Suspicion Breeds Demons
Of course, there were limits to how long one could endure on breath-circulation alone.
So every three days or so, I had to sleep for a little while, however little that might be.
But aside from those few shichen of rest, I spent every waking moment cultivating Heaven-Defying Lust Madness Classic.
Thanks to that, in just a few short days, I had finally broken through to the first-rate realm.
At last, it was time for me to leave this place.
If I, now a first-rate expert, set my mind to it and used my movement technique, getting down this mountain would take no more than a blink.
Even if my master, who still showed no sign of coming down from the third floor for reasons known only to him, noticed my disappearance, I would already be long gone by then.
More than that, I now possessed at least the barest strength to strike back at him.
If I retaliated with the force I had used before, then with my improved cultivation, I could inflict damage entirely unlike anything from that time. This time, a mere lock of hair would not be the end of it.
There was nothing else I needed to prepare before leaving, so I was just about to depart when I suddenly thought of the Soul Refining Cauldron beneath the bed. The cauldron could amplify the effects of elixirs, and as a treasure of considerable worth, it naturally stirred some lingering regret in me.
But I quickly let that regret go.
Dragging off a Soul Refining Cauldron that was as large as my own head would have been a tremendous nuisance.
In the end, I left as I had arrived here in the first place—lightly dressed, with nothing but a sword in hand.
Before long, I was facing the pale, hazy mist that surrounded Nine Palaces Tower.
If what my master had said was true, that not just anyone could enter and leave this place at will, then this mist had to be some kind of formation with special properties.
Most likely, it was a formation designed to make anyone who entered lose their way.
But now that I had reached the first-rate realm, I had a way to deal with it.
When my master and I first came to Nine Palaces Tower from outside, we had flown here on a curious treasure called the Yin-Divining Compass. So I figured I could do the same—escape through the empty sky where the mist could not reach.
That did not mean I was about to use Void-Treading Step, a feat only experts above the peak realm could perform. However high my cultivation now was, I was not capable of that yet.
Instead, I picked up several broken stones lying on the ground and tossed one of them lightly into the air.
Then I used my movement technique to leap toward the stone as it floated through the sky.
Tap!
My realm was still insufficient.
So when I stepped onto the stone in midair, both it and my body sank downward together.
Still, I had only dropped a little lower; I remained in the air.
My body rebounded from the impact and sprang upward once more.
And once again.
Launching myself into the sky, I threw another stone and hurled my body after it.
In truth, this was a very special feat that even ordinary first-rate experts would never dare imitate.
Of course, despite all my effort, my body was still falling downward the entire time.
But from the very beginning, I had known it would come to this. The reason I still tried such a method was because Nine Palaces Tower stood atop a mountain peak.
No matter how desperately I struggled, I was falling slowly toward the earth below.
And the earth below, stretching down the mountain, was naturally sinking lower as well.
At this rate, I would not touch solid ground before I ran out of stones, so it was a most promising start.
But just as I was about to leave the mist behind so smoothly, something unexpected happened.
Screeech—
When I turned toward the sharp tearing sound in the air, what I saw was not my furious master.
It was the head of a bird with rather piercing eyes, hurtling through the sky straight at me.
I had already suspected that my master might come after me once he noticed my escape, so the ambush itself was not especially shocking. What was absurd was that the thing attacking me was not a person, but a bird.
Apparently, to that oversized beast, I, slowly descending through the sky, looked like a very appetizing meal.
But no matter how large its body was, it was still nothing more than a creature of little consequence.
So I immediately rushed straight at it.
“A single plum blossom does not bend, even beneath frost and cold!”
This was the first form of the Eighteen Plum Blossom Sword Technique, which had once emitted nothing more than a droning sword hum when I used it at the Changwon estate of Neunggak.
But now, having reached the first-rate realm, the blade light appeared together with the sword hum.
Thanks to my newfound cultivation, I could wield sword aura freely.
And that sword aura swept forth, aimed at the bird’s wing joint.
Crack!
With a harsh splintering sound, a few drops of blood scattered through the air.
In truth, a sword imbued with sword aura had cutting power strong enough to sever even a massive tree in a single blow.
