Chapter 57
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 57
Chapter Title: Power Gained from the Fortuitous Encounter
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Spirit energy dantians formed simultaneously across thirteen spirit veins, and spirit energy extended into every secondary meridian throughout his body.
'This must be the Soul Purging and Rebirth they speak of in Esoteric Buddhism—something akin to Marrow Cleansing and Bone Transformation.'
Marrow Cleansing changed one's very appearance, but this spirit power transformation left his looks untouched.
The soul undergoing Marrow Cleansing.
His soul transformed as well, but since his body and spirit energy fully accepted it, it reshaped into the most ideal vessel.
Having stumbled into a lake-bottom cave without any mental preparation and encountered this stroke of fortune, he felt utterly dazed.
'But what exactly has changed?'
His body had become the perfect vessel for spirit energy, and on top of that, it had formed dantians in the spirit veins.
As a result, all the spirit energy in the cavern had vanished into his body.
Through it, he instinctively realized the truth.
'Absorbing Nangong Mubaek's energy extended my lifespan by about five years, but now... there's no limit to it at all.'
With his Soul Purging and Rebirth complete, his soul and constitution had transformed, altering even his lifespan in the process.
Just to be sure, he circulated his spirit energy.
To see if even one more had formed.
But the circulating spirit energy remained at three.
In the end, only the Seven Stars Origin Energy could rotate.
Yet absorbing all the cavern's spirit energy let him sense a power he'd never felt before.
The imugi's inner core within its body.
He could even sense the inner cores inside the turtle and fish.
He extracted the imugi's core and those from the other spirit beasts.
Then it hit him—he wasn't holding a torch.
"It's this bright?"
The torch had gone out long ago.
Yet his vision was so clear he hadn't even noticed.
"With spirit energy so abundant, even my night vision has sharpened."
It wasn't just his eyes.
The flow of spirit energy felt far more vivid, and he could now detect flows of energy he'd never sensed before.
He gathered the spirit cores.
The imugi's core was the size of a child's fist.
Collecting all the cores from the various spirit beasts brought the total to twenty.
They ranged from tiny ones the size of a pinky nail to others as big as a thumbnail.
Piled together, they were awkward to carry, so he took off his outer robe, wrapped them up, and tucked them inside his clothes.
Spirit beast cores were priceless treasures not even stacks of gold could buy, so he handled them with utmost care.
That's when a few slipped free.
Being bead-like, they could easily roll into the water.
"No! Stop!"
If they hit the water, he'd have to dive in after them, so he shouted in alarm.
Incredibly, the cores halted just before touching the ground.
Focusing his intent on them, they slowly floated up.
"So that's it!"
He'd been quietly disappointed, having formed spirit dantians in thirteen veins, filled his body with spirit energy, and even achieved Soul Purging and Rebirth—yet seeing no real change.
With spirit energy so full, mere intent alone lifted the cores into the air.
'For a martial artist, this is akin to Telekinetic Grasping.'
This ability worked only because they were spirit beast cores.
Packed with spirit energy, they reacted keenly to his own.
Curious, he tested if a small pebble in the cave would rise.
It didn't budge.
'As expected, only spirit beast cores make this possible.'
They responded so readily to spirit energy that their weight meant nothing.
That explained why he'd manipulated the jade dantian with his fingers before.
Now, mere intent seemed enough to control them.
He willed his spirit energy to connect with all twenty cores.
Imagining them afloat, they rose into the air.
"These cores each hold at least a decade's worth of spirit power, so their hardness must rival the jade dantian."
He flicked one toward the cave wall with a nod.
Whoosh!
Thud!
The core embedded itself in the stone.
Chunks of rock rained down.
With a thought, it extracted itself from the wall.
Despite punching through stone, the core bore not a single scratch.
Like the jade dantian, when infused with his spirit energy, they hardened to the level of sword aura.
'Could there be deadlier hidden weapons? Even Sichuan Tang Clan's Ten Thousand Plum Blossoms is hailed as the world's strongest, but twenty cores striking like sword auras would hit harder.'
Excited, he floated the cores and slammed them all into the wall at once.
Boom boom boom boom boom!
All twenty pierced the stone wall.
Each burrowed in nearly a knuckle's depth—impressive power.
Raising both hands and dividing them into groups of ten per palm, he drew them in.
"With this, I won't even need to learn martial arts. Who could dodge these? They're lightning-fast and hit like sword auras."
Even after gaining such overwhelming power, it didn't fully sink in, leaving him standing there blankly for a while.
"This should be enough to protect Yeoseol."
Thinking of her safety first proved how precious she was to him—more than anyone.
'If I'd been a martial artist gaining this power, I'd have set out to conquer the martial world, right?'
He'd seen martial artists go berserk when they obtained power beyond their control.
But he couldn't grow arrogant with this strength.
His mental maturity surpassed such hubris.
Ultimately, raw power didn't bring him happiness.
Living as a scholar his whole life, he found little allure in power—even if it could upend everything.
"Martial artists have their path, and scholars have theirs."
The thrill of wielding twenty cores like hidden weapons faded quickly, despite the initial excitement.
He gathered them all and scanned the cave.
"Will I ever return here?"
He erased every trace.
He even picked up the long-extinguished torch.
Anyone coming later would find nothing amiss.
"Ah, but with all the spirit beast cores gone, they might get suspicious."
Speaking aloud, he glanced back at the corpses and froze.
In that short time, the bodies had begun to soften and decay without their cores.
The imugi's corpse, rigid like a preserved specimen moments ago, was now half-melted and collapsing.
'The cores must have preserved the bodies all this time.'
This way, no one would notice the missing cores—even if they found the place, there'd be no signs of intrusion.
Soon, everything would rot away completely.
Exiting the cave and returning to the village, the spirit energy surging from the ground was gone.
