Return

Fortunately, the situation settled without any major clash.

The temple faction centered on Seo Ran and the cave faction under Ho Hwa-rin naturally began living apart. And I planted myself right in the middle of the two camps.

Both sides are my women. So why do I feel like I've been exiled to the neutral zone between them?

It stung a little, but it wasn't actually inconvenient. If anything, the middle ground was the perfect spot for checking on both sides. There was just one gutting downside.

The morning double-blowjob sessions—Seo Ran and Ho Hwa-rin devotedly sucking me off from either side—had completely evaporated.

That used to be pure heaven… damn shame.

The two women, locked in a cold war over ownership of me, no longer exchanged a single word even when they shared a space. The air between them stayed frosty, as if the word "friend" had never left their mouths. To make matters worse, Seo Ran had started shying away from sleeping with me because of Seoha.

She spent most of every day with her daughter. The interesting part was that Seoha had already figured out Seo Ran was her real mother.

She just never explained why she'd pretended not to know until now.

"Man, I want a mother-daughter double blowjob set."

"Talking nonsense to yourself again?"

Seo Ran's voice nearly stopped my heart—I hadn't even felt her approach. I clamped my mouth shut and looked up at her with an awkward smile.

Luckily, "blowjob" was an alien loanword that didn't exist in this world, so she had no idea what it meant.

"What's the sudden visit for?"

"I came to eat."

By "food," she meant cum.

I had zero intention of refusing, so I dropped my pants first. Seo Ran lunged in like she intended not to leave a single drop behind.

"Hng… chup♡"

She swallowed the scorching meat into her mouth the moment it was offered, face melting into bliss.

"Mm… mmmph! Chuuup, juruuup…!"

Her tongue teased the tip of my urethra, then she greedily forced my cock all the way down her throat, clamping tight to milk out every drop of semen.

I seized her hair roughly and came.

Brrrrt! Brrt!

Seo Ran caught the load in her mouth and swallowed it slowly. Her throat bobbed hard.

"Chuuup… gulp."

"Want to go another round?"

"No. I have to spend time with Seoha."

"Hey, isn't it a little unfair that only you get to enjoy yourself?"

"You've enjoyed yourself plenty already, haven't you? And you seem to be having fun with Rang, too."

So she'd caught me sneaking around with her after all.

"That's different… More importantly, did you really need to pick a fight with Hwa-rin?"

Seo Ran dragged her tongue up my cock one more time, then wiped her lips with the back of her hand. Her violet eyes narrowed slightly as she looked up at me.

"Are you stupid?"

"Out of nowhere?"

"You've seen it yourself. She's starting to get attached to you, little by little."

"And that's a bad thing?"

Honestly, having a beauty like Ho Hwa-rin obsess over me sounded pretty great.

"Does this idiot ever think about anything except waving his dick around…"

"Harsh."

Seo Ran let out a long sigh and rose to her feet. She'd still been kneeling; the way she smoothed her skirt as she stood was quietly sensual.

"Hwa-rin is a monster we can't handle. Right now she just sees you as a mating partner, but once she truly becomes obsessed, there won't be a thing I can do for you."

"Hmm. So this isn't just jealousy because I'm cozying up with Hwa-rin?"

"I—I am not!"

The stammer gave her away. The tips of her ears flushed red for an instant before she forced the color down.

"Called it."

"I said no!"

She shouted and clamped hard around my cock.

"W-wait—if you squeeze like that, my dick's gonna burst!"

"Take it back. Right now."

"I take it back!"

I threw both hands up at once.

"Hmph. Say that garbage one more time and see what happens."

It was jealousy no matter how you looked at it. I'd been spending all my fun time with Rang and Ho Hwa-rin lately, and she was clearly countering by stirring up this mess.

"Anyway… be careful. She can take human form, but at the end of the day she's still a beast. She doesn't think the way humans do."

With that, she turned and walked away.

Cute, though.

I muttered it under my breath as I watched her leave. She was never the type to admit jealousy straight out. That was why she dressed it up like this.

I stood and brushed off my clothes.

About time I headed back to reality.

I was completely broke. The amount Ho Hwa-rin and Rang put away was no joke. And with Seoha and So Ryeong joining the group, food costs had doubled.

Never thought feeding two spirit beasts and three humans would be this brutal.

I returned to reality.

The first things I felt were the murky air and the sudden heaviness settling into my body.

I feel this every time I come back… still hard to get used to.

The spiritual energy that had filled my dantian was gone—nothing but emptiness.

I sighed, picked up my smartphone, and checked the balance. What was left in the account wouldn't last more than a few days at a glance.

"Ugh, just thinking about making money is giving me a headache already."

If I wanted to keep buying supplies and stuffing them into storage, I needed cash. But first there was something I had to check.

Spirit Root Awakening.

The reward I'd received for saving Seo Ran last time. At first I'd tried to sense what had awakened and felt nothing at all—but after having sex with Ho Hwa-rin and reaching Foundation Establishment, the presence of the spirit root finally became clear.

I sat cross-legged on the floor and slowly steadied my breathing.

My body in reality felt like an empty vessel with no spiritual energy of its own—

Twitch.

