Give It Back
"The Five Greats are Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, and Void. Five principles, bound together under a single name."
Dueogsi spoke as he opened his fingers one by one.
Fwoosh! A blue flame kindled first. A stream of water followed, then a haze of dust, and a wind rose to carry it all away. The long-awaited Void made no sound at all.
"It vanished?"
"Yes. I sent the yokai art I manifested elsewhere."
He pointed as he said it. When Bihyung followed the gesture, four vivid marks were scored into the earth.
"What exorcists call the Five Phases are attributes of their own. Set against them, the affinity yokai possess is precisely the Five Greats."
Something stirred in Bihyung's memory.
That imoho from before… she definitely used arts that felt like this.
Her tail had turned to flame and grown heavy as a mountain, and blades of water and wind had raked his skin all at once.
So that was the Five Greats.
He had searched and found nothing worth the name, so he had never known. At last the concept had a shape.
"Then how do you handle the Spectral Tread?"
"The Spectral Tread begins by opening an empty place within the body."
"Space?"
"Yes. For example."
So saying, Dueogsi raised a sharp nail and drove it straight into his own belly.
Thuk!
The hand sank in to the palm. Blood ran down his forearm. Yet he drew the arm back with a perfectly calm face, as if nothing at all had happened. A yokai, through and through.
"Can you see my belly, Boss?"
Organs severed, a tunnel bored clean through to his back—the sight was frankly revolting.
"This is the feeling. The sensation of boring a hole through the body."
Ah… if it was going to be like this, should he have just taken the Spectral Tread as the wager's prize? The thought flickered and died. He shook his head at once.
Without Void as a primary attribute, the Spectral Tread would be useless anyway.
Bihyung forced down the grotesque and stared hard at Dueogsi's belly. Dueogsi laughed, bright and unbothered.
"Well. I explained it this way, but a hole does not actually open inside the body. One simply plants Void within oneself with a feeling like that."
"…Then why did you go and punch a hole in your stomach?"
"Is it not faster to see it with your own eyes and draw the picture in your head than to have it explained in words?"
Fair enough. He could not argue with that.
Thanks to what he said, I'm starting to get a feel for it.
Was it because Void was a primary attribute? Or should he simply praise the quality of Dueogsi's teaching? Either way, Bihyung felt an empty hollow taking its place inside his body.
It isn't actually a hole. And it doesn't feel like a dantian, either.
Energy merely gathered there and forged the attribute of Void. Nothing more than a condensation of that. Except—
Qi-sense? Something like that is slipping… not through the inside of my body, but out of it.
The empty space, as if determined to fill itself, spread into the surroundings, drank in every scrap of information the energy touched, and brought it back again. Feeling that, an idea flashed through him.
What if I mix Roots into this?
Dueogsi's original art, and the foundation of a Dokkaebi. If he blended the two—
I think a rather interesting technique might come out of it.
Bihyung tested it at once.
You have acquired Void Mass, a subordinate technique of Spectral Tread.
Roots has been mixed into Void Mass.
You have seized the possibility of rising into a higher technique.
The system judged the result brimming with the potential to evolve.
A higher technique. Does that mean the Spectral Tread? Or something classed as an entirely different kind?
Whatever it was, it was good for him. When Bihyung's face lit up with undisguised glee, Dueogsi could not hide his surprise.
"Hoh. You mixed in Roots? A truly astonishing conception."
"Going outward felt similar."
"Correct. The Spectral Tread is, by nature, a sensory organ altogether different from the five senses, and from qi-sense as well."
Put simply, it was stealing information from the opponent one meant to fight.
"Should you attain mastery, you will read an opponent's techniques before your eyes ever see them. And, at the same time, how they may be dismantled."
Bihyung's mouth watered at an art more broken than he had imagined. Unfortunately, that was a story of the distant future. He had not even set foot in the Spectral Tread. He had only just, barely, stepped into its subordinate art, the Void Mass.
Still. It'll keep growing.
Unlike other techniques, those tied to the senses tended to climb in proficiency quickly. Which made sense. The senses were used in ordinary life as well.
"How do you use the rest of the Five Greats? Are they like the Five Phases?"
"Yes. It is the feeling of shaping yokai power and manifesting other energies."
That was exactly like spellcraft.
"Hup."
Recalling the sensation of casting an art, Bihyung manifested a Five Greats yokai art. Wind blew. Flame lingered. Between them, a sense of connection to the earth and the fluid motion of a stream circled through his body. In the midst of it, an idea tickled the back of his mind.
A lot of these feel like the Five Phases. Water, and earth, and fire.
Then these—couldn't he mix them into Five Phases arts and use them together?
"Dueok."
"…Yes? Did you call for me?"
"Calling you Dueogsi every time feels a bit much, doesn't it?"
"Under…stood. But why did you call?"
"Do you know the basic arts of the Five Greats?"
Fortunately, Dueok knew them well. The moment Bihyung learned them in brief, the Five Greats arts settled of their own accord among his system entries. He immediately joined the Fire of the Five Greats to the Fire of the Five Phases.
Chiiiiik…!!
