The Hero Returns

* * *

Currently, in the world above the clouds.

Numerous gods had congregated in the massive palace located at the end of this world. This would be the first time in the past several hundred years for an event of this nature to take place.

Not even a squeak could be heard among the gathered gods who were holding their breaths. When they got here, they continued to wait for just one person among them to speak first.

It was the one sitting on the throne by the deepest part of the audience chamber, an old man with a head full of white hair. He remained silent for the longest time before finally opening his mouth.

"The Great Sage Heaven's Equal has escaped."

His gaze swept across all of the gathered gods.

"Now, say your piece on the matter."

"…"

No one answered.

The Great Sage Heaven's Equal.

The escape of the one born on the Mountain of Flower and Fruit, who dared to turn the Heavenly World into a devastated wasteland, was probably the biggest event that happened in this world in the past few hundred years.

Nonetheless, none of them should have kept silent like they had been doing considering just who stood behind that Yogoe.

"The real issue is the Bull Demon King."

One of the gods found the silence too uncomfortable and awkward and finally opened his mouth. Unfortunately, that was the spark that set the fire going.

"You think we don't know that?"

"Why don't you tell us a solution instead? A solution, I say!"

As if they had been waiting for that moment, roars and yells from the crowd exploded.

Gods possessed strong pride, and so, they didn't know when to back down. The voice of the very first god who spoke raised in octaves when the others began criticizing him.

"In that case, does any of you know a solution? Why don't you say something and stop pretending to be mute!"

"Mute? Did you really say such a thing to me?!"

"Who do you think I was talking to, then?"

"If there's a mute with a voice as loud as mine, then…"

The audience chamber fell into disarray in an instant.

The old man on the throne silently closed his eyes. All those clamors could be heard even more clearly now.

But then, from a certain point onward, the commotion gradually died down.

When that happened…

"What's the matter? Why don't you carry on?"

"…"

The gazes of everyone present within the now-silent audience chamber all shifted over to the old man. Some of the gods even lowered their heads as much as possible and avoided meeting the glare of the one on the throne. This old man was precisely the reason why the place fell quiet.

"So, you say that the issue is the Bull Demon King?"

The old man, the Jade Emperor, locked his gaze on the god who opened his mouth first earlier. Just as the latter flinched a little, the former raised his hand a bit before lowering it.

And right at that moment…

Crush—!

Splat—

The god caught in the Jade Emperor's vision suddenly got crushed before exploding into chunks. The previously-white audience chamber's floor was instantly soiled by a bloody mess.

"To think that a moron like him managed to enter here. It seems that the door sills of the audience chamber have been lowered far too much. Tsk."

The Heavenly World's gods all felt the atmosphere instantly went cold after the Jade Emperor spoke.

Even if the god had said something displeasing, how could the Jade Emperor execute a fellow god who was deemed worthy enough to step into the audience chamber without so much as a sliver of hesitation?

The gathered gods all knew that the current Jade Emperor was vicious and cruel, but this went well beyond their expectations.

"And are you all satisfied now? It has become as peaceful as you all wanted, has it not?"

"…"

The surroundings fell into even deeper silence.

No one could say anything under the current atmosphere. Some of the crowd members were even warning the gods who raised the commotion earlier with their eyes.

The gods who made all that ruckus just so happened to be the ones attending the meeting for the first time, so they didn't know just what kind of a person the Jade Emperor—the greatest god among all the gods they've been hearing about until now—was like in reality.

They yapped away because they had no idea that their lives could be extinguished the moment the Jade Emperor was ever so slightly ticked off.

"The Great Sage Heaven's Equal didn't escape the eight-way trigram Crucible through his own strength."

A god had suddenly said something that did arouse the curiosity just a little. The Jade Emperor nodded his head once, which indicated permission for the other god to carry on. At this favorable response, the god quickly continued on with what he wanted to say.

"He had help."

"Was it the Roc Demon King? The Bull Demon King wouldn't have made a personal move, so…"

"It was definitely not the Roc Demon King."

