The Second Layer of Qi Refining!
Three Spirit Stones a month.
“Ha!”
It was, in every sense, an astonishing income. Jin Somyeong felt as if he had just downed a bottle of soda; the pressure in his chest cleared all at once.
And in truth, three was only if his luck was poor. His average income would almost certainly exceed four Spirit Stones a month.
Grinning with childlike delight, Jin Somyeong began to consider how he should spend them.
I heard the eastern cave residences in the Inner City have richer spiritual energy than the Outer City, and that they speed up cultivation. Is that really true?
To a cultivator, a good home was not a simple luxury. The denser the spiritual energy, the faster one could accumulate it, which made a high-grade cave residence one of the essentials of cultivation.
Jin Somyeong, happily imagining where his money might go, suddenly froze.
Where should I sell the dew?
Ordinarily, there would have been no need to think. He would have gone straight to Bang Il of the Spirit Pill Pavilion.
In Jeokyang Market, where public order was atrocious at the best of times, Bang Il had seemed like one of the few merchants with some scrap of conscience.
But now, Jin Somyeong saw things differently. The reality of the Red Sun Sect Bang Il had introduced him to had been abysmal.
With his trust worn thin, it was difficult to believe in the man as he once had.
Should I go to another shop?
After a moment of thought, Jin Somyeong shook his head.
It was true that the “slave contract” Bang Il had arranged for him had been disappointing, but he still did not know the truth of the matter.
Besides, if someone was an enemy, it was better to keep him closer.
If Bang Il had truly introduced him to the Red Sun Sect with malicious intent, then further actions would follow. Jin Somyeong needed to speak with him, sound out his thoughts, and determine what was real and what was false.
Avoiding him blindly would not make Jin Somyeong safer.
Let’s go.
He overcame his instinctive reluctance and headed for the Spirit Pill Pavilion. If Bang Il harbored ill intent, Jin Somyeong needed to notice it in advance.
The moment he entered the Spirit Pill Pavilion along the familiar road, his eyes met those of a man in his thirties, and he bowed politely.
“Senior Bang. I happened to obtain some dew by luck, so I came to sell it.”
“Hm? Dew?”
For a split second, Bang Il stared blankly, as if the words made no sense. Then his mouth fell open.
“Y-you little brat. Don’t tell me you went to Jeokyang Mountain? How in the world?”
“I used a Flame-Eating Talisman, of course. I’m on friendly terms with a senior, and he lent me one.”
“...He lent you a Flame-Eating Talisman? I’d very much like to know what senior is so broad-minded.”
“Haha. I know, right? I was lucky. I suppose I’m blessed with good fortune.”
Bang Il asked in an insinuating tone, but Jin Somyeong merely laughed it off.
Just as the atmosphere was about to turn awkward, Bang Il cleared his throat.
“Ahem! To use a Flame-Eating Talisman and gather only dew... wasn’t that rather wasteful? Let’s see how much you managed to collect.”
Without another word, Jin Somyeong handed over the heavy gourd.
Bang Il’s expression changed strangely. The corners of his mouth kept twitching despite his efforts to hold them still.
“...There’s quite a lot of dew here, isn’t there? I didn’t know you were this capable, little brat.”
“I was simply lucky. I just ran around diligently before the talisman’s effect wore off and barely managed to gather that much.”
A brief silence passed.
Bang Il looked back and forth between the gourd and Jin Somyeong several times before finally parting his lips.
“...Luck or not, it doesn’t matter. A capable man deserves respect. I suppose I truly must call you Daoist now. In any case, I’ll buy all this dew for two Spirit Stones. You won’t find another merchant in Jeokyang Market who values it as highly as I do. What do you say?”
“That sounds good.”
It was a price that satisfied them both. The transaction ended cleanly, without even a single round of haggling.
With an innocent smile, bright as a child’s, Jin Somyeong was just about to leave the Spirit Pill Pavilion when Bang Il spoke again.
