The morning of the Vanguard Hunter Academy entrance exam arrived with a cold, biting wind that rattled the windowpanes of the Kim household. Min-ho stood in the kitchen, nursing a mug of lukewarm coffee while the rest of the house began to stir. His father was already in the garage, tinkering with a lawnmower that hadn't worked in three years, a nervous habit he'd picked up whenever the family faced a major event. His mother was frantically packing a lunch for Min-ho that could likely feed a small army.
Min-ah appeared at the base of the stairs, her eyes still heavy with sleep but her posture rigid. She hadn't forgotten their conversation from the night before. She didn't say a word, just watched him as he rinsed his mug.
"Come here," Min-ho said, his voice low enough not to carry into the next room.
Min-ah walked over, her expression wary. Min-ho reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a small, teardrop-shaped pendant made of a translucent, milky-white stone. It pulsed with a soft, rhythmic light that seemed to sync with a heartbeat.
"Take this," he said, handing it to her.
She took it, and the moment her skin made contact with the stone, she gasped. The chaotic, buzzing mana that usually sat like a nervous knot in her chest suddenly went silent. It wasn't that her power was gone, it was that the "static" had been tuned out.
"What is this?" she whispered, looking at him with wide eyes. "Min-ho, this... this isn't normal. I can actually breathe."
"It's a luck charm," Min-ho lied, his face expressionless. "My trainer gave it to me. He said it helps with focus. Since I'm heading to the Academy, I don't really need it today. You keep it."
Min-ah traced the surface of the stone. She wasn't stupid. She knew enough about mana artifacts to know that something this potent something that could instantly stabilize a high-tier mana signature was worth more than their entire house. Probably more than the entire neighborhood.
"Where did he get this?" she asked, her voice trembling.
"Don't worry about where it came from," Min-ho replied, reaching out to ruffle her hair again. "Just keep it under your shirt. Don't show it to anyone, and don't take it off. If you're going to start practicing your control, you need to do it without burning the house down. Keep it hidden and keep practicing."
He grabbed his bag before she could ask another question. He didn't want to explain the Slumber Realm or the fact that he'd spent a fortune in "credits" on a lunar artifact while he was technically asleep.
The journey to the northern district of Seoul took nearly an hour by bus. As the vehicle approached the gates of Vanguard Hunter Academy, the landscape shifted dramatically. The cracked pavement and cramped apartment blocks of his neighborhood were replaced by wide, pristine boulevards lined with silver-barked trees.
The Academy itself looked more like a military fortress than a school. Massive walls of reinforced obsidian loomed over the landscape, etched with glowing blue runes that served as a permanent barrier against unauthorized mana usage.
The front gates were a circus.
Dozens of sleek, black luxury sedans and armored SUVs were parked along the curb, blocking traffic for blocks. News crews from the major networks were set up with cameras on high-rise tripods, hoping to catch a glimpse of the "Next Generation Prodigies." Min-ho stepped off the bus.
He was wearing a faded black hoodie, grey sweatpants, and a pair of beat-up sneakers. Around him, the other candidates looked like they were ready for a gala or a war. He saw teenagers his age wearing custom-tailored suits made of monster-hide silk and boots reinforced with dragon-leather. Some even carried weapons that glowed with expensive enchantments high-frequency blades and staves tipped with raw mana crystals.
"Is that a candidate?" a reporter murmured as Min-ho walked past. "He looks like he got lost on his way to a convenience store."
"Probably an F-Rank filler," another replied, not even bothering to turn the camera his way. "Look over there! That's the son of the Blue Tiger Guild Leader!"
Min-ho ignored them. He didn't care about the cameras, but the blatant stares of the "Gold Spoon" hunters were starting to grate on his nerves. He could feel their gazes judgmental, condescending, and dismissive.
As he walked through the main courtyard, Min-ho began to circulate his mana according to the Eternal Epoch Refining Scripture. He kept it coiled deep within his marrow. From the outside, he looked completely empty, but his internal sensors were working at a level that even A ranks couldn't comprehend.
'It's like a plumbing convention,' he thought, glancing around at the crowd.
To Min-ho's eyes, the "prodigies" were hilarious. They were flaring their mana to show off, creating a visible shimmer in the air around them. But to him, they looked like leaky faucets. They had no control. They were wasting massive amounts of energy just to maintain a "cool" aura, letting their mana bleed out into the atmosphere like steam from a broken pipe.
'If they ever stepped into the Slumber Realm with that kind of efficiency, the Echoes would tear them apart in three seconds,' he noted.
One boy, standing near a fountain, was surrounded by a swirling vortex of frost. He was wearing an armored vest that probably cost more than Min-ho's father made in a decade. He caught Min-ho looking and sneered, intentionally expanding his frost aura so that a layer of ice crept across the pavement toward Min-ho's shoes.
Min-ho didn't stop. He didn't even slow down. He just kept walking. The moment his foot hit the ice, a tiny, microscopic pulse of Sovereign's Pressure leaked from his heel. It wasn't enough to alert the sensors, but it was enough to shatter the ice into fine powder.
The frost boy blinked, his sneer faltering as he felt a momentary, crushing weight in his chest that vanished as soon as Min-ho passed by. He looked around, confused, but Min-ho was already merging into the crowd entering the main Evaluation Hall.
The interior of the hall was a cavernous space of white marble and glass. In the center stood five massive obsidian pillars, each one hooked up to a series of glowing monitors. These were the "Pillars of Truth," designed to measure a hunter's core density and output.
A voice boomed over the intercom, echoing through the hall.
"Welcome, candidates. You are the top one percent of the awakened population. Today, we filter that down to the top zero-point-one. The first part of the exam is Mana Capacity and Core Purity. Line up according to your registration numbers."
Min-ho looked at the black card in his pocket the Independent Contractor's ID Director Choi had given him. He wasn't on the standard list. He walked toward the registrar desk at the far end, away from the hundreds of students lining up at the pillars.
He didn't want to be an S-Class. He didn't want to be a star. He just wanted the license so he could get back to the Forge and find out what was waiting for him at the next threshold.
"Name?" the registrar asked, not even looking up from her tablet.
"Kim Min-ho," he said.
The woman froze. She looked at the screen, then at the black card he placed on the desk. Her eyes went wide, and she quickly tapped a few commands on her device.
"You're... you're the special admission?" she whispered. "Director Choi's personal recommendation?"
"Just tell me where to stand," Min-ho said.
He could feel a familiar pair of eyes on the back of his neck. He turned slightly and saw the red-haired girl from the day before standing on a second-floor balcony overlooking the hall. She was leaning on the railing, a playful smirk on her face as she watched him.
Min-ho turned back to the pillars. The first candidate stepped up a tall, arrogant-looking boy with a golden spear. He slammed his hand against the obsidian, and the monitors flared a brilliant, blinding blue.
"Rank: B-Plus! Output: 4,200 units!" the proctor shouted.
A roar of applause went up from the crowd. The boy smirked, looking back at the other candidates with a "top of the world" expression.
Min-ho sighed. He stepped into the queue, feeling the heavy, coiled power in his marrow. He had to hit the pillar, but he had to do it without turning the entire hall into a crater.
'Control,' he thought, his golden eyes flickering for a split second. 'Just enough to pass.'