The same flame was clearly dwelling there, yet steam kept surging from his grip, and a sound rose like water flicked onto a heated pan.
Yin and yang. The two energies are colliding.
But there was no need to worry. A body of Yin-Yang Incarnation was a vessel of endless possibility, able to hold both energies at once.
Gather.
As if issuing a command to the energy, he fixed the art with wide eyes. In his grip a flame that was neither blue nor red wavered, a luminous violet.
"That is…?"
Even Dueok seemed not to know it. He only stared at the hand, eyes wide.
"…Astonishing. Yin and yang, coexisting. It is like looking upon the yokai who established myth."
Established myth. Just whose face was he gilding?
I'm still nothing but a half-yokai hatchling.
A mere 2nd Rank. Even if one generously counted the body's ability, a martial power that could just barely cling to 3rd Rank. That was a cold assessment of Bihyung.
"Well. That's enough of this for now. Time I headed for the treasury and picked up an item…"
He was drawing in the violet flame and getting ready to return to the dormitory when—
Ting!
A familiar chime he heard often. But now, like Pavlov's dog, the moment it sounded his heart thudded in a spinal reflex. The instant he listened, a window he had never expected rose before his eyes.
You have partially fulfilled the conditions required to open the branch story The Researcher.
"…Huh?"
Without meaning to, he had stepped into a hidden piece.
The branch story, The Researcher.
It was a hidden piece that opened only after one learned the arts classed as basic—1st Rank arts, and no others—and then mastered them.
When I learned an art, the starting proficiency was different.
Grasping the essence of the art, or something of the sort.
Thanks to that, even after proficiency hit 100, it kept stacking.
Each of those gains later gathered and exerted a power stronger than others of the same rank. Should he think of it as forcibly creating a plus grade?
The synergy between that and the Path of the Apex ought to be good.
So it was a hidden piece he absolutely had to obtain. Bihyung spread the violet flame into the air once more and probed it.
The Five Greats arts stimulated the Five Phases arts.
What he had unfolded this time happened to be Fire. Thanks to that, he had mastered one basic art.
Two overlaps left.
Earth, and Water.
Of course, you can't exactly class Earth as Soil…
There would still be overlap. Bihyung immediately ran Earth Art and Soil Art side by side, searching for their crossing, and handled the water-related arts the same way. The result:
Two more, and he had passed the halfway mark toward the hidden piece.
What's left is Wood Art and Metal Art.
Unfortunately, a yokai's Five Greats arts had no overlap with those. Bihyung clicked his tongue and turned away.
Once regular classes start, they'll teach the basic arts from the beginning anyway.
There would be a way to fill proficiency quickly then. He would aim for that time.
What I can get here now is…
Bihyung looked at Dueok.
The power I feel from him is roughly Middle Rank. That'll do.
He led Dueok toward the deepest part of the treasury.
"Boss. What business have we in this place?"
"I was thinking of borrowing a bit of your strength."
Bihyung smiled and looked around. An energy that grew thicker the farther they went. This was the sector where the spirit elixirs rested. He surveyed them in silence, settled his gaze on one spot, and called Dueok.
"You see that?"
"Yes. A spirit elixir of outstanding compressed energy. However… it does not seem the sort that can be absorbed into the body."
"Right. It's a spirit elixir of the flesh."
The corner of Bihyung's mouth twitched.
The Grand Reversion Pill.
The elixir a veteran had once posted, still reeking of a blatant cheat. He would eat one of those too.
"Dueok. Bring that over."
Dueok regarded him for a moment, then nodded.
"Yes. I shall return shortly."
True to the bold claim, Dueok brushed aside the qualifications required to obtain the Grand Reversion Pill and came back carrying a wooden case.
"Here it is."
Above the two hands he offered with courtesy sat the case that held the pill. Bihyung's heart fluttered, pleasantly.
The constitutions stacked.
No. More precisely—should he say a higher-grade constitution devours the ones beneath it?
Once the Celestial Martial Physique is folded into the Yin-Yang Incarnation, it'll become even greater.
That was why he had chosen the Grand Reversion Pill as what he would take from the treasury. He opened the wooden case at once, breathed in the astringent scent of the herbs, and swallowed it in a single mouthful.
Gulp.
With the swallow, the compressed energy unwound and naturally stroked his meridians, his muscle, and his bone.
Crack!
Flesh and bone began to be remade. Something he had undergone once before. As when he had gained the Yin-Yang Incarnation, the dantian opened; yokai power and dao power flowed out and circulated together with the pill's energy. Soon those currents caressed sinew and muscle. At the same time, as if the dantian too were part of the body, the flow reached it and stirred it.
Ting!
When the whole of it was finished, a message rang.
Gluttony's Delight has been applied.
The constitution Yin-Yang Incarnation wholly devours the energy of the Grand Reversion Pill.
Digesting…
An ability suited to the constitution blooms.
Congratulations! The special trait Celestial Temporal Realm has been added to Yin-Yang Incarnation!
But the name was not familiar.
…Hm? Not the Celestial Martial Physique?
What. Give me back my Celestial Martial Physique.