“Daoist. By the way, did you not visit the Red Sun Sect I introduced you to? If you had joined them, there would’ve been no need to climb dangerous Jeokyang Mountain.”
“...”
Jin Somyeong slowly turned back and studied Bang Il’s expression closely.
Perhaps because he was a merchant, Bang Il wore a fine mask. His face was filled with nothing but pure puzzlement, and Jin Somyeong could sense nothing out of place.
“The Red Sun Sect... I did visit, but it was somewhat different from what I expected. They said I would have to work for at least thirty years, so I had no choice but to give up.”
“Thirty years? What are you talking about?”
Bang Il frowned as if hearing this for the first time, and Jin Somyeong told him what had happened.
“They said I had to sign a contract upon entry. It stated that the minimum term of service was thirty years.”
“Huh. Was there some sort of mistake? As far as I know, you should be free to leave after about five years.”
“Pardon?”
A subtle silence settled over the room. Then Bang Il let out a sigh.
“In any case, I’m sorry. You must have suffered because of me. I can roughly guess what happened.”
“It’s all right. It’s over now. Besides, thanks to meeting a kind senior, I can go to Jeokyang Mountain, so I don’t have to worry about income.”
“I see. Congratulations. If you obtain dew again, come to me anytime. I’ll pay you well.”
Jin Somyeong bowed and left. Then, feeling a gaze on him, he glanced back and met Bang Il’s eyes.
As if they had arranged it beforehand, the two smiled at each other in precisely the same way before parting.
...I can’t tell.
He could not be certain whether Bang Il had sold him out or not.
Jin Somyeong exhaled and shook his head.
At any rate, it was true that Bang Il had helped him before. Jin Somyeong decided not to go out of his way to take revenge.
I’ll stop worrying about him for now.
If he held a grudge, he could repay it to the gatekeeper who had tried to force the slave contract on him.
He was about to return home and cultivate when he paused.
Should I take a look at the market in the Inner City?
Perhaps it was because his pockets had suddenly grown heavy, but he found himself curious about the Inner City market, a place he had never even dared to consider before.
He walked along the well-maintained main road toward the commercial district.
As he admired the scenery as though out for a stroll, a quiet exclamation rose in his mind.
It’s clean.
It was unlike the dirty, shabby Outer City. The Inner City was orderly and spotless.
The ground was not packed earth, but firm bluestone. It was so smooth it reminded him of asphalt, and it seemed as though even a carriage could race over it without rattling.
Suddenly, a surge of emotion welled up in him.
It won’t be long before I live here.
He was different from the past. He had Spirit Stones now, and that made every step he took feel justified.
Clink.
Without realizing it, he felt for the pouch inside his robe.
The two Spirit Stones he had earned by selling the dew met his fingers, filling him with satisfaction. Back when he had been a mortal, how hard had he struggled just to obtain stones like these?
The past rose in his mind.
Three years ago, he had come recklessly to Jeokyang Market, determined to become an immortal.
It took me almost half a year just to secure food, clothing, shelter, and obtain the Five Elements Qi Refining Art.
Looking back now, he had been fortunate in many ways.
After awakening to the memories of his past life, he had risked his life and headed blindly toward a village of immortals. It had been a blessing that the place he reached was Jeokyang Market.
That was because the most common cultivation method here was the Five Elements Qi Refining Art.
To exaggerate a little, half the books rolling around in the garbage heaps were copies of the Five Elements Qi Refining Art.
If not for that, a mere mortal like him would never have been able to gain access to an immortal cultivation method.
Of course, just because it was common did not mean it was poor.
On the contrary, it was far superior to the vast majority of cultivation arts.
They say it’s the foundational art spread by Paseongjingun, an unmatched supreme expert.
Two hundred thousand years ago, the first immortal had shattered the curtain of heaven and descended.
He had called himself Paseongjingun, and like a teacher guiding an uncivilized age, he had bestowed countless teachings upon the world.
