Taking Stock of the Defeated Sage Dojo's Harvest
Lightning gathered in Jin Somyeong's eyes.
He had opened the Thunder Sense Insight Law-Breaking Eye, the divine ability that pierced through the possibilities of all creation.
It does seem to be a Deity Transformation spiritual object.
The first of the spoils from the Defeated Sage Dojo he examined was the lotus he had seized from the oasis. As he studied the flower wrapped in red dust, his mind somehow began to grow hazy. It felt almost as though his soul were being bewitched.
The pale yellow petals, buried beneath that red dust, looked dirty at first glance, but the five-colored radiance shining from the heart of the lotus had not dimmed in the slightest. It was purer and more brilliant than anything around it.
He swallowed back the saliva sliding down his throat and thought, Do I need to refine it into a pill before taking it?
It would be ideal if he could duplicate it with Manryuhoebok. The question was how much Boundless Great Ability it would require. If this lotus truly was a Deity Transformation spiritual object, every manner of unsavory creature would covet it. Duplicating several and using one as bait would not be a bad idea.
While such thoughts passed through his mind, his mouth suddenly went dry.
Jin Somyeong, who had been glaring fixedly at the lotus without realizing it, froze. His heart felt unsettled, even strangely desperate.
What is this?
His brow furrowed on its own. Anxiety had abruptly welled up inside him, and all kinds of worries came rushing in. Sensing at once that something was wrong, he forced his gaze away from the lotus.
He closed his eyes, cutting off his sight, and observed his own mind. When he calmly watched the worries tangling his thoughts, he found that each and every one was trivial.
Don't tell me I've fallen into heart-devil tribulation?
He stopped breathing. No, he drew in a deep breath instead. Breathing as slowly as he could, he focused only on the simplest physical sensations.
Had ten minutes passed?
His mind, which had been boiling with distracting thoughts, settled like a still lake.
...So it isn't a heart-devil?
He had been cautious because a true heart-devil could lower one's cultivation or inflict serious internal injuries, but his calm returned so easily that his tension felt almost foolish. As he habitually tapped the sheath of his sword and regained his composure, a thought occurred to him, and he looked at the lotus again.
Sure enough, the moment he gazed at it, all sorts of worries and anxieties bloomed within his heart.
Fascinating. A lotus that forcibly summons vexation?
All at once, the center of the lotus caught his eye, shining with pure light even through the murky red dust.
A sudden idea came to him. If used well, this lotus might help with cultivation.
If I can maintain clear awareness even amid a storm of distracting thoughts...
Would that not allow him to take another step forward?
Jin Somyeong gave a brief nod and stored the lotus away carefully. He intended to study it whenever he found the time.
The next thing to inspect was the spiritual object he had obtained from the Body Refinement Hall.
He turned the milky-white fruit from the top of the Body Refinement Hall's stairs over and over, examining it carefully. It was the Marrow-Cleansing Spirit-Soul Fruit, dense with deep blood energy.
It was said to improve one's constitution.
There were three Marrow-Cleansing Spirit-Soul Fruits in total. Two were the size of apples, while one was especially large, like a plump, ripe pear. Judging by the energy he sensed from them, the largest was a top-grade fourth-rank spiritual object, while the other two were upper-grade fourth-rank.
Should I try one?
Was it a cultivator's instinct, or simply impulse?
A thirst rose in him. His body, exhausted from fierce battles, seemed to be demanding the fruit. To be honest, he wanted to pick it up and eat it on the spot, but he suppressed the urge.
He spent Boundless Great Ability to amplify his senses. Only after checking it once more with the Thunder Sense Insight Law-Breaking Eye did he cautiously bite into it.
It had a crisp texture.
When he swallowed the flesh, which tasted similar to well-ripened radish, the blood throughout his body began to seethe.
Mm...
A hot energy began in his stomach and heated his tendons and muscles. Perhaps this was how a stone felt while being refined inside a furnace. His muscles, driven to their limits by successive battles, seemed to loosen strand by strand and then rebuild themselves.
My body-refinement realm is rising.
The joy was greater than the pain. Within the heat that seemed to burn his muscles away, an unknown strength surged up. The instant he realized his muscles were being reconstructed and growing stronger in real time, he swallowed the rest of the fruit he had left after that first bite.
Hissss...!
His skin flushed crimson all over, and steam rose from his body. Just as he was savoring the fathomless strength surging up as if in an explosion, a maddening hunger struck him.
It was the hunger he had known when he had first reincarnated into this world as an ordinary man. A hunger so vicious it made his reason blur. It was the first time he had felt such hunger since reaching the Nascent Soul stage and gaining the ability to abstain from mortal food.
