Entering Hwanmongjingyeong
When Jin Somyeong arrived at the agreed meeting place, Chae Yeonbi was already there, waiting. She dipped her head in a polite bow.
"Are the others not here yet?"
"No, not yet."
After returning the greeting with a nod, Jin Somyeong sat down in lotus position a short distance away.
Hwanmongjingyeong... a space made of dreams and memories, if I remember right.
He was both worried and curious about Hong Seol's current situation, but there was no way to learn anything until he actually entered the secret realm.
In the end, he closed his eyes and meditated in silence.
Inside his mind, he ran through the jade slips Yeomurin had left behind, studying whether the insights within could be applied to his existing spells.
He had no idea how much time passed before So Yerin arrived, a girl with a face so youthful it was hard to guess her real age.
She quietly took a seat in the corner, but kept sneaking glances at him. It looked as if she had something to say, and when he turned toward her, she opened her mouth as though she'd been waiting for that exact moment.
"Did you know Senior Jin is incredibly famous among Mansumaeng—no, among rogue cultivators?"
"Me?"
"Of course! You're a Law-Body Dual Cultivator, aren't you? A lot of people are curious how a rogue cultivator with no sect backing managed to cultivate body refinement as well."
"I see."
"Do you have some kind of secret? I actually tried to start body refinement myself, but the cultivation resources it needed were just too much, so I gave up. Ah, right! Of course, I'll pay for the information."
The secret? It was, naturally, the Mental Secret Realm born from his Boundless Great Ability.
If not for the Mental Secret Realm, which endlessly supplied spirit stones, he would never have cultivated this smoothly.
Still, he couldn't exactly tell her that, so he let the matter slip by with a smile.
"Well..."
Perhaps it wasn't the answer she wanted, because So Yerin drooped with disappointment and didn't press him any further.
As he returned to meditation, Mu Huirang and Ju Gwang arrived one after another before long.
"Everyone's here. You probably already know this, but it's important, so I'll explain it again. Hwanmongjingyeong is divided into dreams and memories. Memories can't be interfered with; we can only watch."
Unlike dreams, memories could not be touched.
What that meant, he said, would become obvious the moment they experienced it for themselves.
"What we need to find is Fellow Hong's dream. If nothing's wrong, that's a relief, but chances are Fellow Hong is already under the spell of a dream. We need to wake him up and bring him back to his senses."
"Understood."
After going over all the precautions, Ju Gwang took the lead, and before long they arrived at a valley shrouded in thick fog.
The mist even blocked divine sense, leaving them unable to see an inch ahead. This was the true entrance leading into Hwanmongjingyeong.
...
Faced with the fear that came from being unable to see and the primal dread born of the unknown, everyone fell silent.
"Let's go in."
At Jin Somyeong's voice, which rang out among the hesitant group, everyone nodded.
Step... step...
No one knew how long they walked.
At some point, even the footsteps that had been continuing in steady rhythm vanished.
When he lowered his gaze, he couldn't see the ground.
And yet they kept walking. Were they really moving forward at all?
The moment that question surfaced, light burst in from all directions. Startled, he looked around and saw an astonishing sight.
Stars?
It was like standing in outer space.
Within the endlessly spreading dark mist, countless round shapes glimmered and twinkled, giving him the sensation of standing in the middle of a black universe and looking out at stars filling every direction.
"Good heavens."
"So this is Hwanmongjingyeong."
As the others, who had been moving so close together that their shoulders almost brushed, turned in place with stunned expressions, Ju Gwang—the only one among them who had experienced Hwanmongjingyeong before—spoke up.
"Those star-like things are each someone's memory or dream."
"...It's beautiful in a way. Like the night sky."
Gradually, the others who had been wandering around as though spellbound came back to their senses. Since they had a clear purpose for coming here, they couldn't afford to get distracted.
"Let's spread out and search the area."
"So if we choose one of those lights and make contact, that should be enough?"
"That's right. Since we all came in together through the part related to Fellow Hong, there's a good chance he's somewhere nearby."
"...Then it'll be hard to find him quickly."
The starlights packed the surroundings so densely there was no way to count them. There were far too many.
At minimum, there had to be hundreds of millions.
There were so many it was literally like the stars in the night sky, and some even moved like comets.
If Hong Seol were trapped inside one of these countless lights, there was no way they would find her in a day or two.
