16 Chapter 16: A Break

I don't own solo leveling or Jujutsu Kaisen

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"Urgh!"

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Brilliant rays of sunshine shone through what little cloud cover there was in the blue skies above. Kim Bora and Han Song-yi traversed down the paved walkway of the park — their usual running course for the past few days.

"Aaaand, that's 10km!" Kim announced happily, clapping his hands together. "Ugh..." he widened his eyes when he saw Song-yi collapse to the ground next to him. "Are you alright?" he asked in concern.

"Just...gotta catch...my breath," she managed to get out whilst furiously gulping up whatever air she could. 'Maybe running after all those exercises was a bit much...' he smiled offering her a hand, getting her up off the ground. They settled down on a bench just ahead of them and he handed her a water bottle to quench her thrist.

Kim wore his usual form fitting black shirt, drawing attention to his muscular figure, and dark navy pants with white running sneakers. Song-yi wore her usual black and pink hoodie with black leggings, but let her pixie cut hair run loosely.

It had been a few days of him training her in the ways of martial arts for a few hours a day and she had slowly improved. There was, now, form and structure to her strikes that weren't there previously, but she was far from a practitioner of martial arts.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Kim, content on just letting his student (could he say that!) recover her stamina.

"Have you thought about buying a weapon?" Kim finally asked.

"Yeah I have, but aren't they expensive?" she ran a hand through her dark hair, loosely.

"... Yeah they are, especially for low ranked hunters like us. However, I do think that having at least a dagger would be beneficial for you since you can't really fight." he stated matter of factly resulting in an irritated frown crossing the teens face.

"I guess you're right." she conceded to that assessment. "But that still loops back to the problem of money, which we have none of."

Kim just sighed thinking back to the D-rank gate he tagged along in with Song-yi the day they met. It was unfortunate that there really wasn't anything that would give them significant cash.

"Maa... I'll keep an eye out for something that comes up and you do the same," he flicked out his dark sunglasses from nowhere and put them on before walking off.

"Where are you off to?" she asked curiously. She usually doesn't question where he goes after they part ways, but Song-yi was inquisitive by nature and couldn't resist asking. "I just remembered that there was something interesting going on at Gyeongbokgung Palace, so I wanted to check it out is all," he said with a wave of his hand.

"The Gyeongbokgung Palace? What's that a new artifact?" she asked. "Probably, but I'm a history buff so I'm into those sort of things!" he explained.

"Oh, okay." she nodded, filing that tidbit of information away in the back of her mind.

"Same time next week for training then. You better not slack off!" he glanced back, his eyes shimmering a light azure color.

"Uh... Y-Yeah..." she stuttered with a slight blush on her face, thinking why he was so dramatic all the time.

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[Item: Inverted Heavens Key

Item Class: S-rank

Item Type: Junk

Description -

A Key that allows entry into the world of Inverted Heavens.

It can only be used at Gyeongbokgung Palace.]

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'I got this key within the blessed random box today after completing my daily quest."Thinking about today's training with Song-yi."That's the first time I've been granted a blessed random box since that first one and it was also a Dungeon key. Does the system want to test me once again?' Kim played around with the all black skeleton key flickering it in between his fingers in a mesmerizing fashion.

It had an S-Class rarity to it so that might mean that it was an S-rank Gate judging by his previous key being D-class and the dungeon being equivalent to that of a D-rank dungeon. It was logical assumption to come to because everything had been pretty much straightforward with the system.

'But why would it provide me with something clearly not on my level?' It would just reinforce the idea that this was a test, in his head, but a test so far above him? Maybe he wasn't meant to succeed, but if he didn't succeed wouldn't that mean he would die. The creator of the system had given him this key, but didn't think his chosen avatar would be successful. "Hmhp." He would prove whomever they were wrong.

He was dying to bash some skulls in anyway.

