Chapter 97
Chapter 97
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 97
Chapter Title: The Tattoo on My Back!
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Right now, the cause was opening my Governing and Conception meridians, and the result was an increase of one hundred and eighty years' worth of internal energy. The outcome was far too great for the cause.
I couldn't just blindly accept such a preposterous situation that I didn't understand.
‘Let's circulate my energy again!’
Only when I can accept it will this power, whether it's one hundred and eighty years or six hundred, truly become mine.
This third time I circulated my energy was a little different from before.
I slowly circulated the energy through the meridians of my entire body, meticulously analyzing its composition.
Normally, opening the Governing and Conception meridians should have increased my ninety years of energy to one hundred and twenty or one hundred and thirty.
But it became one hundred and eighty, meaning an extra fifty or sixty years of energy appeared. Therefore, I must find out the true nature of that fifty or sixty years of energy.
“Hah!”
After circulating my energy twice more in succession, I confirmed the true nature of that fifty or sixty years of energy.
‘So that’s what it was?’
The result of my investigation was that the opening of my Governing and Conception meridians had purely increased my internal energy by forty years.
The remaining fifty years of energy, surprisingly, was the result of the Yin Essence dissolving. Upon meticulously analyzing the one hundred and eighty years of energy, I found the cold remnants of Yin Essence within fifty years of it.
So, in the end, I came to this conclusion.
My body is constantly circulating energy, dissolving the Yin Essence little by little and converting it into internal energy.
Since it hadn't been long since I last converted twenty years' worth of Yin Essence, my body likely hadn't dissolved enough to convert more.
In that state, opening my Governing and Conception meridians must have caused the partially prepared Yin Essence to be forcibly converted into internal energy all at once.
That was the only explanation I could come up with for now. If not, it was a matter for ghosts to wail about.
In any case, I now possessed one hundred and eighty years of internal energy.
However, an unbearable stench had been assaulting my nose for a while now.
The foul odor was coming from my own body. I had not only opened my Governing and Conception meridians but had also achieved Marrow Cleansing and Body Tempering, and Bone Transformation and Body Rebirth all at once. It was thanks to undergoing the same process as Go Un-hyo.
It would be a waste of breath to repeatedly explain the wondrous effects of Marrow Cleansing and Bone Transformation.
During the Marrow Cleansing process, all sorts of impurities from inside my body had been squeezed out through every pore, leaving my body and clothes looking as if I'd fallen into a cesspool, and the stench was even worse.
“Ugh!”
I felt like I was about to vomit everything I'd eaten since yesterday.
I had experienced this when I helped Go Un-hyo through his Bone Transformation and Marrow Cleansing, but even for the second time, it was a vile stench that was hard to get used to.
I jumped straight into the river to wash myself.
***
When I opened my eyes in the morning, I was naked.
After washing myself in the river, I had returned to the annex still wet, stripped off my soaked clothes, and fallen asleep in the nude.
Despite causing a commotion by myself from last night until dawn and sleeping for only a little over an hour, I didn't feel tired at all. Instead, my body felt as light and refreshed as a cloud.
This feeling, so different from usual, was because I had opened my Governing and Conception meridians and undergone Bone Transformation and Marrow Cleansing.
“Brother.”
“Come in.”
Go Un-hyo entered and flinched in surprise upon seeing me sitting naked on the bed.
“Brother, what happened?”
“It's nothing. Go and get me a set of clothes.”
Go Un-hyo brought a new set of clothes, the one-of-a-kind uniform of the Dong-ro Grand Branch's Grand Branch Master.
As I stood up to get dressed, Go Un-hyo, who was standing behind me, said something strange.
“Brother, what kind of animal is this?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The tattoo on your back, sir.”
He asked, naturally assuming I already knew about it.
“A tattoo? I have a tattoo on my back?”
But this was the first I had ever heard of a tattoo on my body.
“You didn't know?”
“No.”
I had never bathed or swum naked with anyone before. Thus, I had never shown my bare body to others.
When I first came to the Dong-ro Grand Branch, I had gone to a nearby hot spring with Yang Rim, but even then, we had faced each other while soaking, so I hadn't shown him my back.
To think there was a tattoo on my back—I was surprised, yet it felt strange.
“Wait a moment!”
Go Un-hyo ran out and returned a short while later with two mirrors.
I held one mirror to see myself, while Go Un-hyo held the other to my back, reflecting the image into the one I was holding.
‘Ah!’
The moment I saw the tattoo reflected in the mirror, I felt an intense sensation, like something hot and painful piercing through my heart. I didn't know why.
The tattoo I saw in the mirror was the size of my palm and depicted an animal I had never seen before.
Its face was that of a dragon, its body like a deer's, and it had a long horn on its forehead. It was an exceptionally intricate and beautiful image, drawn in five colors: black, blue, red, gold, and green.
The image of the tattoo exuded a mysterious and auspicious aura.
For twenty-three years, I had lived in complete ignorance of the fact that a tattoo was etched onto my body.
As I stared at it, my blood felt like it was boiling and flowing backward, yet my mind grew as cold as ice.
A thought suddenly occurred to me.
‘Perhaps this represents my identity!’
That feeling washed over me like a wave.
This tattoo must have been etched by my parents or an elder of my family.
It was unlikely someone would engrave such an intricate tattoo merely for fun. Therefore, this tattoo surely held some deep story.
I was an orphan, but there must have been a reason why I became one.
Go Un-hyo held the mirror without a word, seeing my extremely serious expression.
I observed the tattoo in detail, trying to commit it to memory.
‘What is that?’
Just then, I noticed that amid the tattoo's design, which resembled a dragon soaring and a phoenix dancing, two characters were faintly but clearly engraved.
-永武-
‘Yong-mu?’
