The Myriad Realms Wrist Ring

The moment the three martial artists charged, a cold smirk touched Yeop Pung's lips. He triggered Thunder Shadow Steps, snapped his direction in a single turn, and bolted.

"After him!"

The captain swept his hand, and the three figures vanished into the forest in a blink.

Left behind under the watch of a single remaining warrior, Mo Soo-mi and the others could only stare at one another. Reality still hadn't quite caught up with them.

It's Yeop Pung…. It really is Yeop Pung.

Mo Soo-mi's face, swollen a livid red, twisted into a grimace. Of course he had wanted someone — anyone — to come and save him. But the fact that his savior was Yeop Pung left him drowning in shock and a sour, crawling displeasure.

He had already known Yeop Pung had gotten stronger. He had not known Yeop Pung had gotten this strong. Four experts of the same four-meridian level as himself, dropped in an instant — had Yeop Pung already reached the 5th Profound Meridian?

That's impossible! And why would he come to save us? Why?

Mo Soo-mi's thoughts were a tangle. Even so, he stared after the direction Yeop Pung had vanished, his black-and-crimson swollen eyes tight with worry. Even if Yeop Pung truly possessed the strength of the 5th Profound Meridian, he would have to face three martial artists of that same realm at once. How he was supposed to survive that, Mo Soo-mi could not begin to imagine.

"Yeop Pung, you bastard! Don't you run!"

The arrogant shout rang at Yeop Pung's back. He kept running, his face calm and cold, paying the taunt behind him not the slightest mind.

Naturally, he had no intention of meeting 5th Profound Meridian experts in a head-on fight. Even if he won, he would bleed away the strength he needed for the hunting tournament afterward.

But he had planned for all of this before he ever set out. Facing experts of the 5th Profound Meridian did not frighten him in the least.

He glanced up at the moonlight pouring bright overhead.

It was the Hour of the Rat. Midnight.

"Golden Disc Bro, can I time-travel now?"

"Not today."

The Golden Disc's voice was ice. Yeop Pung's heart clenched.

What? Not today?

"That was a joke."

The voice was still cold.

"I don't need jokes right now!"

Yeop Pung was speechless. Only then did he realize the Golden Disc had this streak of mischief in it too — enough leisure, even in a moment this desperate, to crack a joke.

"Get over that little hill up ahead. The instant they lose sight of you, we jump. Set it for fifty years ago."

Yeop Pung poured a fiercer blaze of lightning under his feet and vaulted the hill. In that same breath the Golden Disc engaged, and his body vanished from midair.

Whoosh.

Every step of it was familiar by now. The Golden Disc swelled, spacetime folded over itself in a boundless void, and Yeop Pung fell once more into the past.

He closed his eyes, then opened them. The world had gone still. The forest before him was almost identical to the one he had just left — except the pursuers at his back were gone.

"Got it. Thanks, Golden Disc Bro."

Yeop Pung offered the Golden Disc a nod of thanks, then began scanning his surroundings.

"Fifty years really does pass in the blink of an eye. Mount Yongnyeong barely changed at all."

He picked up his pace and ran for the ridgeline visible in the distance.

What he had to do on this jump was simple. In a wilderness this barren, there wasn't much else available. Planting herbs hardly mattered — he still had Spirit Soul Pills left. So the only work worth doing was to cultivate in silence: open his third profound meridian, and complete the killing strike of the Raging Thunder Palm he had already mastered — Wrathful Thunder Sweeping the Heavens.

He was curious, too, what would change once this jump ended and the Golden Disc's ring was fully filled. Best to start training immediately.

Finding a cave on Mount Yongnyeong was no trouble. After about an hour he located a secluded one and prepared it with care, making certain no wild beast would come wandering in to interrupt him.

Then he began at once, circulating the Nine Heavens Cloud-Spirit Scripture at its utmost speed.

Unfortunately, he hit a bottleneck once again. More than two hundred stars of Profound Qi could not enter his body smoothly all at once, and the drag on his absorption rate was severe.

Even so, the third profound meridian inside him was stretching forward at a speed visible to the eye. Soon it would link both kidneys to the perineum, merge with the Bear Meridian and the Ye Meridian that had come before it, and form a vast trunk of Profound Qi.

This was the third profound meridian — the Yun Meridian. Once it opened, the essence of the kidneys would fill to the brim, the flesh would grow stronger, and he would be able to unleash the strength of two thousand catties.

Yeop Pung was racing toward that final breakthrough. At this rate, the Yun Meridian would be fully opened by tomorrow night at the latest. After that, he would have a full day to drill Wrathful Thunder Sweeping the Heavens. Every piece of the plan was already in place.

Three days slipped by.