One of them was the Five Elements Qi Refining Art, a lamp that became hope for countless loose cultivators.
The Five Elements Qi Refining Art was easy for anyone to learn.
Water, wood, metal, fire, and earth. As long as one possessed even a single spiritual root among the five elements, one could begin.
It also had another unique strength: powerful compatibility.
The spiritual energy accumulated through the Five Elements Qi Refining Art did not reject other energies.
True to its nature as a pure five-element method, it was balanced and peaceful. It did not lean to one side and possessed the quality of embracing all things.
In other words, one could freely switch to a higher-grade cultivation method later.
It isn’t called the scripture of loose cultivators for nothing.
If it had one flaw, it was that because it embraced everything, the speed at which it accumulated spiritual energy was extremely slow.
For that reason, most loose cultivators entered the path of cultivation through the Five Elements Qi Refining Art, then sought out a more suitable method once they had the means and carved out their own path.
Jin Somyeong was the same.
Someday, he intended to find a proper high-grade art and make it his lifebound cultivation method.
He was browsing the market while imagining the future when suddenly—
“Huh?”
In the darkening street after sunset, an especially foreign light caught his eye.
There was one place on the side of the road where people had gathered in unusual numbers, and though it was night, that area shone as bright as day.
What is that?
Jeokyang Market had no such thing as streetlights, so he found it strange.
There’s no need for them in the first place.
Cultivators were all superhuman.
By using spiritual energy, they could see in pitch-black darkness as clearly as under the midday sun. It was rare for anyone to use an object that emitted light.
Driven by curiosity, Jin Somyeong approached the glow.
And his mouth fell open.
“A lightbulb...?”
The murmur escaped him before he could stop it. It was inevitable, given the familiar object displayed on the stall.
As if bewitched, he stared at the thing emitting light on its own.
A symbol of modern electrical civilization.
An incandescent bulb.
Inside a transparent, round glass sphere was something glowing. Along with that radiant beam driving back the darkness, memories of his previous life surged up within him.
Confronted with traces of home for the first time in three years, he could not gather his wits at all.
He stood rooted in place, unable to move, like a man possessed by a ghost.
...No. It’s a little different.
Only after quite some time did Jin Somyeong calm his pounding heart and let out a breath.
Once his reason returned, he saw the differences.
The luminous object inside the glass sphere was not a filament. It was a pebble engraved with strange letters.
His disappointment lasted only a moment. His curiosity grew even stronger.
The stall selling objects resembling lightbulbs seemed different from the others.
Potions... and golems?
Besides the lightbulb-like items, many other peculiar objects were on display.
A glass bottle filled with red liquid looked like a healing potion from a game, and a doll molded from earth brought a golem to mind.
It felt as if the genre itself had changed from what he usually saw.
An alchemist? I thought this was a world of immortals. The things this person is selling feel completely different.
Questions poured through him alongside the shock.
As expected, Jin Somyeong was not the only one who found the stall unusual. Countless onlookers drawn by the light were murmuring among themselves.
Then someone, unable to contain his curiosity, called out.
“Hey, owner. What exactly is this shining sphere?”
The young man behind the stall, whose face still retained a boyish softness, flinched.
Perhaps cowed by the sudden attention, he could not lift his head. In a trembling voice, like a timid person forcing himself to speak, he managed an explanation.
“W-well... this shining sphere is a light-emitting orb I enchanted myself.”
“Enchanted? What’s that?”
“I feel like I’ve heard of it somewhere.”
The puzzled spectators began murmuring.
After a while, a middle-aged man who looked to be in his fifties stepped forward.
“Don’t tell me you’re a mage, those people who supposedly went extinct in ancient times?”
“...No! Of course not. I merely happened to learn a little from an old book.”
“Well, magic was nothing but an inferior technique conquered and destroyed by our cultivation civilization.”
“Hahaha! Exactly. Who would be stupid enough to learn something so useless?”
