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"The Best Swordsman" redirects here. For other uses of this name, see The Best Swordsman (Disambiguation).
Master Swordsman" redirects here. For other uses of this name, see Master Swordsman (Disambiguation).

Even if I can't go with you to the end, I'll pave the way that will take you to the end.
 ― The Best Swordsman[source]

Lee Ji-Hoon, known as The Best Swordsman[16] in Lucid Adventure, was a full time Lucid Adventure player. He was the Guild Master of Grass Roots Guild and he Ranked No.4 under the Lucid Ball Ranking System before his deletion from the game.

Four years ago during his time in Zara Guild, he was the vice guild master of Zara Guild and was ranked No.3 under Giga's Ranking System,[17] but he eventually lost his ranking sometime after his defeat to Hardcore Leveling Warrior.[18][19] After Zara Guild disbanded, he formed the Grass Roots Guild and planned to complete the Absolute Quest to honour Armes' memory. Despite losing his 3rd place ranking, he was still one of the top rankers in the game. He was a Great Swordsman in Season 1 and one of the strongest characters in the game.

Post time-skip, The Best Swordsman became even stronger. He completed his 5th job advancement to become a Master Swordsman. By the start of The Great War, he was confirmed to be ranked no.4 under the Lucid Ball Ranking System. Along with the Grass Roots Guild, The Best Swordsman joined up with Dark's Party to find the missing Hardcore Leveling Warrior. After his battle with Ruud Ra Kan, The Best Swordsman's body sustained irreparable damage that left his right eye damaged and his body unable to regenerate mana. He persevered and journeyed to the Demon World with his party to find Hardcore Leveling Warrior.

The Best Swordsman eventually found Hardcore Leveling Warrior, but Hardcore Leveling Warrior was now a both a Nightmare and a Demon King with altered memories. In order to buy time for the Primordial Dragons to be teleported to the Demon World, The Best Swordsman sacrificed himself and held off Hardcore Leveling Warrior for a short time.[20] He managed to hold off Hardcore Leveling Warrior long enough for the Dragons to be teleported. He was killed by Hardcore Leveling Warrior, meaning that his character was permanently deleted from the game and his memories of ever playing Lucid Adventure were erased.[10]

Appearance

Main article: The Best Swordsman/Gallery

Real World

Lee Ji-Hoon is a brown haired adult male in his 30s. At home, he was shown wearing white sando shirt and gray shorts. Outside, he was wearing a blue collar shirt and dark gray pants.

Lucid Adventure

The Best Swordsman had the appearance of a classic senior samurai, he had grey hair and light facial hair.

When the Best Swordsman was level 40, he wore a red shirt with pale red arm sleeves underneath his black sleeveless armor. He wore a clothe around his waist armor, his sword was sheathed on his left side and he had black leg armor. His hair gelled all the way back with only curl of hair shown at the front.

When he was Rank 3 and the Vice Guild master of the Zara Guild, he still had the same hairstyle but he changed his attire again, his armor were colors of bright red and light brown, he wore a breastplate, pauldrons, gauntlets, waist armor and boots. He wore a long sleeved black attire underneath with black bandages covering his midsection. He had later changed his haircut to that of a samurai cut.

Two years later, his hair no longer styled a samurai cut and had a plain, relaxed hairstyle. His attire changed once again, he wore sleeveless black armor with fish scaled vest armor with fur on the collar underneath and black long sleeved shirt underneath it all. He wore black pants with wrappings around his left thigh, black leather hero belt wrapped in green clothe around his midsection. He wore black gloves and boots with white markings. The Best Swordsman wore a helmet very similar to that of the helmet of his person type, Yi Sun-Shin.

Personality

The Best Swordsman in his thinking pose (Episode 52)

The Best Swordsman pondering

The Best Swordsman is an extremely laid-back man, kind and easy-going person who has great interest and utter faith in his teammates and their development. He is a big proponent of team work and always wants his fellow teammates to succeed. This attitude extends to his allies as he is more than happy to help an ally in need. Even in extremely tense situations, he manages to retain his composure almost all the time. He rarely bad mouths other people and that even includes people he is at odds with. His personality has led to him acting as a mentor of sorts to multiple characters in the series. He tends to analyse the situation at hand before rushing to conclusion and a lot of the time does not aggressively pick a position. Such is his neutrality that he agreed to let Brand New Alibag, a red player go, if she managed to defeat Sora three times.

