Chapter 89

SKY

Following the public reveal of the official national roster, Yu Jia immediately prioritized the formal registration of their new organization.

The name chosen for the collective was SKY.

At the helm as guild master stood Baek Jinwoo, while the role of second-in-command was intentionally left open for the time being.

The group consisted of exactly ten members.

In a seamless transition, the designated national competitors comprised the entirety of the guild’s initial membership.

Establishing the organization served as an eye-opening lesson in structural logistics for everyone involved—particularly regarding the collection and distribution of assets.

To begin with, individual summons remained the absolute personal property of their respective masters.

Conversely, any runes, artifacts, or raw crafting components obtained during missions had to be immediately surrendered to the guild’s collective treasury.

In exchange for this concession, the organization provided its roster with a guaranteed yearly compensation package, supplemented by top-tier resources and operational support.

For those under the SKY banner, the starting base salary was locked at ten billion won.

When measured against the astronomical revenue generated by Yubaek, a total commitment of one hundred billion won annually was a drop in the bucket.

If anything, such a figure could be viewed as somewhat conservative.

However, that baseline was heavily augmented by an informal incentive structure.

Whenever a deployment yielded exceptional results, or when members secured rare, high-value components and runes, substantial performance bonuses were distributed on top of their standard pay.

The financial perks did not stop there.

Fulfilling earlier assurances, premium residential properties within Yubaek City were handed over to the players, with extra units made available for their immediate families.

The residential towers had been constructed on such a massive scale that even after accommodating everyone, numerous luxury apartments remained entirely unoccupied.

Naturally, the roster was ecstatic.

In all honesty, most of them would have happily signed on even if the monetary compensation had been nonexistent.

To them, the premier advantage of securing a spot in SKY was gaining direct access to Baek Jinwoo’s personalized strategic consultation.

Of course, following the exact precedent set by the original four disciples, every single member had to sign a legally binding contract mandating absolute compliance with the guild master’s directives.

And should anyone dare to defy an order?

They would face immediate expulsion from the guild, be forced to return every single rune they had been gifted, and owe a massive financial penalty for breach of contract.

Despite the harsh stipulations, not a single person wavered before signing.

“Haha, it’s great to have the whole crew back together. Time to get our blood flowing.”

“Jinwoo—ah, right, he’s the Guild Master now! Everyone grab some space and start stretching before the boss gets here.”

“Man, this training facility is absolutely unreal.”

“Have you guys checked out the high-rises yet? Our previous spot wasn’t terrible, but these apartments are on a whole different level. The scenery from the windows is spectacular.”

The facility echoed with cheerful banter.

The gathered combatants mingled comfortably, stretching out their limbs and sharing jokes.

Their easy camaraderie was to be expected.

Virtually everyone present was a seasoned veteran of the national circuit and had previously studied under the tutelage of Baek Jinwoo.

They shared a long history, and their bonds had only strengthened through countless shared meals and grueling practice sessions.

With one notable exception.

“……”

Standing apart from the group, Song Yeonhui remained perfectly still, her expression masked by intense anxiety.

She lacked the background of the national regulars, nor did she hail from a prominent corporate syndicate.

Prior to this, she had operated as an independent, government-affiliated ranker holding the 60th spot on the leaderboard.

They all share such a deep bond already.

Even Hwang Jiwoo, who had managed to secure a spot despite lacking an official rank, seemed to have integrated into the social circle effortlessly.

Noticing her isolation, Hwang Juwon was the first to step forward.

As the senior figure among them, he considered it his responsibility to make newcomers feel welcome.

“Haha, I believe this is our very first introduction. You’re Song Yeonhui, correct?”

“Oh, yes, sir!”

“You know, it’s starting to look like summoning talent is directly tied to aesthetics. First Hong Ari, and now you—how is it that all the women joining us are so strikingly beautiful?”

Song Yeonhui possessed a visual style that stood in stark contrast to the fiery, red-haired aesthetic of Hong Ari.

She had sleek, midnight-black hair and matching dark brows that created a sharp contrast against her flawless, pale complexion, complemented by strikingly luminous, wide eyes.

While Hwang Juwon was clearly trying to flatter her to ease the tension, his compliment carried an undeniable element of truth.

