Baal's Inheritance

Yet every time spear met sword, he grew stronger at a staggering pace.

In the blink of an eye he caught up, then surpassed him, and at last kindled Sword Qi of his own.

…Another genius, then.

The same breed as every genius who had ever broken him.

Once again, someone had appeared who would mock all his effort.

Years of grinding meant nothing; a genius vaulted past it in a single moment. No matter how desperately he clawed upward, they brushed against realms he could never reach as if it were a joke. Worse, they found it dull—they could never understand why ordinary talent, or dull talent, moved so slowly. The sorrow of the one left behind, of wanting to follow and being unable to—geniuses never knew that feeling.

This time would be no different.

He would sneer and point a finger, just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like the rest.

Show me.

Show me your limit.

But this one was different from every other genius.

He kept receiving Valté’s spear.

He did not overwhelm him, nor did he toy with him. He simply savored pure skill—the spear arts Valté had honed and polished over years.

…Fine. I’ll show you.

Awareness bloomed, and with it, stubborn pride. He did not want to lose. He refused to let anyone decide his limit for him.

He poured everything into a relentless chain of strikes. He swung until the hand gripping the spear blistered and the flesh tore free.

And the man opened a path so that Valté’s spear could fly farther still. He never grew bored, never clicked his tongue—he watched the whole of it with grave seriousness, as if he were a master himself.

And so, when everything had been burned away—

Ah…

Before he knew it, Outer Qi had settled over his spear.

He could not believe it. Yet the vivid feel of that energy was no illusion. A realm he had never been able to touch, no matter how hard he tried.

Thump.

Someone stepped close and clapped him once on the shoulder.

It was him.

The genius—and the one who had taught him. The benefactor who had pulled him free from the prison of his own unconscious.

Ah.

At the same time, Valté’s body slowly gave way. His whole frame felt heavy as iron. His eyes closed of their own accord. Yet a smile touched his lips—because the sense of release was something he had not felt in far too long.

How long had it been since he last knew this feeling? He could no longer remember.

So this is what it feels like… to be acknowledged by someone.

Perhaps that was all he had ever wanted. That single word—that his effort had not been wrong—might have been the thing he needed most.

You worked hard.

You did well…

Valté bowed his head toward the unseen benefactor.

His entire body screamed.

I overlooked that Saintess Sea isn’t here.

He had driven his body like a madman without any healing—of course it would. It was a miracle he hadn’t blacked out.

But from here on, he would have to climb alone.

Above this is the Celestial Realm.

The part of the mountain only those who had stepped into the domain of Outer Qi could ascend. They called it the Celestial Realm. And once you reached it, training proficiency past level 20 became a little easier.

I left the fallen spearman behind and climbed on.

There’s a gaze following me.

I had known since I left the Chaos Trainee zone that something was trailing me. No hostility for now—but the gaze itself was anything but ordinary. The way it made no attempt to hide suggested the watcher was interested in me as a person.

No hostility, but plenty of fighting spirit. They want to fight, yet they’re holding back. Waiting for me to get stronger?

High odds that was it. I didn’t particularly care. They wouldn’t be able to follow me where I was going anyway.

Just as I thought.

My destination was the Celestial Realm—and yet not the Celestial Realm. A hidden path that existed within it.

I threw myself off the cliff.

“Th-that—!”

A practitioner cried out in shock. The man who had just reached the Celestial Realm had suddenly hurled himself off the cliff. They rushed to the edge and looked down—but the man was gone without a trace.

“L-Lady Aria!”

The problem was that Aria had leapt after him. Yet in the next moment she was already standing beside the practitioner again. That was no surprise. This was the Celestial Realm—what you saw was never the whole of it.

“…Jumping should only bring you right back here. So where did he disappear to?”

“…”

Aria was wondering the same thing. In the Celestial Realm, no path existed outside the prescribed ones. Stray from the set route, and you were returned. Yet the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠man who had leapt from the cliff had vanished—while Aria, leaping from the same place, had come back.

Where did he go?

A genius like herself. She had thought she had finally found the one person in this lonely world who might understand her. But he was still weak. Brilliant talent, yes—yet still growing. He needed to grow stronger as he climbed the mountain. She had intended to face him once he reached ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the summit and was somewhat complete. Only then, she had been certain, would her own skill—stagnant for a full year—take a true step forward.

And then he was gone. Like a ghost.

…What was this strange sense of loss?

He’ll come back.

Anyone of her kind would inevitably want to conquer the peak. He would not quit halfway. So when they met again, she would not let him slip away.

Aria glanced once more down the cliff, then turned toward the summit.

When I opened my eyes, I was in a temple.

The restrictions really are gone.

