The Medicinal Porridge and the Sting of Awakening
Let's spar. After tossing every kind of medicinal herb and vegetable into the pot and simmering it all night long, how could the resulting broth possibly be ordinary? The aroma alone was magnificent, a perfect blend of the bittersweet scent of medicine and the crisp freshness of the vegetables. While the rice boiled away vigorously, the master and disciple could do nothing but swallow their drooling saliva over and over again.
Finally, they ladled the bubbling porridge into bowls, cracked raw eggs into them, and stirred. The medicinal vegetable egg porridge was complete.
Smiles bloomed across both their faces. Spoons appeared from somewhere, and after blowing on the steaming food for a long time, they each took a bite.
“Mmm.”
“Mmm.”
The expressions on the master and disciple’s faces were subtle.
“……You’ve never actually tried this before, have you?”
“My master only ever told me to consume spiritual medicines. He never prepared spiritual medicine soup. Ahem.”
Of course, what he had called “spiritual medicine soup” was actually bathwater meant for soaking, not broth meant for drinking. Naturally it tasted bland and fishy, with the bitter astringency of all those grasses and vegetables concentrated together.
“Let’s season it first. Do you have any salt?”
“Of course I do.”
Cheong had no idea why carrying salt was so obvious, but if she didn’t know, she simply had to learn. She had gained a truly great realization. From now on, she would always carry rock salt, some dried herbs, and a bit of dried meat too. There wasn’t a single piece of meat in this porridge……
After adding the salt, it improved considerably. Egg porridge was supposed to be delicious with nothing more than rice gruel, a stirred egg, and a pinch of salt. Even though the broth was fishy and bitter enough to ruin the flavor, they somehow ended up with a medicinal porridge that could be eaten if one made the appropriate grimaces.
“Mm. It has that ‘good for the body’ taste.”
“The saying about eating spiritual medicine like rice wasn’t a compliment. Spiritual medicine should be taken as medicine, not turned into a meal.”
In truth, Cheong could eat just about anything. The phrase “just about anything” included rotten garbage and bugs that would make normal people sick, so a merely tasteless egg porridge went down her throat without issue. However, Cheon Yuhak—the old man who had grown up as a noble clan’s young master—clearly found it a terrible ordeal and struggled to finish his portion.
Still, because it was spiritual medicine, he forced down one bowl. Yet because his hands were unnecessarily large for his noble background, he had made far too much. A huge amount remained.
In the end, Cheon Yuhak, whose appetite had completely vanished after one bowl, put his spoon away. He then watched with open fascination as Cheong devoured the rest like it was nothing.
The quantity was enough to fill two bowls each for four grown adults. By simple arithmetic, Cheong had eaten seven bowls by herself.
Even in the entertainment-saturated world of her homeland, the sight of a beauty gobbling food without tasting it, shoving it in endlessly, was a popular spectacle. People would pay money to watch and even cheer for her to eat more.
So for the primitive, ancient, uncivilized people of the Central Plains, it was nothing short of a new world—an absolute show-stopper that left them speechless.
“They said you came from a beggar background, but wow… how does it all fit inside you?”
“Oh, it really is a nutritional porridge. I can feel the energy surging up and spreading through me?”
“It’s not nutritional porridge, it’s spiritual medicine porridge, and the energy isn’t just ‘feeling like’ it’s spreading. It is spreading. Circulate your energy and absorb it properly.”
“Ah.”
Cheong tried to sit in lotus position, but her belly was so bloated that it was uncomfortable. Instead, she simply stretched both legs out and leaned back, hands braced behind her. Her stomach was not a convenient infinite pocket, after all; it simply expanded as she ate.
Even though she looked completely sprawled out, Cheong closed her eyes and observed her own qi pathways. It was the perfect opportunity to see how the spiritual medicine affected this monstrous body of hers.
Recalling that she was different from others brought an unbearably unpleasant sorrow. But she needed to understand how she was different if she wanted to at least pretend to be the same kind of human, the same sort of creature.
Well, “creature” was probably fine, right? She wasn’t human, and she wasn’t quite a monster or anything similar, but at least she was alive, so she wasn’t an inanimate object. …Was she? Were game characters considered inanimate?
Suddenly Cheong’s head drooped.
Maybe the spiritual medicine energy was particularly potent; her eyes felt hot and stinging. She shook off the gloomy thoughts. Focus on the true qi……
The medicinal energies penetrated her dantian and merged with her various true qis. It felt like they were being distributed evenly among all the qis that had not yet reached great perfection and hit their maximum.
At that moment, when Cheong activated the Awakening Divine Art, the remaining medicinal energy suddenly changed direction and concentrated entirely on the body-awakening true qi to be absorbed.
So if you just eat it normally, it distributes evenly among the non-maxed qis. But if you circulate energy while eating, it gets added to whichever internal art you’re using.
Then what about other people……?
“Master? Is the spiritual medicine supposed to act like this?”
“Heng. You have to tell me what ‘like this’ means before I can say whether it’s right or wrong.”
“Uh, it’s hard to explain. What’s supposed to happen normally?”
“The natural energy within the spiritual medicine spreads toward the extremities of the body. Roughly one-tenth remains in the acupoints while the rest escapes through the skin.”
That was why one had to circulate and gather the energy into the dantian before it all dissipated. The difficulty of absorption varied according to the individual’s skill with true qi, the specific internal art they practiced, and even differed wildly depending on the spiritual medicine itself.
“This is why martial artists sing about divine arts and desperately long for them. Even with the same spiritual medicine, the results are different. And the better the medicine, the easier it is to absorb without burdening the acupoints. Why else would the Great Rejuvenation Pill be called the greatest spiritual medicine under heaven?”
