Chapter 56
Chapter 56
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 56
Chapter Title: Love Thy Neighbor (5)
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Yi Agum immediately aired out the room.
Acrid black smoke scattered on the spring breeze.
Yi Agum immediately questioned Seoran.
“Unnie, what on earth happened? Why is the ritual vessel acting like that? Wasn’t it originally an incense burner that emitted white smoke?”
Seoran stammered in response.
“No, well, um... There was a slight mishap during an experiment. It’s nothing, so don’t worry about it.”
Yi Agum didn’t back down.
“What kind of experiment?”
“I was thinking of trying some fuel...”
“What did you put in it?”
“Uh...”
Yi Agum immediately closed her eyes and focused on her sense of smell.
Yi Agum’s sense of smell, honed through years of professional training, had long surpassed human limits.
Now, even with her eyes closed, she could identify medicines by taste alone—what they were called, and even the environments in which they were grown.
In the end, it couldn’t be hidden.
The blind test grandmaster declared.
“The main ingredient is firewood. And this... tea smell? Ah, tea leaves. Hmm, floral scent and oil... That’s the scented candle I gave you, isn’t it? Why on earth did you put in the gifted one?”
“That was from Damcheong-nim...”
“This ritual vessel is an incense burner, not a heating brazier. You can’t just throw anything into it. What if it breaks while you’re messing around?”
“It wasn’t messing around, it was curiosity...”
Yi Agum continued without pretending to listen.
“To begin with, unnie, how old are you to be playing with fire like a child? You’re twenty-three now. It’s time to start acting like an adult.”
Twenty-six-year-old Geum Yeongyeong, standing nearby, flinched.
“Some of my friends are even getting married...”
At that moment, Seoran asked in surprise.
“What? Your friends are already getting married, Agum? Why marry so young?”
Yi Agum replied as if it were absurd.
“Most of them are twenty. What’s so young about that? In the secular world, they’d already have two kids by now.”
“Huh?”
Seoran recalled a fact she had forgotten.
Naturally, people age.
She had overlooked it because everyone around her didn’t seem to age.
“Agum, you’re three years younger than me, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Seoran was filled with horror.
Agum was turning twenty this year?
That little girl who used to follow her around calling her unnie?
She wasn’t a baby anymore?
Seoran cried out.
“That’s creepy! Who are you? I don’t know you!”
Yi Agum neatly ignored Seoran’s nonsense.
“Yeongyeong unnie, lately, there’ve been an oddly high number of arranged marriages between our sect members and the Golden Bamboo Sect. Do you know anything about it?”
Geum Yeongyeong answered.
“Marriages? Of course I know.”
“Is there some special reason?”
“The Black Bamboo Sect and Golden Bamboo Sect are basically merging.”
A bomb exploded.
*****
The ascension process for Incarnation Cultivators is as follows.
First, they head to the center of the world.
They wrap their bodies in a barrier to withstand ascension pressure.
They pass through the hole in the sky just like that.
If they arrive safely in the Immortal Realm, ascension is a success.
The process for a dragon’s ascension is much the same.
Very rarely, they fail due to Heavenly Tribulation, but generally, the process itself is straightforward.
However, if the Incarnation Cultivator isn’t ascending alone, the calculations become extremely complex.
In cases of sect ascension, the Incarnation Cultivator must bear an enormous burden alone.
The more people and resources involved, the exponentially higher the failure rate.
Sect ascension always carries risks, great or small.
Of course, they could ignore the sect that supported them all this time and ascend selfishly alone.
It’s difficult together, but easy alone.
But what could they accomplish ascending alone?
All Incarnation Cultivators from the Mortal Realm are Single Spirit Root Holders.
True to their talent, they were pampered layabouts and swans who had never done anything with their own hands in their lives.
The vast majority couldn’t even fend for themselves alone.
Just as major sects rely on Incarnation Cultivators for ascension, Incarnation Cultivators also needed the major sects’ support.
Not just in daily life, but in cultivation as well.
Even if they abandoned the sect and ascended alone, without necessary resources, they couldn’t reach the next realm.
In the end, sect ascension was inevitable.
The variable was how many people and resources to bring.
In other words, they needed to find the optimal balance between the total human and material resources to the Immortal Realm and the cumulatively increasing failure probability from the burden.
Fortunately, the calculations weren’t too difficult.
Thanks to countless vanguard teams.
In the end, the Immortal Realm successfully determined the optimal value.
And this result became the practical upper limit for the size of major sects.
Any larger, and ascension fails.
Or some members get left behind in the Mortal Realm.
Major sects invest heavily in Single Spirit Root Holders.
Other cultivators devote themselves to the sect’s ascension.
This distorted structure persists because everyone shares the benefits.
If it shifts from “we all” to “you and I,” the major sects inevitably fracture.
In a closed society, infighting dooms the group.
No continent-spanning mega-organization like a major sect could fundamentally exist.
But this is just the story for ordinary folk.
Seoran had a massive gold core rivaling a dragon pearl.
After complex calculations, the two sects reached a conclusion.
The Black Bamboo Sect and Golden Bamboo Sect could ascend together.
*****
In the central-western region of the Western Continent, wicked conspirators gathered.
Every one of them was a sect hostile to the Black Bamboo Sect.
They were the ones who had cursed the ascension ceremony to fail.
Though many were mutually hostile, an unprecedented crisis united them.
An Incarnation Cultivator emerges from the Black Bamboo Sect.
An absolute being descends to the Mortal Realm only to quietly depart for the Immortal Realm?
No such case existed in Immortal Realm history.
The Black Bamboo Sect and Golden Bamboo Sect were born thousands of years ago.
