A Rain of Fortuitous Encounters
The Body Refinement Gate.
Jin Somyeong read the three words inscribed above the entrance of the magnificent structure and changed course without a moment’s hesitation.
The poisonous smoke that turned its victims into Insectoids was chasing him from behind, but there was no way he could let an opportunity like this slip past him.
He unfolded his thunder movement art and cut across the sky. While widening the distance between himself and the poisonous smoke as much as possible, he threw Yin-Yang Great Hands behind him whenever he found an opening, trying to shove back the smoke that was swelling as if it meant to fill the entire Defeated Sage Dojo.
It had little effect. The smoke was expanding too quickly, and its range was so vast that there was no hope of stopping it.
Is it poison that spreads through spiritual qi?
Ordinary smoke grew thinner as it dispersed. This poisonous haze, however, had spread over an enormous area and still retained all its menace. Perhaps because a being presumed to be at the Deity Transformation stage had self-destructed, it showed no sign of stopping.
In the end, Jin Somyeong focused solely on increasing his speed.
Fortunately, he reached the entrance of the Body Refinement Gate before the poisonous smoke caught up to him. Naturally, it was sealed by a barrier.
He steadied his breathing and gripped his sword. Given the situation, he had no intention of wasting time figuring out how to open the barrier. He meant to smash it apart and go in.
Wait.
The Defeated Sage Dojo had been created to select and train the person who would become humanity’s sword—in other words, its successor. If so, shouldn’t there be some kind of benefit for someone like him, who had passed through the Hall of Inheritance?
Half on impulse, he took the Sixth-Realm Breaking Talisman from his subspace and waved it. Sure enough—
Oh!
As if recognizing a key, the barrier slid open.
Joy and regret struck him at the same time. If not for the poisonous smoke pursuing him from behind, he could have swept through the entire Defeated Sage Dojo and harvested an incredible bounty.
It was a shame, but he shook the feeling off at once. Rather than lamenting a situation he could not change, it was more important to move diligently and secure as much as he could.
He entered the Body Refinement Gate and immediately released his Divine Sense.
No teleportation formation here.
Then he would have to search the other buildings as well. He could not afford to waste much time in this place.
There were slabs of metal that looked impossibly heavy, a staircase that seemed to go on forever, a still spring whose surface did not ripple in the slightest, and all manner of other objects. Jin Somyeong swept his gaze over them and took everything he could.
Whatever it was, he first tried placing it into his subspace. If that failed, he left it behind.
Is there anything else?
As he busily gathered one thing after another, he spotted a tree at the very top of a staircase so long it seemed to touch the heavens. Three milky-white fruits hung from its branches, and even at a glance, they looked like the most precious things in the entire Body Refinement Gate.
I’ll take just those, then.
From the look of it, they were likely a reward meant to be obtained after climbing the staircase step by step to the end. But Jin Somyeong had no intention of faithfully passing the trial.
Bang!
He kicked off the ground. Shooting upward like a cannonball, he raised his magic power, intending to ignore the staircase and fly to the summit in one burst.
The instant he cleanly crossed the first third of the stairs, gravity intensified dramatically.
A crushing pressure descended, as if an entire mountain of stone had been placed on his shoulders. Even breathing became difficult.
He clenched his teeth and was about to keep flying when his hair stood on end. At the same time, the ceiling of the Body Refinement Gate flashed.
A thick pillar of light speared down toward the crown of his head.
It was an attack so fast it was difficult even to perceive, but Jin Somyeong had just been fighting an Insectoid presumed to be at the Deity Transformation stage, and his senses remained honed to their utmost. He deflected the vertical strike with the pure white radiance gathered on his sword—Ildogwangcheon.
Whew.
Landing halfway up the stairs, he studied the ceiling of the Body Refinement Gate. It looked ready to pour out a second pillar of light at any moment, the faint shimmer there wavering like a warning.
A restriction that prevents flight, then.
He felt as if he had been caught cheating. Scratching his chin, Jin Somyeong examined the staircase.
The stairs coiled around like twisted rope. If he had to step on every one of them and climb normally, it would take far too long.