So I naturally thought that a few droplets of blood flung into the air were only to be expected.
The problem was that there were too few of them.
Moreover, despite the rough impact and the heavy resistance it showed, its body had not been cut apart in a single stroke.
It seemed that this was not merely a large flying beast, but some kind of spiritual creature whose flesh was not easily sliced even by sword aura.
Still, it was obvious the bastard had been injured by my strike.
And in its panic, it was now flapping helplessly in place.
A perfect situation for my next form of the Eighteen Plum Blossom Sword Technique.
“When silver plum blossoms scatter, life lingers upon the tip of the sword!”
The moment the fifth form of the Eighteen Plum Blossom Sword Technique was unleashed, the startled creature let out a shrill cry and flapped its wings wildly at me.
“Kieeek!”
No matter how much of a spirit beast it might have been, there was no way it could withstand the chained progression of my grotesque technique.
Originally, the Eighteen Plum Blossom Sword Technique had been created by the stuffy Taoist priests of Mount Hua, so if one failed to follow the proper sequence of its forms, the attack would break apart in fragments. But I had filled in that unnatural gap with my understanding of high-level martial arts.
Flap!
My second strike finally drove my sword clean into its body.
Thwack!
In the end, the creature that had tried to ambush me from the air fell straight to the ground with a sword buried in its chest, its limp wings twitching once or twice before going still.
It had been a rather surprising ambush.
Still, I had at least disposed of it without much difficulty.
The one problem was that its piercing shriek had undoubtedly reached my master as well. Since I had been exposed sooner than expected, he would soon be coming after me too.
Just then, as I was flicking my sword through the air to shake the bird’s blood from the blade, a chilling voice suddenly sounded behind me.
“My disciple, you’ve certainly made things interesting.”
I was not afraid of him.
But the fact that I had failed to notice his presence at all until he came up behind me was deeply shocking. I had, after all, left my back completely exposed to someone hostile toward me.
Would I turn around faster?
Or would he strike first?
The answer to the question that flashed through my mind came quickly.
I turned to brace for his attack.
And he simply passed me by.
“I don’t know how you escaped Soul-Lost Prison Ring Formation, but this is clearly a Flying Fire Precious Eagle. Its heart carries powerful fire energy, so it’s quite a valuable treasure.”
With his back still carelessly exposed to me, my master immediately began to cut open the belly of the spirit beast sprawled on the ground. The path of life I had been searching for had now appeared right before my eyes.
One strike will finish it.
In truth, the reason I had always favored Mount Hua’s Eighteen Plum Blossom Sword Technique was that my cultivation had still been low, and I needed a stable martial art even if its power was lacking.
But what I needed now was a single overwhelming blow, one enhanced by force.
The martial art best suited to a single strike that poured everything into it was the Severing Wilderness Sword I was about to use.
The martial art my would-be killer had mastered.
And the martial art created solely to kill me.
In truth, this was the sword art the Martial Alliance Lord, O Gyu, had created and practiced in order to kill me and keep the world beneath his feet. Even the name—“to shatter the barren world”—had been made with me in mind.
Of course, the Severing Wilderness Sword created and mastered by the Martial Alliance Lord had ultimately failed to surpass my own ultimate technique, the Three Swords of the Heavenly Demon. In the end, he was the one who died, while I stood atop the world.
And yet this was still an exceedingly powerful martial art, one capable of leaving a thin wound on my arm—the same arm that had once believed itself unrivaled beneath heaven.
Right now, with my cultivation still low and unable to use the Three Swords of the Heavenly Demon, a martial art made only for the Heavenly Demon himself, this was the best I had.
Just as I was channeling all my inner force into the sword to unleash the seventh and final form of the Severing Wilderness Sword, Annihilating Wilderness, the martial art created to kill me was about to be used to save me—and at that very moment, my master, who had already turned around, smiled and held something out toward me.
“Take this. The heart of the Flying Fire Precious Eagle is indeed a treasure, since this beast was born with strong fire energy, but this inner core is no less fine an elixir.”
I had been pouring all my inner force into the sword to release Desolate Annihilation, the final seventh form of the Severing Wilderness Sword, but when I saw my master’s bright smile, I found myself stopping the flow of my true energy.
