"It just so happens the end of the month is coming up soon.
Basic combat training for Awakened individuals starts at the end of the month. First, you'll have to complete about two weeks of theoretical education.
After that, there's a test. If you fail, you'll have to wait until next month no matter what. If you pass, you move on to the practical exam. Just so you know, the practical test is conducted alongside an instructor in real-life scenarios, and that also takes two weeks. Same deal here—if you fail, you'll have to start all over again from the beginning. Do you have any more questions?"
A full month of training.
Not a short time.
The reason both written and practical training are enforced is because too many people end up getting themselves killed by rushing at monsters without knowing what they're doing, just because they gained powers.
It was a fairly well-structured system.
Even just this much would significantly reduce the mortality rate of the Awakened. That much was clear.
31U
As soon as Soohyeok heard the date, he mentally calculated how many days were left.
'It's the 26th today, so five days left.'
And after that, he'd need to undergo a full month of training. It meant everything had been pushed back more than he expected.
It wasn't something he had anticipated, but what could he do?
Soohyeok nodded.
"…Alright. I understand."
It wasn't something he could force just because he was in a hurry.
If there was anything to prepare, it was to make sure he didn't fail the first assessment, so he wouldn't lose another month of time he could be using to earn money.
"Okay then, you're free to go. Just in case, I'll send a notification text the day before."
Soohyeok lightly bowed and exited the Awakened Association.
There was still plenty of time before his family got off work.
Unlike the rush of catching the subway earlier in desperation to make money, he now had a more relaxed pace.
"Should I try running home from here?"
He'd need to spend the next five days training anyway, so it didn't seem like a bad idea.
So Soohyeok ran.
From Yeouido to Eungam.
It took a decent amount of time, but the healthy feeling his enhanced body gave him was incredibly satisfying.
Those five days flew by in an instant.
During that time, Soohyeok trained relentlessly.
He ran, practiced the horse stance, and refined his martial arts skills.
The main addition to his routine was the horse stance training.
It's essentially a posture that resembles riding a horse—an endurance pose. For any martial artist learning martial arts, it was considered basic physical training.
Most of the power that can be drawn from the body comes from the waist and lower body. The horse stance focused specifically on developing those areas.
In fact, he found that these improvements also influenced the Force System. He knew because once, he received a notification that his strength had increased.
As a side note, during one of his runs, his stamina increased by 1.
He now had confirmation that even without leveling up, his stats could improve.
He also made progress in terms of internal energy (qi).
By conventional standards, he had accumulated about three years' worth of internal energy.
This "year-counting" system was based on daily breathing and circulation exercises performed consistently for four hours every morning and evening using a third-rate internal energy technique.
So for Soohyeok to have gathered that much energy in such a short time meant his growth speed was incredibly fast. It seemed this was possible because the portal impact had thickened the spiritual energy in Earth's atmosphere.
Thanks to breaking through with the technique of sacred earth, he had unblocked the Ren and Du meridians , allowing him to handle this energy with ease—making the actual effects several times stronger.
To put it in perspective, Soohyeok was currently stronger than a typical second-rate martial artist, but still lacked enough to be considered first-rate. He was right in between.
A standard second-rate martial artist could easily take on ten strong adult men, and while fighting a tiger or a bear might be difficult, a wolf would be no problem.
So Soohyeok was a step above that. With proper planning and some luck, he could even take down a tiger.
Considering he hadn't even been back on Earth for a full month yet, his progress was impressive.
And finally, August 31st arrived.
With a text telling him to report to the association entrance by 9 a.m., Soohyeok got up early and ran toward Yeouido.
It felt like all the hardship had finally paid off.
As he neared Yeouido, good news came.
Ding—!
Stamina has increased by 1.
It was only natural that training made you stronger, but it felt incredibly satisfying to receive such clear and intuitive confirmation of his growth.
Thanks to that, he arrived at the entrance of the association feeling refreshed.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket. 8:50 a.m.
He had arrived 10 minutes early.
What surprised him was how many people were already gathered.
'About fifty, maybe?'
He'd heard somewhere that the odds of a regular person becoming Awakened were around 1 in 10,000.
With South Korea's population at 50 million, that would mean roughly 5,000 Awakened individuals in the country.
Of course, numbers rarely matched reality so neatly.
"If everything worked out by the numbers, the world would be ruled by mathematicians."
Among the crowd, some might be failures from last month or earlier who were trying again.
And though rare, there were likely some Awakened who simply didn't show up today.
He didn't know the exact statistics, but Soohyeok had a strong feeling that the actual number of Awakened in Korea likely exceeded the 5,000 predicted by math alone.
"Still… there probably aren't more than ten thousand of them, right?"
