The Horse of a Man From an Old Story (5)
The thousand-year manticore’s inner core was rough and knotted, like the heart of some colossal beast.
For a moment, Geum-ryong felt a surge of impatience, as if he ought to seize that immense thing at once. But the feeling passed almost immediately.
The instant his hot breath, infused with his internal energy, touched it, the core dissolved into a single draught of essence and slid down Seok Geum-ryong’s esophagus.
“...!!”
It was Seok Geum-ryong’s first time in either life taking the inner core of a spirit beast.
That experience alone was new to him, even counting all the years of his former life.
Was that why?
The searing pain was so violent it felt as though his throat itself had caught fire, and Geum-ryong nearly spat it back out on reflex.
‘Damn it!’
What startled him even more was that it was not merely hot; it was agonizing, and the dreadful sense that his entire body’s balance was collapsing beneath him made fear creep up his spine.
It was only natural that, having never taken an inner core before, such thoughts arose.
‘Did I do something wrong?’
No matter how extraordinary the thousand-year manticore’s core was, he should probably have refined it first, and yet at that very moment...
The thousand-year manticore’s core, which had been inflicting phantom pain so intense that even a master at the Peak Realm would writhe, finally met the dense, vast internal energy that belonged to the Golden Young Master’s body, an internal energy far beyond what his age suggested.
Rustle...
Like a great lump slowly melting in molten lava, the thousand-year manticore’s core began to dissolve through Seok Geum-ryong’s entire body, slowly and steadily.
Once the tremendous agony had passed, Geum-ryong was certain.
‘No. Nothing was wrong. It was just... the thousand-year manticore’s core was simply too immense.’
Even though its form had become a single draught of essence upon meeting his hot breath and internal energy, its weight and significance had not vanished.
He had to digest it completely, and so he suffered terribly, but he understood well enough.
‘The thousand-year manticore’s core has been completely melted down!’
How much time had passed?
It was even more astonishing that it had taken less time than expected to melt the entire massive core within his body.
‘Now that I’ve melted the core, the next step is...’
Still staggering from the lingering heat and that dizzying pain, Geum-ryong forced himself upright and reached out.
What his hand moved toward was, astonishingly, the great pool of blood left behind by the thousand-year manticore, a pool of blood as poisonous as any virulent toxin.
Swish.
Seok Geum-ryong scooped up a handful of that vile blood, blood so deadly that ordinary men would faint merely by approaching it.
Without hesitation, he poured it straight into his mouth.
In truth, it was no different from suicide.
To be blunt, even the greatest expert in the world would die if he drank the thousand-year manticore’s blood without any protection.
He would die poisoned, too, left with a horrific, ruined visage.
And yet the reason Geum-ryong dared to take it himself was simple.
He had already completely melted the thousand-year manticore’s core throughout his body, so the venom of the thousand-year serpent beast was nothing more than a branch growing from that root.
‘I can do this! No, I have to do this!’
If one took both the core and the poison together, any martial artist would attain what they dreamed of even in sleep: immunity to all poison.
In the martial world, poison and concealed weapons were among the most unexpected and terrifying tools, and at the very least, he could secure complete freedom from one of them.
Hoo...
Geum-ryong steadied his breathing and fought against the hot, foul poison spreading through him: the blood poison of the thousand-year manticore.
Sometimes he struggled violently, sometimes he let himself ride the surge of the current, but one thing remained clear: it was truly vile.
Thud, thud-thud-thud.
Before long, he felt a vast wave rising to crush his entire body.
That sensation, like a tide, was so intense it could not even be compared to the earlier searing pain.
And that was not all.
Drip, drip.
By then, when he looked over himself, sweat like water was pouring from his body in a mad rush.
It was enough to make him wonder whether he would dry out completely and die, shriveled into a husk.
What came next was even more shocking.
Rustle!
Unbelievably, the Golden Young Master’s thick hair began to fall out in handfuls, and Geum-ryong was so stunned he nearly lost his composure and leapt to his feet.
Hair loss was only the beginning.
Rustle, rustle-rustle!
Starting with his hair, then his eyebrows, then even the soft down of his beard, and finally every strand of hair on his body, everything came loose and drifted away like autumn leaves.
For a moment he wondered if he had taken in too much poison and felt a pang of regret.
Then his skin began to peel away, as if he were shedding his very flesh like a snake.
If Geum-ryong had been an ordinary man without prior knowledge, he might well have panicked and missed this fortuitous chance.
‘So that’s it!’
But Geum-ryong was different.
Though he had never experienced it in his former life, he knew this stage, this opportunity, from the heroes in countless tales and from masters he had once looked up to.
He was certain he was undergoing Bone-Shedding and Flesh-Exchange.
A body that returned to a state of complete purity, untouched by the grime of the world, like a newborn child.
As one lived in the world, the body inevitably accumulated toxins and impurities; when they were expelled and gentle energy was absorbed anew, the skin had to peel and body hair had to fall away.
Did that mean he would remain bald forever, with his skin torn away?
No, it did not.
Rustle...
After some time passed, Geum-ryong’s proud, luxuriant hair was restored as if nothing had happened, and even his skin, smooth as carved jade, had become far better than before, seeming to radiate brilliance even when he stood still.
Whoosh...
Feeling the immense energy rising from his body like a heat haze, Geum-ryong could not help but be astonished once more.
Bone-Shedding and Flesh-Exchange was not some miracle that came from merely swallowing a decent elixir.