"Why do you think that?"

"That is—"

"It was a human," the god who brought up the topic of the helper spoke loudly to cut off the other gods who were trying to make educated guesses. "The one who dared to destroy the eight-way trigram Crucible, the one who helped the Great Sage Heaven's Equal…was a human."

"A human?"

"A human destroyed the Crucible?"

"What kind of a nonsensical…"

Unlike the other gods who chuckled and shook their heads at the unbelievable tale, the Jade Emperor nodded his head. "No, it makes perfect sense."

That prompted the attention of all the gods to focus on him once more.

"It was also a human who taught the Great Sage Heaven's Equal the Sage Arts initially, after all. This is how deep a human's latent potential can be."

"…"

"…"

The audience chamber fell silent again at the Jade Emperor's assertion. Not only were they incapable of arguing with him, but he also wasn't entirely wrong on that point.

Humanity's latent potential.

That had already been proven irrefutable through the Great Sage Heaven's Equal and the Bull Demon King and their mastery over the Sage Arts, which were invented by humans in the first place.

"A human. A human, is it…?"

Tap, tap—

Tap, tap, tap—

The Jade Emperor slowly tapped on the throne with his finger.

After lengthy deliberation, he finally came to a conclusion.

"Been a while, but it looks like I should pop down in the neighborhood."

* * *

In stark contrast to the Bull Demon King's complicated explanations, the system's own explanation on the breathing technique's usefulness was quite simple.

The system's role as far as Su-hyeun knew was to do two things.

First, to act as an assistant to make the process of learning skills simpler and easier, and second, to act as a convenient interface to neatly organize all the abilities he currently possessed when he wanted to see them.

The system performed these two roles magnificently well this time as well. The breathing technique was the first reward Su-hyeun had earned in this trial so far.

[Basic Breathing Technique]

* Grade: -

* Category: Active (activation type)

* The Sage Arts' basic breathing method. Maintaining the breathing pattern reduces magical energy consumption by 10%.

* Proficiency: 0.12%.

* Your magical energy concentration will increase depending on your proficiency.

There was no grade. Even the skill's explanation was simple.

He could maintain it constantly like a passive skill, but it was still listed as something that needed willful activation. However, unlike any other skills, he didn't have to decide when to activate it.

It was the kind of skill that would automatically turn on as long as he maintained a specific breathing pattern.

"Reduces magical energy consumption, huh?" Su-hyeun thought.

He had never heard before that such skill even existed.

Reduction in magical energy consumption basically meant the same as an increase in one's overall magical energy reserve.

It allowed a 10% reduction in magical energy consumption. On top of that, the magical energy concentration inside his body would increase depending on his proficiency.

This was hitting two birds with one stone. Make that two very large birds.

"If my proficiency goes up and my magical energy consumption is reduced by 50%, then…" his thoughts trailed off.

That would mean the same thing as his magical energy reserve doubling in size.

This skill made his jaw drop to the floor.

"But isn't this a basic skill?!" he thought, disbelieving.

The Sage Arts.

When he first heard that name, he couldn't help but question just what kind of a martial art this was and whether or not it was okay for him to learn it.

However, after he learned the breathing technique, the most basic foundation of the Sage Arts, his shock was so unimaginable that such misgivings promptly left his mind.

"This is cheating," he considered.

For the next few days, Su-hyeun remained in the same spot to train in the breathing technique using the same method as before.

Initially, his proficiency climbed at a steady pace.

One percent, then two…

But then, his gradually rising proficiency stopped showing any change once it reached 10%.

"It seems that you've gotten rather familiar with the breathing technique."

Just like what the Bull Demon King had said, Su-hyeun had become quite familiar with the breathing technique. He could already more or less breathe in that pattern without being consciously aware of it.

At first, it was rather uncomfortable, but after keeping at it for a while, it felt much more comfortable to breathe that way.

"I wonder if it is okay for me to spend my time like this," he thought.

