The Black Serpent (5)
With that, I immediately pulled in my will as soon as I realized she had reached Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown.
At the same time, interest sparked in Hong Su-ryeong’s eyes.
The discomfort from moments ago had vanished as if washed away.
“Hmmm… you.”
Hong Su-ryeong stared at me with eyes full of intrigue for a short while, then suddenly took a step forward.
With her, the image of her arm surging toward me and piercing through my heart flashed in my mind.
But in that image, I split her body in half and killed her.
Startled, Hong Su-ryeong flinched, but a smile rose at the corner of her lips.
“I see. So you were never an ordinary person to begin with—you were a martial artist.”
“That’s accurate.”
“Good. What was your weapon?”
“Sword.”
“Sword! Hahaha!”
She didn’t hide her joy-filled will.
“It’s the perfect conditions for becoming a Sword Cultivator!”
With a breath, several glowing spheres of light burst from her golden core and surrounded her.
Sixteen golden swords!
“I am also a Sword Cultivator! Do you happen to have any insight into sword techniques?”
‘Yes.’
I could immediately tell what kind of being she was.
Just like the previous Wall Door Beast, she was a Sword Cultivator who mainly controlled swords.
“I’ll lend you a formation array. Let’s spar. Instead of a sparring partner, I’ll also act as your mentor.”
But I chuckled.
‘Act as my mentor?’
Holding a sword? Right in front of me? How bold.
My gaze drifted to the small table inside my inner dantian.
Then, without hesitation, I quickly swung my hand and severed one of the table legs, holding it in my palm.
“If it’s only sparring with sword techniques, this should be more than enough.”
“Hahaha, crazy guy. Well, don’t hold it against me if you get beaten up.”
Crack! Crackle!
Her sword energy surged with lightning, shooting out golden light.
Boom!
Her sword came charging at me at blinding speed.
I gripped the table leg, spun once, deflected her sword smoothly, and hurled it back at her.
But behind, in front, above, and below, I felt presences.
Simultaneously, a ‘picture’ formed in my mind.
A sword silently killing presences and stabbing my neck from the lower-right diagonal.
I twisted my body mid-stride, bending my waist to dodge.
Before I could, the sword that had flown in from the blind spot of my vision grazed past where my head had been.
And using the gap I created by twisting, the swords rushing from all four directions pierced toward me.
Spin—
I planted one foot on the ground and spun without pause, swinging my sword.
Buzz—
With qi infused into the table leg, I swept aside all of her sword energy with Heavenly Person realm sword arts, then charged toward Hong Su-ryeong’s blind spot with the spinning force.
Afterward, I raised and slashed my sword from below. Hong Su-ryeong caught it with a joyful face and swung it back.
Chiiing!
Crack!
The shockwave spread in all directions, and the table leg bent as if about to shatter.
“What the heck are you?! You’re really amazing! You’re not just a martial artist at Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown! Are you a Five Qi Consorting with the Origin that appears only once in a few hundred years?! Your fight makes my heart pound more than any of those monks I’ve killed!”
Kugugu!
Hong Su-ryeong’s Heavenly Person strength pushed my body straight into the ground.
‘The foundation of my eastern side can’t hold.’
My body dispersed her power completely with no damage, but the surrounding terrain and objects had to endure the scattered force.
‘If I used even a little of the life force from the You Water Gongfa, the realm of Deungbongjogeuk, or the power of the Invisible Sword, I could win…’
I looked at her and assessed her level.
We had only clashed swords, yet several ‘pictures’ formed in my mind.
Every time she pressed me, she would impale my table leg’s head.
Clearly I was losing now, but the futures our wills exchanged showed her defeating me, skewering my entire body on the table leg every single time.
“Haa…”
Laughing with her mouth split wide, Hong Su-ryeong began pumping power into her sword art.
And through our will exchange, I realized something and was startled.
‘Wait, this isn’t Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown!?’
This was…
After I had spun countless ‘pictures’ in my mind and confirmed her defeat countless times.
One out of those countless times!
A single picture of her and I dying together.
Given our martial comprehension, that should have been impossible.
At Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown, my world that had reached the pinnacle of Answer Heaven simply couldn’t fight.
But if it were a higher realm than Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown, it was possible.
‘Five Qi Consorting with the Origin!’
Crack!
She kicked my chest with lightning speed and sent me flying into the wall on the eastern side.
I was slammed into the wall, and spiderweb-like cracks raced across it.
“In the end, you chose to use the Water Method to counter. You didn’t have the confidence to win, did you?”
“What do you mean. The Water Method is my power too. If you don’t like it, become a Heavenly Person yourself.”
“….”
Hong Su-ryeong retrieved her sword arts with a satisfied smile.
