Two weeks flew by, and Kluivert’s hellish training regimen had finally reached its absolute end. Ever since the incident at the waterfall, Yujin had been continuously haunted by the accidental spell he had woven. Fortunately, Kluivert, who had still been lingering nearby at the time, had moved quickly to save him.
Because of that mishap, Yujin’s training had suddenly grown significantly more brutal. Kluivert demanded that he master his spellcasting, but no matter how hard Yujin tried, every attempt ended in utter failure.
Recognizing this bottleneck, Kluivert shifted gears and made Yujin’s physical conditioning borderline sadistic. One of Yujin's worst recurring nightmares became scaling a sheer, vertical cliff face. The rock surface was bone-dry and slick, causing Yujin to fall repeatedly—all while hoisting a massive boulder strapped to his shoulders. At one point, his fingernails had nearly ripped entirely off his fingers.
It wasn't just physical torture either; the old man trained Yujin’s mental fortitude with a heavy hand. The Yujin standing here now looked different. His hair had taken on a darker, starker shade. Not only that, but his once-bright brown eyes had grown dim and hollow.
"Well, look at that. Our training has finally reached its end. Look at yourself. Your frame is wider, and your muscles are far denser than before." Kluivert smiled proudly, assessing Yujin’s progress. It had only been a two-week sprint, but the results were glaringly obvious.
"I’m certain that physically, you’ve already surpassed the average Gold Rank, Yujin. Even if your magic is still a chaotic mess, your raw, unadulterated strength is now enough to make even veteran adventurers sweat!" Kluivert added enthusiastically.
Yujin clenched both fists tightly, the veins in his forearms bulging visibly. Every time he squeezed his hands, the dull ache at the tips of his fingers reminded him of the biting cold of that cliffside rock that had nearly claimed his nails.
"Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Kluivert." Yujin’s gaze fixed squarely on Kluivert’s chin. He had grown into a rather quiet young man, rarely speaking unless the topic genuinely caught his interest.
"There’s only a sliver of preparation time left. In two days, you’ll be departing for the western region. I don’t believe I’ve mentioned the village name yet. You’ll be deployed to Nerthvale. That place is infamously known as the Village of Eternal Mist and Rain."
Hearing Kluivert’s words, a spark of genuine interest flickered in Yujin. "Oh? No wonder the western region is in such an uproar right now. This village might just be the root cause. Considering how isolated that place is, the monsters lurking within its depths are bound to be exceptionally dangerous." Yujin shrugged, his shoulders stiff.
"Hahaha! I love your observation. Yes, you're exactly right. We've received numerous reports stating that the western region is currently facing severe food shortages. It's all due to a dense, unnatural fog that has drastically decimated their primary grain and rice supplies."
"In that case, is my mandate strictly limited to an investigation? If a crisis unfolds over there—like the villagers suffering from the same severe issues plaguing the rest of the west—am I supposed to just stand by and watch?"
Kluivert merely grinned wide, his eyes flashing beneath his wild grey hair. "Your primary objective is indeed reconnaissance. But in this world, the golden rule of an adventurer is: Don't die a dog's death out of pity. Therefore..."
Suddenly, Kluivert drew his sword, dropping into a dangerously low stance. The air around them instantaneously turned heavy, suffocating.
"...before you go acting like a savior in that village, prove to me that you won't drop dead from a single monster strike. Attack me, Yujin! Use every single technique I've beaten into you to take me down!"
"Tch... annoying old man," Yujin muttered, furrowing his brow. Slowly, he drew his black sword from its worn, lackluster sheath. He had meticulously studied Kluivert’s attack patterns throughout their grueling sparring sessions. Yujin was determined that, sooner or later, his hard work would culminate in dragging this old man down.
The moment Kluivert vanished, a thunderous sonic boom echoed as the earth shattered beneath the explosive force of his kickoff. In a singular, fluid motion, Kluivert materialized directly in front of Yujin, his blade already thrusting forward—a piercing strike, one of the hardest angles to parry.
Driven by razor-sharp reflexes, Yujin pivoted his entire torso slightly to the right. Once the angle was perfect, he dug the toes of his right foot into the dirt and launched a brutal counter-attack, delivering a heavy, driving kick with his left leg straight into Kluivert’s chest.
BAAM!
Yujin’s boot connected squarely with Kluivert’s chest. The impact reverberated across the entire waterfall basin, unleashing a miniature shockwave that sent dry leaves scattering violently through the air.
Kluivert’s eyes widened slightly. He hadn't expected Yujin to willingly risk letting the tip of his blade graze within inches of his ribs just to force that counter-attack. The old man’s massive frame skidded backward several meters, his boots digging deep, messy trenches into the dirt as he fought the sheer kinetic momentum of Yujin’s kick.
