Proclaiming Labor at the Heart of the Cave (2)
While the muscles of the Ungyu Sect disciples grew larger and larger under the relentless rhythm of their pickaxes, Baek Sang-ah’s own cultivation advanced day by day.
The first cornerstone of Great Void Divine Method: to leave one’s consciousness open while remaining unnoticed by others.
Baek Sang-ah completed it by stretching her awareness through the gaps in another person’s consciousness, keeping her own presence beyond their perception.
“Whoa, sis. I can’t feel anything at all.”
Dam So-dam, who had been frowning so hard her eyes were shut tight, suddenly widened them in amazement.
Baek Sang-ah sat quietly in front of her, one hand resting on her knee.
“You’re right there in front of me, but I can’t feel a single trace of that huge presence of yours.”
Of course, that alone could not be called complete mastery.
Great Immortal Dae-seon’s Great Void Divine Method was a group technique meant to be used not against a single cultivator, but against many. Baek Sang-ah could still only use it on one person at a time.
Still, it was enough for now.
Once she knew the method, all she had to do was build up her cultivation and gradually widen its range.
More important than that, though, was Baek Sang-ah’s realm.
She had first opened her consciousness and reached the early stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm.
Then she learned to keep her consciousness open at all times and advanced to the middle stage.
And finally—
By freely and fully controlling her consciousness, she had reached the late stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm.
“As expected, cultivators at the Golden Core stage really are different. I’ve never even heard of a cultivator who could do something like that.”
“I did it. Me.”
From late-stage Foundation Establishment onward, it was no longer simply a matter of seeing the flow of all things and the consciousness of others.
As Baek Sang-ah slowly moved her eyes and looked at Dam So-dam, a round, ocher light began to shimmer at the lower part of her abdomen.
What you’re seeing now is a spiritual root. Ordinary cultivators in Foundation Establishment cannot see it. But Great Dae-seon’s technique is special.
She had become able to sense the other person’s constitution.
In particular, because ocher belonged to the element of earth among the five elements, she could tell that Dam So-dam’s spiritual root was naturally imbued with earth qi.
There was something else that caught Baek Sang-ah’s eye as well.
“You’ve gotten stronger. You.”
“You can tell that too?”
The spiritual energy within Dam So-dam had become denser than before.
More than that, the earth qi rising from the ground was being drawn toward her spiritual root, little by little.
“I noticed. Just now.”
“Actually, the sect leader has been overseeing my cultivation personally lately. It’s a little different from my usual training, but the effects are definitely real.”
“You look tired.”
At Baek Sang-ah’s words, Dam So-dam moved her lips as if to object, then finally gave a strained little smile and nodded.
“Huh? You’re worried about me? You seem blunt, sis, but you’re secretly really warm-hearted.”
“That much?”
“Yes. That’s why I like you even more.”
Baek Sang-ah tilted her head and quietly studied Dam So-dam.
Her gaze was still indifferent, but something unknown stirred deep in its depths.
“Mm. I’m the top Baek Sang-ah, after all. So of course I’m good.”
“That’s not what I meant, but anyway, who among cultivators has it easy? If I can only be of help to the Ungyu Sect, I can endure anything.”
Baek Sang-ah looked at Dam So-dam in silence for a while, then slowly nodded.
“You’re on the verge of Foundation Establishment Realm. It’s still too early to say for certain, but you may be undergoing your foundation rites before long.”
“Foundation Establishment…”
“Yes. I heard that once you ascend to Foundation Establishment, you become completely different from before.”
“I see.”
Dam So-dam lowered her eyelids for a moment, then opened them again. Her eyes were filled with unshakable resolve.
“I’m going to reach Foundation Establishment as quickly as possible and repay the sect leader. And you too, sis.”
Baek Sang-ah said nothing in response. For a long while, she simply remained still.
Her tail brushed slowly across the floorboards, making a faint whispering sound.
She opened her mouth as if to speak, blinked once or twice, and finally gave a very short answer.
“Got it.”
At those words, Dam So-dam seemed to relax instead and let out a tiny laugh.
That was enough.
