We Can Even Flatten a Mountain Now (2)
Ugh….
The yin energy began seeping into his body, draining away the last remnants of internal power.
Damn, this place is no joke.
Now he understood why ice crystals were born here instead of in the far colder north. Cold and yin energy were similar, but not the same. There might be colder places than this, but places with a stronger concentration of yin energy were rare.
Chung Myung steadied himself and kept forcing his energy outward. His internal power spread like a spiderweb.
His heightened senses sank deeper and deeper into the valley below.
Carefully.
What mattered was not seeing a lot, but seeing accurately.
Finding an ice crystal in a valley steeped in yin energy was like trying to pick out a single grain of sand on a blinding white beach—only a little whiter than the rest.
So it was not something you could do by sweeping blindly through the area.
It has to be here.
And yet Chung Myung’s expression grew darker by the second. No matter how carefully he searched, and searched again, he couldn’t find even a trace of an ice crystal.
If it still wasn’t showing itself after examining such a wide area, then there were only two possibilities.
Either the supply had truly been exhausted and there were no ice crystals left here at all.
Or…
I can’t find it?
His brow twitched.
Putting everything else aside, this was a matter of pride.
Hngh. I really didn’t want to do this.
Chung Myung clicked his tongue. Then he swung open the door that had been keeping the yin energy from flooding fully into him.
Yin energy and cold surged in at once. In the same instant, pure white frost began to spread over his body.
“Whoa….”
“Sasuk, why is he like that? Is something bad about to happen?”
“……L-let’s just watch a little longer for now.”
The Mount Hua disciples all watched Chung Myung with worried faces.
Swish.
Having merged himself with the yin energy, Chung Myung focused every ounce of his attention.
When you stood in a hot place, you couldn’t distinguish between “colder” and “less cold.” Only by placing yourself in a cold place could you perceive those subtle differences.
The sharply refined current of energy searched the surroundings like a blade.
It has to be here!
There was no way a place with this much yin energy could have no ice crystals. If every ice crystal here had disappeared, that would mean even the yin energy itself had dried up.
So it had to be here!
And then, at that moment—
Jolt.
Chung Myung’s body, stretched outward with his energy, gave a slight convulsion.
Within the cold, desolate yin energy that felt like swimming through the deep sea…
a faint thread of clarity brushed against his senses. It was incredibly weak, but…
“Here!”
Chung Myung shot to his feet.
Then he dashed to the side and slammed his fist down into the ground.
Thunk!
“Sasuk! It’s here!”
“You found it?”
“Yeah! It’s here! Dig here!”
Baek Cheon rushed over at once, carrying a pickaxe he had prepared in advance.
“Good! How deep do we need to go?”
“Seems like about thirty jang—ninety meters.”
“Right, thir— What the hell did you just say?”
Thirty jang?
He had said they could flatten a mountain, and now it really sounded like they were going to flatten one.
“……Is there nothing higher up?”
“We’ll have to look.”
“……Then let’s put this on hold for now.”
Chung Myung grinned.
“Quit babbling and start flattening it.”
“…….”
As Baek Cheon stared at Chung Myung with trembling eyes, Yoon Jong, who was standing nearby, shoved past him and stepped forward.
“You mean if we dig here, we’ll find it?”
“Yep.”
“Good! I’ll flatten this place, so you go find the next ice crystal! Ten! We need ten of them!”
Yoon Jong’s eyes gleamed wildly as he started swinging the pickaxe.
Kaang!
The frozen earth, hardened to a steel-like density, refused to yield easily even to a pickaxe reinforced with internal power.
But if it didn’t work once, hit it twice. If twice wasn’t enough, then smash it ten times.
Kaang! Kaang!
The ground struck by the pickaxe began to crack and fly apart like fragments of iron.
“Senior Brother! I’ll help too!”
Jo Gul also tightened his grip on his iron pickaxe and began digging alongside Yoon Jong.
Kaang! Ka-aang!
In no time, the two of them had dug down to their waists and were swinging their pickaxes with the unhinged intensity of madmen.
Jo Gul swore continuously as he worked.
“Aaaagh! Dammit!”
“Don’t straighten your back! I said work! Swing the pickaxe a hundred times, then look up once!”
“S-Senior Brother, this is way harder than I thought….”
“Shut up and flatten it!”
Jo Gul flinched and looked at Yoon Jong.
He’s gone mad.
This guy always got weirdly intense about things every now and then.
That was when—
“Amitabha. Yoon Jong benefactor, Jo Gul benefactor. Please stop for a moment.”
