A Single Mosquito
Yeop Pung could not imagine a Great Jin without Emperor Shinmu.
Fengsang Commandery now faced a crisis of the most urgent, practical kind. The military governor was preparing to break from the empire with an army at his back, eliminating his political rivals and crushing the common people with manic brutality.
The moment Emperor Shinmu's death was formally announced to the realm, chaos would erupt — and if nowhere else, then certainly here in Fengsang Commandery. Yeop Pung could see it coming as clearly as day.
And the Cheonun Sect! In that instant, Yeop Pung understood why the Heavenly Phoenix Legion had been stretching its reach into the sect.
Everything was bound to the governor's ambition. Preventing Nanman invasions had been nothing but a convenient pretext. What the governor truly wanted were Cheonun Army martial artists who would fight for his personal glory — and a Cheonun Sect that bowed to him completely. It all made sense now.
It took a long while before Yeop Pung could settle his mind. The news had shaken him deeply. But with his current strength, he had no place in the great currents of the realm.
All he could do now was throw everything he had into serving the Cheonun Sect — just as he once had when he first fought to break through into the Profound Realm.
Once Yeop Pung set his mind to something, he never looked back.
His goal remained unchanged. He would brew Hongranchun, make Sa Cheonseong pay, and then bring every last Cheonbong Army soldier inside the Cheonun Sect crashing down. That would be his first step for a sect about to be swallowed by the flames of war!
"Master."
Heukgu burrowed back into the collar of Yeop Pung's robes.
"You gave away all the Nakryeong Roots. How are we supposed to buy medicinal ingredients now?"
Old Man Meng was a pauper whose shoes had worn through, and his entire fortune wasn't enough to keep food in his mouth.
Yeop Pung looked at Heukgu with a cold little smile.
"You did well today. When we get back, I won't make you copy the Thousand Character Classic."
"Really?"
Heukgu looked ready to take flight from sheer joy.
"We'll copy the Great Jin Dictionary instead. Look at you — you can't even write the character for 'dung.' How embarrassing is that, hmm?"
"???"
Heukgu just wanted to die.
A joke was just a joke.
Heukgu's performance tonight had been nothing short of spectacular. Born with a gift for tunneling, and with claws grown even sharper after his advancement to the Spirit Realm, he had carved through black profound rock as if it were tofu. In barely four hours, he had nearly hollowed out the entire underside of Cheonroe.
Confirming this ability had put Yeop Pung's mind at ease — which was why he had been able to hand over all fifteen Nakryeong Roots to the Yi family.
And he wasn't joking. What were fifteen Nakryeong Roots, really? Yeop Pung's new target was the Military Supply Bureau's warehouse!!
Yeop Pung turned back toward Bongsang County Seat with Heukgu in tow. Not a soul in this world knew that a field rat had reached the Spirit Realm. Still fewer knew that this spirit beast of a rat had set its sights on Fengsang Commandery's warehouses.
The warehouse sat at the most heavily guarded heart of the Military Supply Bureau — a place not even a single mosquito could slip into. No one had ever heard of a master silently boring through earth made of black profound rock to infiltrate the deepest chamber of a storehouse. Even an earth-attribute expert of the Spirit Realm couldn't have managed it.
And yet Heukgu just so happened to be the natural enemy of every sealed chamber in existence!
The only remaining headache for Yeop Pung was a single, maddening fact: the storage space in his Qiankun Ring was far too small!!
This night was destined to become one the Military Supply Bureau would never forget.
When the hour of the Rat arrived, a patrolling soldier noticed something strange. Prisoners in several cells had collapsed unconscious without the faintest idea why — and the floors near them were riddled with bizarre, gaping holes.
Then word broke that the Yi family had escaped the prison, and the whole world turned upside down. Alarm bells pealed. Soldiers bristled with killing intent. Every citizen of Fengsang Commandery could feel the fury of the Military Supply Bureau's experts. Cheonbong Army martial artists in white armor embroidered with phoenixes poured out of the city and hunted the Yi family through the night.
People who had no idea what was happening spilled out of their homes.
But before Cheonroe's killing aura had even faded, another stunning report arrived from the warehouses on the city's southern side.
The Military Supply Bureau's spiritual elixir warehouse had been cleaned out! Those who heard it were even more stunned than they had been by the Yi family's escape. That was the most heavily guarded place in all of Fengsang Commandery — how could a thief possibly have gotten in?
People learned the full story later. Rumor had it that a thief who commanded earth at will had appeared in Fengsang and torn up the ground beneath the entire city.
The affair turned the normally lofty governor's face black with rage. He executed two of Cheonroe's jailers and the warehouse overseer on the spot, then spent a fortune installing a Profound Qi formation that could monitor even the underground. But that was all a story for later.
The next morning, Yeop Pung — his Qiankun Ring stuffed to bursting — strolled back to the Cheonun Sect at his leisure. On the second night of his five-day leave, he slipped back onto Nagun Peak without a soul noticing.
"Whoa! Yeop Pung's back!"
Before Bone of Nagun Peak could even react, Old Man Meng came rushing out with affection shining in his eyes.
"M-my m-medicine — the medicine?"
Medicine, my ass!
Yeop Pung shoved aside Old Man Meng, a man whose sense of shame had long since punched through the floor and kept going underground. He went straight to his room and began preparing to brew Hongranchun.
Wang Maeng had already laid out every tool he would need. Looking at the brazier, the crucible, the pestle, and the rest of the implements lined up neatly on the floor, Yeop Pung let out a long sigh.
The first proper medicine I ever get to brew... and of course it has to be that kind of medicine.
If the elders who once guided me in the Herb Department ever found out about this, what would they even say?
Haha. No need to ask. Time to get to work!
Brewing medicine was relatively simpler than refining pills.