Hong Ari, Song Yeonhui, Oh Seonyeong, and Hwang Jiwoo.

Each of the four women possessed a highly distinct and captivating presence. Once the upcoming World League concluded, their public profiles would undoubtedly skyrocket.

In the current cultural landscape, top-tier active players commanded far more public adoration and media frenzy than mainstream pop icons or elite actresses.

The fervor of nationalistic pride was an incredibly powerful force.

“Ah, you flatter me, thank you.”

“Hey now, you’re making the poor girl uncomfortable right off the bat! Give it a rest, Hyungnim!”

Just as the social anxiety was beginning to dissipate—

CLANK!

The reinforced heavy doors of the training compound swung wide open.

“Ah.”

“The Guild Master has arrived.”

Instantly, every gaze shifted toward the entryway. The core group of five original disciples—including Hong Ari—snapped into a flawless, rigid stance.

Baek Jinwoo’s approach to instruction was notoriously merciless.

In casual settings, he maintained a warm, approachable demeanor, but the moment practice officially began? That warmth vanished entirely.

A single lapse in concentration meant a session would devolve into endless, exhausting physical conditioning from start to finish.

It was the literal opening of purgatory’s gates.

“Haha, why is everyone suddenly acting so stiff—”

Hwang Juwon’s chuckle died instantly in his throat.

Hong Ari, Oh Seonyeong, Ki Jaehyeok, Kang Jiho, and Hwang Jiwoo.

All five stood like stone statues, spines perfectly aligned, refusing to move even a millimeter.

Step, step.

Baek Jinwoo crossed the threshold first, dressed casually in a simple white t-shirt.

Positioned just a half-step behind his right shoulder, Drill Sarge advanced in full battle armor, his piercing gaze sweeping critically over the assembled roster.

The inaugural day of formal guild preparation had officially commenced.

“It is a pleasure to welcome you all,” Baek Jinwoo announced, a calm smile playing on his lips. “A few of you are already intimately familiar with the layout of this compound, while for others, this is your very first time stepping inside.”

CLAP!

He struck his palms together sharply.

“To begin—the three senior transfers?”

He was addressing Kang Geonho, Hwang Juwon, and Ahn Gijeong.

“Present!”

“Y-yes, sir……”

“Understood.”

Whether they were overwhelmed by the suffocating aura of the facility or simply crushed by the sheer weight of his authority as guild master, all three veteran rankers automatically adopted highly formal honorifics.

“And Song Yeonhui?”

“YES, SIR!”

“Excellent vocal projection. I appreciate that.”

Baek Jinwoo’s eyes narrowed slightly as he analyzed the four newcomers.

Just as I suspected. Their baseline physical endurance is practically nonexistent.

It was a universal flaw.

No matter which corner of the globe you inspected, the systemic issue remained identical across the board.

When players spent every waking hour micro-managing and leveling up their autonomous entities, who actually bothered to maintain a personal athletic routine?

But within these walls, the paradigm was entirely different.

If you wanted to survive his regime, you conformed to his methodology.

The corner of Baek Jinwoo’s mouth tilted upward into a sharp smirk.

“From this exact moment, we have precisely one month.”

“For the next thirty days, your entire existence will revolve around foundational physical conditioning. We will not move forward until every single person in this room meets my strict performance criteria.”

…Ph-physical conditioning?

The four recent additions stared back at him blankly, as if he were communicating in an ancient, forgotten tongue.

Meanwhile, the disciples who had already survived the initial waves of physical torment merely offered knowing, wicked grins.

It was the look of veterans watching a fresh batch of recruits get marched directly into a meat grinder.

“If you prove incapable of clearing the physical baseline, you will receive zero strategic consulting from me. I do not care about national prestige, the World League, or any external accolades—I have absolutely no intention of imparting my advanced tactics to individuals who lack basic physical literacy.”

Whoosh—CLANK!

Without breaking eye contact, Baek Jinwoo snapped heavy iron training restraints onto both of his wrists and ankles.

The senior students recognized the equipment instantly.

Every single one of those blocks weighs exactly twenty kilograms.

What an absolute monster……

He’s carrying nearly eighty kilograms of dead weight on his limbs and he can still run laps around us without breaking a sweat. Is he even fundamentally human?

