Junhyuk started talking to Elise about upgrading her equipment. Her Moon Core carried dual cores and had developed artificial intelligence, and even Junhyuk couldn’t attack it easily.
On Earth, he could accelerate to attack it, but in the battlefield, things were more complicated. In a one-on-one battle, Junhyuk had a hard time landing regular attacks on her.
Elise would need just a bit more defensive gear to become a true tank.
Junhyuk, who was standing in front of Zaira, looked her up and down. Zaira’s defensive capabilities had increased, but she had been easily dismantled by Adolphe. She had long range attacks, which were her strength, but her damage output was also rather low.
Junhyuk didn’t care about upgrading her damage, but her defense was a different matter.
Holding her chin, Elise muttered, “What about a floating energy field to surround her?”
“Is that even possible?”
“I can do it, but will it even work in the battlefield?”
“There’s now way of knowing until we get there,” Junhyuk replied, and Elise yawned hard.
“I’ll need another core.”
The core would be used just to power the energy field.
“Do it. I can help you if you need me.”
Elise started building the energy field part, and she contacted Gongon to help her. The best magic engineering results came from the two working together.
The two were excited by the idea of the energy field. It wouldn’t work with just engineering. They needed magic for it, and Gongon was definitely necessary in the process.
Junhyuk wanted to fight against Zaira to check out her defensive capabilities, but Elise was busy talking to Gongon.
He entered his training facility. Eunseo and Helen had just woken up, so he explained the final round to them and told them to do their best to prepare for the next two weeks.
He sent them away, sat down comfortably and closed his eyes. Junhyuk wouldn’t invite anyone for the next couple of weeks, so he would polish his skills by himself. During his death, he had made great strides with the Triple Yin Yang.
Junhyuk was used to how his body felt as the energy of his swordsmanship coursed through it, but now, he needed more core energy.
Junhyuk tuned the energy within his body before opening his eyes slowly to see Gongon’s face in front of him.
“Invite me.”
Junhyuk did so, and Gongon looked around and pulled out the cores. Gongon pulled out twenty-four cores and laid twenty-four gems on the ground. There was runic script floating above the gems, and beams of energy shot out from each gem, connecting them all.
Junhyuk smiled.
The magic circle that would pull the energy from the cores was bigger than the previous one. There was energy emanating from it, and it definitely felt superior.
Gongon placed each core within the formation and activated the circle.
Junhyuk looked at it, and Gongon said, “You can’t stand there.”
“Where should I stand?”
“Here.”
Junhyuk stood within a small circle drawn on the ground.
Woob, woob, woob, woob!
Each of the cores was moving into place by themselves within the circle, and Junhyuk’s body started floating. When Junhyuk’s body was suspended in the center of the training facility, Gongon shouted at him, “I’m starting it!”
The last core got in position, and Junhyuk felt the energy start flowing toward him. It wasn’t just the energy of one core, but of twenty-four cores. He felt like his body was being torn apart.
Junhyu could endure the pain since his Triple Yin Yang had improved. He didn’t resist the energy rushing to him, but absorbed it instead. It felt like there was no end to the energy and that his body couldn’t stand anymore of it.
Junhyuk hadn’t been able to endure six cores previously, but even now, there was a limit to what he could do.
He endured the pain of feeling like everything was being ripped, but he remained conscious despite all the blood that was coming out of him from the burst veins.
Where he was flayed, new flesh was made. HIs veins became stronger, and his muscles much denser.
Junhyuk’s face contorted at Gongon.
“He could die like this,” Gongon said.
Junhyuk’s body was rebuilding itself, but there was a limit.
Gongon was nervous about what he was seeing, and he thought about shutting down the circle. The energy Junhyuk was acquiring couldn’t surpass his limit. Even though Junhyuk was being injured, he was still absorbing an enormous amount of energy.
Gongon activated the goggles he was wearing.
