Evolution 1
“That little bastard made us work this hard for it.”
As soon as the creature collapsed onto the gravel bed, Grandfather’s voice—the Divine Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons—cut through the crowd that had already begun to gather.
With the sun at their backs and every last one of them draped in Yo-hwa’s silk, they looked for all the world like someone had cast a clone technique. I was still trying to pick Grandfather out from among the identical silhouettes when one of those figures stepped forward, laid a hand on the creature’s head, and spoke.
“Well then. Shall we see just how remarkable this inner core is, that it let him use the Qi-Riding Upward Surge? Ahem.”
The moment Grandfather announced he meant to locate the core, the circle of people tightened even further. Everyone who had taken part in the raid forgot their vigilance and pressed in from every side.
For me the creature itself was the main prize, but for every other person standing there the only thing that mattered was the inner core. Of course it was. Among martial artists, internal energy and martial skill stood side by side as the two pillars of power—and anything that could raise the former was bound to draw every eye.
Then a pair of voices called out from farther off.
“Did you catch it!?”
“You got him? Little brother?”
Sister Seol and Hwa-eun. Because Yo-hwa’s silk clung so tightly that it left nothing to the imagination, neither of them had been able to join the final stalk; they had waited nearby, and the instant they heard the creature was down they came running.
“Yes. We caught it.”
My nod lit both their faces. The same question left their mouths in the same breath.
“The inner core?”
“What about the core?”
Even Sister Seol and Hwa-eun, it seemed, cared about the core first and foremost. I glanced toward Grandfather.
“Grandfather is checking it now.”
Normally so demure, Hwa-eun could not bear to wait. She hurried over to where Grandfather was already running his hand from the creature’s crown down toward its neck, desperate to learn the size and location of the Flying Divine Snake’s core.
“Grandfather, how remarkable is it? Judging by the Qi-Riding Upward Surge, it has to be at least one jiazi, right? It is, isn’t it?”
One jiazi—sixty years of internal energy, the amount said to require a full cycle of cultivation. Every eye and ear in the clearing swung toward Grandfather. He lifted his free hand slightly, as if to say wait a moment.
A short while later he lifted his palm from roughly the base of the creature’s neck and murmured almost to himself.
“Hmm… At this level, easily two jiazi… And not particularly large, either. A fine, densely compressed core.”
“““T-two jiazi!”””
The words landed like a bomb. Two jiazi. One was sixty years; two meant a full hundred and twenty years of internal energy.
“Grandfather, did you say two jiazi!?”
“Elder, are you certain it’s two?”
The news that the creature carried a core equal to a hundred and twenty years of cultivation set the gravel bed beside the gorge alight.
“So-ryong, just cut it op—no. Take it out. We haven’t grown attached yet.”
“That’s right, little brother. This isn’t ten or twenty years—it’s a hundred and twenty. Absorb even half and you’ve got sixty years of energy. You’ll never lack for internal power while you’re learning martial arts. Hwa-eun’s right. We have to decide before we get fond of it. Once feelings set in, it’ll only be harder to take the core out.”
I had managed to hold them off by suggesting the creature might be a golden goose that kept laying eggs. The moment the words “two jiazi” left Grandfather’s mouth, that argument vanished from every mind as if it had never existed.
From the instant word got out that a core holding a hundred and twenty years of energy lay inside the creature’s body, the two women gave me no rest—always circling back to the same proposal: open its belly.
“So-ryong, if Grandfather is right and it harmonizes with a compatible internal cultivation method, you could reach energy just shy of a complete physical rebirth. After that, if you only clear the remaining insight, you might even free yourself of the Ten Poisons Physique.”
“Exactly, little brother. The Southern Savage Beast Palace and the Tang Clan will both dig up a cultivation method that matches that core. So let’s just cut it open cleanly, all right?”
They both knew how much I loved venomous creatures, yet they still insisted I grit my teeth and do it while I hadn’t grown attached. I wouldn’t be able to absorb the whole thing, they admitted, but even half would be a treasure. And if—by some miracle—I managed to take all of it, the core might even reform my constitution.
