Sorry. Thank You.
Baek Hyun was not dead. At least, that was what he believed.
He had blacked out in the pain of a body coming apart, and when his eyes opened, dawn was close. The floor of the shabby room was as cold as ever, and the same cobwebs still hung from the ceiling.
Only one thing had changed. Each time he drew a breath, a faint current stirred somewhere inside him.
Baek Hyun stared up at the ceiling for a long while, then slowly pushed himself upright.
"……Fuck."
His voice cracked.
"I actually lived."
Honestly, he had thought he was going to die. Hadn't it said the chance of success was three in a thousand? Work that out, and it came to roughly one man in three hundred and thirty-three. A bastard who had never had a scrap of luck in his life had punched straight through those odds.
Was he supposed to be glad? No. There was something he needed to confirm first.
"System."
Nothing answered.
"Hey."
Still silence.
"You nearly get a man killed, and this is what I get? You owe me an explanation, at the very least."
That was when it came.
The user's state of consciousness has been confirmed.
Following Meridian Reconstruction, physical stabilization resulting from the realm breakthrough is in progress.
Would you like to confirm your current status?
Baek Hyun's brow twitched.
"Yeah."
Blue letters rose before his eyes.
Baek Hyun read the lines one by one.
Qi Condensation, First Star. A realm he had not reached even once in the three years since he began to cultivate. Among his peers in the Baek Clan, some had already entered the mid-stage of Qi Condensation. And he had become First Star of Qi Condensation in a single night.
It had not come free, of course. His whole body ached as if he had been beaten, and even shifting a finger felt like too much trouble. If someone set a bowl of porridge in front of him right now, he was prepared to honor that person as his benefactor for the rest of his life. Unless the one who brought it was Baek Jong-ak. Then the story changed.
That old man would never bring him porridge anyway, and even if he did, the first order of business would be checking it for poison. And if, in the end, there was no poison, Baek Hyun would still spit in the bowl and throw it, porridge and all, into Baek Jong-ak's face.
He let out a short, dry laugh.
"So. What exactly is an Ice Spiritual Root?"
The Ice Spiritual Root is one of the variant spiritual roots. It possesses a high affinity for ice-attribute spiritual qi.
It is a variant spiritual root, but its grade is the lowest.
"Hold on."
Baek Hyun raised a hand.
"Yesterday you told me it was a Crippled Spiritual Root."
The previous assessment was calculated on the basis of damaged meridians.
After Meridian Reconstruction, the assessment was revised.
"So what you're saying is, I was never actually cripple-grade?"
That is not an accurate expression.
"Then what is?"
In the previous condition of the body's meridians, normal cultivation was impossible.
"That's the same damn thing."
The System will begin a supplementary explanation, adjusted to the user's level.
Before connecting with the System, the user was, by the standards of this world, certainly cripple-grade.
But as gold may emerge from within stone, so too has the user. More precisely, the user created the gold within the stone himself.
Therefore, disputing whether one is cripple-grade or not is meaningless. The user has made cripple-grade into something that is not cripple-grade.
Baek Hyun rubbed the spot between his brows. He couldn't tell whether this thing called the System simply failed to understand human speech, or understood perfectly well and was pretending otherwise. He didn't like it either way.
One thing, though, was clear. He was no longer cripple-grade, and every sneer poured over him these past three years had just become so much empty noise. Baek Jong-ak had been among those who sneered the hardest. Baek Hyun called that face to mind, and the corner of his mouth lifted.
"Nice."
It was not yet time to smile. Revenge was a thing you did with a full belly and strength to spare. A hungry, weak bastard who started with revenge usually only got around to regretting it once he was already in the grave. Baek Hyun decided to survive first.
Day broke.
Baek Hyun gathered what was his. A few sets of worn-out clothes. The Basic Tu-Na Technique. Three coins. And his father's Wooden Plaque. That was the whole of it.
A boy of sixteen had clung to cultivation for three years, and this was all it had come to. Think of the Baek Clan's face, and it was enough to make a man weep. Of course, the Baek Clan had never once spared a thought for his face, so he had no intention of crying on their behalf either.
He slipped the Wooden Plaque into his robes. It was something his father had left behind. He still didn't know what it meant beyond that, and he still found it hard to believe that the plaque had shown him anything last night. One thing, however, was certain. He was not handing this over to Baek Jong-ak.
Whatever the man's reason for trying to take it—an heirloom passed down from the ancestors, he had said—there was no reason, now, to give it up quietly.
"You want it, go dig it out of a grave."
He muttered it as he opened the door.
The dawn air of Cheongun City bit. Winter in the Northern Province played no favorites. Young master of a rich house or beggar in the street, dress too thin and you froze to death just the same. Baek Hyun drew his sleeves tight and walked out of the clan.
He did not look back. There was no need. He had lived there for three years, but the place had been closer to a prison than a home: a roof and a meal, paid for by swallowing humiliation. He no longer had to pay that price.
The problem was where he would eat and sleep from here on.
"……That's the bigger problem."
He fingered the three coins inside his robes. A bowl of noodles. If luck held, one night in a cheap inn. If it didn't, the roadside, starting today. And looking back over his life so far, his luck had generally leaned toward the worse of the two.
Then it came.
Notice to the user.
Baek Hyun's steps stopped.
"What now?"
The user's physical body has not stabilized.
Ice-attribute spiritual qi must be absorbed in order to stabilize the body.
Recommended location: a region dense with cold qi.
Baek Hyun looked around. The Northern Province was cold to begin with. Step only a little beyond Cheongun City, and the mountains opened out under ice and snow. But a cold place was not, by that fact alone, a safe one. Where the cold qi lay thick, things like Cold Ice Grass and Snow Spirit Stones sometimes grew—and dangerous Spirit Beasts and cultivators gathered in just the same measure. A penniless novice who walked in blind could lose his life before he ever drew in a thread of spiritual qi.