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It was evening as he stood at the front gates of local tourist attraction Gyeongbokgung Palace. He was wearing a dark blue zip-up jacket with a high collar that was also fairly wide. He wore slim-fit matching black pants and black dress boots. He wore his black sunglasses letting his long white fringes hang loose over his forehead and frame his face and if anyone where to look closer they would notice a faint blue glow behind those glasses.

He gripped the jet black key in his right hand before scanning his surroundings briefly for any passersby, and jumped into the air once the coast was clear.

'That should do.' he landed in a crouch finding an unpopulated area. Wasting no time he, quickly, turned the key causing space to distort and rip open a light blue portal in time-space that had occasional arcs of lightning flying off of it.

'I'm not going to have back up in this dungeon like last time. But unlike last time I'm actually excited to see what's in store for me. This will be a test of capabilities to see where I'm at," he walked in with zero hesitation in his stride.

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[You have entered Inverted Heaven.]

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[Quest has been issued!]

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[Quest: Hesitation is defeat

Quest instructions-

You may not exit this dungeon until the specified number of creatures have been eliminated.

Failure to complete this quest will result in death.

- Good luck.

Enemies remaining :500/500

Curse marking prohibited.]

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'Shit! Things got way more dangerous than I was expecting. I can't leave this place without killing 500 monsters, this is an S-rank Gate so I can't take any of these monsters lightly. Prohibiting my use of the curse marking certainly made this more difficult for me, but strangely enough I'm more revved up than ever! ' Those were his thoughts as soon as he jumped on the platform surrounded by the scorching temperatures of molten lava underneath it.

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[Elemental Shine]

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'Even with this passive skill on I can still feel this heat. This would definitely bring a normal hunter to their knees from exposure,' he made his way to the next platform and started scaling up the lava river that way.

He didn't know what he would find in the direction he was going, but there was a large amount of mana concentrated in that area. It wasn't much, but it was a good start.

S-rank is a level of power that he couldn't comprehend since the closest thing to that were the High Orcs he faced in the practice raid. They were A-rank with unbelievable strength and a razor sharp bloodlust that could freeze anyone in place. Power that would result in a horrifying death. He imagined that S-rank was that and then some.

He eventually came about a clearing brimming with massive amounts of magical energy. He observed his surroundings seeing the occasional crack within the platform and spurts of magma spitting out from them.

'This is the place,' he thought apprehensively. "There is nothing here, so why is there so much energy concentrated here?" he kneeled down and touch the ground.

However, as soon as his skin made contact with the ground it triggered a massive gust of steam, blowing off his sunglasses.

"Woah!" he yelped in surprise, but ultimately wasn't harmed due to his passive skill [Elemental Shine].

Weird blobs of magma sprung up from the river of lava and made their presence known to him by jumping onto his platform.

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[Guardians Of The Rupture]

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'Now what do you guys want?' he thought to himself curiously watching them lumber towards him at a snails pace.

Suddenly fast molten rocks were launched at him with lightning quick sharpness that he was barely able to move his head out the way to avoid getting obliterated by. His white hair was slightly singed from the close call.

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[Limitless Technique: Neutral Infinity activated!]

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He, unconsciously, raised a hand to perform a handsign activating his infinity to protect himself from another volley of projectiles launched at him.

"So it's like that?" He quickly drew his serrated edge katana from his inventory and went to slice through the blobs.

The monsters were slow moving blobs that were destroyed easily by one slash from his Razor Tail.

He spun his body quickly to cut off the head of a blob behind him and then launched a spinning back kick to the middle of the monster and finished it by splitting it half.

'At least I'm getting that enemy count down,' he thought letting out a small breath. He had taken out quite a few of these weird lava blobs in little time.

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[Enemies remaining 469/500]

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He saw a dark shadow rising up from behind him, letting infinity do the work for him by blocking it he quickly whipped his body around to slice the head off of the lava monster. He then let the splash of lava trickle down to the floor and then, looked up to see ten of those blob monsters shooting big splashes of lava at his head.

'Their attacks...! It's taking away all the moisture that's left in the air!' he waved his hand in front of him as distorted space canceled out the lava splashes causing them to trickled down to the floor once more.