That last part did tempt me, I won’t lie. After the Five Poisons Tech had burned out, there was a real chance I wouldn’t be able to accept even one more of the Ten Great Venomous Beasts. A constitution reset would mean extra skill slots, pure and simple.
Slot expansion is never easy. In games, new skills drop all the time; extra slots themselves are rare. I couldn’t just brush their urging aside.
The problem was that the creature was ultra-ultra rare. Giving it up was not something I could do lightly.
But the Flying Divine Snake is just too rare. That cobalt body, the green horn, the magnificent dorsal fin rising along its back—and on top of all that, it could fly. The only reason it ranked just beneath the Ten Great Venomous Beasts was that its venom was comparatively weak. Everything else—its flight, its formidable physique—already qualified it. Poison alone had kept it off the list.
Right after capture and the core check, Grandfather had moved on to a venom test. As the Tang Clan’s supreme master of toxins, he naturally wanted to know about the poison next. The ranking that emerged was… well short of impressive.
“Hmm… There will always be individual variation, but I did wonder how a beast carrying a core this fine never rose to the Ten Great. Now I know. It’s the venom.”
“Is it that weak?”
“It’s a paralysis toxin, just as we expected, but clearly inferior to Yo-hwa’s. With a body this powerful, I suppose it never needed a stronger poison.”
His verdict: the Flying Divine Snake’s venom was a lesser version of Yo-hwa’s paralysis toxin. Where hers acted instantly and left the mind intact, the snake’s dulled the spirit as well and worked a little more slowly. What’s more, the Flying Divine Snake lived alone in the jungle, while Yo-hwa required human yang energy to survive. Measured purely by the threat each posed to people, Yo-hwa was the more dangerous of the two. That, Grandfather carefully suggested, was likely why the snake had never been counted among the Ten Great.
“Long-ah is a good boy. You’ll listen to Sister Seol, won’t you?”
“So-ryong…”
Their persuasion followed me every step of the road back to the Beast Palace.
Two days out from Narrow Water Gorge. After being hounded the entire journey home to the Beast Palace, I had finally lain down to sleep when Hwa-eun’s quiet voice brushed my ear.
So-ryong, could we talk for a moment?
Ah—yes, of course.
Don’t tell me it’s more of the same. For two straight days of travel I had been sandwiched between Sister Seol and Hwa-eun, enduring their joint campaign. The second I tried to sleep they were calling me out again. Were they planning to keep me awake until I agreed to open its belly? With that thought circling, I followed her.
She led me into a patch of tall grass and settled on a rock, then beckoned me to sit beside her.
“Over here, So-ryong.”
With the look of someone who had made up her mind, she took my hand and held it tight.
“So-ryong, at first I didn’t understand how remarkable you were, and I behaved like a fool. I’m not that person anymore. I know now just how extraordinary you are. That’s why… why I always think only of you. How can I treat you well? How can I be of help? Thoughts like that.”
Blushing but unflinching, she clung to my hand and poured the confession into every word. I could already see where the speech was heading, and this was far harder to endure than the ordinary pressure campaign.
“I… see.”
“Yes. So please listen carefully to what I’m about to say. I know perfectly well how much you love venomous creatures. The reason I’m still saying this is that the chance may never come again. You told us you mean to gather the Ten Great Venomous Beasts and reach the realm of the Ten Poisons with them alone. But the Ten Great aren’t common, and even if you catch them, you would never cut them open for their cores, would you?”
She was right. The Ten Great Venomous Beasts were my life’s goal, trophies I would never desecrate. I nodded.
“That’s… true.”
“Which is exactly why you should take the core from this one—a Twenty-Four Poison Branch that was never part of your goal. The higher your martial realm climbs, the easier it will be to capture the Ten Great.”
She held my hand and looked up at me with that wistful, pleading expression. If I refused, this moment might stretch on forever. Not that that would have been entirely terrible… but I had no choice except to answer as if I understood. After she had swallowed her embarrassment to speak like this, I simply could not say no to her face.
“I—I understand. I’ll… think about it carefully.”
“Please make a good decision.”
When I finally escaped the grass after that confession-disguised persuasion, I felt drained dry.
I’m completely spent.
