91. Full-Scale Training (3)
"Now then, here are the new summons for all of you. The purchase funds have each been deducted from your respective national support subsidies, so keep that in mind and come pick them up one by one. Everyone except Hwang Juwon hyung, Oh Sunyoung, and Hwang Jiwoo has at least one."
Sorry, but those three already had perfectly complete summon lineups without needing any changes at all.
They just needed to keep building them the way they were now.
"Ohhh, there's one for me too?"
First, Kang Geonho cautiously accepted the Black Knight in exchange.
'A summon I've never seen before.'
He stared at it with a mixture of surprise and curiosity.
Digging through the marketplace every day was part of his routine, yet he had never once seen a summon like this.
How in the world had he managed to get one?
"I'll use it well."
What could it be?
He accepted it carefully with an eager expression, and the moment he read its information—
'Crazy!'
He gasped on the spot.
An A-rank Black Knight?
He felt like he instantly understood what kind of thoughts Baek Jinwoo must have had when he obtained this summon.
All the weaknesses he had secretly thought about in the back of his mind could now be firmly compensated for with this one Black Knight alone.
'Wow!'
Kang Geonho clenched both fists tight.
He could already picture a Paladin and a Black Knight spreading out on either side and ravaging the opponent.
'From now on, I really need to raise only these two like crazy.'
At the same time, he could clearly feel that something had changed.
Unlike back when Baek Jinwoo had simply been consulting the national team, this felt like he had truly stepped inside Baek Jinwoo's fence—his protection.
Honestly, it felt warm.
Kang Geonho was not the only one who was shocked.
"Wow, this is a Phoenix! I really wanted to get one, but how on earth did you…!"
Hong Ari, too, accepted the Phoenix with a deeply moved expression.
Whooosh!
Flames wrapped around her, but they were not hot at all.
'A perfect upper-tier version of the Firebird I used before.'
With just this, she could become ten times stronger than she was now.
"Thank you. Seriously, thank you so much."
Hong Ari was so happy that she could not manage her expression, and everyone around her was startled too.
She was normally prickly and bad at expressing herself, so for her to react like that meant she was genuinely thrilled.
'Well, if it's a Phoenix, I guess that kind of expression makes sense.'
'It's obviously a great summon. Even the player who got one probably wouldn't want to give it up easily.'
'Wow, just look at those wings. It's beyond beautiful—it's awe-inspiring.'
The guild members looked at Hong Ari with envious eyes as she received the Phoenix.
Now only three summons remained!
"Next is An Gijeong."
"Whoa, is that the Poison King?"
For An Gijeong, it was an A-rank Poison King!
He handled nothing but poison-related summons, like the B-rank Jiljeomsa and Black Widow.
The Poison King of Murim was the kind of summon that increased every stat of poison-attribute summons several times over.
"To give me something this precious… With just this, the world league really feels possible now. Thank you."
An Gijeong bowed his head and stepped back.
Next was Gi Jaehyuk!
"BIg brother! Don't tell me that's a Goblin Master? Kyaaaaah!"
A goblin fanatic, Gi Jaehyuk hugged the provided Goblin Master tightly and even started stroking it all over the place.
It was the exact kind of reaction a child would have upon receiving something they had always wanted.
"How long are you planning to keep using two Hobgoblins? You should switch to a Goblin Master."
"Thank you, brother! I swear my loyalty for real!"
Next was Kang Jihoe!
"For me, it's the Mad Demon!"
The A-rank Mad Demon was also a Murim summon.
It was the perfect summon for Kang Jihoe, who normally used high-burst damage summons like the Snowflake Berserker (B-rank) as his main position!
And just like that, all five A-rank summons had been handed out.
"Okay."
Baek Jinwoo smiled.
"That's the end of the A-ranks here… And lastly, Song Yeonhee?"
"Y-yes, yes!"
"I've got something separate to give you, so wait a bit. The rest of you should spend some time bonding with the summons you received together with HunGyo. Today is individual training."
""Yes!""
Patter patter patter!
Everyone scattered all around the training ground with their respective summons.
Some wanted to quickly test out their new summons, while others simply wanted to try using the summons themselves.
They had been doing nothing but tedious, exhausting physical training every single day, and now this was their first summon training session.
Naturally, they could not help but feel excited and thrilled.
* * *
At a corner outside the training ground, on top of a table.
What was placed before Song Yeonhee were five kinds of dolls.
Puppet dolls that had once been called puppets.
"Song Yeonhee."
"Yes!"
"I'll say this plainly."
Flop!
Baek Jinwoo sat down in the chair and spoke seriously.
"To be honest, among the national team members here, other than me and Hwang Jiwoo, you've got the highest potential. And me and Hwang Jiwoo are kind of cheats, so compared on a world scale, your potential is high enough to reach the world ranking top 10 in the future."
"....."
Song Yeonhee wore a blank, stunned expression.
W-what did that just mean?
World ranking top 10?
Really?
For reference, even Kang Geonho, who ranked first on Korea's national team, could not even make it into the world top 100.
'No, more importantly…'
How was he judging something like potential in the first place?
Did it even make sense for him to say it with that much certainty?
"However, if you want to become that, you'll have to throw away every summon you've used until now."
".....What?"
Domestic ranking 60.
By the time she had climbed that high, Song Yeonhee had grown attached to her summons too.
And now he was telling her to completely throw those summons away?
"I'm not saying you shouldn't raise them. I'm saying these five summons are going to be the ones you use as your main lineup from now on."
Baek Jinwoo looked at them with an expression full of nostalgia.
They were each called fire, water lightning, wood lightning, metal lightning, and earth.
Their appearances were truly cute elemental dolls too.
All of them were B-rank.
"What are these?"
