The Academy’s Unrivaled Professor [Novel] Chapter 31

Chapter 31
Are You Prepared to Walk That Path?

‘Would you look at this?’

Jin Myeonghun’s eyes narrowed.

‘Is he bluffing?’

He already knew the roster of the five cadets attending Kang Hyeon’s class by heart.

Sure, if he made a massive concession, he could accept that Cha Yusik or Kwak Dojin might pull it off.

But Yoon Hyeonjong?

That was ambiguous.

And Han Taeho, a freshman he had never even heard of?

To make the top five with just the Three Calamities Swordsmanship, he would have to be a top-tier rookie whose name Jin Myeonghun already knew.

‘And the last one.’

The perennial last-place student of Class 20, Seo Haein.

She was going to make the top five in just two months?

It was a joke even a passing dog would laugh at.

Frankly, even if the first four miraculously succeeded, Seo Haein never would.

That would be nothing short of a miracle.

“Fine.”

Jin Myeonghun stepped forward, turning his back to the ten professors.

“We will put our necks on the line, too. If those five actually breach the top five, all ten of us gathered here will leave the Academy. Are you satisfied with this?”

Panic washed over the faces of several professors.

This was a declaration that hadn’t been agreed upon beforehand.

However, the one who panicked even more was Dean Seo Ilhyeon.

“Professor Jin, please calm down.”

There were a staggering ten full professors gathered here right now.

Half of the Academy’s core faculty.

What if they all stripped off their robes and left at once?

‘The Academy will be paralyzed.’

Not only would it be impossible to find replacement professors immediately, but he, as the Dean, would have to shoulder all the ensuing chaos from the cadets and the backlash from the public.

In truth, that was exactly what Jin Myeonghun was aiming for.

‘Go ahead and try to kick us out if you dare.’

Even if they actually met the standard?

The Dean would stop Kang Hyeon no matter what.

With their safety guaranteed, they could finally get rid of the thorn in their side. Why wouldn’t they take that deal?

“You’re going to put your necks on the line?”

Kang Hyeon scratched his forehead and tilted his head.

“And what do I gain from that?”

“What?”

“You value your necks. I do not care whether you keep them or not.”

He meant it.

They were an annoyance constantly buzzing in front of him, but that was it.

Frankly, whatever they did held zero interest for him.

“…Then what do you want?”

At Jin Myeonghun’s question, Kang Hyeon gave his whiskey bottle a light shake.

Actually, there was one thing he wanted to obtain from the Academy.

“A plot of land.”

“Land?”

“I noticed there’s an unused plot behind the new faculty building. It’s quite spacious.”

He had just been starting to feel the need for a proper space anyway.

‘The faculty office is cramped, and the dorms are uncomfortable.’

It is said that a person’s body and mind naturally conform to the shape of the space they inhabit.

“Hand it over.”

Kang Hyeon planned to construct a building there.

He was beginning to need a warehouse to stockpile pill ingredients and poisonous herbs, as well as a private library to store his secret manuals.

Most importantly, the old training ground the cadets were currently using was dilapidated and shoddy.

In the past, the training grounds Kang Hyeon rolled around in were densely packed with all sorts of formations and mechanisms.

“Are you referring to the northern outskirts?”

It was land owned by the Academy, but it sat idle because it was on the foothills of Mount Bukhansan.

“Ha! This is truly absurd.”

Professor Kim, standing in the back, stepped forward.

He flinched slightly when Kang Hyeon glanced at him, but he held his ground and spoke up.

“The Academy’s territory is state property! It is not something a mere contract professor can demand as a wager!”

“Do such trivial details matter when our necks are on the line?”

Kang Hyeon clicked his tongue and turned his gaze to Seo Ilhyeon.

“What are your thoughts, Dean?”

If this incident hadn’t occurred, he would have just asked the Management Bureau and the Dean directly.

Give me the land as a condition for staying at the Academy.

If they had any sense, wouldn’t they have granted it?

They would have fabricated some sort of justification for it anyway.

However, there was only one reason Kang Hyeon brought up the land here.

‘To prevent any noise.’

It was obvious they would try to nitpick and sabotage him later, so he was making them shut their own mouths in advance.

“Ahem.”