……
……
……
Now Baek Sang-ah also needed to prepare for her own rise to Foundation Establishment.
The blue strand of consciousness she had seen in the Spirit Stone Cave still had not left her mind.
What on earth was it? What did it look like? That curiosity kept tickling at her body.
You too are now in the late stage of Foundation Establishment, so it’s time to prepare for the properties of the five elements.
‘Is that how it is?’
Yes. That is why Great Dae-seon left behind the second cornerstone of Great Void Divine Method: to harmonize your consciousness with nature.
In essence, the five elements came from nature.
To comprehend the principles of the five elements was, in other words, to draw closer to nature itself.
‘How do I do it?’
As you can see with your own eyes, nature contains an essential flow that only cultivators can perceive.
Baek Sang-ah blinked and looked around.
In her sight, countless thin threads were knotted together in endless interweaving patterns.
Some threads unraveled. Some tangled tighter. Sometimes they broke without any apparent reason.
Yet they never truly disappeared.
That was the weave of all things.
Now that you can control your consciousness as you wish, it should not be difficult to harmonize it with the flow of nature.
‘How do I do it?’
First, you must grow close to nature. Water is already too close to you, so why not make friends with the earth?
That was the cultivation late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators had to accomplish: before ascending to Foundation Establishment, they had to accept the principles of the five elements.
Baek Sang-ah heard that and pretended to think it over for a moment, then abruptly straightened her plump tail.
“I thought of a good place.”
A good place?
Baek Sang-ah nodded.
“There’s earth there. And water too. And it’s dark.”
Surely not….
“Spirit Stone Cave.”
Saying that, she dusted herself off and stood up.
Her long tail swished once behind her like a wave.
And so Baek Sang-ah headed for the cave.
“No way, Senior Baek. What brings you here?”
As always, Spirit Stone Cave was noisy.
Clang, clang—the sound of pickaxes striking stone. Rangi growling “grr” as she threatened the mole beasts. The shouts of the Ungyu Sect disciples. Even Hyeongeuk, egging them on like he was imitating Rangi.
It was probably the noisiest place in all of Spirit Stone Cave.
“I’m cultivating.”
“Cultivating?”
“A cultivation for getting closer to the earth.”
“I-I see?”
The Ungyu disciple who had rushed up to her the moment he spotted Baek Sang-ah had a slight tremor in his pupils.
Her words were simple, as always, but there was an odd weight in them.
“Don’t need to. Worry.”
To the disciple, it sounded very much like: Don’t interfere with me.
“Understood.”
So he obediently stepped back.
He returned to the area where he worked alone and began digging out spirit stones with the earth technique, while Baek Sang-ah sniffed at the air inside the cave.
The cave, which had once been filled with the stench of seawater, was now thick with the sweat of cultivators.
Amid that, the damp scent of earth stirred Baek Sang-ah’s instincts.
“I can feel the earth’s qi well.”
Baek Sang-ah glanced sidelong at the mole spirits.
With claws hardened like steel, they were digging the ground with delicate precision to extract spirit stones.
Their speed was faster than the cultivators’ pickaxes, and they were more precise as well, making them look astonishingly efficient.
“They said all I had to do was get closer to nature.”
Baek Sang-ah naturally stepped in among the mole beasts.
After watching their movements for a long while, she brought her fingers together, then spread her palm wide.
She straightened her tail, braced herself, and, imitating the moles, shot her hand toward the rock.
Then—
Clang.
With a clear note, the surface of the stone gave a quiet tremor.
That sound was not merely the noise of a blow.
Riding the sound, the grain of the earth shimmered and rippled outward like waves, spreading deep into the ground.
The cultivators watching Baek Sang-ah froze, forgetting even to swing their pickaxes as they stared at her.
The moles are close to the earth, so if I act like a mole, I should get closer to the earth too.
Truly a thought worthy of you.
The sensation that had begun at her fingertips gradually spread through her entire body.
Through her arms, her shoulders, her spine, and all the way to the tip of her tail.
Then something astonishing happened.
Baek Sang-ah began excavating the stone faster than the mole beasts themselves, pulling out the spirit stones hidden within.