“Originally I was going to capture you and use sword arts to burn you, but what kind of technique is that? It didn’t feel like the Water Method at all.”
Uuuuuung!
Hong Su-ryeong floated in my inner dantian, looking at the still-unretrieved swords and asking.
I recovered my will infused into her swords and returned them.
“It’s the Sword Control Art.”
“Ho, interesting.”
She retrieved the swords she had been bound by my will moments ago.
Until moments ago, her swords had been completely under my control.
If I had willed it, I could have used her controlled swords to attack her instead.
That was why, after exchanging wills ten thousand times, she lost every single time.
But I remembered that one out of ten thousand times where she had died together with me.
‘My Sword Control Art had momentarily unlocked.’
In that instant, her sword arts targeted me and split Hong Su-ryeong in half, then tried to respond—but one sword was missed and I died too.
‘Of course, that assumed I hadn’t used the You Water Gongfa…’
She probably wouldn’t have used the Water Method properly either, so it was meaningless.
“Anyway, you reached at least Five Qi Consorting with the Origin. Then, if you’ve reached Five Qi Consorting with the Origin, did you achieve Hwan-gol-tal-tae?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Then… it must be a Nascent Soul and Five Elements Spiritual Root…”
She looked at me with intrigued eyes.
“As expected, even if I forced it, I’m glad I made you my sparring partner. You’re the first interesting person I’ve met!”
“….”
I flinched at the mad, glittering look in her eyes as she stared at me.
“…I heard you conducted human experiments. Are you going to experiment on me too?”
“It’s interesting, but meaningless.”
“Huh?”
“Do you know why I started human experiments?”
“…No idea.”
Hong Su-ryeong formed a seal toward a spot in her inner dantian.
Then, tree branches sprouted and formed a chair.
She sat on the chair and began speaking.
“Sword. Since I entered the path of the Water Method, I became fascinated with sword arts. I steadily researched sword arts and the Water Method. One day, I got to observe a martial world that the Water Method people treated like bugs.”
Her eyes sparkled as she said.
“It was shocking! I had never seen anyone so passionately and meticulously fight with a sword, desperately opposing the strong as the weak! And I understood! In the Water Method world, those who boasted ‘I’m a Sword Cultivator’ while just shooting swords were all idiots!”
“….”
“People who had never held a sword and swung it with their own hands called themselves Sword Cultivators while just shooting swords! There’s nothing more ridiculous than that!”
Her words were rough, but I understood them deep down, so I quietly listened to her.
“From that day, I started learning martial skills. More than inner energy arts, I focused on sword arts, but just swinging the sword with my own hands was electrifying! After fighting and fighting like that, one day I understood the will, reached Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown where you see the colors of will, and then reached the extreme, Five Qi Consorting with the Origin!”
“…Did your senior also achieve Hwan-gol-tal-tae?”
I asked just in case.
She nodded with a chuckle.
“Correct. But I only reached Five Qi Consorting with the Origin at the Nascent Soul stage, so I wasn’t particularly bothered by the lack of a Five Elements Spiritual Root.”
‘Somehow…’
I sensed her body and nodded.
Her body felt remarkably balanced.
If it wasn’t from Hwan-gol-tal-tae or the You Water Gongfa, such a body didn’t make sense.
“Well, anyway… once I reached Five Qi Consorting with the Origin, a thought suddenly came to me.”
“What thought?”
“Changing the body with human will to achieve Hwan-gol-tal-tae, then adding Five Qi Consorting with the Origin to those without a Spiritual Root. If that’s the case, isn’t it possible for a person’s ‘constitution’ to change depending on their will and effort?”
Crack! Crackle!
She clenched her fist and lightning crackled around her.
“Then, saying that the legendary Heavenly Thunder Physique of the Ancestors is too mythical, if we accept that, isn’t it possible to ‘reproduce’ Heavenly Person level through human effort? That thought came to me. So I started human experiments on the sparring partners that attached themselves to me.”
“….”
“Ah, don’t worry. The ones I experimented on all ended up either disabled or bad endings, but they all became stronger than before. Hahaha…”
‘So that crazy thing wasn’t suppressed in the Golden Heavenly Thunder Sect.’
Because the sparring partners she fled from had become stronger and the sect’s strength had increased regardless, experiments against sparring partners were apparently forgiven.
“Well, anyway… that’s a separate issue, but since you were born with a Nascent Soul and reached the peak of martial arts to grasp Five Qi Consorting with the Origin, I have no reason to modify or experiment on you. You are exactly what I’ve been striving to reproduce.”
“Is that so.”
I nodded.
‘Changing constitution depending on human will and effort…’
This research had started from a very interesting viewpoint.
“Then, Senior, do you think the same way about ‘talent’ as well?”
“Talent?”