Normally, Su-hyeun would take about five days at the shortest and about a month at the longest to clear a trial. However, he had already spent five days solely on mastering this breathing technique during this trial.

Since there were several other training that would come after this one, he couldn't even tell how long he would have to stay in the 60th floor's trial.

"It'll be fine, right?" He stayed on that line of thinking.

Su-hyeun had thought about this for a little while and then, while still maintaining his comfortable new breathing pattern, nodded his head slightly.

It should be fine. He arrived at this conclusion without much difficulty.

"Well, climbing higher isn't my sole aim, after all," he supposed.

Su-hyeun had only one reason for climbing the tower.

And that was to become stronger. So that when Fafnir shows up, he would be able to kill it.

The thing was, the training in this place was definitely helping him, well beyond his expectation even.

"This breathing technique alone is already better than an average reward, after all," he said to himself.

Just mastering this Basic Breathing Technique alone had reduced Su-hyeun's magical energy consumption greatly.

On top of this, even his overall magical energy reserve was increasing, albeit by a nearly imperceptible amount. If the story of him increasing the amount of his magical energy just by breathing got out, then the other awakeners would throw their hands in the air out of pure disgruntlement.

And the training hadn't even started properly yet.

"I better get everything I can from this place," he finally decided.

The Bull Demon King acknowledged him as his younger brother, a sibling.

That should be because Su-hyeun had rescued the Great Sage Heaven's Equal, Sun Wukong, and the fact that he did possess enough strength to qualify as a brother.

"That is enough."

As the fifth day drew to a close, the words Su-hyeun had been waiting for finally left the Bull Demon King's mouth.

Only then could he exhale deeply as he opened his eyes. He stepped down from the pointy bamboo tree while maintaining the breathing technique.

"Your patience is quite commendable. It would only be normal for you to complain of boredom at least once by now."

"It's been only five days, though. It wasn't that difficult, you see," Su-hyeun said to the Bull Demon King.

"Others find the boredom, not the difficulty of the training, much harder to endure. Such as—"

"Big brother—!"

Sun Wukong's voice could be heard coming from afar.

"Like that one over there."

Su-hyeun smirked a little at that.

For sure, from what he had observed in the past five days, Sun Wukong's personality didn't allow him to stay still even for a little while.

The period he would be most bored during the day was when he too had to climb and perch himself on the bamboo spike as Su-hyeun did to focus on his breathing while maintaining his balance.

He just wasn't the type to sit still for anything.

"At least his personality is the same as what I know," Su-hyeun thought.

This world seemed similar but also different from what he knew.

"It was not just a novel," he reminded himself.

He had been thinking about this for the past few days.

The Lich King. Through that creature's existence, he learned that the worlds found inside the trials weren't just illusions.

He had always been uncertain about this, but he felt much surer about it after the Lich King incident.

Of course, not all the trials of each floor would be like that. For instance, the first floor's trial was a mission about killing monsters inside a coliseum. Such a world setting wouldn't have existed in reality.

"Just like the 43rd floor's world, they were probably created artificially," he thought.

The world where he met the administrator for the first time, Luslec.

The administrators of each floor possessed the authority to organize a trial or even change the trial's type. It was rather likely that along with the first floor's trial, several others had been created by the administrators themselves.

On the other hand, some of the worlds would have existed for real like the trial on the 50th floor.

"Which one of the two is this world, then?" he asked himself.

The current Su-hyeun didn't possess the ability to determine whether this place had been artificially created or existed for real.

He tried not to ponder it too deeply, but there was nothing he could do about these thoughts that popped up in his head every now and then.

In the meantime, the Bull Demon King demanded to know why Sun Wukong suddenly appeared on his Somersault Cloud. "What's the meaning of all this ruckus?"

"Big brother, you already know who decided to 'grace' us with his presence, don't you?" Sun Wukong pointed to the sky and asked, "That punk, the Jade Emperor has shown up, so should I beat his ass up?"