Preparations Are Complete

Jade Jar. Literally, a jar made of jade. But in Yeonhwa Seonrok, a Jade Jar meant something else entirely.

A gacha item.

Jade Jars were gacha items that dropped in every region. Aside from a handful of event-exclusive specials, anything in the game could come out of one.

Not that every Jade Jar was precious, of course. Like gacha items everywhere, most of them spat out whatever was already common in that area.

What mattered was that Jade Jars had grades. You told them apart by the color of the rim. There were five: white at the bottom, then blue for low-grade, yellow for mid-grade, red for high-grade, and gold for the absolute peak.

The closer you got to white, the higher the odds of pure trash. The closer you got to gold, the higher the odds of something worth keeping.

And the Jade Jar Cheongho had just found wore a golden rim. Three gold-rimmed Jade Jars in an entire region was considered a lot. That was how rare they were.

Finding one less than a month after possession… yeah. You really could not ignore a Luck stat like that.

"Ho. A gold Jade Jar is rare. I knew they existed, but this is the first time I've ever laid eyes on one."

Cheongho clicked his tongue. A beast of that size had to be at least thirty years old—double a normal tiger's lifespan. If even a spiritual beast that had roamed for three decades had never seen one, that was the sheer authority of a gold rim.

"You're absurdly lucky."

"Tell me about it."

Cheongho rumbled, pleased. This was luck for Han Yuhyeon, sure—but it was luck for Cheongho too.

The way a spiritual beast built spiritual nature was by doing things that helped humans. Finding a treasure this rare would have stacked a fair amount of spiritual nature onto Cheongho as well.

"What will you do? Break it?"

Cheongho asked. It was a question worth thinking over. A Jade Jar had value just sitting there; you could always sell it to another cultivator.

"How much would this go for if I sold it?"

"How would I know human market prices?"

"Right. Stupid of me."

"I agree. Ugly and stupid. Remarkable combination."

Han Yuhyeon eyed Cheongho. Was this bastard actually a spiritual beast? Then again, he wasn't trying to murder him over a treasure sitting right in front of them—so yes, he really was one.

"But not cracking it here would be pretty small-minded, don't you think?"

"Heh. Fair enough."

Of course, in all his years of playing, Han Yuhyeon had never once gotten anything fun out of a Jade Jar.

Whatever came out was usually worth less than the jar itself. After cracking a few early on and getting garbage, he had stopped opening them entirely and just sold every one that dropped. He was the kind of player who chased profit over romance.

The reason he was thinking of cracking this one anyway was simple. Right now, he was sitting on a monstrous Luck stat.

This is a free win even if I fail.

Luck bought by throwing away every spiritual root, physique, spiritual power, and lifespan point he had. Nothing leaned harder on pure luck than a gacha, so the more pulls he could take, the better.

"I'm going?"

"Go."

Nerves were still nerves. Han Yuhyeon bit down hard on his lip, hoisted the Jade Jar high, and let go with both hands. In his eyes, the free fall looked like it was running in slow motion.

The jar shattered against the ground and burst with light—the same effect he remembered from the game. The glow cycled white, blue, yellow, red, gold, flipping through colors to match the jar's grade ladder. Stop on white and you got the lowest-tier trash; stop on gold and you got the highest-tier prize.

Cheongho and Han Yuhyeon squinted into the glare and kept watching.

"Wha—!"

The one who yelped was Cheongho. The light had frozen on gold.

Han Yuhyeon just grinned. He had expected it, deep down. With Luck at 280, landing on white would have been the real absurdity. The insane Luck stat was correcting for him—gold was the default outcome.

"Insane."

Cheongho's voice had gone blank. Even Han Yuhyeon, a veteran of the game, had never pulled a gold-tier item from a gold Jade Jar. Gold jars themselves were unique rarities, and the odds of gold coming out of one were a miserable 0.029 percent.

So what is it?

The item pool in Yeonhwa Seonrok was so wide even he couldn't guess.

The golden light scattered into the sky, and the item took shape.

What emerged was a bamboo tube holding a rolled slip of dried bamboo. Han Yuhyeon clutched his hammering heart, drew the slip free, and unrolled it.

"……Huh?"

Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art. A body refinement technique named for a dragon climbing into the sky and startling the heavens.

For all the grandeur of the name, though, Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art was a beginner martial art—the one every game character started with on creation.

Which meant it was a technique you discarded almost immediately. Of course the free starter kit wasn't going to be good. Even the arts you could learn at Baekun Sect had higher ceilings than this.

On top of that, body refinement techniques tempered the flesh—what wuxia novels would call external arts. In a xianxia world that prized internal cultivation and spiritual energy, they weren't exactly fashionable, and the grind of body refinement was widely considered to deliver less power than the effort demanded. Body refiners were a tiny minority among cultivators, and some cultivators looked down on them outright.

"Why that face? Is it not a good technique?"

Cheongho asked, because Han Yuhyeon looked distinctly unimpressed.

A gold item from a gold Jade Jar, and it was a basic martial art. Looking happy would have been the strange reaction. The only reason he wasn't outright disgusted was the character in front of the name: True.

Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art was Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art. What the hell was a True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art? Han Yuhyeon had never even known a technique by that name existed. He had never seen it on the forums.

