After the completion of the Great White Shark assignment, Kiernan received commission of 50,000 gold coins.

It was rather decent pay day for a few hours of work.

It still wasn't enough, and for the next couple of weeks, Kiernan kept teaching his students while simultaneously doing different kinds of jobs over in Montrael.

Anything that paid him.

He also accepted several quests from the system's Quest Store, completing them in his spare time to earn some extra money.

He only did quests that gave money, and after those two weeks, it was also time for his students to pay for their lessons.

Since the dojo was just a Zero Star dojo, the monthly payment was 1000 gold coins, and since eight students paid this time, he received a total of 8000 gold coins.

It was decent for monthly pay, but for dojo that had a lot of costs, it was literally nothing.

Five Star dojos received millions of gold every month, and sometimes even that wasn't enough for them.

After few weeks of grinding money, he had now 322,245 gold coins, and it was the result of his hard work.

There was also another thing.

He was 99% in the completion meter, and only one percent away from High Stage Martial King.

It was worrying for him, and that's why he didn't try to complete that final percent just yet as he didn't want to leave the dojo just yet.

It was just so busy at the current moment.

Kiernan gave the children of the forest extra month to pay as Aoi got them jobs around Montrael that was decent enough pay.

Of course, the lesson payment would take away most of their money as 1000 gold still wasn't cheap.

However, the children of the forest didn't mind, as they had a free apartment and a new sense of purpose in their lives.

They were fine for paying those lessons as it was same as paying for their future as with higher martial rank, more life opportunities would appear in the future.

There were also other changes in the students.

After pushing himself, Jock advanced to Middle Stage Martial Recruit, and Cleo reached Middle Stage Martial Soldier.

Lumian was now High Stage Martial Soldier and was making rapid progress to Martial Fighter rank.

Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Zeta, Lambda, Omicron, Sigma, and Omega from the children of the forest all awakened their martial souls.

They hadn't done that as they didn't know how to and they haven't practiced martial arts before, so they had somewhat late advancement.

Alpha reached High Stage Martial Recruit alone, and breezed past Jock without any difficulty.

He was already clearly very talented figure, and with his High Kids adaptability, it was only matter of time before he was going to become Martial Soldier.

He had already learned Iron Style stance—it only took few days—and started focusing on improving his body conditioning.

Again, High Kids adaptability helped him to increase the toughness of his skin faster than anybody else.

It even made Kiernan slightly jealous about how easy it was for him.

Beta, Omicron, and Omega reached Middle Stage Martial Recruit.

Gamma, Zeta, Lambda and Sigma were still in Low Stage Martial Recruit, and other children were in the verge of awakening as well.

However, Kiernan wasn't the most impressed by Alpha, but instead of Shiro, who had started training the techniques.

With his Martial Champion physique, he was able to use several techniques without breaking his bones, and he had already somewhat learned three techniques.

Those techniques were Iron Smash, Trap of the Tiger, and Knee Strike.

Sure, they were among the easiest techniques to learn in Iron Style arsenal, but it was still quite impressive.

…

It was early in the night; the sun had just left the sky, and it was all moon and stars with a slight chill in the air.

Kiernan was sitting in his office, thinking about tomorrow's plan.

The holographic window of the system was wide open in front of him.

There were few quests that paid well, but it would require him to leave Montrael for couple of days, and it wasn't what he wanted.

In that moment, while he was thinking, something unexpected appeared in front of him.

[1%+]

[Next: 100%]

"What?"

Kiernan looked genuinely surprised.

He had now officially completed the Middle Stage Martial King, but he was just sitting still without doing anything.

'I think the stress is getting to me and it unknowingly strengthened my physical and mental abilities? I didn't want this.'

Kiernan thought with a sigh.

He had just too many things to do, but in the end, he also didn't want to stop his own advancement.

Anybody else would be really thrilled to advance in ranks, and Kiernan was too, but he was really scared too.

'Don't be some crazy test, please.'

Kiernan stood up, and he felt his martial soul shaking. It was ready to advance. However, the system wasn't letting it just yet.

In that moment, a shining door appeared in the office, and it was beckoning for Kiernan to enter.

[High Stage Martial King Test]

The words were engraved at the arched doorway.

Kiernan thought about just ignoring it, and do it another time, but in that moment, the door sucked him inside with a gravity pull.

It didn't matter that he was the Martial King, as even an Immortal wouldn't have been able to fight against that pull.

Shortly after, the door disappeared.

…

At the skies above Montrael, a winged woman with stitched-up corners of mouth was staring down at the city with a calm smile.

"…I smell him somewhere here."

Renette flew, and landed at the street of Action Street.

The smell was strongest here, and after following the scent fo a while, she arrived at the doorsteps of the Martial Redemption Dojo.

The wings retracted back to her body, and as she was just standing at the sidewalk, the confused pedestrians eyed her.

They couldn't see her face.

If they could, they would recognize her as Renette, the Killer of the Red Sun, whose face had been plastered on every news network and newspaper for weeks now.

"This is where he lives."

Renette smiled.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.