Chapter 139
Chapter 139
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 139
Chapter Title: Hazy, Vanishingly (9)
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- Stick to him like a dog until the end.
Those were the old man's words when the training began.
- Your body has already surpassed its limits, so as long as your spirit doesn't break midway, you'll eventually win if you do that.
And then the old man added,
- As long as it's not against me.
- Crunch!
He took a punch straight to the face and tumbled backward.
Ribs shattered, splintered bone fragments pierced his lungs, cutting off his breath. His vision turned blood-red.
'Died again.'
The unfamiliar experience of death, now etched into his body through repeated training.
No, it was familiar now.
His body shuddered as he forcibly regained consciousness.
"Kahak... Kruk."
The training he'd done in the modern world had been relatively leisurely.
There was time to think between clashes, even time for banter now and then.
But battles with him were a contest of who died less.
"Hah, heuk. Koff, koff."
His entire body reduced to a blood-soaked rag, not even time to shed tears—a desperate fight.
Bleeding profusely, unable to even catch his breath, the old man spoke in admiration.
"Is that really human talent?"
Blood streamed from his nose and ears, soaking the grass.
'Talent my ass. I still can't beat a hundred of them. What realm do these people even live in?'
The Heavenly Demon... The more he saw, the deeper and more unfathomable he seemed.
In contrast, he was a pathetic mortal whose shallows were visible at a glance, like a frog in a well.
"Hup."
Pouring strength into his body, the bones and flesh forcibly returned to their places.
- Crackle!
He stood up again, clenching his fists tight.
Not petals, but sticky black mana coiled around both arms.
"It seems about time to start teaching you properly."
The old man looked down at him, not a scratch on his body.
As he lowered his arms, the black mana sank to the ground.
"Withdraw your power. Now you might finally act like a person. You could even take on those S-rank braggarts from outside."
S-rank hunters or heroes.
He had experience winning against them, decked out with top-tier gacha items and buffs.
It was from Purgatory, victories against mindless corpses without consciousness, but hearing he was at that level now gave him a rough gauge of how much stronger he'd become in just a month.
"No reaction to praise? Want to die once more?"
"Just maintaining consciousness is overwhelming right now."
"Of course. Who do you think your opponent is?"
"......"
The old man sat on a nearby rock and tossed him a water bottle from his waist.
A potion that restored mana.
His own mana had grown so much that one bottle wasn't enough anymore.
As he drank, he asked the old man,
"By the way, what do you mean by teaching?"
"Do you remember me ever properly teaching you anything until now?"
He thought for a moment and answered immediately.
"No. Just getting brutally beaten, that's all."
"Right. There's not much I need to teach you outright. You grasped the basics from the start, so you'd figure out the rest on your own."
The old man spread his palm and emitted his mana.
Deep black vital energy floated above his wrinkled hand.
It coiled around his hand, and as he clenched his fist, it folded lightly and dissipated.
"But these few things—if I don't tell you now, you could run into big trouble."
At the old man's words, forged in the crucible of slaughter, he straightened up and listened intently.
The old man began, finally opening his mouth.
"You still don't know how to hide your power."
"I always habituate suppressing my mana."
"That's just a second-rate trick at best. Watch."
Demonstrating, the old man withdrew all his mana into his body, and his ferocious aura vanished in an instant.
"Feel nothing, right?"
'......'
Shockingly, no matter how hard he tried, he sensed no power at all.
Excluding the air around his body, he could pass for an ordinary person.
The old man emitted mana again and continued irritably,
"Normally, you let a bit leak to avoid trouble, but for half-assed stronglings like you, hiding is best."
"I see."
"Shut up and listen. What seems easy to you isn't at all."
Was that technique really that hard?
He recalled and mimicked the old man's movements one by one.
- Hum!
Gather all mana, condense it in one place. Seal it away.
That much was doable, but the next part was the problem.
Even trying to fix the mana inside his body, the unstable mana core kept leaking it out.
"It's tough."
At his honest impression, the old man chuckled mockingly.
"Can you gather all the blood flowing in your body into your heart overnight?"
"I'd die, and I couldn't control my blood at will anyway."
"Good, you get it."
In this world, it was common sense that strong beings had mana flowing through their bodies.
Not emitting presence meant not just sealing the mana in the core, but withdrawing even the mana naturally circulating in the body—essentially imprisoning it all. Not an easy feat.
And his core was still under expansion, unstable to boot.
Already difficult, now with an unstable core to top it off.
"But since you're telling me today, it must not be impossible..."
"Just a matter of grasping the knack. It'll be intense, though."
"Then let's do it now."
"Put away your impatience. That's not all I have to teach."
The old man irritably whacked his head with a pipe that appeared from nowhere.
- Thwack!
A blow strong enough to cave in his skull.
Blood streamed down from his forehead.
