Wood Fuels the Fire
From Qi Condensation 2-star to 4-star in a single month. It was an absurd rate of growth. Even the Deputy Cultivator, who had watched countless disciples come and go through the White Cloud Sect over many years, had never seen anyone advance that fast.
"What the hell are you, really?"
Growth like that meant the kid was hiding something. An Oh-yeonggeun cultivator climbing to Qi Condensation 4-star in a month by ordinary means was simply not a story that made sense.
That was exactly why the Deputy, himself only at Qi Condensation 5-star, was trembling with unease. The thing standing in front of him was concealing something—spiritual roots, a magic treasure, a rare constitution, his true realm, anything.
In this cultivation world the methods for deceiving an opponent were endless, which made guessing what, exactly, had been hidden nearly impossible.
"…Of course."
The Deputy stared hard at Han Yuhyeon, then nodded as if something had clicked.
"A face like that could never have come about naturally. It's revolting. Enough—drop the disguise and show me your real face."
"…You son of a bitch."
Even knowing he had deliberately set his own looks to maximum ugliness, hearing it out loud never got any less unpleasant.
"Don't tell me you're going to claim that is your real face. Shameless to the end."
The Deputy was angry too. He was convinced Han Yuhyeon was still deceiving him right up to the last moment. For Han Yuhyeon, the whole thing was both utterly unfair and infuriating.
"Die!"
The Deputy formed a hand seal and opened his palm. A fireball bloomed into existence—proof that he possessed a Fire Spiritual Root.
The fireball streaked toward him. Han Yuhyeon wrapped himself in the True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art. White energy rose, encased his body, and sank back in.
"That body-refining art from before."
Come to think of it, the Deputy had been one of the cultivators watching when Han Yuhyeon fought Daoist Ak of the Medicine King Hall.
It didn't matter. The Han Yuhyeon of that day and the Han Yuhyeon of this moment were completely different people.
Even the same body-refining art could differ wildly in destructive power depending on one's attainment and the caster's realm.
"Hah!"
Han Yuhyeon drove force into his dantian and dropped into a horse stance.
First form of the True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art
Spiritual energy sheathed his skin; his muscles drew tight as iron. Then he drove a straight fist into the oncoming fireball. It was a cultivator's instinct—the certainty that he could shatter it.
BOOM!
Fire and fist collided with an explosive crack. Through the smoke, shattered embers and ash seemed to stream along Han Yuhyeon's body. Anyone of high attainment would have known the truth: not a single spark had touched his skin. The fireball had broken, its power gutted.
"You dare!"
When the smoke cleared and Han Yuhyeon's smirk emerged, the Deputy flew into a rage. He could feel it clearly—the boy could have dodged, and had chosen a head-on collision instead. That alone was more than enough to feel insulted.
"No matter how much you thrash about, you're still only Qi Condensation 4-star!"
The Deputy roared and leapt. A spear roughly seven feet long appeared in his empty hand, drawn from a storage pouch.
Whish!
The shaft cut the air like a cracking whip. Han Yuhyeon stamped a true step and flipped the earth. Shattered clods of dirt shot up in a straight line, forming a makeshift wall.
The Deputy paid it no mind. He raised the spear overhead and brought it down with full force. Spear tip met the wall of upturned earth.
"…!"
Still, he hadn't reached Qi Condensation 5-star for nothing. The spearhead sliced through Han Yuhyeon's wall like a blade through soft tofu and drove downward. Han Yuhyeon sprang back at once, but he couldn't clear it completely—the spear grazed his chest and the front of his robes in a shallow cut.
The searing heat in his chest finally made him realize he was fighting a life-or-death duel. He'd beaten beggars before. He'd killed Daoist Ak. But those fights had been so one-sided he had never felt the threat of dying.
This was different. He was facing a cultivator of higher realm. The thought that one wrong move meant death drove his focus to its peak. The thrill of fighting with his life on the line dulled even the pain of the wound.
Blood ran from Han Yuhyeon's chest, and the Deputy's presence swelled higher still.
"I don't know what constitution or spiritual roots you possess, but one thing is clear—you die here, by my hand!"
Fire Qi coiled around the Deputy's spear tip. Between that and the earlier fireball, he seemed most at home with the Fire Spiritual Root.
Han Yuhyeon admitted it to himself: he had been arrogant. Even with a Foundation Establishment heart method and an excellent body-refining art, he was still only Qi Condensation 4-star. In the xianxia world, realm was absolute—and breaking through so quickly had made him look down on even a 5-star.
This was a brutal world where a single mistake meant death. Carelessness invited disaster.
"Heh heh heh. Looks like you've run out of cards to play!"
As Han Yuhyeon kept dodging, the Deputy laughed loudly. Even without the spear making contact, grass and trees caught fire at his mere approach. The Fire Qi he commanded was that fierce.
In truth, after the wound on his chest, Han Yuhyeon never touched the spear again—and still felt an ugly heat rising from his skin. He had kept as much distance as possible and still been burned.
His injuries kept mounting, but he never lost track of the Deputy's movements. The more places on his body that hurt, the clearer his mind became.
Faced with that increasingly precise footwork, the Deputy ground his teeth. This staggeringly ugly brat was growing even mid-battle.
"To think I'd have to use this on a mere Qi Condensation 4-star."
Apparently the Deputy had decided this was no longer a fight where he could afford to hold back. A red paper talisman slid from his sleeve.
"Summon Fire, Answer the Spirit—Heaven-Burning Fire Cloud!"
