Chapter 18: Charles' Dilemma: Train the Monster, or Get Out of the Way
Charles Jung had seen prodigies before.
He'd trained sons of noble clans, heirs to martial families with bloodlines that had techniques older than some civilizations. He'd taught the strongest kids in Korea and once sparred a guy who could snap steel with his toes.
But what he had just seen?
Was not human.
The moment Song Jae Gu vanished mid-air and reappeared behind Lee Na, Charles dropped his pen.
By the time Jae Gu flipped her—her, Lee Na, the woman who could choke out a bear in under ten seconds—Charles realized two things:
The world was about to change.
He might've made the best investment of his life... or the last one.
Lee Na had gone full force. He knew that. She had enhanced her body to the level that would let her punch through a reinforced wall, and she'd thrown every martial art she knew at the boy.
And Jae Gu?
He made it look like a warm-up.
Sure, it wasn't a blowout. But the control. The precision. The fact that he let Lee Na land two hits just to test something?
That wasn't just genius.
That was insanity wrapped in discipline, dipped in humility, and forged in something far beyond Charles' understanding.
He stood slowly, arms crossed, as Jae Gu bowed to Lee Na and politely mentioned that he couldn't feel his pinky. He can't feel his pinky, Charles thought. He just dismantled the most dangerous woman in the building and he's talking about his pinky.
It wasn't the fight that terrified Charles.
It was the future.
If Jae Gu continued like this...
If he stayed focused...
If he entered the Murim Championship...
Then Charles had only two possible fates:
Become the richest man in the world. Or the most hunted.
Because once the clans saw what Jae Gu could do—once he bulldozed through their prodigies, their secret techniques, their political games, and emerged as the Nine Arts Dragon...
Well, someone was either going to pay Charles a mountain of gold to thank him—
Or bury him under one to shut him up.
He stared at the boy, sweat drying on his forehead, hair ruffled, face calm.
You're a monster, Charles thought, not with fear, but with awe. And I just handed the world's greatest nuke a pair of gloves and told him to stretch.
"Charles?" Lee Na's voice called as she rotated her shoulder with a grimace.
He blinked. "Yes?"
"He's ready."
Charles let out a breath.
"No," he said, already calculating tournament brackets, media strategy, and how much to invest in bodyguards. "He's not ready. The world isn't ready."
And with that, he did what any responsible adult would do.
He walked over to his desk, pulled out his emergency whiskey, and started Googling 'legal ways to adopt a martial arts prodigy'.
Just in case.
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Training with Lee Na after our little "spar" felt… surreal.
Not because she was treating me any differently—she wasn't. If anything, she was now more strict, as if trying to reassert her dominance with relentless drills and complicated maneuvers. But there was a respect in her eyes now, sharp and solid, like a blade recognizing another.
That was new.
We moved to a wide open clearing where the earth was worn smooth by countless battles, and Lee Na began to teach me techniques most warriors would beg for. She was no longer holding anything back. And I could tell.
The first was Wild Rush. A sudden explosive burst of speed fueled by Ki. At first it reminded me of the Leaf Hurricane—an initial dash followed by follow-up strikes—but this wasn't just movement. It was directional dominance. Like the world bent slightly to let you through.
When I tried it, my muscles screamed in agreement. "I can do this," I muttered, sliding ten meters in less than a blink.
Lee Na nodded. "Don't just move. Vanish. That's what Wild Rush is for."
Next was Wild Presence.
This one was less flashy. No movement. No visual cues. Just… pressure.
"Focus your Ki on being felt," Lee Na instructed, "not seen."
It was like I was the wolf in the forest, eyes glowing in the dark. The moment I activated it, even a bird perched nearby flew away mid-song.
"It's like bloodlust, but deeper," I whispered, sweat chilling on my skin.
"It is nature's instinct to flee the apex," she replied.
I made a mental note: Wild Rush to start. Wild Presence to control. Got it.
Then came the most versatile of them all: Ki Shield.
This wasn't like chakra armor from my old world. It wasn't constant. It was reactive. It had to appear only where needed, only when needed.
