This Actually Works?
Once they were safely out of the library, Bihyung walked Mina back to her dorm, then returned to his own.
"Hoo."
It was two in the morning. A great deal seemed to have happened, and yet barely three hours had passed since he stepped out.
Lucky me. Same as that subway anomaly—time ran at a different rate in there.
One useful piece of information to take home with him.
I can put this to good use.
Like the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from a certain anime, for instance.
Bihyung was about to drop onto the bed when he turned his head toward the training room.
"Sleeping now would be a waste."
He wasn't tired anyway. If the time was there, he might as well take stock of what he'd gained.
He opened the training room door, stepped inside, and pulled open the shelf by the entrance.
"Lord! And what might this be, if I may ask!"
The shelf was packed with talismans. Eodugi cocked his head at him, and Bihyung answered with a smile.
"Call it a little privilege reserved for the first seat and the second."
He took one talisman and pressed it to the training room wall.
Fwoosh!
In an instant, the density of energy filling the room surged. Eodugi felt it too and bounced in place.
"Lord! The energy's grown so thick! Why, this is Shangri-La itself, it is!"
The little guy was laying it on thick.
"You can get the same effect in the Academy's public training grounds, but there are just too many people."
With so many bodies all scrambling to claim the energy, even a high density left little benefit to go around. Cadets of second seat and above, though, were given private training rooms in the dorms, so they could enjoy the public grounds' effect all to themselves.
Originally the players were bound to grow too fast, so I meant to balance the ones who'd end up in their parties that way.
And now he was the one enjoying the privilege. Bihyung smiled at the fullness of the rising energy.
"Then how about a little cultivation, while we're at it?"
He settled comfortably where he sat and turned his senses to his lower dantian.
Colorless Peach Blossom.
Recalling the cultivation method he had just obtained, he drew the surrounding energy in and sealed it within his body. He formed the inner image of a sun, and though the spiritual energy was still no larger than a grain of millet, he could feel it growing—slowly, by the finest of degrees.
The bigger this gets, the stronger the demon-quelling potency ought to get.
He would see to it that his yokai nature never threw its weight around again. With that resolve, Bihyung focused on his cultivation.
The longer he did, the worse Eodugi's expression became, until the little creature was squirming in open distress.
"Eek...! L-Lord! This is far too much to bear!"
Bihyung opened his eyes and looked at him. The way he trembled was exactly like a terrified puppy.
"Th-the energy spilling out while you cultivate, Lord—it stings most dreadfully..."
"Does it?"
Drawing in outside energy must have stirred his spiritual power and exposed Eodugi to the demon-quelling potency.
So the effect is real.
Having tested the potency without meaning to, Bihyung drew his spiritual energy back.
"All right. That's enough for today."
He would have to cultivate somewhere Eodugi wasn't around. Only once Bihyung had gathered his power did Eodugi relax. With a sigh of relief, the little yokai went right back to bouncing around him as before.
"What tremendous power! My yokai energy rejected it on pure instinct, it did!"
Under ordinary circumstances, that should have been impossible. Yokai energy slept in Bihyung's dantian as well. But the peculiar nature of Not a Drop Leaks sealed his yokai core without a single gap, and thanks to that, Bihyung did not have to writhe in pain the way Eodugi did.
"As expected of my Lord! Truly magnificent!"
Bihyung let out a dry laugh. The gilding was nice, but he wasn't that impressive.
The only reason I managed this is that the dokkaebi's abilities were that good.
Even looking back on it, lifting the dokkaebi's ceiling the moment he first fell into this world had been a masterstroke. If he had chosen the dragon instead? He never would have considered a route like this. He would have been groaning his way toward forging a dragon pearl.
Even so, I have to keep that nature from running wild.
It had given him a great deal, and in equal measure it was desperate to seize control of his body. Hadn't he already been through that inside the anomaly's domain? It had tried to devour him.
I can't let that happen again.
The thought prompted him to check his status window. The Collapse of Perfect Neutrality had halted and returned to its original form, and the ratio of his natures was the same as when he had first set it. Even so, Bihyung did not relax.
The yokai nature. That one ate the library anomaly too.
Was that why? He frowned at a faint sense of wrongness rising from his lower dantian.
Something's there.
He focused his awareness on the yokai core pooled at the bottom of his lower dantian, pierced the iron fortress of Not a Drop Leaks, and went down. Like a dive into deep water, the farther his consciousness sank, the clearer the source of that wrongness became. Bihyung's eyes flew open.
...Colorless Peach Blossom. The method took root in the yokai core, too.
A sour look crossed his face as he came back to himself.
"Eodugi."
"Yes, Lord."
"Do yokai normally learn cultivation methods?"
A cultivation method was a human monopoly—humanity's creation, made to stand against anomalies. And yet one had taken root in his yokai core. The only one he could ask was Eodugi, who had far more experience as a yokai than he did.
Eodugi considered it for a moment, then nodded.
"I don't believe it went by the name of a cultivation method, but yokai do learn such things, yes!"
"Why?"
As Bihyung understood it, the way to grow a yokai core was to devour anomalies. Yokai, then, ought to be able to amplify their energy by killing and eating one another. So why learn a cultivation method they didn't need?
Fortunately, Eodugi had some idea of the answer.
"I am told the exalted ones learn it as a matter of course! They say one must refine one's yokai energy if one wishes to obtain yokai energy stronger still!"