It was partly thanks to her beastlike physical strength and partly thanks to her consciousness’s ability to feel the flow of all things.
Her unrestrained movements sent stone fragments flying in all directions.
Rangi watched her in astonishment, then urged the mole beasts on as if asking whether they couldn’t go faster.
The mole beasts, with their lives on the line, flinched at Rangi’s rumbling growl and picked up their pace.
The Ungyu Sect disciples could not afford to lose here.
They might not be able to beat a Golden Core beast-race cultivator, but at the very least, they could not afford to be outdone by a bunch of mole spirits.
Hyeongeuk’s pride would not permit it.
As a result, an unspoken contest began.
“And you call yourselves the future of the Ungyu Sect? Faster!”
“Grrr, rrrr!”
“Huh? Me too? G-gwoaaah?”
The muscles in the Ungyu Sect disciples’ forearms bulged and tightened in repeated waves.
Veins rose and vanished over the backs of their hands.
The mole beasts hammered at the stone with their claws so furiously it looked as though they might build houses inside the cave itself, widening the passages with clang, clang, clang.
In the language of the twenty-first century where Baek Sang-ah had once lived, it was a ludicrous chicken game.
The Ungyu Sect disciples and the mole spirits were both exhausted, yet neither side could stop because they kept glancing at the other.
And so one day passed, then ten.
Ten days became three ten-day cycles, and ninety days slipped by.
By about the hundredth day, everyone except Baek Sang-ah was worn out.
They had dug out countless spirit stones, but there were still countless more left to dig.
As a result—
“At this rate, we’re going to die first!”
Seven disciples with pickaxes gathered before Hyeongeuk and raised their tools high.
Hyeongeuk staggered back, flailing his hands as if he had never expected this to happen.
“And why is senior brother not digging at all, while telling us to work faster?”
“No, I—”
Sweat began to run down Hyeongeuk’s forehead.
When the Ungyu Sect first entered the cave, they had looked down on as weak and scrawny, hardly martial artists at all.
And now?
After nearly one hundred and twenty days of nonstop pickaxe work, their bodies had packed on muscle and swelled in size.
If you threw them into the martial world, even martial artists would believe they were one of their own; if you dropped them in a village, the locals would have mistaken them for bandits and fled.
So of course Hyeongeuk, who had done nothing but issue orders while his own body remained soft, was flustered.
“At the very least, we need rest days.”
“You fools, the first principle a cultivator must pursue is cultivation. This too is cultivation….”
Bang!
One junior disciple slammed his pickaxe into the ground, and the earth split open on the spot.
Hyeongeuk’s eyes trembled violently at the sight.
“F-first, let’s put those down and talk. Aren’t we all family here? All from the same sect, all sharing the same fate….”
“Senior brother, we’ve said it over and over—we need days off. The one who didn’t listen was you.”
But the resentment over the grueling labor was not limited to the Ungyu Sect disciples.
The mole spirits, who had been living well on their own until they were suddenly dragged into this labor camp—no, into this cave, and forced to dig in the dark without even seeing the light—rose up too.
“Freedom from labor is freedom itself.”
One mole spirit, apparently their leader, held up a wooden plank he must have scavenged from somewhere, the words carved into it with a claw.
Of course, if it had only been the mole spirits, Rangi could have suppressed the rebellion easily with a single swipe of her forepaw.
But for reasons no one quite understood, the mole spirit alliance and the Ungyu Sect disciple alliance—who had been competing just yesterday over who could mine spirit stones faster—joined hands as fellow laborers.
Since Baek Sang-ah had repeatedly told Rangi not to harm any Ungyu Sect disciples, the tiger’s eyes trembled as she became restless and uncertain.
The moment those two forces linked hands, Spirit Stone Cave descended into chaos in an instant.
“We have become one in the name of labor!”
“Bring down the oppressors who treat us like slaves and practice true freedom!”
“What does the Ungyu Sect amount to in a place like this? Before the name of labor, everyone must be equal!”
As the disciples’ backlash grew fiercer, one of the mole spirits beside them propped up a wooden sign.
For the Right Not to Work.
For the first time in the lower realm, a labor union of spirits and cultivators was born.