The First Star Awakens
"Aaaaargh!"
Crash!
A crazed scream was accompanied by the loud, chaotic sound of shattering porcelain.
Jegal Wi-yeon was tearing his room apart.
"Me? Me...! I, Jegal Wi-yeon...!"
Throwing the wine bottle in his hand was only the beginning; silk bedding worth well over a dozen silver taels was shredded into rags.
To make matters worse, he had hurled a water dropper filled with ground cinnabar, painting the room in splatters of crimson that made it look like a bloodbath.
Yet, nothing in the room was redder than Jegal Wi-yeon's eyes.
The excessive alcohol he had consumed and the lingering shock from Jeok-un's blow to the back of his head played a part, but the primary cause was the sheer, unadulterated fury boiling within him.
He could not forget the humiliation he had suffered.
That spot should have been his.
The glorious position of top scorer should have belonged to him!
But that glory had been stolen.
Stolen by a cowardly sneak attack from a piece of trash he had never even considered a rival...!
"Jegal Jeok-un!"
Wi-yeon roared again, the scream tearing from the depths of his chest.
He reached out to grab a nearby vase, intending to smash it as well, when—
Creak.
The sound of the door sliding open echoed behind him.
How dare they!
Wi-yeon's bloodshot eyes rolled back in fury.
"I told you to let no one in!"
He spun around, raising the vase to hurl it at the intruder, but froze.
"M-Mother...?"
His eyes widened as he recognized the woman stepping through the door. It was Lady Oh, his birth mother.
"..."
Lady Oh's face was cold and expressionless, as if coated in a layer of wax, as she stared at her son.
"Mother...!"
Failing to read her mood, Wi-yeon burst into tears like a child beaten by bullies and stumbled toward her.
He was so heavily intoxicated that he wasn't just staggering; he was practically crawling on the floor.
Watching this pathetic display, Lady Oh's eyes grew even colder.
"Ugh, Mother...! It's so unfair...!"
Wi-yeon reached out his arms, seeking comfort, but—
Slap!
"Ack!"
A merciless slap to the cheek was his only response.
Before he could even blink in confusion, more blows rained down.
Slap! Slap!
Only then did Wi-yeon register his mother's terrifying aura. He looked up at her, trembling with fear.
"M-Mother...?"
"Looking at you now, the Family Head was not wrong. Shall I sever your tendons and throw you out of the family myself?"
Wi-yeon's face drained of all color.
He knew better than anyone that his mother never made empty threats.
As he shivered in terror, Lady Oh stepped closer and spoke softly.
"I can tolerate you returning with a blade buried in your back. Those born of a martial lineage are bound to face such trials."
Though her voice remained chillingly cold, she gently brushed the dust off his clothes and straightened his collar with seemingly affectionate hands.
This jarring duality only terrified Wi-yeon further. Then, Lady Oh whispered like a venomous serpent.
"But I will never forgive you for failing to pull that blade out and stabbing your enemy back."
"...!"
"If you were undone by a cowardly scheme, you should not be wallowing in despair. You should be plotting a far more vicious revenge."
"...Jegal Jeok-un."
"Yes. Start by forcing that insignificant, worthless wretch to his knees, and then devour him whole."
As his mother spoke, Wi-yeon's eyes grew hazy, as if drugged by a hypnotic potion. Yet, beneath the haze, a distinct, murderous intent toward Jeok-un began to gleam.
"Just do as I say. Everything will turn out fine."
"Ugh, Mother... I will. I promise I will."
"Good boy. My sweet child."
The grown man clung to Lady Oh like a toddler, and she held him tightly in her embrace, treating him like a young boy.
It was a deeply unsettling and bizarre sight.
"This mother of yours will destroy anything that stands in your way."
Lady Oh's eyes flashed with an ominous light.
The next day, the Jegal Family Manor was in an absolute uproar over a single rumor.
From the lowest servants and maids to the high-ranking elders, everyone was buzzing with the same topic.
Jegal Jeok-un had taken first place in the Waryong Trial.
"Wow! Young Master Jeok-un took first place? I can't believe it!"
"How could the Second Young Master escape faster than the First Young Master?"
"I know, right? They're saying it's the fastest time in the family's history."
"They even say he was faster than the Family Head himself!"
However, not everyone viewed Jeok-un's achievement in a positive light.
"Hmm, but isn't it a bit strange?"
"...It does smell a bit fishy, doesn't it?"
"Exactly. The Second Young Master's martial arts are mediocre at best, and his understanding of formations was even worse."
"Could he have used some underhanded method...?"