If it had simply been pain, he could have endured it, but this was an unfamiliar sort of agony.
No. This isn't something I should endure in the first place.
This hunger was his flesh demanding the energy it needed to advance to a better realm.
He hurriedly searched through his spatial pocket. Looking for something edible, he pulled out the flesh of the monkfish-like creature he had caught at the oasis in the Defeated Sage Dojo.
Whoosh!
He awakened the fourth-rank flame sleeping within his mental world, the Fire Extreme Divine Light, and roasted the meat. In truth, he wanted to chew it raw, but the last thread of reason he had left stopped him.
Sizzle!
Watching the meat brown, his impatience mounted. Unable to wait, he even summoned his Five Elements Divine Lightning. For a long while, he seared it with lightning energy as if sprinkling on seasoning.
Done!
The moment he tore into a handful of dripping, juicy meat, his mind rang.
Ah!
It was bliss. He hurriedly chewed and swallowed the meat filling his mouth. Every bite seemed to turn directly into blood and flesh. Until the hunger, as if a hole had been bored through his stomach, finally vanished, he devoured the meat in a frenzy.
By the time he had polished off five slabs of meat the size of houses, the hunger disappeared completely, and at the same moment, he realized he had crossed a wall.
His body-refinement realm had reached the upper grade of the fourth rank.
He could now contend with late Nascent Soul cultivators using only his pure physical body.
A laugh escaped him on its own.
The effect is incredible.
Looking at the two remaining fruits naturally made his mouth water, but he held himself back. With only one large and one small fruit left, the proper choice was to duplicate them with Manryuhoebok before eating more.
And during the process of taking it, he had learned something. The Marrow-Cleansing Spirit-Soul Fruit produced the best effect when eaten after driving the body to the brink of death.
As he was enjoying a sense of fullness he had not felt in a long time, his eyes paused.
...Hm?
Among the bone fragments left behind after he had torn through the monkfish meat, a scale caught his attention. It was silver and about the size of his palm, and for some reason, it kept bothering him.
What exactly was strange about it? After thinking it over, he realized there was a discrepancy between his vision and his Divine Sense. He could clearly see it with his eyes, yet his Divine Sense could not detect it.
Come to think of it, that monkfish's concealment ability was fairly impressive.
Could it have been thanks to this scale?
He picked up the scale smeared with black ash, dusted it off, and infused it with spiritual power. Something remarkable happened. As if he had cast an invisibility art, the scale blended into the surroundings and its presence grew indistinct.
Not bad.
It had not even been handed to an artificer and processed into a magical tool, yet it produced this level of effect. It was, quite literally, a natural magical tool.
He took out a piece of cloth, wrapped the scale, threaded it, and made it into a necklace. When he tucked it inside his clothes like a talisman and infused it with spiritual power, it worked well. It was somewhat primitive in form, but at this level, it was better than most fourth-rank spiritual treasures.
Useful.
In any case, perhaps because his body-refinement realm had risen, as he rested with his stomach full, a thought came to him naturally.
Could I win if I fought a proper Deity Transformation cultivator?
Assuming that the Insectoid that had seized Mok Saheon's body was at the Deity Transformation stage, he simulated a battle based on the experience he had gained at the time. He tried to remain as objective as possible and thought it through carefully, but honestly, his conclusion was that it would be difficult.
Speaking coldly, his chances of victory were slim. No, he could state cleanly that it was impossible. If they fought a thousand times, perhaps he might win once or twice. Even that might be a futile delusion.
My realm is too low.
In the Defeated Sage Dojo, the Deity Transformation-level Insectoid had regained its sanity only for an instant at the latter half of the battle. When he calculated it, that brief time had not even been a full minute, yet the moment the creature began using arts in earnest, Jin Somyeong had been driven to the brink of death in an instant.
It felt as if the entire world had become my enemy.
More than anything else, the difference in spiritual power had been overwhelming. With only a slight exaggeration, it was the difference between the sun and a light bulb.
Somehow, by exploiting an opening, he had even landed Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust, but it had not been enough.
To think it endured even after taking Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust...
If Mok Saheon's lifespan had not run out, there was no telling what the result would have been. Even when he slowly recalled the scene, he could not understand it.
Could the creature have offset the destructive force of Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust with its absurd spiritual power? If so, it meant Condensing Light to Extinguish Dust lacked power, and he needed to find a way to strengthen it.
What should I do?
In truth, the idea of a Nascent Soul cultivator trying to defeat a Deity Transformation cultivator in direct combat was absurd in itself, but Jin Somyeong was serious. If it were completely impossible, that would be one thing, but wasn't there at least a faint possibility? Gradually raising those low odds was, in its own way, enjoyable.
