Jamma Cave First Trial 3
"How are the ribs holding up?"
"Obviously fine! Who do you think I—!"
"Patients should shut their mouths."
"Aaaargh! So-hyang!!"
Shin Gi-woon had come to visit Ma Ra-jin's sickroom, where the big youth lay with cracked ribs. Ma Ra-jin had been putting on a tough front, claiming he was perfectly fine — until Bi So-hyang jabbed a finger into his side. He crumpled in agony.
Shin Gi-woon could only offer an awkward smile.
"I'll introduce myself properly. I'm Bi So-hyang. From the Bow Demon Sect."
"Ma Ra-jin! Fist Hegemony Sect!"
"Shin Gi-woon. No sect."
The Bow Demon Sect and the Fist Hegemony Sect — both numbered among the Seven Demon Sects, alongside the Killing Demon Sect.
"By the way… that person didn't come with you?"
"What person?"
"You know, the one who always hangs around with—"
Bang!
"Did somebody call me?"
Before Bi So-hyang could finish, Se-hwa shoved the door open hard and strode into the sickroom.
Was it just his imagination, or did Ma Ra-jin and Bi So-hyang stiffen a little?
"Just call me Se-hwa. Looking forward to working with you."
She flashed a warm, easy smile. And then Ma Ra-jin's and Bi So-hyang's pupils started trembling as if an earthquake had hit them.
"N-nice to meet you, Se-hwa! I'm Ma Ra-jin!"
"B-Bi So-hyang! Looking forward to working with you!!"
"What's wrong with you two? You're acting seriously weird."
"I don't know? Maybe something I ate?"
"Th-that's it! Bad food — I'm about to hurl! Excuse me!"
The same Ma Ra-jin who had just been begging to be treated like a proper patient bolted from the room. Bi So-hyang stared at Se-hwa with a pale, drawn face.
Reading the room, maybe? Something like that?
"Strange… Didn't we just say the patient needs to rest? Don't tell me he was lying?"
"N-no way! He was actually fine — just messing around. I'll go grab him!"
Whoosh.
Bi So-hyang tore out after Ma Ra-jin, and just like that the ownerless sickroom held only Shin Gi-woon and Se-hwa.
"Weird. Any idea why they're acting like that?"
"No clue. I'll have a proper talk with them next time."
The corner of Se-hwa's mouth twisted, then smoothed back to normal. Something… there was something there.
Do they know her somehow?
If not, he couldn't make sense of the two of them reacting like they were having seizures. He was curious about the history, but still.
He had come all this way only for the patient to vanish. The whole situation was painfully awkward.
"Were you two acquainted or something?"
"Acquainted… well, they knew me one-sidedly, I guess."
"You're not some kind of thug, are you?"
"Want me to hit you?"
Se-hwa smiled in a way that made it clear she was not amused, and Shin Gi-woon immediately tucked his tail and offered an awkward grin.
Looking at that, yeah — thug checked out. She had just subdued a grown man with a smile alone.
"You planning to keep waiting?"
"I only came to say hello anyway. We're almost out of time."
"True."
The first trial had thoroughly weeded out the rabble. A few had survived on pure luck, of course — but the next gate of Jamma Cave was not something luck could carry anyone through.
Three years of closed-door training.
That was the second trial awaiting those who had passed the first.
The odds of half-baked kids actually succeeding at closed-door cultivation…
Not even one in ten. Nothing waiting for them but darkness. No proper meals — only fasting pills to keep them alive. On top of that, they had to push their cultivation higher, all while the anxiety of never seeing sunlight ate at them.
For anyone without real resolve, closed-door training was hell itself.
Even the ones who had scraped through the first trial on luck would get filtered out here. That was the whole point of making the second trial three years of seclusion.
For a year, sure — some of them could grit their teeth and hang on through sheer spite.
But three years was a different dimension from one. Roughly a thousand days. A thousand days of forced wall-facing cultivation. With a half-baked mind, that was more than enough time to go insane.
"Just so you know — no quitting."
"Who's worrying about who here? You just worry about yourself."
Playful concern, but genuine underneath. Somewhere along the way, Shin Gi-woon had come to accept Se-hwa deep in his heart.
A real friend — one of the few he had made in Jamma Cave.
He hoped that even after three years, they would still be the kind of people who could mess with each other like this.
"See you in three years."
"If you die before then, I'll kill you."
"Heh. How do you kill someone who's already dead?"
With that pointless exchange, the two of them parted ways. And the next day, at Chief Instructor Lee Hyeong-seop's declaration, Jamma Cave's second trial — three years of closed-door training — began.
Rrrrumble—!
Massive stone doors ground shut, sealing off every scrap of light. With the instructors' final words — meet again alive — ringing in his ears, Shin Gi-woon opened his eyes inside a closed-door chamber stacked high with fasting pills.
