Beneath the Earth 3
They swallowed hard. The legendary Gongcheongseogyu lay right before their eyes. There wasn't a single martial artist in the jianghu who didn't know how precious a spiritual elixir could be.
No one felt the urge to hog it all for themselves. The problem was that none of them knew how to take it — how to divide it, how to store it.
And last of all, whether it was even safe to consume down here.
Outside intrusion wasn't the issue. Being buried alive was.
They couldn't leave the way they'd come. Hwaseon Jinin's rampage had collapsed the exit entirely.
Even with the All-Power Realm holding the bedrock in place, they still couldn't move forward. So where were they supposed to go?
They would have to carve a new path. How remained the question — but Shin Gi-woon figured the Gongcheongseogyu itself would hand them the opportunity.
If taking the elixir triggered the Five Energies Returning to the Origin and the Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown, he intended to open the Conception and Governing Vessels on the spot and break through to the Hwa Realm.
The youngest Hwa Realm master in history. Reaching it at twenty — a madman's gambit. Every elder in the jianghu would have tried to stop him.
Shin Gi-woon was going to try it anyway.
"First let's make something to store it in. Set it down carefully."
Bi So-hyang and Sama Yul gave short nods and carried the Gongcheongseogyu with hands more tender than those cradling a newborn.
A little dust didn't matter. But if even a single drop spilled, the loss would be beyond any price in gold.
Once the two of them had safely set the elixir on the ground, all three took a few careful steps back.
Only after putting enough distance between themselves and the Gongcheongseogyu did they start mining ore, fashioning vessels to hold it.
No great craftsmanship was required — just something big enough for a few drops. They hollowed the stone out roughly, then fashioned lids that could seal completely. With the look of people heading into a final battle, they returned to the elixir.
"…Who wants to go first?"
Shin Gi-woon broke the silence. Staring down at the Gongcheongseogyu alone, he was reminded of the old saying about the dog that chased a chicken only to end up staring at a rooftop.
In this case it was the ground, not a roof — but given the Gongcheongseogyu's reputation, none of them could imagine what would happen if they took it wrong.
Bi So-hyang and Sama Yul didn't answer. Fair enough. With the elixir right in front of them, their minds were probably off in a field somewhere.
Of course, that was no excuse to fall into heart demons over it. Shin Gi-woon packed internal energy into his palms and clapped.
Both women jumped and snapped their heads up.
"Hey! What the hell are you clapping for all of a sudden?!"
"Have you lost it?"
"Focus, will you? What are you, a miser? Just going to sit there staring? You're supposed to drink it."
At Shin Gi-woon's sharp jab, both of them ducked their heads again. It was different from before — almost like they were embarrassed.
"Yul, you go first. You're the one who needs it most."
"Is that really okay?"
"We have to take it one at a time anyway. If the overflow of energy is more than one person can handle, the other two need to support them so they don't fall into qi deviation."
"Then… all right."
Sama Yul settled into a cross-legged seat, her expression trembling. Shin Gi-woon and Bi So-hyang shifted the rock with exquisite care.
A single drop of Gongcheongseogyu slid down her throat. At once the elixir's energy began racing through her entire body.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa.
Shin Gi-woon and Bi So-hyang never let the tension slip. One wrong move and she could tip into qi deviation — so they watched her alone, willing her to pull through.
If you asked where cultivators made the most mistakes during energy circulation, the answer was the upper dantian techniques used by Peak experts.
Unlike the middle and lower dantians, the upper dantian was an extremely fragile vessel. Force vast energy into it and nine times out of ten it would crack — and that crack would never heal for as long as you lived.
That was why people said a First-Rate expert breaking through the wall to Peak was no easy feat. Activate the upper dantian carelessly, fail to control the force, and you would leave this world on the spot. Even after safely reaching Peak, you couldn't afford to neglect the upper dantian. As the most sensitive of the three, it demanded meticulous care.
Fortunately, Sama Yul never touched hers. Even a slight leak of the Gongcheongseogyu's energy could have put the upper dantian at risk.
She absorbed only as much energy as she could handle and expelled the rest. The right call.
Energy beyond your capacity was poison. After roughly half a shichen of circulation, Sama Yul exhaled a long breath and opened her eyes.
"Congratulations. You broke through the wall to Transcendent."
"…It feels like a dream."
Sama Yul clenched and unclenched her hands, as if her own body no longer felt familiar. She had reached Transcendent at such a young age.
You could call it the Gongcheongseogyu's doing — but Sama Yul, who had always completed her missions on the knife's edge of life and death, more than deserved the realm.
Next was Bi So-hyang. She, too, would rise to Transcendent once she took the elixir.
They tilted the rock the same way they had for Sama Yul and let a single drop fall. In Bi So-hyang's case, the circulation took a full shichen.
Things had been progressing smoothly when the All-Power Realm finally failed to hold the cave's bedrock and the whole structure collapsed. The shockwave raised the possibility that this chamber would go next.