He narrowed his eyes at the ceiling, then drew a slow breath.
Crackle...
The magic power flowing through his meridians transformed into lightning qi.
At the same instant, he leaped with all his strength, ignoring the pillar of light falling from the ceiling and shooting upward.
Flash!
As if it had been waiting, a pillar of light came crashing down, but he ignored it. There was only one thing he focused on: increasing his speed.
He cut between the twisting staircases and reached the summit in a breath.
The pillar of light pursued him like a guided missile, about to slam into his back. He first tried condensing his blood armor to knock it away, but that was impossible.
Crack!
The blood armor shattered instantly, forcing him to deflect each strike with the sword wreathed in Ildogwangcheon. The power was far stronger than he had expected, and cold sweat broke out over his skin.
...At least I made it.
He examined the ceiling carefully, but it showed no sign of attacking again.
There had been some complications, but he had succeeded. In an instant, he had crossed the staircase and arrived at the summit.
He nodded in satisfaction, then froze.
Ildogwangcheon, which had remained intact even while he fought the Insectoid presumed to be at the Deity Transformation stage, had become faint at some point. It weakened by the moment, as if its power source had been cut off.
What? Why is it doing this all of a sudden?
He frowned in thought, and soon the reason came to him.
Ildogwangcheon was a secret art that could only be used when his conscious and unconscious mind were aligned.
Put another way, unless the matter was desperate enough to move the unconscious depths of his heart, Ildogwangcheon would not manifest.
Did my unconscious decide this isn’t actually an urgent situation?
That seemed roughly correct, but he was not entirely convinced. No matter how he thought about it, he had no desire to become an Insectoid. Without Ildogwangcheon, his current situation was extremely troublesome.
...Don’t tell me it’s because of that.
The Sixth-Realm Breaking Talisman suddenly came to mind. To be sure, if he used it, escaping the Defeated Sage Dojo would be very simple.
But...
Absolutely not.
The Sixth-Realm Breaking Talisman was an item he needed in order to ascend to the Upper Realm. How could he possibly use it in a place like this?
He repeatedly told himself this was an emergency and tried to unfold Ildogwangcheon again, but it did not work. Controlling the unconscious mind was not something that could be done through willpower alone.
And if he were being honest, he knew there was still a sliver of leeway in his heart.
Ah, forget it.
He decided to think about Ildogwangcheon again later and focused on the fruit at the top of the stairs.
Congratulations on passing the Hundred-Thousand-Jin Muscle-Tempering Stair.
This fruit is the Body-Cleansing Soul-Brightening Fruit. It purifies the body and mind and improves one’s constitution.
Warning: It should only be consumed after achieving at least mid-grade Fourth-Realm body refinement, or its medicinal power cannot be endured...
After quickly reading the words carved into the stele beside the tree, he carefully harvested all three milky-white fruits.
Should I uproot the tree too?
He checked whether it could be transplanted, but a restriction had been placed on it, making that difficult. If he forced it out, he would only damage the tree, so he left it alone.
After confirming there was nothing else to take, he jumped down from the staircase.
Hissss...
The sound of leaking wind reached him, and dark green smoke began seeping in through the gaps between the walls and ceiling of the Body Refinement Gate. The poisonous smoke that twisted a victim’s very species had already spread all the way here.
Leaving his regret behind, Jin Somyeong hurried out of the Body Refinement Gate.
On his way out, he brushed against the poisonous smoke, but Ildogwangcheon, though on the verge of vanishing, allowed him to deal with it.
He rushed out of the poison and began choosing the next building to enter, only to pause.
A half-collapsed structure had caught his eye. Through the hole in its wall, he could see soil and a mass of spirit herbs.
A spirit herb field?
It was not some ruined field left abandoned for ages, either. The traces of careful cultivation remained clear, as though the herbs had been tended until recently. It seemed to be a field the Insectoids had diligently managed.
Jackpot.
Why would he not take it? Spirit herbs had the same effects regardless of who had grown them.
He hurried over, ripped up every spirit herb he could find, and threw them into his subspace. Whether there was anything wrong with the herbs could be checked later. For now, he focused on collecting them.
