Ghost Head City (3)
Perhaps because Song Jun-hak had carried it with him everywhere and pored over it countless times, the cover of the book was discolored in patches, and crumbled flakes of paper drifted down from its frayed corners.
But Cheon Woo-jin knew the volume was a treasure of immense value.
All he had to do was look at the six characters written across the cover.
"The Taiyi Mysterious Snake Sword Art……"
It was the sword cultivation method the Taiyi Easy Separation Sect took the greatest pride in. In the game, it could only be obtained after becoming an inner disciple of the sect and piling up considerable achievements, and among Qi Condensation sword techniques, it boasted the highest offensive power.
As Song Jun-hak had demonstrated earlier, its basic form of attack was using spiritual power to conjure sword qi. Without the trouble of crafting a Sword-Controlling Talisman and infusing each one with spiritual energy before throwing it, one could rain down a torrent of blades upon an enemy at will.
To get my hands on a technique manual this useful in my very first mission. I'm lucky.
As the black blades it produced made plain, the elemental attribute of the Taiyi Mysterious Snake Sword Art was Water.
Water-attribute techniques suited Cheon Woo-jin perfectly, thanks to his Water spiritual root and the Body of the Dark True Abyss.
The art also resembled his Black Shadow Technique in certain respects, making it an ideal sword cultivation method for him to master.
Even without this, the time was coming when Cheon Woo-jin would need to learn a new technique.
The only method he currently knew was the Five Elements Dao-Entering Art, a Water-attribute introductory technique — nothing more than a basic primer with nothing special about it. A new method was essential.
And yet the moment he arrived at Ghost Head City, he had acquired something this practical. Fortune, it seemed, was smiling on him.
Which makes me reluctant to hand over the Mysterious Snake Spirit Sword.
Cheon Woo-jin examined the sword once more. As its serpentine, undulating blade suggested, this was not a weapon meant to cut an enemy down with its edge.
It was a magic artifact designed to channel spiritual power and unfold spellcraft.
Since ancient times, the sword had served as a ritual instrument — not a mere weapon, but a tool symbolizing cosmic harmony and spiritual power. With blades on both sides, the sword embodied the harmony of Yin and Yang, a vessel capable of repelling malign qi assailing it from every direction.
That was why sword-form magic artifacts were so commonly found throughout the cultivation world.
The Mysterious Snake Spirit Sword was an artifact that performed at its peak when unfolding Water-attribute sword techniques — a perfect match for the Taiyi Mysterious Snake Sword Art.
But Cheon Woo-jin could not keep it. Only by delivering the sword and the Soul-Extracting Talisman to Seo Seol-ryeong would his mission be complete.
Then I'll simply have to procure a magic artifact of my own.
Cheap, low-grade artifacts were sold even in the market on the 1st layer of Ghost Head City. But a shoddy artifact was worse than useless — worse than walking around empty-handed, in fact.
If I'm going to get one anyway, I should aim for something a grade above the Mysterious Snake Spirit Sword.
Cheon Woo-jin recalled the various supreme-grade magic artifacts that could be obtained within the game. Even if not immediately, he would need to start maneuvering so that, when the time came, he could lay hands on them.
"The job is done."
"……"
When Cheon Woo-jin stepped inside the tent and presented the Mysterious Snake Spirit Sword and the Soul-Extracting Talisman, Seo Seol-ryeong remained silent for a long while.
"The deadline was one month, was it not?"
"It was."
"Only three days have passed."
"Finishing quickly is a good thing, no?"
Seo Seol-ryeong inspected the sword and the talisman without opening her mouth. "How on earth did you locate Song Jun-hak in three days?"
"Trade secret."
The status window ability was a special power that belonged to Cheon Woo-jin alone. There was no reason to explain it to anyone else.
"A wise answer."
But Seo Seol-ryeong showed no particular displeasure. "Revealing one's methods to others is the habit of fools."
"Do I pass the test, then?"
