A Dream Made Real
"It can't be... that dream...? If that's really what happened..."
Yeop Pung lifted his gaze toward the far distance. Dozens of meters away, a colossal banyan rose in solitary grandeur.
Its trunk was so thick that four or five grown men linking arms could barely encircle it, and the tree soared to such a height that it looked like a giant standing watch in the dark.
"That's the tree! The one from my dream—the tree with the hollow where I planted the Spirit Origin Grass. I sealed that hole with dirt."
"Wait!"
Yeop Pung stopped dead. Looking closer, the banyan was nothing like the lush giant from his dream. It was completely withered, twisted and dry.
He found himself walking toward it without thinking. Knowledge from the Herb Garden surfaced in his mind.
Spirit Origin Grass — 1st-grade spirit herb. Grows without sunlight by absorbing Profound Qi. Blooms in ten years and bears fruit in twenty, becoming the 3rd-grade spirit medicine known as the Spirit Origin Fruit. When the fruit ripens, it drinks in the surrounding vitality and profound energy...
"It can't be..."
The absurd thought in Yeop Pung's mind swelled larger and larger, like a tiny spark racing through every cell in his body.
He approached the dead tree one step at a time. When he circled around to the far side, there it was—just as in the dream—a hollow about half a meter up the trunk. The mouth of the hole was sealed with bone-dry earth.
"This is—!"
Every hair on Yeop Pung's body stood on end. The hollow was identical to the one in his dream. Even the packed dirt covering it was the same.
Bang! He smashed his fist down and shattered the hardened clod, then clawed the earth away with trembling hands.
And then... a green light poured from the soil. A medicinal fragrance that seized the senses flooded his nose.
Inside the hollow... there really was a Spirit Origin Fruit—fist-sized, bursting with vitality, radiating a luminous glow!
Yeop Pung froze completely. He could not comprehend what was happening to him.
Had that ridiculous dream become reality? Had he truly gone back to the past, planted a spirit herb, and now—twenty years later—was that herb sitting right in front of him?
"Is this a dream too?!"
He pinched his own thigh as hard as he could. Pain lanced through him and his body jerked.
"It's not a dream!"
Right there before his eyes sat a third-grade spirit fruit—a Spirit Origin Fruit!
"Hahh..."
Yeop Pung drew a deep breath of the cold mountain wind and forced his mind to settle.
This was enough to make a ghost weep in confusion. No—it was stranger than that.
He could not explain any of it. But what mattered most right now was not uncovering the truth. It was the Spirit Origin Fruit sitting right in front of him.
In that moment, Yeop Pung's calm, cold-blooded nature shone through. He forced the swarm of question marks in his head aside. He did not lunge for the fruit. Carefully, he dug it out root and all.
The Spirit Origin Fruit was a third-grade spirit medicine of formidable potency, but the Profound Qi stored in its stem and leaves dissipated with startling speed. Harvesting it with the root intact could slow that loss.
All of it was knowledge earned through five hard years in the Herb Garden. Thanks to that knowledge, Yeop Pung extracted the fruit while minimizing the damage to its Profound Qi.
Without hesitation, he took the Spirit Origin Fruit and headed for a nearby empty cave.
He stepped inside, tidied the space in a few quick motions, and sat cross-legged on the floor. Then, carefully, he separated the blue fruit from its root and began to eat it, one slow bite at a time.
The instant the Spirit Origin Fruit entered his body, a colossal tide of Profound Qi surged through every inch of him.
A fifty-year Spirit Origin Fruit unleashes its hoarded power. Every pore opens. Golden Profound Qi pours in like a breaking sea—the equivalent of dozens of Spirit Origin Grass plants crashing through the body at once.
"This is an enormous amount of Profound Qi!"
He felt every pore in his body open, Profound Qi pouring in through them in a rush of ecstasy. A spirit medicine of this caliber had to be at least fifty years old. Having drained the banyan of every last drop of its vitality, it was far more potent than anything stored in the Cheonun Sect.
Tears of gratitude welled in his eyes. After eight years of torment, was fate finally turning? This much Profound Qi was the equivalent of dozens of Spirit Origin Grass plants!
"My dantian—can you handle this?!"
Rumble!
His dantian boiled. Golden Profound Qi churned like a raging tide, hammering the walls of his dantian with a violence he had never known.
That dantian, which had stood as unyielding as ten-thousand-year steel, finally began to tremble—just a hair.
The power of a Spirit Origin Fruit more than fifty years old was truly formidable. That vast flood of Profound Qi was at last smashing open the gate of destiny that had held Yeop Pung's eight-year wish locked away.
Creaaak—crack!
A faint tearing sound reached his ears.
Yeop Pung felt it clearly: the wall of his dantian that had plagued him for eight years was finally breaking.
The golden Profound Qi rolled in like a tidal wave, rearing and roaring like a wild horse that had thrown its reins. At last it poured, fierce and unstoppable, into the meridians Yeop Pung had waited eight years to open.
"Graaaah!"
A deep, low groan tore from his throat.
It hurt. Every muscle, every cell in his body was being remade under the baptism of golden Profound Qi. The pain was like being reborn in fire.
And at the same time—it was ecstasy. A pleasure beyond words.