"Oh, right! If you wake Fellow Hong, make sure to send a signal. That way, the others can escape Hwanmongjingyeong too."
"Understood."
"Be careful not to lose yourselves to the dreams, and... let's move."
With that, everyone dispersed. They moved to their chosen spots and tried to make contact with the starlights around them.
It was not easy.
Hwanmongjingyeong was a place so unstable it hardly even had a floor. They couldn't walk properly at all, and could only flail their arms and legs as they struggled forward.
Jin Somyeong was no different.
He picked out an especially bright starlight and tried to make his way toward it, but he simply spun in place like someone thrashing about underwater.
Even as he grew used to the bizarre space and kept moving, Ju Gwang—who had set off first—finally brushed against one of the lights and was instantly sucked inside.
At that strange sight, Jin Somyeong hesitated for a moment.
Then, when he unfolded Thunder Sense Insight Law-Breaking Eye...
Ghk!
Pain as if his eyes were being burned alive tore through him. Was this the price of looking at something he couldn't bear?
He hurriedly shut his eyes and poured out Ten Thousand Flows Recovery.
Only after a long while did the pain finally recede, and he let out a bitter smile.
It had been a very long time since he had suffered a backlash from observing something with Thunder Sense Insight Law-Breaking Eye.
So Hwanmongjingyeong really is the dream of a True Immortal...
Whether that was truly the case or not, one thing was certain: with his current skill, he couldn't begin to unravel it.
After steadying his breathing, he looked around—and found that his companions had vanished without a trace.
It seemed they had been sucked into the starlights just like Ju Gwang.
He couldn't just stand there alone.
He hurried toward the light he'd marked earlier, and then—
Huh?
Far off in the distance, a starlight that had come flying like a comet was closing in at terrifying speed.
He reflexively tried to dodge, but it still grazed him, and...
Flash—!
The view. No, the entire world changed in an instant.
Ah.
The moment his blurred consciousness and sight cleared, he found himself looking at a fairly spacious cavern.
Underground?
It wasn't dark, thanks to glowing objects mounted in the ceiling like lamps, but the stale, musty air unique to underground spaces filled his senses.
He was just about to frown when he realized something. He no longer had a body...
He felt like an invisible man—no, like only his soul remained behind, watching.
He could look around, and his five senses remained sharp, but that was all.
This is... a memory.
Hwanmongjingyeong could be divided into dreams and memories, and the clearest difference between them was whether one could interfere with the illusion.
Memories could only be watched. Interference was impossible.
Still...
Where was this, and whose memory was it? As that question arose in his mind, a group of muscular men with pickaxes slung over their shoulders came stomping in and approached a middle-aged man standing in one corner of the cavern, examining the wall.
"Hey, Beom Chang. Not coming out again today? We've got a newcomer too, so we should go drink somewhere good."
Beom Chang?
At the familiar name, Jin Somyeong searched through his memory.
He remembered the Red Sun Sect gatekeeper he'd met back when he had just begun cultivating, during his Qi Refining days. He also remembered turning the tables on the man after Beom Chang had tried to force him into slavery.
So this is what he looks like when he's older.
If the young man he had known back then had grown into middle age, he probably would have looked exactly like this.
Their connection, if one could call it that, had been a bad one—but it was oddly pleasant to see him again after such a long time. Strange, even.
It felt a little like seeing someone from his hometown in a foreign land.
So he really was working in a mine.
He had stopped paying attention after leaving Jeokyang Market, and he never would have guessed he would learn of Beom Chang's fate like this, buried in the back of his memories.
As he watched the fully middle-aged Beom Chang in surprise, the man himself shook his head firmly.
"No need. I'll keep digging for spirit stones, so you lot go enjoy yourselves at the wine house."
When Beom Chang refused outright, the men who had gathered around him clicked their tongues.
"Working yourself to death every single day. What on earth do you live for?"
"Take it easy and enjoy life. We may be treated like miners here, but once we step outside, we're practically emperors."
"What's the point of gathering spirit stones so desperately if you don't even use them?"
Whether it was concern or nagging, Beom Chang listened in silence and then picked up his pickaxe.
"What else would I use spirit stones for? Cultivation, obviously."
With that brief reply, he sent the pickaxe flying through the air.
Bang!