The talisman floated before him and burned away as the incantation left his lips. At the same instant, the heat pouring from the spear tip grew even fiercer.
"Pulling out a Fire Spirit Talisman? You must be pretty damn scared."
"Shut your mouth! I'll bill the cost of this talisman to your storage pouch!"
Resentment edged the Deputy's voice. Talismans were consumables. Using one against a weaker opponent was an enormous waste, and he knew it.
Han Yuhyeon needled the man's mind with a few choice provocations, then put even more distance between himself and that spear tip.
A Fire Spirit Talisman temporarily elevated the caster's Fire Spiritual Root—like a limited-time power potion in any game that wasn't Yeonhwa Seonrok. For a short while, the Deputy's Fire Spiritual Root would be amplified.
Fwoooosh!
Now the weeds on the ground caught fire even when the Deputy wasn't swinging.
That was when Han Yuhyeon noticed the flow of the air shifting unnaturally, as if it had bounced off an invisible wall and changed direction.
"…So it really has come to this."
The Deputy felt it too. He looked up at the sky and let out a sigh.
Both of them understood the situation roughly enough. Another cultivator had sensed the fight and raised a barrier to keep the wildfire from spreading.
Which meant one more danger factor for both of them. There was every chance that nameless cultivator would try to snatch the fisherman's profit.
"So what now?"
Han Yuhyeon asked. The Deputy hesitated, then set the tip of his spear ablaze again.
"It only means I have one more reason to kill you as fast as possible!"
So he was still after the relic of the Silent Spirit Hidden Record. Han Yuhyeon retreated in a flash; the Deputy chased. A pursuit.
Fortunately, the Deputy seemed to have no flying mount. And as was common among cultivators who trained spiritual roots, he had neglected the tempering of his body.
Of course, at Qi Condensation 5-star every physical faculty surpassed a mortal's—but that was only compared to mortals.
Against a Qi Condensation 4-star who primarily cultivated a body-refining art, he would inevitably fall behind in pure physical ability.
"You rat bastard!"
A tree blocking Han Yuhyeon's path burst into flame and snapped in half. The Deputy tore after him as if ready to burn the entire forest. No matter how Han Yuhyeon vaulted from rock to branch, the Deputy drove his spear in straight lines and carved through every obstacle in his way.
The surroundings were thick with gray smoke now; even a shallow breath brought on dizziness. Han Yuhyeon held his breath as he moved. So did the Deputy.
Around them, the world had become a hell of fire. Even the shallow streams had boiled dry under the heat of the spear tip; not a dry leaf or branch had escaped the devouring flames.
"Heh. What now? Nowhere left to run, it seems."
The Deputy laughed. He was right. The barrier the nameless cultivator had raised was tight; Han Yuhyeon hadn't gotten far before every scrap of cover was gone.
He put his back to the wall. There was no physical wall—only a barrier of spiritual energy raised by another cultivator. Outside it, the mountain remained lush and green.
"That barrier was raised by someone at least Qi Condensation 8-star. Neither of us can break through it."
Han Yuhyeon nodded. At his current realm he couldn't punch through. Neither could the Deputy.
"So die quickly. We're both getting tired."
"There's no guarantee a senior will drop the barrier even if I die."
"No. A fight this long means plenty of eyes are already watching. Jackal work only works when no one's looking. What sect would stand by and openly watch a fellow disciple die?"
"Fair enough."
Naturally, every sect had rules against harming one another. That was why Han Yuhyeon had never suffered violence from outer disciples inside the sect. Outside, of course, those rules were little more than paper—but when attention was this focused, the rules applied again.
"Anyway. One of us has to die."
"Right. And that one is going to be you."
"Is that so?"
Han Yuhyeon smiled. Something in that smile made the Deputy uneasy.
He had clearly driven Han Yuhyeon into a corner. Unlike the Deputy, whose Fire Spiritual Root ran strong, Han Yuhyeon's skin was mottled red from burns.
But the Deputy didn't want the forest to burn any further either. A powerful Fire Spiritual Root didn't mean you could endure a rain of fire. If the heat and flames swallowed you, you died—the Deputy included. He simply had a little more resistance.
Which was why, at some point, he had already withdrawn the flames from his spear tip and switched to Water Spiritual Root for his swings.
"Hey. I studied fortune-telling a bit back in the day. I know the generating and overcoming cycles of the Five Elements at least."
"Hmph. Is there a cultivator who doesn't?"
"True enough. Not knowing that would disqualify you as a cultivator."
Han Yuhyeon smiled.
"Then let me ask you one thing. Right here—if I pour out Wood Qi and flood the area with it, what happens?"
"…What?"
The Deputy's voice went blank. Wood generates Fire. In a place already saturated with Fire Qi, releasing Wood Qi would make the flames swell beyond all control.
Sensing the danger, the Deputy thrust his spear—but Han Yuhyeon was faster. As an Oh-yeonggeun cultivator he could emit any kind of qi, and Wood Qi was no exception.
"You—do you mean to die with me?!"
The spreading Wood Qi drew a cry of horror from the Deputy. In the instant before the forest became a sea of fire, he saw the twisted corner of Han Yuhyeon's mouth.
"I'm not dying. Only you are."
"You crazy son of a—!"
The Wood Qi Han Yuhyeon unleashed met the Fire Qi the Deputy had sown across the battlefield. An enormous pillar of flame erupted—so strong it filled the barrier and still overflowed beyond it.