Decided After Negotiation
What Han Yuhyeon brought out of the treasury was the Fire Spike. It was a metal skewer that resembled a trident missing its shaft, the middle prong longer than the rest, shaped rather like the character for “cloth.” It looked reddish, almost rusty, but that was only because it held fire qi within it.
Was it some incredible treasure? Not really. He hadn’t expected much to begin with. If a genuine priceless artifact had been sitting in there, some other cultivation sect would have already come and taken it by force. He had figured they would only have something that matched the level of the Baekun Sect, and his guess had been right on the money.
That said, a Fire Spike was still a rare magic tool by Yeongil-ju standards. The mere fact that a tool contained actual energy already put it a cut above ordinary magic tools. Of course, the moment you stepped into So-ui-ju it became a completely commonplace offensive tool—but for now he could settle for having a decent attack option.
Old Man Dang looked ready to crawl into a hole at Han Yuhyeon’s lukewarm reaction, but that was hardly the old man’s fault. What was he supposed to do when the Baekun Sect’s greatest treasure was something like this? Even after looking over the rest of the treasury, there was nothing else that came close to the Fire Spike’s power.
As they stepped back out, Jeong Cheon-o casually asked,
“What kind of magic tool did you pick?”
“An offensive one.”
“Ah.”
“I already have a defensive tool that Senior Brother gave me.”
“……The Wooden Scale Shield. Ah. Right.”
A flicker of old memory seemed to cross Jeong Cheon-o’s face; he gave a bitter little smile. He clearly wanted to know exactly which tool Han Yuhyeon had chosen, but he didn’t press further.
A magic tool was ultimately a cultivator’s hidden trump card. Asking someone to show theirs was breaking an unwritten rule. And they would see it during the mission anyway, so there was no real need to ask now.
“Shall we head to the Mission Hall?”
“Sounds good.”
The inner disciples followed Old Man Dang’s guidance out of the treasury once more.
“Safe travels, honored cultivators!”
The old man came all the way out in front of the Main Administration Hall and bowed. Watching the previously listless elder suddenly offer such a crisp, proper farewell left the other inner disciples a little flustered. Han Yuhyeon, however, knew better. That greeting was directed solely at him.
“You’ve arrived.”
When they reached the Mission Hall, Daoist Yun was still at his post. These days he couldn’t even look Han Yuhyeon straight in the eye. An inner disciple of higher standing, currently riding high on influence—there was no way Yun could speak as freely as before. Han Yuhyeon no longer found the change uncomfortable either. That was simply the law of this immortal cultivation world. So he accepted the perfunctory greeting and went straight to looking over the available missions.
Even in the Mission Hall, the missions chosen by inner disciples and those taken by outer disciples were normally kept separate. That only made sense: outer disciples were generally early-stage Qi Condensation, while inner disciples sat at mid-stage Qi Condensation.
Early-stage cultivators therefore handled almost nothing but gathering, analysis, management, and scouting missions that required virtually no combat. Back when Han Yuhyeon himself had been an outer disciple he wouldn’t have given those jobs a second glance, but with these inner disciples alongside him they became doable together.
“What kind of mission should we take?”
“Four inner disciples banding together and then picking something easy? That’s just embarrassing.”
“Still, we’re going to work together several times. Do we really need to start with something hard?”
“If we only take easy jobs, how will we gain experience? That’s what worries me. The Sect Master must be expecting quite a bit from us as well.”
While the other three inner disciples debated which mission to choose, Han Yuhyeon quietly looked over the board. It had been a long time since he last visited the Mission Hall, and quite a few new postings had piled up.
“Hm?”
As he scanned the board, a familiar mission caught his eye.
Reward: To be decided after negotiation
(Inquire at Yeong-ha-san Mine)
Had the reward always looked like that? He dug through his memory. Originally it had been a third-floor technique from the Scripture Pavilion. The compensation must have been so absurd that no one ever took it, so they changed the reward.
Even when he was working part-time jobs back in Korea there had been a saying: anything that said “to be decided after negotiation” was best ignored on sight. Yet the place they told you to inquire about tugged at him. Yeong-ha-san Mine was the largest spiritual-stone production site in northern Yeongil-ju. As the biggest mine in the region, it naturally fell under the management of Yeongil-ju’s greatest sect—the Baekun Sect.
“How about this one?”
