## Chapter 51 – Life at the Muhak Hall (2)
“From now on, this is the room you’ll be using.”
“Yes.”
“Yup!”
The bear-like man, Instructor Cheol-woong, led us to the innermost room of the dormitory.
Life at the Muhak Hall was basically dormitory life.
For me, with nowhere else to go, it was like a ray of light.
It seemed like coming to the Muhak Hall was the right choice after all.
The one assigned to the same room as me was a short man with a name tag that read ‘Number 7’.
As befitting his number, which implied an important role, he was quite handsome.
How should I put it? He had a boyish charm.
His hair was tied back long, and he could easily be mistaken for a woman.
But judging from his voice and the fact that he was assigned to the same room as me, he was definitely a man.
True to his appearance, the man answered Cheol-woong’s words diligently and energetically.
“Then rest for today.”
“Yup!”
Cheol-woong left, and an awkward silence followed in the room.
“I’m Seong-han.”
“…Hmph.”
I had taken the initiative to greet him and offered my hand, but he snorted and immediately turned his back to me, lying down on the bed.
‘What’s with this guy?’
He was completely different from when Cheol-woong was around.
As if his previous attitude was all an act, the man frowned and glared at my outstretched hand.
I didn’t feel good about being ignored after going out of my way to greet him.
Still, I understood.
He must have used up a lot of energy on his first day, and he still looked young.
I, the adult here, had no choice but to be patient.
“…”
But I couldn’t help feeling a little annoyed.
In the end, I checked his proclivities as a small act of revenge.
[Proclivities: A man who is large, strong, and reliable]
“Wow…”
I let out an exclamation filled with mixed emotions as soon as I read it.
Of all people, the man assigned to the same dormitory room was a homosexual.
Moreover, his preferences were roughly similar to mine.
He was large, and I wasn’t sure about strong, but I was reasonably reliable.
To protect my butt’s chastity, I slept with my back pressed firmly against the wall, making sure not to show him my back.
…Come to think of it, Instructor Cheol-woong is large, strong, and reliable.
I thought he was acting to get on the instructor’s good side, but maybe that wasn’t the case.
What a scary guy.
Even while sleeping, I woke up from time to time to check if he was asleep, just in case.
I hadn’t been this anxious even in the zombie world.
Thanks to that, I was still tired even after waking up.
When I woke up, the bed next to me was empty.
Knock, knock.
After a perfunctory knock, the door burst open.
It was Cheol-woong who opened the door.
My roommate was standing next to him.
Hmm.
Looking at him again, Cheol-woong was large, strong, and reliable.
Did Cheol-woong know how scary the seemingly diligent man next to him was?
“You’re learning martial arts?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Hmm, then there are four of you, including you. Come out to the training grounds.”
There were fewer trainees learning martial arts at the Muhak Hall than I thought.
Most of the trainees who passed the exam had already learned martial arts,
and most of them belonged to large and small sects or clans, so they didn’t need to learn other martial arts since they learned their own sect’s unique martial arts.
As a result, the Muhak Hall mostly assigned training or missions that would help most trainees grow, rather than teaching martial arts from scratch, which was only done for a select few.
And those select few trainees were those who had passed despite not having learned martial arts but showing outstanding external skills or talent, or those who had to learn new martial arts for some reason.
“Is everyone here?”
We gathered in a small training ground in front of the dormitory, not the training ground where we took the exam.
It made sense since there was no reason for only four people and one instructor to use that large training ground.
Three of them were me, the man from my room, and Seol-yeong with the number 5 name tag.
The remaining one was a disciple of the Hwasan Sect with the number 1, no less.
He was the man who had been kicked out of the Cheonmu Hall, another Muhak Hall, for his infamous inappropriate relationships with women.
I heard that most of the successful applicants at the Cheonmu Hall were the best and brightest of the next generation, like a Muhak Hall for students who scored perfect scores on the college entrance exam.
Then what kind of place was this, the Inmu Hall?
About a Muhak Hall for students in the 5th percentile?
That was the image.
There was also a place called the Jimu Hall in between.
The three Muhak Halls, classified as Cheon, Ji, and In, were representative training grounds for the next generation of the orthodox sects.
“First, before I teach you martial arts, I need to know why you want to learn them.”
Cheol-woong crossed his arms and looked around at the four of us.
“There are typically two types of guys who want to learn martial arts at the Muhak Hall.”
Cheol-woong slowly unfolded his arms and pointed at me with his finger.
“Those who haven’t learned martial arts, or those who can’t use the martial arts they’ve learned now.”
As he said that, Cheol-woong pointed at Seol-yeong in order after me.
Not having learned martial arts was my story, so being unable to use the martial arts they had learned seemed to be referring to Seol-yeong.
And then his finger pointed at the remaining two people.
“What about you two?”
“I really want to learn from you, Instructor…”
“Seol-yeong, that single flower, has stolen my heart…”
“This is not a joke.”
Cheol-woong said in a heavy, deep voice to the answers of the two men who were speaking with playful expressions.
Could that even be called an answer?
It sounded like a beast growling in warning with a low voice.
