What He'd Forgotten
"Parasite scum who scrape by day after day picking the pockets of lower-realm cultivators crawling up from Yeongil-ju into So-ui-ju. With a cultivation path like yours, you'll be hit with a heavenly tribulation even in Qi Condensation — that's a guarantee."
"What was that? Looking at those scales all over your face, your mother must've been some aquatic creature. How are you even speaking human?"
Han Yuhyeon fired right back with a provocation of his own — but this was the cultivation world, after all, where people's humanity had long since gone offline. The counterpunch landed just as hard. Parents, children: none of it mattered here next to one's own cultivation.
"The aquatic creature is your mother, currently tangled in the reeds of the Yangtze and getting nibbled by fish, isn't she?"
"I grilled some meat yesterday. Instead of salt I sprinkled your mother's bones on it — and even a dog wouldn't touch it. How flavorless does something have to be for a dog to pass?"
What a son of a bitch. Han Yuhyeon felt his blood surge for a second. He'd had no parents even back in Korea, and somehow this still managed to piss him off.
Back in Korea, it hadn't been only immortal cultivation games for Han Yuhyeon. He loved games in general, so of course he'd played those AOS titles where the player base was infamous for having zero humanity left.
And among those, he had been a player who mainly enjoyed the "top" lane — the most notorious of them all.
If you had to pick the most useless kinds of pride a Korean could cling to, map pride and insult pride sat right at the top, and this was the moment his insult pride boiled over. But the pride boiled so hard his brain short-circuited, and what came out was pure, simple trash talk.
"You fucking worthless piece of shit."
"So your creativity finally hit rock bottom, I see. With a five-star intellect like that, even if you swallowed a spirit pill made from your own mother you still wouldn't break through late Qi Condensation — so why not hang yourself already? I know a fine hanging tree in Yeongil-ju. I'll recommend it."
The Cheongrim cultivator had a dazzling repertoire of insults. Is this the average for the cultivation world? Thinking that made Han Yuhyeon a little dizzy.
"Heh heh. Now even your words have clogged up like your mother's breath. Want me to open them up for you — the way I opened the air hole in your mother's forehead? For the record, that air hole in your mother's brow was me testing Finger Flick Art on the bones of the man who used to be your father."
Only then did Han Yuhyeon realize his mistake. No matter how thoroughly his humanity had crashed in those AOS games as a top-lane psycho, in front of the true madness of the cultivation world he was a fragile little thing. This was an innate difference of birth, and there was nothing to be done about it.
"Your mom."
In the end Han Yuhyeon let out a feeble last gasp of defiance and sealed his hearing with spiritual energy. In game terms: chat ban mode. A de facto admission of defeat.
He glanced sideways. Baekri-wan was looking at him with something like pity. Why did you pick a fight when you couldn't even hang? The look said it all. His pride stung, but there was no helping it. The average level of absolute scumminess among cultivators was simply higher than he had imagined.
He was always adjusting that average upward in his mind every time he saw how rotten cultivators could be, and still this kept happening. The deputy palace master of Cheonbong Palace had been right: beyond the heavens, there was always another sky.
Han Yuhyeon sprang down from the flying vessel and stepped onto empty air. From his sleeve a black crescent moon shot upward and began to draw a curved trajectory toward the Cheongrim cultivator.
Screeeee!
Hyeonwol-soin tore through the air with a whistling shriek like a screaming arrow. The Cheongrim cultivator, still flushed with triumph from winning the insult duel, had his eyes snap wide open in an instant.
It was only about two finger-joints long, but the spiritual power packed into it was not something you could casually ignore.
"So the bastard actually has some skill!"
The Cheongrim cultivator shouted and dropped his body low. Of course, Han Yuhyeon — still in chat ban — didn't hear a word of it.
Hyeonwol-soin shifted its path with fluid grace, tracking the Cheongrim cultivator. The man twisted aside at the last instant before it could touch him. Or rather — it looked like he had dodged.
Slash!
Blood swirled along the returning arc of Hyeonwol-soin. The startling part was that no blood clung to its edge. And to every other cultivator watching, it was clear Hyeonwol-soin had not actually cut through the Cheongrim cultivator's body.
