The First Day of the Sixth Loop
Swish!
“Hoo-ak!”
I took a sharp breath and opened my eyes.
Alive.
And the familiar scent of mountain air.
I had regressed once more.
“Senior Seo….”
“Hmm, stay quiet for a moment.”
Slash!
Before Jeon Myeong-hoon could even finish speaking, I swiftly pressed my sleeping vein.
I simultaneously covered the sleeping veins of Kim Young-hoon, Oh Hyun-seok, Kang Min-hee, Oh Hye-seo, and Kim Yeon.
Thud, thud, thud!
All six of them, aside from me, had fallen asleep as they were and collapsed.
I scanned my surroundings and quickly dug up sleeping herbs.
After that, I skillfully squeezed the juice and poured it into their mouths one by one.
They would remain unconscious for the next four zhen.
“...It feels a little stiff.”
Perhaps because I was forcing my qi and blood to rise with a body devoid of any qi, my limbs felt slightly stiff.
I wandered around and quickly pulled up wild ginseng.
I placed it in my mouth and swallowed.
Cli-ck, cli-ck—
A few bits of dirt lodged in my mouth, but I could endure that.
After chewing and swallowing the wild ginseng, I felt a hot surge of energy rising from my stomach.
I sat in place and began inner energy circulation.
I first anchored the dragon vein qi in the main meridians.
How many times had I done the grand circulation while sitting?
“Hoo...”
I could tell that the fatigue in my body had completely dissipated.
“The framework is set. Shall I try it properly now...?”
The end of my previous life.
During that time, as I fought against Makri Hwang-shin, my disciples guided me to a new realm.
“Hoo-woo...”
After taking a deep breath, I rose from my seat and recalled the memories of that final moment.
Then I assumed the stance for grasping the Danak Sword Art.
Kim Young-hoon had formed a lotus posture and attained enlightenment, but for me, grasping the qi formula felt more comfortable.
Whoosh—
With hands that gripped nothing, I relived the memories and sensations from that time.
Joy, Rage, Sorrow, Pleasure, Love, Evil, Desire...
The seven fundamental intent.
Based on these, the colors of the entire spectrum filled the heavens and earth.
They were all monstrous intents that emanated from me alone.
“Merge them.”
Even though they looked numerous, there was ultimately only one subject.
All of them originally extended from a single color.
The colors of the entire spectrum intertwined and merged.
And they became a complete colorless void that seeped into the air.
The infinite changes of the colors reached their limit and transformed into what was nothing at all—Emptiness.
Thus, my intent evolved into a form of consciousness and infiltrated the surrounding space.
“Enter.”
Even with my eyes completely closed, every piece of information about the surrounding space flooded my mind.
It was not merely reading intent.
I integrated all intent and sensed the world itself!
The six colleagues who were sleeping with colored eyes.
The scents of the grass.
The tiny insects crawling beneath the ground.
The warm sunlight shining down.
The small leaves trembling in the wind.
All information entered as if it were held in the palm of my hand.
And I awakened a new sensation I had never felt before.
It was not merely the flow of intent.
The flow of the world.
The flow of the heavens and earth that drive the very existence of the universe!
Heavenly Spirit Qi!
“This is... spirit qi...”
Heavenly spirit qi exists in all things under heaven.
Though there was no intent like humans, each possessed its own qi.
Each qi naturally flowed in accordance with the operation of the matter.
I recognized the flow of qi in the tiny ants crawling beneath the ground and solved one of the questions I had long been curious about.
Intent belongs only to the living.
That is why ghosts cannot use sword qi.
Yet I was able to sense intent from the ghosts.
“It wasn’t human intent.”
I had simply read the qi flow that flowed naturally through the ghosts.
Uwooong—
While recognizing the flow of countless heavenly spirit qi.
I realized something was wrong.
“My head... it hurts.”
It felt as if it would burst.
It was not mere metaphor.
Right now, in real time, my head was gradually swelling.
I had felt a similar sensation a very long time ago.
When I was transitioning from first class to peak.
Back then, I imitated the world of intent seen by peak martial artists all day!
When my brain was overloaded back then, I had briefly felt a similar sensation.
“My brain is overloaded!”
With overwhelming information, it was on the verge of exploding at any moment.
Not metaphor, but in reality, my dantian was absorbing the qi around me little by little, and my head was actually swelling.
“Right, it was like that back then too.”
At the end of my previous life, upon thinking about it, it was not greatly different.
Back then, I had simply not been bothered by the pain felt throughout my body and the ringing in my head.
When I acquired an awareness like that of a master, this was what happened.
“And back then...”
While holding back the enlightenment of my previous life, I began to act in the same way as I had then.
I slowly observed my own body.
The balance of the three dantians was twisted and out of sync.
The upper dantian had become overly enlarged, and it was still growing gradually in real time.
If left like this, my head would not endure the growth of the upper dantian and would explode.
“Evolve my body!”
Heavenly spirit qi possessed the essence of harmonizing all things under heaven.
That is why, toward me who was naturally complaining of extreme imbalance, the heavenly spirit qi began to seep in.
The most fundamental of the heavenly spirit qi, the origin of the operation of all qi under heaven—
Five Elements Spirit Qi!
Five strands of qi gathered toward my upper dantian and condensed at the top of it.