Having absorbed nearly all of it from the cavern, the spirit power itself had vanished.
"No one will see ghosts around here anymore."
This village was close to Poyang Lake and not far from Hyuncheon Gate—perfect for him to settle in.
He could fish in the lake and farm the fields stretching to the horizon behind it.
It seemed ideal for that.
With nothing much to see, it wouldn't attract tourists and stay peaceful.
"I can settle the slash-and-burn folk here."
The thought of land stretching endlessly to the horizon—all his—drew a hollow laugh.
"Things fall into place so easily sometimes. Feels like just yesterday I was scraping by on the Murim Alliance Inspection Unit's meager pay. I've really made it."
He didn't truly believe this land was his.
He knew Hyuncheon Gate would reclaim it someday, whenever that might be.
Still, taking in wandering vagrants without land—like slash-and-burn folk—and helping them build new lives seemed worthwhile.
'Here I am, doing a magistrate's job out of nowhere.'
Whoever did it, if it could be done, wasn't that good?
Didn't Yeoseol say it?
Without compassion for the pitiful, one wasn't human.
Leaving the cave, he eyed his damp clothes and recalled hearing martial artists dry theirs with internal energy by emitting it—so he released his spirit energy.
Before, even rotating three strands hadn't produced much, but now with spirit dantians in thirteen veins, spinning three unleashed a powerful surge that dried his clothes in moments.
"Spirit energy this potent mimics internal energy effects."
There was a thrill in discovering these things one by one.
Dew clung to his dry clothes, so he brushed them off.
"Huh?"
Shaking his sleeves, a flame suddenly sparked in his palm, startling him.
He flailed his hand in panic.
But the flame persisted, burning steadily.
"It doesn't burn? Since it's ignited by spirit energy, it doesn't consume?"
He grabbed a handful of dry grass and held it to the flame.
Whoosh!
Surprisingly, it caught fire and blazed up fiercely.
Only then did he voice the word itching at his mind.
"This is just like Samadhi True Fire. No—it's exactly that."
He realized that with strong enough spirit energy, even without internal energy, he could manifest some abilities martial artists achieved through it.
"Could martial arts produce effects like this? Samadhi True Fire or telekinetically wielding cores?"
He ran a few more experiments.
Amusingly, they clarified that spirit energy and internal energy were distinct forces.
Using it like normal internal energy robbed it of its potency.
For instance, he couldn't perform the basic Ground-Shaking Step everyone used, even with his abundant spirit energy.
But channeling power through rotating three strands doubled his strength compared to before.
Lifting a boulder the size of his torso strained his waist not at all.
A weight he'd never dreamed of before.
His agility felt twice as swift too—now truly approximating the Phantom Shift technique.
Thus, the Ox Stable Phantom Ghost Shadow Technique made him look like an actual ghost.
Gazing at falling leaves from a tree, a thought struck him.
'The Falling Leaf Storm, usable only at the Transcendent Realm... could I?'
He caught a falling leaf between index and middle finger.
Then flicked his wrist forward like shaking off water.
Thwip!
The leaf fluttered harmlessly to the ground.
This confirmed it.
Forces like spirit energy or spirit power fundamentally couldn't empower weighted objects the way internal energy did.
The only power he wielded freely now was through the cores.
That power rivaled what Transcendent Realm masters achieved.
'And every time I gain more Seven Stars energy, I unlock new abilities. Who knows what else I'll wield.'
Using cores granted Transcendent-level might, but overall, he was at the Peak Realm.
'A scholar at the Peak Realm.'
Who would believe it?
No wonder rumors called him the Murim Alliance's secret weapon or a hidden expert.
Yet claiming to be a mere scholar after exposing his abilities so many times would ring false.
It'd be outright deception.
He fetched the poison humans from an abandoned house in the village where he'd settle.
Strapping both to his sides and using the Ox Stable Phantom Ghost Shadow Technique felt effortless.
His strength had grown, but the massive spirit energy surge meant he didn't even breathe hard.
Poison humans emitted deadly toxin, but sealed ones posed no threat.
"Wait here."
At his command, the poison human sat quietly on a chair in the ruin.
Gazing at its lonely back, he sighed.
'Wouldn't they prefer death over living like that?'
Staring at the pair, he pondered their fate.
'Should I hand them to the Tang Clan?'
He shook his head.
'Poison humans were once human, and even now with childlike intellect, they still are. If I gave them to the Tangs, they'd serve as poison humans even more. Is that better for them? They never chose this.'
This remote village was perfect for keeping them hidden.
To return to Hyuncheon Gate, he sought his horse.
It had carried him here faithfully, but now it shied away in fright, rearing up at the sight of him.
His spirit power must have overwhelmed it.
"Whoa, easy."
As he approached, the horse wheeled and bolted.
"Ugh, you little...!"
Humans couldn't sense his spirit energy—not even internal energy masters.
Animals, with their keen instincts, could.
He chased after the horse.
Pursuing it led him deep into the woods.
The beast that barely trotted even when whipped now fled for its life from him.
"You could run this fast all along...?"
He felt oddly betrayed by the horse.
It ran faster than ever, but his enhanced Ox Stable Phantom Ghost Shadow Technique outpaced it.
"Enough, you rascal—this stroll's gone on long enough. Stop."
The horse snorted heavily and bowed its head.
Unable to withstand his power, it submitted.
As he moved to mount and leave the woods,
His senses caught the clash of weapons and dying screams.
'Someone's fighting.'
He hesitated briefly, then turned the horse toward the sounds.
It might be bandits or brigands preying on innocents.
Turning a blind eye wouldn't sit right with him.
A true scholar endured no injustice, even powerless.
With power? Acting on justice was only proper.
"Hyah!"
He spurred through the forest trail without hesitation.