Spiritual Root (1)
KUUUUUNG!
A colossal dragon crashed down to the earth.
The ground shook as if an earthquake had struck.
"Ugh……!"
Cheon Woo-jin clung to a nearby tree and endured.
Only after the tremors had died down did he lift his head to check on Heukha-ryong's condition.
Did it work?
Heukha-ryong lay sprawled and limp, his entire body torn to shreds.
The innate talent Cheon Woo-jin had acquired when creating his character — the Instant Killing Heavenly Eye — had taken effect.
Back in the early game, he was an opponent I could never have faced.
In Yeongro Suseonjeon, slaying Heukha-ryong required hundreds of years of in-game training.
Unless you reached a certain realm, your attacks simply wouldn't register any damage at all.
And yet I killed him in a single strike.
The Instant Killing Heavenly Eye was, truly, an "instant-death move."
A transcendent authority — one capable of snuffing out even a giant dragon's life in a single breath.
So I really did enter the game with an incredible power.
If he had killed Heukha-ryong the moment he started the game, it would have been an absolutely euphoric feeling.
He probably would have pulled a beer out of the fridge and raised a toast alone.
But Cheon Woo-jin, as he was now, calmly accepted the reality of his situation.
I have to use this power to survive.
A xianxia world was far more dangerous than an ordinary murim world.
The demons that devoured humans were terrifying enough, but the cultivators who treated human lives like insects' lives were far more frightening.
Cultivators were those who sought to transcend their heavenly destiny and become immortal immortals, and they would stop at nothing — no means too vile, no method too cruel — to raise their realms.
Anyone caught up in the incidents they stirred up was just an ordinary human doomed to die a dog's death.
I refuse to die a dog's death in a world like this.
Cheon Woo-jin had always harbored a simple wish: to live a long life.
That vague longing had now transformed into a desperate goal.
He had to survive.
No matter what it took.
I played Yeongro Suseonjeon for thousands of hours. If I build my strength while leveraging that experience, I can survive even in this brutal world.
In fact, here he could live even longer than in the real world.
Every time a cultivator raised their realm, their lifespan extended.
And besides, if I don't want to die a dog's death at the cultivators' hands, I have no choice but to raise my realm.
Cheon Woo-jin could wield the transcendent authority of the Instant Killing Heavenly Eye.
Used well, he could raise his realm far more efficiently than he ever had while playing the game.
By doing so, he would gain the power to overwhelm other cultivators and continue extending his lifespan.
And if I keep at it long enough…… maybe someday I'll find a way back to my original world.
Upon reaching the true realm of an immortal, one could manipulate even the laws of the universe at will.
It was an element never implemented in the game, but according to the lore, one gained the ability to transcend time and space and traverse countless worlds.
So no matter what — I absolutely cannot die.
Cheon Woo-jin resolved himself firmly.
I will survive to the very end.
Even if he had to see this world through to its end.
He would outlive everyone, no matter what.
And so Cheon Woo-jin swore it upon his very soul.
A foul stench wafted from Heukha-ryong's fallen corpse.
His body had been shredded apart, every manner of bodily fluid seeping out. Even his innards had ruptured, spilling their contents into the open air.
And yet Cheon Woo-jin approached the dragon and began digging through the carcass.
It was a nausea-inducing task, but there was a reason it had to be done.
To become a cultivator, you need a Spiritual Root.
A Spiritual Root.
The innate aptitude that allowed one to receive the spiritual qi of heaven and earth.
Cultivators used this root as their foundation, mastering cultivation arts and methods to ascend through the realms.
The problem is, I don't have one.
Gal Sa-ryang had said as much too — that Cheon Woo-jin had no Spiritual Root.
When creating his character, he had focused entirely on innate talents and neglected the Spiritual Root option. It seemed he'd saved the character without one.
But even without a Spiritual Root, there are ways.
In the game, some players deliberately started without a Spiritual Root.
Because certain events could only occur for characters born without an innate root.
All I have to do is acquire one after the fact.
Even starting without a root, it was possible to obtain one as the game progressed.
There were two methods.
The first way to gain an acquired Spiritual Root is…… training in martial arts.
If one trained the martial path to its absolute limit, one would reach the realms of the Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown and the Five Qi Return to the Origin.
The Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown meant unifying the three foundations of the human body — essence, qi, and spirit — into one to open the upper dantian, while the Five Qi Return to the Origin meant using the energies of the body's organs — liver, heart, spleen, lungs, and kidneys — to forge a vessel of the Five Elements.
