Chapter 266: Transcendent Realm
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 266: Transcendent Realm
Thud—
The Orc Champion's massive body split in two and collapsed.
I gasped for breath amidst the swirling dust.
Ding—
[Special Mission, ‘Berserker,’ has been successfully cleared.]
[The ‘Berserk’ skill will now evolve.]
[Extreme Blood (極血)
Grade: Epic (Growth Type)
Temporarily increases physical strength significantly.
Temporarily blocks all pain.
Significantly increases stamina consumption.]
I had no time to pay attention to the screen that appeared before me. The technique I had used at the end kept replaying in my mind.
It was a single strike, one that bordered on perfection.
I wasn't confident I could pull it off again. The success rate would be 10 percent at best.
Moreover, in that final moment, the fiercely burning flames of my Sword Qi had taken a distinct form.
It was undoubtedly an Aura, the mark of a martial artist who has reached the Transcendent Realm and the so-called king of all energies.
For a moment, I was filled with the hope that I had reached the Transcendent Realm, but after observing my dantian, I couldn't hide my disappointment.
My qi and blood were a mess, and my dantian was nearly empty. Aside from my wrecked physical condition, there wasn't the slightest change.
It was just a stroke of heavenly luck that allowed me to create an Aura; I hadn't truly reached the Transcendent Realm.
A heavy sigh escaped my lips.
On the off chance, I tried to recall the sensation I felt when I split the Orc Champion in two and gathered my remaining internal energy.
But all that bloomed from my sword was Sword Qi.
It was a disappointing result, but it wasn't a total loss. At least now I knew what I was lacking.
I rolled my stiff neck and readjusted my grip on the hilt.
My body was a wreck, but I could still move. I swung my sword at the dozens of High Orcs that still remained.
About ten minutes later, I was the only one left standing.
[Kang Hyun-woo
Age: 21
Title: Virgin Killer
Race: Human
Affiliation: Earth
Class: Mage (5th Circle)
Sub-class: Martial Artist (Peak Realm)
Skills: Thought Transcendence, Weakness Insight, Sex Expert, Extreme Blood…
Owned Coins: 16,800]
Some of the monsters' magic stones had been shattered in the fight, but that day I acquired tens of magic stones along with a hefty sum of about 16,000 coins. All in all, it was a satisfying haul.
Of course, High Orc testicles were a key ingredient in high-grade stamina tonics and sold for a high price, but I had no desire to handle a monster's balls for a few extra coins.
*
After exiting the gate, I didn't go home. Instead, I headed for the Seongbuk Choi family's estate.
Choi Hyena, who I had contacted beforehand, was standing in front of the main gate.
“What's with the sudden visit?”
“I need to borrow a room.”
“...A room?”
Showing up out of the blue and asking for a room... if it had been anyone but Choi Hyena, I wouldn't have been surprised to hear them say, "What is this crazy bastard doing?”
But Choi Hyena's reaction was completely different from what I expected.
Her eyes, wide and trembling slightly, were fixed on me, and her face looked like it was about to explode.
Surprise, bewilderment, anticipation...
A storm of emotions crossed her gaze.
“...Are you serious?”
Choi Hyena rushed forward and clasped my hands tightly in hers.
Seeing her gaze at me as if she were possessed, I finally sensed that something was wrong.
“But I heard men don't like living with their in-laws. Are you sure you'll be okay?”
“...?”
Living with her in-laws?
“Look, I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding...”
I tried to resolve the situation before the misunderstanding deepened.
“If it's too hard, we can move out, so don't worry too much. It's different from what we promised, but Grandma will actually be happy. She said herself that she regretted setting the engagement ceremony for after graduation. As for Grandpa, we can just get him banned from entering the country.”
“...”
But my attempt to correct her was thwarted by her radiant smile. It was the first time I had ever seen her look so happy.
Sigh...
I wanted to play along for a moment, but I didn't have the time.
Shaking off the guilt squeezing my chest, I explained the whole story. When I told her I had come because I needed a large, safe place where I could meditate without being disturbed, Choi Hyena couldn't hide her disappointment.
Then, it was my turn to hear the story from her.
“You thought I was proposing?”
“...Yeah.”
A disbelieving laugh escaped me.
How on earth could she have come to such a ridiculous misunderstanding?
As I pieced together the words from Choi Hyena's flustered, rambling explanation, it seemed a TV drama was to blame.
