The Academy’s Unrivaled Professor [Novel] Chapter 19

A Single Remark

As Baek Yuyeon walked toward the dormitory, Kwak Dojin approached from behind.

“Yuyeon?”

Recognizing the voice, Baek Yuyeon turned with a bright smile.

“Ah, Senior!”

Her smile caught him off guard, making Kwak Dojin clear his throat.

“Hwang Minwoo hasn’t contacted you since then, right?”

“No. I heard he even cleared out his room.”

Whether from the police investigation or being dragged back home, Hwang Minwoo was gone.

“That’s a relief. You know this is all thanks to Professor Kang, right?”

Baek Yuyeon smiled softly.

“Thanks to you, too, Senior.”

“Me?”

“You threw a punch at his face. The Disciplinary Committee convened because of that incident, too.”

Kwak Dojin fought back a grin.

“Ahem. Well, I suppose that’s true.”

A brief silence.

Kwak Dojin scratched the back of his head. For some reason, the words just wouldn’t come out.

Forget it. I’ll just ask.’

“Have you considered taking Professor Kang’s class?”

When persuasion fails, a frontal assault works best. Crashing head-on usually forces a path open.

“Pardon? My major is Martial Medical Arts, though? As far as I know, Professor Kang Hyeon’s special lecture is about getting stronger, isn’t it?”

“Right.”

“But why?”

‘I don’t know, either! Why did the Professor tell me to rope you in?!’

Honestly, that made it even harder. Shouldn’t he have at least told him the reason?

“Studying requires stamina, too. If you exercise while studying, things will stick in your head better…”

Wait.

Even as he said it, it sounded strange. Wasn’t his opponent boasting such tremendous memorization skills that she was called a walking encyclopedia?

“Well, rather than that, it makes no sense to study Martial Medical Arts without knowing martial arts, right?”

“Yes, that’s true, but…”

“Anyway, it’s just a class you come out at six in the morning and do for three hours. It won’t interfere with your schedule at all.”

Baek Yuyeon briefly thought of Kang Hyeon.

He was definitely no ordinary professor.

But did she really need to take his class to that extent?

‘I can’t.’

“I’m sorry, Senior. I appreciate the offer, but I don’t have the leeway to focus on anything else right now.”

Baek Yuyeon shut the idea down.

She was grateful to Kwak Dojin, but gratitude didn’t give him the right to dictate her future.

“I’m preparing for the selection exam to enter Professor Hwang Yerim’s lab. It’s coming up soon, and every minute counts.”

With that, Kwak Dojin couldn’t push the issue any further.

“I see, you were preparing for an exam. Sorry for bothering you. Go inside and rest.”

“Yes, have a good class tomorrow, Senior!”

She bowed and slipped into the dormitory. Kwak Dojin let out a heavy sigh.

‘This isn’t going to be easy.’

* * *

The next day.

After his morning class, Kang Hyeon headed straight for the Martial Arts Library.

He needed to conduct some preliminary research before writing Bodhidharma’s Muscle Tendon Change Classic—the greatest medical text in Murim’s history.

‘Oh, it’s quite big.’

A massive plaque hung at the very top of the building’s exterior.

[Secret Manuals Are National Power]

‘True words.’

Even in Murim, secret manuals were guarded above all else. Sects were wiped out over a single leaked line of a mnemonic chant, and sworn brothers who had shared decades of joy and sorrow would gladly shed each other’s blood. The superiority of one’s martial arts directly determined a faction’s survival.

Slide!

The heavy automatic doors parted. A middle-aged man, seemingly the manager, greeted him.

“Are you a professor?”

“Yes.”

“Please present your faculty ID card, and place all your belongings in the lockers on the left.”

A large sign behind the manager listed the rules.

Martial Arts Library Rules of Use

1. Daily usage time: Professors 5 hours / Cadets 3 hours.
2. Absolutely no smartphones or other electronic devices; photography is strictly prohibited.
3. Absolutely no writing instruments or taking notes. (Expulsion and criminal charges if caught)
4. Removal of any secret manuals aside from mass-produced ones is prohibited.

In short: memorize everything and leave.

‘That’s how it should be.’

Outsiders often pictured Murim warriors as ignorant brutes who only knew how to swing swords. In reality, their intellect and memory far surpassed average scholars. They had to decipher and memorize esoteric mnemonic chants spanning thousands of characters. Memorizing them haphazardly wasn’t an option. Distorting even a single character invited qi deviation.

Beep!

The scanner beeped as the manager tapped his ID.

[Welcome, Professor Kang Hyeon.]
[Remaining usage time: 5 hours 00 minutes.]

‘How thorough.’

He stepped through the turnstile. Rows of towering bookshelves stretched before him.

The secret manuals were systematically categorized.

Swordsmanship, saber techniques, fist and leg arts, footwork, internal energy cultivation methods…

A faint smile crossed Kang Hyeon’s lips.

‘Korean translations?’

The display method was quite unique.

In the center of the bookshelves, inside special glass cases, the originals were preserved under strict security, while the surrounding space was densely packed with copies and countless interpretation books.

The interesting part was that even for the exact same original text, the translations provided by those known as secret manual interpreters were completely different.

Kang Hyeon pulled a mass-produced cultivation manual from the shelf.

⪡Minor Yang Cultivation Method⪢

In Murim, it was a breathing technique one could procure from a marketplace book vendor for a few copper coins.

Flip.

The copy was filled with the archaic language of Murim—ancient characters by modern standards.

‘It’s clean.’

Placing it back, Kang Hyeon alternately opened two interpretation books this time.

“Hmm?”

For the exact same line of a mnemonic chant, the two books offered completely different translations.

Clack.

Kang Hyeon shut the books and clicked his tongue.

‘What kind of nonsense is this.’

