The Disciple

Dohyeon blinked.

The tension had cracked his voice into a higher register, but Yu-ri's expression was utterly serious.

Wondering if she might have been talking to someone else, Dohyeon glanced behind him. But there was no one here but the two of them.

Hmm, now that I think about it.

When he looked at her again, he recognized her as the student he'd seen often enough while making his cleaning rounds. It wasn't her looks that had stuck with him — it was that every single time he saw her, someone was giving her a hard time.

If he remembered right, she'd gotten in through the Equal Opportunity Program.

Well, not my problem.

"I'm sorry, but I'm just a laborer."

"…No, you're not."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I saw everything. You used Telekinesis — a 3rd-tier spell — in the lab."

Dohyeon's face stiffened. The ominous suspicion he'd been nursing had become reality far faster than he'd expected. He'd assumed that even if she saw something, no one would imagine a mere laborer casting a spell. Had he been too optimistic?

"I really don't know what you mean…."

Yu-ri pointed at Dohyeon's hand.

"When you almost tripped over the center of the spell formation, you modified the formula. I saw the ink move on its own."

"Ha ha. I must have been tired from concentrating too hard on my work. Well then, I'll be off."

"Wait!"

Before she knew what she was doing, Yu-ri had grabbed Dohyeon's wrist — then startled herself with the contact and let go.

Hmm. Kind of cute.

"Why are you doing this? If word gets out that you said these things to a laborer, it won't look good for you."

"I don't care."

Yu-ri answered immediately. Her voice was small, but this time it didn't waver in the slightest.

"No one thinks well of me anyway."

Dohyeon was at a loss for words for a moment. It was self-deprecating, yet there wasn't even a trace of a smile on her face. He'd watched her get bullied any number of times, but hearing it from her own lips was a different matter entirely.

"Please. Make it so I can use 3rd-tier spells."

And through it all — perhaps afraid of being refused — tears had begun to well up in her eyes.

Ugh.

He'd learned this in his previous life too: when a woman starts crying in front of you, you have no idea what to do.

Laborers at this academy aren't even treated like people, and she's worried about hurting my feelings? Just how low is her self-esteem?

But teaching this girl the formulas he'd created came with nothing but risk and zero return. If he got caught, it was research-lab slavery or outright dismissal — and even if he didn't, he'd spend every day sweating over whether she'd blab.

Then, perhaps seeing his hesitation as a glimmer of hope, Yu-ri suddenly pulled out her pocket and began rummaging through it.

"I brought some yeongcho with me."

From inside her robes she produced something wrapped in layer upon layer of cloth. When she unwound it, a root the size of a finger came into view. Its surface was slightly dried out, but the faint energy it exuded reached even Dohyeon.

So this is yeongcho.

He'd sprinted all over the mountain secretly digging these roots up on the off chance he might stumble across one — he had a whole truckload of them back home. No wonder the stuff never worked for him. One look and anyone could tell this was nothing like an ordinary herb.

When Dohyeon eyed the yeongcho with narrowed eyes, Yu-ri seemed to read something else into it.

"Of course, I know this alone won't even catch your interest. But if I graduate safely and become a government-certified Taoist, I'll give you half my salary every month."

Half?

Searching this life's memories, he recalled hearing that a certified Taoist received a substantial stipend of yeongseok and yeongcho. It couldn't compare to what you'd get joining a corporation, of course, but even that much would be plenty for Dohyeon.

Hmm. More spiritual energy would let me experiment with fun new formulas, and selling yeongcho could fund a café startup.

"And I will never, ever let your identity be exposed. I can form an oath right now."

An oath.

A brand carved into the imaginal world, with oneself as collateral. Break an oath, and your imaginal world collapses — you could never live as a Taoist again. Because of that danger, oaths had to be made with the utmost care in the Taoist world. Though from Dohyeon's perspective, it was an extremely agreeable arrangement.

"Hmm. So you'd be willing to swear an oath? Then I'll teach you."

"Really? I can do it right now!"

Perhaps because this was the closest thing to a yes that had ever come out of Dohyeon's mouth, Yu-ri practically bounced and immediately set about hammering out the terms. The tears pooled at the corners of her eyes vanished in an instant, and her cat-like eyes went round and wide. One moment her face had looked like she'd lost everything in the world; a single second was all it took for the expression to flip.

Her emotional changes work like someone pressing a switch.

I'll milk the yeongcho for all it's worth, but I should keep my distance otherwise.

Dohyeon slowly read through the oath's terms and began revising them together with her. In the process, he learned two things: that Yu-ri's full name was Seo Yu-ri, and that even she recognized how absurd the oath's original terms were.

Still, her desire to somehow become able to use 3rd-tier spells, graduate from this place, was clearly strong.

Once the terms were more or less settled, Seo Yu-ri shuffled her feet and made one last request.

"Could you… show me a 3rd-tier spell, just once?"

"Of course."

Dohyeon had no idea how to actually cast a 3rd-tier spell — but to make sure the sucker who'd fallen into his lap didn't slip away, he poured everything he had into the casting.

A stream of water flowed in from a nearby spring and traced a massive geometric pattern around Yu-ri and Dohyeon.

