Chapter 72
Chapter 72
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 72
Chapter Title: Cultivating Demonic Arts
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Heuk Do-san gathered his energy.
Once he had a rough plan in place, there was no reason to hesitate. His first task was to heal his internal injuries.
To that end, he stripped hides from the corpses of the foreign women and returned to the stone chamber. He found a relatively spacious spot, laid down the fur pelts, and sat cross-legged on top. Next, he used the Confucian breathing method to calm his agitated qi and blood.
Finally, he removed the seal from the jade vial containing the Azure Spirit Oil. He held it briefly to his nose, but no scent emanated from it.
The world is full of proverbs born from people's experiences. One of them is that medicine and poison are two sides of the same coin.
A powerful medicine works by using a specific potent ingredient to treat a particular ailment. But just as potent in its effects, it can turn deadly at any moment. How much more so for something called a spiritual elixir?
Heuk Do-san tensed up.
People spoke only of the Azure Spirit Oil's medicinal properties, but it surely carried an immense toxicity equal to its power.
"It could kill me if I'm not careful."
If he was going to die, better to die after taking it. Instead of gulping it down, he would consume it in small doses over time.
Heuk Do-san swallowed just a single drop of the Azure Spirit Oil. As it slid down his throat at first, there were no symptoms.
It felt like swallowing a drop of clear water?
But once it reached his stomach and met the heat there, things changed. Something scorching began spreading rapidly. Soon, his entire gut was bubbling and boiling.
"Huh!"
He clutched his stomach and rolled on the ground.
His original plan had been to observe the situation and guide the medicine's effects evenly throughout his body using the Confucian breathing method.
But events unfolded in a completely unexpected direction.
Suddenly, agony surged as if his intestines were cooking whole. For a fleeting moment, he wondered if he'd drunk real poison instead of the Azure Spirit Oil.
How else could it hurt this badly? Just one drop caused this; dumping the whole vial down his throat would surely have killed him on the spot.
"Damn it!"
Afraid he'd be boiled alive, he stripped off every last thread of clothing amid the pain.
Even so, the heat didn't subside.
Sweat poured from his body like rain.
"But where's this foul stench coming from?"
Wiping sweat from the nape of his neck absentmindedly, Heuk Do-san nearly fainted.
Shockingly, the sweat wasn't clear—it was dark red. And sticky like molasses to boot.
The stench came from his own sweat.
"What the hell is this?"
The pain intensified, and the unidentified sweat kept flowing. He'd already swallowed the Azure Spirit Oil, and it was too late to regurgitate it.
Good or bad, he didn't know, and time simply passed.
Had half a shichen gone by?
The boiling in his stomach gradually calmed, and the pain ebbed. Then, past a certain point, the pain turned to comfort.
An indescribable refreshment washed over him. Mysterious energies began racing through his body. Every time they did, blocked meridians cleared.
That wasn't all. Ki seeped into places he hadn't even known existed. He instinctively knew they were all acupoints.
Who said humans had three hundred and sixty-five acupoints? Human acupoints extended to every single blood vessel.
Heuk Do-san quickly sat cross-legged again and entered a meditative state.
Unlike martial artists' qi circulation, the Confucian breathing method wasn't aimed at forming a dantian or building internal energy.
The Confucian method—regulating the body , regulating the breath , regulating the mind —sought to resonate one's bodily qi with the qi filling the universe.
That was why martial artists dismissed it as yangsheng qigong, mere stretching exercises for sedentary scholars to live longer.
But the Confucian breathing methods numbered dozens, even hundreds of variations.
Heuk Do-san had trained in a peculiar one at White Deer Academy called the Black Soil Technique.
Its process was as follows.
First, through regulating the body, temper the primal qi inherited from the womb.
Second, through regulating the breath, draw in the pure qi of the universe.
Third, through regulating the mind, produce true qi.
Rather than storing it all in the dantian, let it permeate the body—like rainwater soaking into the earth.
Then, when power was needed, the true qi scattered throughout would converge in one spot, erupting in explosive force.
But since it didn't form a dantian or accumulate true qi conventionally, no signs of internal energy cultivation appeared to others' eyes. In truth, it resembled external arts more than internal.
How much time passed?
Finishing his meditation, Heuk Do-san felt as light as if he could fly. The abdominal pain from his internal injuries had vanished completely.
Only then did he realize the black sweat from earlier had been accumulated waste built up over a lifetime.
"It really is the Azure Spirit Oil."
* * *
The human body follows the cycle of the sun rising and setting.
But in a cave, there was no distinguishing night from day. So he created a new time unit to match his body to.
Heuk Do-san found a suitable bowl in the bedroom and placed it under a stalactite dripping water droplets.
When the bowl filled with water, he deemed half a day—daytime—passed. He'd gulp down the water and go to sleep.
When it filled again, he'd wake, drink it, and start a new day.
His daily routine was simple but intensely busy.
First task: wander the cavern with corpses, catching and eating crickets.
