A Sea Dragon Builds a Campfire
Not long after the river water swept through the cave, a faint dampness still lingered in the air.
“Holy crap, this actually worked!” I cheered, staring at the massive water droplet floating before my eyes.
Thud.
No matter how hard I poked it with my finger or pressed down with my full weight, it refused to burst. A 100% water bed in the shape of a droplet had been completed.
“This actually works?”
After watching the river water automatically gather around me to clean and purify anything it touched until it was drinkable, I’d decided to test a theory. I’d hoped the small pool inside the cave could somehow become a water bed, and when I focused on it with trembling hands like I was using telekinesis, the purified water had obediently risen and formed a large droplet bed shaped like a dog-sized mattress.
“With this, I’ve pretty much got everything I need, right?”
I’d just made a bed to sleep in. My body itself was a purifier that turned water clean. If I rolled that clean water around in my mouth, it became ice. That solved the refrigerator problem too.
“The only other things that might be nice to have are a table and a wardrobe.”
Everything else seemed too complicated to create on the spot like the bed, so I figured it’d be better to find or steal them instead.
“Oh, right.”
Now that I thought about it, there was one more thing I needed right away that was completely outside my abilities.
“I need to start a fire.”
In this era, fire wasn’t just fire. It served as a heater to keep the cave warm, a stove to cook food, and a light source to push back the darkness at night. The problem was figuring out how to make one without a lighter or matches.
“Murim Gallery.”
Whenever I was stuck like this, the usual move was to post in the community asking “How do I do this?” and let the helpful users explain.
“Then again, every community is the same when it comes to going crazy over female verification posts.”
The post I’d uploaded earlier had already racked up over a hundred recommendations and a flood of comment notifications, proving it had caused quite a stir on the Murim Gallery.
It might’ve been fun to fully reveal my pretty new face as a Sea Dragon and play the community queen bee, but…
“Nah, no need to go that far.”
I decided to keep that idea as just a thought. I’d been dropped into an unfamiliar Murim world as a Divine Beast rather than a normal human, and I had no idea when someone might come after my horns and tail. If I got too caught up in queen bee games and ended up banned or blocked, I’d be completely isolated in this cave. To avoid that kind of situation, I firmly resolved not to do anything so shameless.
Anyway.
1. When stranded, securing fire should always be your top priority. We might be martial artists, but let’s be honest—most of us couldn’t beat a random panda or black bear from the mountains behind us. Don’t show off. Carry a torch. Fighting with just a sword versus throwing a torch to lower their morale first makes a huge difference in your odds.
2. Back to the point—there are no lighters or matches here. Flint that works like matches exists, but new arrivals probably won’t have the means to get any. You’ll have to gather dry leaves, grass, and twigs and rub them together like crazy. Here’s a tip…
“Ugh, my arms are killing me…”
I’d posted a question with good intentions, but after reading a direct guide on starting a fire, I felt a little disappointed that it only offered the most straightforward method.
“Isn’t there something like Samadhi True Fire? It’d be nice if I could just snap my fingers and make flames appear.”
Unfortunately, I was a Sea Dragon. A water-attribute Divine Beast. There was no way I could learn something like Samadhi True Fire, and Sea Dragons were probably the least suited for yang energy anyway. At least in this life, I probably wouldn’t stumble upon some lucky encounter that let me start a fire with zero effort.
“Sigh.”
Letting out a breath, I got up from the soft water-droplet bed. My stomach had started growling, so I rubbed it while heading out of the cave.
“It said gathering dry grass, leaves, and twigs and using friction was the best way, right?”
I wasn’t some primitive caveman, and the idea of starting a fire with nothing but friction already felt hopeless, but if it meant surviving, I’d do whatever it took. Even while sighing, I started moving to gather what I needed. I figured I might as well look for something usable as clothes while I was at it.