"I have judged that you possess, at minimum, the necessary qualifications."
Seo Seol-ryeong placed her right hand on the table. The moment she did, a large quantity of spirit stones spilled from her sleeve as if poured out, piling up on the table's surface.
"Two thousand spirit stones. Take them."
Cheon Woo-jin swept the stones into his Storage Pouch. With two thousand spirit stones inside, the pouch felt noticeably heavier in his hand.
"Any other work available?"
"Regrettably, there are no assassination requests at the moment."
"It doesn't have to be an assassination."
"In that case," Seo Seol-ryeong asked in her calm voice, "how about a night hunt?"
"A night hunt?"
When Taoists roamed the land exterminating demonic creatures and ghosts, the practice was called wandering hunting — or night hunting.
"It is said that a Ghost General has been appearing frequently near the spirit fields on the outskirts of the 2nd layer."
"A Ghost General……"
"The owners of the fields have already suffered losses several times over. But it appears and vanishes without a trace, so putting it down has proven difficult."
Cheon Woo-jin dredged up what he remembered of the creature. The Ghost General was a ghost in the form of an armored officer. Ghost-type monsters in the game generally moved with uncanny elusiveness, and the Ghost General in particular possessed exceptional attack and defense on top of that, making it far from easy prey.
"The reward is eight hundred spirit stones. What say you?"
"……"
In truth, this ranked among the lowest-tier of the jobs Seo Seol-ryeong handled, and the reward was smaller than his previous mission's. But between Cheon Woo-jin and Seo Seol-ryeong, trust had not yet taken root. It would take a little more time before he could be entrusted with anything of real importance.
"I'll take it."
At Cheon Woo-jin's unhesitating answer, Seo Seol-ryeong gave a small nod. Had this been the game, he might have watched a trust meter tick up by a sliver — but regrettably, the system extended no such courtesy here.
Having parted ways with Seo Seol-ryeong, Cheon Woo-jin returned to the 1st layer of Ghost Head City. There he rented an eastern chamber and set about studying the Taiyi Mysterious Snake Sword Art.
Forge the sword with divine sense……
The principle behind creating black sword qi bore a resemblance to the Black Shadow Technique. By operating his Water qi while drawing fully on the properties of the Body of the Dark True Abyss, he found he could produce the black blades without much difficulty.
But simply conjuring blades of spiritual energy and flinging them about would never unleash the true power of the Taiyi Mysterious Snake Sword Art. The art demanded that a sword cultivator shape his divine sense into a single sword. Before releasing spiritual energy outward to form a blade, one had to already possess a sword within.
"……"
Cheon Woo-jin folded himself into a cross-legged position and concentrated his mind. He pictured a sword existing within his own depths.
But dragging that sword out was no simple matter. The sword imagined within. The blade forged of spiritual energy. The two had to coincide, yet they felt like separate things playing apart from each other.
Not so easy after all.
Time to change his approach.
Cheon Woo-jin decided, first, to delve deeper into his own interior. Not merely sketching the shape of a sword in his mind, but beginning by consciously mapping out the space in which such a sword could exist.
As he sat cross-legged and burrowed inward for a long stretch of time, his consciousness gradually began to drift, growing distant. A faint thread of fear threaded through him, but he ignored it and kept his focus locked.
Then, at some moment—
A vast darkness unfurled within Cheon Woo-jin.
It was something the ordinary human Cheon Woo-jin had never possessed: an enormous spiritual domain, acquired along with the Body of the Dark True Abyss.
So this kind of space exists inside me now.
There was no guessing where it ended. Perhaps it had no end at all — it would be stranger if a space of the mind had a boundary.
Without warning, he felt as though he might be sucked into that black expanse. He had been gazing into his own interior for so long that now, paradoxically, it felt as if the interior might swallow him.
It feels like staring down an endless cliff…… or into a deep sea.
