The demon restaurant could serve as a decent fortress. It had a narrow entrance and a lot of furniture he could use in combat. This was a good place for Choi Yeonseung. If he fought on a wide plains area, he would have to fight against demons coming from above, below, and all other directions.
The demons could spit or shoot beams from their eyes and fire concealed steel weapons from their tails. Choi Yeonseung only had his hands, feet, and body.
At the very least, he should obtain the geographical advantage!
“Yes. From now on, this is... The Demon’s Inn.”
Choi Yeonseung recalled the martial arts novel he had read when he was bored during his hunter days. In the martial arts novel, a retired master bought a guest inn and operated it stylishly.
… Even if he couldn’t run it nicely, this restaurant—no, this inn was his!
‘Hmm. I wonder if the novels I was reading will already be finished by the time I return to Earth.’
Choi Yeonseung didn’t have any hobbies, but he still followed novels, manhwa, and movies. He didn’t know how many years would’ve passed by the time he returned. However, it would probably make him quite happy if he could look at everything he had put off at once, even though it was such a small thing.
‘Hrmm. Considering how long I've been here, Lee Yeongdo should’ve started his next work, right? How many volumes of Legendary Moonlight Sculptor would’ve been released? I hope it reaches 20 volumes. I can binge it. Am I being too greedy?’
“My... This is my restaurant...”“Yes. Get out.”
Choi Yeonseung kicked out all the demons, including the half-revived ones and those yet to be revived.
"Hrmm..."
After tidying things up a bit, Choi Yeonseung glanced around the kitchen. It had unidentified ingredients and tools. Nevertheless, a kitchen was a kitchen!
Choi Yeonseung once again recalled his clan leader’s words.
-Yeonseung! A person must have a hobby, a hobby!
“Well, there’s that.”
For a while, he had forgotten his determination to cook, but that idea resurfaced when he saw this kitchen. Choi Yeonseung reached out with the intention of figuring out the ingredients first.
[Poison has been consumed. Internal energy...]
“Umm. This is poisonous. What about this...”
[Poison has been consumed. Internal energy...]
“... This is...”
[Poison has been consumed...]
“Are there only poison here?”
What kind of restaurant was this? However, he realized this was only natural after giving it some thought. Humans couldn’t possibly eat the dishes served in a demon’s restaurant.
Choi Yeonseung sighed and ate the unidentified red meat, blue mushrooms, green fish, and purple vegetables. Since they were all poisonous, his internal energy kept increasing.
After finishing the ingredient checks, he felt fortunate for having Immunity to Ten Thousand Poisons.
‘Um... They’re all poisonous.’
Choi Yeonseung gave up and was about to eat them raw to increase his internal energy but abruptly stopped. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t mind eating poison. If so, wouldn’t that make poison an ingredient as well?
‘I can cook and eat them!’
It was perfect logic!
From then on, Choi Yeonseung fought off the invading demons during the day. He would then study cooking at night to find out what could be eaten in the Abyss! At this time, he didn’t know he would stay here for over a thousand years.
***
“Give me back my restaurant, human bastard!”
“This is the Demon's Inn now. Get lost!”
The grudge of the demon chef, who lost his restaurant and pot that had adamantium in it, was terrifying. No matter how many times he was killed, he never gave up. He just kept charging forward. The demon chef attacked Choi Yeonseung with a knife in each hand. In retaliation, Choi Yeonseung struck the demon’s chef weapons to deflect them away. He then used Origin of the Celestial Fist.
“This… This is making me furious! Why won’t my kitchen knives reach you?!”
[Through numerous battles, the A-rank skill ‘Unity of Body and Fist’ has been acquired.]
[You have become more accustomed to the Origin of the Celestial Divine Arts.]
[Your internal energy circulation has become faster.]
[......]
Unity of Body and Fist, an A-rank skill! It was a skill that perfectly harmonized its practitioner’s mind and body, causing their movements to become tens of times faster! All martial artists coveted this skill.
‘I’ve been wondering how to get it, but it could be learned through training all this time?’
Choi Yeonseung was puzzled.
He couldn’t believe that he obtained a skill he desired so much when he was still on Earth. A hunter’s skill wasn’t something that could be obtained just because one wanted it. For example, magic spells could only be learned through magic books, which could only be found in dungeons.
