It's Trash Spiritual Roots
The Main Hall of the Baekun Sect was nothing short of magnificent. In place of dust, clouds drifted across the ground, and the whole structure seemed to rise out of that haze as if it had been lifted straight from some otherworldly dream.
Its outer walls were wrought of jet-black darksteel, solid enough to weather any storm without so much as a shiver, and intricate, elegant patterns flowed across their surface like living calligraphy. The jade gates, towering at least ten jang high, were carved in high relief with the languid clouds that were the sect's emblem. When those gates swung open, it felt as though the sky itself were parting.
"Impressive, isn't it? This is your sect."
Mun Il-pyeong smirked as he watched Han Yuhyeon stare at the building, utterly lost for words.
As Mun Il-pyeong led him inside, every disciple they passed bowed in greeting.
"Greetings, Elder."
"Yes, yes."
They were mid-bow when their eyes found Han Yuhyeon trailing behind, and they all froze. With a face that overpowering, he was already a celebrity on Myeong-wang-bong; there wasn't a soul in the Baekun Sect who didn't know who he was.
What's that beggar doing here?
Every stare said the same thing, but with Mun Il-pyeong standing right there, no one dared to ask.
"You wait here."
Outside what was clearly the Sect Master's chambers, Mun Il-pyeong addressed the attendant disciple. The man bowed deeply.
"Come along."
Mun Il-pyeong turned to Han Yuhyeon with a bright little smile. Yuhyeon could say with absolute certainty that, since transmigrating into this world, this was the first time anyone had ever looked at his face and smiled like that. Plenty of people had started to smile and then twisted their faces as if they'd just chewed on dung—but an actual smile? First time.
"Sect Master. It's Il-pyeong. I'm coming in."
"Elder Mun? Ah, yes. Come in."
Permission granted, Mun Il-pyeong pushed the door open. The Sect Master had long white hair and a long white beard—the very picture of an immortal sage.
"What—what is that monster behind you?"
The Sect Master nearly leapt out of his seat at the sight of Han Yuhyeon. Having no reason to leave the sect grounds, he was meeting that face for the first time.
"What are you talking about? This is the disciple I brought in. The one who will restore the Baekun Sect to glory."
Mun Il-pyeong didn't so much as flinch. He just kept smiling. Of the two people in the room, the one more rattled by that absurd claim was not the Sect Master—it was Han Yuhyeon.
Excuse me? I'm going to restore the Baekun Sect to glory?
The words rose as far as his throat, but he had no choice except to keep his mouth shut.
"I—I see. Ahem. Quite the distinctive-looking child, isn't he."
The Sect Master cleared his throat. Calling a boy Mun Il-pyeong had personally brought a "monster" was a little embarrassing, even for him.
"Come here, child."
His voice turned solemn as he beckoned. Mun Il-pyeong gave Yuhyeon a warm, encouraging smile that somehow managed to feel like a silent shove. Yuhyeon's lips went dry as he approached the Sect Master of the Baekun Sect.
"Give me your hand."
At those words, Yuhyeon finally understood exactly why he was here. Mun Il-pyeong was convinced he was a Heavenly Spiritual Root—or at the very least a Dual Spiritual Root. Fair enough. Anyone who heard that a kid had hit the second star of Qi Condensation in a single month would make the same leap.
Yuhyeon hesitated, fidgeting with his fingers. The Sect Master laughed heartily.
"You think I mean you harm? I only wish to examine your spiritual roots. A pulse reading cannot reveal what cultivation art you practice, so set your mind at ease."
Having come this far, refusing to offer his hand wasn't really an option. Yuhyeon held it out. The Sect Master took his wrist with a look of pure satisfaction. Judging by Mun Il-pyeong's swagger, he too was clearly banking on Dual Roots at minimum.
That the result was going to be a catastrophe was something only Han Yuhyeon knew.
The Sect Master closed his eyes and laid his aged hand over Yuhyeon's wrist. Through that contact, Yuhyeon felt the man's spiritual energy flow in, gently circulating through his body.
"……"
"……"
After a brief silence, the Sect Master opened his eyes—and found himself looking straight into Han Yuhyeon's.
His gaze was trembling with pure bewilderment. He glanced back at Mun Il-pyeong, who stood with his arms crossed and an expression of supreme confidence. Frowning slightly, as if he might have misread something, the Sect Master took Yuhyeon's wrist again.
Then his mouth slowly opened.
"Il-pyeong."
"Yes."
"It's trash spiritual roots."
"…What?"
There was no reprimand in the Sect Master's voice—only sheer confusion. Anyone this cocky should have at least Dual Roots. Finding Five Spiritual Roots instead left him thoroughly turned around.
A cold silence settled over the chambers. Even Han Yuhyeon, the only person who had seen this sad future coming, felt goosebumps crawl up his arms. Mun Il-pyeong immediately began denying reality.
"No. No. That can't be right, Sect Master. This boy reached the second star of Qi Condensation in a single month."