Kluivert let out a low chuckle, casually brushing the dust off his chest. "Impeccable reflexes, Yujin. That left leg of yours... is considerably heavier than I anticipated." Kluivert shifted his stance once more, but this time it was different; he was centering his explosive power entirely into his arms.
"Let’s have this old man get a little serious, shall we?"
Suddenly, a terrifying pressure wave erupted from the Guild Master. The sheer force of the aura caused Yujin’s muscles to contract wildly on pure instinct. The jovial, testing look Kluivert previously held vanished, replaced by a dead-serious expression that sent a genuine chill down Yujin’s spine. Instantly, Yujin dropped into a defensive stance.
As he focused entirely on Kluivert, Yujin felt a subtle, microscopic shift in the airflow behind him. The youth briefly dismissed it as a stray gust of wind whipped up by Kluivert’s overwhelming pressure. However...
"You left yourself wide open, Yujin."
The old man’s voice echoed from directly behind him, a terrifying smirk etched onto his face. Before Yujin could even register the movement, a devastating, unmitigated punch buried itself straight into his ribs.
His eyes dilated in sheer disbelief. He couldn't comprehend how Kluivert had bypassed his field of vision so effortlessly, especially when he was certain the man had been standing meters ahead just a millisecond ago.
Yujin’s body was launched violently through the air, but he managed to force his feet down, dragging against the earth to stop himself from flying further. His breathing became erratic, his lungs hitching from the sheer trauma of the blow. The sensation was horrifyingly reminiscent of the suffocating pressure he felt when he first stood beneath the waterfall. Clutching his battered ribs, his mind frantically reverse-engineered Kluivert's impossible movement.
Tch... if it's come to this, I have no choice but to rely on Acceleration... Yujin muttered internally, glaring sharply at his mentor while his left hand remained clamped over his throbbing ribs.
This time, he chose to seize the initiative. A sharp shockwave rippled through the dirt as his legs propelled him forward. The air around Yujin’s feet seemed to violently combust. In an instant, his afterimage was left drifting behind Kluivert, while his actual body dropped low, sliding underneath his target's guard. He replicated Kluivert's exact misdirection pattern from earlier—but the moment Kluivert spun around to counter, Yujin planted his right foot with everything he had, violently pivoting his trajectory from the rear back to the absolute front of the old man.
Yujin forcefully arrested his momentum, his boots tearing up the soil beneath him. Twisting his hips with explosive torque, his black blade sliced a lethal arc directly toward Kluivert’s chest.
Refusing to be outmatched in speed, the old man brought his sword up to intercept the slash. Within a microsecond, a blinding cascade of sparks erupted as the two blades collided. Unwilling to give an inch, Kluivert nimbly transitioned into a flurry of relentless slashes, forcing Yujin into a high-speed, grueling clash of steel.
With every successive impact, Yujin could feel the sheer kinetic weight behind Kluivert’s strikes compounding exponentially. While Yujin could do nothing but grit his teeth under the suffocating duress, the old man was grinning with absolute, feral exhilaration.
The air around them began to swelter from the friction of the ever-growing sparks. Yujin dug his lower body deep into the terrain, straining every fiber of his legs to keep from being blasted away by the sheer impact of Kluivert’s onslaught. Sensing his absolute martial superiority, Kluivert unleashed an even more ferocious tempest of strikes.
Ultimately, Yujin’s blood-red, trembling hands could no longer withstand the sheer, concussive force of Kluivert’s final blow. His black sword was violently wrenched from his grip, spinning far out of reach into the treeline. Before he could even draw a breath, a brutal, definitive fist buried itself dead-center into his stomach.
The air pressure around him seemed to warp as he was sent flying. Due to the sheer trauma of the impact, Yujin collapsed into the dirt, entirely unable to stand. His lungs felt like they were filled with liquid fire, and his vision, blurred from staring at the endless cascade of blinding friction sparks, began to rapidly fade into a haze.
Kluivert sheathed his sword with a soft, distinct click that sounded deafeningly loud in Yujin's ringing ears. The old man walked over, staring down coldly at the youth sprawled helplessly in the dirt. The exhilarating smile from before was completely gone.
"Still nowhere near enough, Yujin," Kluivert said, his voice frigid. "If that's the best defense you can muster in Nerthvale, you'll be nothing more than a rotting corpse left to fester in the mist."
Kluivert casually tossed a high-tier health potion, the vial landing right next to Yujin's face. "Patch yourself up. The day after tomorrow, at dawn, meet at the city's western gate. Don't be late, or I'll personally drag your body to that village."
Yujin stared at the shimmering vial through his heavily blurred vision. Tears pricked the corners of his eyes—not from sorrow, but from the agonizing, blinding pain radiating from his abdomen.
H-Hey... you old bastard... a potion like this... won't do a damn thing for me, he bitterly thought to himself before his consciousness completely succumbed to the dark.