Finding a copy didn’t necessarily mean one could buy it, too. According to a famous story, even the US government failed to secretly purchase the 6th circle Ice Meteor Shower magic book from Mexico for $1 billion! In this market, not everything could be bought with money. In the end, the surest method to get a magic book was to obtain it themselves.
‘The auction house was almost impossible to use for martial arts users like me...’
Since magic was so popular, it was analyzed and had lots of related artifacts posted in the auction house. Meanwhile, it had less information and fewer artifacts available for martial artists. In the end, they had no choice but to cry and run around dungeons while praying that what they wanted would come out.
‘There will be an uproar if I let this be known.’
He didn’t know the exact conditions required, but the fact that he could acquire Unity of Body and Fist by repeatedly risking his life was very crucial information. If this information spread, martial arts users around the world would shed tears of joy and say things like:
-I can’t believe skills are so easy to obtain!
Of course, he had to go back first!
***
After a hundred years or so, Choi Yeonseung had defeated all of the demons near the Demon's Inn. By that point, the demons had started using tricks.
“Ah! There’s a piece of adamantium rolling around here!”
“No! Look! It’s a really tasty and fresh void beast meat here. It’s mouthwatering!”
Choi Yeonseung had an advantage in the Demon's Inn, so they had to pull him out if they wanted to defeat him. They were playing such obvious tricks, but Choi Yeonseung still went outside. He needed the piece of adamantium, and he felt that his skills were stagnating because he kept fighting inside the Demon's Inn. He had to face the strong to improve his martial arts.
“Demons. I like them all, but... you all should learn how to act better.”
“He came out! Die!”
The eyes of the demons waiting in ambush lit up upon seeing Choi Yeonseung standing in front of the Demon’s Inn. They all rushed at him.
Choi Yeonseung could feel it.
‘I can win.’
Li Yuyuan, the only martial artist to become an A-grade hunter, described the peak-class stage as followed:
-It is the state of having confidence in oneself.
He had no idea what that meant before. Now that he had reached the same stage, however, he finally seemed to understand Li Yuyuan.
‘They can’t beat me.’
When he was still in the first-class stage, he had a narrow vision. He only cared about his own internal energy and somehow making his attacks hit when fighting monsters. He was impatient and knew only himself. That was all because he lacked self-confidence. Having confidence in himself allowed him to relax and realize who he was. It also allowed him to easily read the other party.
How strong was the opponent? What were their weaknesses? How was their breathing? What was the tempo and flow of their attacks? When he reached the peak-class stage, he learned how to grasp those factors even if the opponent was stronger than him.
At that moment, the world was telling him that he was stronger than the incoming demons.
Choi Yeonseung stomped on the ground, executing the Origin of Celestial Step and threatening the demons with it.
The Origin of the Celestial Fist then pierced a demon’s body. Nevertheless, the demons relentlessly rushed in. With their determination, they finally led him into their trap. They would do whatever it took to kill him, even if it meant some of them dying.
They would take his bones and eat his flesh! The demons were willing to die just to injure Choi Yeonseung.
‘Compress my internal energy and block them!’
Choi Yeonseung imbued his back with internal energy and blew away their attack. Taking their offense head-on was better than dodging around to create a gap. Stopping for even a moment while facing so many enemies at once was death. He had to keep fighting to the end.
A demon’s axe slid off Choi Yeonseung’s back. Having protected it with internal energy, the attack bounced off it.
[You have succeeded in stopping an attack with the Origin of the Celestial Divine Arts' internal energy!]
[Having withstood the attack of a demon, your body's strength has increased further.]
[You have learned how to stealthily deflect attacks away. The A-rink skill 'Covert Attack Reversal' has been acquired..]
Covert Attack Reversal was the pinnacle of jujutsu. It would make the practitioner grab their opponent’s power and send it right back. It was similar to judo, wrestling, and jujutsu, but it was on a different level!
Alexander, the famous hunter on Earth who had won a gold medal in wrestling, had this skill and made tremendous achievements using it. He was only a B-grade hunter, but he could reflect the attack of A-grade monsters. It was largely due to his opponents’ lack of intelligence, but it was still a huge achievement.