"I can see he's second-star Qi Condensation. But he has five spiritual roots. If you think I've gone senile, check him yourself."
At that, Mun Il-pyeong snatched Yuhyeon's wrist as if he were grabbing a piece of merchandise. The grip was rough, but in that bleak atmosphere Yuhyeon couldn't even say it hurt.
"……Hrrrmmm."
Having confirmed that Yuhyeon was indeed a Five Spiritual Roots cultivator, Mun Il-pyeong let out a long, grinding groan. Then he fixed Yuhyeon with a venomous glare that was the exact opposite of the expression he'd worn when offering him entry into the sect.
"You little bastard. Did you deceive me?"
"Excuse me?"
Suddenly the arrows were all pointed at him. Yuhyeon had anticipated even this, though, and launched into a desperate performance of pure innocence.
"I don't really know my own spiritual roots, sir. How is a cultivator at the mere second star of Qi Condensation supposed to know what roots he has?"
"The boy has a point."
The Sect Master took his side. Faced with an argument that didn't have a single crack in it, Mun Il-pyeong's face turned so red it looked ready to burst.
"But Sect Master—how is that possible? Everyone knows a Five Spiritual Roots cultivator can spend decades training and never even leave the first star of Qi Condensation!"
Yes. That was common knowledge. With the Qi Condensation arts you usually learned around here, anyway. Who would ever guess that Han Yuhyeon had already gotten his hands on a Foundation Establishment method in Yeongil-ju?
"How should I know? Perhaps his body was already brimming with spiritual energy. Or perhaps even with Five Roots, his comprehension is exceptional. Either way, with Five Roots he'd still be stuck at the early stages of Qi Condensation."
The Sect Master spoke almost as if he were comforting Mun Il-pyeong.
"Still, second-star Qi Condensation is more than enough to take him as an outer disciple. Our own sect has no shortage of first-star cultivators, after all."
Yuhyeon nodded inwardly. He had fully expected things to play out this way, and the reason he hadn't been particularly bothered was exactly this.
Second-star Qi Condensation was more than enough to get into the Baekun Sect. If he'd been a Heavenly Spiritual Root, the sect would have stuck its nose into everything he did—and that was the last thing he wanted. He still hadn't collected all of Yeongil-ju's hidden pieces, and he needed a lot of time for solo operations.
"……Haaah."
Mun Il-pyeong tipped his head back and sighed at the ceiling. Yuhyeon snickered to himself. That's why you look before you leap. Who told him to jump to conclusions?
"Anyway, I'll take the boy as an outer disciple. Anything else?"
"……No, sir."
At the Sect Master's clear dismissal, Mun Il-pyeong and Han Yuhyeon bowed and left. The moment the chamber doors shut, Mun Il-pyeong clenched his fists so hard they shook.
Yuhyeon, with no idea what to do next, started watching him carefully for cues. That was when Mun Il-pyeong exploded at him.
"What is a mere outer disciple still doing in the Main Hall?! Get the hell out!"
You're the one who brought me here. But there was no universe in which he could say that out loud.
"Yes, yes!"
Han Yuhyeon shot out of the Main Hall like a bolt of lightning.
One way or another, he was now a disciple of the Baekun Sect.
Fortunately, he did manage to collect his 1,500 spirit stones. No matter how much of a pack of thugs cultivators were, they didn't try to stiff one of their own disciples.
And, just as naturally as breathing, Han Yuhyeon started getting bullied from his very first day in the sect.
It wasn't for no reason. His Charm stat was so catastrophically low that even the Buddha himself might have been tempted to throw a shoulder check at him.
Actually, this is perfect.
It felt a little like rationalizing, but it really was good for him.
Outer disciples normally had all sorts of advantages if they got along—joint missions, borrowing spirit stones, trading items, and so on.
"Ugly-ugly. Ugly-ugly."
The moment he approached the training caves that Baekun disciples used for closed-door cultivation, the outer disciples hanging around started making a weird little sound. Anyone with half a brain could tell that "ugly-ugly" was aimed squarely at him.
Along with the sound effect, the cultivators who'd been chatting in front of the caves cleared their throats and drifted away from him. It was a cheap, childish form of isolation—and that was exactly what made it so effective.
Back in school, girls had used weird little sound signals to freeze him out whenever he got too close. He just hadn't expected to get the same treatment in the cultivation world.
Not that he had any intention of picking a fight over it. There were a lot of them, and if he so much as looked annoyed they'd all claim they hadn't been talking about him. Besides, he honestly didn't have time to get tangled up with them.
Looks like the True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art is going to hit Minor Completion today.
For techniques that normally ran twelve stars, four stars was Minor Completion, ten was Major Completion, and twelve was Perfect Completion.
The advanced stages of the Great Void Primordial Chaos Scripture were another story—those were genuinely hard—but the True Dragon Ascending Heaven-Shocking Art had a low base difficulty. Even with Yuhyeon's low Comprehension and Physique stats, he could push through it quickly.