Eight years. Eight years of effort and humiliation, of mockery and longing. All of it had finally borne fruit in this breakthrough into the Profound Realm. How could he not rejoice?
Yeop Pung squeezed his eyes shut and fought to still his endlessly trembling body. He wanted to laugh, but tears of joy and rapture ran down his cheeks first.
He wanted to roar his joy at the heavens, but even at this supreme moment he held his heart in check. Following the most orthodox mind method transmitted by the Cheonun Sect, he began to govern the golden Profound Qi flowing through his meridians—to forge a tougher body and a more devastating combat power.
This was Yeop Pung. Eight years had tempered his heart into something as hard as stone.
And this explosive moment he had finally reached was only the prologue to the boundless glory that awaited him.
A full day and night passed.
No one in the Cheonun Sect knew that Yeop Pung had reached a new realm on the back mountain. Nobody cared what happened to a handyman disciple who was about to be thrown out.
The next night fell.
With a cry of release bursting from his lungs, a figure walked out of the cave, faint golden spiritual energy radiating from his entire body.
Yeop Pung had finally reached the Profound Realm. His dantian was now fully connected to all twelve meridians.
The golden Profound Qi he had so painfully accumulated over eight years now flowed through him in tranquil circuits. With every revolution, his flesh grew stronger still.
And there was something even more astonishing. A pale-gold strand of Profound Qi extended from his dantian, passed through his right leg, wrapped around his spleen and stomach, and returned to the dantian. Yeop Pung had formed an independent circulation of Profound Qi.
This was the first Profound Meridian that a Profound Realm martial artist had to open through cultivation, beyond the twelve innate meridians. It was called the Bear Meridian.
When a person's Bear Meridian opened, the spleen and stomach grew robust and food intake increased. Vitality surged, and a single punch could carry five hundred catties of force. This was the basic Profound Realm training process every martial artist knew.
After the Bear Meridian, five more ordinary Profound Meridians still had to be opened. When all six Profound Meridians were open and Profound Qi gathered into one, it was called gathering Profound Qi to open the Spirit Sea. That was the realm of Six Meridians Connecting Spirit, from which one could break through into the Spirit Sea Realm.
Ordinarily, a martial artist who had just entered the Profound Realm needed at least one or two months of grueling training to gather Profound Qi and open the Bear Meridian. Yeop Pung had fully opened his in a single night. The speed was nothing short of astonishing.
Standing at the cave mouth, he circulated Profound Qi as he willed, and tremendous power surged through his entire body. A sound like bone and muscle grinding together popped and cracked. That explosive strength was genuinely thrilling.
"I need to hit something and test this Profound Qi!"
He looked around and spotted a boulder in front of the cave entrance. He concentrated all the Profound Qi in his body into one point. A blinding golden flash erupted over his fist—a fist the size of a great cauldron lid. The light was as dazzling as the sun, ringing his knuckles in a golden corona.
The most basic fist form taught to outer disciples—now crowned in a solar blaze of golden Profound Qi, a single strike driven with everything he has.
"Hup!"
With a shout, he drove his fist forward. Golden light flared as it smashed into the rock.
Kra-koom! With a tremendous roar, a slab of black basalt more than twice a man's height shattered into pieces under a single punch. Dust billowed up and stone fragments sprayed in every direction. The terrifying force behind that fist far exceeded anything Yeop Pung had expected.
"That's impossible! Five hundred catties of force can smash a rock like this?"
Even he was stunned by his own strength. It was the most basic fist art taught to outer disciples of the sect. But when Yeop Pung used it, the power was beyond imagination.
He stared down at the rubble scattered across the ground, then at his own fist as the golden aura slowly faded, standing there dazed for a long while.
At last he nodded and muttered to himself.
"Incredible. One punch from me... even someone who'd opened a second or third meridian wouldn't have taken that easily, let alone a 1-Vein Profound Realm... After eight years of humiliation, it finally feels like I'm getting a little of it back."
He could not understand the strange phenomena unfolding inside his body.
But right now, the joy of having shaken off those years of humiliation outweighed any curiosity about why. Eight long years of being mocked as talentless.
And more than that—Yeop Pung was no cripple. He was more gifted than other people. The sixteen-year-old boy who had just learned that fact felt a happiness beyond measure.
Hahaha!
At last laughter burst from Yeop Pung's lips. Feeling more unburdened than he ever had in his life, he threw his head back and laughed at the sky.
He still did not know just how strong he was at the 1-Vein Profound Realm. But soon enough, the perfect chance to prove it would come.
A cold, arrogant face from a few days ago rose in his mind. Unconsciously, Yeop Pung touched his cheek—already completely healed.
Just as the morning sun was rising, Yeop Pung returned to the Cheonun Sect. Only one day remained until the inner sect examination.
His heart was light and his mind was clear. He could not put this fresh, exhilarating feeling into words. A light, pleasant wind seemed to rise with every step. The corners of his mouth, which had hung heavy for the past two days, finally lifted again.
Yeop Pung was far more composed than others his age. Even so, in this moment he could not suppress the urge to tell Yi Sang about his breakthrough.
And yet, in one corner of his heart, an unanswered question still circled.
Could that dream have been real after all?