At the crowd’s mockery, the young man’s face stiffened for an instant, but he soon laughed along with them.
Perhaps his tension had eased, for he spoke more boldly now, no longer trembling.
“Ahem! In any case, this light-emitting orb consumes no spiritual energy to speak of. As long as it isn’t broken, it will function almost permanently.”
“Oh?”
“You only need to place it beneath the sun, and it will absorb light on its own. If you charge it for half a day, it can shine brightly for a week.”
A few of the onlookers’ eyes gleamed with desire.
“It’s certainly fascinating that it consumes no spiritual energy, but where are we supposed to use it?”
“That depends on how you use it. With a light-emitting orb, you can see brightly even in dark places! It should be convenient when gathering herbs at dawn!”
“Puhaha! Have you ever actually climbed Jeokyang Mountain?”
“Pardon...?”
“If you took a sphere like this into the mountain, you’d stand out to demonic beasts and get eaten! You can’t even use a torch comfortably there, and you want us to use something this conspicuous?”
The people watching the young man fail to answer properly snickered.
As though they had seen something amusing enough, they chuckled and drifted away.
Most left, but some remained. With interested expressions, they asked,
“It might be useful for growing spirit herbs that favor sunlight. So how much is it?”
The young man, who had been looking dejected, cried out in a hurry.
“Ten Spirit Stones!”
“...Not Spirit Stone fragments, but ten whole Spirit Stones?”
“T-ten is practically the cost price! After the materials, there’s hardly anything left!”
Even the few spectators who had stayed and shown interest recoiled.
“Ugh! That’s far too expensive!”
“Tsk, tsk. No head for business at all. Selling a toy like this for ten Spirit Stones? With that money, you could learn the genuine Spirit Eye Art at the Scripture Pavilion and see at night as if it were day.”
“Exactly.”
Every one of them shook their heads.
Having watched that far, Jin Somyeong quietly left.
Unlike the others, he did not mock the young alchemist. He had no desire to do so. If anything, he felt grateful.
Immortals aren’t everything.
At that moment, Jin Somyeong felt an intense thirst for knowledge.
He had realized that his field of vision was narrow, and that his understanding of the world was extremely shallow.
He wanted to go out beyond Jeokyang Market and into the vast, endlessly spreading world outside.
“...Someday, without fail.”
He carefully tucked the impulse shaking his heart into one corner of his mind and slowly looked up at the sky.
He gazed at the night sky, now fully dark after the sunset had faded.
“I will climb up there. To the heavens. And I will look upon the wider world.”
Beneath countless stars that seemed ready to spill down at any moment, he swore it to the glittering field that filled his vision.
Before he knew it, half a year had passed.
Jin Somyeong’s life settled into a steady rhythm.
Once every fifteen days, he climbed Jeokyang Mountain to earn Spirit Stones, and he poured every spare moment into cultivation.
Not a single day passed without him cultivating.
He had decided to become strong so he could see the broader world.
He was careful when selling the dew as well. He disguised himself as much as possible and did not only visit the Spirit Pill Pavilion.
Even if it meant losing out on the price, he sold the dew to various shops.
He was worried that if he sold too much dew to a single place, he might become an object of greed.
Then, the moment he had accumulated twenty Spirit Stones, Jin Somyeong immediately purchased a medicinal pill for cultivation.
It was a spirit pill called the Qi Condensing Pill, and it greatly aided Qi Refining cultivators in their training.
Naturally, he did not purchase this pill from the Spirit Pill Pavilion. He had not the slightest intention of swallowing a pill given to him by the suspicious Bang Il.
He bought it from Thousand Treasure Tower, the largest store in Jeokyang Market.
“Let’s begin.”
Sitting cross-legged, Jin Somyeong swallowed the Qi Condensing Pill without hesitation. He closed his eyes and circulated the Five Elements Qi Refining Art.
All preparations were complete. It was time to reach the second layer of Qi Refining.