Less than ten thousand out of a population of fifty million.
Statistically, that's around 0.02%.
In a world where Awakened individuals were relied upon for protection from endless invasions and even the gathering of resources from other dimensions, there was no question—they were treated with high regard.
In truth, it felt like there simply weren't enough of them.
The gates to other realms—portals—that had opened across Earth were quite numerous.
Among those realms, some were friendly to Earth, but many were hostile.
These portals would appear practically every day, and disappear just as often after being cleared by hunters.
Looking not even at the world but just at South Korea, with its small territory, the situation was especially severe.
After one portal opened, Pyongyang collapsed while defenseless.
The elite ruling class that maintained North Korea's regime was wiped out.
In their place, otherworldly beings—Realmfolk—crossed over and claimed much of the land. South Korea now existed as only half of the Korean Peninsula, with the north posing a constant threat. Even civilians and the media couldn't approach the area due to high danger, so the exact size of the enemy force was unknown—but it was clear it wasn't small.
Less than ten thousand Awakened.
And while many chose to become Guardians, not all did.
Even then, no Guardian could remain on the front lines indefinitely.
Most Guardians spent only about one month per year on the frontlines, by personal standard.
Naturally, that wasn't enough to stop the Realmfolk descending from what was once North Korea.
The only reason South Korea could maintain its defensive line was due to support troops from allied nations and other dimensions.
Ironically, the world was unusually supportive of South Korea in this regard. Especially China and Russia were overwhelmingly pro-Korea.
Why?
Because if the Korean Peninsula fell, the monsters, the claws and fangs of the Realmfolk, and their magical war machines would be headed straight for their borders.
"Other dimensions…"
This wasn't just a matter of different countries.
These were entirely different worlds.
With entirely different cultures, ideologies, and goals—worlds alien in every way.
Among them, those whose ways were similar to Earth and humanity had formed alliances. As portals opened chaotically across the world, connecting dimension after dimension, technologies and powers had been shared, leading to such cooperation.
Soohyeok had never personally encountered a Realmfolk before.
Even among the friendly ones, most avoided media exposure.
The only things he'd seen were a few scattered photos or videos online.
Judging just from those, it had felt surreal.
Elves with pointy ears walking among humans, beastkin with fur-covered faces and animalistic features walking upright—it was an almost ironic sight to see them mingling with ordinary Earthlings.
A breeze tickled Soohyeok's ear.
Then, a surprisingly loud voice rang out.
"Looks like about 48 people total."
The speaker was far away.
Yet the voice landed clearly in his ear.
It wasn't telepathy in the ordinary sense.
Typical telepathic speech lacked tone or timbre—it was like a flat mechanical message.
But this voice was distinctly female, slightly low, and unmistakably rich in tone.
It was as if someone had carried their voice directly to him.
Turning toward the sound, Soohyeok spotted a striking woman with pale white skin and a height that easily exceeded 170 cm, standing with her arms crossed.
The notable feature: her ears, sharply pointed.
That's when Soohyeok realized—he was looking at one of the famed elves.
And he couldn't help but be a little impressed.
"She really is an elf…"
Even with all the beauties Soohyeok had seen during his time in the Fantasy Continent, he could confidently say none compared to her.
Skin like flawless white jade, a high nose bridge, deep blue eyes that looked like they held the sea, and flowing platinum-blonde hair—all of it exuded a mysterious aura.
She looked like she had stepped right out of a painting.
Compared to the elves or celebrities he'd seen online, even among elves, this one was on an entirely different level.
The elven woman smiled, clearly enjoying the attention from the stunned crowd.
"Nice to meet you, Earthlings."
"I am Shahar Kal Eluriat, dispatched from Elvenheim to oversee the training of this batch of candidates. Feel free to just call me Instructor Shar."
The stunned reactions from the recruits were to be expected, but still—it was way too quiet.
'And why is that nickname unnecessarily cute? What is she, a puppy?'
Soohyeok had a feeling the others were probably thinking the same thing.
Still, Shahar continued without a care.
**"This is the first time an elf has participated in the training of Earthlings. I'm sure you all have many questions.
Due to limited time, I'll take just three questions."**
A hand shot up immediately.
'A student?'
For some reason, a girl in a school uniform had shown up to this place.
"Your name is…?"
Shahar glanced at the name tag on the girl's uniform.
"Baek Iyeon. I'm 19 years old."
Baek Iyeon answered with a bright smile—offering her age even though no one asked.
'A high schooler? She looks even younger than that…'
Soohyeok had thought she was a middle schooler, tilting his head in confusion.
"Nice to meet you, Baek Iyeon. Go ahead with your question."