“Yes. The overall talent for Water Method, or overall martial talent, etc. Do you think that can also change?”
“Ah, talent. I did research on that, sure.”
She nodded and continued.
“And through my own research, I concluded that the concept of ‘talent’ does not exist in this world.”
‘Talent does not exist?’
I found that view interesting since I had never thought of it.
“Why do you say talent does not exist?”
I asked, as someone who had watched Kim Young-hoon’s talent, Cheongmun Ryeong, and Goe-gun up close.
And the next moment, the name that came from her lips made me startled.
“You… do you know the name Cheongmun Ryeong of the Byeokra Kingdom?”
“Huh?”
Suddenly mentioning that name here?
I nodded.
“Yes, I’ve heard of him. I have some connections with the Cheongmun Clan.”
“Good, then you probably know his alias too.”
“…Huh?”
I was startled by the mention of his alias.
‘Does Cheongmun Ryeong even have an alias?’
I cautiously said.
“I only know he was called one of the Three Great Core Formation Experts.”
“Eh? What’s that?”
“Huh?”
But rather, Hong Su-ryeong looked as if she had never heard such words before.
“Ah, I see. I’ve also heard that those below Core Formation are called that way. A Water Method who produces Core Formation level power despite being at Foundation Establishment…”
“But from the late Core Formation through Heavenly Person, among high-level Water Methods, there was a separate alias for Cheongmun Ryeong.”
‘Ah, if it was an alias drifting among high-level Water Methods, I might not have known.’
Because I had met Cheongmun Ryeong after he had already been taken by those above Nascent Soul.
“Among Water Methods, Cheongmun Ryeong was called Huangshe, meaning ‘Yellow Snake’—‘the yellow snake’—in the meaning of ‘a wise man without talent.’”
“Yellow snake… you mean?”
“Yes. Since ancient times, ‘snake’ symbolized the animal of ‘wisdom.’ And with Tian Di Xuan Huang, ‘heaven’ is black, ‘earth’ is yellow, as known. Among high-level Water Methods, that fellow was called ‘Yellow Snake’ in the meaning of ‘talent has fallen to the earth.’”
‘Yellow Snake…’
I thought as I listened to her words.
‘Then, conversely, is a genius called the Black Snake?’
I asked her the question.
She shook her head.
“Um, are you asking about Heisha?”
She crossed her arms and explained.
“I don’t know much about Heisha either. The idea that snakes symbolize ‘wisdom’ is a legend passed down secretly among the Water Method snake yao beasts…”
“Ah, from what I roughly heard, among snakes, Heisha means auspicious omen rather than meaning a genius among the snakes.”
‘Heisha means auspicious omen…’
Just like when I used the Sazoku Gongfa last time.
Among snakes, ‘Black Snake’ seemed to mean auspicious or fortunate existence.
‘Tian Di Xuan Huang. Heaven is black, earth is yellow… if the snake symbolizes wisdom, does the Black Snake symbolize the wisdom of heaven?’
Heaven is Ming.
Perhaps among the snake yao beasts, a Black Snake who had reached the rank of Ming and become a True Immortal was possible.
“Well, anyway. The reason I brought up Cheongmun Ryeong…”
Crackle!
Hong Su-ryeong pulled out the sixteen golden sword arrays again.
Eight swords pointed in all eight directions, and another eight outside them also pointed in all eight directions.
“Inner Hexagram, Outer Hexagram.”
Suddenly, seals of the Eight Trigrams appeared on the swords, and the inner and outer swords began rotating in opposite directions.
Uuuuuung!
The swords exchanged the power of the Eight Trigrams and created countless variations.
The total number of variations was sixty-six.
And as my eyes precisely followed the flow of the changes, Hong Su-ryeong looked startled and said.
“Ho, you grasped the changes at once? How many variations did you see?”
“I…”
“Don’t hide. I’ve tested this on several people, and just from your eyes, I can tell how many variations you saw.”
I was about to say it reduced, but decided to say exactly what I saw.
‘Anyway, even if I hide my will, she’d know I can hide it… no lies like that would work…’
“…Sixty-six. The Inner and Outer Hexagrams combined make sixty-four variations, plus the yin-yang flow at the top and bottom, totaling sixty-six.”
“As expected… no one else besides Cheongmun Ryeong has grasped the variations at once… but you…”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You really reached Foundation Establishment Six Layers with Forerunner and Forerunner at the same time, didn’t you?”
I let out an internal sigh.
“This has nothing to do with talent or realm. What matters more is how much effort you poured into basic arts through the Forerunner and Forerunner method…”
The first day I met Hong Su-ryeong.
“You, are you really in your twenties? Not a strange old man infiltrating our sect?”
She had swiftly come close to the secret of my ‘talent.’