"Well, everyone is keeping quiet about it, but otherwise, it makes no sense..."
In truth, the majority of the clan viewed the news with deep suspicion. It was a feat completely impossible for the Jeok-un they knew.
"Watch your mouths, you fools. Do you want to get punished?"
"Indeed. The Family Head himself verified and announced it."
"Well, that's true, but..."
"I heard the Second Young Master even identified the weaknesses of the Minor Eight Diagrams Formation and suggested improvements."
"Oh, come on. That's completely absurd."
Most shared that sentiment. They could accept him taking first place through sheer luck or some trick. But finding the weaknesses of the Minor Eight Diagrams Formation and suggesting improvements? That was utterly preposterous.
"But putting the first place aside, the last place is also quite something, isn't it?"
"Ah, you mean the Third Young Master?"
"Haha, that's hilarious too. There's never been a worse record in history."
"An overwhelmingly disastrous last place. That record won't be broken for at least a century."
While they laughed and gossiped about that, the next piece of news sent the rumor mill into overdrive.
"W-What?! Young Master Jeok-un requested the White Feather Fan as his reward for taking first place?!"
"Does that mean he's challenging the succession for Family Head...?!"
"...Wait, no. I heard he literally just asked to borrow it for a single day."
"...Just one day?"
"What on earth does that mean?"
No one could make sense of it. If he wanted to challenge the succession, that would be understandable. But borrowing it for just one day? What was he planning?
While the manor boiled like a chaotic cauldron of confusion...
"Whew. Now I can finally begin."
Jeok-un, the man at the center of the storm, paid no attention to the rumors. He was in his private quarters, preparing for his most important ritual.
The previous night, immediately after concluding his negotiations with Jegal Mun, Jeok-un had returned to his quarters.
He had given strict orders to his servants.
"Let no one in until I give the command."
"This is a direct order. Anyone who violates it will be severely punished."
It was a simple command: bar all outsiders and do not disturb him.
Was he afraid that people who saw potential in his performance would come to pester him? Or was he trying to recover from the mental fatigue of his recent regression? Or perhaps he wanted to get some deep sleep after fighting to the death in his past life?
None of the above.
Finally, I can cultivate in peace.
Jeok-un had barred entry for one reason only: he did not want his cultivation to be interrupted by anyone.
Jeok-un's goals were set incredibly high—far higher than when he was known as the Lord of the Evil Hegemony Alliance and the Tyrant of the Black Heaven.
I must defeat the Heavenly Demon.
He had to kill that monster who would bring ruin to the world.
And I will take the unified world for myself.
In this life, he had no intention of remaining merely the leader of the strongest unorthodox sect or the strongest master of the unorthodox path, as he had been before his regression.
The unification of the martial world under the unorthodox faction, and becoming the undisputed strongest under the heavens.
That was his sole objective.
Therefore, resting comfortably was a luxury Jeok-un could not afford, and he had no intention of doing so. Instead, his mind was filled with plans to regain his strength and push even further without sleeping a wink.
First, the energy I consumed inside the formation has been fully restored.
Having recovered all the energy he spent breaking the Minor Eight Diagrams Formation over the course of the night, it was now time to forge a perfect path.
In other words, it's time to overcome this crippled dantian.
Using the Overlord's Qi inside the formation had merely suppressed his crippled constitution. To put it simply, it was a temporary fix, not a proper path.
Shall we begin?
Jeok-un sat cross-legged and slowly turned his senses inward.
Currently, there was only one internal cultivation method settled in his body: the Lesser Heavenly Star Art.
It was the basic cultivation method of the Jegal Family.
His mastery of it was at a mere fifth stage.
A fifth-stage mastery might sound decent, but it was far from it. Jeok-un was currently twenty years old. Since the Lesser Heavenly Star Art was a basic technique taught from the age of eight, he should have mastered it completely by now.
However, due to his cursed dantian, Jeok-un had not even reached the later stages of the technique, let alone mastered it.
I was merely at the peak of the Second-Class realm.
For a direct descendant of a prestigious noble family, being stuck at the peak of the Second-Class realm was embarrassingly pathetic. It was why Jeok-un had always been a laughingstock and a symbol of ridicule.
But all of that was about to change.
His starting point this time was entirely different.
Begin.
Jeok-un began to overlay the Overlord's Qi onto the energy of the Lesser Heavenly Star Art.
Disperse and scatter in reverse,
Let the energy reshape the world.
Reciting the mental mantra in his head, he reversed the flow of the Lesser Heavenly Star Art's energy, which had been circulating in the normal direction.
