The cube was shining brightly, and Junhyuk walked toward it.

[The Swamp of Despair’s reward is yours. Please inspect it.]

Thinking about the reward, he placed his hand in the box. Would he get what he needed? His heart was pounding, and when the box opened suddenly, fifteen gems floated out of it.

[The victory reward is runestones of the highest quality. You’ve been awarded fifteen runestones, or a maximum of three sets. When you grab each stone, pick which type you want.]

Up to five runestones of the same type could be arranged as a set to socket together. As he grabbed a raw runestone, his options floated above it. Without hesitation, Junhyuk picked the red runestone.

Five of the raw runestones turned into attack runestones of the highest quality. Each of them could increase his attack by sixty, which meant a total increase of three hundred. He would be stronger than ever, leaving him deeply satisfied.

Then, he turned fived raw runestones into yellow runestones. He was investing in defense. His defense would increase by three hundred.

After that, he chose the blue runestone, deciding to invest on health recovery rather than accuracy.

Junhyuk was able to recover his health when he attacked, so he shouldn’t simply focus on boosting his attack stats. In this battlefield, when he didn’t have Sarang to heal him, he had had a lot more difficulty fighting. His health recovery stat wouldn’t be high, but it would be better than before.

[The reward is now yours, and the runestones will be socketed automatically.]

Junhyuk raised his arm and looked at his socket item. Every socket was filled. Now, he had one set of runestones of the lowest quality and six sets of the highest quality.

“OK.”

Junhyuk had gotten a lot out of that battlefield. He had a.s.similated the living spirit, gotten stronger and he could sense spatial fluctuations now. Junhyuk was eager to find out just how much stronger he was on Earth.

On top of that, the new runestones had made him stronger than ever before.

[The next Champions’ Battlefield will be in two weeks. We will see you then.]

Blinding light covered Junhyuk eyes again, and soon, he learned that he had returned to South Korea. Once he was back at the training facility, he felt he had changed. He could now sense the entire facility, but more than that, he could sense the walls surrounding the facility.

“Those must be dimensional walls.”

As he learned new things quickly, he slowly raised his sword. He could feel his strength from the new runestones along with that of the mana flowing through him.

Junhyuk attached the mana energy to his sword, but he did not create a single-point explosion. The blade of his sword was now filled with mana, not just the tip. As he looked at that mana blade, a dimensional tear opened up, and a Wolf Warlord appeared.

That Wolf Warlord was different from the previous ones, however. Its eyes glowed bright red, and it was breathing roughly. Junhyuk stared at the Wolf Warlord and smiled.

“You are different from the others.”

So far, the A-ranked monsters had been missing something, but now, an unrestrained A-ranked monster had appeared. Seeing it, Junhyuk thought that even those at the Dimensional Battlefield were restrained in some way.

Only one appeared this time, but it felt really dangerous.

“Right, the Black Turtle inside the tear was also very dangerous.”

Now, Junhyuk felt like he could easily slash the Black Turtle’s sh.e.l.l. Its strength lay in its density, but now that Junhyuk could create a mana blade, he could easily kill the Black Turtle.

However, the Wolf Warlord standing in front of him at that moment was different. Because of the monster’s high speed, even the mana blade wouldn’t make much of a difference against the Wolf Warlord.

Junhyuk slowly pointed his sword at it.

“But now, I can easily cut through your hide.”

The Wolf Warlord howled and launched itself after him. It was a genuine A-ranked monster, and it moved with outstanding speed.

But, Junhyuk could sense the fluctuations in s.p.a.ce, and because of that, he could sense the monster’s movements. To begin with, Junhyuk wanted to dodge. The mana in his body flowed down to his feet, and even without acceleration, Junhyuk was able to move faster than ever before.

Boom!

The Wolf Warlord’s claw crashed against the floor where he had been standing, and Junhyuk smirked.

“OK. How about this?”

Junhyuk moved the mana within him throughout his body and triggered an unrestrained acceleration. Time slowed down, and he could feel it. Junhyuk moved through that time pocket, and the Wolf Warlord’s eyes widened as it attempted to slash at Junhyuk with its claws. He, on the other hand, simply smiled.

Junhyuk was faster, and he pa.s.sed by the Wolf Warlord as he swung his sword. The mana blade slashed the monster on the side, and blood gushed out of it profusely.

Junhyuk had gotten incredibly fast, but he was still unable to land a critical hit, so he was disappointed. The Wolf Warlord was certainly also incredibly fast. Even with acceleration triggered, Junhyuk’s speed was just slightly faster.

As Junhyuk turned around, the Wolf Warlord’s muscles twitched.

