Mount Jagnyang (4)

'What a pointless struggle this is.'

Even as he chased Cheon Woo-jin down, Gi Shin-ryeo felt not the slightest hint of danger. He knew perfectly well that his opponent was nothing more than an early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator.

'So knocking down a few Core Formation cultivators made him this full of himself!'

It wasn't that Gi Shin-ryeo dismissed the boy's talent outright. Ordinarily, no amount of thrashing and squirming could ever bridge the gap between realms. Qi Condensation could not defeat Foundation Establishment, Foundation Establishment could not defeat Core Formation, and Core Formation could not defeat Nascent Soul — that was the common sense of the cultivation world.

And yet Cheon Woo-jin had felled several Core Formation cultivators of Mandokyuksamun. True, he had relied on a special Dharma Treasure that let him deliver attacks of Core Formation caliber, but even so, that was impossible without extraordinary talent. Gi Shin-ryeo rated that talent highly — it was precisely why he had proposed that Cheon Woo-jin join the sect. Someone gifted to that degree could achieve great things even through the arts of poison.

But none of that made Cheon Woo-jin a threat to him.

A Core Formation Great Circle cultivator wielded far greater power than one at the middle or late stage — because his core had fully matured, allowing him to draw out its strength in its entirety. And Gi Shin-ryeo, as sect master, fought armed with powerful Dharma Treasures and Dharma Artifacts. As his earlier shattering of the Gold Wave-Sundering Dragon Coil Method proved, he possessed the strength to suppress several Core Formation cultivators at once without breaking a sweat.

So what if Cheon Woo-jin had brought down a handful of early and middle-stage Core Formation cultivators? Against Gi Shin-ryeo at Great Circle, he stood no chance whatsoever.

'Yes. It's all useless. Every bit of it.'

Cheon Woo-jin was fleeing in a strange direction. Any sensible man would fly away from Mount Jagnyang — instead, he was heading straight toward its heart. Perhaps he had some plan in mind. Perhaps this wasn't flight at all, but a scheme aimed at a single, decisive reversal.

It wouldn't matter. No scheme could work against Gi Shin-ryeo, a Core Formation Great Circle cultivator.

"You there!"

Gi Shin-ryeo raised his voice at the fleeing figure. "Are you planning to steal the Myriad Poison Treasure Pearl in there?"

The Myriad Poison Treasure Pearl was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the sect's greatest treasure, holding tremendous power. With it in hand, even Cheon Woo-jin might stand a chance against him. But—

"Fool! The rumor of the Pearl was nothing but false bait, spread to lure the Geumsi Sect into the open! There is no Myriad Poison Treasure Pearl here at all!"

Having laid the truth bare, Gi Shin-ryeo studied the boy's reaction. He had nearly closed the distance now — close enough to read the very expression on his face.

"……?"

But something was off. Cheon Woo-jin showed no particular reaction at all. Without so much as slowing down, he soared toward the tallest of the northern peaks near the volcanic crater and landed there with perfect composure — then fixed Gi Shin-ryeo with a calm, level gaze.

What is this?

Gi Shin-ryeo landed on the southern peak opposite, the crater churning between them. Something in those eyes unsettled him in a way he couldn't name.

"Gi Shin-ryeo."

Cheon Woo-jin spoke across the heat-hazed crater. "Is Sama Mun not getting involved in this affair?"

"What did you say?"

At the sudden mention of the previous sect master's name, Gi Shin-ryeo's eyes went wide. "Why do you ask after our Old Ancestor?"

"Because he's the one thing I care about most."

"……?"

Gi Shin-ryeo didn't follow at all, but he answered anyway. "The Old Ancestor has never once intervened in this fight. From the very start, I decided and I commanded. He will not intervene in anything less than an extraordinary circumstance."

"I see."

Cheon Woo-jin nodded slowly. "So should something extraordinary occur, he might intervene after all."

"What—"

What on earth was this man going on about?