Sorry it feels like a con job — but once I teach her my formulas, even 2nd-Rank spiritual energy will let her reproduce effects comparable to 3rd-tier spells.

"Whoaa… The mana expenditure is clearly tiny, but a genuine 3rd-tier spell actually went off."

"Ahem."

Watching her gape at his work like an awestruck squirrel, Dohyeon's conscience pricked him hard — but he'd have to endure it.

The weakness of Printing was that it couldn't manipulate anything that wasn't in liquid form. And it couldn't be made any faster, either.

But with only 1st-Rank-level spiritual energy, I had no choice but to build in this kind of exception handling.

It was a miracle born of optimization stacked upon optimization.

"Then let's confirm the terms one last time and form the oath."

"Yes!"

The terms the two of them had agreed upon were as follows.

As the oath took effect, a blue light swirled around Seo Yu-ri before fading away.

"Are you really sure about this?"

"Yes."

"Half your salary."

"There won't be any salary to collect at this rate anyway."

Seo Yu-ri's hands trembled faintly. She had just accepted an enormous set of constraints, yet the look in her eyes grew sharper still. Perhaps because she could finally see hope of escaping this academy.

How many years had she been discriminated against and ostracized, all for lacking sufficient spiritual energy? In a place where spiritual energy equaled social standing and power, Seo Yu-ri had no choice but to endure bitter days. What made it harder still was the reality that she couldn't even handle a 3rd-tier spell properly, which kept her locked out of the research labs. You had to join ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a lab and rack up achievements to meet the graduation requirements — and she couldn't even get in the door.

How much longer would she have to live in this hell? She'd been staring down another blank, despairing day when she met Han Dohyeon. A mere laborer — who surely had spiritual energy equal to or less than her own — had cast a 3rd-tier spell. Somehow, some way, she would learn his secret and escape this godforsaken place.

"Alright then, follow me."

"Huh? Where to?"

"Your first lesson."

As Dohyeon strode off without hesitation, Seo Yu-ri trailed after him, swollen with anticipation.

Their destination was a small storage shed. Buildings had been tacked onto the mountain range for centuries, so quite a few sat unused — Dohyeon had claimed one of them as his hideout.

Apparently it's tradition for laborers to clean out an abandoned building and use it as a dorm or break room anyway.

"Welcome."

Dohyeon spread his arms and introduced the interior of the shed. It was stuffed full of spent talismans and the traces of his formula research — the treasures Dohyeon had diligently hoarded over his years as a laborer, unable to find any proper hobby in this life like he'd had in his previous one. One wall was papered with talismans made from ones discarded by students; the floor was littered with the paper and brushes of his formula experiments; and on a shelf in the corner, yeongseok stones drained of nearly all their energy and broken spell-orbs were stacked in dense rows.

Seo Yu-ri held her breath the moment she stepped inside.

I knew it.

Hundreds of formulas blanketing the walls. Talismans bearing the scars of countless revisions. Even at a glance, nothing here was ordinary. With knowledge like this, he could probably land an honorary lectureship at some provincial academy. They said the geniuses who appear once a century always show themselves in strange ways — maybe that's why he was living as a laborer. A kind of exercise in seeking inspiration.

Has my moment of destiny finally arrived?

While Seo Yu-ri gazed at Dohyeon brimming with hope, he searched through the papers and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠brought one over to her.

"This is the first thing I'll teach you."

Looking at the sheet, Seo Yu-ri asked in confusion. True spellwork was based on the vast formula inscribed upon the imaginal world, which meant that even a 1st-tier spell couldn't possibly fit its basic structure onto a single sheet of paper.

"Is this a failed formula?"

"No. It's finished."

"Um… are you planning to teach me talisman-craft first?"

"Well, you can use it as a talisman, but — long story short, it came about from cutting down mana consumption."

Dohyeon answered breezily, but Seo Yu-ri couldn't make sense of his words. It was common knowledge that shrinking a spell formation made the technique unstable. To cast a spell safely, you had to draw the prescribed formation in its entirety and reinforce the connecting lines with layer upon layer of redundancy so the flow of spiritual energy never wavered.

But the talisman before her was the exact opposite. It wasn't that unnecessary lines had been added — a perfectly functional spell formation had been torn apart.

"Let me just show you."

As Dohyeon inscribed the formula into his imaginal world, six blue flames rose into the air around them.

Dokkaebibul was the simplest of all manifestation spells, the one Taoists most commonly used when hunting monsters. But what made ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Dohyeon's version special was that he had compressed its characteristically enormous spell formation.

Which means you can cast a 2nd-tier spell through a talisman, doesn't it?

The reason talismans had never surpassed even 1st-tier spells until now was simply that a full formula couldn't be drawn onto them. If the miracle Dohyeon had just demonstrated applied to other techniques as well, he could spark a revolution — not just in the Taoist world, but across the entire world. Spells once reserved for casters alone would be sealed into talismans, usable by anyone.

Of course, put the other way, that might also mean the power and status the casters had monopolized for centuries could come crumbling down….

Anyway, the point is that I'm the one who gets to learn this, right?

Seo Yu-ri's eyes began to sparkle as she stared up at Dohyeon.