Because of Junhyuk, the other heroes decided to focus on training as well. Artlan and Nudra left first, whereas Halo and Diane remained in the facility to teach him how to see and hear.

Just by grasping those two concepts, Junhyuk could become stronger.

Diane could make her body lighter to speed up. Layla was learning a movement technique that matched a level two acceleration. With acceleration, he could run faster, but Diane taught him how to run lighter, which enabled him to take longer strides and jump higher.

Junhyuk had a lot more work to do.

On Thursday, Halo and Diane finally left. Junhyuk wanted to go over what he had learned by himself, so he trained alone. He stopped suddenly when Sarang’s projection suddenly appeared.

“It’s tournament day! Invite me!”

Junhyuk had spent the entirety of the previous day training. He smiled and invited everyone over, and all of them appeared in his training facility: Sarang, Elise, Eunseo and Helen.

Sarang and Elise were shocked when they saw him.

“Big brother?”

“What?”

“What did you do?”

Junhyuk realized that the two were definitely heroes, and that they could recognize the change within him.

“You see something different?”

“Did you eat something?”

“No,” he said with a smile. “I almost died.”

Elise touched his body and was astonished by what she felt.

“This is like the energy from the core.”

“I absorbed some of that energy. Combining them into one nearly killed me.”

“You contain that energy in a human body?”

“About 5 percent of the energy released by a core, but it’s possible. I’m not joking when I say I almost died.”

Elise smiled at him and replied, “Absorbing 5 percent of the energy of a core should’ve killed you, but this isn’t just 5 percent.”

Elise was interested in the matter just like Gongon, and she could tell that he had changed.

Eunseo and Helen were also surprised, so he smiled at them and said, “It won’t work in the Dimensional Battlefield.”

However, on Earth, things were different. Now, he felt like he could fight a dragon by himself. It wouldn’t be easy, but he had changed.

Sarang pulled the instant food from her Spatial Bag, and everyone started eating. While eating, Helen seemed a little jealous of them.

“You all have Spatial Bags.”

Sarang smiled and replied, “It’s expensive, but it’s worth it.”

Helen nodded and said, “I’m saving my gold.”

“You need a better weapon. You should upgrade your weapon first.”

“I will.”

Helen’s power enabled her to summon a light sword. If her weapon became stronger, the light sword would also become stronger. Knowing that, Junhyuk gave Helen some advice. The champion was saving her gold, but there was a limit to what she could do.

They all ate the food, and soon, the world turned stark white. Suddenly, Junhyuk saw Ariel in front of him.

Ariel just stared at him.

“Aren’t you greeting me?”

[h.e.l.lo! But… you’ve changed.]

“Can you tell?”

[I don’t know what it is, but something is different.]

“Yeah?” Junhyuk smiled and asked, “So, this team is also low ranked?”

[Yes, you’ll do fine.]

Junhyuk stood by the exit, and Ariel shouted with her hands making a cone around her mouth, [Hero Junhyuk Lee deployed!]

She shouted with gusto, and Junhyuk opened the door. He walked up to the group that had gathered. They were all already there.

Staring at him, Layla said, “I heard about it from Halo.” She pulled her katana and aimed it at him, adding, “Next time, invite me as well.”

“OK.” Junhyuk turned to the group and continued, “The enemy is low ranked. We’ll head to Bebe first. It’s possible this battle will be easy.”

The previous battle had been too easy. Junhyuk should wish for the same thing, but he wanted things to go smoothly.

Everyone laughed and headed off to see Bebe.

When the yeti saw them come in, he smiled and said, “Do come in!”

Junhyuk pulled out the items he had picked up, and Bebe looked at them with disappointment.

“Your enemies must’ve been weak. I’ll give you 50,000G for each of them, but you have many.”

Junhyuk had pulled off a pentakill. He handed the items to Bebe, who said, “Nine of them, so 450,000G.”

Junhyuk checked on the amount of gold he had. With the winning from the previous round and the bet on Ling Ling, he now had 2,932,500G. With that much, he could get another Vampire Lord set item.

Junhyuk looked through the available items and asked, “Pure Golden Knight set?”

“No.”

“Someone must have it. What about the Vampire Lord set?”

“Someone bought them all. They won a lot of gold suddenly.”

“Everything?”

“That’s right. Everything.”

Junhyuk sighed. The set effect was serious stuff. He had two items of the set, so he should probably not change them yet.

He gave up on purchasing new items for now.

“Then, give me some enhancement stones.”

“How many?”

“Twenty.”

With twenty stones, Junhyuk placed his swords on the counter. He wanted to apply ten stones to each of them. Up to that point, he had been rather conservative with his upgrades, but he needed to get stronger.

His weapons had been upgraded five times, and Junhyuk used more enhancement stones on them. Aksha’s Longsword managed to reach the ninth upgrade.

“Surely, I have a 50 percent chance to reach the next upgrade.”

With a sigh, he applied the rest of the stones. With some luck, he managed to get it to the tenth upgrade.

“OK.”

Then, Junhyuk used the enhancement stones on Dentra’s Magic Sword. Being cautious wouldn’t change anything. After success and failures, he also managed to get it to the tenth upgrade.

“I spent a lot of gold, but I like it.”

The enhancement stones had strengthened his weapons in one burst. Because of that, at least his attack stat had increased. After checking on the amount of gold he had left, Junhyuk said, “Give me another twenty stones.”

“You are on fire!”

Junhyuk nodded and applied the stones to the bigger items he was carrying. He got each of the items to the seventh upgrade. Since he had already upgraded them all up to five, he managed to get eight items to the seventh upgrade without failures.

With that, he knew that both his attack and defense stats had reached another level now. The others were also spending their winnings.

They were either getting high-quality items or upgrading their existing items. Once they were done shopping, Junhyuk walked up to them.

“We are stronger now.”

“With that much gold, it’s only natural,” Gongon replied, and Junhyuk nodded. With enough gold, anybody could become stronger. That was the rule of the Dimensional Battlefield.

“Shall we go?”

“OK.”

Junhyuk and Elise headed middle. Gongon and Helen took the left path, while Sarang and Layla went right. Eunseo stayed within the castle, and each group took two hundred minions with them.

While walking, Elise contacted Gongon, and they maintained a conversation. She wanted to know about the magic circles that had pulled the energies from the cores.

She forgot about Junhyuk completely. As the human responsible for core development, she wanted to know more.

Junhyuk took the time to focus and a.n.a.lyze himself.

Harmonizer was restricted in the Dimensional Battlefield, but he thought something might have changed from him becoming stronger, so he used his powers one by own. However, none of them had changed.

His powers had stayed the same in the Dimensional Battlefield, and Junhyuk smacked his lips at the realization. Still, he had upgraded his weapons, so his damage should have increased significantly.

“I wonder who the enemy will be.”

Junhyuk was curious about his enemies. When he reached the peak of the mountain, he turned to Elise and said, “Elise, please focus now.”

“Of course!” she said with a smile and looked ahead. Junhyuk could see the enemies climbing up the mountain, and he knew them as well.

Abel was shuffling cards, and the centaur, Gyulsean, was there also. Junhyuk was a bit surprised by that. He had not expected that combo of heroes.

“What’s up?” Abel said and waved at him.

“I did not expect to see you again.”

Abel was a gambler who had upgraded his cards a lot, increasing the amount of damage he could dish out. The hero’s cards were shining as he shuffled them.

“How many times have you upgraded them?”

“I’ve been lucky lately, now that I’m with these guys.”

Abel looked at Gyulsean, who was already preparing an arrow.

“That’s right. I have a new team and I’m stronger.”