Only then could they see it: an invisible, shimmering disc form along the blade's rotation radius. He had poured spiritual power into Hyeonwol-soin to expand its striking range.
"A cowardly trick, just like that mother of yours who fled to the underworld after birthing trash like you!"
The Cheongrim cultivator threw a mental attack at Han Yuhyeon, but it no longer landed. He hadn't stepped forward in the first place to show off the insult pride of the Republic of Korea. He'd stepped forward because he was certain he would win if it came to an actual fight.
"You damn bastard!"
Watching Han Yuhyeon give no reaction at all — not even a twitch of the ear — the Cheongrim cultivator finally understood that words no longer worked.
But that understanding came far too late. Every scrap of mental force he'd poured into insults had dulled his movements. Of course it was only for a flash of an instant, the blink of lightning. But among cultivators, an instant was enough to decide life and death.
Slash!
Han Yuhyeon's scale-covered forearm smashed hard into the Cheongrim cultivator's neck. Blood and flesh stuck to the rough scales. The head jolted skyward from the impact, and the body he'd been holding in midair plummeted like a kite with its string cut.
"What kind of madman is this!"
The Cheongrim cultivators, who had lost a comrade in the blink of an eye, were staggered. And so were the cultivators of Baekun-pa.
That was not destructive power an eight-star Qi Condensation cultivator should be able to produce. It was the result of monopolizing upper-grade cultivation methods and resources through Mongan Hyeolseo.
"Kyyaaang!"
In that moment the raccoon wrapped around his calf — Biyong — spread its limbs wide like a flying squirrel and launched into the air. Who would have guessed that lazy little dragon, which had slept the entire way into So-ui-ju, would finally make its presence known like this.
"What the hell is that?"
The cultivators were even more bewildered by Biyong's behavior. Biyong landed lightly on the chest of the corpse that had hit the ground first, then started frantically rifling through the storage pouch at its waist with both paws. Who would look at that and think dragon? By every visual metric it was a raccoon digging a burrow.
"Kkyang!"
In true blink-of-an-eye fashion Biyong finished looting the corpse's storage pouch, coiled a few items around its tail, flew back up, and wrapped itself around Han Yuhyeon's calf again.
This was actually a method Han Yuhyeon had come up with while wondering how to put Biyong to work. In most games, pets often filled the role of picking up items for you, so he'd tried it — and Biyong was performing better than expected.
"Good job."
Han Yuhyeon took the loot from Biyong's tail, stashed it in his own storage pouch, and when he pulled his hand back out he tossed a spiritual-beast snack. Biyong's tail snapped out like a frog's tongue, snagged the snack, and delivered it to its mouth.
"A spiritual beast."
"Indeed. I had no idea."
Geum Wi-hyeong and Un Song-byeok, watching from the front seats of the flying vessel, were surprised as well. A spiritual beast should have given off spiritual energy as a matter of course, so they had assumed it was just a pet. If it was a spiritual beast, that meant this one possessed intelligence and ability high enough to melt its own aura into its master's.
"Showing us that little raccoon cub was a mistake, boy."
And of course the Cheongrim cultivators had seen it too, so their eyes practically spun in their sockets. A pack of hyenas that had appeared from somewhere was already tearing into the corpse of their comrade on the ground, and they paid not the slightest attention to the desecration of the body.
"He's only about eight-star Qi Condensation from the look of him!"
The Cheongrim cultivators' eyes blazed. In truth they should already have sensed something was off.
Because even the cultivator who had been wrecked by Han Yuhyeon's single strike had been late Qi Condensation — ten-star. And yet the desire for an inner core that must be outstanding, given a spiritual beast of such high intelligence, clouded their judgment. Separately from that, Biyong was a dragon, so their guess wasn't exactly wrong either.
The Cheongrim cultivators each drew their dharma treasures and charged Han Yuhyeon. But Han Yuhyeon was not the only one they had underestimated.
"Wha—!"
Han Yuhyeon stood still, yet the Cheongrim attack had no choice but to stop. Between Han Yuhyeon and the Cheongrim cultivators, the cultivators of Baekun-pa had entered the fight.