Danil, take the others and try transplanting these into the spirit herb field. If that doesn’t work, seal them in jade boxes. Don’t let the medicinal properties scatter.
Some spirit herbs turned to powder the moment they were pulled out. Those he sealed by consuming the Boundless Great Ability, then stored in his subspace. He was doing everything he could to preserve and transplant them.
Most of the attempts failed, but occasionally, some successfully settled into the spirit herb field of his Mental Secret Realm.
In a short span of time, a spirit herb field someone had carefully cultivated was reduced to devastation.
Before the poisonous smoke could reach him, he stripped the field bare and left without hesitation.
I don’t have much Boundless Great Ability left, either...
To conserve the Boundless Great Ability that was on the verge of running dry, he stopped using the Manryuhoebok divine ability. The pain he had been suppressing surged over him all at once.
Holding back the groan that threatened to escape on its own, he entered the nearest building his feet carried him toward.
The Formation Gate, is it?
Once he stepped through the entrance, he found dozens of formations interwoven in a complex pattern. It had the appearance of an elaborate puzzle, but since he had no intention of solving it himself, he only examined the area near the entrance.
Oh!
He discovered a teleportation formation, but his joy did not last long.
On closer inspection, it had been gnawed away by something. Judging by the tiny dead insects beside it, no larger than grains of millet, it was the work of the Insectoids.
Those damned bastards.
He had no idea how they had infiltrated a building protected by a barrier with insects.
Clicking his tongue, he scanned the surroundings.
The Formation Gate, like the other gates, seemed to contain plenty worth obtaining, but his formation mastery was too lacking for him to break through it in a short time. In the end, he only took a few jade slips lying near the entrance and left.
Should I release my clones?
If he used the Blood Spirit Clone divine ability, he could search far more quickly.
However, the clones’ cultivation was much lower than his main body’s, which meant their poison resistance was lower as well. He was worried they might be contaminated into Insectoids for no reason.
Even if a Blood Spirit Clone died, it would not adversely affect the main body. But he had no desire to become an Insectoid even by the slimmest chance, so he was reluctant.
Hm?
As he put distance between himself and the poisonous smoke amid such thoughts, a strangely shaped building came into view. A dome, perhaps? It looked like a round bowl turned upside down.
Wondering if it might contain an intact teleportation formation, he entered and found...
A hot spring?
A warm bath appeared before him, white steam billowing from its surface. The spiritual qi rising from it was so dense it nearly dazed him, and one glance was enough to tell him that this was no ordinary hot spring.
After examining it with the Thunder Sense Insight Law-Breaking Eye—
Splash!
The moment he realized there was no problem, he jumped in.
“Haaah...”
His fatigue melted away. It felt as though he had stretched out beneath warm sunlight.
The wounds covering his body healed at a rapid pace. Heat that was both hot and cooling seeped all the way into his bones, gently loosening his internal injuries.
Is this water formed from condensed spiritual qi?
It was spirit water, formed when pure spiritual qi pooled and pooled until it became liquid. Water like this had a wide variety of uses. Submerging oneself in it, as he was now, healed wounds, and it was also useful for pill refinement and cultivation.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
As his tense body and mind relaxed, laughter suddenly escaped him. It was absurd, really—he was soaking in a hot spring while a horrifying poisonous smoke that twisted one’s species chased after him.
It does feel good, though.
How was he supposed to describe this feeling? After such a brutal fight, immersing himself in a hot spring was practically bliss.
They even prepared a place like this.
He could faintly sense what the cultivators who had built the Defeated Sage Dojo must have felt in the distant past. Perhaps they had truly intended to create the finest possible training ground for the successor who would one day come here.
“...”
For roughly ten seconds, Jin Somyeong blankly soaked in the hot spring before snapping back to himself.
Leaving his regret behind, he forced his slackening body to rise. From his subspace, he took out a gourd capable of storing one hundred thousand jin of water and began filling it with the spring water.
If he had his way, he would have soaked there for hours, but he had no time. He had to take only what he could, as quickly as possible, and leave at once.