Clearing his throat, the Dean asked in return.

“What do you intend to use the land for?”

“I plan to build a training ground, set up a warehouse, and raise a building.”

“With your own money?”

“Of course.”

“The purpose? Is it for the cadets?”

In that moment, Kang Hyeon grasped Seo Ilhyeon’s intentions.

He was weaving a justification for him.

“Naturally.”

It wasn’t a lie.

He was building it to raise his disciples, after all.

“Hoho, then it certainly serves enough of a public interest.”

“Dean?”

Professor Kim frowned in bewilderment, but Seo Ilhyeon ignored him.

‘If you don’t understand, please just stay quiet!’

He could keep Kang Hyeon tied to the Academy just by handing over some idle land?

This wasn’t just a profitable trade; it was practically a gold mine falling into his lap.

“Professor Kang Hyeon is offering to expand the Academy’s infrastructure out of his own pocket. I have no justification to deny him the use of the land. As a condition for the wager, I believe this is more than reasonable. What are your thoughts, Professor Jin?”

Jin Myeonghun snorted inwardly.

‘It’s impossible anyway.’

“Very well.”

He smiled, a sneer tugging at his lips.

“What does it matter if we hand over a piece of abandoned land? However, you must be clear on this as well, Dean. The moment even a single one of them falls outside the top five in the grade, Professor Kang Hyeon will step down from his position immediately. You must not shield him any longer when that happens.”

“I shall do so.”

* * *

Inside the room.

Baek Yuseol sat cross-legged on the bed.

‘I just do it like this?’

The Extreme Yin Mind Art she opened for the first time was filled with incomprehensible archaic language, but Yuseol was brilliant.

Rummaging through dictionaries on her smartphone, she was somehow managing to decipher the meaning of the chants.

“Hgh, hooo…”

Even though she was merely sitting still, every joint in her body screamed in agony.

Groans slipped past her lips involuntarily.

‘I don’t know if this is right, but…’

Suddenly, the professor’s eyes flashed in her mind.

The hellscape residing within that man.

A person like that had no reason to go out of his way to lie to her.

It was usually people harboring anxiety or desire who told lies, after all.

‘Above all else, Unni believes him.’

Yuseol knew better than anyone just how smart and tenacious Baek Yuyeon was.

And her sister trusted that man.

Her sister, who had staked her entire life on delving into Martial Medical Arts.

‘I’m going to live.’

Yuseol bit her trembling lower lip hard.

She wanted to live and repay her sister.

She didn’t want to watch her sister burn her life away for her sake any longer.

Tracing the pages with a trembling fingertip, Yuseol slowly repeated the written chant in her mind.

Then, very carefully, she continued to breathe.

Once, twice, three times.

“Inhale, hoooo.”

She didn’t know if she was doing it right.

But, was it just her imagination?

The piercing pain around her heart felt just a little bit lighter.

* * *

The next morning.

“Mmm.”

Baek Yuyeon stretched and opened her eyes.

The morning sunlight filtering through the gaps in the dorm window was blinding.

‘How long did I sleep?’

Checking the clock.

[09:00 AM]

“Gasp.”

She had washed up as soon as she got back yesterday and passed out around 5 PM…

She had slept straight for nearly 16 hours.

‘No wonder I feel so refreshed.’

Between surviving on catnaps for the past week and the dawn training sessions before that, the crushing exhaustion had vanished.

Yuyeon quickly finished getting ready to head out.

‘Starting today, it begins.’

Her heart was already pounding at the thought of learning the acupuncture technique the professor had proposed, the Divine Physician’s Ghost Needles.

With her hair neatly tied back and her uniform impeccable, Yuyeon opened the door to the faculty office.

‘Hm?’

The atmosphere was different.

First of all, that woman named Seah, who was always hovering nearby, was nowhere to be seen.

Above all, what made her tense up was the sight of Kang Hyeon.

“…Professor?”

The man who was usually lounging lazily was sitting in a perfectly straight posture on a cushion laid out on the floor.

And in front of him lay another cushion.

“You’re here? Sit in front of me.”

She could feel it in his tone.

‘This isn’t a routine meeting. This is something far heavier.’

The most glaring incongruity was the absence of the whiskey bottle that was always by his side.

