Rebuilding the Black Cult Palace
It seemed it was time to rebuild the Black Cult Palace once again.
'Still, I got some good use out of it this time.' During his rapid growth phase, he had to rebuild the Black Cult Palace almost every single year. Compared to those days, he had managed to use this one for nearly three years, so it had held up reasonably well.
'Just how much bigger am I going to get?'Jekyeong marveled anew as he swept his gaze over his colossal form. His physical size was already so immense that no other Great Demon could even begin to compare. Of course, this world was unimaginably vast, so a larger Great Demon might exist somewhere out there, but Jekyeong had certainly never seen one bigger than himself.
Furthermore, his already massive body was still growing. 'I may have obtained the Origin Earth Fire, but my physical body remains my strongest weapon.' He wasn't just big. His flesh was hardier than rock spirits, and his strength was powerful enough to tilt an entire island.
'If I can maintain this growth rate and reach the Yao King Realm, won't I be able to hold my head high even if I encounter a real Gyoryong?' A sudden, amusing thought crossed Jekyeong's mind. If he were to ascend to the Yao King Realm one day and cross paths with a real Gyoryong—creatures notorious for their supreme arrogance—what would it say upon seeing him? Would it recognize him as one of its own? Or would it fly into a rage, calling him an impostor pretending to be a dragon?
If it were the former, he would simply nod and express his delight at meeting his first "kin." But if it were the latter? He would thoroughly teach that insolent little garter snake who the real dragon was. 'Well, on second thought, they're Gyoryongs, not true dragons.' The fact that such idle delusions were drifting through his mind suggested his mental state had grown quite exhausted after spending ten straight days focusing solely on refining his essence blood.
"Are you done?" asked Cheongo, who had just returned from a stroll, watching Jekyeong shake his massive head.
"No. I'm just getting started." Loosening his stiff muscles, Jekyeong buried his snout into a mountain of spirit stones. After consuming them like daily vitamins, Jekyeong activated his human transformation and sat cross-legged.
"It might get a bit hot."
"Hotter than usual?"
"Yes."
Cheongo tilted its head as if contemplating for a moment, then promptly flew out of the Black Cult Palace. Although the bird had developed a decent tolerance to heat from living with Jekyeong, it still didn't particularly enjoy stuffy environments.
"Whew." Left alone in the dim palace, Jekyeong began to circulate his Thought-Burning Cultivation. Instantly, a scorching wave of heat swirled around him. Jekyeong calmly guided the fiery energy. Normally, this heat would flow into his spiritual core and convert into monster power. But now, Jekyeong directed the heat elsewhere—into his physical body.
Long ago, Jekyeong had used the heat of a fire crystal to forge his spiritual core, paving the way to break through the bottleneck of a Great Demon. That had been his greatest achievement in this life's cultivation. With that single triumph, he had carved out his own destiny and shattered his limits. While his current endeavor wasn't quite as monumental, it was still a highly challenging attempt. Jekyeong wanted to see if he could refine his physical body even further.
'It should be possible.' Jekyeong's spiritual core had been weak and incomplete at first, but through steady cultivation and a "few external aids," it had fully stabilized. It was no exaggeration to say that he was now equivalent to what the Human Race called a cultivator with a Heavenly Spiritual Root. When factoring in his high-quality Origin Earth Fire, he wouldn't fall short even when compared to the legendary cultivators born with a spiritual body.
But Jekyeong was not satisfied with this. Why settle when he could go further? He had seen the Hwaryeong in Jimagwon—an incredibly mysterious living spirit of fire. It was, quite literally, living fire itself.
'I am skilled at manipulating fire, and the Origin Earth Fire is already like a part of me. Yet, there are still limits.' There was nothing lacking in his spiritual core. But his physical body left something to be desired. Granted, his body was so powerful that no other Great Demon could hope to match it, and it was Jekyeong's greatest weapon. Even if he faced a Great Demon of the same rank or a human cultivator, Jekyeong was confident he could crush them with raw physical strength alone.
But should he be satisfied with just that? When he could become even stronger? Jekyeong refused to settle. He believed his body could reach greater heights. Gathering the human Spirit Blacksmiths to hammer his scales had been part of this endeavor. If spiritual energy could dwell within his scales, why not fire? Why not his bones and flesh?
Jekyeong recalled the Hwaryeong he had seen in Jimagwon. Perhaps he, too, could be reborn as an entity closer to pure fire—even if not to the same extent as the Hwaryeong—and receive the blessing of the Heavenly Dao. Weren't there human cultivators born with spiritual bodies? If they could do it, why couldn't he?
"Fhuuu..." Jekyeong drew a long, slow breath. The fiery energy supplied by his Thought-Burning Cultivation relentlessly seeped into his entire body—into his bones, his flesh, and even his skin.
'As expected, it's not easy.' In his transformed human state, he was extremely vulnerable. It was safe to say there were no real advantages to this form other than being able to practice human cultivation techniques. If he had to name one more benefit, it would be that his small size made it easier to hide in an emergency. More seriously, any injury sustained in this fragile state would be transferred directly to his true form.
"Ugh." Groaning from the agony of his skin burning away, Jekyeong finally reached his limit and reverted to his true form. The heat searing his flesh and the monster power surging violently enough to burst his body instantly quieted down the moment he returned to his original shape, as if it had all been an illusion.