“Hooowl!” the Wolf Warlord howled, and it started foaming at the mouth as it looked at him.

“Is this a rabid version?” he murmured.

The Wolf Warlord moved quickly, and Junhyuk grimaced and accelerated.

Clang!

They both were moving at the same speed, and a smile appeared on Junhyuk’s face as he looked at the monster. The mana blade had clashed against monster’s claw, but it had only scratched it lightly.

“I’ll make a weapon out of your claw.”

A unrestrained Wolf Warlord was a genuine A-ranked monster, and he would make weapons out of the bodies.

“You’ve been chosen.”

Junhyuk thought about making the weapons out of the Wolf Warlord himself. He would provide them to the new members of his team.

He ran toward the Wolf Warlord again.

—

Junhyuk was able to finish the fight within five minutes, but it hadn’t been easy. Five minutes after the first Wolf Warlord appeared, another showed up, and so on every five minutes after that. He’d been pushed to his limit, but he’d been able to kill every Wolf Warlord that had appeared. Now, he was sitting on the body of the last one he killed, gasping for air.

Junhyuk raised communications with both Sarang and Gongon. Once their images appeared in front of them, he smiled and asked, “What did you get?”

The number of highest-quality runestone sets was random, so he was curious.

Sarang smiled brightly and said, “I got five sets!”

“Nice!”

“Yeah? I also got five sets,” Junhyuk heard Gongon reply.

“You both got five sets?!” he asked while laughing. “Was it because we beat heroes?”

Gongon laughed very hard and said, “We did exactly that! Ha-ha-ha!”

After Gongon stopped laughing, Junhyuk looked at him. The hatchling had an extremely serious look on his face, and Junhyuk stared back at him.

“Junhyuk, I’m ready to become a hero.”

Junhyuk didn’t know what Gongon was saying, so he simply stared at the dragon, and Gongon stared back at him.

“I have told the Lord of my humiliation, and the Lord told me not to let it happen again. So, I will train until I activate another power.”

Junhyuk was a little surprised. He, himself, had just learned about how to activate a new power, but even he hadn’t been able to yet. Then, he thought that he might not see Gongon next time. He might not even see him again.

That made him feel sad. Gongon was a great fighter.

“We won’t see you again?” Sarang asked, and Gongon shook his head.

“I don’t know. I may or may not activate a new power, but I am prepared to become a hero.”

Junhyuk smiled.

“OK. I am trying to become a hero myself. If I become a hero, you’ll be part of my team.”

“Ha-ha-ha! You’ll become a hero before I do?”

“Let’s find out who will become a hero first.”

“You wanna bet?”

Junhyuk took a moment to think. The Dragon Lord could instruct Gongon, but he was by himself. However, he did not think that he would lose the bet.

“Fine! How about 100,000G? Deal?”

“Deal!”

Sarang, who had been watching the entire time, laughed at the two.

“I’ll act as witness.”

Junhyuk smiled and said, “Sarang, you should work hard too.”

A funny smile appeared on her face, and she said, “I have a favor to ask.”

“What is it?”

She showed him her bracelet and said, “I’ll need another bracelet.”

Without thinking much about it, Junhyuk nodded. The bracelets were from Gongon anyway. He looked at the hatchling and asked, “Gon, can you give me more bracelets?”

Gongon shrugged.

“I can easily make them, but the problem is getting them to you.”

They would have to meet at the Champions’ Battlefield. If not, Gongon would have to send it through dimensions like Vera had done.

“Are you saying you can’t send something through dimensions?”

“Of course! Do you think that’s easy?!”

Junhyuk knew that Vera could do it, but he did not tell Gongon, smiling instead.

“If neither of us becomes a hero, we’ll see each other again in two weeks. Give them to me then.”

“Sure.”

After waving good-bye, Junhyuk disconnected, but before leaving the facility, he checked on his powers.

Their cooldowns had decreased, and the Spatial Slash had gotten more destructive, but Junhyuk hadn’t checked on one thing yet: his teleportation.

He had fought using both acceleration and the Spatial Slash, but he hadn’t teleported. So, he focused on the mana energy and teleported, checking on the distance.

“Whoa!”

He had covered two hundred meters. That was twice the previous distance.

“But it hadn’t changed in the Dimensional Battlefield?!”

The restraints put on teleportations in the Dimensional Battlefield were incredibly tough. Even with the mana energy, he could only cover twenty meters there.

Once again, Junhyuk realized how the Dimensional Battlefield and Earth were different and wondered about what Artlan had told him.

“How strong am I on Earth?”