Where he lived by the Shandong coast, cricket fighting called tusol was hugely popular.
"Sol" meant crickets; put two in a finely woven birdcage and bet on their fight.
One might wonder what fun tiny things fighting could be, but far from it. Two males clashing jaws on the line between life and death rivaled the thrill of high-level martial artists' duels.
Among all gambles, Heuk Do-san loved tusol most—and lost the most money on it.
Later, he'd even caught and trained his own.
"Never going back to those days, huh?"
Still, in this silent space, it was a new pastime. When time allowed, catch a few crickets and make them fight.
After filling his belly, he'd retreat to the secret chamber to train in the Ten Myriads Great Heaven Scripture.
Training hit a snag from the start.
"When a person dies, the hun soul ascends to heaven and becomes a shen spirit, while the po soul remains in the body and becomes a gui ghost.
The gui of those who die before their allotted lifespan are clumps of potent baleful thoughts.
The Ten Myriads Great Heaven Scripture is a martial art that summons the po through soul-calling rites and seizes the ghost's power. It is a form of soul-binding and po-subduing technique.
Fools call the Ten Myriads Great Heaven Scripture a great power art, but in truth, it is a genuine demonic art straddling sorcery and martial arts."
"What the hell does that mean?"
He couldn't understand a word.
It continued densely with methods to absorb qi periods and seize po souls.
But Heuk Do-san couldn't shake his unease. Though he hadn't cultivated internal energy, true qi undeniably flowed in his body.
Could the pure true qi—from inherited primal qi, cosmic pure qi, and breath-forged clarity—harmonize with the sinister death qi extracted from corpses?
No matter how he thought, it seemed dangerous.
But he had no choice.
"Aw, whatever."
* * *
To learn the Ten Myriads Great Heaven Scripture, he had to master the incantations for summoning po souls and seizing ghosts.
Like an internal cultivation manual compared to other martial arts, it was actually a sorcery accumulating the death qi of the dead through special breathing and circulation methods.
Sorcery —abstract, conceptual magic—transmuting into the physical, tangible force called martial arts ? Heuk Do-san couldn't comprehend it. They were realms apart, like day and night, or the underworld and living world.
"Will it even work?"
Work or not, he had to try.
First, he memorized every incantation and diagram carved on the stone walls of the secret chamber. With nothing else to do and confidence in memorization, it was no hurdle.
Still, the volume was vast; perfect recall took a full month—by his bowl-water clock, anyway, so who knew the real time.
"Now, shall we begin?"
After committing incantations and illustrations to memory, he entered the cavern and rummaged through the frozen corpses.
He hadn't noticed at first, but three of the ten bodies bore no bloodstain seals.
Heuk Do-san selected one, flipped it over, and pressed his palm to its back. Then, per the secret chamber's wall inscription, he circulated his qi—true qi.
Instantly, ice-cold energy flooded through his palm.
"Huh!"
Startled, Heuk Do-san yanked his hand away. The death qi already inside roamed his body like ink spreading in clear water.
The sensation was unbearably unpleasant. Chilling, eerie, qi swept his organs. Not pain, but a body-wide shock—like a child swallowing a live snake. Better to be slashed by a blade.
The death qi circled vigorously around his pounding heart, inspecting it.
As if checking how sturdy its new home would be.
But suddenly, it dispersed like smoke.
"So this is death qi...!"
Steadying his breath, he sought another corpse and absorbed its death qi again. The same ordeal repeated.
Only after drawing from all ten corpses did he stop.
Even after two or three tries, he never adapted to the unidentified chill and alien shock.
How many times would it take?
"But can this turn into power like true qi or internal energy?"
It did.
He didn't know why, how, or what made it possible, but each absorption from cavern corpses built an unidentified power rapidly in his body.
Thank heavens, it didn't clash with his Confucian true qi. They coexisted like a dragon and tiger sharing a mountain but different territories, neither encroaching.
Yet death qi and vital energy were polar opposites. Accumulating death qi in a living body spelled trouble, clash or no.
And trouble came.
One morning, crippling vertigo hit, followed by black bloody stools.
Heuk Do-san hurriedly swallowed a drop of Azure Spirit Oil. Mercifully, the bloody stools stopped immediately. The dizziness lifted too.
Strange. Internal injury would've caused prior abdominal pain; qi deviation, tangled meridians.
Yet aside from bloody stools and vertigo, no other symptoms. Just relentless nightmares since starting death qi absorption.
"It's the ling soul. The ling soul's wounded."
Bing-seol was the expert on such matters. If she were here, she'd know precisely.
The thought led to worry for everyone's safety.
Had they escaped unharmed?
Would Gong Cheon-ak keep his promise?
Where was Dang Yak-ran now?
Cave life had stabilized. With food, water, and cold solved, he focused deeper on the Ten Myriads Great Heaven Scripture.
But one torment overshadowed all comforts: loneliness.
"How much time has passed?"
A month? Two? A year?
In the pitch-black cave, time lost all meaning.
Then one day, unexpected guests arrived in the cave.