Deep in my lower abdomen, a faint heat bloomed.

So it works in reality too.

Rewards from the Infinite Library weren't limited to the fictional worlds.

I carefully focused my awareness on that heat.

The warmth grew sharper by degrees. What had been a thread-thin stream thickened, flaring into a burning sensation.

It had to be a Yang Spirit Root.

Everything I'd seen and heard in the Mansang Realm clicked together in my head. A spirit root was both the vessel through which a cultivator received spiritual energy and its defining "color." Its nature decided which arts suited you and which techniques hit hardest. Solar-attribute roots, in particular, were famous for their rarity.

Jackpot.

The problem was that reality had no spiritual energy. The finest vessel in the world meant nothing if there was nothing to pour into it.

I kept my breathing even and thought it through.

When Awakened use their abilities, they clearly burn some kind of energy.

I'd run as a hunter for five years without ever using a single skill, so I'd never felt that drain firsthand.

But watching other Awakened work, it was obviously there. Call it mana, call it qi—different names, same concept.

Which means something like qi has to exist in this world too.

There was no guarantee the energy Awakened used in reality and the spiritual energy of the Mansang Realm were completely different substances. If only the name differed and the essence was the same, I could fill my dantian with it.

I used the breathing method I'd learned, exactly as taught.

A sharp tingle.

Something came into clear focus.

The texture was different from spiritual energy—rougher, closer to something raw.

Something was flowing through this reality as well.

Pull it in.

I tried to force that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠energy into my dantian.

It wouldn't catch. Unlike spiritual energy, the grain was coarse and the current itself irregular.

If the spiritual energy of the Mansang Realm was water running through well-ordered channels, this was closer to thick, sticky oil.

Still, I refused to give up and kept focusing. Matching the rhythm of inhale and exhale, I strained to seize that rough power little by little.

At last something settled into place inside my dantian.

It was the same sensation as the first time I'd felt energy—a tiny knot forming, like a single strand of thread tangling into a clump.

So accumulating qi in reality is possible.

Which meant I could also use the Yin-Yang Dual Cultivation Scripture the way I'd planned.

"Hell yeah."

I opened my eyes and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠opened the Infinite Library shop.

I'd stacked a decent pile of points.

The shop inventory hadn't changed much. I spent 600 points on two Enhancement Tickets.

A notice popped up that the tickets had been added to storage.

Time to try enhancing the spirit root and the energy in my dantian.

No idea if it would work, but I was curious what would happen if it did.

I pulled one Enhancement Ticket from storage.

The moment it touched my hand it melted away and vanished.

Without hesitation I pictured the spirit root's attribute.

The instant the enhancement finished, a heavy vibration rolled through the depths of my lower abdomen. It wasn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠simply that the heat had gotten stronger.

"Might as well push it one more time."

I used the second ticket.

It felt like a blocked airway had finally opened—the way the air against my skin registered flipped a full one-eighty.

…Has the world always been this loud?

Even with my eyes closed I could sense the fine particles of energy drifting through the room. Before, I'd barely been managing the power inside my own body. Now it felt like a solid root had taken hold, ready to snatch external energy whenever I wanted.

The spirit root—my engine—had just jumped a whole weight class in displacement.

I immediately bought more Enhancement ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Tickets.

This time I pictured the energy piled in my dantian.

Calling the energy currently in my dantian "mana" seemed accurate enough.

More importantly… again…

The agony from when I'd enhanced my dick came back to me. There had been a warning then too, and it had actually been vicious. I had no way to gauge how bad this round would be.

I won't die, right?

In the next instant, my dantian boiled like a blast furnace.

"Ghhhk…!"

This wasn't simple compression of mana. It felt as if someone had jammed a massive press into my dantian and was crushing it by force—the density of the mana skyrocketed exponentially.

Heat that expanded and contracted in cycles surged backward along my meridians, spreading like fire all the way to my fingertips and toes. I clenched my teeth and endured the feeling that every blood vessel in my body was about to burst.

I don't know how long it lasted.

The storm of pain finally ebbed and my dantian fell quiet. But the mana sitting inside that stillness was incomparably heavier and sharper than before.

So I enhanced the mana one more time.

This time there was no pain.

"…Huh?"

Suddenly my dantian began to vibrate like mad. As if trying to fill the emptied space, it was forcibly dragging ambient mana toward itself.

I felt like the eye of a gigantic whirlpool. Reality's mana poured into my dantian in a flood.

"Holy shit…"

It was filling automatically—and with energy far more refined and powerful than before.

I slowly opened my eyes and guided the transformed power inside me out to my fingertips.

Fwoosh.

"Ohh."

Awe slipped out of me on its own. A tiny spark of flame bloomed at the tip of my index finger. But it was nothing like ordinary red fire. This was a dense, dark, flickering black flame that looked ready to swallow light itself.

Shame about the black color, but…

Outwardly it looked exactly like ominous demonic energy. As the one who had created it, though, I knew better. This flame was the result of Extreme Yang heat compressed to its limit.

"I only made a flame this small and the cost is already ridiculous."

The fuel efficiency was clearly terrible.