Gaining a Dao Companion
At the very moment the things spilling from the Moth-Eater’s pouch were changing, little by little, from the corpses of demonic beasts into something else, a wooden puppet sprang out instead.
At that, Seop Myeong-gyeol, who had finally been given a chance to see the world, immediately spoke to me.
“You said you’d find me a proper body, and yet it took you quite a while. Let me see now—your aptitude is the ordinary Three Spiritual Roots, and your innate fate is... Sad Misfortune Heaven’s Mandate, Fragrant Afterglow Like Dust, and Old Luck Begging for Alms? To be entangled in enmity with heroes, bringing hardship to one another; to be a flower that vanishes before its scent can fade; to be so bound by the past that it is difficult to forge any new destiny at all... You brought back something rather ominous. At least your looks are decent enough that I should be grateful dual cultivation won’t be an issue.”
In truth, Seop Myeong-gyeol had already glimpsed the innate fate I possessed, so it was only natural that she could see the innate fate of Jung Sasuk as well.
And yet the innate fate she rattled off so lightly was not something to dismiss so easily.
Sad Misfortune Heaven’s Mandate—to be entangled in enmity with heroes and bring hardship to one another. If that innate fate, which recalled the relationship between us from the very beginning—almost an enmity in itself—were to exert its influence, then the discord soon to be brought by the two spirit vessels about to appear could also be roughly anticipated.
So I asked her to step aside.
“Senior martial sister, I think I should inspect the problem with the Moth-Eater first. It may take longer than expected, so please go into the eastern cave and rest.”
But when Jung Sasuk heard me, she promptly sat down on a nearby boulder and continued, “I’ll wait. There may be something I can help with.”
It had become difficult to move her with mere words alone now.
Still, at that moment, I recalled a memory from the past and opened my mouth.
“Have you ever heard of acquired fate?”
The acquired fate that clung to my innate fate like shackles. I thought I ought to confirm that as well, for that acquired fate could twist even the formidable power of an innate destiny beyond recognition.
Fortunately, Seop Myeong-gyeol understood that I was speaking to her and answered at once.
“Acquired fate is... Enduring Love’s Flame and Rebellious Fortune, Companion of Fate. It means you carry the flame of an unquenchable affection while sharing a destiny that cannot be defied.”
And at the same time, Jung Sasuk also spoke.
“I’ve heard of it. Together with innate fate, it’s one of the most important elements that determine a person’s life.”
So I looked not at the things spilling from the Moth-Eater, but at her, and spoke again.
“If the acquired fate Jung Sasuk currently bears is Rebellious Fortune, Companion of Fate—sharing a destiny that cannot be defied—then why do you think you have such a fate?”
No one knows one’s own condition better than oneself. I had realized the moment I heard about innate and acquired fate from Seop Myeong-gyeol that it was truly about me.
Fortunately, Jung Sasuk was no different from me in that regard. She understood that the acquired fate I had spoken of, Rebellious Fortune, Companion of Fate, was by no means empty nonsense.
“You’re saying I’m your destiny that cannot be defied... You sure do know how to put it grandly when you ask me to become your dao companion.”
Her words made it seem as if she were opening her heart wide and laying it bare before me.
At that, I almost felt foolish for having doubted her greed only a moment ago.
So I let a faint smile touch my lips and spoke again.
“If I ask you to become my dao companion... will you truly do it?”
Then Seop Myeong-gyeol, who had been silent for a moment, spoke first.
“So now I see—you forgot your promise to find me a body, and all you’ve been thinking about is dual cultivation with that woman?”
And then Jung Sasuk’s voice followed.
“That’s how it should be. When you want to stop liking someone, you should like them even more. Only when that feeling wears out faster will you no longer want to see them when the time comes to let go... I still can’t tell your heart for certain, so I’ll ask again. Do you truly want to become my dao companion?”
Just then, the troubled Moth-Eater finally spat out the two spirit vessels. One was the Water Spirit Vessel, larger and carrying a stronger aura; the other was the Wood Spirit Vessel, smaller, though still filled with formidable power.
Of course, Jung Sasuk noticed them as well when she felt that aura.
So I looked at her and continued in a calm voice.
“Yes. Senior martial sister’s heart has already reached mine. You might say I have found the proper path.”
Then, as though it were only natural, Seop Myeong-gyeol burst out again.
“I knew it. If you wanted dual cultivation that badly, you couldn’t help yourself. But you did forget your promise to me, so from now on you must promise never to leave me inside that Moth-Eater again.”
Then Jung Sasuk responded at once. Rising slowly from the boulder where she had been sitting, she began walking toward me.
With every step that closed the distance between us, the tension rose rapidly—until, at some point, her breath brushed against me with a soft whoosh, and the strain filling my body began to melt away.
No, it was not merely the tension that melted. The heart of mine, which had remained rigid and motionless for a full year, was now softening and dissolving as it met her lips.
At the same time, the lust generated by the Heaven-Defying Lust Madness Classic, which I had been forcing down all this time, erupted like an active volcano.
If her breath had skimmed my skin like fire,
then mine had surged out with a ferocity as though it meant to burn her entire body to ash.
The moment she wrapped her arms around me with care,
I seized her as though I might detonate her body outright.
And when the distance between us, while we clung to each other, finally collapsed completely,
our energies began to mingle.
As our bodies sank into delight,
not only did the boundaries of flesh blur, but even the limits of our consciousness grew faint.