To truly grasp a secret manual, one had to master the language and decipher the context firsthand. Learning martial arts through someone else’s arbitrary translation? And doing it right from the start, rather than just using it as a reference when stuck?

Depending on enlightenment and interpretation, the branches of a martial art diverge in countless ways.

What would become of someone who refused to forge their own path and only walked the direction set by others?

‘It’s a relief if the direction is right, but if it’s wrong… they’ll wander forever.’

Suddenly, Dean Seo Ilhyeon came to mind.

‘Was it the Clarity Void Art?’

He finally understood why the man was permanently stuck at the third gateway. He had likely followed a botched translation.

Slotting the book back in its place, Kang Hyeon headed toward his original destination: the second floor, the Medical Arts and Pill Concoction section.

He needed to gauge the Academy’s standard of Martial Medical Arts.

Writing the Muscle Tendon Change Classic would be pointless if no one could comprehend it.

He intended to inspect this place and fill in the missing pieces one by one. Naturally, this wasn’t for the cadets here, but for Baek Yuyeon.

‘Hm?’

Speak of the devil. Baek Yuyeon was sitting at a corner desk.

Kang Hyeon killed his presence and watched what she was doing.

‘Concoction?’

Before her, four thick pill concoction books were spread open in a fan shape.

Since writing instruments were forbidden, she seemed to be slightly shifting the positions of the books while combining the contents in her head.

A good method.

‘Wait.’

Wasn’t Baek Yuyeon a genius with an eidetic memory? Why would someone who already memorized the texts need to arrange them like that?

He examined the titles of the books:

⪡Discourse on Condensed Fire Pill⪢
⪡Resolution of Clashing Medicinal Properties⪢
⪡Spirit Herb Fusion Chapter⪢
⪡Essentials of Pill Sealing⪢

Kang Hyeon’s eyes narrowed.

He didn’t know what kind of medicine she was trying to make, but learning solely from those four books wouldn’t solve anything.

To begin with, those were secret manuals that only became complete when all five volumes were gathered.

Igniting the fire and condensing it, controlling the clash of medicinal properties, fusing the energies, and shaping and sealing the pill.

‘Everything else is fine, but the most crucial stabilization phase is missing entirely, isn’t it?’

It had to be one of two things.

Either the Academy hadn’t acquired the final manual, or modern concoction studies were so underdeveloped they didn’t even realize it was a set.

Baek Yuyeon was likely sensing that missing link, agonizing over the gaps.

Kang Hyeon smirked. This just made roping her in that much easier.

“What are you trying to make.”

Flinch!

Startled, Baek Yuyeon snapped her head up.

“…Professor?”

“I ask because you have four pill concoction books spread open.”

Baek Yuyeon’s guard went up.

Kang Hyeon was a martial arts professor; he couldn’t possibly know anything about pill concoction. She offered a vague answer.

“I was trying to formulate the recipe for the Ki-Circulating Pill.”

Ki-Circulating Pill.

A basic elixir.

A medicine that aids the circulation of energy and blood, smoothly opening up the pathways. It is good to consume before cultivating.

“A good elixir.”

“Do you know the Ki-Circulating Pill?”

“Of course I do. I’ve concocted it once or twice in the past.”

Baek Yuyeon’s eyes wavered.

‘This professor knows pill concoction?’

You could count the number of professors in South Korea who specialized in pill concoction on one hand. Wasn’t it the reality that even Professor Hwang Yerim had given up on the field?

Yet this drunkard professor claimed to have done it?

“When you shape it at the very end, the color is off, isn’t it? Does it come out a bit red?”

“…!”

Baek Yuyeon stared in shock.

He was right on the money.

That was the exact dilemma she had been racking her brain over for days, combining the four books this way and that. According to the texts, the Ki-Circulating Pill should be blue, but hers kept turning red.

“Right after the fusion ends, completely cut off the fire and leave the cauldron open for two hours. You do everything well but fail to vent the heat, which is why it turns red. All the good ingredients inside die, too.”

“But the book doesn’t…”

None of the texts mentioned that.

The stabilization process was missing entirely.

When Baek Yuyeon tried to ask him another question, Kang Hyeon was already gone.

He had tossed out that single remark and wandered off, now skimming through books in the Martial Medical Arts section. Tracing the spines with a serious expression, he looked nothing like the disgrace of the Academy.

‘No way…’

If the solution was that simple, why wasn’t it mentioned in any of the texts?

Logic told her to doubt him, but curiosity won out. The Kang Hyeon she had seen so far wasn’t one to spout empty lies.

Hurriedly packing up the concoction books, Baek Yuyeon rushed out of the library and headed to the laboratory.

And two hours later.

“R-Really?”

Opening the lid of the concoction cauldron, her eyes widened.

“This actually works?”

Instead of the burnt smell she had encountered until now, a refreshing scent that cleared her head wafted up.

The color was, naturally, blue.

Gulp.

She swallowed hard.

Kang Hyeon’s figure flashed through Baek Yuyeon’s mind.

The man who always carried a whiskey bottle with languid eyes. His martial prowess—ripping up a contract and chasing away a Supreme King executive with mere momentum—was astounding enough.

But he had even mastered pill concoction studies on top of that?

‘Just who on earth is he?’

She felt she knew for certain now that he wasn’t a parachute hire.

Wasn’t that why even that fastidious Cha Yusik was following him?

Doubt rapidly morphed into intense curiosity. Suddenly, a familiar voice flashed across her mind.

– Have you considered taking Professor Kang’s class?

After deliberating, Baek Yuyeon picked up her phone.

– Oh, Yuyeon. What’s up, at this hour?

“Senior.”

– Yeah?

“Professor Kang’s class. I just need to head out to the old building’s training ground by six in the morning, right?”