‘Wait. As far as I remember, Isn’t Alexander’s Covert Attack Reversal just B-rank?’
He wondered if he was mistaken, but that couldn’t be it. It was definitely B-rank. A skill’s rank was equal to its value. When comparing two similar skills, the one with a higher rank was more valuable.
‘It is like this?’
The newly acquired skill filled Choi Yeonseung. Instead of blindly attacking his opponents, he now reflected some of their attacks. The demons got flustered by the change in momentum of the man, who had been attacking so fiercely it was as if he had nothing but murder in his mind.
From hard to soft, and from soft to hard! Every time they tried to hit him, he let their attacks flow away as softly as a piece of paper. And when he went on the offensive, he struck as violently as a storm. This change knocked out the demons.
“Kuaaak! I’ll crush you!”
One of the demons tried to use Gigantification magic to stomp on Choi Yeonseung. He didn’t even care about his comrades that were next to him. He was going to kill all of them at once!
Choi Yeonseung responded calmly to the demon’s attack that was over several meters in range. He grabbed the demon’s ankle and spun him around.
“U-Uh...?”
Spin.
This was the power of Covert Attack Reversal! Despite his opponent having turned into a giant, Choi Yeonseung could still stupidly spin him in the air and throw him away.
Thump!
The demon’s own strength struck him, and his gigantic body crushed all the remaining demons. Upon confirming that the battle was over, he brushed his hands off.
“I’ll always accept a fight for as long as you bring something like these with you.”
He picked up the adamantium piece and the meat and went inside. The eyes of the fallen demons burned.
‘Just you wait, human bastard!’
***
Realizing they couldn’t win in a melee battle, the demons changed their methods. The moment Choi Yeonseung came out, they started casting magic at random. Of course, Choi Yeonseung protected himself with internal energy and moved quickly to attack the demons.
Magic was basically slower than martial arts. They had to be cast, aimed, then fired. With the speed of a martial arts user, it was possible to pierce them in an instant amid such a long preparation.
[You have succeeded in stopping the attack with the the Origin of the Celestial Divine Arts' internal energy!]
[Having withstood the attack of a demon, your body's strength has increased further.]
[You have reached the state of impenetrability. The A-rank skill 'Impenetrable Skin' has been acquired..]
“!”
Impenetrable Skin!
This was also one of the skills close-quarters combatants wanted. It made his flesh and muscles harder than steel, blocking all attacks. It didn’t make him invincible, but the level of defense it gave was still a blessing. Lots of hunters had died from sudden attacks by monsters.
“Human! Please die!”
“You definitely got hit by magic! How are you still standing?”
With his melee combat and evasion already at maximum level, the demons couldn’t help but shed tears when they saw him gain a defense skill as well. They couldn’t win! Even after nearly a few hundred years, this guy just kept growing stronger and widening the gap between them.
“That’s all for today’s fight. Go home, everyone.”
Choi Yeonseung was now fully at ease. The demons’ desperate attacks made Choi Yeonseung faster and stronger until they no longer stood a chance against him.
“Boo! We haven’t fought yet!”
“I’ll give you a numbered ticket. If you come tomorrow, I’ll let you fight first.”
“Ohh! Humans are nice. Gar will be the first to fight!”
He was so relaxed that he even became close to the demons!
***
‘I just remembered I have my hunter card with me.’
Upon registering with the association, one would receive a hunter card that showed the hunter’s skills of the hunter whenever they injected their power into it. Its function was simple, but it was one of the hunters’ favorite items. He had forgotten about it. After so long, he decided to check it out. Choi Yeonseung took out an old card from his wallet and poured internal energy into it.
Name: Choi Yeonseung
Hunter Rank: C+
Aptitude: Martial Artist
Stage: Peak-class
Skills Possessed:
A-rank Origin of the Celestial Divine Arts.
A-rank Immunity to Ten Thousand Poisons.
A-rank Unity of Body and Fist.
A-rank Covert Attack Reversal.
A-rank Impenetrable Skin.
A-rank Three Flowers Gathering.
A-rank Heavenly Martial Physique.
A-rank State of Perfection.
?-rank Resonance From the World.
“!!!”
He had more skills than he could’ve ever imagined.
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