“…Recently, a spy from the Demonic Sect infiltrated the Cheonmu Hall as a trainee, beheaded two trainees attending the Cheonmu Hall, and disappeared.”
“…”
“That guy also learned orthodox martial arts to hide the Demonic Sect’s demonic arts.”
Cheol-woong took out a huge sword from his back.
Even though he was slowly taking out the sword, I felt a cold aura around my neck.
“Answer carefully.”
It was an imposing manner as if he would cut off our heads right away if he didn’t like the answer.
“I, I, I really…”
Thanks to that, my roommate was shaking his body and jaw as if he had a body ache, and the lecher from the Hwasan Sect had a stiff expression.
Well, it’s understandable that they’re suspicious.
The Hwasan Sect guy who came all the way here from the Cheonmu Hall because of relationship problems, or the man who was trying to learn martial arts from the beginning because he wanted to learn from the instructor, they were suspicious.
“If it’s the Demonic Sect, they won’t infiltrate as trainees anymore.”
“…”
“They don’t use methods that have been exposed once. You should rather suspect the instructors, not the trainees.”
The lecher, who had become quite serious, made a rather bold statement.
In front of the instructor holding the sword, he was telling them to suspect the other instructors.
“Hmm…”
I stared at him intently.
‘Is he the main character?’
A striking appearance and confident personality, a way of speaking that seemed to know a lot, and a heart that was actively expressing itself towards Seol-yeong.
Somehow, he gave off the feeling of a main character.
Cheol-woong narrowed his eyes at those words and then chuckled.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Whether he was seriously suspicious from the beginning or not, Cheol-woong withdrew his sword surprisingly coolly.
Looking at it now, it seemed like he just raised the tension of the two who were too relaxed.
Me and Seol-yeong didn’t really have tension from the start.
Compared to that, the two of them were a bit distracted.
The guy from my room was excessively emphasizing his diligence to Cheol-woong, and the lecher from the Hwasan Sect was constantly flirting with Seol-yeong, who wasn’t responding.
Cheol-woong decided to teach us four one by one after putting away the sword.
It was possible because there weren’t many people learning.
Me and Seol-yeong had to learn internal energy cultivation methods first, not martial arts.
Internal energy cultivation methods meant the method of operating and accumulating the body’s energy, internal energy.
“Choose the cultivation method you want here. You should choose carefully. Especially you, number 421.”
“Yes.”
We were pushed into the study, told to decide for ourselves.
And in the process, I heard the names of my roommate and the main character.
My roommate’s name was Jeong-seon, and the lecher from the Hwasan Sect, who was suspected of being the main character, was named Pung-un.
“This is all internal energy cultivation methods?”
The bookshelves reached the high ceiling.
I didn’t realize there were so many martial arts in the world.
I was newly impressed by the extras at the entrance examination who made a fuss and guessed what kind of martial art it was just by looking at the moves.
Which of these many books should I choose?
Usually, in martial arts novels, an amazing secret manual is hidden somewhere in this study—
“Huh?”
“…”
Seol-yeong was holding a book in his hand and contemplating.
He was gazing intently at the cover of the book as if hesitating, stroking the book.
And thanks to the translation effect, I was able to read the book.
Solar Divine Art.
“Are you trying to learn that?”
“…Can’t.”
After giving such a short answer, he put the book back on the shelf and went back inside the study.
Is it trendy for the next generation of martial arts novel protagonists to be rude these days?
Jeong-seon, who was in the same room, and Seol-yeong, both of them had cold reactions.
The only difference was that Jeong-seon felt like he was openly wary of me, while Seol-yeong seemed to have no emotion at all.
I checked Seol-yeong’s proclivities as he turned away.
Would that cold ice have even a shred of proclivities?
[Proclivities: Savior]
He did have them. However, it was just a proclivity that I couldn’t understand even after seeing it.
Was Seol-yeong in need of salvation right now?
I took out the Solar Divine Art that Seol-yeong had taken out earlier.
And only then was I able to confirm the true value of the translation skill with over 700 points.
“Huh.”
At first, it seemed like a series of vague sounds, but after re-translating, the sentences corrected themselves, and now they had been changed into phrases that I could understand to some extent.
If I were to interpret it, it would be like this.
The Solar Divine Art is the most extreme yang internal energy cultivation method among internal energy cultivation methods.
It drives out yin energy, and the longer you fight, the more the internal energy gradually amplifies.
However, it was also a difficult cultivation method to increase internal energy due to the characteristic of driving out yin energy.
“He didn’t say he wouldn’t do it, he said he couldn’t.”
In that short moment, Seol-yeong’s expression seemed to be regretful while holding this book.
His facial expressions were so subtle that I might have been mistaken.
The fact was that Seol-yeong had looked at this Solar Divine Art carefully.
“…Let’s go with this.”
Perhaps there was a more excellent secret manual hidden in this study than this Solar Divine Art.
But that wasn’t important to me.
What was important was that Seol-yeong had been carefully looking at this Solar Divine Art.
I sat in the corner of the study and slowly began to read the Solar Divine Art.