Even more surprising: the constraints I had set while climbing the Mountain of the Cultivator had vanished. My vision was clear, and my whole body felt light enough to fly. Was it because this temple stood higher than the mountain itself?

There has to be a reason the restrictions were removed.

Still, I could not afford to relax. I slowly surveyed my surroundings. The place was ancient—worn and corroded in places—but the remaining symbols of the temple told me exactly what this was.

This is Baal’s temple.

Carvings of a black goat. Without a doubt, Baal—one of the Four Calamities. But how could the Temple of Training also be Baal’s temple?

Either a place Baal trained, or something left behind for those who came after.

It had never been built for human training in the first place. Without the Hidden Trait Mutation, intrusion would have been impossible. Baal had built this place for his own training—I was certain of it. And I had a reason for that certainty.

I had never seen one of that size before.

…The only creature that would prepare something like this and call it “training” was Baal of the Four Calamities, no matter how I looked at it.

Use Curse and Outer Qi together, strike a thousand times, and chip away a single millimeter. To shatter that Gicheonseok would take hundreds of millions of blows. Alone, even years would not be enough. A man might spend his entire life breaking that one rock.

And yet it was unmistakably tempting.

Outer Qi proficiency!

Outer Qi only manifested past level 20. Raising its proficiency was, in essence, the same as raising sword proficiency—because from 20 onward, everything was the domain of Sword Qi alone.

And if I destroy it, I get a massive amount of proficiency experience.

I didn’t know how massive—but if Baal had left it, the amount would not be small.

Destroying it alone was impossible. But if I wasn’t alone?

Crunch.

I swallowed a Corpse Crow core. My body swelled and shifted form. And then—

Caw! Caw!

Caaaaaw!

Over a hundred Corpse Crows erupted into existence in an instant.

A thousand strikes alone would take forever. A hundred-odd Corpse Crows striking at once would slash that time to a fraction—not merely a hundred times faster, but far more. The ultimate evolution through the Baal Helmet was paying off here. The summoned Corpse Crows were curse-type by nature, and they could mimic skills I used. Outer Qi was no exception—in the game, Sword Qi had been classified as a skill of its own.

This was practically arranged for me.

A smile rose unbidden. To set Outer Qi training up like this… the thinking of a monster once called a Calamity truly was different. I almost felt as if Baal had left it all for me.

Caaaaaw!

A flock of Corpse Crows, each carrying curse and a faint thread of Outer Qi, began to peck at the boulder.

Caw!

Caaaaaw!

Caaaaaaaaaw!

As time passed, the Corpse Crows multiplied exponentially. Already more than two hundred wheeled through the air. And the more of them there were, the faster cracks spread across the Gicheonseok.

CRACK!

Under the ceaseless assault of curse-laden beaks, fissures raced through the Cursed Gicheonseok. Then—

BOOM!

Before long, the Cursed Gicheonseok split cleanly in two.

In that instant—

“….”

For a moment the rewards so far beyond expectation left me speechless. The vast proficiency experience Baal had left behind had rocketed my Sword Proficiency straight to level 25. Even I had never experienced growth this fast. No—calling it “ultra-fast” was not enough. This was bug-level growth.

One rock took me from 20 to 25. Who would believe that?

I had lived it and still barely believed it; anyone else would call it a lie. A single hard boulder. What some people would spend a lifetime of grinding and polishing to achieve, I had crossed in an instant.

The Constellations of the Hall must be just as stunned.

How shocking must it have been for every Constellation in the Hall of One Hundred Constellations to fix their attention on me again? After seventeen of them had been cut down, they had been reluctant to look my way—yet growth this broken was impossible to ignore.

Proficiency experience as a reward… that has never happened before.

Not once. Ordinary “vast experience” had been handed out a few times, but that was level-up experience—completely different from proficiency experience. So when I first read the Gicheonseok’s description, I had tilted my head a little.

Baal left it himself… Not a reward. An inheritance.

Perhaps the proficiency experience sealed in the Cursed Gicheonseok was never meant as a prize. Perhaps Baal had left his own proficiency behind so a successor could inherit it. In that case, I was an uninvited guest.

Baal Talisman.

Baal had been a tree that gave without stinting. He had arranged things so that breaking the Cursed Gicheonseok automatically yielded the Baal Talisman as well. I understood the intent. Baal had wanted his successor to smash the stone after every kind of hellish labor, then walk away with both the proficiency experience and the talisman. If he had seen the way I broke it, he would have clutched the back of his neck and collapsed.

“Lucky me.”

Lucky, all the same. I had expected a hidden place on the Mountain of the Cultivator—but I had never imagined I would actually find a Baal Talisman here.

From a crack in the rock I took the faintly glowing essence. A form like a round bead. Something that felt like a black pearl—that was the Baal Talisman.

Exquisitely luminous.

I let out a quiet breath of admiration.