Chapter 565: Night of Potential (1)

Park Jin Tae questioned his ears.

"What? Three of them?"

He rubbed his ears and walked toward Kim Rok Soo.

"You saying that I can take care of one by myself is already not understandable. But what? Three of them? You?"

He started to frown.

"Do you want to die?"

He could accept this unbelievable ability of foresight.

Actually, he trusted it now.

'But what? He's going to take care of three Grade 1 monsters? With his feeble body?'

Park Jin Tae was frowning as he walked toward Cale looking as if he would grab Cale by the collar at any moment.

However, Choi Han got in his way.

Park Jin Tae felt so much pressure after seeing Choi Han quietly stare at him.

'This crazy bastard!'

Both Kim Rok Soo and this Choi Han bastard... They both seemed crazy.

Park Jin Tae started to speak.

"You cannot die."

He then quickly added on.

"For all of us to survive."

Kim Rok Soo dying would make it very difficult for them to survive.

"...Hyung."

"Hey."

The Lee siblings were looking back and forth at Cale and Park Jin Tae and didn't know what to do.

Someone stepped forward at that moment.

"U, umm, hyung-nim?"

It was Bae Puh Rum.

He was scratching his head as he awkwardly started to speak.

"Min Ah and I will lose if we fight against a Grade 1 monster."

"Hey, Bae Puh Rum. Shut up for a moment."

"...Okay."

Bae Puh Rum who had taken a step forward took two steps back at Kim Min Ah's comment.

However, his eyes were still full of uncertainty while looking at Cale.

Cale started to speak to Bae Puh Rum.

"Go bring her brother over."

"Excuse me?"

Bae Puh Rum looked toward Kim Min Ah. Kim Min Ah slightly nodded her head and Bae Puh Rum immediately flew up and headed toward the building they had been at.

Kim Min Ah's older brother was there.

Kim Min Ah wasn't looking at Bae Puh Rum as she was quietly looking at Cale with her arms crossed.

Screeeeeeeeeech-!

A sharp noise rang through everybody's ears at that moment.

Boom!

The ground started to shake as well.

"T, the monsters are approaching!"

They then heard Lee Chul Min's urgent voice.

Cale started to speak at that moment.

"The seven monsters won't attack the building all at once."

Kim Min Ah could see two Grade 1 monsters approaching them from behind Cale's shoulder.

One was a skeleton monster.

The other was a wolf monster that looked as if it had a black snakeskin on its head.

She heard Cale continue to speak.

"Two of them, two of them, and then three of them. They will come in that order."

The reason behind it was simple.

These monsters were tasters.

They stuck to that theme.

"Of them, the Grade 1 monster that seems to be a mix of a lion and a tiger... The Dark Tiger. That bastard is the leader of those seven monsters."

Park Jin Tae looked past the two monsters in front and toward the Grade 1 monsters behind them.

'Mm.'

The Tiger's black eyes were looking right at the roof.

The gaze was too sharp for monsters they had thought lacked intelligence or had very low intelligence even if they had any.

He instantly got the chills.

But Park Jin Tae could not stay like that.

"They're Grade 1s!"

"What do we do? H, how do we stop them?!"

The shelter people on the roof were starting to get scared and frantic.

Park Jin Tae could feel the fear of death and the hopelessness on their faces.

'No!'

It couldn't continue like this.

They still needed to last for over 20 hours.

Night had not come yet either.

It would probably be the longest night of their lives.

But to spend that night without any hope and full of fear?

That could not happen.

"Me first!"

Park Jin Tae started to speak.

"I'm going first!"

All of them looked toward Park Jin Tae.

But Park Jin Tae was looking at Cale as he continued to speak.

"You said I was strong enough to take one down, right? So, I will take care of one."

Boom. Boom!

The two Grade 1 monsters that were slowly approaching as if they were initiating a battue made Park Jin Tae's palms become sweaty.

He could feel the pressure.

"However, you need to tell me how to do it right now."