Beneath the night sky of Mount Yongnyeong fifty years in the past, a boy sheathed in golden lightning stood on a mountainside and unleashed a blaze of brilliant gold. In that instant, half the slope lit up as if dawn had broken. Tremendous bolts of Profound Qi thunder erupted from his hands in waves of fury.

Crack. Crack-crack!

A roar like rolling thunder filled the air. A giant tree so thick that three grown men linking arms could not have encircled it was struck by a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bolt of gold and, in a heartbeat, turned to charcoal.

Yeop Pung gave the tree — six or seven stories tall — a light shove. It began to topple at once. Before it even reached the earth, it shattered in midair into a rain of charred debris.

"Incredible!"

He looked down at his own two hands, overflowing with delight.

"Golden Profound Qi and Wrathful Thunder Sweeping the Heavens are a perfect match. One hit of this and that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠bastard Beom Wun-tae will be half-dead!"

He had broken through the third profound meridian. The leap in his strength had gone beyond even his own expectations.

The Raging Thunder Palm was, in itself, an ordinary profound art. Fueled by golden Profound Qi, though, its violence reached an extreme. Yeop Pung now had genuine confidence that he could contend with experts of the fifth meridian — even those who had completed the 5th Profound Meridian.

Of course, if he ran into a sixth-meridian expert, their movement arts and raw power sat a full level above the fifth, and chances to strike would be hard to catch. But if he landed even one clean blow, he would not go down easily.

"Time to head back."

Yeop Pung looked up at the sky, bringing his fourth time jump to a perfect close. The Golden Disc flared, and he stepped once more into the void between worlds. This, however, was only the beginning.

He was dying to know how the Golden Disc would change.

In the void he kept his eyes wide, staring with taut concentration at the colossal golden relic behind him. Perhaps, this time, the Golden Disc had meant for him to witness the strengthening with his own eyes.

He did not return to the present. He hung there in the emptiness and watched countless streams of gold light pour from behind him, flowing into the Golden Disc.

Vmmm!

The Golden Disc erupted with a blaze of divine radiance and a roar that nearly split his eardrums. Those gold lights he had drawn up from the depths of the void were the finest nourishment it could ask for. Gold was filling the last tick of the second ring. The process felt long, yet it finished in a brief instant.

The moment the second ring filled completely with light, Yeop Pung could feel the Golden Disc's own energy climb by a staggering degree. It was like watching a patient whose life had hung by a thread have a mortal wound close. However weak and scarred it remained, there was at least a minimum of hope and life in it now — enough that it could recover, slowly, in time.

Gold light flowed through the second ring, and at the same time the first tick of the outer third ring began to glitter. Yeop Pung counted the marks. The third ring held six ticks in total. Filling the rest of them was going to take far more work.

"Yeop Pung. The next time jump is in seven days. This time, the duration of stay has been extended to seven days."

The Golden Disc's voice reached him. Its abilities had truly improved.

And yet…. Yeop Pung waited a long while. Nothing else changed.

"Uh, hey…. Bro?"

"What is it?"

"That's it?"

"What else were you expecting?"

"Oh, come on, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠seriously? A ring that huge just filled all the way up — there should be some bigger change, or at least a reward, right? All I get is four extra days?"

"Do you think you've done anything worth rewarding?"

The Golden Disc's counter-question left Yeop Pung a little ashamed.

"Uh, well…. I deserve some kind of reward, don't I?"

"Eat shit."

Wait. It actually swore?

The Golden Disc sounded like it had been holding that one in for a very long time.

"Yeop Pung. Imagine how simple and convenient it would be if you always spent your time quietly, the way you did last jump. No grueling journey. Nothing for me to worry about. No reason to fear you might die. Do you have any right to want a reward?"

What? So that's what this was about?

Yeop Pung was at a loss.

"But Golden Disc Bro, if I hadn't gone through all that trouble, how would I have gotten the arts and the spirit pills I need to cultivate? That's called wisdom. It's not useless, the way you make it sound."

"Your cultivation…. what does that have to do with me?"

Yeop Pung had nothing left to say.

Thinking it over, though, he realized the Golden Disc cared about only one thing: the gold-light energy he brought back after a time jump. What he did during the jump itself was irrelevant. The sole concern was that he did not die.

"Yeah, yeah…."

He was exasperated, but he had no grounds left to argue. He had already gained an enormous amount. Wanting more than that would just be greed.

Know how to be satisfied. Know how to be satisfied.

But just as Yeop Pung was about to leave the void, the Golden Disc let out a cold snort. A stream of glorious light flashed from the second ring. The ring itself rose from the Golden Disc as a ghostly shadow.

The shadow shrank as it took on substance and flew to Yeop Pung's wrist. It settled there as a dark band with a sheen of gold, binding itself tightly around his arm.

This is….

Yeop Pung's eyes went wide. His heart began to pound. The instant the wristband touched his skin, information about it poured straight into his mind.

Yeop Pung was overwhelmed.