"Whoa. It really is pitch black."
First order of business: let his eyes adjust to the dark. Shin Gi-woon had once burned five years on closed-door training, so a darkness without a single point of light held no fear for him. Three years of seclusion was an enormous opportunity.
"No need to rush. First, let's set a target."
From the moment closed-door training began, time was the one thing he had in abundance. He had thrown himself into training for the past month — but now that seclusion had truly started, he intended to establish a real goal.
"Assuming the purge of the Demonic Cult has already begun… the Cult and the Alliance should be locked in a sharp standoff right about now."
There was no way it hadn't started. No — it had to have started.
If it hadn't, that would be an insult to the past life where he had died eating dumplings. Just thinking about it made the irritation flare up again.
"Hah. The second I get out of here, I'm stuffing my face with dumplings first thing."
Jamma Cave forged demonic martial artists through three trials in total. Closed-door training was the second — so once the third trial after seclusion was done, he would be a proper demonic martial artist.
Dumplings never showed up in Jamma Cave's meal rotations. The moment he got out, he planned to eat every dumpling he had been denied.
That way, the rage he carried toward those Martial Alliance bastards would never dilute.
"The start of my revenge… Kunlun, right?"
Kunlun was a sect set far apart from the central plains' martial world. It was bundled under the name of the Nine Great Sects, sure — but measured from Henan, where the Martial Alliance headquarters sat, Kunlun was vastly farther away than even the Changbai Sect.
If someone went in determined to wipe them out, Kunlun would vanish without even bones left to collect.
Back when the Alliance's soldiers had been hunting him, he had clearly spotted martial artists from Kunlun among them. He had taken a hit — so he owed them one back, didn't he?
"Good. First, we smash Kunlun."
The moment he became a demonic martial artist, he would have to live entirely for the Cult. Personal action would almost certainly not be tolerated.
But if he built up merit — faster than anyone, more perfectly than anyone, cleaner than anyone — what would happen if he racked up achievements for the Cult? Power would grow, of course.
Starting as a grunt in some random battalion was fine. Rise to unit commander faster than anyone else. Reach the Peak Realm — the Extreme Demon stage — and lock down an unassailable position.
Then the Cult would create an environment where personal action was possible.
"Shall we get started?"
He had sketched out a rough plan, so now it was time to train. Was this even a plan?
Truth was, Shin Gi-woon had never really made plans. If he wanted to do something, he did it. If he didn't, he didn't. That had been his philosophy for living in the world. A guy who had never planned anything in his life, trying to make a plan — could he really fill it out densely from the start? Of course not.
"Just wait for me, you Martial Alliance bastards. I'm coming."
He picked up a wooden spear and settled into stance. Divine weapons were banned from entry. If he accidentally wrecked the closed-door chamber, he wouldn't be the only one dying.
"Haaah!"
Shin Gi-woon began clumsily working through the forms of the Battle Demon Heavenly Spear. Taking full advantage of closed-door training — where no one could see him — he intended to tear the technique apart second by second, analyzing it from the first form to the last.
Even if that alone ate up all three years.
"Build the foundation solid, then climb from there!"
He would never give up.
"Chief Instructor. As of this hour, every candidate has completed entry into their training chambers!"
"Well done. You're dismissed."
"Sir!"
The instructor who had delivered the report to Lee Hyeong-seop left the room. At last, the second trial — closed-door training, the crowning jewel of Jamma Cave — had begun.
"How many will survive, I wonder."
On the Cult Lord's orders, he had arranged a little mischief for this round of seclusion. Literally just a bit of mischief.
Closed-door training was a sanctuary no one was meant to disturb. So what if an intruder appeared in a space like that? What if a safe haven transformed into a hellscape where death had to be negotiated?
How would they break free? The ability to improvise through the unexpected — that was the real theme of this second trial.
"That aside — what is the reason you requested a private audience?"
Lee Hyeong-seop asked the girl seated across from him. She gave a short laugh and answered.
"I have a favor to ask."
"When you first entered Jamma Cave, you clearly—"
"It's a personal request. I'd like you to mess with Gi-woon a little more harshly."
"Harshly… to what degree?"
"That's up to your discretion, isn't it? I need to head in myself, so I'll leave it to you."
The girl rose from her seat. What she had said to Lee Hyeong-seop was nothing more than a small request — take it or leave it. The moment her hand closed on the door handle of the exit—
"Would something that failed to become a dragon be about right?"
"…That level should satisfy Gi-woon."
"I'll make the arrangements. So don't worry, Miss Se-hwa."
The girl — Se-hwa — nodded and left the chief instructor's office.
Her face was colder than it had ever been.