He is against manipulating and forcing people to join his cause as he wanted Hardcore Leveling Warrior to join Zara Guild on his own violation and was against using the 'The Bet' to coerce Hardcore Leveling Warrior.[9] He is willing to withhold information that he feels could hurt another person as shown when he didn't tell Hardcore Leveling Warrior that Armes died in the real world.[21]

Whenever The Best Swordsman is in deep thought he tends to cup his chin with the thumb and index finger of his left hand.[9] He is not one to scream and shout about things and tends to silently ponder over the situation or an observation he has made.[8]

The Best Swordsman does have a goofy side to him which leads to him being mocked by those close to him. He has a problem with dating women. He is over 30 and has never had a real girlfriend which often leads to comic relief mostly at his own expense. Physical contact with women is dangerous for him.[22] Whenever his hands or wrists are held by a woman, his face becomes flush which can lead to an embarrassing situation for him such as tripping over himself.[22] He even goes on the internet to make post about looking for a girlfriend. He is always looking out to meet women and even tried to get Constant to introduce him to Constant's sister. He also wanted Sora to introduce him to a few of her girlfriends in order to go on a blind date.[22]

He is always on the look out for new recruits, to be more specific, female recruits. He acts like a buffoon which leads to his teammates and people around thinking he is fool and almost always leads to him not recruiting anyone. Because of his transparent, female users never want to join the guild and when they do manage to get to Grass Roots Guild's base, The Best Swordsman scares them away with his awkward behaviour. It is due to this behaviour Grass Roots struggled to recruit a new member for the PvP Round.

The Best Swordsman is always trying to promote his Guild when he can and even took a chance to advertise the guild during the PvP Round.

Quotes

By The Best Swordsman

  • (To Choco Bibi): "There should be a home for him [Hardcore Leveling Warrior] to return to after he's done wandering. I'm going to start a new guild"[2]
  • (To Dark's Party and his Guild Members): "Even if I can't go with you to the end, I'll pave the way that will take you to the end."[23]
  • (To Dark): "There are times in life when losing is inevitable. If you're bound to lose, then you can lose well! Then there will be a next time."[2]
  • (To the Giga Affiliated Punk): "You can hit me all you want! I can take it! But...You can't mess with our guild members. I just can't take that."[15]
  • (Monologue): "Life doesn't always go the way you think it will. A life that I did not dream of. Sometimes you just want to run away from such a life. Paradise does not exist no matter where you run away to. Some have said so. But those who run away can meet up and comfort each other in places other than paradise."[10]
  • (Thoughts to Hardcore Leveling Warrior): "If you've suffered as much as you did, wouldn't it be okay for you to find a little happiness? Hardcore Leveler-Ah, hurry up and go back to your friends....!"[10]

To The Best Swordsman

  • (By Hardcore Leveling Warrior): "You said you would fight me if I brought you the enemy guild master's head, right? The Best hyung"[24]
  • (By Armes): "Maybe, just maybe...if I don't log in anymore...oppa, please take care of the guild members for me. For this burden, I'm sorry. But, oppa you're the strongest ".[25]

About The Best Swordsman

  • (By Hardcore Leveling Warrior): "Tch!! What an annoying guy...! Are you saying that even against the Treasured Sword of the Knights, he can't be beaten?! Damn it!"[2]

Major Battles

Other Appearances

Video Games

Playable Appearances

Translation Notes

Errors

Main article: Line Webtoon Translation Issues

Game Name

지존검사 is translated as "Master Swordsman" by LINE Webtoon. The correct translation is "The Best Swordsman". The reasons for this are as follows:
지존至尊 (Jijon) means “the best”, but it's a generally outdated term so it's not used regularly amongst Koreans. 검사劍師 (Geomsa) simply means "Swordsman". Therefore, a more accurate translation would be "The Best Swordsman".
"Master" in Korean is ‘마스터’ as in "Sword Master" (소드마스터) and "Master Blacksmith" (마스터 대장장이).

In fact, Hatigarm Scans translated ‘지존검사’ as "Awesome Gamer".

Honorifics

Notes

Real World Name

The Best Swordsman's name is 이지훈, can be romanized as either Lee Ji-Hoon or Lee Jihun. Jihun, the romanization that LINE Webtoon uses, is less common.

His surname, 이, can be romanized as either Yi or Lee. Though the official Revised Romanization spelling of this surname is I, South Korea's National Institute of the Korean Language noted in 2001 that one-letter surnames were quite rare in English and other foreign languages and could cause difficulties when traveling abroad. However, the NIKL still hoped to promote systemic transcriptions for use in passports, and thus recommended that people who bore this surname should spell it Yi in the Roman alphabet.[26]

However, the majority of South Koreans with this surname continue to spell it as Lee, because conditions for changing passport name is strict.  In a study based on 2007 application data for South Korean passports, it was found that 98.5% of people with this surname spelled it in Latin letters as Lee in their passports, while only 1.0% spelled it Yi.[26]

A few people with this surname historically spelled it Ye, as in Ye Wanyong of the Korean Empire. Rhee has also been used, as in Syngman Rhee and Simon Hang-bock Rhee.[26]

International Translations

Name Platform Language
Real Name Game

Name

至尊劍士 (Zhìzūn jiàn shì) LINE Webtoon (Taiwanese) Traditional Chinese
Master Swordsman LINE Webtoon (English) English
Maître Epéiste LINE Webtoon (French) French
ソードマスター(Sōdomasutā) LINE Manga Japanese