Up until now it might have been different, but the moment Han Yuhyeon had already killed one of them, they had to consider themselves enemies of Yeongil-ju's Cheongrim. Here Baekun-pa had to choose: cut Han Yuhyeon off like a tail for the sake of their relationship with Cheongrim, or join the battle. And with Un Song-byeok expecting things from Han Yuhyeon, the choice was naturally the latter.
"A prestigious sect like Baekun-pa cannot compromise with bandits like you."
Un Song-byeok spoke in a solemn voice. What is he even talking about? Han Yuhyeon had already killed one of them — there was no taking it back. But a sect master had his face to save, so Han Yuhyeon decided to give him the answer he wanted.
"Sect Master's decisive judgment only makes our sect shine all the brighter."
"Ahem, ahem. Well, that goes without saying, does it not?"
Even so, Un Song-byeok seemed to know he was sticking his spoon in late, and looked a little embarrassed about it.
Baekun-pa: six people. Remaining Cheongrim cultivators: three. Even one-on-one would have been short-handed, and from Cheongrim's side each man would have to face two. A fight with no chance of winning.
"Damn bastards!"
The Cheongrim cultivators recognized the disadvantage and immediately tried to retreat — but Baekun-pa's cultivators were veterans who had been through fire and water, at least within Yeongil-ju. The escape routes had already been sealed for some time.
"As the deputy leader of Cheongrim, may I say a word?"
One of the cultivators spoke up in a solemn voice, facing Un Song-byeok. From the tone and bearing alone, he looked ready to offer his own life if only his subordinates would be spared — but everyone here, Han Yuhyeon included, knew that was not the line that was coming.
"I will offer you these two. Spare me. When I return, I will keep silent about everything that happened today."
"Deputy Leader! What are you saying!"
Of course. In a way, they were so perfectly within expectations that it almost felt refreshing.
Before long the Cheongrim cultivators were each insisting that only they should be spared and the others killed. We were prepared to listen to all three of them. More precisely: we would listen to half. Kill them all.
"Gyaaaaah…"
The Cheongrim cultivators' wretched screams rang through the air.
Their corpses were soon burned to ash by Un Song-byeok's fire-type artifacts. Baekri-wan mocked the three black sand-castles that had once been bodies.
"Sprinkle this instead of salt when you grill meat. It'd probably taste good."
Just one line — but Han Yuhyeon understood. Even if he tried to trade barbs with that lofty Baekri-wan, he would lose.
"Let's go."
The cultivators of Baekun-pa climbed back onto the flying vessel. Un Song-byeok turned his head and looked at Han Yuhyeon.
"Yuhyeon. I do cherish you, but that was a choice that could have plunged the entire sect into crisis. I understand your blood runs hot, but restrain yourself."
"I apologize, Sect Master."
"As long as you know you're sorry, that's enough. In the cultivation world, it isn't such a great matter."
Still, Un Song-byeok didn't seem inclined to scold Han Yuhyeon too harshly. When Han Yuhyeon glanced at Baekri-wan, she nodded with a look of quiet satisfaction.
Being lightly chewed out by Un Song-byeok for a moment didn't bother him in the least. Even if he had been scolded severely, he would have let it in one ear and out the other.
Because what mattered right now was what would come out of Baekri-wan's hand as she rummaged through her storage pouch.
What is she going to give me? A talisman with absurd performance? A dharma treasure? Or a spell technique, or a spiritual medicine — any of those would be fine.
"Here."
Baekri-wan spoke so that only Han Yuhyeon could hear, and pressed something into his hand.
Han Yuhyeon looked at it through the gap of his closed fist and went blank for a moment. Somehow, it was a reward he had never expected.
"Do you know what it is?"
Han Yuhyeon slowly nodded.
There was no other green bead that could radiate such a fresh, living aura just from being held in the palm.
What Baekri-wan had given him was the Great Wood Essence. One of the materials for crafting the Foundation Establishment Pill — the ultimate goal of every Qi Condensation cultivator.
It felt as if someone had lightly tapped the forehead of a man who had been sprinting forward with his eyes fixed only on the road ahead, and spoken a single line.
Qi Condensation is only the beginning.