Chapter 1194
Bu Eun-seol couldn't help doubting his own eyes despite staring directly at her.
"Are you truly So Ok-rim?"
She smiled her usual innocent smile, lips curling sweetly.
"Hmm?"
But with her appearance completely transformed, that formerly simple-looking smile had vanished without a trace.
Wasn't she now displaying a peerlessly beautiful, innocent charm that no beauty in this world could imitate?
"Why?"
As So Ok-rim blinked her large eyes, Bu Eun-seol cleared his throat and changed the subject.
"What in the world happened?"
Looking around, he tilted his head before making a thoroughly perplexed expression.
"We were clearly passing through the third gate just now."
"Ah?"
Suddenly So Ok-rim's eyes flew wide open and her face flushed red.
She remembered the moment when she'd been tightly embracing Bu Eun-seol.
"Uh, right? The scenery changed all of a sudden?"
Flustered, she finally took in their surroundings.
Trees stood layered like blue walls, their branches swaying gently in the breeze while emitting a subtle fragrance.
Sunlight filtered through the branches, falling to the ground like golden threads.
In the distance, a small waterfall's mist caught the sunlight, glittering like silver powder.
Flowers bloomed extravagantly around it, petals scattering like snowflakes with every gust of wind.
Birdsong in the distance, rabbits and deer frolicking between the trees...
It was truly a scene straight out of Wuling Paradise.
"What on earth happened?"
So Ok-rim scratched her head.
"It's like we've been transported somewhere completely different."
The plateau scenery where even their breath had fallen heavily was gone without a trace, replaced by this warm landscape?
"Could this be near Gentle Flower Valley? That would mean we traveled a hundred li while unconscious."
Crossing her arms, So Ok-rim looked at Bu Eun-seol with a stiff expression and asked:
"Do we have sleepwalking habits?"
"If we traveled that distance while unconscious..."
Bu Eun-seol shook his head.
"The Hidden Estate's mechanisms likely included ancient battle formations."
In the past, Han Sang-ja had installed ancient formations that could instantly redirect qi flow to lure out the Sacred Realm's oath-bound people.
"Probably while our consciousness was interrupted, the internal mechanisms and formations activated, taking us through a passage that showed the mindscape before connecting to another location."
"That sort of thing exists?"
"From my experience, it's not impossible."
So Ok-rim puffed her cheeks and clicked her tongue.
"Anyway, nothing's normal in current murim..."
As she continued speaking, she suddenly staggered as if feeling dizzy.
"Why is this happening?"
"Are you alright?"
"The scenery seems to have gotten much lower somehow."
When she staggered again, Bu Eun-seol quickly supported her.
Somehow their faces ended up so close their noses nearly touched.
"Are you okay?"
"Huh?"
"Your face is red."
Flustered, So Ok-rim quickly straightened up.
"I'm fine, I'm fine."
Then as usual, she planted her hands on her hips and laughed heartily while looking at the sky.
"People with high Internal Power naturally have smooth blood circulation, so we always have good complexion."
Since her body had slimmed down, her loose clothes clung tightly when she put hands to hips.
Her voluptuous figure became strikingly apparent.
Without realizing it, Bu Eun-seol averted his gaze and said:
"I think it's because your bone structure changed."
"Bone structure changed?"
"Your body transformed, didn't it?"
Clearing his throat, Bu Eun-seol pointed at her waist with his finger.
Only then did So Ok-rim become aware of her slender waist and reduced height.
"Eh? What's going on here?"
Feeling something strange, she dashed to the waterfall.
"Whoa!"
Staring at her reflection in the water, So Ok-rim gaped and touched both cheeks.
"My face returned to its original form?"
Born with celestial might, she originally possessed extraordinary beauty.
But whether it was from inheriting the Baekri Clan's mysterious martial arts essence and learning the Secret Arts of the Three Pure Realms,
Or from consuming Spirit Medicine like rice since childhood... the power of celestial might had manifested physically.
By age ten, she'd grown tall enough to look down on grown men.
By thirteen, she'd developed brawny muscles surpassing those of martial artists who'd trained their External Arts for lifetimes.
Though her bone structure and muscles had slimmed somewhat from the opportunities gained while traveling the martial world with Bu Eun-seol...
Yet her frame still remained too large and imposing to be considered a woman's body.
Now, however, she had become so slender and delicate—light as a spirit, as if she could dance upon a palm—that she could rival the famed Zhang Shang Jia Wu, one of the Three Beauties of the World, known for her ethereal grace.