The reason Geum-ryong had reached it so easily was the result of overcoming both the core and the poison.
‘My internal energy has grown enormously as a martial artist.’
Even before this, Geum-ryong’s internal energy had already been deeper and denser than that of his peers, and even than that of masters at the same level.
But now, he possessed internal energy that would not be out of place even compared to a master of the Super Peak Realm, or even someone who had reached the Ascension Realm.
That was only natural. Through the treatment of Moon Spirit Swordswoman Im So-gun, Geum-ryong had already gained an opportunity beyond opportunity and seen his internal energy rise sharply, and now he had absorbed the inner core of the greatest spirit beast in history, the thousand-year manticore, with not a shred of waste. It would have been strange if he had not advanced.
As one example:
Samadhi True Fire!
The refined skill that could be achieved only when internal energy reached the Super Peak Realm or beyond, a marvelous art in which one could kindle flame with internal energy alone.
Crackle!
And yet Geum-ryong, still only at the Peak Realm, was freely summoning Samadhi True Fire, something even experts above the Super Peak Realm would find difficult to handle.
What did that mean?
‘Now, there will be fewer than twenty people in the world who can challenge me with internal energy alone. No, maybe not even ten.’
At the very least, it meant his internal energy alone had reached a level worthy of discussion among the Ten Great Experts of the world.
It was only because Geum-ryong made it look so easy that it seemed ordinary; in truth, this was no small matter.
The martial world had effectively declared that no one below the Super Peak Realm could possibly use Samadhi True Fire. Yet now Geum-ryong was displaying a miracle that denied that very definition.
“Ha! Hahahaha!”
Watching the beautiful flames bloom across each of his five fingers, Geum-ryong finally looked his age.
And yet, in stark contrast to that innocent smile, at the age of fourteen he had already seized internal energy on the level of a transcendent being.
‘No need to use a flint anymore, I suppose.’
Geum-ryong burned away a flint, an essential tool for any martial artist or merchant, in the blink of an eye with the fierce blaze of Samadhi True Fire.
Now that his internal energy had reached the level of the Ascension Realm, such a thing was no longer necessary.
“Let’s see...”
He had tested his internal energy. Now it was time to test his immunity to all poison.
Just then, in the damp North Stone Mountain, he spotted several poisonous insects, among them a black stone scorpion, the Blackstone Scorpion, whose poison was the most vicious of them all.
Swish.
Its tail carried a deadly toxin, and even martial experts who were stung by a Blackstone Scorpion would stagger at death’s door for a day or two, which was why everyone feared it as the most poisonous of poisonous creatures.
Fwoosh!
The moment Geum-ryong touched the Blackstone Scorpion with bare hands, the great scorpion swung its tail as if waiting for this exact moment and stabbed him.
If it had been the Geum-ryong of before, he would have felt a dizzying wave of nausea at once and sealed off every acupoint and meridian to prevent the poison from spreading. But now it was different.
“Oh, that’s refreshing.”
The Blackstone Scorpion’s extreme venom was enough to kill a person outright.
And yet, even after being stung by it, Geum-ryong did not become poisoned; instead, he looked delighted, like an old villager praising the refreshing sting of a bee.
Drip.
It was not Geum-ryong who died from poison.
Rather, the Blackstone Scorpion that had injected the toxin was overwhelmed by it, and the poison flowing within Geum-ryong’s body from the thousand-year manticore reversed course, invading the scorpion and instantly turning it into a handful of toxic filth.
“My God...!!”
Geum-ryong stared blankly, at a loss, at this rarely seen spectacle.
He had now attained complete immunity to every poison under heaven, and on top of that, at his will, he could use his own blood as freely as the thousand-year manticore’s venom.
‘This is no ordinary thing. I’ve gained a strength no one else knows about, a weapon all my own.’
Suppose Geum-ryong were to meet a master far stronger than himself under unavoidable circumstances.
Just as he was about to die from a slash to the body, what if a tiny drop of blood he released penetrated that master’s flesh?
“I’d guess he’d collapse outright, never even understanding why he was subdued and killed.”
Unless the opponent was a master of poison arts or a transcendent being with broad knowledge, an ordinary expert would meet a bitter end without even knowing what killed him.
Seok Geum-ryong had taken the thousand-year manticore’s blood and core, undergone Bone-Shedding and Flesh-Exchange, and achieved immunity to all poison.
Swish.
He looked at himself through the small mirror he always carried.
Was it because he had undergone one round of Bone-Shedding and Flesh-Exchange, achieved immunity to all poison, and experienced things he had never managed even in his former life?
‘Even if I look like a young boy, there’s a great hero’s temperament beneath it all, one fit to pacify the world!’
The current Geum-ryong did not seem immature, even though he was still young.
It would not be an exaggeration to say he was the complete form of a boy’s dream, a young man’s daring, and a middle-aged man’s seasoned judgment all at once.
Still, it was too soon to be satisfied.
“The bones, hides, and scales left behind by the thousand-year manticore are treasures of the rarest kind in all the world.”
Geum-ryong carefully dismantled the thousand-year manticore from head to tail and gathered every usable part.
There was no helping it: the manticore’s bones were exceedingly hard yet flexible, making them top-grade material for forging famous swords.
Its hide and scales could be used to create the toughest and strongest armor in the world, and its blood and flesh could be turned, by an apothecary’s hand, into precious pills and even Byedoju, or poison-avoidance pearls, rare treasures that revealed and warded off poison.