Junhyuk was absorbing more than the full amount of energy within a core, and the hatchling knew human bodies couldn’t contain that much energy.
Each core was equivalent to a dragon’s heart, but Junhyuk wanted more.
“How about stopping?!” Gongon shouted at him, but Junhyuk simply shook his head. He hadn’t lost consciousness, so Gongon decided to wait a while longer.
A lot of energy was being absorbed by Junhyuk, and he added the equivalent of the energy of a core to the amount he already had.
Still, Junhyuk wasn’t done yet. Gongon had told him to absorb about 5 percent of the energy being expelled by the cores, but Junhyuk was absorbing 10 percent. He was on pace to absorb energy equivalent to two cores.
Junhyuk was going overboard, but he knew he couldn’t go through the process again, so he decided to absorb as much energy as he could in that moment. The energy within him kept increasing.
Suddenly, Junhyuk scowled.
“We need to stop now!” Gongon shouted, and Junhyuk agreed. He realized that his human body couldn’t contain more energy than what he had absorbed. He wanted to remain human still, so he shouted, “Stop it!”
Gongo moved quickly to shut down the circle while Junhyuk tried to stop the flow of energy into his body. Because he had a lot of it already, he was able to resist any more trying to get in.
Finally, the magic circle shut down. In a sense, Junhyuk’s experience this time had been much safer than the previous one, and considering the amount he had absorbed, that was even more astonishing to him.
Junhyuk landed in the center of the training facility and raised his hand. He could feel the flow of energy within him.
Gongon clicked his tongue and said, “If you had lasted any longer, your body would’ve turned into pure energy.”
“I know. That’s why I stopped.”
Junhyuk wanted to remain human. While putting away the cores, Gongon said, “You absorbed a lot of energy. The cores are nearly empty.”
Junhyuk had absorbed 10 percent of energy from each core and wasted a lot more of it.
Gongon said, “Congratulations! You should have more energy than my Lord now.”
“I need time to learn to control it. Two weeks won’t be enough.”
Acquiring energy was difficult, but controlling it was even more complicated. Junhyuk patted Gongon’s shoulder and said, “Thanks.”
Gongon smirked and replied, “Nothing in this universe is free. I’m taking all of the remaining cores.”
“What are you going to use them for?”
“I’m building a lair. By the way…” Gongon scratched his chin, turned to Junhyuk and asked, “Can your powers cross the dimensional wall now?”
“Yes.”
“Can you do it with your teleport?”
“Not yet. I need to acquire the coordinates to a place first.”
“Yeah? Do you want to learn some magic?”
“Sorry. I don’t have any intelligence runes and I don’t have enough gold to spend on buying them.”
After some thought, Gongon said, “I’ll build a device that’ll acquire coordinates. After that, let’s see if you can teleport through dimensions.”
“Is it safe?”
“No, but you can do it.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can cut through dimensions, so let’s try.”
Junhyuk’s eyes narrowed, and he stared at the dragon.
“Are you using me for an experiment?”
“No. I want to invite you over.”
“Over to where?”
“My lair.”
Junhyuk’s curiosity was piqued. Crossing dimensions wouldn’t be easy, but he wanted to see Gongon’s lair.
“That’ll be interesting. Build the device.”
“Right. I’ll contact you later.”
Gongon left, and Junhyuk closed his eyes. He felt the energy within him. It was all his energy now.
Using the Triple Yin Yang, Junhyuk spent, harnessed and molded that energy, making it all his own. It was a lot of energy.
His body had to get used to that amount of energy. At the same time, Junhyuk was thinking about what Gongon had said.
A dragon’s lair. He really wanted to be able to travel through dimensions. Only managers could do it at will, but he thought he would be able to pull it off as well.
Junhyuk would for his teleportation power to evolve into a dimensional teleportation power. With it, he would travel far and wide.
Junhyuk could buy a dimensional travel device from Bebe, but it would be too expensive.
He kept training, focusing on making the energy his own.