"React with intent. Your Ki listens," Lee Na said.
When I blocked a punch with nothing but a flicker of Ki forming on my arm, I felt like I had summoned a phantom gauntlet.
Useful… if you could move faster than the attack. Definitely a skill that punished hesitation.
Then came Beast Claw.
Now this was more my speed. It was raw, visible Ki shaped like a claw. You could strike, defend, trap. It was your hand… only better. Bigger. Sharper.
I shaped it with effort—felt it dig into the air, tangible and primal. And when I clashed with Lee Na's claw mid-air, it was like two ancient spirits colliding.
She grinned. "You can even grab arrows out of the sky with that."
I grinned back. "I was planning to punch someone through a wall, but yeah, that works too."
We weren't done.
Ki Attack was straightforward—send Ki in any shape at a foe. I shaped mine into kunai-like bursts and launched them mid-spin. I could feel my old world techniques adapting, growing.
Then came Wild Burst.
"It's like placing a landmine… inside your fist," Lee Na explained.
You gather Ki at the point of contact and then detonate it after impact for double the damage. My punch left a crater that time. My arm nearly shattered. But I smiled through it.
Worth it.
And then… Wild Spirit.
This one didn't have a clear form. No strike. No move. It was a state.
"You let the wild inside you rise," Lee Na said, her eyes glowing faintly, voice almost reverent.
And she was right. When I tried it, I felt something stir. Like the heartbeat of the world, echoing through mine. The trees felt closer. The ground more solid. My blood? Wilder.
It wasn't a transformation. It was a revelation.
The Wild wasn't just outside.
It was inside me.
I stood under the fading sun, breathing hard. My arms burned. My legs throbbed. But my mind… it raced with possibilities.
Maybe this "Ki" wasn't just energy. Maybe it wasn't just a Murim thing. Maybe it was everything—life, death, nature, memory, instinct.
And if that was true… then maybe it could transcend this world.
Maybe, just maybe…
If I mastered this…
If I pushed far enough…
I could go back in time. Stop the war. Save them all.
I clenched my fist.
Lee Na looked at me, perhaps sensing the change in my aura.
"You're not just thinking about Murim anymore, are you?" she asked quietly.
I didn't answer.
Because the truth was, I wasn't.
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I'd always thought chakra was the ultimate energy. The ninja world taught us that with enough chakra and the right technique, you could blow up mountains, raise the dead, or even rewrite reality.
But Ki?
Ki didn't care about that kind of noise.
Ki was quiet. It was old. It was the breath between two storms.
It wasn't just energy, it was understanding.
When Lee Na and Charles explained it, I thought it was just another version of chakra—different name, same game. Punch harder, run faster, kick through trees, right?
Wrong.
The Cultivators had taken Ki and gone where shinobi never dared: into the conceptual. Into the why, not just the how.
Sure, they didn't have Shadow Clones, or Edo Tensei, or fancy sealing arrays. But what they did have was a depth of knowledge that made me feel like the ninja world had been staring at the ocean from a well.
Take Wild Spirit, for example.
At first, I thought it was just a buff. Some stat-booster with a fancy name. But then they broke it down for me—and my worldview cracked open like a watermelon at summer camp.
Ki wasn't just life force. It wasn't just stamina flavored with discipline.
It was connection.
To the world.
To the wild.
To everything that ever was and could be.
And when Cultivators trained, they didn't just learn forms and techniques. They didn't memorize scrolls or mimic masters. They built themselves by understanding Concepts.
Concept of Fire. Concept of the Sword. Concept of the Beast. Concept of the Star. Even imaginary concepts like Chaos, or Dreams, or Emptiness.
Each concept was like a language—and the better you spoke it, the louder your power roared.
Charles, for instance, was fluent in Wild.
When he revealed his True Self—a meditative visualization technique that stripped away your ego and showed you what you really were—I didn't see a human.
I saw a lion-headed beast sitting on a stone throne, claws sharp, muscles tight, and eyes that had seen every jungle and ruled them all.