Of course, reaching Minor Completion this fast was mostly thanks to the Baekun Sect's training caves. They were spaces where you could cultivate without a single interruption, and just having access to that was enough for Yuhyeon to improve by leaps and bounds every single day.
"Hey. Ugly-ugly."
As usual, he was about to claim a cave for himself when someone called him to a stop.
"Hm?"
Yuhyeon was a little surprised to actually be addressed. The outer disciples had been treating him like a ghost.
He turned and saw not the coarse hemp robes of an outer disciple, but clean clothes woven of fine silk—the uniform of a Baekun Sect inner disciple.
"Outer disciple Han humbly greets his senior brother of the inner disciples."
Yuhyeon immediately bowed his head. Being an inner disciple was exactly why this guy hadn't joined in the outer disciples' bullying and had spoken to him instead.
The gap between outer and inner disciples was enormous. You had to place in the top four at the annual outer disciple martial competition just to become an inner disciple. There were roughly a hundred outer disciples in the Baekun Sect right now; anyone good enough to rank in the top four was, by definition, Yuhyeon's senior.
"Right. You come to the training caves every day. Making any progress?"
Yuhyeon almost couldn't believe it. Was this senior actually looking out for a bullied junior?
"Ah—I'm making progress, more or less."
"Hmm. From what I hear, Five Spiritual Roots make progress hard to come by."
"Still, I'm working hard at it."
"That so? More to the point—I keep seeing you at the caves every day, so I was curious. Have you completed this month's assigned mission yet?"
The inner disciple's voice turned cold. Only then did Yuhyeon understand why the man had bothered to speak to him at all.
"Ah, yes. I know. Outer disciples are required to complete one mission a month from the Mission Hall."
"That's right. Have you done this month's?"
"I still have until tomorrow, so I was going to do it then."
Yuhyeon knew the system perfectly well. Disciples received a salary of spirit stones from the sect—and in return, they had a quota of missions from the Mission Hall to fulfill.
The inner disciple hadn't approached out of concern. He was annoyed because he saw Yuhyeon as a parasite sucking up spirit stones without doing any of the assigned work.
"What a pathetic excuse. You don't know if a mission will take two days or fifteen, and you're leaving it to the last day?"
The inner disciple barked at him. He wasn't wrong. Outer disciples had to complete one mission a month. If the deadline was tomorrow, then at least one mission had to be finished by tomorrow.
"It pisses me off watching parasite outer disciples like you leech off the resources we earn by actually working our missions."
At last, the inner disciple bared his teeth. But Yuhyeon really had been planning to finish a mission tomorrow, so the whole confrontation felt ridiculous.
"I truly intended to complete a mission by tomorrow."
"I just came from the Mission Hall. I looked at what's left. All the easy missions have already been claimed by first-star Qi Condensation cultivators. I can say for a fact there is not a single mission a second-star Five Roots cultivator could finish in one day."
"You're certain of that?"
Yuhyeon shot back. The challenge in his tone made the inner disciple's brow furrow.
"What, are you saying I'm talking nonsense?"
"Not at all. I'm certain because I know the mission meant for me is still available."
"Baseless confidence."
The inner disciple sneered.
"Then how about this? If you fail to complete even a single mission by tomorrow, on top of whatever contribution-point penalty the sect hands down, you'll take a penalty from me as well."
"What kind of penalty?"
"You hand over every spirit stone you have. You've got at least 1,500, don't you?"
The inner disciple grinned nastily. Only then did Yuhyeon realize the man had approached him with a very specific goal in mind.
He knew Yuhyeon had received 1,500 spirit stones from the Medicine King Hall on his first day. That sum had looked too tempting to pass up, so he'd come looking for an excuse. 1,500 spirit stones was no small number even for an inner disciple.
"And if I do complete a mission?"
"Heh heh. Then I'll give you something worth 1,500 spirit stones."
With a wager suddenly on the table, the outer disciples—forgetting entirely that they were supposed to be treating Yuhyeon like a ghost—crowded around to watch. Yuhyeon swept a look across the gathering and said,
"Every disciple here is a witness. You won't be able to back out of this."
"You've got confidence as filthy as that face of yours."
The inner disciple laughed hard, staring at him. Yuhyeon laughed right back, just as hard. He had no confidence about this wager—no confidence that he would lose, that is.
"Tomorrow's the deadline, then. I'll do it tomorrow."
Yuhyeon turned his back on the inner disciple with deliberate flair and walked back into the training cave. Inner and outer disciples alike watched him go with hollow little laughs.
"Is he insane?"
"He should be scrambling to pick up a mission right now, and he's still short on time."
The outer disciples muttered among themselves. The inner disciple was thinking the exact same thing.
He was right, of course. At the Mission Hall right now, there was no mission a mere second-star Qi Condensation cultivator could finish in a single day.
And Han Yuhyeon had already left the second star of Qi Condensation behind a long time ago.