Shin Gi-woon and Sama Yul hastily transferred the Gongcheongseogyu into the vessels and even prepared to evacuate Bi So-hyang if the worst came.
Luck was with them — the chamber held. If the ground below crumbled every time something fell above, Mount Hua wouldn't exist as a mountain at all.
The real problem was how to get out. Well — put their heads together long enough and a method would turn up, wouldn't it?
Bi So-hyang finished her circulation having reached Transcendent as well. Looking at the two of them, Shin Gi-woon couldn't help thinking how unfair the jianghu really was.
It had taken him more than ten years just to break the wall to Transcendent. It wasn't as if his old body had been talentless, either — he had reached the peak of the Hwa Realm and made a name as the greatest spear under heaven.
And here were two girls barely past twenty, punching through to Transcendent. Of course, the man thinking those thoughts was eyeing the Hwa Realm himself.
A second life and a first life could never be the same. Unlike a second life where pure efficiency was possible, Bi So-hyang and Sama Yul had reached Transcendent on raw talent alone. You could scour the world and never find gifts like theirs again.
[You really do think whatever's convenient for you.]
And what's wrong with that?
[A guy about to take the Gongcheongseogyu and smash through the wall to the Hwa Realm is complaining about talent? What, 'second life'? If this body had no talent to begin with, you think you would have grown this fast?]
Ryu-jin scolded him. Listening carefully, he couldn't find a flaw in her argument. Second life or not — if this body had been born with blocked meridians or some similar affliction, he would still be wheezing along, never mind the Hwa Realm. And that raised a natural question.
How had he gotten this second life in the first place? Had he possessed someone else's body, or been born anew? He had no way of knowing.
Once he returned to the Cult, he would need to dig into it further. The Hwa Realm… no — he was a man of the Demonic Cult now, so call it Extreme Demon.
If he reached Extreme Demon, he wasn't sure he would still belong to the Man-byeon-chu-hon-dae. Lee Hyeong-seop alone had held a unit commander post at Transcendent level, and Hwaseon Jinin — the man they had just fought — had been an elder of Mount Hua. Transcendent was by no means a low realm.
But if Shin Gi-woon reached Extreme Demon here, he would stand at the same height as a unit commander — which meant founding a new unit became possible.
Independent operational authority would come with it, of course. He had no intention of leaving the Man-byeon-chu-hon-dae just yet.
Keep the affiliation, form a separate squad, and move on his own. A squad dedicated solely to hunting the Heavenly Palace, for instance.
Well — that was talk for after he reached Extreme Demon. And there was no way he would fail, right?
"Your turn."
"Right."
When his turn came, Shin Gi-woon settled into a cross-legged seat. Do it the way he always did. No variables to speak of. It wasn't as if some imugi was going to pop out of nowhere down here.
[That better not be a shot at me.]
Usually the ones who flinch are the ones who feel guilty. Sounds like I hit a nerve.
[You really can't let a single line go, can you… Ugh.]
For the record, it had been a shot at Ryu-jin. A shot was a shot — but the environment itself was steeped in spiritual potency.
This was the kind of place where a spirit beast could appear without warning.
"Open your mouth."
Bi So-hyang and Sama Yul tilted the rock. A drop of Gongcheongseogyu slid down Shin Gi-woon's throat.
At the same instant, a vast surge of energy erupted from his lower dantian and flooded his entire body.
KWAAAAAA!
"Kh—!"
"This bastard… just how much internal energy does he have?"
The two women stared in shock at the energy pouring from Shin Gi-woon's body. For someone supposedly at the same Transcendent realm, the sheer volume was absurd.
Measured by quantity alone, it could slap an Extreme Demon martial artist across the face.
They were already eager to see what realm Shin Gi-woon would reach after taking the Gongcheongseogyu. And as if to answer that expectation—
"Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown!!"
"He's achieved the Five Energies Returning to the Origin too."
Three flowers of crimson energy bloomed above his head, and five-colored radiance rose luminously from his entire body toward the sky.
The first gate on the path to Extreme Demon — Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown and Five Energies Returning to the Origin — had been cleared in an instant.
The next gate required opening the Conception and Governing Vessels, unlocking every fine meridian in the body, and completing a full bone-and-marrow transformation.
The moment that thought crossed their minds, both women's faces flushed red. When the transformation hit, every scrap of clothing would melt away.
"What do we do about his clothes?"
"…Not so much as a rag in sight."
They weren't close enough to see each other naked just yet. Flustered, they scanned the surroundings, but in a chamber full of nothing but rock there was no fabric to be found.
Stripping him in advance to save the clothes would have been smarter — but who could touch someone mid-circulation?
"It won't melt… right? It better not melt."
The top could go for all they cared. They just prayed the bottom half would survive.
Bi So-hyang and Sama Yul watched in silence as Shin Gi-woon continued his circulation.