The myeong of the Dark True Abyss signified a northern sea boundless in breadth and depth. As the character for dark abyss embedded within it revealed, it was an ocean of fathomless depths. The reason this space felt the way it did was surely that it was a spiritual domain born of the Body of the Dark True Abyss.
I need to keep my mind firmly anchored.
One careless slip, and he would be devoured by his own interior, his identity dissolved.
Taking care to hold his sense of self steady, Cheon Woo-jin began forging a sword within the black space. Not by vaguely imagining the shape of a blade, but with perfect clarity — as though a real sword were truly there.
It was anything but easy. The moment his attention wavered even slightly, the form collapsed and scattered into the darkness.
The same discipline applies.
Just as he had to hold his ego firm to keep from being drawn into the black expanse, so too did the sword in his heart need to be made unyielding.
With that principle in mind, Cheon Woo-jin kept forging the blade, again and again. If he could complete the heart-sword standing solitary in this endless darkness, then drawing it out into the world would become possible as well.
How much time had passed?
When his long training was done, Cheon Woo-jin emerged from the eastern chamber looking worn and disheveled. Heading for the area Seo Seol-ryeong had described, he soon came upon a broad stretch of fields.
Even in Ghost Head City, steeped in gloom from edge to edge, there existed land where crops could be grown. These, of course, were no ordinary fields raising mundane produce.
They're growing spirit rice.
Spirit rice was rice that fed on spiritual qi. Unlike ordinary grain, it required neither sunlight nor water; sow the seed, and a month or two later it was ready for harvest. It thrived even in a place like Ghost Head City, saturated with sinister qi, because over the course of its growth it broke down the qi's toxicity, leaving only pure, clean energy within the grain itself.
That was why the sword cultivators living in Ghost Head City ate spirit rice as their staple. It was more nourishing than ordinary rice, and it even aided the recovery of spiritual power.
There was a catch, though: ordinary humans could not grow it. A cultivator had to keep infusing spirit stones and tend the fields without pause.
And what if something like a Ghost General appeared and wrecked the spirit fields — or worse, set upon the cultivator tending them? The entire harvest would be ruined.
Which is exactly why it has to be put down.
Cheon Woo-jin settled into a suitable spot and waited. Sometime past midnight, a sound like something clattering began to drift from somewhere in the dark.
He turned his gaze toward it — and saw a bluish ghost emerge from the shadows.
There it is. The Ghost General.
Its frame was colossal — a full twice Cheon Woo-jin's height. No such giant could exist among the living, so it must have enlarged its own body upon becoming a ghost.
Why an armored specter would haunt Ghost Head City, once the stronghold of a Water Dao sect, no one could say. Perhaps it was the vengeful spirit of a Weijin general captured and put to death by the Yin Soul Ghost Bone Palace.
"Oooooh……"
A grotesque voice poured from its malignantly warped face. Clutching a blade as massive as its own body, the Ghost General lumbered toward the spirit fields. As if to vent the grudges of its living days, it raised the blade high over the fields' crops—
"Ooooh!"
The creature reacted the moment it saw Cheon Woo-jin rise. Ghost fire flared to life in its hollow eye sockets. He could sense, somehow, a seething hatred directed at him. Perhaps, having lost its life to the Yin Soul Ghost Bone Palace, it had come to despise cultivators as a whole.
"Ooooooh!"
With a roar, the Ghost General charged at Cheon Woo-jin, hoisting its enormous blade high as though to cleave him in two and at last release the resentment of its past life.
Sorry, but I'm not the one who can settle your grudge.
Cheon Woo-jin readied his own swing. His hands, of course, held no sword at all.
But within him, the heart-sword existed. Drawing it out was enough.
Wooong!
The heart-sword, honed within the spiritual domain of the Body of the Dark True Abyss, materialized with a ringing metallic cry. Along the arc of his sweeping hand, a blade of jet-black spiritual energy clove the empty air.
The blade stretched outward as though it possessed physical substance and struck the Ghost General — and without granting it even the time for a final scream, cut its massive frame cleanly in two.