Chapter 18
A heavy thud echoed as the thick rubber padding pressed down against the floor.
Chaeho released the handle of the strength-testing machine while breathing heavily. Heat burned across the calluses covering his palms.
Beyond the transparent glass window, the employee staring at the monitor pressed the microphone button.
"Strength score: 1,240. You've comfortably exceeded the C-rank requirement. Next is the endurance test. Please move to the room beside this one."
Chaeho wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand and nodded.
In the past, he had taken this same test here.
Back then, his strength had been so lacking that he couldn't overcome the machine's resistance and had been thrown backward. He still remembered that bitter day when he had pushed himself so hard that his vision turned yellow.
But now, things were different.
His steps were light, and his breathing quickly returned to normal.
It was the result of the basic stamina he had built through years of working as a porter, strengthened further by the weight of countless real battles.
The endurance test took place on a specially designed treadmill.
Its speed and incline changed unpredictably.
Chaeho silently kept moving his legs.
His breathing grew ragged, and his thigh muscles screamed in pain, but his expression never changed.
He completely erased the Time Slow skill from his mind.
In front of precision equipment like this, even the smallest physical reaction caused by activating a skill—or movements that were unnaturally accurate—could be recorded.
There was no reason to give anyone a reason to become suspicious.
He endured using nothing but the body he had built through his own blood and sweat.
"Endurance test complete. Pass."
At the dry voice coming through the speaker, Chaeho slowed down and carefully stepped off the machine.
He bent over with his hands on his knees, catching his breath. Sweat had soaked through the back of his clothes.
My basic physical abilities have definitely reached C-rank.
Chaeho picked up the towel on the table and felt a sense of relief.
He hadn't crossed this threshold through luck.
He had reached it through his own effort.
That fact filled a corner of his chest with quiet satisfaction.
"The final basic test is reaction speed. Please enter Room 3."
Following the instructions, Chaeho entered a narrow circular room surrounded by white walls.
Fist-sized firing ports covered the walls on every side.
"You must avoid rubber rounds fired randomly from all directions. The time limit is three minutes. If you are hit more than fifteen times, you will fail. Are you ready?"
"Yes. Let's begin."
Chaeho stood in the center and lowered his stance.
Beep.
With a short signal, the lights in the room dimmed.
Thoom!
A dull blast came from behind him.
Chaeho instinctively twisted his waist.
A black rubber round brushed past his side before slamming hard into the opposite wall and bouncing away.
More firing sounds immediately erupted from every direction.
Thoom-thoom! Thump!
The rubber rounds crossed one another, creating complicated trajectories.
They were much faster than ordinary projectiles.
If he waited until he saw them before moving, it would already be too late.
If I used my skill, they'd probably look like they were standing still.
Chaeho bit his lip and suppressed the temptation.
Instead, his eyes moved constantly as he scanned the room.
The faint sound of a firing port opening.
The friction of air being torn apart.
The vibration of the machinery moving just before firing.
He applied the same senses he had developed in real combat—the ability to read the instant a monster's muscles contracted—to the movements of the machines.
Whoosh!
He ducked beneath a round flying toward his head, then kicked off the floor and escaped the path of three more rounds coming one after another.
Thud!
"Ugh."
The fifth round slammed directly into his shoulder.
The impact was strong enough to make his bones ring.
Chaeho swallowed a short groan and quickly regained his balance.
His movements weren't perfectly accurate like those of a machine.
Sometimes he rolled across the floor.
Sometimes he twisted his joints awkwardly to barely avoid an incoming shot.
To an observer, his movements might have looked desperate and even clumsy.
But Chaeho never lost sight of the attacks.
His gaze followed the end of every trajectory as he threw his body out of danger.
Beeeeeeep!
At last, the long signal announcing the end of the three minutes rang out.
The lights inside the room brightened again.
Chaeho was lying facedown on the floor, breathing heavily.
"Total hits: eleven. Pass."
There was a strange tremor in the employee's voice over the microphone.
Chaeho wiped the sweat dripping from his forehead with the back of his hand and slowly stood up.
His entire body ached, but he didn't feel bad.
It proved that even without the help of his skill, his natural reflexes had nearly caught up to the C-rank standard.
Beyond the glass window of the testing room.
The two evaluators reviewing the records looked at Chaeho's final results displayed on the monitor and tilted their heads.
"Is this really Hunter Lee Chaeho's data?"
The evaluator wearing glasses asked while flipping through the documents.
"Yes. His identity has been fully verified. Compared to his records from when he was D-rank, he's almost a completely different person. Especially the reaction-speed test. Eleven hits without using a skill puts him very close to the C-rank passing standard."
"Looks like he built up his stamina while working as a porter. But his observational ability is remarkable. He actually read the machine's firing patterns."
The chief evaluator, who had been quietly listening to their conversation, finally spoke.
"Numbers are only numbers. You don't know someone's real ability until you put them against an opponent. Prepare the mock battle."
The sparring arena was covered with a wide layer of special urethane flooring.
Chaeho walked toward the center while holding the wooden training sword provided by the Association.
The rough feel of the leather wrapped around its handle eased his tension slightly.
From the opposite side, a heavily built Hunter approached.
His shoulders looked nearly twice as wide as Chaeho's.
A wooden sword of similar size rested in his hand.
"I'm Evaluator Kang Dongseok. I'll be responsible for your mock combat assessment."
The large Hunter introduced himself with a brief bow.
