The sub-basement of the Hunter Association was shielded by three meters of mana-reinforced lead and tungsten, designed to contain the explosive energy of an S-Rank breakthrough.
Tonight, however, it wasn't an S-Rank that occupied the center of the reinforced chamber. It was B-Rank assassin Kang Taeshik, and the air inside felt thin enough to crack.
Taeshik sat cross-legged on the cold floor, his shirt discarded. His torso was a map of old scars, but today his skin was a terrifying shade of mottled purple.
He wasn't breathing; he was heaving. Usually, Taeshik carried himself with a predatory, careless grace that bordered on arrogance. Now, his jaw was clamped so tight the muscles pulsed like a frantic heartbeat against his cheek.
Surrounding him were the pillars of the Association. Chairman Go Gunhee stood near the observation glass, his posture straight and his breathing deep—a testament to his own recovery.
Beside him stood Min Byung-Gyu, his hands already glowing with a soft, anticipatory green light. The S-Rank healer looked skeptical, his brow furrowed as he watched Woo Jinchul approach the center of the circle.
"Are you sure about this, Jinchul?" Gunhee's voice was a low rumble that echoed off the lead walls. "Forcing a mana-core to expand is like trying to inflate a balloon made of glass. If it shatters, there won't be enough of him left to bury. We are treading on territory we didn't explore."
"President, why do you think I made them stay in the dungeon more than in the world. It is to build up their body for the mana they will receive. And Frankly I do not think we have much time to find more alliance" Jinchul slightly paused and continued.
"We still not able to come same ground with Knight and White tiger Guild. They think only on profits and its not wrong. They think we have gobbled up the reaper guild and will do the same for theirs. But they do not of the partnership with the Reaper." Jinchul replied, not turning around.
His eyes were fixed on Taeshik's trembling spine. "If we remain stagnant, we die. Taeshik, are you ready? This is the last time I ask. I can stop now, and you can live , comfortable life as a B-Rank."
Taeshik let out a choked, wet laugh. "Just get on with it, Chief. I'm tired of being the slowest guy in the room. If I stay a B-Rank while the world goes to hell, I'm as good as dead anyway. Break me if you have to."
Jinchul stepped forward and placed his palms directly against the center of Taeshik's back. "Min Byung-Gyu, start the stabilization field. Don't heal the tissue yet—just reinforce the cell walls. I need them to be elastic. If you knit the skin too fast, the pressure will turn his insides to mush."
Byung-Gyu nodded, his mana washing over Taeshik in a rhythmic, soothing wave. Then, Jinchul began.
It wasn't a gentle flow. Jinchul unleashed his azure mana, but instead of a blunt force, he refined it into thousands of microscopic needles.
Through his heightened perception, he saw Taeshik's mana circuit—a network of glowing veins that were clogged with 'impurities'—knots of stagnant energy that had formed during his initial, imperfect awakening years ago.
These knots were what kept Taeshik at the peak of B-Rank, a ceiling he had hit and couldn't break through for five years.
Jinchul's mana pierced the first knot near the base of the spine.
Taeshik's reaction was instantaneous. He didn't just scream; he let out a visceral, animalistic roar that rattled the observation glass. His body arched backward, his head snapping back so hard his neck muscles strained to the point of tearing.
"Stabilize him!" Jinchul commanded, his own teeth gritted against the feedback of Taeshik's pain.
Byung-Gyu poured everything he had into Taeshik's nervous system, numbing the pain just enough to keep his heart from stopping. "He's hemorrhaging mana! Jinchul, his core is vibrating at a frequency the human body can't sustain! You're tearing him apart!"
"I'm clearing the secondary channels now," Jinchul hissed, his own sweat dripping onto the floor. "Taeshik, breathe! If you lose consciousness now, your core will collapse. Own the heat!"
For two grueling hours, the chamber was a theater of biological war. Gunhee watched in silent awe as Jinchul meticulously 'sculpted' Taeshik's internal power structure. It was surgery performed at the atomic level.
Every time a channel threatened to burst under the pressure of the new mana flow, Jinchul would use his own mana to act as a temporary sleeve, holding the vessel together until Byung-Gyu's healing could knit the fibers back together in a stronger, wider configuration.
It was an agonizing dance of destruction and rebirth. Jinchul was literally rewriting the biology of a Hunter. When the final blockage near the heart gave way, a shockwave of golden-red light erupted from Taeshik, throwing Jinchul back several feet.
Taeshik collapsed forward, gasping for air, his forehead resting on the cold floor. But the aura radiating from him had changed. It was no longer the sharp, jagged energy of a B-Rank; it was the dense, heavy pressure of a true A-Rank.
"He... he did it," Byung-Gyu whispered, checking Taeshik's vitals with trembling hands. "The mana density... it's stabilized. You actually changed his biological ceiling. Jinchul, do you realize what this means? You've just made the concept of 'Unchangeable Rank' a myth."
Gunhee walked over and placed a hand on Jinchul's shoulder. Jinchul was pale, his hands shaking from the sheer mental strain of the precision work. "You've opened a door that shouldn't exist, Jinchul. Rest. You have a meeting with the Yoojin Group tomorrow, and you cannot look like a man who just wrestled a god."
The following morning, the sun rose over a Seoul that felt deceptively normal, yet the tension in Jinchul's chest hadn't faded. He stood in the penthouse office of the Yoojin Group's headquarters. The view was breathtaking, but Jinchul was focused on the man sitting behind the massive obsidian desk: Chairman Yoo Myung-Han.