At that time, there were no major sects in the Liang Kingdom, Yu Kingdom, or Jiao Kingdom.
A quick thought reveals why.
Before the previous Incarnation Cultivator ascended, they wiped out all hostile sects.
They swept away the power balance maintained for thousands of years like a storm, resetting the entire Western Continent’s cultivation world.
In an instant, most of the Western Continent became unclaimed territory.
Countless new sects sprang up.
Sects hostile to the Black Bamboo Sect were terrified.
Their deaths, scheduled centuries away, were now counting down.
Unstoppable ruin approached them.
Everyone clamored.
“Let’s strike first instead.”
“Exactly, there won’t be another chance.”
“There are seven of us, only four of them.”
Those advocating preemptive attack.
The Black Bamboo Sect, Golden Bamboo Sect, Herbwood Sect, and even Seaside Gate.
The opinion was to wipe out the four-nation alliance entirely.
“Full-scale war is too risky.”
“That young girl is still in the Incarnation stage.”
“Assassinate her, and they’ll be helpless.”
Those advocating assassination.
This was why personnel details of pre-Incarnation Cultivators were top secrets in major sects.
Ryu Seoran’s case was known across the Western Continent due to her grand ascension ceremony.
“Let’s pull in the neutral major sects too.”
“They must be scared as well.”
“To minimize damage, we need overwhelming superiority.”
Those advocating alliance expansion.
Whether full war or assassination, they needed to bulk up first to avoid retaliation.
Incorporating neutral sects would ensure they could definitively eliminate the Black Bamboo Sect, its allies, and Ryu Seoran.
A massive war cloud loomed over the once-peaceful Western Continent.
And a messenger burst through the door.
“Breaking news! The Black Bamboo Sect and Golden Bamboo Sect have formed a massive alliance! Participating sects include the Herbwood Sect, Seaside Gate, and over a dozen neutral major sects!”
The seven sects preparing for war were stunned.
Their advantageous position had completely reversed.
Now, no neutral sects would join them.
They were defeated without even fighting.
The continent-spanning great war vanished.
War was always a fool’s errand for diplomatic amateurs.
The seven sects hastily disbanded.
They vowed eternal silence on today’s wicked plot.
*****
Geum Jungpae was an expert in earth-attribute techniques.
But technique research was ultimately an academic hobby.
His true expertise lay in diplomacy.
Golden Bamboo Sect’s chief diplomat Geum Jungpae said.
“Oh ho, so they plotted such a wicked scheme?”
The informer groveled.
“Yes, Investigator Geum.”
Geum Jungpae smiled and ordered his aide.
“Pay the promised reward.”
The aide offered a jade box to the informer.
The frantic Incarnation-stage cultivator peeked inside, confirmed the contents, and couldn’t hide his excitement.
Reeling from greed, he barely calmed and asked.
“Investigator Geum, you won’t mistake our sect for attending that gathering, will you?”
“Of course not. It’s all intelligence work, isn’t it? I wouldn’t suspect such an excellent informant. Don’t worry.”
After the informer hurriedly left, the aide asked.
“Investigator Geum, you don’t believe that lie, do you?”
“Of course not. They betrayed us to join the other side, and now that the tide turned, they’re wagging their tail again.”
The aide couldn’t contain his anger and vented.
“Those bat-like bastards! Investigator Geum, I don’t get it. Even if trust is diplomacy’s greatest virtue, why keep promises to such petty scum? They betrayed us first. Punishing them wouldn’t draw worldly scorn.”
Geum Jungpae said calmly.
“The world aside, that petty scum will surely harbor resentment. His sect too.”
“What can the likes of them do? A minor sect like that—we can afford to make enemies.”
Geum Jungpae didn’t reprimand the aide.
He’d been like that once too.
Ignorance is learned with time.
“People trip over pebbles, not mountains. If it’s trivial to us, just laugh it off. Mercy is the privilege of the strong.”
The aide asked again.
“And if it’s not trivial?”
Geum Jungpae smiled broadly.
“Keep smiling anyway.”
The aide looked baffled.
“Pardon?”
Looking at his granddaughter, still childlike, Geum Jungpae said gently.
“Smiling ends after you’ve stabbed the foe.”
As his granddaughter pondered, Geum Jungpae left.
Today was truly special for him.
On the surface, a massive joint wedding was underway.
But beneath lay another purpose.
Thousands of years ago, the then-minor Golden Bamboo Sect seized its current glory solely through diplomacy.
A colossal sect among the Western Continent’s five great powers.
Geum Jungpae walked, lost in thought.
He never forgot the precept from his youth.
Always act honestly.
Share profits willingly.
Never hesitate to earn goodwill.
Love thy neighbor.
The spirit of the Golden Bamboo Sect flowing in Geum Jungpae’s blood.
He finally reached the plaza.
Neutral sects joining the grand alliance were visible.
The fluttering flags symbolized the diplomatic ties and trust the Golden Bamboo Sect had built, each one precious.
The Golden Bamboo Sect ascends with the Black Bamboo Sect.
Inevitably, vast resources and territories in the Liang, Yu, and Jiao Kingdoms would be left behind.
Using those as weapons, the Golden Bamboo Sect dragged out protracted negotiations with neutral sects.
The result lay before his eyes now.
New couples were born in love.
Alliance members blessed them sincerely.
Even the merfolk guests cheered for some reason.
The scene born from the Golden Bamboo Sect’s upheld principles.
A profoundly moving moment as a diplomat.
Geum Jungpae’s eyes reddened.
Love thy neighbor.
The Golden Bamboo Sect was not wrong.