Chapter 17
Chapter 17
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 17
Chapter Title: Becoming a Poison Human
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Of course, there was something he had to do first.
He had stopped the challenges a few days ago.
It wasn't giving up.
All of this was one step back to take ten steps forward.
To cool his head for a bit and calmly reflect on his own achievements.
His experience was already overflowing.
Any more blind headbutting could cause permanent brain damage.
Banging his head any harder wouldn't do any good anyway.
He was at the point where the threshold of the eighth star was almost visible.
The foundation to climb that high wall was already solidly laid, but he needed a trigger to leap over it in one go.
"Today will be different. Today it has to be different."
He opened the door and headed to the nearby stream, stripping off his clothes in a heap.
As his clothes came off, his sleek yet solidly muscled upper body was revealed in full.
"...Pearl. Haven't I told you a thousand times not to peek while I'm bathing?"
The young man sighed into empty air.
A glance around showed no one there.
If anyone had been present, it would have been the perfect look to get mistaken for a madman.
But no sooner had the words left his mouth than something plopped down from between the tree branches.
Kee-eek?
The Human-Faced Spider slyly revealed itself.
Despite its massive bulk, the Human-Faced Spider was adept at stealth as well.
When it willed itself to melt into the shadows and erase its presence, it wasn't easy to detect its aura.
It tilted its head as if asking how he'd known.
"You're doing that because you have no intention of running away."
He had no thought of fleeing, even if it meant wasting all the challenges he'd attempted so far.
Nor did he plan to ignore what that world's most cantankerous old man had said.
The man sometimes showed sides as unreliable as a quack, but his words were never wrong.
"And at this point, I've got my pride. Even if you told me to run, I wouldn't."
Lee Seon smiled wryly.
For nearly a year now, the Human-Faced Spider had faithfully carried out its orders.
It had even seemed ready to barge right into his house.
No, it had actually tried to cram its body inside somehow.
That was the one thing he'd firmly forbidden.
Kee-ee-eek.
It drooped its head in disappointment.
With its mountain-like size, those needlessly innocent eyes stirred up guilt.
This thing might actually be a person in spider disguise, not some spirit beast.
Lee Seon lightly dressed after emerging from the water and putting his clothes back on properly.
Watching him, the Human-Faced Spider showed its curiosity.
Normally, Lee Seon would get crushed by the Human-Faced Spider, end up a total wreck, and then bathe.
And for good reason—washing before getting filthy meant having to wash twice.
After scrambling around the mountains with the Human-Faced Spider, even bathing often felt like too much.
"Why am I washing?"
Though they were different species and couldn't speak to each other, three years with a scholar dog teaches it to recite poetry.
He could roughly understand a spider's intent from the pitch of its chirps and its eye glints.
The Human-Faced Spider was asking why he was doing something he never did before.
"To show you. The completely changed me."
Ahead of this crucial moment, he was performing the bathing rites to compose his mind and body.
Kee-kee-keek!
The Human-Faced Spider burst into laughter at his incongruously dramatic pose.
"...Laugh all you want now. I'll turn that laughter into cheers."
The Human-Faced Spider was called the king of venomous creatures.
Aside from Lee Jeong-gwang, nothing in the area could threaten it.
It was the undisputed lord of Blood Gate Mountain, where venomous beasts ran rampant last year.
True to its title as king of poisons, ordinary toxins didn't faze it.
Even if poisoned, toppling that colossal frame would require pouring buckets of venom down its maw.
Absurd.
And hidden weapons? No good either.
Its spider hide was as tough and resilient as could pierce even Blood Cult demons.
Something like projectiles would only tickle it at best.
This was exactly why Lee Jeong-gwang had designated the Human-Faced Spider as his opponent.
Hold out for just one shichen, he'd said—but this forest was the Human-Faced Spider's palm.
Wherever he fled, spiderlings lay in wait, and webs strung throughout tracked his position in real time.
From the Human-Faced Spider's view, Lee Seon's boasts were laughable.
Since Lee Jeong-gwang left, he'd challenged it nearly three hundred sixty times already.
Kee-aaaham.
As if bored, it yawned wide, jaws agape.
Lee Seon's martial arts progress had been nothing to write home about before.