The characters seemed common, yet when I tried to connect them to my identity, they felt utterly foreign.
However, something was imprinting itself upon my heart like a ripple.
‘Yong-mu?’
I felt as if I could vaguely grasp its meaning.
***
With a fine brush, I carefully drew the animal from the tattoo.
“It's identical.”
I had drawn it over and over, only stopping when I heard Go Un-hyo's words. Even to my eyes, the drawing looked exactly like the tattoo.
I carefully folded the drawing and tucked it away inside my robes.
***
Throughout breakfast with Hyukryeon Byeok-gyo, the image of the tattoo never left my mind.
My face must have been too stern, as Hyukryeon Byeok-gyo ate in silence, occasionally placing delicious dishes into my bowl.
Hyukryeon Byeok-gyo didn't ask what was wrong. Most people in such a situation would ask, but she said nothing.
It wasn't that she wasn't curious; she was patiently waiting for me to tell her myself.
I continued my thoughts even while drinking tea after the meal.
All sorts of thoughts followed one after another, like dark clouds gathering in the sky, but not a single one led to a clear conclusion.
The tattoo was the only clue. Besides becoming the Peerless Martial Emperor, I now had another mission.
“Brother, the Young Miss has left the Dong-ro Grand Branch.”
Go Un-hyo spoke cautiously. He wouldn't normally interrupt my thoughts, but he couldn't remain silent about something like this.
“Did she go alone?”
“Yes.”
I immediately stood up and went outside.
I could see Hyukryeon Byeok-gyo's back as she walked in the distance.
As expected, due to her exceptional beauty, a crowd of passersby had surrounded her, moving slowly along with her.
I pushed through the crowd and walked alongside her.
“Where are you going?”
“Ah! To see General Manager Jang.”
Startled and flustered by the crowd that had swarmed around her, Hyukryeon Byeok-gyo quickly grabbed my arm.
The onlookers saw me, bowed in greeting, and then dispersed to go their separate ways.
“You should have called me.”
“I can go by myself. I didn't want to bother you.”
***
We went to the Alliance Headquarters construction site with Jang Ung. Hyukryeon Byeok-gyo had business there.
She had come to discuss something after reviewing the headquarters' blueprints and panoramic drawings that Jang Ung had given her.
Hyukryeon Byeok-gyo was walking around the site with the construction supervisor, talking.
As I watched her, Jang Ung spoke.
“I have gathered intelligence on the masters flocking to Dong-ro County for the Demonic Emperor's Grand Union's bounty and have given the data to the Thousand Illusions Wanderer.”
“Mm.”
Lost in thought, I was barely listening, but Jang Ung continued his report.
“We have identified about eighty percent of the bounty hunters, but the remaining twenty percent will have to be handled directly by you, my lord.”
Considering that hundreds, if not thousands, of bounty hunters from all over the land had gathered, for the Peerless Sect to have identified eighty percent of them was a testament to their incredible capabilities.
The unidentified twenty percent would try to assassinate me at any moment. That was my burden to bear.
“My lord, the magistrate of Dong-ro County has requested assistance.”
Seeing that I was deep in thought and unresponsive, Jang Ung waited silently.
Hyukryeon Byeok-gyo and the construction supervisor approached us together.
The supervisor showed me a booklet and said.
“The Young Miss has requested these changes.”
The booklet contained new blueprints that Hyukryeon Byeok-gyo had drawn up after reviewing the original plans and drawings.
“Is there a problem, since construction hasn't started yet?”
“There are no major issues.”
Hyukryeon Byeok-gyo asked me.
“It's okay if I stay here a little longer, right?”
“Yes.”
As I watched her and the supervisor walk toward the location for the Alliance Headquarters' port, Jang Ung spoke again.
“My lord, the magistrate of Dong-ro County has requested assistance.”
“What kind of help does he need?”
“The population of Dong-ro County has surpassed three hundred thousand.”
“Is that so?”
“The Dong-ro County office has only twenty constables under its command. It is impossible for them to manage the entire county.”
Twenty constables were indeed far from enough to handle a population of three hundred thousand.
“I'll let Byeok-gyo handle that matter.”
Since she was the Alliance Lord and was present, I intended to leave the decision to her.
“As you wish.”
I took out the drawing of the tattoo I had made earlier from my robes and showed it to Jang Ung.
“What does this look like to you?”
Jang Ung answered the moment he saw it.
“It is a Qilin, my lord.”
“A Qilin?”
“A legendary, auspicious beast.”
It was the first time I had ever heard the name Qilin. In any case, that wasn't what I was curious about.
“Does this drawing bring anything to mind for you?”
Jang Ung furrowed his brow and stared at the drawing for a while before shaking his head.
“Nothing, my lord. My apologies.”
The drawing of the Qilin faintly contained the characters -永武-, which I could make out, but Jang Ung could not.
“If you would lend me the drawing for a moment, I will make a copy and return it to you.”
“Do so.”
“Grand Branch Master!”
Dam Geum-hu came running from the direction of the street.
“What is it?”
Dam Geum-hu was spending almost all his time at the Peerless Sect, engrossed in his martial arts training.
“A guest has arrived at the Dong-ro Grand Branch looking for you, Grand Branch Master!”
He had run nonstop from the Peerless Sect to here, yet his breathing wasn't the least bit ragged.
“Who is it?”
“He said he was from Chungmu Manor.”
‘Chungmu Manor?’
Though Chungmu was one of the most common names in the world, for Hyukryeon Byeok-gyo and the Martial Alliance, this was by no means a common guest.
Chungmu Manor was the one that had agreed to provide the Martial Alliance with an astronomical amount of funding.
The original name of Chungmu Manor was the Eternal Martial God Family, and before that, it was said to be the Yue Family of Shandong.
“Tell her we should head back.”