'Tch!' he wiped away the blood dripping out his nose, the effects of dry air making themselves known. He jumped over the moat of magma that formed around him towards the blobs of lava, slicing and dicing them with his Razor Tail.

Standing tall he surveyed the area for anymore threats before wiping off some sweat on his forehead.

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[Fatigue: 23]

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'There's another concentration of mana up ahead. Something to look into after these guys are dealt with,' he clutched his sword, tightly.

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[Enemies remaining : 402/500]

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After an hour or so of fighting, he wasn't sure, it was hard to keep track of time in this firey hell, he had finally made it to his goal and he would be lying if he said that he wasn't disappointed. It was just a giant metal double door with an, admittedly, good looking design.

'All this magical energy is concentrated beyond this door. It's higher than any energy I've ever seen!' he thought alarmed at the vast amount of mana pouring out the door.

Rumbling is what he heard from behind him as the ground shook from the pounding of giant footsteps. He turned his gaze to see a 5 m tall, one eyed lava monster with sharp molten rocks for teeth. It left behind trails of magma with every step. It's face melting and reshaping every which way.

"Well aren't you a big boy... And you've got cousins too!" Kim exclaimed jumping to the side to avoid getting melted into nothingness by the monsters fire breath.

'Close call,' he thought releasing a sigh of relief. The fire moved at crazy speeds almost burning him alive, but only managing to singe his clothing thanks to his reflexes.

Taking a deep breath he activated his dash skill to blitz and cut up the giant monster to bits. Not wasting time he landed and struck at the legs of the 7 remaining monsters, taking them off balance.

'Tch! It's hot!' he thought, finally feeling the heat despite his passive skill, as he felled more monsters causing the temperature to continue rising and rising.

He was struck by an unexpected motlen rock that sent him flying through a pool of lava.

"Oh man, what would I be without you, infinity?" Kim muttered to himself, swimming around in a pool of lava unbothered thanks to infinity constantly distorting space around him. But it was definitely getting hard to breath down there so he didn't waste any more time and moved to the surface.

As soon as he made it on the platform, molten rock spikes flew right at him but were once again halted by infinity.

Molten rock monsters sprouted from the ground he stood on, only contributing to the loss of whatever little moisture was in the air. He couldn't take down these things forever, glancing at his slightly dulled katana, it was only a matter of time before his weapon became ineffective.

He needed something to take them out in one fell swoop.

'Whatever that may be?'

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[Fatigue: 37]

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Regardless, he used his dash skill to run through most of the enemies surrounding him with speed they couldn't preceive. This trend continued with Kim slashing apart enemy after enemy with his Razor Tail and slowly over time dulling his blade even more whilst significantly cutting down on his kill counter.

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[Enemies remain : 231/500]

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[Fatigue: 47]

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He stood tall with sword clutched in hand doing his best to catch his breath. Wiping some sweat off his chin, finally thinking he had moment to think. It was only due to his six eyes that he was able to perceive a mass of mana barreling towards him at high speeds. Reactivating his Limitless just in time, the mass of mana broke apart as soon as it made contact with his infinity causing ruble to fly everywhere, he waved at the dust in air just enough to see a descending humanoid figure hammer fisting his infinity barrier. He quickly punched it in the gut sending it flying back into a pile of ruble.

'Ouch! That thing's tough!' he waved his hand in pain at the toughness of the monster.

He ran forward and performed a leg sweep to trip up the monster and immediately pounced with a stab to the head with his sword. 'Such relentless pressure! All these monsters aren't too far above my level, some weaker, but their sheer numbers are the problem. They also release a crazy amount of steam upon being killed draining the air of moisture, making it hard for me to breathe properly. Now there's these fast bastards to deal with,' Kim complained, glaring with his ice piercing six eyes, at what looked like human-sized rock goblin monsters jumping in to completely surround him, they were also accompanied by the lava blobs from earlier on.

"Give me a freaking break..."