Ji Hayeon jolted and yanked his hand back.“— What? You said you needed to stick it on. You haven’t even put it on yet, so why are you pulling away already?”“— You’re the one who kept saying you were… touching it!”“— So just hurry and stick it on.”From a distance, where he’d been warming up, Mok Geonho walked over.“— Gu Sawon, what did you do this time. You pulled some evil crap again, didn’t you.”“— No. Mok Geonho, you take your top off too. He has to stick all this on you as well.”Mok stripped off his shirt in one motion. Sawon held out his palm toward Ji Hayeon and wiggled his fingers. Ji shot him a sharp, sulky look.“— Don’t glare at me like that. Give it here. I’ll stick it on myself. You said it goes on the lower abdomen, right?”He dropped the patch in Sawon’s palm without a hint of care.“— Stick it as low as you can.”“— How low?”At his teasing tone, Ji shot him another pointed look.“— Fine, fine. I’ll stick it as low as possible.”“— Seriously, Gu Sawon. What did you do?”Shaking the patch he’d taken, Sawon said:“— None of your business, sir. You stick yours on.”After no small amount of trouble, both of them finally had their Metena sensors attached.Putting their tops back on, Sawon and Mok stepped into the middle of the training room. It was a wide indoor hall shaped like a gym, with a very high ceiling.“— Nine, wait over there.”When Sawon gestured toward Ji, Nine trotted over with soft little footsteps and stood by his side. Ji looked down, and Nine let out a small “kii,” miming a grin.Ji held a tablet PC in his hand. He pressed a button on a small device he was holding and tapped the screen.A hologram message floated in midair.Standing in the center, Mok cracked his joints and swaggered.“— Gu Sawon, it’s been a while. I’ll make sure you stay sharp today.”Stretching and bending forward, Sawon answered:“— You must’ve had it easy while I was gone, huh, Mok.”Morning spars, without borrowing Nine’s power or using weapons, were exactly that — a duel using only their own physical strength and raw Metena.Ji pressed a button on the wall. A large hologram message appeared in the middle of the room.Mok fell into a fighting stance.“— No holding back.”Sawon clenched his fists.At the same moment Sawon twitched his fingers, the hologram flickered.Rrrrumbbble!When Mok slammed his fist into the floor, cracks spread across it like the ground was splitting. From the fissures stretching toward Sawon, red flames surged forward like flowing lava and erupted upward.Bang!But the fire slammed into a blue shield. Sawon blocked the flames with a Metena-made shield. With a shove of ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) the shield, the fire was hurled back the way it had come. The snake-shaped blaze that had been snaking through the air crashed to the floor, spewed smoke, and vanished.“— That brute strength hasn’t changed.”All stamina-types shared one thing: enhanced physical ability. Beyond that, they each had different physical properties.Mok could convert his Metena into fire and manipulate it. Sawon, on the other hand, handled pure Metena itself, without conversion or refinement. In short, just as Nine freely transformed his body, Sawon could shape his Metena into whatever physical form he wanted.He flicked his arm in the air, the one holding the shield.Clang!A blue longsword appeared in his hand. The translucent blade shimmered faintly.Mok smacked his palms together as if in a prayer. When he spread his arms to the sides, a whip of condensed fire formed between them. Gripping the flaming whip with bare hands, he slammed it against the floor.Whoosh, crack!The sound of air being ripped echoed threateningly. Cracking the whip, Mok charged.The instant the line of fire was about to wrap around Sawon’s body, he leaped into the air. The whip coiled around empty space like a fishing line that had missed its catch.Sawon landed on top of it. The limp whip lay beneath his soles.“— Still whiffing your swings, I see, Mok.”With a taunting flourish of his sword, the fight truly began.The blade seemed to be dragged along, caught in the whip, then Sawon drove his fist straight into Mok’s face. Mok flew back, and distance opened between them again. Spinning once in the air, he landed on his feet.“— You sure this is the same guy who was slacking off in training?”This time Mok formed crimson flame knuckles around his other hand. Without a break, he rushed in and punched Sawon’s abdomen. But what his knuckles hit wasn’t Sawon’s stomach — it was the downward-angled blade of his sword.Vrrrm!The Metena blade sent out a huge shockwave. Suddenly, Sawon dismissed the sword and hooked his arm around Mok’s neck. Then he began to squeeze mercilessly.“— Let’s see what happens if I break your neck.”He gave Mok’s neck a vicious twist.Crack.Fortunately, Mok strengthened his neck muscles with Metena at the last moment. Red-faced, he choked and coughed, then drove his elbow into Sawon’s gut. As his arm loosened for a split second, Mok ducked and slipped out of his hold. When he rolled his neck, it made a series of grinding cracks.Their spar was so vicious it was hard to tell whether this was training or live combat. Sawon’s torso was torn where the whip grazed him, and Mok lost a tooth.Even at that point, their fight showed no sign of ending. Ji’s grip on the tablet PC tightened.“— These idiots… who practices like this…”Sweat beaded on his forehead as he kept glancing between the real-time Metena readings and their brawl.Just as athletes needed warm-up and stretching to perform at their best, hunters needed pre-battle warm-ups to use their full strength. But even though it was barely after they had gotten out of bed and they hadn’t done any proper warming up, the two were fighting with terrifying ferocity. Ji kept staring at the constantly climbing graph.“— 9000 dpion…”In general, the maximum Metena a person could raise without an Amplifier was 15,000 dpion. So far, anyway. And these two, without using weapons, had already pushed past 9000 dpion this early in the day.“— How high are they going to go…”Mok’s graph started leveling off in the 9000 dpion range. But Sawon’s dpion was now climbing toward 10,000.Marks of brute force began to show all over Mok’s body. Rubbing his own arm, Ji stared at the two men.On the left forearm he kept fiddling with, he wore a ring-shaped bracelet used as a Metena Amplifier, along with the small puffball charm hanging from it. He slowly rubbed the rounded shape under the fabric.Who knew how much time had passed. A hologram popped up in the middle of the training room.<10 minutes of usage time remaining.><1 minute until spar ends.>At the notice, Mok charged at Sawon even more aggressively. Nine tugged at Ji’s pants, giving it little jerks.“…?”Puzzled, Ji looked down. Nine gestured toward the front and chattered something.“— Kkii. Kki. Kkiii.”“— What are you saying…”“— Kki!”The moment Ji said he couldn’t understand, Nine yanked harder on his pants and cried. With no other choice, Ji answered half-heartedly.“— Yeah. Your owner’s fighting way too rough. Is this training or a real battle…”Nine answered back again. Ji had no way of understanding. Still staring at the graph, he replied absently.“— It looks like it’s almost over, so stay put.”“— Kkiing.”“— I said, stay still.”At his words, Nine stared up at him. Even when he tried not to look down, the monkey’s persistent gaze burned on him.In the end, Ji let his eyes flick downward. Nine’s eyes sparkled as he pointed forward again.Only, now that he saw, Nine wasn’t pointing at the spot where the two were fighting. His finger was stabbing diagonally into the air itself. Frowning, Ji followed the tiny hand and fixed his gaze on the empty space.“Kkiii.”At the same time, Sawon shouted:“— Mok Geonho, wait!”Mok, who’d been about to throw a punch, froze mid-motion. Right then, another hologram appeared.Wiiiiiiing!A siren blared through the training room.Beep beep beep, beep beep beep!At the same time, the communicators in the pockets of the hoodies they’d tossed aside started ringing. Ji hurriedly grabbed Sawon’s.

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