Driven by spiritual power, the pickaxe shot out and smashed into the wall of the underground cavern, sending a huge mass of dirt crashing down.
Spirit stones buried within the earth-hard soil rose into the air and were sucked into Beom Chang's storage pouch.
Watching how skillfully he mined them, the other miners shook their heads in admiration before one after another, they spoke up.
"Cultivation? Don't tell me you're really planning to challenge the Golden Core stage?"
"Heh. So that wasn't a joke after all, but serious?"
"Listen, you've only got about a hundred years left in your lifespan at best. If you spend all that time cultivating and still fail to reach Golden Core, how much will you regret it?"
"With your talent, it's hopeless. A man should know his limits if he doesn't want to suffer."
Beom Chang didn't even bother replying.
He focused only on digging out spirit stones, and the miners' tone gradually sharpened.
"Tch. No fun at all."
"Didn't that bastard used to spend all his time running around pleasure houses? Since when did he change so much?"
"Seems like it was a while ago."
"Ah! I remember now. It was when he heard the rumors about Senior Jin. He's been working hard ever since then."
The youngest-looking youth among them tilted his head.
"Senior Jin? You mean the one who reached Nascent Soul as a rogue cultivator?"
Jin Somyeong had cut down a Nascent Soul swordsman during his Golden Core days, and because he had reached Nascent Soul without any help from a sect, he had become an object of admiration among rogue cultivators.
"Ah, you're new here, so you wouldn't know."
The miners, who had been chuckling among themselves, curled their lips.
"That bastard Beom Chang used to brag that Senior Jin was his sworn brother."
"What, you're saying he was related by blood to Senior Jin, who had already reached Nascent Soul?"
"Blood relation? No, I think it was something like sworn brothers..."
"What the hell!"
The shocked youth brought his hands together respectfully and looked at the others, not knowing what to do with himself, and the miners burst out laughing.
"So naive! How can you believe every boast you hear?"
"Ah... but wasn't it a bit much to go around using Senior Jin's name like that?"
"Like he could help it. That Beom Chang bastard got beaten up several times because of it. And even then he never backed down. He's more stubborn than you'd think."
One of the miners clicked his tongue, then shouted at Beom Chang.
"Hey! If you had a Senior Jin who'd already reached Nascent Soul as your brother, why work so hard? Just go ask your little brother for a Golden Core spirit herb or two."
Another miner, as if he'd been waiting for that opening, cut in with a mocking tone.
"Too late for that. I heard Senior Jin entered a secret realm and never came back out. By now, he must be..."
Clicking his tongue, he trailed off with a sneer.
Beom Chang, who had been silently digging out spirit stones, froze for a moment, but the conversation continued.
"Well now, that's a pity for Beom Chang. If he'd gotten the benefit of such a distinguished little brother, he might at least have made it to Golden Core."
Everyone shook their heads as if they were truly sorry, but the faintly raised corners of their mouths and their eyes made the mockery plain.
"Let's go."
With Beom Chang left behind, frozen stiff by the news of Jin Somyeong's supposed death, the scenery before him began to blur.
Before he knew it, Jin Somyeong was back in the mist filled with starlights, and he flinched.
...That felt strange.
It was hard to pin down exactly, but at some point his consciousness had grown hazy.
He had simply stared blankly at the scene before him without thinking of anything, and when he suddenly came to his senses again, he was here.
So if you get lured in like that and lose your awareness completely, you get trapped inside the starlight.
But something was odd.
Normally, shouldn't a memory be centered around a single person's point of view? That wasn't the case here.
It does seem like Beom Chang's memory is the core, but...
Some of the memories from the people around him seemed to be mixed in as well.
It felt almost like standing one step removed from a world reconstructed through many different memories.
As he mulled over what had happened after touching the starlight, Jin Somyeong shifted his gaze. The starlights filling the space in every direction now looked slightly different.
I get it.
It was only after experiencing it for himself that he truly understood what kind of secret realm Hwanmongjingyeong was.
That each and every starlight was someone's memory or dream was exactly what it sounded like.
So what I need to do is find the starlight where Hong Seol is trapped.
He swept his eyes across the hundreds of millions of lights filling the sky, then marked the one that had been drawing his gaze the most since earlier and started toward it.
After stumbling his way over, he reached out. The moment his fingertip touched the dazzling mass of light...
Flash—!
Another world unfolded before him.