But he would not be able to do anything if he could not overcome this pressure.

At the time he had become the youngest person to win an Olympic Gold Medal...

Park Jin Tae had realized something.

However, Park Jin Tae's eyes opened wide as he looked at Cale.

"This is why I needed to save Park Jin Tae."

Cale started to laugh while looking at Park Jin Tae.

He then turned his back to Park Jin Tae and looked south.

He was looking at the two approaching monsters. He then looked toward the five monsters quietly observing the people at the shelter.

Cale quietly observed all seven of them.

He then started to walk.

Lee Jin Joo urgently blurted out.

"Rok Soo! What are you going to do-"

"I have..."

Cale opened his mouth to speak.

"Even if they are only half of what they could be..."

Actually, it wasn't even half right now.

He then started to smile.

"There are powers embedded in my soul."

He couldn't hear their voices, but these powers let him know from the moment he opened his eyes that he had come here as Cale.

Cale walked toward the roof's ledge.

"I will fight first."

Cale could see someone walking next to him at that moment.

It was Choi Han.

"You can't cough up blood."

Cale quietly looked into Choi Han's eyes before nodding his head.

"...I'll try my best."

Choi Han stopped walking once he heard that.

However, Cale's did not stop there.

He continued to walk.

"Kim Rok Soo!"

Park Jin Tae and the Lee siblings ran toward Cale in shock.

"Hey, are you crazy?! Stop!"

Park Jin Tae could see Cale's foot step into the air at that moment.

"Rok Soo!"

Lee Jin Joo shouted as Cale disappeared.

Cale's body had walked off the roof ledge and fallen down.

Park Jin Tae and the Lee siblings frantically ran over and grabbed the roof ledge.

"Hey, you bastard-"

"Hyung!"

They looked down with urgent expressions.

It was at that moment.

Shhh.

Lee Jin Joo's hair fluttered in the wind.

Her jaw naturally dropped.

"...Huh?"

There was wind blowing from the bottom.

Her hair fluttered in the wind.

Park Jin Tae started to speak while looking down.

"...The wind-"

The wind was surrounding Kim Rok Soo's body.

Park Jin Tae subconsciously said something.

"M...multiple ability user?"

He made eye contact with Kim Rok Soo who looked up at that moment.

Cale shook his head.

'No.'

He was not a multiple ability user right now.

In fact, the current Kim Rok Soo had not awakened any abilities at all.

Swoooooooosh-

Cale closed his eyes while feeling the wind surrounding him.

Cale recalled what the White Star had said a long time ago.

'My goodness. Cale, you don't even know how to use your ancient powers properly.'

The White Star had said that Cale didn't know how to use his ancient powers properly.

He then recalled the conversation he had with Mercenary King Bud on their way to Wind Island.

'...Cale. Why would an ancient power talk?'

'Don't the owners of the ancient powers usually talk to you?'

'What are you talking about? You can hear the voices of the ancient powers? How does that make any sense?'

Bud had said that they could not hear the voices of ancient powers.

Cale's body that had been quickly falling started to slow down.

He recalled the other conversations he had had since that conversation with Bud.

The Scary Giant Cobblestone had said the following.

'Ancient powers are powers that are embedded in a person's body and soul.'

That was why the Super Rock had said that the White Star kept the strong ancient powers in his soul and carried them with him with every reincarnation.

His powers became stronger and more complete as time passed because of that.

The Super Rock had also said the following.

'Do you wish to defeat the White Star?'

Cale had wanted back then and still wanted to do so now.

'I will teach you the easiest way. '

Wind, water, fire, earth, wood. All five of them had chimed in at the same time.

'Get rid of us.'

Powers that are embedded in a person's soul.

Ancient powers were powers that had become embedded in the 35+ years old Kim Rok Soo's soul, powers embedded in Kim Rok Soo who had suddenly woken up in Cale Henituse's body.

And ancient powers only became complete once they became fully absorbed by the soul.

However, Cale did not want to do that.