The spiritual energy within me flowed into her body,
and then her spiritual energy filled the emptiness and returned to me.
No, it was not only her spiritual energy.
Before I knew it, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth surrounding us had naturally joined the flow of our own qi.
Just as Seop Myeong-gyeol had told me before, once Jung Sasuk’s innate fate mixed with mine through dual cultivation, the spiritual energy around us finally began to react.
But regrettably, I had no leisure to savor that harmonious flow properly. The lust that had begun surging upward only grew fiercer and larger as time passed.
Of course, I had guessed something like this might happen, but even that expectation was far too mild for what came to pass.
In the end, that violently swelling desire pushed aside my reason and took over my body.
And so three days and three nights passed.
＊＊＊
The sun rose and set three times.
The sweetness in my mouth had deepened until it carried the faint taste of blood.
Around us, demonic beasts that had secretly drawn near upon sensing the aura of the spirit vessels lay in pieces, cleaved apart by the sword wind Jung Sasuk had unleashed.
But even after those three days and nights had passed, we were still holding each other.
As if we had finally exhausted all the lust we had spent so long suppressing, what I faced when I at last regained my reason—after no fewer than three days and nights—was Jung Sasuk still in my arms, gazing at me with a deep, smoldering look.
No, perhaps because we had already undergone dual cultivation, that gaze of hers had only grown even deeper.
“I think I lost my senses for a while.”
However high a realm of cultivator Jung Sasuk might be compared to me, she had been tormented by me for three full days and nights, so there was no way she could have come away unscathed.
And yet she answered me with a bright smile instead.
“And even while saying that, you still can’t bring yourself to let me go.”
At those words, I finally pulled away from her, after remaining pressed against her for a full three days and nights.
Instead of covering her body with her clothes,
she changed her posture, lay down, and watched me for a moment before speaking again.
“I thought I wouldn’t regret becoming your dao companion. But I already do. The emptiness left behind when you pulled away from me feels this large.”
Yet the moment she finished speaking, another voice—shaking violently—broke in.
“Is it... over now?”
It seemed Seop Myeong-gyeol, residing within the wooden puppet, had watched everything that happened over the past three days and nights.
So I smiled and said, “This isn’t the end. I’ll keep staying by senior martial sister’s side from now on.”
Immediately, two different reactions burst out.
“Gasp!”
“Indeed. That’s how it will be. Now hurry and finish what remains here so we can go back to your home. We can’t afford to waste precious time recklessly.”
After nodding at that, I cleaned up the area by placing the spirit vessels and the various scattered objects back into the Moth-Eater one by one, and at last I took the demonic beast’s core that would help me reach the peak of late Qi Refining.
Originally, that demonic beast core alone would have been a little lacking, so I had planned to take another ordinary demonic beast core as well. But the amount of spiritual energy I had gained through those three days and nights of dual cultivation was considerable, so there was no need.
And as if to prove that my judgment was correct, the spiritual energy released from the demonic beast core quickly filled my body.
Hongyeon Beomhon Gyeong, Fourteenth Verse—let the flame of heaven complete itself as it returns to its original Dharma Soul.
The bottleneck from mid-stage to late-stage Qi Refining had long since been broken through thanks to Elder Nam.
As a result, with no particular difficulty at all, the spiritual energy flooding my body surged outward and began to wrap around me. Like my body now encased in crimson qi, my Dharma Soul also took on the image of blazing red flame.
Then, in the same form, I felt a powerful sense of unity between the Dharma Soul wrapped in qi and my own body.
The Foundation Establishment realm—the realm that means one has completed the foundation.
I now understood, in this very moment, why a Foundation Establishment cultivator could control the surrounding space and use special abilities like a misty art.
When the Dharma Soul within my body and my flesh became one, it was as though my body itself had become the Dharma Soul, and even the space around me began to move in accordance with my will.
Some people said others spent their whole lives unable to cross from the peak of late Qi Refining into Foundation Establishment, but I, as with the bottlenecks I had faced until now, passed the boundary far too naturally.
Originally, I had planned to reach the peak of late Qi Refining and then use spirit vessels to raise my realm, so I had not known what kind of change this would bring. Still, after regulating my breathing and settling my qi, I began to absorb the two spirit vessels as planned.
Perhaps because they knew I was at an important moment, Jung Sasuk and Seop Myeong-gyeol, who had already noticed that I had ascended to Foundation Establishment, said nothing in particular.
But the two spirit vessels I absorbed in succession soon let out a powerful sound inside me.
Crack!
At first it sounded like something hard was breaking, as though an eggshell had cracked. Then, before long, a fierce wind—like the sound of stepping into a storm—began to roar.
Gooooo...
Moreover, the elemental force within the two spirit vessels began shaking my body with a violence stronger than any storm.
As though pouring inner force into a sword until the sword’s cry erupted, the elemental power released from the two spirit vessels began to tremble through my very body.
In the end, my body rose into the air in a lotus position.
In that state, when the elemental force released from the Wood Spirit Vessel swept through me in a rough torrent, my body instantly turned as rigid as an ancient tree, then soon began to show a recovery so powerful that even the smallest scars vanished.
But that was only for a moment. The instant the elemental force bursting from the Water Spirit Vessel collided with the wood essence filling my body, a thunderous explosion rang out inside me, as though the two powers were fighting a brutal battle.
Kwaaaang!!
At the same time, my chest swelled and then sank sharply, and a mouthful of fresh blood surged up from my throat...