"They're absurdly hard to control, but if you can control them perfectly, they're broken summons that can perform at A-rank or higher—maybe even at S-rank."
"..."
"You can't picture it, can you? I'll show you first."
Baek Jinwoo rose to his feet and took control of the fire puppet.
'I'm nervous.'
It was a summon he had used a few times back during 「Battle of Summoners」 as well.
When it was first revealed, everyone had gone wild over its ridiculous performance, saying it was broken and would surely get wiped out in a balance patch soon.
'But what's the point if it's broken?'
Nobody could actually use it.
To use even a single summon, you had to control a total of five strings.
Head, left arm, right arm, left leg, right leg.
Unlike other summons that moved somewhat autonomously, with this doll the player had to control everything personally, from attacking to dodging.
Because of that, after people tried it a few times, it was naturally abandoned.
No matter how well you raised it, if the player had clumsy hands, it could not display proper performance.
Shrrrk!
Baek Jinwoo's fingers began moving with smooth elegance.
'It's my first time doing this in real life too.'
Why was that?
It felt like it would be easy to control.
Shrrr!
The fire puppet moved gracefully, then began dancing as it breathed flames.
Its target was a scarecrow made of iron.
'This is actually going really well?'
To be honest, reality felt easier than controlling it on a phone.
The fire puppet flew all over the place, striking with flames, then spinning round and round as it spewed fire in every direction.
Baek Jinwoo quickly started having fun.
'Should I try one more?'
He went ahead and started controlling the water puppet as well.
Controlling two dolls at the same time doubled the difficulty.
That was because he now had to control ten strings instead of five.
Kwagagagaga!
When the water puppet's water attacks joined in, the entire area gradually became chaotic.
'This is…'
Watching from the side, Song Yeonhee could only click her tongue in disbelief.
To her eyes, Baek Jinwoo looked like a veteran puppeteer with at least twenty years of experience under his belt.
'Does that even make sense?'
The ten strings descending from the sky moved as smoothly as flowing water.
Kkagagang!
The firmly fixed scarecrow let out the sound of its head bursting apart.
'And he wants me to do that?'
No matter how much she thought about it, she had no confidence at all.
And from the looks of it, it was not just those two she would have to control…
It looked like she would eventually have to control all five dolls at once…
"Watch carefully. I'm only going to show you once."
Baek Jinwoo moved as though possessed.
In an instant, the wood puppet was added, and then the metal puppet joined as well.
Four puppets completely filled the field of vision in every direction!
Whoosh!
Fire blazed.
Shrrr!
Water surged upward.
Kwaddeudeuk!
Tree roots that sprang from the ground bound the scarecrow in place.
Wooooong!
The dolls became wrapped in golden light.
"Fire and water are damage dealers, wood handles binding and healing, and metal is defense."
Baek Jinwoo lowered his stance and pulled on the strings.
It looked like he was only tugging them lightly, but he was clearly making minute adjustments to each one.
To Song Yeonhee, Baek Jinwoo was simply a genius. An utterly hopeless kind of genius at that!
"And earth flips the ground or controls gravity to throw off the opponent's balance."
And finally!
Baek Jinwoo began controlling all five dolls at once.
It was as if he had turned into a flowing liquid.
He moved smoothly and naturally, like water running from a high place to a low one.
And then, the very next moment—
"These puppets actually have a hidden condition."
Kwagagagagaga!
Suddenly, light energy surged upward into the sky from all the dolls, while dark energy sank down into the ground.
"When the Five Elements come together, a new attribute opens up: Yin-Yang."
In the past, Baek Jinwoo had also confirmed this exactly once before discarding it.
You were supposed to be enjoying a game, but trying to control this every single time until your fingers practically broke was unbearably stressful.
"Now watch."
Baek Jinwoo pulled his right arm upward and sharply dragged his left arm downward.
At the same time, the yang in the sky and the yin below surged up and crashed down together, creating a massive explosion.
Kwagagagagagaga!
"If you raise them properly, this damage is on par with the breath of S-rank dragons."
The iron scarecrow had already been torn to pieces. The destructive power was simply overwhelming.
Song Yeonhee could not believe it.
As a ranked player herself, she could roughly tell how much damage something did at a glance.
What she had just seen—Yin-Yang Unity?
It would not be an exaggeration to say she had never seen anything like it in her life.
"Whew, this is rough."
At last, Baek Jinwoo shook out his hands.
Thudududuk!
The dolls that had been dancing through the air instantly dropped to the ground.
He was not even truly skilled with it, and because he had gone too hard from the very start, his fingers were throbbing and numb with pain.
"Song Yeonhee. Starting today, you're going to practice this. What do you think? Can you do it?"
"...Will I really be able to do this?"
This absurd thing?
"Yeah, absolutely."
You just do not know it yet.
You have the rare constitution of mixed Heavenly Heart Body and Boundless Physique.
HunGyo had said it himself.
Not a genius who would be discussed throughout all ages, perhaps, but at least the kind of genius who could leave an entire century in shock.
That was more than enough to handle something like this well.
"This is the fastest path for you to become a world-ranked player. So, are you going to do it? If not, fine. I'll find someone else."
"W-wait a second."
Song Yeonhee stretched out her hand as if telling him to calm down.
My god.
After seeing that kind of outrageous power, how could he say "do it or don't"?
There was no way she could refuse.
She too was a ranked player. She was full of desire to climb higher into the top ranks.
She could already picture it clearly.
The five dolls moving in perfect coordination, striking, defending, healing, and disrupting the opponent, before finally annihilating everything with the power of Yin-Yang.
"I'll do it."
She made her resolve.
"I'll definitely master it."
From this point on, she was no longer a summoner.
She was a puppeteer.
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