He had not completely absorbed the ancient powers into his soul.

The wills of multiple ancient power owners were still with him.

That was not having complete ownership of the powers.

It was only having a portion of the ownership.

The Indestructible Shield. The glutton priestess had said the following.

'Eat us. Gobble up our existences. Each time one of these voices disappears...'

Each time he got rid of the former owner's will and made them disappear...

The cheapskate, Super Rock, glutton, thief, and the Sky Eating Water. Each time one of them disappeared...

'You'll become stronger.'

That would mean that Cale's soul had full ownership of that ancient power.

"I finally understood what that meant."

Cale understood the meaning behind those words once he came here.

He could not hear the voices of the ancient powers when he opened his eyes here.

But he could feel the portion of power that was embedded in Kim Rok Soo, in Cale's soul.

'It's not even half.'

He could only feel about half of the strength of his normal ancient powers.

Of course, even this much was a significant burden to the weak twenty years old Kim Rok Soo's body.

But these powers were the reason he made up his mind that it was worth trying to fight and to save everyone even without Kim Rok Soo's abilities being awakened.

Similar to how his life as Kim Rok Soo was extremely helpful to him right now...

So was the time he had spent as Cale.

'I was also able to come up with a hypothesis thanks to this.'

The powers embedded in his soul, as well as Choi Han being here, made him become more certain.

The parts he had been uncertain about were slowly being revealed.

This might not just be a simple testing ground.

Could a person's soul cross over in an illusion?

Cale couldn't come up with a definitive answer yet.

It was because there was still a big problem.

The problem was...

"I can't defeat the unranked monsters even with these powers."

But the situation had changed.

It had changed by quite a bit.

Choi Han was here, and the fact that this world might not be an illusion had changed Cale's mindset.

"Hehehe."

Get rid of the baggage on his mind, all of his regrets.

Cale raised his head.

He looked at the people looking down at him from the second and third-floor windows before looking up at the roof.

He could see Park Jin Tae, Kim Min Ah, Lee Jin Joo, and the others looking down at him from the ledge.

Park Jin Tae thought that he had made eye contact with Cale's nonchalant gaze.

It was at that moment.

"Please take a good look."

Choi Han started to speak to the people at the ledge.

"Please watch and learn."

"What do you mea-"

Park Jin Tae who was about to ask suddenly got chills throughout his body.

His gaze headed down.

There were no changes.

Kim Rok Soo was just standing there.

But Park Jin Tae felt a big difference.

Actually, he was not the only one who had felt the difference.

"...Holy crap. What is that?"

Kim Min Ah's hands were shaking as she held onto the ledge.

Park Jin Tae's mouth turned dry.

'Such a pressure is coming from Kim Rok Soo-'

An intense amount of pressure was coming from Kim Rok Soo.

Choi Han continued to say the things Cale had told him to tell these people who could not look away from Kim Rok Soo.

"Your potentials. Your futures. You will now see the true value of your powers."

Cale slowly started to walk with the Dominating Aura surrounding him.

"Screeeeeeeeeech-!"

"Grrrrrr- grrrrrr-"

The Grade 1 monsters focused their gazes on Cale.

Choi Han watched this before saying the last part.

"Humans continue to grow. Please watch and grow."

The moment those words reached everyone's ears...

Cale opened up his arms toward the two monsters showing him hostility.

Crackle, crackle.

Rose gold fire flowers and current started to flow around him.

Small whirlwinds gathered at the tips of his feet as well.

"Time to go."

His body quickly rushed toward the monsters.

But Cale's face looked relaxed.

The monsters' patterns, attributes, and weaknesses...

Adding the powers he had gained as Cale to Kim Rok Soo's record...

"It's been a while since I stretched like this."

Cale laughed while thinking about his time as team leader Kim Rok Soo.

"Screeeeeeeeeech-!"

Cale was flying toward the body of the skeleton monster charging at him.

The rose gold colored light was gathered in his hands as if they were guns.