Episode 95.
After returning to the resting place, Jung Si-woo began to practice making his five senses into skills.
“What are you going to do specifically?”
“First of all, I need to train and explore the two skills I have and figure out how my passive skills have been created.”
It was a very valid, reasonable, and at the same time, incredibly difficult concept. In the first place, exploring the fundamental principles, not the utility or potential for the development of passive skills, was an idea that was never existed for players until now.
“Let’s start with the visual skill.”
“I think it’s going to take you a long time…”
There were three major abilities of the visual skill at level 1, so he wanted to strengthen them all, starting with his ability to track motion. Also, there was an ability not to disturb your sight when encountering light, but it was rational to observe that all the abilities related to his eyes had risen quickly.
“You don’t have to brush up on the ability to see far away or close in detail. There’s no means of polishing them.”
“Then…?”
“I have to think about my body’s vision.”
Jung Si-woo forcibly moved his eyes from Soo Ah-rin’s skin that didn’t have any blemishes and poured out thirty rubber balls from his inventory. He picked up one of them and threw it at the opposite wall with all his energy.
“Hikk!”
The rubber ball moved like a blur, hitting the wall of a training camp that could never be destroyed. Jung Si-woo slightly tilted his head sideways to avoid the rebound as if it was natural. There were two processes of perfectly identifying it with the eyes and then training the body. Soo Ah-rin sounded frightened.
“Oppa, isn’t this more like reflexive nerve training…?”
“It’s not just that. You can practice strengthening the rubber ball with the grant skill to keep it in effect for a long time. Vision, reflexes, skills…isn’t this a perfect training course?”
Soo Ah-rin replied with a happy smile, thinking that Jung Si-woo’s child-like smile was so cute.
“Yes, I think so too. But I don’t have to train at the training center, so I’ll leave. See you, bye!”
“That’s cowardly, Seonbae!
Soo Ah-rin ignored Yong Se-ha’s shouting and ran at an unprecedented speed away from the training camp!
“Se-ha, you try it here.”
“Keuheokk!”
The training center was definitely a large space, but there was various sports equipment in it, which made the chances of the rubber ball bouncing in an unexpected direction even higher. If you were standing around and got hit, you’d leave with a badly bruised body. It wouldn’t be a problem if it were an ordinary rubber ball, but it was a rubber ball strengthened by Jung Si-woo’s mana!
“Let’s train your vision since you’re here with me.”
“Focusing on this one thing is hard enough!”
Wasn’t the training center just undestroyable? But the rubber ball that was bouncing around with Jung Si-woo’s Mana looked like it was speeding up every time it bounced against a wall or an exercise machine. It was already fast, but it was getting faster. He even misunderstood that it might break through the speed of light soon. Of course, it was an illusion, just a little sonic boom.
“Save me…!”
“Okay, I’ll increase it to two since you’ve already adjusted to one.”
“Hyeong-nim, wait…ahhhh!”
Whether or not Yong Se-ha sent a help request, he couldn’t escape anymore! Jung Si-woo threw the ball excitedly, and its power was enough to kill a clumsy monster in a single hit.
“Hah!”
“Good, you’ve got a little bit of body vision, haven’t you?”
“I think I’ve trained my survival instincts, Hyeong-nim!”
Now, Yong Se-ha just desperately wanted the mana to escape from the two rubber balls. But it never happened. Jung Si-woo’s mana control was increasing every time he trained his body vision and reflexes, and the other six rubber balls emitted a bloody sonic boom, but now he was already preparing a seventh.
“Yong Se-ha, get out of there!”
“Kahak!”
“You pathetic bastard, you can’t even avoid that?!”
“Hyeong-nim, did you just deliberately change the direction of the movement with mana…?”
“No excuses!”
“I want to hear your excuses, Hyeong-nim!”
After five minutes, the number of rubber balls was stuck at eight. Even though Jung Si-woo’s mana control had grown quickly, it wasn’t enough to give mana to eight moving objects at once and maintain them. After his body was swollen after being hit dozens of times by the powerful rubber balls, Yong Se-ha succeeded in getting used to the situation. Although the visual skill wasn’t obtained, his vision and reflexes seemed to have grown incredibly in a short period.
“Whoo.”
“Did you laugh at my lack of ability?”
“It’s not that. It’s a sigh of relief! Hyeong-nim, your personality changes when you’re training!”
“I’ll give you nine rubber balls!”
“No!”
“Yes!”
Five hours later, Jung Si-woo was able to control the mana in ten rubber balls. At that very moment, the level of the grant skill, which hadn’t risen for a while, rose to level 40!
“No, the visual skill should go up. Why did this go up?”
“Hyeong-nim, maybe it’s because of the lack of speed on the ball? Ouch.”
He was slapped because he couldn’t avoid the ball while speaking to Jung Si-woo. Jung Si-woo thought the remark was reasonable. He thought it would be difficult to catch a large number of rubber balls at once, but in the end, there was a limit to strengthening them with mana. Jung Si-woo, who had the power of visual skill, was able to move with the position and direction of motion of each ball in his sight without any difficulty.