Achieving both allowed one to absorb the spiritual qi of the Five Elements through the upper dantian, effectively creating what was known as a Five Elements Spiritual Root.
However, reaching such a level required being an absolute master of the Mysterious Realm.
Only after decades of bone-crushing effort to reach the Mysterious Realm could one finally challenge the path of cultivation.
In the game, it's a build that maximizes physical attack power, so it's fairly viable — but it's not the path I'll choose.
If he lived as a mere martial artist and got dragged into the disputes of cultivators, he would simply die a dog's death.
So he had to choose the second method.
The second method is…… to eat the Golden Core of a being who has already reached the Core Formation realm.
When a cultivator reached a certain realm, they created a new organ to command their dharma power.
This was called a Golden Core, and the act of forming one was called Core Formation.
Even a mortal without a Spiritual Root could learn cultivation arts by consuming such a core.
The Golden Core absorbed into the body would take on the role of a Spiritual Root.
In theory, anyway. In practice, it was a nearly impossible method to attempt.
How could a mortal without even a Spiritual Root slice open the belly of a cultivator who had reached Core Formation and devour his Golden Core?
That was precisely why the existence of such a method was unknown to the world.
Even in the game, it was impossible through any normal means.
But for me? It's possible.
That's right.
What others could not do, Cheon Woo-jin could.
And not someday — right now.
Heukha-ryong is a being who broke through the Core Formation realm long ago.
This was exactly why Cheon Woo-jin was rummaging through the dragon's corpse.
Races beyond humanity also walked the path of cultivation, dreaming of greater power and immortal life.
Heukha-ryong, who had lived over a thousand years, had long since surpassed the Core Formation realm and reached the Nascent Soul Realm.
And so a Golden Core existed within his body.
Especially the Golden Core of a dragon like Heukha-ryong — it's worth a fortune.
Recalling the game's lore, Cheon Woo-jin kept wading through the dragon's entrails.
The beast was so enormous that searching through its body was no easy task in itself.
Found it.
Roughly an hour later.
At last, Cheon Woo-jin discovered a mass the size of an egg within Heukha-ryong's abdomen.
At a glance, it looked like a lump of black jewels.
It gave off an eerie radiance so unsettling that it was hard to believe it had come from inside a living creature.
This was Heukha-ryong's Golden Core.
No reason to hesitate.
Cheon Woo-jin swallowed the Golden Core whole.
The core slid down his throat, melting away with a warm tingling as his body absorbed it.
If this were some kind of elixir, I'd risk qi deviation — but a Golden Core doesn't work that way.
Replaying the game's settings in his mind, Cheon Woo-jin sat down and crossed his legs into a lotus position.
There was no need to chant any special incantations.
Heukha-ryong's Golden Core would transform his constitution on its own.
"……!"
Before long.
Cheon Woo-jin felt a tremendous change taking place within his own body.
It was the sensation of something heavy and substantial settling into his abdomen.
It was similar to how martial artists who first entered the path formed their dantian through internal energy manuals.
But the transformation unfolding now was not for the sake of martial arts.
It was remolding his constitution so that he could receive spiritual qi — forging a body capable of training in the cultivation arts.
"Ugh!"
Something black and filthy dribbled from his mouth.
It was not the contents of his stomach that he had vomited up.
Nor was it blood.
What poured out of him now were the impurities that had resided within Cheon Woo-jin's body.
As Heukha-ryong's Golden Core seized command of his internal circulatory system, it expelled everything worthless.
"Hngh!"
This time, pitch-black tears streamed from both his eyes.
So much fluid was expelled that he feared the moisture would drain away entirely and his eyeballs would shrivel up.
Soon, impurities were purged from every pore across his entire body as well.
Dark sludge trailing from every opening in his body, Cheon Woo-jin felt his consciousness begin to fade.
"……."
How much time had passed?
A rustling sound came from somewhere nearby.
And then a tree demon with limbs appeared.
It was a Wood Spirit — an ancient tree that had absorbed the spiritual qi of heaven and earth until it transformed into a demon.
The Wood Spirit was a low-grade demon that hunted purely on instinct, nothing more.
And yet it possessed monstrous strength that even a first-rate martial artist who had honed his arts to perfection would struggle to withstand.
Such a demon had found Cheon Woo-jin.
A creature sitting quietly, utterly defenseless…… perfectly suited to be prey.
Tear that one apart and drink its blood.
Consumed by that instinct, the Wood Spirit shuffled forward and stretched out its branch-like arms.
And just before those sharpened tips could touch Cheon Woo-jin's body —
Cheon Woo-jin's eyelids opened, and his pupils gleamed with golden light.