Yuyeon took off her shoes, carefully sat on the cushion, and gathered her hands in her lap. Kang Hyeon looked straight at her.

“I made a promise. That if you memorized it all in a week, I would accept you as my disciple.”

To Kang Hyeon, a disciple held a special meaning.

It had to be.

The background where he lived and learned was Murim.

Here, a teacher-student relationship might just mean exchanging knowledge for tuition and parting with a smile after graduation, but the master-disciple relationship Kang Hyeon knew was never something so trivial.

“The master-disciple relationship I envision isn’t one where the disciple merely siphons off the master’s knowledge. After knowledge, I pass down my karma.”

In actual Murim, the bond between a master and disciple was considered heavier than the ties of blood.

In that sense, Kang Hyeon had never once called the five cadets he was teaching his disciples.

Gulp.

Swallowing dryly, Yuyeon gathered her courage and asked.

“What is that karma?”

Kang Hyeon didn’t answer immediately.

Now that they had come this far, what was his standard for a disciple?

“Someone who can fight alongside me, risking their life, when the sky falls and a blood-soaked hell descends upon this world.”

He only intended to pass down proper martial arts to someone like that.

And Baek Yuyeon had no choice but to fight.

Because she had to execute the Water Luminary Formation.

“…”

Yuyeon clenched both fists tight.

She didn’t know exactly what the professor was talking about.

But one thing was certain… it sounded like he was telling her to put her life on the line if she wanted to truly learn.

It would be a lie to say she wasn’t scared.

But there was something far more important to her…

“If I become your disciple, will I definitely be able to save my sister?”

“Not just your sister.”

“Then…”

“Unless they are already dead, you will save them all.”

“…!”

Yuyeon’s jaw dropped.

In a way, it could be seen as an arrogant statement, but for some reason, she felt even more drawn to him.

Anyone who claims to teach others should possess at least that much confidence!

At the same time, she was curious.

“Why me, of all people?”

Come to think of it, he had been like this from the start.

He kept showing up to save her when Hwang Minwoo was harassing her, and even though Kwak Dojin had been the one to call her out… wasn’t he currently forcing her through physical training, using knowledge as collateral?

Being brilliant, she knew.

Kang Hyeon had targeted her from the very beginning.

“Didn’t I say so? I need someone who can risk their life to fight alongside me. That bastard is strong. He can’t be faced with ordinary talent. Though, it might be a different story with those Heavenly Vein Eyes of yours.”

“And what will you do if I refuse?”

“That doesn’t matter, either. The choice is yours. However, keep this in mind. Once you become my disciple, you can never back out.”

Take the teachings and run?

Kang Hyeon wasn’t soft enough to just let someone like that be.

“Think carefully. Can you continue to walk this path even after your sister is cured?”

It was a heavy question.

Yuyeon asked herself.

‘What will I do after saving Yuseol?’

She had lived her entire life with the single-minded goal of curing her sister’s illness.

But suddenly, the past week flashed through her mind.

The euphoria she felt while reading the Comprehensive Theory of the Heavenly Veins.

Every time she unraveled a new mystery, a thrilling jolt surged through her entire body.

Was her sister part of that thrill?

‘No.’

She had simply, purely enjoyed the process of delving into Martial Medical Arts itself.

It was an emotion she had never felt while learning under Professor Hwang Yerim.

An emotion only Kang Hyeon could fulfill.

Many other thoughts crossed her mind, but ultimately, they all converged on a single point.

“I want to walk that path.”

“Good. Stand up.”

Standing up as well, Kang Hyeon pointed to the empty floor space between his cushion and hers.

“Cross this space,” he ordered flatly. “I will grant you ten minutes against the killing intent of a first-rate master.”

The prerequisite condition he had laid out for the cadets.

No matter how talented she was, if she couldn’t withstand the killing intent of an Asura, there was no point in teaching her the Water Luminary Formation.

Boom!

The moment the words left his mouth, a suffocating killing intent crushed the space.

Fortunately, Yuyeon tenaciously endured and crossed the line.

As she dragged herself across the line and collapsed…

Kang Hyeon smiled and spoke.

“Starting today, you are my first disciple, Baek Yuyeon.”

* * *