"I've returned to my original self!"
With tears brimming in her eyes, So Ok-rim rushed toward Bu Eun-seol.
"I've come back!"
Thud.
In her overwhelming joy, she tightly embraced him.
Her height had shrunk so drastically that her forehead now barely reached the philtrum of his lips.
Clutching him, she cried out,
"Now I'm truly myself again!"
"A relief. Truly a relief."
Bu Eun-seol gently patted her back.
After decades of bearing a frame as imposing as Lord Guan's, how immense must her joy be at finally reverting to her original form?
"Eh? Wait a minute."
Suddenly, she wiped her tears and spoke.
"But I haven't achieved Great Completion in the Sacred Flower Secret Manual—how did my body return to its original state?"
"What do you mean?"
"According to the elders, to fully dissolve the Heavenly Hero Star's power infused in my body, I must master the Sacred Flower Secret Manual."
She had been born bearing the Heavenly Hero Star, a celestial force of immense divine power, which had caused her physique to develop abnormally.
And the highest secret art of the Three Pure Realms—a martial art infinitely close to the original power of the Baekri Clan—was the Sacred Flower Secret Manual.
Only by reaching the Twelfth Star realm could she fully control that power and restore her body to its original state.
Yet here she was, reverted without having achieved Great Completion in the Sacred Flower Secret Manual?
"Wait, hold on."
With a bewildered expression, she glanced around.
"Then does that mean... the Sacred Flower Hidden Residence has vanished?"
She stared at Bu Eun-seol with a puzzled look.
"Were you truly my destined one?"
"What are you talking about?"
"The youngest elder once said that if I met my destined partner, the Sacred Flower Hidden Residence would disappear."
"He left those words behind?"
"Of course—do you think I'd go around consulting fortune-tellers for fun?"
So Ok-rim hadn't sought out diviners on a whim.
Since childhood, she had believed the stories told by the youngest elder and had been searching for her destined partner all along.
Rumble—
Just then, tremors spread through the ground.
Sensing something, Bu Eun-seol activated the Void-Breaking Mind's Eye of the Beast Path.
Immediately, he could perceive deep underground passages beneath their feet, lined with intricate mechanisms.
"This isn't Gentle Flower Valley—it seems we're in a Secluded Valley not far from the Hidden Estate."
Bu Eun-seol scanned their surroundings as he spoke.
"Beneath us, a deep passage stretches all the way to the opposite side. Likely, the moment we passed through the Three Gates... the Hidden Estate collapsed, and the ground rose to this area's surface."
"So it wasn't ancient arcane arts, just mechanisms?"
"Correct. I've seen similar constructs in Jiaozhi."
The Secret Cave in the forests of Jiaozhi, where Pa Hon had lived, had collapsed, causing part of it to erupt aboveground.
The Sacred Flower Hidden Residence must have been built on a similar structural principle.
"You always seem to traverse different worlds."
At So Ok-rim's words, Bu Eun-seol smiled bitterly.
"Sometimes, even I think so."
Unwillingly, he kept getting entangled with forces that had once dictated the fate of the martial world.
And every one of them—
Without exception—shattered all conventional wisdom and order.
"Then... has the Sacred Flower Secret Manual been completed?"
If her master's words were true—
That meeting her destined partner, losing consciousness, and the Sacred Flower Secret Manual's completion had caused the Hidden Estate's collapse—
"Well."
Taking a deep breath, So Ok-rim spread her arms wide.
"Let's test it out."
The Sacred Flower Secret Manual wasn't a martial art but closer to a method for maximizing power, so it required no Starting Stance.
Still, for her first attempt at unleashing it, she struck a grandiose pose.
Huuuum—
As So Ok-rim gathered her full strength—
Rumble—
The earth trembled, and scattered pebbles slowly began floating into the air.
It was an overwhelming surge of Internal Power.
"Hahp!"
As she thrust her hands forward—
KWA-BOOOOOM!
With a blinding flash, the trees of the forest dozens of jang away melted away as if turned to dust in an instant.
"An astonishing display."
"No... this isn't the Sacred Flower Secret Manual."
So Ok-rim frowned as she looked down at her own hands.
"Why has only my internal energy grown stronger?"
"Internal energy?"
"Yeah. Originally, my energy level was around seven units of sixty years."
She poked her slender lower abdomen lightly as she spoke.