He said it dryly.
"And the money?"
The user's asset information cannot be confirmed.
"I've got three coins. That's it."
Confirmed. Updating the user's assets to three coins.
"If you've confirmed it, shouldn't you come up with some kind of plan?"
This System was created for the purpose of assisting cultivation. Information regarding the management of assets is extremely limited, and meaningful cultivation is impossible with the user's present assets.
Baek Hyun was quiet for a moment. Then he laughed.
"This dogshit world sure doesn't lack for ways to screw a man."
The clan had thrown him out and called him useless. The System had warned him he was likely to die, then announced it would take no responsibility. Neither one had any thought of helping him. Fine. Then he simply wouldn't lean on either of them.
He turned his steps toward the city gate. He knew where Cold Ice Grass grew. A faint memory remained of following the clan, as a child, into the mountains on the outskirts of Cheongun City. If the herbs were still there, he could sell them and scrape together some coin. Absorbing spiritual qi could come after. Whatever else he meant to do, he had to eat before he could start.
A cultivator died if he went hungry. No—a hungry cultivator might die even faster. Let it get out that a weak man's pouch held so much as a single Spirit Stone, and the strong would come around, all kindness, and offer to hold it for him. Baek Hyun had no interest in that sort of kindness.
The outskirts of Cheongun City. Once he passed the wall, a road buried in snow opened ahead of him.
He walked a long while. His body was still heavy, but not so far gone that he couldn't move, as it had been the night before. He had just turned onto the mountain path when a shout carried from not far off.
"Help me!"
Baek Hyun stopped at once. Through the trees he could see three people. Two were men with swords. The third was a young cultivator, down on one knee and scrambling backward.
"Brothers! I'll give you everything I have!"
"A moment ago you said you didn't have any Spirit Stones."
"I really don't!"
"Then you'll have to hand over your life."
One of the swordsmen laughed. Baek Hyun slipped behind a tree.
The situation was simple. Two bandits. One piece of prey. And himself, there to watch. A man overflowing with righteous feeling would have charged out and saved the weak. Baek Hyun had never owned any such thing as righteous feeling. Even if he had, he would already have sold it for a bowl of noodles.
He was Qi Condensation, First Star. They were very likely at least a step above that. Stick his nose in and die, and there would be no one to bury him. He meant to ease quietly back.
In that instant, the System's text surfaced.
An ice-attribute spiritual qi reaction has been detected in the vicinity.
He froze.
Reaction location: seventeen paces ahead.
Estimated target: Snow Spirit Stone.
A Snow Spirit Stone. Ore steeped in spiritual qi, a resource ice-attribute cultivators used often. The price swung wildly with the quality, but a single decent piece would lift him out of a life where three coins bought a bowl of noodles.
He peered between the trees. Behind the bandits, a faint blue light glimmered in a crack of rock. If that was the Snow Spirit Stone…
Baek Hyun started to calculate. Could he beat the two of them? Impossible. Could he steal it without being seen? That depended. Then what if he closed in while those bastards were busy and took only the ore? Dangerous. Worth trying.
He caught himself, and a short laugh escaped him. A moment ago he had been ready to look away from a dying man. Now he was working out how to use that man as bait. Truly excellent character. But character did not put food in a belly. Put more crudely: why should he care?
He quietly turned his gaze aside. Just then, the young cultivator on his knees drew something from his robes.
"Please, take this, at least!"
What he threw was a small jade bottle. One of the men snatched it out of the air, pulled the stopper, and sniffed. His eyes changed.
"A Qi Returning Pill?"
"Yes! It's everything I have!"
"You had something like this, and you said you had nothing?"
The man kicked him across the face.
Thud.
The young cultivator rolled across the snow. Baek Hyun watched.
A Qi Returning Pill. A medicinal pill cultivators used to recover spiritual qi. Even a poor one fetched a price. The bandits pocketed the bottle, then set to beating the young cultivator harder still.
Baek Hyun clicked his tongue. The idiot had apparently believed that handing over everything he owned would buy his life. There were people in the world who kept their word. But if you were naive enough to trust a promise made by bandits, the world was not the problem. You were. Living in the clan, Baek Hyun had learned the way of the cultivation world quickly enough. That cultivator, pitifully, had yet to crawl out of the common sense of ordinary men.
He looked again at the blue light in the rock. The Snow Spirit Stone. And the two bandits. Slowly, he bent at the waist.
The way to stay alive was simple. Until you were strong, you did not meet the strong head-on. If they let their guard down, you used them. If a chance appeared, you took it. If the thing went wrong, you ran. Baek Hyun was not strong yet. So for now, he meant to keep to that rule.
But then the System's text rose again.
Target: Snow Spirit Stone
Reaction rate with Ice Spiritual Root: 93.2%
Upon absorption, stabilization of the physical body can proceed.
Baek Hyun's eyes changed. This was not merely an ore he could sell for coin. It was the resource he needed, right now, to steady his own body. Let it go, and there was no telling how long it would be before another chance came.
He thought for a moment. Then he decided.
"……Sorry."
He said it inwardly, toward the young cultivator sprawled in the snow.
"Hold out a little longer."
Baek Hyun dropped lower behind the tree.
"I'll take mine first."
His first cultivation began that way. It was not justice, and it was not revenge. It was only the business of stealing a single piece of ore while staying out of other people's sight.
But Baek Hyun knew. The first ability required to survive in this world was not the knack for looking impressive in front of others. It was working out how to stay alive before someone else worked out how to kill you. Right now, that was all he needed.