It turned out that my initial request for a room was a line from a male lead in a drama that was popular among women these days.
A famous scene where the male lead, who ran away from his rich family to marry the female lead from a poor background, volunteers to live with her family.
'The drama Noel and Seoha were watching seemed to have a similar plot.'
I wasn't interested in dramas, but I sometimes held the two of them while they were engrossed in a show, so I remembered the general storyline.
In any case, I soothed Choi Hyena, who was squirming with shame over her drama-fueled misunderstanding, and we headed into the mansion.
Choi Hyena gave me an entire training room in the basement.
It was said to be sturdier than most underground bunkers, to the point where you wouldn't even feel the vibrations of an earthquake below magnitude 5.5. And it went without saying that it was soundproof.
Surprisingly, it even had three of those expensive Mana Trees planted inside, which was odd since it wasn't designed for sparring.
I rejoiced inwardly. There was no better place to train than one with a high concentration of mana.
I heard it was the Duke of Rutland's private training room.
That made me wonder if it was okay for me to use it, but thankfully, the duke was away.
Apparently, some problem had come up in the UK, and he wouldn't be back for a while.
“I'm counting on you.”
Before locking the training room door, I made one request of Choi Hyena: don't let anyone in until I open the door myself.
Choi Hyena didn't ask why. She simply pulled me into a hug and saw me off in silence.
Thump.
Left alone in the training room, I sat down and crossed my legs.
I could have meditated at my neighbor's place as usual, but this time, I didn't want to be disturbed by even the slightest noise.
I took a small jewelry box out of my inventory. Inside was a pearl as smooth as obsidian.
[Bireciel's Essence
Grade: Epic
Contains a large amount of demonic energy.
Successful consumption will grant a Demonic Eye.
※Warning! Consumption may cause physical damage.]
It was an elixir I had taken from the underground vault after dealing with Roman Hessler, the lord of Wavel.
To be honest, I didn't know if it was a proper elixir. I was just trusting the app's description.
I hadn't taken it before because the warning about physical damage concerned me, but now that I had reached the fourth star of the Formless Vajra Art and my body had grown even stronger thanks to the Formless Body, it was worth a try.
Besides, I had grown accustomed to the flow of my internal energy by practicing the Small Heavenly Cycle day and night. Even if the demonic energy caused problems, I could handle it with the divine power of my Black Flame.
There was no longer any reason to hesitate.
Above all, this black pearl was the key to reaching the Transcendent Realm.
The Formless Vajra Art was a martial art of harmony.
Until now, my Vajra Qi had been forcefully harmonizing with a pittance of demonic energy.
Because of that, I hadn't been able to accumulate internal energy. If I gathered any more, the balance would shatter and the harmony would be lost.
So, what I needed now was demonic energy.
Of course, even if my demonic energy increased, I wouldn't be able to use it without a proper internal energy cultivation method, but my goal was to remove the upper limit on my Vajra Qi's capacity.
I would use that immense internal energy to break through the passage to my middle dantian.
I took a small wooden box from my inventory.
[Prajna Divine Pill (般若神丹)
Grade: Unique
A divine pill containing the truth of the universe. It will part the darkness of ignorance and lead you to the light of enlightenment.]
The Prajna Divine Pill, an elixir I had obtained along with the Formless Vajra Art.
I had once considered using the Prajna Divine Pill to suppress the side effects of Bireciel's essence. But doing so would have undoubtedly halved the internal energy I could gain from the pill.
No, it might have been even worse.
I didn't want to waste it like that, so I had kept it in my inventory, but things were different now.
“Hoo...”
I took a deep breath and swallowed Bireciel's Essence. Then, I tossed the Prajna Divine Pill into my mouth as well.
I couldn't taste anything.
It simply melted on my tongue.
I closed my eyes and focused on the energies entering my body.
The first thing I felt was a tyrannical energy that seemed capable of destroying everything. It was demonic.
This energy, far purer and more malicious than the demonic energy I already possessed, struggled as if trying to spread throughout my entire body.
I hastily suppressed it.
Only then did I understand what the warning about physical damage meant.
This wasn't some elixir. It was a poison that could make an unprepared person's body explode.
'It's just demonic energy, though.'
I had nothing to worry about.
All I had to do was crush it with my Vajra Qi.
—Kieeeek!!
The demonic energy shrieked as it was captured by my Vajra Qi and absorbed into my dantian. It must have instinctively sensed that once it was dragged in, it would never escape.