"But now it seems to have reached nine units."
"Nine units of sixty years."
A peculiar thought struck Bu Eun-seol, prompting him to inspect his own body.
Upon checking, he realized the internal core stored within him had somewhat diminished.
"That might be..."
Bu Eun-seol spoke with an awkward expression.
"It seems the energy stored in my dantian has flowed into Lady So's body."
"Stored energy? What's that?"
Her tone suggested she'd badger him all night if he didn't answer clearly.
Well acquainted with her temperament, Bu Eun-seol calmly explained the Taoist Cultivation Secret and the state of his internal core.
"So the power from the core you stored flowed into my body..."
Only then did So Ok-rim's mouth fall open in realization.
"Then that means I didn't complete the Sacred Flower Secret Manual—I completed the Dual Cultivation Skill instead?"
"If you mean the Dual Cultivation Skill..."
"The Sacred Flower Secret Manual was originally a paired secret art meant to be cultivated by two people together."
So Ok-rim explained composedly.
"Until you reach the Great Origin Realm, its true power can only be unleashed by two people working together."
When Bu Eun-seol stared blankly at her, she scratched her cheek and continued.
"Originally, after passing three trials, there was supposed to be a training room. We were meant to cultivate the Sacred Flower Secret Manual together there."
No matter how much her appearance had changed, So Ok-rim was still So Ok-rim.
She maintained her boisterous attitude as she went on.
"Completing the Dual Cultivation Skill means sharing each other's power. But since we've already exchanged our energies... the Hidden Estate must have assumed everything was finished and closed itself."
"So that's how it was."
So Ok-rim had clung to Bu Eun-seol with the single-minded determination to save him.
Her only thought had been to relieve the agony he was enduring.
Bu Eun-seol had been no different.
When she tried to shield him by absorbing the force that threatened to tear him apart,
he sought to shoulder all that pain himself.
Their bodies pressed together, their pulses intertwined, their breaths became one as they strove to protect each other's lives.
The power within them had begun to seep into one another.
The phrase "body and mind becoming one" is commonly used,
but even for twins, true unity of body and mind is impossible.
Yet in that moment alone,
Bu Eun-seol and So Ok-rim had truly become one.
"Then with Lady So, I can wield the power of the Sacred Flower Secret Manual?"
"Exactly."
"How does one manifest it? I don't feel anything particularly different."
"I'll teach you the practical method."
So Ok-rim calmly transmitted the technique.
"I see."
Bu Eun-seol's eyes gleamed after receiving the full method.
"The Sacred Flower Secret Manual isn't martial arts—it's closer to a secret for wielding power with extreme precision."
"Similar, but slightly different."
So Ok-rim continued her composed explanation.
"For example, when we use palm energy, we channel internal power from the dantian through meridians and energy pathways, right? But some power is inevitably lost along the way."
The dantian is like a vast lake, filled to the brim with the powerful waters of internal energy.
Meanwhile, the palm that unleashes palm energy can be likened to a parched field far in the distance.
Ordinary martial arts send water from the lake to the field through winding, distant canals—
that is, by circulating internal energy through meridians and energy pathways.
But just as water seeps into the earth and evaporates under sunlight during this journey, power is naturally lost in transit.
No matter how much water you draw from the lake, only a few trickles reach the field...
Martial arts consider this natural dissipation inevitable.
"But what if you could bypass that process and send internal energy directly to your palm?"
She crossed her arms with a look of pride.
"With just one unit of sixty years' worth of energy, you could unleash power equivalent to six units or more."
Whoosh.
Her long hair fluttered in the wind.
In essence, the Sacred Flower Secret Manual was...
a miraculous method that lifted the lake's waters into the sky, forming storm clouds directly above the field,
then unleashed lightning-accompanied torrents precisely where needed.
"Since there's no transit, no power is lost."
Like a mountain boy seeing the Imperial Capital for the first time, Bu Eun-seol kept gasping in awe and nodding.
This concept was entirely new—nothing even remotely similar had ever appeared in the martial arts of the Murim world.
"So when two people manifest the Sacred Flower Secret Manual together..."
"Exactly."
So Ok-rim spoke with solemn gravity.
"When one person channels their internal power, the other can unleash that energy purely and instantly without loss... That is the Dual Cultivation Skill of the Sacred Flower Secret Manual."
"But there's something I don't understand."
Bu Eun-seol pondered the scripture she had imparted to him before asking.