Yeop Pung's Profound Qi was not fire-attribute by nature, so the path of a pill-refiner was a hard one for him. But simmering herbs over a flame and setting them into an ointment was well within his reach.
Even so, he had to endure failure after failure.
Fortunately, materials were plentiful. This time Yeop Pung had stuffed ten Qiankun Rings to the brim. Inside were not only the spiritual elixirs needed to manufacture Hongranchun, but all manner of second-grade spiritual pills as well.
He hadn't been greedy enough to reach for third-grade spiritual medicines beyond that. Treasures of that caliber were kept in the Cheonun Sect's even deeper secret vaults — and there was no telling what kind of restriction he might trigger if he laid a hand on them.
He decided to set the second-grade spiritual pills aside for the Cheonun Sect rather than use them himself. Training with third-grade Nakryeong Roots would be more than enough.
For the next several days, Yeop Pung devoted himself entirely to brewing. He studied and practiced day and night, and whenever fatigue set in he cultivated the Nine Heavens Cloud-Spirit Scripture to sharpen his mind. He didn't even have time to spare a thought for Heukgu.
At last, on the final night of his five-day leave, he produced a dozen-odd bottles of Hongranchun.
A dozen-odd bottles of the potent, transparent ointment — enough to send the entire Cheonbong Army into a frenzy of heat, overload, and a maddening red rash lasting weeks.
Done!!
Beneath the dark night, Yeop Pung wiped the sweat from his face with a look of deep satisfaction.
Brewing medicine drained the spirit as thoroughly as cultivation itself — but it had been worth every drop. The quantity sitting before him was enough for the entire Cheonbong Army to drink their fill and still have some left over.
"Heukgu!!"
At Yeop Pung's call, Heukgu lifted his head from where he had been scowling over a thick Great Jin Dictionary. A half-gnawed Nakryeong Root dangled from his paw. A century-old spiritual elixir was, to Heukgu, no different from a common radish. That was a privilege reserved for him alone.
Heukgu was, after all, Yeop Pung's first spiritual beast. Yeop Pung was strict with him — but never stingy.
Besides sharing meals with Yeop Pung every day, Heukgu used Nakryeong Roots as a cultivation resource. They weren't as delicious as Yun Hwan's osmanthus cakes, but every time he chewed one he could feel his Profound Qi surging upward. So whenever Heukgu ate a Nakryeong Root, he couldn't deny that his mood lifted.
"What is it?"
"Take these two bottles of medicine to Old Man Meng!"
"Master, I'm scared of Bone!"
"And I'm not scary?"
Heukgu immediately hid the Nakryeong Root in his stash under the bed and scurried out in a hurry.
A short while later, Heukgu came scrambling back in through the window. His fur was a rumpled mess — clearly Bone had mauled him again. But his face was overflowing with a grin.
"Master! Master!"
"What? You're happy even after getting torn up like that?"
"No — my ability got stronger!"
"Hmm. By my count, you should be able to control about ten ants by now?"
"I-I can control one mosquito now! Look!"
Huh?
Yeop Pung looked closer. Sure enough, a large black-striped mosquito was hovering in the air right in front of Heukgu. The Mid-Autumn Festival had just passed, which meant autumn mosquitoes were at their most vicious — and Heukgu's latest advancement could not have been more perfectly timed.
Mosquito Dominion — a single black-striped mosquito hovers under Heukgu's command, its wings whispering through the autumn night.
Yeop Pung's eyes lit up.
"How many can you control?"
Heukgu scratched his head.
"Right now I can control one mosquito and two ants."
"So ten ants equal one mosquito?"
"Uh, pretty much."
Good grief... so this little guy picked up arithmetic on top of a power-up?
If ten ants equaled one mosquito, then what did ten mosquitoes equal? One praying mantis?
Yeop Pung was speechless at Heukgu's ridiculous ability.
Is there a single reliable one around me? Geumban stays ice-cold and barely talks, Bone just glares, Old Man Meng is hunting for weird medicines, and Heukgu needs me to solve his math problems... My life is ruined!
Still, if he could put mosquitoes to use, the plans ahead would get a good deal easier.
Yeop Pung watched the little mosquito drifting lazily through the air and thought to himself.
"All right. Have that mosquito write the character 'Sang' from Yi Sang's name."
"???"
Heukgu instantly regretted everything. He wanted to slap his own face — twice.
Why is my mouth so loose? If I can do it, I should've just done it — why did I have to go and brag?
What if Master starts making me practice writing like this from now on...
The five-day leave finally came to an end. The training grounds, quiet for five days, at last welcomed the Cheonun Sect disciples once more. And of course, Sa Cheonseong and his Heavenly Phoenix Legion companions came with them.
Sa Cheonseong, Deung Chung, and their party, who had spent the past few days recovering, still looked pale, and there was something unsteady in the way they walked.
It couldn't be helped. Heukgu had dumped in far too much of the medicine just to copy fewer characters from the Thousand Character Classic. If Sa Cheonseong and his men hadn't been six-meridian martial artists, they probably wouldn't even have been able to get out of bed by now.
The Cheonun Sect side was a different story. The Cheonun disciples had rested for nearly a week, and every last one of them had color in their cheeks and a smile tugging at their lips.
The people of Cheonun Sect simply could not keep from laughing! The mere memory of the spectacle on Nowoon Peak five days ago brought them to the brink of bursting. The tale of Sa Cheonseong single-handedly erupting like a magnificent fountain, in particular, had people clutching their sides.
So when they saw Sa Cheonseong walking toward them, they had to pour every ounce of will into managing their faces. But those strained, peculiar expressions were somehow even worse than just bursting out laughing.
The moment Sa Cheonseong took in the scene, rage surged through him.