After thinking of various methods, he set the issue aside for now.
First, I need to finish organizing the harvest.
Next was the Nine Heavens Jade Heart Herb, whose roots had recovered by roughly seventy percent. After checking that there were no problems with the fifth-rank spiritual herb that had the effect of nurturing the divine soul, he stored it away with great care.
Once I have some leeway with Boundless Great Ability later, I'll duplicate and eat it.
After that, he skimmed through the jade slip he had obtained from the Formation Hall. It contained theory on fourth-rank formations, which he found interesting.
Formations are useful in many ways. I should study this bit by bit whenever I have time.
He then inspected the items he had gained by stripping the spiritual herb field.
Green Crystal Grass, Azure Horn Ten-Thousand-Leaf Grass, Fire Lotus Snow, Pure Ice Grass...
Counting only the fourth-rank spiritual herbs, there were nearly a thousand. Even excluding duplicates and counting only the types, there were dozens of varieties. There were so many kinds that he could recognize only about half of them.
Most of them are materials for cultivation pills.
There were piles of spiritual herbs that would aid cultivation even if eaten as they were. In addition, though he did not know their exact effects, there were even two fifth-rank spiritual herbs.
One was a root plant resembling a jellyfish, and the other was a flower shaped like a dandelion. He could return to Jungju, determine their effects, and then consume them.
There was one more thing.
The Jade Water Coral he had obtained by digging up the entire bottom of the hot spring. Thanks to this object, which produced spiritual energy on its own, the spiritual energy inside the Mental Secret Realm had grown denser.
He had previously had about seven years left until the sixth layer of Nascent Soul. Now, that had been shortened to five years or so.
In a sense, the Jade Water Coral was the harvest that would help his cultivation most immediately.
After reviewing the spoils he had obtained from the Defeated Sage Dojo, he headed into the Mental Secret Realm for the first time in a while.
"Bbi-ik?"
A yellow chick. No, Geumcheong, who had by now become something resembling a sparrow, fluttered over in a hurry, landed on his shoulder, and chattered.
"You finally came! You only ever send clones!"
Geumcheong, who had already grown into a second-rank yao beast, flapped her wings as if showing off, and each movement dyed the air with blue lightning.
"Oh, our Dolsoe has grown a lot. Foundation Establishment already?"
"I told you, I'm not Dolsoe, I'm Geumcheong!"
He had seen her fairly often through his clones, but seeing her in person was still pleasant. When he scratched the beak of the little thing throwing a fit and flapping her wings, she quickly forgot her anger and chirped happily.
Is it because she's a bird? Her memory is surprisingly poor.
When he sprinkled plenty of Five Elements Divine Lightning over her, she liked it so much that even her tail feathers wiggled.
"Bbi-ik! The lightning energy tastes even better now!"
"Does it?"
Thanks to his experiences in the Defeated Sage Dojo, his lightning energy had also advanced considerably. When he quietly observed the thunderbolts in his mental world, he could sense a faint violet glow, far clearer than before.
In any case, after playing with Geumcheong, whom he had not met in person for some time, he decided to finish the business he had come for.
Resource Production: 63 top-grade Spirit Stones / 1 day
Resource Production: 64 top-grade Spirit Stones / 1 day
...
Resource Production: 80 top-grade Spirit Stones / 1 day
Rumble!
The Mental Secret Realm expanded rapidly, and violent tremors rang out. Just as the startled Geumcheong flew down to his feet and crouched flat, more messages appeared.
The Spirit Stone mine has reached the upper-grade limit of the fourth rank.
Immortal Stones are required to grow beyond peak fourth rank.
As his realm rose, it felt as though the restrictions on the Mental Secret Realm were loosening, so he had wondered if he could enhance it all the way to the fifth rank. Apparently, that was not the case.
"Immortal Stones."
It was an item he had never heard of. Judging by the name, it seemed similar to Spirit Stones, and he presumed it was a currency used in the Upper Realm.
Where exactly am I supposed to obtain something from the Upper Realm?
After pondering for a moment, he first soothed the frightened Geumcheong, then left the Mental Secret Realm.
Now that his urgent business was finished, what remained was to cultivate calmly. For the time being, he intended to remain on this snowy mountain and steadily digest the things he had gained.
It's about time I raised my proficiency in the Five Viscera Hundred Refinements Art, too.
After reaching the fifth layer of Nascent Soul, the maximum amount of Boundless Great Ability had risen to sixty million. That meant he could recover roughly seven hundred million units of Boundless Great Ability in a year, and at that level, it was enough to raise the Five Viscera Hundred Refinements Art, which had a proficiency value of four billion, to the next realm.