"Grrr..." Yet, even though the turbulent energies had subsided, the damage they left behind remained. Jekyeong could vividly feel his scorched bones and melted flesh and muscle. While these injuries weren't severe enough to be called critical, they weren't light enough to ignore either.
Jekyeong transformed back into his human form, swallowed several elixirs, and began treating his wounds. Then, he once again circulated his Thought-Burning Cultivation, condensing the fiery energy and forcing it into his flesh. It was pure self-harm. But Jekyeong was testing whether this self-inflicted damage could serve as a new form of training.
"Fhuu!" Five days passed, then ten. Jekyeong lost track of how many times he had repeated this self-harm during this period. He didn't check for progress after every single attempt. He simply, mechanically, repeated the cycle of destruction and recovery. In his mind, this was both cultivation and tempering.
Just as iron is struck repeatedly to forge a fine sword, Jekyeong sought to burn himself over and over to slowly reshape his body. He didn't expect to reach the level of the Hwaryeong. That was fundamentally impossible anyway, because he possessed a physical body. Having a physical form meant he could never merge with the world's fire like the Hwaryeong, and even if he could, he had no intention of doing so. Why on earth would he? This massive, powerful body was his greatest weapon and his very identity; why would he ever abandon it?
What Jekyeong wanted was to forge his physical body into something stronger, not to discard it in pursuit of some new power. *Whoosh!* Fire consumed his flesh. However, this fire was not the Yokai Fire he usually produced, but pure, raw heat. It was an unavoidable choice. His Yokai Fire was far too destructive for his fragile, transformed human body to withstand.
'This is fine. Even if it's slow, it's better to take steady steps.' Jekyeong could feel his fragile human body gradually developing a resistance to the heat. No, perhaps saying it was becoming "familiar" with it was more accurate.
"Whew." When his body burned past the point of endurance, Jekyeong dispersed the heat and swallowed a handful of elixirs. 'At this rate, I might end up riddled with Pill Poison.' Medicine and poison were separated by a paper-thin margin. This wasn't just a metaphor; it was reality. They were two sides of the same coin, where medicine could become poison and poison could become medicine depending on how they were used. The Pill Poison that accumulated in cultivators when they consumed elixirs was a prime example.
Every elixir, to some degree, contained Pill Poison. Generally, the higher the grade of the elixir, the stronger its medicinal effects and the lower its toxicity. However, even the most supreme-grade elixirs could not be entirely free of Pill Poison, meaning the more elixirs a cultivator consumed, the more toxins they accumulated. This Pill Poison didn't pose much of a threat until it reached a certain threshold, but once it crossed that line... various complications, both minor and severe, would begin to manifest.
But... none of this applied to Jekyeong. He was of the Beast Race, and a Great Demon at that. What did he care about Pill Poison? Such concerns were for fragile humans. Whether it was medicine or poison, neither could affect the robust constitution of a Great Demon. Jekyeong had been eating elixirs like meals ever since he learned the Transformation Art, yet he had never felt any ill effects.
Even so, Jekyeong was currently stuffing himself with so many elixirs that the playful thought of Pill Poison actually crossed his mind. The number of pills he had swallowed over the past ten days seemed to exceed what he had consumed during an entire year of normal cultivation. Of course, he had to take into account that his usual intake consisted of cultivation elixirs, whereas the ones he had taken over the last ten days were mostly healing elixirs meant for beasts.
'It's working, but it's too slow.' Jekyeong knew he was being ungrateful. It was likely because he had consumed so many elixirs that the mere sight of them had gone past tedious and straight into nauseating. 'Right. I should be glad a path even exists. I can't complain about how rugged it is.' Clearing his mind, Jekyeong began to burn himself once more. Though they were small steps, if he kept moving forward, he would eventually reach his goal. When that day came, he would truly be comparable to a cultivator with a spiritual body.
'An acquired spiritual body, is it?' A faint smile played on his distorted lips.
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While Jekyeong was in secluded cultivation, massive battles broke out nearly every other day at various strategic points across the Human Territory, far away from the Heukgyo Water Territory.
*Boom!* A thick beam of light erupted from a massive Flying Battleship. The beam swept across the battlefield like a brush writing on paper, and along its path, hundreds of beasts were blown to pieces or turned entirely to ash. Atop the fortress walls, the humans gasped and cheered in unison at the battleship's awe-inspiring power.
"As expected of the Myeongseomun Sect's battleship!"
"They used to say that if you gave the Myeongseomun Sect ten thousand high-grade spirit stones to build battleships, they could subjugate the entire beast territory within two years! Now I see that wasn't just empty talk!"
The Myeongseomun Sect was a renowned sect of spirit blacksmiths, and the flying battleships they crafted were famous throughout the neighboring cultivation worlds. However, that reputation was the sort that was "famous for being famous." To put it simply, almost none of the cultivators in Yangseo Lake actually knew how powerful the Myeongseomun Sect's battleships were. Battleships were weapons meant to shine in war, and Yangseo Lake had not seen a war in a very long time. Even the few conflicts previously hyped up as "wars" had never been serious enough for the Myeongseomun Sect to deploy their battleships, and the recent subjugation war against the Beast Race had ended so abruptly that the vessels never had a proper chance to show their worth.