That was Charles. That was who he was, not just who he thought he was.
It kind of freaked me out.
And then I tried it.
Deep breath.
Focus.
Feel the Ki.
Let go of the ego.
And there it was.
My True Self.
I saw two silhouettes overlapping. One was Rock Lee—green jumpsuit, bowl cut, thick eyebrows, a warrior forged in fire and forged again in love and pain and purpose.
The other was Song Jae Gu—a leaner figure, younger, sharper, a blade not yet tempered but burning with something new. A mind that knew suffering in silence and kept going anyway.
They stood together. Not fighting. Not rejecting each other.
Just… existing.
I sat there, staring at them in my mind's eye, unsure what I was supposed to feel.
Shouldn't I choose? Shouldn't I pick one?
Then the question hit me harder than any kick from Lee Na:
"Why do I need to change? This is what I am. So let it be so."
I wasn't Rock Lee or Song Jae Gu.
I was both.
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Let me give you some free advice: if you're ever chilling with a high-level beastman who could probably bench press a bear, don't casually ask about manipulating time and space like it's a weekend DIY project.
Unfortunately, I'm me, so of course I did exactly that.
"Hey, Charles," I said, all innocent and zen-like as I sipped on my weird herbal tea that tasted like disappointment and swamp. "What about the concepts of Space and Time? Or, you know, Life and Death?"
Silence.
Total silence.
Even Lee Na, who was halfway through demonstrating how to turn your fingernails into weapons (don't ask), paused. You'd think I just asked if I could hug a volcano.
Charles blinked slowly. His usual lion-man vibe got dialed up to eleven, like I'd just asked to pet his mane or insulted his mother.
"I didn't expect that question," he said, which is fancy master-speak for 'what is wrong with you, child?' "But it is valid."
That's the kind of thing people say right before they tell you how many people died doing the thing you just asked about. Spoiler: the number is a lot.
"Every concept requires time and research to build up," he continued. "Many have tried to touch those concepts… none have succeeded."
And then he hit me with the real horror story: people exploding. Losing all their life force. Getting rejected by the universe like a bad first date.
Apparently, when you try to mess with concepts like Space, Time, Life, or Death, the universe literally tests you. Like an actual, conscious, sentient being goes: Oh, you think you're Him? Okay. Here, dodge this black hole.
No thanks.
Still, my brain doesn't know how to stop, so I pushed a little.
"What about the Immortal Man? Think he might've done it?"
Charles shrugged. "No one knows. If he has, he hasn't shared it with anyone."
Classic mysterious immortal behavior.
Then I asked the real dangerous question.
No, not "Can I get a raise?"
Worse.
"If Queen wants to join this world," I said, "would you accept her?"
Now, for context, Queen is… well, let's just say she's complicated, powerful, and currently not part of this wacky Murim meets conceptual cultivation world. So asking if she could join was kind of like asking if your crush could crash at your secret ninja-monastery-magic dojo.
"You can't share the knowledge with anyone, Song Jae Gu," Charles said sternly.
"I won't," I promised. "I'll just, you know, ask indirectly."
He glared at me. "You're asking for too much, disciple."
"Story of my life."
He sighed the sigh of every tired mentor ever, the one that says why did I pick this gremlin as my student? "You'll have to convince her father. Only then is this possible."
Her father. Great. Just another terrifying boss battle waiting to happen.
Anyway, after nearly getting spiritually smacked for talking about time travel and dragging Queen into all of this, I went back to cultivating.
Or, well… they thought I went back to cultivating.
See, I don't do one-thing-at-a-time. My brain was built for multitasking. While they assumed I was deep in meditation, reaching for inner peace and universal wisdom, I was actually:
Replaying every Ki technique Lee Na had shown me today.
Running mental simulations of Wild Rush and Ki Shield combo moves.
Wondering if tea that tastes like dirt is supposed to help me spiritually.
The others thought it'd take me weeks. Months, even.
But me?
I had a point to prove.
And an impossible future to reach.
Because while the world warned me not to chase the impossible…
I'm Rock Lee.
I don't do "possible."