But through life-and-death battles and daily clashes with the Human-Faced Spider, he'd grown explosively.
The Flame Emperor's Myriad Poison Art, once at the fifth star, had reached the seventh in just a year.
Even scouring jianghu history, such growth would be hard to find.
Yet despite getting so strong, Lee Seon still wasn't satisfied.
"What's the point of getting stronger if I can't even last against a spider?"
He'd tried every trick in the book, cursing Lee Jeong-gwang inwardly all the while.
And his conclusion was...
"I can't win!"
Lee Seon admitted his limits.
Was holding out one shichen against a spirit beast rivaling a Transformation Realm warrior even sane?
Absolutely impossible right now.
No matter how much an egg hammers a rock, it means nothing.
As long as it stayed an egg, the result was always the same.
From the egg's perspective, Lee Seon keenly felt the need to evolve.
It was time for change.
Lee Seon sat cross-legged atop a peak, on a rock where the wind blew.
Woo-woong.
The Flame Emperor's Myriad Poison Art responded to his mind.
In the darkness-filled space, flames flew before Lee Seon's eyes.
They circled him, scattering embers.
A paragon who'd advanced medicine by chewing countless toxic herbs on his own body as the testbed.
The Flame Emperor's image spoke to Lee Seon.
'You must become a good person.'
At some point, whenever operating the technique, a voice echoed from within.
He'd first thought it was a heart demon.
So he'd ignored it busily, but now he saw it was too clear and serene for a heart demon.
Listening closely, it sounded somewhat feminine, somewhat masculine—neutral.
Now that the Flame Emperor's Myriad Poison Art neared the eighth star, he understood.
The image embedded in the martial art was speaking to him.
'Become a good person.'
A good person?
He'd never seen himself as a villain, but never as a saint either.
What were the standards for calling someone a good person?
A crotchety face flashed in his mind.
Was that old man the level of a saint?
A man who roamed the jianghu under the banner of saving lives.
He'd taught one martial art and never properly shown his face, but yeah, the old man qualified as a saint.
But Lee Seon had no intention of walking Lee Jeong-gwang's path.
He didn't know what he'd become yet, but that path definitely wasn't his.
'Why.'
In this world, everyone had abilities, but at vastly different levels.
Sometimes, even a hundred people couldn't match one.
Heaven bestowed talent for clear reasons.
'You have power.'
Did having power mean he had to become a good person?
'That is precisely the duty of those who possess power.'
Lee Seon nodded.
He'd been doubtful, but now he got it.
The old man was nuts.
The stronger the martial art, the more it influenced its practitioner.
That was why those who learned Daoist transcendent techniques became calm and composed.
He wasn't sure if this image's owner was the Flame Emperor himself.
But whether Flame Emperor or someone else, the art's creator was no normal person.
At minimum, a lunatic on par with—or beyond—that old man.
A martial art that tried to arbitrarily manipulate the practitioner's image during cultivation.
The obsession embedded in this technique was chillingly intense.
Turning poison into inner energy—an bizarre method.
He'd thought it distant from the orthodox path for neglecting one's body.
And sure enough, he'd confronted the madness lurking behind it.
Lee Seon opened his eyes in the darkness.
Some lingering spirit trying to control a living person?
He grabbed the flickering flame before him with one hand.
It thrashed to escape his grip, to no avail.
'...Then what do you seek to become!'
What did he seek to become?
The Human-Faced Spider wasn't strong because of its poison.
Poison was just one of its many advantages.
Even without poison, it was a terrifyingly powerful being.
The Human-Faced Spider reigned as a predator atop countless others.
So what was poison, then?
A means to protect itself.
The result of twisting one's entire body to counter predators—that was poison.
In simple terms, the last desperate struggle to survive.
Even if it died, it wouldn't die alone, fueled by venomous spite.
The product of madness burning to kill the foe at the cost of one's body.
Poison was truly the weak's sole weapon against the strong.
Like how frogs developed toxins to avoid being eaten by snakes.
The reason he'd first gripped poison in his hand.
The reason he'd begun learning martial arts.
All for survival.
That had always been his way of living.
Maybe his fondness for handling poison stemmed from the same mindset.
"I'm trying to become a Poison Human."
Lee Seon flashed a crooked smile.