It was hesitation I would never have shown in the past.
But when I saw him smiling at me like that, I simply could not bring myself to swing the blade.
Perhaps I really was about to kill an innocent man with nothing more than my own suspicion.
Maybe he was just a difficult man by nature?
At that moment, even the scent of flowers brushing my nose made me feel ashamed, and so I forcibly calmed the surging energy within my body, caused by my abruptly reversed inner force, before speaking as calmly as I could.
“Is it really all right for me to take something so precious?”
Then my master spoke again.
“Of course. Wasn’t this Flying Fire Precious Eagle drawn here by the power of the dragon vein in the first place? That means you were the one who caught it. Give me its heart, though. I’ll make you a fine elixir from it.”
His bright smile felt like a rebuke for how wrong I had been to try to harm him.
Why had I distrusted him so deeply when he seemed so eager to give me even more?
Suspicion breeds demons.
Perhaps my own doubt had created a malice that never existed at all.
“Thank you, Master.”
My head bowed deeply as I realized my mistake, and when I politely reached out and accepted the spirit beast’s inner core, my master looked at me with unmistakable satisfaction and continued.
“So now you finally understand how much I’ve been looking after you. I’ll do my duty as your master and teach you properly, so you must also do your duty as a disciple and devote yourself wholeheartedly to training. With your talent, even if you cultivate for only ten years, reaching the latter stage of Qi Refining is practically guaranteed.”
“Yes, Master!”
Apparently pleased by my spirited answer, my master immediately broke into a broad smile and waved a hand.
Then, all at once, the body of the Flying Fire Precious Eagle floating beside him rose into the air.
As someone who could use protective true qi, he also seemed able to manipulate objects in the air without difficulty.
But when I failed to give it much thought, my master spoke with an amused expression.
“Disciple, does this object-manipulation art not look all that impressive to you?”
At that, I answered without hesitation.
“Of course I know that it’s an extraordinary realm. But I also know that you, Master, are extraordinary yourself, so I simply thought, as expected, Master is different.”
Perhaps because I felt sorry for having tried to harm him, words unlike my usual self flowed out of me with surprising ease.
Fortunately, my master did not seem to mind that side of me.
“Is that so? Looking at you now, it seems you do know how to respect your master after all. And here I was thinking you’d run off to avoid me.”
Perhaps because he had struck straight to the heart, I suddenly felt as though my breath had caught in my throat. Even the faint floral scent that had been lingering all this time seemed to fade away at once.
For the first time in a very long while,
I found myself in a state of complete confusion.
Still, I had already forced myself to act calm so as to suppress the restless energy inside my body, and even now I continued without the slightest sign of strain.
“I did, in fact, run away. Staying in Nine Palaces Tower and doing nothing but training had become too stifling, so I thought I’d stop by a nearby village for a while.”
I had already escaped the formation with that rather ominous name, Soul-Lost Prison Ring Formation. Under those circumstances, saying I had never intended to run away in the first place would have made no sense, so I simply gave a more reasonable explanation for why I had fled.
My master then let out a quiet laugh.
“I suppose I’d forgotten that you were still young. But if you keep up this life of cultivation, you’ll eventually understand how precious not wasting your time really is. If you squander the time needed to raise your realm, you’ll find yourself dead before you ever step into the next one.”
It was the sort of stubborn, old-fashioned speech the senior elders of an orthodox sect would have made to young disciples.
Without thinking, I nodded along, then frowned slightly at a sharp ache in my head.
It seemed that forcing down my inner force just a moment earlier had taken a fair toll on my body.
Still, the cool floral fragrance drifting toward me had grown even stronger, and with my mind settling into greater ease, I followed after my master and spoke again.
“I won’t forget your words, Master!”
It seemed I would have to focus on breath-circulation and inner-energy cultivation for a while longer, more than on martial arts. That way, my master would be satisfied……
As the flower scent pressing more firmly at the tip of my nose, I looked around for a moment, but strangely, there were no flowers anywhere in sight.
Just how vast, I wondered, was the flower field at the foot of the mountain?
It seemed the scent was riding the wind all the way up from far below.