"You there, is that really what matters right now?" The lecturing tone he reserved for his own disciples slipped out of him unbidden. It was that absurd. "You're about to die by my hand, and you're worried about the Old Ancestor? Whether he intervenes or not, what difference does it make?"

"If Sama Mun will not intervene, I have other choices available to me." Cheon Woo-jin replied, his expression utterly calm. "But so long as even the faintest possibility of his intervention exists, only one path remains open to me."

"You've done nothing but spout riddles this whole time."

Could he have succumbed to the madness — the qi derangement that consumed a cultivator mid-training? It happened often enough, far more frequently among the Dark Sects and the Demonic Path than the orthodox, since so many of them practiced unorthodox methods and swallowed the side effects willingly.

Perhaps this one, too, burned out something in his head chasing power.

Gi Shin-ryeo felt a flicker of disappointment. A madman wasn't worth recruiting into Mandokyuksamun. Far better to simply kill him here and now. And that gaze of his was beginning to creep him out, besides.

I'll just kill him.

Having decided, Gi Shin-ryeo raised one hand. The boy was nothing but early-stage Foundation Establishment — but caution was still owed him. His speed alone was Core Formation caliber. He would have to suppress the boy in a single stroke, with a wide-area Dharma Art that could sweep the entire terrain. Anything less, and he would simply run away again, just as before.

He had already burned through a great deal of spiritual power with the Lesser Yang Fiery-Toxin Heat Technique, so casting it again was out of the question — but an attack of similar effect, cast wide, would do.

"I've wasted enough time. Die now."

With that snarled ultimatum, Gi Shin-ryeo prepared to spread lethal poison across the whole of the crater — and at that very moment, a blast of heat as if the volcano itself were erupting swept over him.

While he had been facing down Gi Shin-ryeo, one corner of Cheon Woo-jin's mind had been occupied with a single question: what is Foundation Establishment?

To establish the foundation. And what was a foundation? The groundwork that would carry a man down the immortal road for the rest of his existence. To grow as a Foundation Establishment cultivator was to complete that foundation, piece by piece.

'I have to build a foundation of my own.'

Nothing about this foundation was fixed. The path of cultivation differed from person to person, and so the foundation had to differ as well.

'It wasn't like this in Qi Condensation.'

During Qi Condensation, the route to early, middle, late, and Great Circle had been laid out plainly. To reach the early stage, one had to circulate spirit qi through the Twelve Regular Meridians; the middle stage demanded the Conception and Governing Vessels; the late stage, the Eight Extraordinary Meridians and all the collateral channels; and Great Circle, the entire body. The same was true for every cultivator alive. Even the man glaring at him across the crater had once walked that identical road.

But Foundation Establishment offered no such answer key. Each cultivator had to forge his own foundation, by his own method, for himself alone — and only when that foundation stood complete could his establishment truly be said to be finished.

So what foundation should Cheon Woo-jin build?

'It's the same as playing the game.'

He recalled his hours in the real world, playing Yeongro Suseonjeon. 'Maximize your strengths and shore up your weaknesses — that's the correct answer. Never try to grow evenly at everything; you'll end up mediocre at it all. Your strength must become your main weapon. But never ignore the weakness either. Prepare a countermeasure, so that even when the situation turns against you, you can still fight.'

'Setting aside the Instant Killing Heavenly Eye, my greatest strength is my Water-Natured Spirit Root and the Body of the Dark True Abyss. And my greatest weakness is the very same thing.'

Gi Shin-ryeo had pointed out earlier that among the Five Thunder Methods, Cheon Woo-jin could only wield the water-attribute Black Lightning. It was only natural — Cheon Woo-jin possessed a single water-attribute Spirit Root, so he naturally channeled water spirit qi into water-attribute arts. He could, in theory, invoke other elements, but the inefficiency made it pointless. That was the weakness of a single Spirit Root: rapid growth, yes, but specialization in one attribute left him helpless against the world's endless variety of situations.

He had to overcome that weakness — while maximizing, to the absolute limit, the strength of his water-natured root and the Body of the Dark True Abyss.

