It Moved
The most difficult part when the sages of the Dark Heavenly Realm taught me wasn't handling qi or fighting aberrations.
They already possessed those innate abilities, while I, an Earthling, did not. So the hardest thing to teach was something I lacked entirely.
For example, it was like trying to make a tailless human grow a tail—and not just any tail, but one with extraordinary powers that they could wield with perfect mastery.
And if it wasn't a simple tail that just wagged side to side or curled into loops, but one that had to whip around like every weapon imaginable to slay aberrations, spewing poison or even firing beams when needed? Well...
The sages, born with such gifts, couldn't fully grasp the perspective of someone without them. Their baseline was impossibly high for an ordinary Earthling like me—who, until recently, had been a vegetable.
In the end, I had no choice but to learn by trial and error, diving headfirst into the unknown.
Only later, after delving deeper into my training, did I realize that those early lessons were like embracing a bomb and charging bareheaded into the dirt.
The sages unanimously apologized and admitted their mistake.
They said it could have driven me mad beyond recovery—something as trivial as gnawing off my own forearm wouldn't have seemed special in the ensuing horror.
When I learned the truth, I was furious at first. But I had to let it go.
In a desperate situation where hesitation meant capture and death by the enemy, they'd had no choice but to whip the horse until its back bled.
I understood that such extremes happen in dire straits. Earth's own war history was full of atrocities, after all.
With aberrations on the verge of storming their final sanctuary, time was critical. They pushed too hard, but my bloody efforts and a stroke of luck paid off.
Thus, I gained a new sensory organ granted only to the sages of the Dark Heavenly Realm.
The Spiritual Eye, now faintly etched on my forehead.
My body still wouldn't obey me—I couldn't even lift my eyelids.
And with my current shallow cultivation, I couldn't detach the Spiritual Eye from my forehead to see what had happened to my right palm.
But the heat and pain from my right palm, where I'd held the Heavenly Wood, had reached my face and opened the eye. This change was surely beneficial.
Especially since the searing warmth spreading through my body made accumulating qi far easier.
Alright, I'll unravel that mystery later.
Now that the Spiritual Eye is open, let's accelerate the work.
Lying still, I scanned the surroundings through it and confirmed.
The many human spirits in my hospital room.
My incomplete Spiritual Eye, due to my low realm, wasn't perfect, but their distinct hues made distinguishing spirits easy.
A nursing hospital like Happiness Nursing Hospital would have seen countless deaths, so death spirits abounded. The dimly flickering resentful spirits were predictable enough.
The living spirits likely clung to patients reduced to breathing husks on their beds...
Though spirits, their energies differed, preventing interference—they passed through or brushed past each other.
Being able to see was great, but a pity it only revealed spirits.
Still, so many in my single room meant multi-bed wards had even more.
Departed souls crave the living's warmth, lingering nearby.
Hmm... but there are too many death spirits, aren't there?
Rumors said they bulldozed a mountainside full of unmarked graves without warning to build this place. Might be true.
I examined the spirits closely.
Nothing dangerous now, but resentful spirits turning into evil spirits happens in an instant—worth watching.
Lee Pil-nyeo, who chatted endlessly about personal stories, hospital gossip, nurses, doctors, and friends from the bathhouse, never mentioned odd happenings. Probably fine, but better safe.
A resentful spirit that size possessing a living person would just make them do out-of-character things—like switching from dipping sauce to mixing it, or turning vegetarian into carnivore.
But if it targeted my family? Different story.
Where are the nature spirits I'm seeking, anyway? Pushed aside by all these human spirits?
Happiness Nursing Hospital is surrounded by woods, with a lake below—prime for nature spirits.
Ah. Found them.
Earth, water, fire, wind, void. Not all, but some nature spirits.
Not yet true spirits, but refined spirits clustered in the high ceiling corners, wriggling en masse.
I fixed the human spirits with a gaze infused with expulsion intent, and soon they scattered, vanishing one by one.
Good. Intruders cleared.
Moving to the cleared space, I watched the nature spirits spin, swim, and dance.
In the Dark Heavenly Realm, spirits were sealed upon emergence to prevent aberration corruption.
But Earth has no aberrations.
So... I can use these spirits.
For now, only nature spirits.
Human spirits and nature spirits each have pros and cons for tasks. Here, nature spirits are faster and safer.
Human spirits, born from humans, understand well but are greedy, cunning, and eye living flesh.
In the Dark Heavenly Realm, I could beat disobedience out of them. Here, a determined horde would overwhelm me.
Nature spirits, from nature, are less clever but not greedy or sly. Hard to control sometimes, but a firm payment fixes that.
They thrive on precise give-and-take. Pay up, and they deliver.
The best payment? My refined qi—pure energy drawn from nature, purified within.
Nature spirits go wild for it.
Having taken refined form, they aspire to true spirit status and will work hardest for more qi.
I took deep breaths repeatedly.
Now the Spiritual Eye revealed it: faint qi drawn by my breaths, imperceptible before.
Earth's qi is so meager.
Even the Dark Heavenly Realm, half-devoured by aberrations when I arrived, had more.
That explains the sages and great immortals there, absent on Earth.
TV "Taoists" were either snake-oil salesmen with parlor tricks or cult leaders spouting nonsense.
Anyway—eyes open, now for ears to hear spirits and a mouth to request or command.
* * *
Five days since returning to Earth.
With nothing but breathing to do, I skimped on sleep, opened my ears, then my mouth.
Sometimes I listened to Lee Pil-nyeo's stories.
They stirred memories of my old Earth life, filling gaps between past and present me.
Let's see—today's Friday, so Mom and sis might visit next Friday.
Mom said the restaurant was thriving on her savings. Sis was a mid-tier streamer doing reviews, mukbangs, everything.
While sifting memories—
Tap tap tap.
A knocking sound, then cool outside air as the nature spirits I'd awaited arrived, bearing gifts.
Fire Refined, Wind Refined, and Water Refined danced proudly before my Spiritual Eye, showing their catches: a split-horned snake, a silver-furred weasel with a ruptured side, and a flattened, iridescent caterpillar—quite a haul.
"Here. All."
"Brought. Them."
"We. Worked. Hard."
Prepaying qi to these promising ones taught them speech.
Sloppy strength control mangled the bodies a bit, but intact delivery passed.
TV survival shows flood airwaves, turning Korea's mountains and islands into stomping grounds for herb hunters in work boots.
But they miss something better than herbs.
What? Lives nurtured on those fine herbs.
Reptiles. Mammals. Birds. Fish. Amphibians. Insects. You name it.
Humans have eaten herbs forever, but animals ate them first.
Tales of sufferers watching animals eat a grass and heal, then trying it themselves. Or discovering hot springs from animals soaking wounds.
Humans claim dominion over creation after how many years? Animals roamed wilds longer, saw and ate more.
So I traded with nature spirits, and here they delivered prey.
Had these been spirit beasts fattened on elixirs, crude nature spirits couldn't catch them. But hunted like this? Just herb-fed normals.
"Eat. It."
"Eat. Make. Qi."
"Qi. Give. Us."
Fire Refined dried them crisp, Wind Refined ground to powder, Water Refined mixed with water.
Their collab became a syrupy fluid, loaded into a syringe, fed via nose tube—sluuuurp.
I absorbed it all.
Body still burned hot.
They hunted again; I gathered qi, waiting—and three days later.
Twitch.
Finally, my toes moved.