I was a little surprised.
Could energy really move so fluidly?
It looked just like a living creature.
But I had no time to focus on that. The real ambush lay elsewhere.
Thump!
'Ugh?!'
The energy contained within the Prajna Divine Pill far surpassed my expectations. It seemed to be at least double the amount of internal energy I had accumulated so far.
No, perhaps even more.
I gritted my teeth and guided the pill's energy toward my dantian. Fortunately, unlike the struggling demonic energy, the pill's energy followed obediently.
Unlike spirit herbs, which are condensations of natural energy, elixirs are fundamentally created for a specific purpose, whether it's to increase internal energy or to cure disease.
In other words, since it was made for a purpose, I didn't need to worry unnecessarily.
But even the gentlest, most obedient elephant can kill a person with a single mistake.
The Prajna Divine Pill was just like that.
An overwhelming energy, so immense that "overwhelming" felt like an understatement, pressed down on my entire body.
My meridians, through which qi should flow, screamed that they were at their limit. My dantian was the same.
My initial plan was to use the demonic energy from Bireciel's Essence to increase the limit of my Vajra Qi and break through the passage to my middle dantian.
But the energy from the Prajna Divine Pill had far exceeded my predictions.
If this continued, my body could literally explode.
That left only one option.
'I'll use the unabsorbed energy from the Prajna Divine Pill to break through the passage.'
Anyone else would have called it madness.
After all, even though I had swallowed the elixir, the pill's energy wasn't completely mine yet. It was no different from gambling with borrowed money, hoping to pay it back with the winnings.
And I hadn't even harmonized with the demonic energy yet.
Breaking through the passage with the pill's energy while suppressing the demonic energy?
'...I was hoping to take the easy way.'
Swoosh—
The massive energy swirling around my dantian began to flow somewhere under my guidance. Beyond it, I could see a completely blocked meridian.
The Ren and Du Meridians—the places where a human's impurities accumulate most densely.
I struck that spot with the energy of the Prajna Divine Pill.
Thump!
Despite the fierce collision, the blocked meridian didn't change. But I didn't stop; I kept striking it. There is no such thing as an unbreakable wall in this world.
There are only walls that have yet to be broken.
Thump, thump, thump, THUD!
Blood trickled from my lips—a sign of internal injury.
But instead, I drew out the Vajra Qi from my dantian and used it as a detonator. It was like using dynamite at a construction site on the verge of a landslide.
But I didn't care.
As long as I win double and pay it back, it'll be fine.
Just then, I dragged over the demonic energy that was starting to rampage as its restraints weakened and used it as another detonator.
BOOM!!
“Cough.”
Along with the intense impact, blood gushed from my lips. Despite the agonizing pain, as if my organs were being twisted, I curled my lips into a smile.
Crack—
A crack appeared in the passage that had been unresponsive no matter how hard I struck it.
Riding that momentum, I struck the meridian with even more force.
Wooooong!!
Even as I used the energies of the two elixirs like disposable cards, only a fraction of their power was being consumed.
No, in fact, amidst the violent explosions, the Prajna Divine Pill and the demonic energy began to mix as if they were a single energy.
The harmony of yin and yang.
The demonic energy, which sought to repel, and the energy of the Prajna Divine Pill, which sought to embrace all things, merged and created the bizarre phenomenon of amplifying one another.
But the current Kang Hyun-woo had no time to notice such things.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOOOM!!
I could see it.
I could see a new light entering the passage that had been firmly blocked for twenty-one years.
—!!
At that moment, the energy that filled Kang Hyun-woo's body began to gather in one place.
This was not Kang Hyun-woo's will.
It was the will of the Formless Vajra Art, craving more internal energy in the name of harmony.
The formidable energy of the Prajna Divine Pill naturally flowed through the passage, filling his lower and middle dantians. The demonic energy, though not as powerful, was by no means ordinary; it seeped into his lower dantian, devouring the existing demonic energy and quietly settling in.
And this excessive amount of internal energy, too much for a martial artist who had just reached the Transcendent Realm to handle, brought about another change.
Crrrack—
While Kang Hyun-woo was lost in a state of selflessness, his muscles and bones began to twist and shift, as if finding their proper places.
He had experienced something similar before, so the change didn't last long.
Ding—
[The conditions for the 2nd Class Advancement have been met.]
[Your class, Martial Artist, has been promoted to Martial Arts Master.]