"……"

He closed his eyes and sank into the boundless space within — the spiritual domain of the Body of the Dark True Abyss. It was an abyssal sea that accepted everything, swallowed everything. But had Cheon Woo-jin ever truly used that power, in the fullest sense?

He turned his awareness outward. Ever since reaching Foundation Establishment, he had been able to contemplate the outside world from within his spiritual domain. Outside, the heat of the volcano pressed in on all sides. The fifth layer was already scorching, and this mountain, Mount Jagnyang, was its hottest point. Gi Shin-ryeo had surely chosen this battlefield deliberately — the one place where the power of fire malignity could be maximized.

That burning tide of fire qi. Could the cold sea of the Dark True Abyss receive it?

'The sea must not simply extinguish the flame. And neither may the flame boil the sea dry.'

To make fire and water blend into one. On its face, an impossibility — but to deem it impossible was the very error of the common man. Only when a cultivator made possible what the common man calls impossible does he truly walk the immortal road.

'And the groundwork for that is already laid.'

The Yin-Yang Marvelous Pearl — the foundational spirit object Cheon Woo-jin had used to craft his Foundation Establishment Pill. A mystic pearl, black and white intertwining like a taiji, embodying the harmony and balance of yin and yang. Just as its two colors wove together, so too must two opposing energies be made to blend.

"……"

Cheon Woo-jin flung open every passage in his body. He even released the Wei Qi — the defensive vital energy that shields the flesh from the world. And he drew the fire spirit qi saturating this whole region directly into himself.

Any Foundation Establishment cultivator who did such a thing would burn alive from the inside out. But Cheon Woo-jin sought to govern that fire qi with the water spirit qi he had accumulated all this time. The fire qi blanketing the mountain far exceeded his own reserves — yet by the first principle of the Five Elements' mutual conquest, water subdues fire. Water overcomes fire.

He exploited that principle to the utmost, wrestled the vast fire spirit qi under control, and forced it to merge with his own.

Then, the change came.

The spirit meridians Cheon Woo-jin had forged in Qi Condensation could carry nothing but water spirit qi — a natural consequence of a water-natured root. Now, those meridians evolved into something new. Fire spirit qi, harmonized with water, came roaring through the Twelve Regular Meridians and the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, remaking everything it touched. In the searing blaze that seemed to set every vessel in his body alight, the image of a taiji rose before his mind's eye — yin and yang entwined. Like the Marvelous Pearl itself, water's yin and fire's yang fused together, and Cheon Woo-jin's body ascended to its next stage.

'I have…'

He had stepped into a new realm. He could feel it in his bones.

'I am now mid-stage Foundation Establishment.'

The instant he opened both eyes, an aura wholly unlike anything before erupted from him, shaking the volcanic crater to its roots.

"You—!"

Whether he had grasped that Cheon Woo-jin had broken through or not, Gi Shin-ryeo shrieked and unfurled his art — a Dharma Art designed to blanket the region in a torrent of poison qi. It fell short of the Lesser Yang Fiery-Toxin Heat Technique, but it was more than enough to fill this whole terrain with lethal venom.

No defensive art could hold against such an attack. The range was too vast and the casting too swift to evade. Even hurling hundreds of lightning swords with Black Lightning Flash could never purge so much poison. Defense, impossible. Escape, impossible. Even neutralization, impossible.

Then how to answer it?

The answer had been waiting inside Cheon Woo-jin all along.

'Crash the fire qi into the water qi.'

The collision of fire qi and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠water qi — a thing he had performed countless times within his own body, driving Heart Fire against Kidney Water through the formulas of the Thunder-Spirit Grand Circulation. The practice he had repeated without pause ever since his establishment ceremony now bore its new fruit: the clash of extreme yang and extreme yin, birthing thunder qi — and borrowing the blazing heat that filled this land, it would take upon itself the very principle of fire.

A new door opened. Within that flash of intuition, Cheon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Woo-jin hurled out the whole of his spiritual power.