*
The Janggang Water Sect was divided into one main fort and nine branch forts. Among them, Eom Gutaek, a low-ranking bandit from the relatively weak Gyeongchae branch, was busy following orders from his branch leader.
One of their own from the same branch had been found upstream, beaten to a pulp and floating on a makeshift raft. The branch leader had flown into a rage, insisting there must be a Divine Beast or something protecting one nearby, and had mobilized everyone to find clues about its existence—anything to catch the main fort leader’s eye.
“Damn it, why the hell do we even do this bandit shit? Does he think we’re doing this because we want to learn martial arts?”
Of course, as the lowest of the low, Eom Gutaek was the one who’d end up doing all the grunt work, so he was just miserable. Even if the main fort leader tossed out some leftover scraps of martial arts manuals, they’d only go to the branch leader and his closest subordinates. Someone like him probably wouldn’t even get a chance to learn.
Just as Eom Gutaek was grumbling about how ridiculous it all was and wondering who he was even working so hard for, while heading upstream along the Janggang…
“There’s no way something like a Divine Beast would be down here in the riverbed…”
Twitch.
He felt something moving roughly and immediately dropped low to the ground.
And there it was.
“Whoa, shit, those tits…”
Two beautiful mounds of flesh swayed violently back and forth in a pendulum motion—far too magnificent for Eom Gutaek’s limited bandit vocabulary to properly describe.
Was she some woman who’d come to do laundry? Yeah, he’d heard that on hot days, women sometimes stripped down to bathe. If that was the case, then as a bandit who’d only joined for survival, Eom Gutaek had planned to quietly watch without causing trouble and then slip away down a side path.
Yeah, that had definitely been the plan…
Horns! Those are horns!
Spotting the inhuman features a moment later, he swallowed hard and stared at the woman. She seemed to be trying to start a fire, frantically spinning dry branches together and producing black smoke. Beyond the swaying mounds of flesh that moved with the spinning branches, further back…
She even has a tail. This is definitely it. Her hair’s blue too. She’s not human—she’s a Divine Beast for sure. At the very least, she’s a foreigner. No way she’s from the Central Plains looking like that.
A woman with blue horns, a tail covered in scales, water-colored hair, and water-colored eyes. It was Hae Sua, sitting on a cushion of leaves she’d washed clean for hygiene, desperately trying to start a fire.
Alright, time to bail.
Even though it was just luck, Eom Gutaek had obtained information about a Divine Beast. Cheering internally, he began retracing his steps to put distance between himself and Hae Sua.
With this, I can definitely get noticed by our branch leader. No doubt about it.
Martial arts? He’d claimed he had no expectations for something like that and had complained about doing all the grunt work, but… when an opportunity actually appeared, he couldn’t help but feel hopeful.
*
Three hours.
Just three hours. That was how long it took me—me—to wear myself out completely and finally start a fire using nothing but friction.
“Hell yeah! It worked!”
It had been an incredibly exhausting three hours. After uploading my first-ever “I started a fire” verification post on the Murim Gallery, I left the small campfire with its gathered embers at the cave entrance and headed deeper inside.
“I’ll just drink some water and come back.”
I wanted to catch my breath. As soon as I reached the pool deeper in the cave, I dunked my face in and gulped down water.
“Blergh…”
I made a bit of ice and spat it back into my cupped hands like a plate, then poured more water over it to drink ice-cold water.
“Whew, I feel alive again.”
After spending hours on the ground under the scorching sun in a posture that was guaranteed to wreck my back, just rubbing my hands together to make fire, being able to enjoy this reward made me incredibly happy.
“Is it here?”
“Yes! I saw it clearly. I’m telling you, there was a horned Divine Beast right here.”
“This…”
Back at the cave entrance I’d returned to, my precious little fire—the one I’d worked so hard to nurture—had been trampled under the feet of half-dead bandits and scattered everywhere.
“You goddamn pieces of shit!”
I was going to turn them into minced meat.