Drawn by the spiritual-stone mine, Han Yuhyeon held out the mission slip marked “Eliminate the Gu-Diao.” The debating inner disciples all fell silent and stared at it.
“Yeong-ha-san Mine?”
“Ah, that one……”
“Ahem.”
The expressions of the inner disciples studying the slip darkened. It had sat on the board long enough that they all recognized it.
Even with the reward changed, their lukewarm reaction suggested they knew something more.
“Is there a problem?”
“Well, hard to say there’s exactly a problem.”
“More like…… why bother, you know?”
The inner disciples exchanged glances. They clearly all knew something and were hiding it; the whole thing was starting to get on his nerves. When Han Yuhyeon gave an irritated little cough, they all carefully watched his face.
Technically he held the lowest rank among them, yet in practice he possessed the strongest voice. From the Sect Master all the way to Elder Baekri-wan—famous for how picky she was about people—everyone treated Han Yuhyeon as special. The other inner disciples simply could not ignore that.
Among them, Jeong Cheon-o—the one who most desperately wanted Baekri-wan’s attention—volunteered the information first.
“Ahem. Junior Brother, you know Yeong-ha-san is under our Baekun Sect’s management, right?”
“Yes, I know that.”
“It used to fall under Elder Mun’s jurisdiction. With the elder who managed it gone, the mine administrator must have changed the reward terms. That’s probably why it says ‘inquire at Yeong-ha-san Mine.’”
“Ah.”
The late Elder Mun Il-pyeong. In a way he had died because of Han Yuhyeon. Not that Han Yuhyeon felt so much as a speck of guilt about it.
One of the few things he missed about this world was carbonated drinks. Sometimes, when he replayed the memory of Mun Il-pyeong’s head exploding, it felt like bubbles rising up the back of his throat—and that was nice.
“So that’s why the reward used to be so terrible? Last time it was some third-floor technique from the Scripture Pavilion.”
“That’s part of it, sure. But that isn’t the whole story. The real problem is that Yeong-ha-san itself is essentially a closed mine. If they’re telling people to inquire at the mine for the reward, whatever they offer now is only going to be worse than before—not better.”
“A closed mine?”
Han Yuhyeon frowned. As far as he knew, Yeong-ha-san was the largest mine in Yeongil-ju, a fact that had never changed across hundreds of playthroughs. And now it was suddenly closed?
“I heard from Elder Mun that the spiritual vein twisted. Ever since then, almost no spiritual stones come out of the mine.”
“The spiritual vein twisted?”
A spiritual vein was an intangible stream that carried the flow of spiritual energy. Even in Yeongil-ju, where the average density of spiritual energy was low, clear high and low concentrations still existed. Those differences were decided by the spiritual veins. If Yeong-ha-san Mine had been the largest producer of spiritual stones, it was fair to say the greatest spiritual vein in the region ran straight through it.
The problem was that spiritual veins almost never twisted. Only something on the scale of a massive earthquake or volcanic eruption could shift them. And yet one had suddenly changed.
“Was there some enormous disaster recently?”
“Mm, no. We have no idea. But something definitely happened. Not long after the vein twisted, seniors we would never normally see in Yeongil-ju showed up a few months ago.”
“Seniors?”
“Calling them ‘seniors’ barely does them justice. True Immortals from places like Heavenly Peak Palace, Profound Mystic Basket, and Transcendent Gate—people we can’t even look at—actually came to Yeongil-ju. About a month before you entered the Baekun Sect, Junior Brother.”
At Jeong Cheon-o’s words Han Yuhyeon barely managed to keep his eyes from flying wide open. Come to think of it, the very first cultivator he had seen after falling into the world of Yeonhwa Seonrok had been the Vice Palace Master of Heavenly Peak Palace.
Looking back, that was strange in itself. A cultivator of that caliber had no reason to set foot in Yeongil-ju.
“Ahh. The whole sect turned upside down back then.”
“I remember. Everyone was doing every ridiculous thing they could think of just to catch those people’s eyes once.”
Im Su-weol and Hyeon Yong-gang chimed in as the memory returned. For someone at Qi Condensation, merely seeing a cultivator who had stepped beyond the True Immortal Realm was a considerable opportunity, so the reaction was only natural.
“Anyway, I still don’t know what those people sensed that brought them here, but the rest of us figure something must have happened in Yeongil-ju without our knowledge.”
“I see.”
Would it be pure self-importance to think that “something” had been his own possession of this body? Perhaps beings who stood close to the Immortal Realm had detected the existence of Han Yuhyeon, who had flown in from another world.