The one-tenth that remained in the acupoints was not always beneficial. If its nature was too fierce, it could instead destroy the acupoints and harm the body. Because natural spiritual medicines possessed such properties, they were refined into pills even at the cost of losing some energy.
“There, you’re chattering away, so I assume you’ve absorbed it all? Well, that one bowl didn’t contain much natural energy anyway. I’m going to catch up on the sleep I missed outside, so soak in the bath and suck up every last drop.”
“Are there any particular precautions I should know about?”
“According to the prescription, it’s supposed to sting a bit. But not enough that you can’t endure it.”
Cheong narrowed her eyes.
“This time you’re sure, right? It’s stinging, not painful, correct?”
“I’m just reading what’s written. How would I know when I’ve never tried it myself? From a theoretical perspective, it should sting somewhat, no?”
Originally, the natural energy of spiritual medicine was ingested through the mouth, spreading outward from the stomach—the center of the body—and escaping through the skin.
However, the Awakening Divine Art was a peculiar method that could absorb qi through the entire skin rather than through breathing. Of course, while it was certainly unique, its efficiency was less than half of half of half of half of half of the normal breathing method, making it utterly terrible.
The idea of soaking in the medicinal bath came from that very trash-tier skin-absorption efficiency.
The training of absorbing the spiritual medicine’s energy through the skin via the Awakening Divine Art was precisely what the medicinal bath was for. Since the energy penetrated the skin, it was naturally going to sting.
“The records say that once you get used to it, it actually feels refreshing. Try it yourself and give me your impressions later. Mm. Aigoo, I’m so tired I could die. And I still have to continue the bone restructuring. What’s there to be scared of?”
“You’re openly calling it bone restructuring now?”
“When did I ever call it bone restructuring? I called it Flowing Softness Softening Refinement. Has this green young lady’s hearing already gone bad?”
“Strange. You definitely said……”
“Ha. Who would dare say something so terrifying out loud? Where in the world would you find a master who tells his disciple he’s going to perform bone and muscle restructuring on her?”
“Mm. I must have misheard. Sorry.”
Cheon Yuhak spoke with such confidence that Cheong simply assumed she had heard wrong.
“That jar is worth two hundred guan. Each drop is worth dozens of coins. Be careful not to waste even a single drop.”
Cheon Yuhak gave the warning as he headed outside. Hearing that each drop was worth dozens of coins made her realize all over again that this was no ordinary act of extravagance.
With that in mind, Cheong very, very carefully lowered herself into the bath. The medicinal liquid rose exactly to her chin. At first it felt itchy, a wave of tickling sensation rushing over her. But that lasted only a moment.
The instant she began circulating the Awakening Divine Art, a stimulation like carbonated soda being poured down her throat began. It felt as if her entire skin was burning hot. But that was all.
It wasn’t unbearable, yet it was difficult to keep her mouth closed. Like chugging a large glass of soda in one go, it was painful and bitter, yet somehow mysteriously refreshing and cooling at the same time.
She kept sucking in the energy until no more could be absorbed. By then, time had flown by and it was already the middle of the dark night.
Awakening Divine Art
Proficiency: Eighth Stage
Whoa. So this was what people meant when they said spiritual medicine was good.
Cheong’s internal energy method determined its achievement purely by the total amount of internal energy gathered through that specific art, which was why she had reached an unusually high level of proficiency. Cheon Yuhak, unaware of these circumstances, was utterly shocked.
“Eighth stage? What the hell……”
Was this why the sect had emphasized for generations the importance of accepting a disciple with good aptitude? Cheon Yuhak roughly interpreted it that way. In any case, good was good, right?
“Yeah. How does it feel? That sensation of your body being awakened.”
“It still stings……”
It felt like she had scrubbed her skin raw until a whole layer had peeled off. Her entire body felt numb, burning, and prickling, yet at the same time, it was incredibly refreshing.
“The fine meridians near the skin have grown desensitized from the stimulation. Get a good night’s sleep, and when you wake up you’ll understand why the Awakening Divine Art is called a study that awakens the body.”
“Wait. It wasn’t Awakening Divine Art?”
“It’s Awakening Body Art. Didn’t I give you the manual?”
“The title was Twenty Days of Night Exercises, wasn’t it? There was definitely nothing like that in the formulas……? Where in the part about feeling the flow of heaven and earth with the body does it say anything about awakening the body?”
“Original formulas are all about writing grandiose nonsense, aren’t they? That way, each learner can complete it slightly differently according to their own imagination.”
The reason martial art formulas always grasped at clouds was partly to avoid forcing every individual into one specific completed form.
“I thought it was a divine art……”
She had thought it was an awakening divine art, but it was actually an awakening body art. No wonder the text had been golden. Cheong swallowed the rest of her words. She felt greatly deceived.
“It is a divine art. Does it have to have the words ‘divine art’ written on it to qualify? Now get some proper sleep and wake up.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“For a Divine Thief—or rather, for every martial artist—what they dream of is sharp senses, isn’t it? Even if the Awakening Divine Art is only third-rate when it comes to accumulating internal energy, when judged solely by the efficacy of awakening sharp senses, it is an unparalleled supreme divine art. You’ll be able to feel even the faintest breeze vividly. You’ll understand how wondrous it feels to sense the flow of heaven and earth.”
“Ooh.”
Cheong’s eyes sparkled. So even though it was a golden martial art, it had this kind of ability?
Cheon Yuhak gave a small chuckle, then continued with a thoughtful hum.
“The Murim Competition begins tomorrow. You’ll be busy too, so I’ll go around selling some tonics while I have the chance. Let’s meet again in eight days. We need to do the second round of Flowing Softness Softening Refinement. How would you like to do it—one hour, or three hours?”
At those words, the horrific pain from before flashed through her mind…… The focus disappeared from Cheong’s eyes.