“……Huh?”
Hye Yeon approached them with a stiff face.
“Monk?”
“Please come out for a moment.”
“…….”
Without complaint, the two of them climbed out of the pit. If it had been Chung Myung, they might have doubted his motives, but Hye Yeon would never waste effort on something useless.
Hye Yeon said with a grave expression, “At this rate, even if you dig for ten days, you still won’t reach the ice crystal.”
“Then….”
“Amitabha.”
Hye Yeon closed his eyes and recited the Buddha’s name, then suddenly snapped them open. A brilliant blue light flashed in his gaze, wholly unlike that of a Buddhist monk.
“If the ground is as hard as iron!”
Wooooooong!
A golden radiance began surging from his body.
“Then simply smash the iron too! Oooooooh!”
Hye Yeon’s right arm was dyed in dazzling gold light. The Mount Hua disciples, who had seen this before, opened their mouths wide in reflexive shock.
“Arhat Fist?!”
Kwaaaaaaaaaaang!
The pride of Shaolin, a martial art hailed as one of the greatest in the world. Arhat Fist, one of the Seventy-Two Supreme Arts of Shaolin, slammed into the frozen earth.
Kwarurururururuung!
The world seemed to shake with an earthquake as the ground shattered into pieces and exploded upward.
As for its power, what more was there to say…
“……He’s using that to dig.”
“If Shaolin’s abbot saw this, he’d probably grab the back of his neck.”
“But the effect is amazing.”
Though Hye Yeon could not compare to the Mount Hua disciples when it came to cutting and slicing, when it came to breaking and smashing, there was no comparison at all.
His monstrous internal power and overwhelming force crushed the iron-hard earth like tofu.
“Dig it out!”
“Go!”
Baek Cheon and the other disciples rushed into the pit, each with a shovel in hand. They quickly scooped out the shattered dirt and stones, then scrambled back out again.
“Ooooooh!”
Kwaaaaaaaaaang!
Hye Yeon launched Arhat Fist again. At the same time, the valley trembled.
“……What exactly is he doing?”
“Th-the heavens!”
The laborers, aghast, stared at the scene with trembling eyes.
They were martial artists too, but they had never in their lives seen anyone dig a hole like that.
“J-just what kind of monk is he, that with a single flash the earth crumbles like that? Don’t tell me he’s from Shaolin?”
“How strong does your internal power have to be…?”
Song Won, who stood nearby watching, was equally stunned.
Are all the younger talents in Central Plains like this?
He had heard that the martial arts of Central Plains were extraordinary. But he had also been told that the North Sea was no less formidable. Yet what now unfolded before his eyes was not merely impressive—it was shocking.
If the monk was that strong, then just how strong was the Mount Hua Divine Dragon standing over there with his hands behind his back?
“Amitabha!”
Each time Hye Yeon recited the Buddha’s name, his eyes seemed to spit fire.
“Ooooooooh!”
Wielding his fist wherever he pleased and obliterating the ground, his figure was truly wondrous.
But the Mount Hua disciples felt something entirely different when they looked at him.
“Doesn’t the monk look like he’s having the time of his life?”
“……He must’ve had a lot bottled up.”
“I think I understand why Hye Yeon monk is punching the way he is.”
Back at the martial arts tournament, Hye Yeon’s fist had been serenity itself. Steady. Balanced. The fist of Shaolin. The fist of a Buddhist monk, in the truest sense.
But now…
Kwaaaaaaaaaang!
“He’s gone feral.”
“……His personality’s completely ruined.”
They stared wistfully at the stones and clods of earth flying through the air, then quietly wiped tears from their eyes. Shared suffering. Was there anyone else here who could understand Hye Yeon’s feelings better than they did?
So the disciples all worked together in unison, helping Hye Yeon dig the earth apart.
Everyone watched the sight with awe, but not everyone could simply be amazed by it.
“E-Elder.”
The North Sea martial artist in charge of the prisoners called out to Bang Pyo with a trembling voice. Bang Pyo had been staring blankly at the scene, but at the sound he jerked and turned his head.
The North Sea martial artist asked cautiously, “Is this all right?”
“……Cough. It is impressive.”
Though the path of martial arts was different, Hye Yeon’s internal power and the lofty level of his fist still left even him, an elder of the Ice Palace, in disarray.
“But it’s meaningless.”
Bang Pyo shook his head firmly.