Given the current situation it was still too much of a leap, but he decided to keep the thought in the back of his mind. Caution never hurt.
In that case, the mine whose spiritual vein had twisted only became more worth visiting. The twisting itself might have been a side effect of his possession, after all.
“Let’s go.”
“Huh?”
The inner disciples looked flustered at Han Yuhyeon’s words. They had just finished explaining every reason they should not go, yet his voice had only grown more resolute. It was a thought process they could never have imagined.
Still, with Han Yuhyeon holding the strongest voice right now, they could not simply ignore their junior brother and discard the idea.
“……Then shall we take a look?”
“We can always just go negotiate the reward first. If it’s completely ridiculous we simply don’t take the job.”
Under the silent pressure of Han Yuhyeon’s scale-covered gaze, the inner disciples finally folded.
They decided without further delay to head for Yeong-ha-san Mine. They were scheduled to leave for So-ui-ju next month; even riding a flying vessel north across Yeongil-ju would take two full days. They needed to save every possible hour.
Jeong Cheon-o owned a large flying vessel that could carry four people, so they decided to travel together. They had not officially accepted the mission yet—they were only going to negotiate the reward—so there was no need to register a group mission with spirit stones.
After two days of flight the inner disciples dismounted at the entrance to Yeong-ha-san Mine. As was typical of any town built around a closed mine, it was a ghost village where almost no people could be seen.
“Is anyone even left?”
“Hard to believe, but only a few months ago this was the most prosperous region in Yeongil-ju.”
Hyeon Yong-gang spoke. Han Yuhyeon already knew that. He was far more familiar with the thriving Yeong-ha-san of old. The mine had been one of the better farming spots in Yeongil-ju, a place he almost always visited.
The inner disciples spread their spiritual sense and followed the faint traces of people. When they reached the house that still held the strongest human presence, a shabby old man was sweeping the courtyard.
“Honored guests from which direction…… Ah, judging by your attire, cultivators of the Baekun Sect.”
“Are you the village chief?”
“I am. Have you come because of the Mission Hall posting?”
The old man spoke in a flat, lifeless voice. It seemed this village chief was the one who had changed the mission reward after Mun Il-pyeong’s death. Normally when you arrived to accept a request to kill a major demonic beast, people greeted you with desperate enthusiasm. That was not the case here.
“We have. To be precise, the reward said ‘to be decided after negotiation,’ so we came to negotiate.”
“As I expected. Truthfully, we have nothing left to give. You can see the state of the village for yourselves. That was why Elder Mun dangled a Scripture Pavilion technique as bait in the first place. Ever since the elder passed, even that is gone.”
Before any hope could even form, the old man laid his empty hand on the table. Having no cards was itself the card.
“Then what exactly is there to ‘decide after negotiation’? Was it just wordplay?”
Hyeon Yong-gang’s voice turned harsh. Even a timid, soft cultivator became a hard man in front of ordinary people—that was simply how the world worked.
“No. We still have one last thing we can put on the table.”
“And that is?”
“The mine itself. The people remaining in this village have already found other work after the mine essentially closed. Clearing out the Gu-Diao’s threat comes first—its hunting range keeps expanding.”
The old man continued in his unhurried voice.
“Of course it has become a closed mine, yet this place once held the greatest spiritual vein in Yeongil-ju. There are still unmined spiritual stones, and I know of quite a few undiscovered spiritual herbs. If you accept the request, you may take them yourselves. More precisely, we are selling you our share of the mine. Two-tenths of everything produced in this region is claimed by the Baekun Sect, after all.”
“Done.”
Han Yuhyeon spoke from the very back. He had not consulted the other inner disciples at all.
For the first time something like an expression finally settled on the old man’s previously blank face. He must not have been expecting much at all.
“Truly?”
“Yes.”
The three inner disciples all turned to stare at Han Yuhyeon at once, but he refused to yield and drove the nail home. It did not matter if none of them understood. This was a deal that absolutely had to be taken.
Cultivators still stuck at Yeongil-ju’s level might not know it, but if this was the Yeonhwa Seonrok Han Yuhyeon remembered, there was definitely a way to redirect a spiritual vein.
Which meant that if they turned the vein back toward Yeong-ha-san Mine, they would effectively gain eight-tenths of the largest spiritual-stone production site in all of Yeongil-ju.