Then the yokai nature would not increase for the time being. Colorless Peach Blossom was a method that grew by forming an image and advancing through it. If he regulated it carefully and answered it properly, he would not be left gasping under his yokai nature again.
"Speaking of which—the exalted ones?"
Something in Eodugi's words had snagged him.
"From the way you talk... they sound strong too. Am I right?"
Eodugi had always called him Lord. Older though he might be, Eodugi was only a low-grade yokai whose very being had never been fixed, while Bihyung himself was a dokkaebi of EX rank. And yet, hearing him speak that way, the standing of these exalted ones did not seem low at all.
"Yes! They are beings to whom the likes of low-grade yokai cannot even compare—ones worthy of being called true yokai!"
"Well, I'll be."
And here I thought I was a hardened veteran of Reader's Chronicle. Turns out there were still things I didn't know.
It couldn't be helped. Creatures like that had never appeared in Reader's Chronicle.
Sooner or later, I'll probably have to fight things like that.
Somehow... that was the feeling he got.
Then I ought to use everything I can use.
Feeling the Colorless Peach Blossom rooted in his yokai core, Bihyung let out a low hum.
...I'll worry about this later. I can't choose an option that might destroy me out of fear of something that hasn't even happened yet.
Which left the other things he could use.
The Warehouse.
It seemed about time to make use of it.
For the first things I take, maybe the spirit-elixir sort? Yang-aligned ones, if I can.
He would grow that sun—the one carrying the demon-quelling potency—a little further. He had just resolved to step into the Warehouse when—
Ding!
A message chimed. Now what.
I don't think a message popping up the moment I make up my mind has ever been good news.
Bihyung carefully read the text as it appeared. His eyes went wide.
You have successfully formed yang-attribute spiritual energy in your lower dantian.
Its size has been confirmed to have grown beyond the set threshold.
The bloodline Seize the Sun's additional ability, Yang Energy Beyond Control, is affected.
"Huh?"
Why now, all of a sudden?
A sensation of blood boiling through his whole body crashed over him. It was not his half-yokai nature stirring. It was simply his blood heating, pure and simple.
Yang Energy Beyond Control. True to the name, Bihyung could not master this heat.
My whole body... feels like it's on fire...
Everything inside him burned without cease, then regenerated again. The activating virtue inherent to yang energy was acting far too strongly. Bihyung knew this trait.
Don't tell me that storyline is forming.
Sure enough—
Ding! With the chime, a derived story surfaced.
"...This was something you could acquire after the fact?"
Bihyung knew the derived story called the Nine Yang Severed Meridians very well. How could he not? It was the main story of an NPC that any newbie playing Reader's Chronicle had to put in their party first.
That character was born with the Nine Yang Severed Meridians, so the story came with them.
And now he was gaining it after the fact. Astonishing, nothing more.
"...Genuinely astonishing."
Bihyung let out a heavy sigh.
Nine blood vessels branched from the heart. Yang energy packed every joint of them, pouring out heat as if they might burst into flame.
If you didn't resolve the Nine Yang Severed Meridians, the original energy meridians snapped, strand by strand.
As an exorcist, that was an automatic out. Even as a human, you would need luck just to linger on in a vegetative state.
But if you did resolve it, a fine reward followed.
A constitution: the Body of the Nine Yangs. A physique in which yang energy accumulated with every breath, and in which sinew, bone, energy, and blood all developed evenly, revealing outstanding talent.
The problem is how much it costs to fix.
Resolving the Nine Yang Severed Meridians required a yin-aligned spirit elixir, an extremely rare medicine that could be obtained only inside an anomaly's domain.
And you can't settle for poor quality. One wrong step, and an anomaly could devour you.
As a half-yokai, he didn't think that would happen to him. Still, you never knew.
Even if I'm not devoured, the acupoints could be left scarred.
That would be an internal injury, and treating it would take considerable time. For someone who could not give up the first seat because of the path to the summit, it was a bone-deep drawback.
Bihyung sighed heavily.
"Do I have to spend the first seat's privilege on this?"
The first seat could demand from the Academy any spirit elixir they wanted, or the materials required for alchemy. The privilege came only once a semester, so he had meant to save it for something he truly needed.
Or I use the Warehouse...
That was no great option either. The Warehouse allowed entry for only one hour per key, and it was anyone's guess how much he could bring back out. He had intended to save it for something he absolutely needed.
Comparing the two, demanding it from the Academy is the more efficient...
Then, all at once, a thought struck him.
...Yokai and anomalies are yin by nature. Which is to say, they're full of yin energy.
Bihyung's gaze turned naturally toward his own yokai core.
The energy this thing holds is yin-aligned too. And of a very high grade.
Maybe it was possible.
Let's try it now.
He subdued his spiritual energy, opened the lid of the yokai core, and drew the yokai energy out.
The heart's blood vessels. Turn it that way.
At his will, the yokai energy circulated through his body.
Shaaaa...
A gloomy energy blanketed his flesh. Cold, and bleak, it threaded his acupoints until at last it reached its destination: the blood vessels of the heart.
In that instant—
Hiss!
Like ice dropped onto a heated pan, steam burst from Bihyung's body. A moment later, when he checked the vessels of his heart, he let out a hollow laugh.
One strand of the nine vessels that had been completely blocked was open.
The Nine Yang Severed Meridians—no. He would have to call them the Eight Yang Severed Meridians now.
"This actually works."
A spirit elixir?
I don't need one.
It was the moment the yokai energy that had been nothing but a burden became the elixir itself.