The clean, approximately 800-square-foot home featured designer lighting placed among natural wood furniture, showcasing an interior that was both practical and comfortable. The basic appliances were also included as options, so there was no need to purchase them separately.
“Is the house okay?”
“It’s nice! I like it.”
“That’s a relief. If it becomes inconvenient while you’re using it, you can change to a different accommodation.”
“Okay.”
“If you look at this, you can move around freely near the Center in this area. Everything inside the area where the line is drawn is under the Center’s jurisdiction. You can go anywhere within this area.”
Team Leader Lee Juyeon took out a detailed map with the area and buildings around the Center drawn on it and explained. Looking at the map, Jiwon was surprised to see that not only the inside of the Center, but also an area roughly the size of three or four neighborhoods combined around the Center was all Center territory. It included a much wider area than he had expected.
“If you want to go beyond this area, you need to get permission to go out, so please be patient until you complete the two-week training and permission is granted. It’s for Guide Kim Jiwon’s safety. You can get things you need brought through the staff.”
After that, Team Leader Lee Juyeon kindly gave a brief explanation of what was needed for daily life and said that starting tomorrow, he should come to the 8th floor for basic training, then left.
Since Jiwon had nothing, he thought he should bring his luggage first, so he asked his mom to pack his things and contacted the person in charge whose number Team Leader Lee Juyeon had given him to have his luggage brought over.
While looking around the accommodation, he flopped down on the sofa in the living room.
I never thought I’d suddenly become independent like this…
When he asked what to do about school, they said if he wanted, they could coordinate with the school so he could complete the remaining coursework and graduate through video classes and assignment submissions, but he didn’t really want to do that.
For Jiwon, the act of having university life itself held meaning, and he wasn’t very keen on just completing the coursework remotely. Since it was mandatory for ability users to belong to the state anyway, even a diploma would be meaningless.
Late in the afternoon, a suitcase arrived through the staff.
Clothes and daily necessities he had been using were packed in without any gaps, so Jiwon thought “that’s my mom for you” as he took out and organized his luggage.
After organizing everything in the room, he lay on the bed wearing pajama tops with a white bear head and shorts.
Would he be able to do well in the profession of Guide? What would it be like living alone, separated from his family?
His head was complicated with various thoughts.
However, that was only for a moment. He couldn’t continue his thoughts due to the overwhelming fatigue.
Having collapsed the day before, then starting with tests as soon as he woke up, going around the Center, and even moving—his stamina was bound to be depleted.
Jiwon blinked his eyes a few times, couldn’t hold out, and fell asleep just like that.
* * *
Starting the next day, two weeks of training proceeded.
Jiwon, who arrived at the Center by taking the shuttle bus in front of his accommodation, headed to the lecture room on the 8th floor of Building A as previously instructed. It was a lecture room large enough to easily accommodate thirty people, but Jiwon was the only one in the lecture room.
Since the manifestation of Guides itself wasn’t a frequent occurrence, it was rare for several new Guides to attend classes together.
Just in case, Jiwon took out the notebook and writing materials he had brought and was looking around the lecture room when he made eye contact with someone opening the door and coming in. Jiwon jumped up in surprise and greeted them.
“You’re here early. You’re Guide Kim Jiwon, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Guide Bae Hyeonji, who will be in charge of new Guide training. Nice to meet you.”
Approaching and extending her right hand, Jiwon, who had never shaken hands before, awkwardly reached out his hand. Guide Bae Hyeonji nodded as if she understood Jiwon and handed him a textbook called “A Guide’s First Steps” divided into upper and lower volumes, then walked toward the platform.
When he picked up the book, it was quite heavy.
“For the next two weeks, training will proceed with theory in the morning and practical training in the afternoon. If after two weeks it’s judged that more training is needed, the period can be extended.”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s start class.”
The class that began that way was interesting.
Guide Bae Hyeonji’s words, spoken with a slightly high voice tone but clear pronunciation, went straight into his ears. Moreover, for Jiwon, who was ignorant about ability users, the basic Guide class was both unfamiliar and mysterious.
Not only classes about Guides such as guiding methods and precautions, behavioral guidelines for field Guides, but also types and side effects of Esper abilities, gates and monster encyclopedias, and more. There was more to learn than he had expected, but none of it was boring.