Yet, even as the complaints echoed in their minds, they routinely began fastening weighted vehicle tires around their own waistlines.

The uninitiated could only look on with wide, terrified eyes.

They’re seriously planning to sprint while dragging those things?

I can barely maintain a decent pace carrying my own body weight…

The scale of the training pavilion was immense.

It was a staggering space, easily matching the dimensions of an Olympic-grade athletic stadium.

“Very well. Let’s begin.”

Hoo.

Drawing a short, controlled breath, Baek Jinwoo exploded forward, his boots digging into the track.

“START RUNNING!”

Wha—

H-hold on a second!

Observing the experienced members fall into a practiced, rhythmic formation right behind their leader, the new recruits desperately scrambled forward to avoid being left in the dust.

They were completely oblivious.

They had absolutely no inkling that this brutal pacing would be maintained for three agonizing, uninterrupted hours.

The true initiation had just broken over them.

“Haaah, hah!”

“Guh-haaah, huff!”

Sixty minutes had ticked by.

Hwang Juwon, holding the title of the oldest competitor in the room, felt the last remnants of strength vanish from his thighs as he crashed heavily onto the surface of the track.

“Whoa—!”

The friction tore up his skin as he slid across the ground, yet as he lay collapsed in a heap, a solitary, desperate realization filled his mind.

Ah.

I should have thrown in the towel way sooner.

I never realized that simply lying flat on the floor could feel like absolute paradise.

However, that brief moment of peace was short-lived.

“What exactly do you imagine you are accomplishing right now?”

A dark, imposing shadow blocked out the overhead lights, moving with slow, calculated precision.

The metallic silhouette of heavy armor loomed large.

It was Drill Sarge.

The armored entity dropped into a low crouch directly in front of the fallen veteran, his unsettling, pale eyes boring straight into the man’s soul as he spoke in a low, even tone.

“If your desire is to quit, then by all means, remain on the floor. Just understand that while the rest of your peers forge ahead, you will remain entirely stagnant, frozen in this exact spot. And if that is your ultimate trajectory, why did you even bother coming here? It is not as if you are oblivious to the thousands of elite combatants who would gladly slaughter someone to take your place on this roster.”

“Huff… huff…”

“Are your eyes failing you as well?”

Drill Sarge gestured toward the distant curve of the track.

Further up the lane, Ahn Gijeong and Song Yeonhui were still pushing forward—their speed had deteriorated significantly, but their refusal to stop was absolute.

A sudden wave of deep bitter resentment washed over Hwang Juwon.

They’re still in their prime! They have youth on their side!

I’m fifty-three years old, for God’s sake!

“If your intention is to shield your lack of performance behind the date on your birth certificate, perhaps the honorable path would be to announce your formal retirement. I was under the impression that the national selection comprised the absolute pinnacle of talent this country has to offer. If advanced age is your chosen defense, wouldn’t the correct course of action be to step aside for a younger competitor?”

What in the world—

This thing is supposed to be a summoned entity?

How is it capable of completely dismantling my psychological defenses with words alone?

The most agonizing aspect of the lecture was how flawlessly the entity targeted his deepest insecurities, forcefully dragging up a sense of personal pride he didn’t realize he still possessed.

And what made it truly infuriating was the absolute validity of every single word.

Damn it all.

Gnashing his teeth in a fury, Hwang Juwon forced his trembling limbs to support his weight once more.

He was right.

What kind of unyielding determination had driven him to reach this pinnacle in the first place?

The mere mental image of being dropped from the national squad at a later date, forced to face down a barrage of media inquiries and personal peers asking why he failed—only to respond with, “I lacked the physical stamina”—was an indignity his pride simply could not endure.

“HAAAAH! MOVE OUT! KEEP MOVING!”

With a raw roar, Hwang Juwon accelerated forward, his legs pumping furiously as he re-entered the rotation.

Observing the entire psychological breakthrough from his position at the front of the pack, Baek Jinwoo—

Excellent.

His grin broadened.

They lacked the perspective to appreciate the methodology at this current juncture, but down the line, the realization would become hardwired into their muscle memory.

Physical longevity, muscular power, breath control, spatial reactions, and psychological resilience.