Notes & Trivia

  • The character's name is a play on a popular South Korean gaming meme. 지존 (至尊) in older times used to be used as an honorific title for kings in the past so it would translate roughly into "the most revered; the most respected". More recently, it is often used in Chinese martial arts novels to refer to 高手 ( "expert; ace; master"), of which the Korean form is Gosu (고수) (literal: (rare) A person of great skill; master; expert). In South Korea, "The Best" (지존至尊, Jijon) was used in the 2000s as one of another words synonymous with "Gosu" ("the best" or "highly skilled person") among online game users, and the people gave their game characters the name The Best XX (e.g "The Best Warrior", "The Best Archer", "The Best Mage", "The Best Sorcerer" etc). After the 2010s, the frequency of that word use withered, and entering it into the character's name began to be seen clumsy and cheap naming so it became a meme.
  • Kim Sehoon revealed the following information about The Best Swordsman in a Tweet made on 19th of July, 2019:[14]
    • His real name is "이지훈" (English: Lee Ji-Hoon).[14]
    • 전직전기설비기사 루어벤 때문에지금은 관둠(백수) (English: A former Electrical Power Systems Engineer that quit his job because of Lucid Adventure (unemployed))[14]
    • The Best Swordsman's real world name was revealed in Season 2 Episode 105 and his occupation was confirmed to be an Electrical power Systems Engineer in the webtoon in the same episode as he was seen working on a utility pole.
  • The Best Swordsman's personal attribute was not revealed from the start, but Korean fans speculated that it is was Admiral Yi Sun-shin. This is due to his water affinity attacks and colour scheme of his armour. His admiral attire in Season 2 further confirmed fans suspicions. The Best Swordsman spoke about his own Conceptual Magic in Season 1 and fans have speculated that it is Yi Sun-Shin's Turtle Ship, which is similar to how Armes creates Christopher Columbus' Santa Maria. In Season 2 Episode 9, The Best Swordsman's admiral attire in further confirmed fans suspicions. Some fans speculated that his personal attribute could have been Won Gyun, Eulji Mundeok or Sanada Yukimura. It was finally confirmed in Season 2 Episode 48 to be indeed Chungmugong, Yi Sun-Shin, which delighted the Korean fans. More information on Yi Sun-Shin on this wiki can be found here.
  • The Best Swordsman shares the same last name as his personal attribute Yi Sun-Shin. Both have the surnames "이" which can be romanised as either "Lee" or "Yi". For this wiki we have chosen Lee for The Best Swordsman's Surname as the author has not revealed the romanized version. Yi can also be used.
  • In Episode 54, The Best Swordsman said "I have a bad feeling about this" after getting Nightmarized. This may have been a homage to the famous Star Wars phrase of the same name.
  • The Best Swordsman's issues with woman have been used as comic relief on the show. In Episode 94, a thread titled "where are the female guilds? I want a girlfriend" could be seen on dcinside.com's on Lucid Gallery.
  • In Episode 91, The Best Swordsman says that Moonlight Slash isn't teachable to Sora. Yet in ???
  • There seems to be some confusion as to The Best Swordsman's ranker status after he lost to Hardcore Leveling Warrior. The Best Swordsman was still a ranker but is presumed to be a non-ranker in Season 1 because of' LINE Webtoon's poor translation. Coma said this to The Best Swordsman in Episode 172, "...요새 랭커질 안하더니, 감 다 죽었나보네요"; this is translated by LINE Webtoon as "...after all those years of being unranked, you must've lost your touch"; The correct translation is "You haven't been doing the acts of a ranker lately, so I guess you weren't weren't ready for that". Further confirmation that The Best Swordsman was still a ranker as Tempest further confirms The Best Swordsman's ranker status as he talked about conceptual magic in Episode 154. Open Your Mouth, Here Comes the Healing confirmed The Best Swordsman was a ranker in Episode 173 as she referred to both Coma and The Best Swordsman as "These rankers...".
  • During Dark's fight with Nightmare The Best Swordsman, it is implied by Dark that he fought The Best Swordsman during the two year time-skip, claiming that The Best Swordsman put up more of a fight than his Nightmare Counterpart.[27]
  • The Best Swordsman is currently the 3rd known active 'Master' in the series. The other two are Light and Hephai who are Master Wizard and Master Blacksmiths respectively.
  • The Best Swordsman may like beer in Lucid Adventure. He was seen drinking it at the Dwarf Inn and also asked Hardcore Leveling Warrior to get some beer after the Subjugation Round.[7][9]
  • The author revealed on the official Hardcore Leveling Warrior instagram page that The Best Swordsman's birthday is August 30.[12]
  • In the real world, he was an medal winning Kendoka but had to stop due to an injury.[15]

References

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