"Crossed Strength Transmission, Body-Exchange Energy Response. According to this scripture, the transfer of power is only possible when the bodies make contact... I don't quite grasp what that means."
"Have you not heard the saying that when bodies touch, hearts connect?"
So Ok-rim, still with her arms crossed, maintained her dignified expression.
"When skin presses against skin, that very contact allows hearts to resonate and power to flow between them."
"You're saying that mere physical contact transmits hearts and energy?"
"Are you pretending not to understand on purpose?"
"I truly don't."
"Such a lecher."
So Ok-rim rolled her eyes before abruptly closing the distance between them and extending her hand.
"Try holding my hand while circulating your qi as the scripture instructs."
Without protest, Bu Eun-seol took her hand.
Yet nothing happened.
"We've held hands countless times while fighting side by side... Perhaps this isn't enough?"
After a moment of contemplation, So Ok-rim spoke again.
"Come a little closer."
Reluctantly, Bu Eun-seol took a small step forward.
"No, closer."
"I'm here."
"No, just a bit more. More, more...!"
Until finally, their faces were so close their noses nearly touched. Without realizing it, Bu Eun-seol held his breath.
And So Ok-rim was no different.
Her snow-pale cheeks flushed crimson, as if powdered frost might melt from her skin at the slightest touch.
Zzzing—
Suddenly, a scorching heat surged from Bu Eun-seol's dantian.
The moment their hearts synchronized, the Sacred Flower Secret Manual activated, and So Ok-rim transferred a portion of her internal energy to him.
Whoosh—
Instantly, Bu Eun-seol felt as though his entire body were set ablaze.
Even though So Ok-rim had only transferred a fraction of her power.
A force capable of reducing everything to ashes raged within him.
"That's roughly the equivalent of sixty years of cultivation."
"Only sixty years?"
"Mhm. Now try unleashing it."
Nodding, Bu Eun-seol directed his palm energy toward a distant mountain.
BOOM—!
A thunderous explosion echoed as a sheer cliff face crumbled entirely, despite the staggering distance.
"Now do you understand?"
Bu Eun-seol nodded.
At last, he grasped why So Ok-rim had so fervently insisted on calling them "fated partners."
The supreme secret art of the Three Pure Realms—
Its power truly rivaled the Manifestation Art Energy of the Baekri Clan.
"No wonder the Three Realms dared rebel against the Baekri Clan."
Bu Eun-seol clicked his tongue and shook his head.
"They had every reason to be confident."
The Three Realms had turned against their creators, the Baekri Clan.
How could they have even conceived of betraying the great family that had opposed the True Demon since antiquity?
Because the Baekri Clan had bestowed upon their creations far too much power.
—Had they mastered the Sacred Flower Secret Manual, they could've quickly defeated not just the True Demon's underlings, but even the True Demon himself!
So Ok-rim's earlier boast had been no idle claim.
If one could wield this power freely and alone?
Not only would they stand equal to the transcendent masters of the Baekri Clan—
They could even contend with the True Demon and his bloodline.
Bu Eun-seol exhaled deeply.
"Had it not been for the Three Pure Realms, the martial world would've long fallen under the Three Realms' dominion."
The Three Pure Realms was formed by righteous individuals who, unable to endure the Three Realms' atrocities, departed with the essence of their martial arts.
Their departure had greatly weakened the Three Realms, and while it seemed they sought to eliminate the Three Pure Realms in retaliation...
In truth, their goal had always been to reclaim the pinnacle of martial arts they had lost.
"Well, that's the gist of it."
As So Ok-rim shrugged, Bu Eun-seol's expression darkened.
"Then the Three Realms haven't yet revealed their true strength."
Each of the Three Realms had its own Realm Lord, and the only one who had shown himself so far was the Return to Unity Realm Lord—
Whose martial prowess still far surpassed Bu Eun-seol's current ability.
The others remained hidden, moving in the shadows.
Their ambitions, their true power—none of it had yet surfaced...
Making them a threat deeper and darker than any Abyssal Force.
"But now that we possess martial arts on par with theirs, there's no need to worry. Right?"
So Ok-rim winked playfully.
"With the Sacred Flower Secret Manual, we can take on anyone."
For a moment, Bu Eun-seol looked awkward.
As formidable as the Sacred Flower Secret Manual was...
Since it relied on that ticklish, ineffable emotion shared between a man and a woman to transfer power...
It was, in essence, a martial art only lovers could perform.