Crack!
Instantly, an excruciating pain assaulted him, as if his entire body were being torn apart and ground into dust. Since he was forcing his energy to flow in reverse against the natural order, such pain was inevitable.
However...
This is tolerable.
Jeok-un endured the agony without letting out a single groan. He had experienced far worse situations hundreds of times before his regression. This level of pain was something he could bear with a smile.
And finally...
The moment he successfully completed a single reverse minor cosmic orbit of the Lesser Heavenly Star Art infused with the Overlord's Qi, the pain vanished as if washed away, and a massive transformation began within his body.
Hummmmm...!
Crack!
His dantian, which he had once believed to be cursed by Heaven's Punishment, was reshaping itself into a normal, healthy state.
If the Divine Physician had seen this, he would have fainted from shock.
Even the greatest physician in the Central Plains, who had attempted to treat Jeok-un at Jegal Mun's request only to give up in despair, would not be able to comprehend this sight. Even through a complete body reconstruction, the physical structure of a dantian changing was an absolute impossibility.
It was truly a stroke of heaven-sent luck.
Jeok-un's discovery of how to overcome Heaven's Punishment had been a complete accident.
Back when he was expelled from the family, hiding his identity and wandering the Central Plains as a rogue mercenary, he had eventually faced a life-or-death crisis.
With no way out, he had prepared to drag his enemy down to hell with him. In that desperate moment, he had awakened the Overlord's Qi engraved in his blood for the first time.
And to force his last remaining drop of energy to go berserk, he had run the Lesser Heavenly Star Art in reverse.
That was the beginning of everything.
Surviving thanks to that extreme coincidence—or perhaps heaven's design—Jeok-un healed his crippled dantian and traversed the battlefields as a completely different person.
Afterward, he had obsessively devoured martial arts, fighting endless battles against the strongest masters of the martial world.
Finally, combining his combat experience, the insights he stole from observing countless masters, and the Overlord's Qi engraved in his blood...
Shine, O Seven Stars.
He had reconstructed the Jegal Family's martial arts into his own unique system.
Crackle!
A mysterious energy flickered around his dantian, forming seven distinct points. The arrangement of these seven empty points perfectly mirrored the stars in the night sky.
It was the Big Dipper, the guide of the heavens and the ruler of all stars, also known as the Great Emperor of the Purple Subtlety.
Lesser Heavenly Star. The martial arts of the Jegal Family are, in essence, communion with the stars.
Tam-rang, Geo-mun, Nok-jon, Mungok, Yeom-jeong, Mu-gok, and Pa-gun.
A total of seven stars were engraved upon his dantian, which had overcome Heaven's Punishment.
And every time he unlocked a new star, his cultivation realm would skyrocket.
Before his regression, Jeok-un had reached the Fifth Star, the realm of Yeom-jeong, which allowed him to reach the peak of the Grandmaster realm and become the strongest master of the unorthodox path.
Even so, I couldn't inflict a single fatal wound on the Heavenly Demon.
But he did not despair. As he had thought before, his starting point was different now. Unlike his past life, he hadn't lost an eye, nor did he have to waste precious time.
Furthermore, a new insight he had never obtained in his past life awaited him.
It was the culmination of the Jegal Family's history and martial arts, a technique that only the Family Head could learn.
The Great Heavenly Star Divine Art.
Of course, he had absolutely no desire to become the head of the Jegal Family, but he would obtain the Great Heavenly Star Divine Art no matter what. If he could absorb that profound, ultimate art—which Jegal Wi-yeon had failed to acquire even after offering the entire family to the Heavenly Demon—and use it to further evolve his Overlord's Qi, he was confident he would not lose to the Heavenly Demon in this life.
And this is the beginning.
Hummmmm!
Suddenly, a deafening resonance echoed in his ears.
Seventh stage, eighth stage, ninth stage...!
His mastery of the Lesser Heavenly Star Art surged at a speed that would have made any member of the Jegal Family faint in disbelief.
Pop!
Burst!
Simultaneously, his cultivation broke past the peak of the Second-Class realm, entering the threshold of the First-Class realm.
From the threshold to mastery, and from mastery to the peak of the First-Class realm.
His base cultivation realm rose at an astronomical speed.
Whoosh!
Inside his dantian, the empty space of the first star began to fill with a soft pink light. Only after that ecstatic light enveloped his entire body did Jeok-un slowly open his eyes.
"Not bad."
Finally, Jeok-un had effortlessly shattered the wall to the Peak Realm and awakened the first star, Tam-rang.