Those microscopic advantages would ultimately translate into flawless, razor-sharp control over their active summons, tipping the scales of victory in their favor.

That being said.

Baek Jinwoo turned his focus slightly to monitor Song Yeonhui.

During her initial intake interview, she had explicitly stated that she had never engaged in a formal athletic regimen in her entire life.

Yet, the raw stubbornness she was exhibiting was nothing short of extraordinary.

Her current output and stride length were almost perfectly matched with Hwang Jiwoo’s.

And Hwang Jiwoo had the distinct advantage of an entire month of intense physical conditioning already locked in to build up her cardiovascular base.

So this is the tangible manifestation of a Heavenly Heart Constitution intersecting perfectly with a Limitless Constitution?

Incredibly impressive.

She was going to develop an absolute master-class level of micro-management capability in the future—he could see the trajectory clear as day.

And as it happened, he already had a specific category of entities in mind that would complement her unique profile flawlessly.

They were the highly volatile, mechanically demanding summons that the broader community completely abandoned due to their absurd control thresholds, but if mastered completely, they yielded catastrophic offensive output.

Baek Jinwoo’s tactical synapses fired rapidly as he maintained his steady stride.

Yes.

Every single one of you, keep bleeding and fortifying those vessels.

He now possessed nine distinct disciples that required systematic restructuring from the ground up.

I am going to personally craft every single piece of your operational builds.

First on the list.

Kang Geonho’s primary anchor entity was an A-rank Paladin.

Befitting a holy combatant endowed with regenerative properties, the Paladin possessed an exceptional equilibrium between offensive pressure and front-line survivability.

That specific matrix rendered it uniquely devastating when deployed against stealth assassins, corruption-attribute entities, and undead hordes.

The glaring drawback?

When matched against any other combat archetype, its performance became frustratingly uninspired and average.

To effectively neutralize that tactical blind spot……

He required a secondary A-rank anchor—a Dark Knight.

A complementary pairing of a Paladin and a Dark Knight.

By forcing them into a dual-offensive core configuration, the remaining auxiliary slots could be dedicated entirely to amplifying enhancements and restorative spells.

Executed with flawless mechanical control?

The resulting synergy would be utterly terrifying on the battlefield.

A preliminary mental calculation placed the financial investment for that acquisition at roughly twenty billion won.

Then there was Hong Ari.

She was currently still reliant on a B-rank Firebird.

Why would someone generating that level of personal capital continue utilizing a mid-tier asset instead of migrating to an A-rank? The explanation was simple—

A-rank manifestations were astronomically priced and materialized on the public market with extreme rarity.

For Hong Ari’s specific elemental alignment, the absolute pinnacle match was an A-rank Phoenix, however……

When he had personally verified the global transaction ledgers, there were zero active listings available globally—and the historical baseline valuation sat at a staggering fifty billion won.

It was an environment dictated entirely by seller premium.

Then again, the administration was backing each official representative with a massive tier allocation of one capital trillion won anyway.

Liquidity was not the roadblock. Pure market availability was the true bottleneck.

He would simply have to maintain a vigilant watch on the high-end trading boards and bide his time.

Oh Seonyeong’s trajectory was already perfectly aligned.

The A-rank Fenrir!

Supported by supplementary auxiliary units like the Shadow Wolf, Hyeolrang, and various other B-rank lupine combatants.

To crown that specific configuration, she was slated to integrate the Howling rune—a highly coveted Rare-tier modifier.

With that comprehensive loadout established, she possessed the statistical pathway to easily break into the premier tiers of the international rankings.

Moving on to Ki Jaehyeok…… the dedicated goblin specialist.

His current operational loop relied on a pair of B-rank goblins, but one of those units desperately needed to be elevated to an A-rank variant.

The ultimate centerpiece for his build would be an A-rank Goblin Master—though that specific entity had not surfaced on any active listing boards recently either, had it?

The mental planning continued seamlessly.

One by one, Baek Jinwoo meticulously structured the optimal summoning blueprint for every member of his guild, collaborating internally with Baek Ajin to begin tracking down and securing the necessary components.

He was operating with the absolute macro-focus of a national head coach completely transforming a franchise.