I was heading back to my bedroll when shouts rose from the direction of the carts.
“I-it’s awake!”
“Fetch the Grand Elder and Young Master So-ryong!”
Clatter-clatter! Crunch!
The sound of something shattering, together with the call for Grandfather and me, left no doubt: the Flying Divine Snake had finally come to. We had prepared for this.
“So-ryong, look over there.”
Hwa-eun and I reached the cart together. The snake was thrashing atop a wagon whose wheels had already collapsed.
Crack!
Anticipating its awakening, we had sealed it inside a pouch of Yo-hwa’s making—not once, but three times over. The white bag now writhed and bulged like a water balloon under the moonlight, twisting in every direction.
Shyaaa!
A warning cry boiled up from inside. Unable to tear the pouch, the creature that had just demolished the cart simply began to rise into the air.
“Finally awake, is it?”
Grandfather arrived at a run, and we hauled it back down before it could climb far.
Thud!
Kishit!
The Flying Divine Snake, pouch and all, floated up like a balloon—only to be yanked down again almost at once. Yo-hwa held the connecting threads; Grandfather and the warriors who had rushed over joined her, and together they dragged the thrashing bundle back to earth.
Shyaaa!
It screeched and tried to lift off again and again, only to be pulled down every time. At last its strength gave out, and it began to hiss and spit from inside the bag.
Shiiik! Shiik!
Blind inside the silk, it sprayed furious threats in every direction, promising ruin to anyone who approached. Grandfather regarded the pouch thoughtfully.
“Full of fight, this one. Not a beast that’s been starving for days.”
Snakes can fast for a month or more. This one had collapsed from sheer exhaustion after days without rest, not from hunger. The tantrum was expected; I answered lightly.
“Well, snakes can go a month without eating and still be fine.”
Grandfather nodded, then frowned at the creature.
“Still, this is a problem. Now that it’s awake, how in the world are we supposed to move it?”
He was right. The makeshift cart was scrap. We could build another, but with the snake thrashing like this, transport would be a nightmare. While I was still turning the problem over, Grandfather spoke again, reluctance plain in his voice.
“So-ryong. I haven’t said it until now because you’re so fond of the thing, but bringing it back alive to the Tang Clan will be trouble. The others were gentle enough that raising them caused no great difficulty. This one, though… I truly don’t know where we would even keep it.”
He had a point. The centipedes had been ours since hatching; the lizards had been injured and then healed by us; Yo-hwa herself had been raised by human hands from childhood. All of them either lacked hostility toward people or had lost most of it. I had been so focused on the capture that I hadn’t thought that far ahead. It was a real problem.
The snake’s roar rose again as Grandfather continued.
Shyaaaa!
“Would it not be better simply to kill it and take the core?”
Hwa-eun nodded at his words.
Shyaaa! Shya!?
The creature’s cries cut off mid-screech. We all stared at the suddenly silent pouch. Grandfather spoke once more.
“It is always a pity when a spirit beast is lost, yet a beast this savage might well harm people. Killing it is the proper course. Decide here and now. We will kill it and extract the core.”
The instant he finished, a strange sound came from inside the bag.
Gack! Gack-gack.
“What is that noise?”
“What is that sound, So-ryong?”
A few more choked coughs, and then the creature began trying to force something up from its throat.
Regurgitation?
Snakes that have swallowed prey too large sometimes vomit it back up undigested when they need to move lightly or flee. But this one had been fasting for days; it had nothing in its stomach to bring up. A moment later the pouch began to shrink like a balloon losing air, and then a brilliant blue-green radiance flooded out of it.
“Th-this is—!?”
“What is that?”
Grandfather, Hwa-eun, and I drew closer as if entranced, staring at the light pouring from the silk. A pure, refreshing energy rolled over us. Grandfather’s voice broke with disbelief.
“I-it spat out its inner core!?”
We had wondered what it was regurgitating. The answer was the core itself. Inside the now-shrunken pouch, the Flying Divine Snake—reduced to little more than a meter in length—gazed up at us in perfect meekness.
“Is it offering its core in exchange for its life?”
At Hwa-eun’s question the creature inside the bag began nodding frantically, tears streaming from its eyes.