...
To put it somewhat hastily and fragmentedly, at this moment, his combat skills had grown by more than double.
However, unlike Ban Yuwon, who was beaming with delight, Dokgo Yeon's feelings seemed somewhat complicated.
"I never imagined you'd demonstrate the true meaning (眞意) itself, unconstrained by the form (形) of a weapon, right from the start."
"Ah, so that's why."
Ban Yuwon, who realized the reason for Swordplay and Gwan being separate concepts through Dokgo Yeon's words, nodded in admiration, which made Dokgo Yeon look puzzled.
"Hm?"
"No, it's nothing. I think because you showed me a movement unconstrained by weapons, I was able to accept it just as it was."
"To not only fully comprehend what was shown but even reproduce it. You truly amaze me to no end within just two days of meeting you."
"That was a truly excellent teaching. As for elixirs, just leave it to me from now on."
"I've unexpectedly incurred a loss."
Dokgo Yeon grumbled and backed away from him.
And then.
"So, I'm going to make up for that loss in the future. Be prepared."
"Eh?"
Leaving words that instilled fear just by hearing them, she vanished from the spot.
Only then did Ban Yuwon realize that lunchtime was coming to an end, and hurriedly used his student ID to exit the classroom.
'Since we're going to the same classroom anyway, she could've just come together. ...Hmm, the afternoon lecture seems to be mostly note-taking.'
Since he would just be sitting and listening to the professor's lecture anyway, there wouldn't be any provocations for a duel like in the morning.
Of course, Ban Yuwon knew well that things always seemed to happen precisely when one thought they wouldn't, so he decided to make at least some minimal preparations.
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