“If merely digging quickly meant you could find ice crystals, then who would have suffered this much? That is nothing more than a waste of energy. Of course, if they repeated that kind of stunt many times, their chances of finding one would rise a little—but they’re only human. They can’t keep this up forever.”
“Ah.”
“And if they dig like that, even if there are ice crystals here, they’ll be crushed to dust.”
“That’s true.”
“Leave them be. They’ll soon pay dearly for the nonsense they’re pulling.”
Bang Pyo finished speaking with deliberate calm, then secretly swallowed dryly.
Right. There’s no way they’ll find it.
Something even he, who had lived his whole life in the North Sea, could not do—there was no way those Central Plains bastards could pull it off now. No, they shouldn’t be able to.
But unfortunately for him, things did not go the way he wanted.
“Stop! That’s enough!”
At Chung Myung’s bark, the Mount Hua disciples, now covered in dirt, all snapped their heads up.
“Why? It feels like we should keep digging.”
“You want to waste all the ice crystals?”
Chung Myung leaped down into the deep pit. Once he landed, he narrowed his eyes like a cat and slowly inspected the surroundings.
“Hmm.”
He smelled something. Something did…
Clang!
Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword slid from Chung Myung’s waist. As that razor-sharp blade swept through the air, the ground, hard as iron, split open like dried clay.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
He cut the earth into a neat square, then tore out the section of stone he had sliced free in one piece.
“Hngh!”
The Mount Hua disciples hurried over in a cluster at the sight.
“Is it there? Is that the ice crystal?”
“I think I can feel cold air.”
“……It’s always cold here.”
“Ah, right.”
Surrounded by the others, Chung Myung set the torn-out slab of rock on the ground. Then, very carefully and very slowly, he broke it apart with both hands.
Rustle, rustle.
Hard stone fell away like a pile of parched dirt. He peeled away the layers of rock with that cautious touch again and again.
At last…
“Oh!”
“There’s something inside!”
The ice crystal hidden within the rock finally revealed itself completely.
A white jewel, no bigger than a child’s palm, shimmered with a faint blue glow.
“It’s an ice crystal!”
“We found it!”
“My God, it really was here?”
The Mount Hua disciples looked at Chung Myung in disbelief. They had never imagined he’d actually find it so quickly.
Chung Myung stuffed the ice crystal into his sleeve with a smug expression.
“Ahem!”
“Wow! Chung Myung!”
“That’s really incredible. How on earth did you find it?”
“He really does pull off impossible nonsense once in a while, doesn’t he?”
At the flood of praise, the corner of Chung Myung’s mouth twitched. He tried to suppress it, but it shook so badly it looked like he was vibrating.
“K-Khmm. What, it’s nothing special. This much is easy.”
“Let’s go back up first.”
The Mount Hua disciples climbed the pit wall with bright faces.
Baek Cheon laughed as he patted Chung Myung on the shoulder.
“You’re useful for once.”
“……Dong-ryong, you’ve grown a lot?”
“I was always taller than you.”
“Then we need to find the next ice crystal! Where is it? Where do we dig?”
“Ah… there’s a bit of a problem with that.”
“Don’t worry! We can flatten anything!”
“Really?”
Chung Myung smiled sweetly and pointed over to the side.
“There.”
“Huh? Where?”
“There.”
“…….”
Baek Cheon’s gaze followed Chung Myung’s fingertip. Before long, it landed on the cliff that formed the valley wall.
“……There?”
“Yep. We’ll probably need to dig about fifty jang.”
“…….”
“For the record, you can’t do it the same way there. If you bash at it and bring the cliff down, not even an immortal could survive.”
“……Then how are we supposed to do it?”
“Why’re you asking me like that?”
Chung Myung smiled brightly.
“You’ll have to dig carefully. One shovel at a time.”
“…….”
“Get started. We’ll finish it today.”
At Chung Myung’s cheery words, Baek Cheon smiled faintly.
Somehow this felt too easy.
Of course.
……Damn it.
“Enough wasting time, let’s start!”
Watching Yoon Jong charge toward the cliff with a shovel in hand, Baek Cheon let out a sigh before he could stop himself.
“Rather die than endure this.”
As he watched the Mount Hua disciples trudge off, the Ice Palace elder Bang Pyo was beside himself. Then, right by his ear, a voice came scraping across his nerves.
“What are you doing?”
He jerked in surprise and turned around, only to see Chung Myung grinning at him.
“If you’re going to prepare meat and liquor for all the people here, you’d better start moving now.”
“…….”
You’re actually betting with me? You want to die?
Hee hee hee hee hee.