The practical training that proceeded in the afternoon was even more interesting.
At first, he learned methods to simply activate energy, and once he became somewhat familiar with it, he practiced releasing and containing energy.
Jiwon closed his eyes to concentrate. To move energy, he had to start by properly feeling the energy first. As he continued trying, slowly but surely he could move the internal energy according to his will.
Continuously infusing his will was harder than expected. Jiwon, who opened his eyes, let out a tired sigh.
“This is difficult.”
“But to succeed in just one day, you’re quite quick to learn. On average, moving energy according to will takes several days. At this rate, you should be able to finish training in two weeks without additional training, right?”
At Guide Bae Hyeonji’s praise, Jiwon grinned broadly.
“For the remaining time, practice handling energy a bit more, and tomorrow we’ll have a class about recovery rate.”
“Yes!”
Guide Bae Hyeonji looked at Jiwon, who closed his eyes again and concentrated, with satisfaction. Although they had only had one day of class, she was very pleased since his basic comprehension was high and his attitude toward class was good.
A few days later, next to Guide Bae Hyeonji who entered the lecture room stood an Esper who, as he had heard the day before, would help with the practical training.
It was the first time Jiwon had seen an Esper this close in real life—only having seen them on TV—so he was a bit nervous. The nearly 190cm tall height and ideally developed muscular body made him feel pressured. However, he secretly breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of them soon greeting him with gentle eyes.
The elemental-type Esper with 8 years of experience had apparently done new Guide practical training several times already, as they helped Jiwon practice comfortably.
“With your energy activated, try holding the Esper’s hand. Maintaining it without breaking is important.”
Since he was trying guiding on an actual Esper, Jiwon’s heart was pounding.
Guiding was basically classified into three methods.
First was basic guiding. This was guiding that simply made contact with an Esper while internal guiding energy was activated. It was the method most Guides used the most.
Second was emission guiding. In the form of radiating energy outward, it was possible to guide without physical contact with the Esper. Since remote guiding was possible depending on the Guide’s ability level, it was a useful method for field Guides.
The last third, direct guiding. The most difficult guiding method among the three, it was a method of moving guiding energy into the Esper’s body to directly unravel the problem’s wavelength.
For this, ki-sense that could feel the wavelength inside the Esper was essential, but Guides with that level of ki-sense were rare, and even if they could sense the Esper’s wavelength, it was impossible if they couldn’t properly handle the energy.
Jiwon learned starting from basic guiding with the Esper who had come to help with the practical training.
Even though basic guiding was the easiest, practice was needed to keep the energy from breaking. For this, he both used a lot of guiding energy and also lowered the basic output to a level where guiding barely occurred.
Jiwon, who had been concentrating on practice like that, flinched at the heterogeneous sensation he suddenly felt. It was just an instant, but Jiwon, who had definitely felt some kind of sensation, concentrated his mind once more and recalled that sensation from just before.
“Do you feel something?”
“Um… I feel some kind of energy moving in a wide space.”
The movement of energy branching out in multiple streams in a space like the deep sea was drawn like a picture. Jiwon soon realized that it was the Esper’s wavelength.
A calm wavelength like gentle ripples.
An irregular wavelength that kept transforming.
A wavelength that rotated and swallowed other wavelengths around it to grow in size.
They were clearly the same energy, but the form and scale of their movements were so varied that it was difficult to examine them all.
Jiwon carefully observed these mysterious wavelengths. And he could roughly understand in what reaction order these wavelengths moved. He wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t directly felt the Esper’s internal state.
At the fact that Jiwon could sense inside the Esper, training instructor Guide Bae Hyeonji was greatly surprised. She seized the opportunity and taught direct guiding.
Guide Bae Hyeonji, who had comforted Jiwon when he seemed to struggle and became teary-eyed, saying that’s how it originally was and that practice would help, was unable to contain her astonishment a little later when she confirmed that he succeeded at direct guiding far too easily.
“Oh my goodness… Guide Kim Jiwon, your ki-sense is quite good. This is the first time I’ve seen a case like this. To immediately succeed at direct guiding.”
A Guide’s ki-sense was possible through effort, but what one was born with was a large part of it. So even Guides with long years of experience often couldn’t do direct guiding. Yet a new Guide who had just manifested and started training had succeeded right away.