"It's fine. I'll figure it out once I learn it."

For now, Han Yuhyeon tucked the True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art into his inventory.

"Ah. Not learning it right away?"

"Can't do it here."

"Why not?"

"You're a beast, so you wouldn't know—but when you first enter a martial art, you need absolute focus. Try initiating something in a place like Neungha-gok, full of beasts and insects, and you'll hit qi deviation on the spot."

"I believe I can help with that much."

Cheongho said. Before Han Yuhyeon could even ask how, a wave of spiritual energy rolled out from the tiger's body. Birds lifted from the trees in a single rush of wings.

Han Yuhyeon stretched out his spiritual sense and found nothing nearby that could so much as itch. Cheongho tilted his chin up, smug.

"That is the power of a spiritual beast. Understand, cultivator?"

"Ho. Not bad at all."

For once, Han Yuhyeon didn't skimp on the praise.

"We've already dug up nearly every Green-Eye Herb left in Neungha-gok. Since you're stuck here for a month anyway, why not train?"

"No complaints from me. But are you going to be fine left alone, you little shit?"

"I may be a cub, but I'm still a spiritual beast. Nothing short of a demonic beast can touch me—and if one shows up, I'll know."

"Fair enough."

If a spiritual ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠beast was standing guard, he could relax. Han Yuhyeon especially had nowhere safe to train a technique. His house was a ruin halfway up a mountain that anyone could wander into. Cheongho watching his back already beat that by a mile.

Honestly, the "trust" he had tossed out at the beginning had been pure fluff—but somehow, real trust seemed to have built between him and Cheongho after all.

"All right. Let's do this."

"Go on."

Han Yuhyeon sat on a broad, flat boulder, drew the True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art from his inventory, and unrolled it.

Just like learning a technique in the game, his vision blacked out. The characters lifted free of the bamboo slip and swam through the dark.

That was why focus could not break during initiation. Here, Han Yuhyeon had to absorb as many of the characters as possible. Every character that had risen began to orbit him in a slow circle. The vast landscape unique to xianxia, the ink-black characters billowing through the void—it made the Eastern fantasy world feel real in his bones.

He had fully expected to miss a lot of them. What mattered when learning a technique was the Comprehension stat, and having dumped everything into Luck left him with Comprehension on the low side. Yet every single character that rose sank into his body.

Is my Comprehension higher than I thought?

He entertained the delusion for a second, then remembered his stats perfectly well. His Comprehension was rock bottom.

Which left only one explanation. The True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art, like the ordinary version, was simply easy to initiate.

Comprehension and aptitude weren't the only things that affected technique learning. Difficulty of the art itself mattered enormously.

As a body refinement technique, Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art would lean on physique and Comprehension. If someone as low in both as Han Yuhyeon had initiated it perfectly, the entry bar had to be low.

Then how is this different from the regular version?

Han Yuhyeon called up the art he had just entered. Initiation meant the training methods and everything written on the slip now lived in his head.

The way you read a book, he slowly turned through the contents of the Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art.

The early section of the art was exactly what he already knew. A plain, almost pathetic technique whose only real feature was hardening the body.

Hmm?

But the art didn't stop where Han Yuhyeon expected. It should have ended after explaining Latent Dragon in the Cave. There was more.

And it kept going.

It was astonishing. The Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art was actually a martial art of four forms: Latent Dragon in the Cave, Rising Scales Shatter Mountains, Dragon Form Quakes the Qi, and Soaring Dragon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Shocks Heaven.

The version handed to players at the start was only a quarter of the real thing. All Han Yuhyeon had ever known was the Latent Dragon stage.

I've never even heard of a martial art like this.

Which made sense, in a way. Yeongil-ju was a tutorial zone people usually left as fast as possible.

Nobody farmed Jade Jars in Yeongil-ju on purpose, and almost no character had the Luck to pull a gold item from a gold jar anyway.

Which meant Han Yuhyeon was the first person to find the True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art. His heart started pounding all over again.

Looked at a certain way, the True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art was the single best martial art for him right now.

Even with garbage aptitude, he could initiate it perfectly—and it still had room to grow. Gold jar, gold item, even in Yeongil-ju. By the time he reached Soaring Dragon Shocks Heaven, it was going to be strong. That much was certain.

"Heh… heh heh…"

Laughter slipped out of him before he could stop it.

"Don't laugh. You're ugly."

"Heh—hahahaha!"

Cheongho's dig didn't slow him down. Han Yuhyeon tipped his head back and laughed out loud.

A cultivation method and a martial art both. The preparations to become a real cultivator were finished.

After that, Han Yuhyeon stopped digging Green-Eye Herbs and threw himself into training. He already had more than enough of the herb—more than overflowing. In this world, nothing mattered more than building strength.

Neungha-gok saw so few people that the spiritual energy soaked into the ground was still thick and undisturbed. Training the Great Void Primordial Chaos Scripture felt noticeably more efficient here.

Mornings for the Great Void Primordial Chaos Scripture, evenings for the True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art—that was how he spent his days. Whenever he trained, Cheongho stood guard.

"Hoo."

Two days before he and Cheongho were due to part, Han Yuhyeon finished a session of the Great Void Primordial Chaos Scripture, opened his eyes—and understood.

He had stepped into Qi Condensation, 2-star.