Eventually, the five elements spirit qi disintegrated and intertwined into one, beginning to seep into my body through my nose and mouth.
“Hoo-woo...”
The five spirit qi that form the foundation for balancing all things under heaven had seeped into my entire body.
And instinctively, I realized what I had to do.
“Evolve my body!”
Based on these five strands of spirit qi, my body had to be completely remodeled so that it could withstand the growth of this upper dantian!
And only then did I truly understand what body reconstruction was.
Previously, I had simply thought that spirit qi seeping into the body would appropriately evolve it.
It was wrong.
Spirit qi does not evolve the body.
It is merely material to be used for remodeling it.
The subject of body reconstruction was ultimately myself.
“I, myself!”
Crack, crri-ck!
“I must adjust the balance of my body!”
With will, I pulled out the bones and reforged them.
I pulled on the meridians this way and that, flowing them once more through optimized routes.
Although the five elements spirit qi did not aid, it taught me how reforging the bones again was the “correct” path.
Combined with my medicinal knowledge as a doctor, I was able to remodel my body quite easily.
The bones were rearranged and the skin peeled off.
Useless fat was all pushed out, and toxic gases such as nicotine and cholesterol that had seeped into the blood vessels were expelled.
The bones throughout my body were remodeled into a body optimized to receive the flow of heaven and earth.
The supreme body for training martial arts.
The meridians widened, the bones became even stronger, and my dantian expanded much more.
At the same time, every minute blood vessel throughout my body opened wide, pulling in heavenly spirit qi bit by bit.
I could survive with pure skin breathing alone without breathing through my nose.
I was no longer an ordinary human—I was essentially a completely new species.
Swish!
When I opened my eyes, it seemed that positive light was flowing from them.
“Hoo...”
With hands that gripped nothing, I unfolded the qi formula and launched the Great Yue of the Danak Sword Art.
A tiny dew drop clinging to the tip of the grass at my feet shot up from my qi formula.
With my movement, the dew drop was flung even higher into the air, and in my eyes, each trajectory of that dew drop was clearly visible.
And I could see a single person reflected in that dew drop.
Clean skin with not a single blemish, a face that was not particularly handsome but had no extra fat.
And although not many, a face that had aged considerably.
My appearance after body reconstruction and body rejuvenation—Ronglao Huantong—was reflected in the dew drop.
Shuak!
I slashed the air with my hand, and the dew drop that had been flung into the air by the sharp momentum split in two.
Continuously unfolding sword techniques.
The flow of qi floating between heaven and earth.
I infused my intent into that flow itself and added inner energy.
Uwooong—
Strong qi began to condense in the empty air.
I could now use the very “flow” of the air as a weapon!
Ka-wak!
I grabbed the condensed strong qi in the air and used the initial to twentieth stances of the Danak Sword Art again.
And I decided to do what I had always wanted to do once.
Taat!
Unfolding the Mountain Jun Yue of the Sword, I leaped to the highest tree nearby.
Instantly I reached the top of the tree and stamped my foot on a branch there once more.
I could see it.
Inside the newly acquired knowledge.
Inside the newly acquired sensory perception of my new body.
Infinite wind threads flowing through the sky.
The flows of heavenly spirit qi flowing between the winds.
“Is this how it’s done.”
In my mind, it naturally occurred to me where I could “step”.
I stepped on the flow of the wind itself—the result of the heavenly spirit qi—with optimized movements, without any waste.
Paang!
My foot struck the air.
Void Step!
Although I was not yet familiar with it, my inner energy was consumed quite a bit, but I felt a tingling pleasure piercing through my entire body as I continued to step on the air.
Paang, paang, paang!
As I stepped on the air, I continuously soared into the sky.
Higher and higher.
Farther and farther!
Gradually the ground became a distant haze, and the sky drew closer.
I moved my feet even faster, stepping on the flow of the air and charging toward the sky.
At some point.
Pu-ak!
I pierced through the clouds flowing in the sky and found myself above them.
“Ha, haha... hahaha...”
Shaking off the water droplets clinging to my entire body, I stood beneath a sea of white clouds and laughed.
Finally, I had reached it.
The realm I had yearned for and yearned for.
The minimum realm I had aimed for.
For some reason, I felt tears welling in my eyes.
The tears mixed with the water droplets that had soaked from the clouds and began to fall below the sky.
“...Thank you.”
I said to my disciples from my previous life, to disciples on the other side of time that I could never see again.
“You were able to reach it because of you.”
I had raised you with my heart.
Now, I would never be able to see you again.
The me who had returned to the past was not the disciples I had raised.
Since I could never see you again, the only thing I could do was to pour my heart into gratitude.
Thank you, disciples.
And I’m sorry, disciples.
No matter what, while I cared for you, listened to your wishes, and indulged in my foolish obsession with you... I was able to reach this realm by cutting off that obsession.
A realm I had yearned to reach endlessly.
“Five Qi Consorting with the Origin.”
Without maintaining the void step, I faced the wind threads and fell back down.
I faced the cool wind of the vast sky.
At the same time, I buried the memories of my disciples in my heart.
With the previous memories cherished in my heart, I realized that I had finally taken a proper starting line.
Pu-ak!
“From now on, this will truly be the beginning...?”
As I sank into the clouds, I thought that.
Yes, from now on is truly the starting line.