"Looking closely at your movements, I see a few lacking spots."
"......"
"Your stable dantian, your qi control—flawless. You might one day grasp power to upend the world."
Hegemony, upending the world.
Words he couldn't have imagined before felt quite novel.
He didn't care anymore, but just from the word choice, he could glimpse the old man's mindset.
"The foundation is different."
"......Pardon?"
"Something's missing. Feels deliberately excluded. Differs a lot from the formula I created."
Telling him this only after a month.
The old man had his own standards.
"You know where the power you use comes from, right?"
"Isn't it the martial art created by the Heavenly Demon?"
"Wrong. It's the martial art passed down in the Fig Clan, modified my way. If anything, call it a recreation."
Come to think of it, Cheon-do had said something like that.
He recalled her words from before.
- This is the Fig Clan's legacy from ancient times. Fist, sword, and inner arts united as one. Do you understand its mysteries?
When Cheon-do first taught him the formula and essences, the barrage of insights and enlightenments had pushed less important details to the back of his mind.
"So what's different between that power and mine?"
"Explain everything you learned, from start to finish."
The seven forms.
Modeled after the Fig Clan's fruits, each motion assigned, then essences derived from applying them.
His White Peach was an essence applying one form's motion.
The next stage, Myriad Layered White Peach, was another motion repeatedly applied.
Like forms chaining to build foundation.
Essences based on forms chained too, amplifying power.
From One: White Peach.
To Seven: Heavenly Path.
At that point, it was more a path than forms.
Cheon-do's perfect martial path was the pinnacle of talent and effort he still couldn't realize.
"So..."
He explained everything he'd learned as thoroughly as possible.
What mattered in the motions, what was useful.
Proud and knowledgeable of the power he wielded, he gave it his all in the lecture.
But the old man, smoking his pipe, said indifferently,
"Got it."
"...Pardon?"
"I see what's missing. One was absent from the start. The most important one, too. Must've looked unreliable in the eldest daughter's eyes."
He shut his mouth.
Partly because it tied to his future with the eldest daughter, Cheon-do.
Partly because being called unreliable grated.
"What is it? Missing? There's no room for anything else in what I learned..."
"There is one."
White Peach, Myriad Layered White Peach, Myriad Layered Crimson Peach, Fading Fig, Persimmon Fig, Dragon-Eye Fig, Heavenly Path.
He'd learned it all, his power no longer limited to White Peach but reaching beyond other essences.
Yet something was missing?
"The most important thing is absent."
The old man sneered, conjuring faint mana on his fingertip.
- Pop!
A grenade-like explosion rang in the air.
His eyes widened.
Such power from mana too weak for basic magic.
"Explosive power—the key to completing this martial art. The eighth form. No name yet."
A technique burning mana to rampage; using it internally would shatter mana circuits instantly.
He could grasp it just from watching.
Gathering faint mana in his palm, he mimicked it.
The old man looked surprised for a moment.
"Wait—"
- Kwarung!
For an instant, light blanketed the mountaintop.
In that brief gap, thunderous roar. Light filled the sky, bringing dawn to the forest.
- Drip, drip.
Trees around burned; he stared blankly at his charred, dripping hand.
"......Huh."
His eyes stung.
If he hadn't instinctively cloaked his body in mana, his own technique might've swept him away.
The old man looked at him in disbelief.
"So that's why I didn't teach it."
He almost replied thoughtlessly, Yeah, guess so.
The destructive power dispersed; focused to a point, a handful of mana could rival White Peach.
"But it's fun."
The old man grinned madly, like when they first met.
"I made it, but it feels like it exists for you."
Goosebumps rose on his skin.
Pain stung; regeneration took time, badly burned.
"Normally, you mix it into forms."
"Right. Useless without control like now."
Demonic qi.
The black mana surging in Black Path could be called demonic qi, he'd thought—but wrong.
As he practiced refining mana into demonic qi, he said to the old man,
"Why call it a form, though? Forms are motions, right?"
"Slap a name on it, and it's a form. Way different from the old days."
"......The generation where the martial world ended."
The old man didn't deny it. Calling it forms was convenient anyway.
The martial world was nearly forgotten here, no one to nitpick.
Just gaining this justified coming to the past.
'...If I get used to it.'
He could reach those three he'd thought untouchable.
The previous impasse shattered.
- Thwack!
Then the pipe struck his head again.
Stunned, he looked; the old man laughed, stretching.
"Already arrogant? Too early to get excited."
"Didn't you say we stop here today?"
"Never said that once. And if there are forms, the next stage is natural."
A joyful face, having found an opponent.
The Heavenly Demon—war god's eyes blazed fiercely.
Silently, he coiled mana around both hands.
Dark demonic qi sprouted like thorns between fingers.
"Understood."
That day, he took one step closer to Cheon-do.
A strong conviction welled up inexplicably.