“Yeah. If you keep doing this, you’ll only raise the level of your grant skills, and you’ll be over-exploring your visual skills.”
Although he became sensitive because he continued to use his visual skill, it was hard to achieve more than he had. In other words, it was less efficient. Jung Si-woo made a judgment and reached out his hand. The ten rubber balls stopped bouncing and were pulled into his inventory one at a time.
“Then let’s think about ways to strengthen the power of the ball fundamentally. Maybe it can be processed in the kitchen?”
“I didn’t expect you to change your mind…”
Even if his thoughts were successful, he would be beaten faster and harder. Tears flowed down Yong Se-ha’s cheeks as he thought there was really no way out, but Jung Si-woo tapped him on the back and opened the door.
“Oh, Hyeong-nim, are you finally resting?”
“Uh. Minor problems…”
Soo Ah-rin was sitting on the sofa, slowly closing her eyes and using her mana. She turned her head to greet them. Jung Si-woo raised one hand and stuttered instead of responding lightly. His face turned red instantaneously.
[Visual skill has risen to Lv2]
“What’s wrong, Oppa?”
“Hyeong-nim?”
When Jung Si-woo froze and didn’t move, Soo Ah-rin felt something strange and came closer to him. He turned his head to the other side in a rush, but Soo Ah-rin caught him, her cheeks puffing.
“If you turn your head like that without saying a word, I feel hurt.”
“No, it’s because you’re so pretty.”
“Uhhh.”
Soo Ah-rin’s face turned red. Was this a chance to finally confirm his mind? No, but it could be just a thoughtless comment, so wouldn’t it be forbidden to get excited? When Soo Ah-rin was suddenly shaken by his words, she let go of him momentarily. Jung Si-woo sighed and turned his head. Of course, he wasn’t lying when he said Soo Ah-rin was pretty, but that wasn’t the real reason.
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
“Wait, at this timing?”
“Hyeong-nim…?”
It wasn’t the first time that Soo Ah-rin looked pretty, so there was no reason to be surprised at her beauty. Jung Si-woo’s reaction was obviously strange. Unlike Soo Ah-rin, who became a little silly when she saw Jung Si-woo, Yong Se-ha noticed something strange. However, Jung Si-woo didn’t give them an answer and locked himself in the bathroom. Sitting on the left toilet, Jung Si-woo was in an uncomfortable posture. It was totally unintentional, but it was a clear disaster.
‘I’m sorry to Ah-rin.’
Apparently, his visual skills were extremely active. As soon as he got out of the training center, surprisingly, his visual skills rose to level 2, and it activated a function that had never been seen before! The newly activated function was ‘see though.’
‘What kind of a game gives this kind of ability…’
It happened so momentarily that there was no time to prepare for it. As soon as Soo Ah-rin came into view, he lightly scanned her clothes and captured her naked body, which was so impressive that it was now permanently engraved in his mind. Even with his eyes closed, he could see it vividly.
‘I’ve been thinking about her for a long time, but she doesn’t have any weaknesses. Even her body is so perfect…no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.’
Jung Si-woo recalled the anti-night sentiment he had memorized in the military. It was of no use. Anguish filled his mind. Eventually, he took off all his clothes and started taking a shower. Everything could be washed away with water!
“That feels better.”
He poured cold water over his whole body without mercy. Since he was resistant to ice, it didn’t feel very cold, but it was enough to cool off his useless adolescent thoughts.
“Whoo…”
Jung Si-woo calmed down his mind and began to think a little seriously about Soo Ah-rin and himself. He realized that he was conscious of himself. It was so obvious that he was sensitive to girls that showed their affection little by little.
He wasn’t good at hiding his feelings because he wasn’t good at love. Jung Si-woo was no such fool. Perhaps Soo Ah-rin would have appealed to him more actively without Yong Se-ha between them. If Jung Si-woo responded a little positively, their relationship would go smoothly. However, Jung Si-woo had been trying to ignore it all this time because of their current situation.
‘We’re in a very one-sided relationship now. It’d be great if it developed smoothly, but if it spun a little bit…that would be too harsh on Ah-rin.’
Moreover, the thought that Soo Ah-rin’s feelings towards him were closer to gratitude and yearning than love remained. That was the reason why he couldn’t act hastily. In addition, their situation was one of the reasons why he wasn’t relaxed enough to play around with love. But just now, Soo Ah-rin’s charm was revealed in a slightly too blatant way, and his heart was turned to one side. Neither Soo Ah-rin nor Jung Si-woo intended it, but it was effective.
“No, no.”
He turned on the shower and poured more cold water on his head. He decided to focus his attention on the flowing water to wash off Soo Ah-rin’s image. Then, he noticed a clear set of transparent crystals in the water.
“No, wait a minute.”
Jung Si-woo realized the identity of what he captured at that moment and stopped thinking. He even forgot about Soo Ah-rin’s body for a moment (it was impossible to forget completely because it had already been preserved in permanent storage).
“I can see through water?”
It was the moment when Jung Si-woo realized the true worth of the visual skill.
