Essence Refinement

It was the most satisfying meal she had eaten in ten thousand years. Dokseon wiped out three servings of grilled pork belly and a bowl of spicy mixed cold noodles in a flash, then tipped back a cold cola to finish.

Cola after ten thousand years was to die for. So was the belch.

"Bwaaaarp—"

She thumped her pleasantly full belly and leaned back in the chair. A poster decorating the wall caught her eye: a beauty with pointed ears, advertising soju. Every other poster was the same story — pointy-eared elves hawking soju or beer.

So this strangely altered world had elves in it. Dokseon let the fact pass without interest. Pretty faces or not, they were still nothing but mortals.

Her gaze left the posters and snagged, abruptly, on the television. A late-night news broadcast was underway.

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠image cut to a young beauty. The caption beneath her read Silla Guild — Guild Master Han Ga-young.

Han Ga-young smiled the smile of a pure and spotless saintess. From the site of the interview, cheers crashed like thunder.

Xianxia novels, and now hunter novels? Is that the world this is?

The present age resembled, rather closely, the hunter stories Dokseon had read long ago. Dungeons and gates appearing out of nowhere, and superhumans standing between humanity and the danger pouring out of them. The world was packed with peril in a way it had never been, and it followed, as a matter of course, that the superhumans who held that peril back had climbed into the ruling class.

These days a superhuman's name weighed more than a politician's. Even the Mayor of Seoul, perched at the summit of modern power, could not run City ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Hall without superhuman support. A superhuman, then, might as well have been called a noble of the modern age. Just as the aristocrats of Europe had raised houses of noble blood by force of arms, the superhumans of today had seized power with strength.

But power equated with force was also proof that public order was that unstable.

The hometown she had returned to after ten thousand years was an age of chaos. Dokseon, who had already lived through the hell-tier difficulty of the Cultivation Realm, did not think much of it.

People are dying? So what. Civilization is still standing, isn't it? If civilization had collapsed, she might have thought differently. So long as it held, there was nothing to regret. In some respects this was better than a peaceful world. In peacetime, elixir ingredients — people — would have been troublesome to get.

She was quietly watching the television, taking in the shape of things, when a fact occurred to her. Among the superhumans, celebrities, and politicians on the news, she did not know a single one.

That was strange. However far she had fallen, reading the memories and knowledge of a body she had possessed ought to have been perfectly possible. And yet recalling them was unnaturally difficult. Perhaps the drugs had ruined the brain.

She had restored the body's major organs in the course of possessing it, but memories and knowledge already lost could not be recovered. Fortunately the mind was not a total blank. Memories and knowledge that were not old would surface. Anything she judged to be even a little older refused to come up at all.

For the moment, a brain wrecked by narcotics was the likeliest cause, but she could not entirely rule out others. Once, she would have seized the cause and solved it in a single stroke. Impossible now. She had fallen.

And already I miss the old days.

A sudden burn rose in her gut. She knocked the cola back at once, and as it slid down her throat the feeling eased. She set the glass on the table with a clack. She had watched as much television as she cared to, and the meal had settled well enough. No reason to stay in the restaurant any longer.

She picked up the bill from the table. The moment she thought about paying, the burn came right back.

Money. Isn't that what weeds spend? And now an immortal has to do business with weeds?!

An immortal did not trade with weeds. For someone who had been an immortal in name, it was a smearing of face. If the other True Immortals ever learned she had traded cash with mortals, they would milk her as a joke for a thousand years at the least.

Ah… the old days. Missed all over again.

Even so, face was something you put on only after your realm had risen. A weakling standing on dignity was nothing but a plea to the strong: please kill me. Once you were weak, you lived as the weak lived. She had already resigned herself to that the moment she looted the bills, so there was no hesitation.

Raise the realm. Fast. And be done with it.

The humiliation still would not stay hidden. With a hand that trembled, she drew out the bills and took hold of the check.

"Paying up? Oh — you weren't thinking of skipping the fried rice, were you? We make a seriously good fried rice."

Fried rice?

Something she had forgotten came back to her. At a meat house, after the meat, there was fried rice to close the meal. To think she had forgotten a custom of dessert this magnificent.

The hand that had been shaking with humiliation went still. She took out the extra money for the fried rice first.

Humiliation? What's that? Something you eat?

I'm not an immortal right now, so there isn't a shred of humiliation in this. She waited for the fried rice with a face bright with glee.

Yes. Fried rice eaten after meat was something not even an immortal could resist. This was a fact Dokseon had personally proved.

However rotten a cultivator's character, they were grave when it came to cultivation. A cultivator was a cultivator precisely because they staked their life on the practice. Even those who had entered chasing overwhelming power and eternal youth eventually threw everything they had into climbing to a higher realm.

Why did a gamer raise their level? Because there were levels left to climb. A cultivator's heart was no different. And Dokseon had been worse than stagnant water in the Cultivation Realm — she had been water gone rotten — before plunging, in a single instant, to the level of a newbie.

At that level, who's going to sleep?

Of course a newbie could not sleep. From the moment she took a room, she began laying a formation for cultivation.

What she drew it with was salt. Properly speaking, materials besides salt had to be added if the formation's power was to increase. But Earth was not the Cultivation Realm. First she had to learn which materials here could even be used. For now she did not know what, besides salt, was worth anything, and so for now salt would have to satisfy her.

Before long, a formation made of salt was complete.

She breathed the spiritual qi of heaven and earth into the finished formation and set it running. The salt that composed the Five Elements Qi Condensation Formation glimmered faintly, and spiritual qi began to gather inside it.

Once she confirmed the formation was working as it should, she bathed in the bathroom, scouring body and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mind alike. Washing the body and setting the heart right was the most basic of basics in cultivation. Composed in body and spirit, she sat at the formation's center without a stitch of clothing on her. Cross-legged, she let her eyes drift shut and slowly drew in a breath.

Hoo.

She let the breath out long and gathered her awareness. Consciousness sank with the breathing. Breath followed breath, and each time awareness slipped a little deeper. The sinking mind turned at last toward the world within.

The small world that had, until recently, filled her soul to the brim was bleak past all description. The Radiant Star that had blazed at its center was extinguished, not even an ember left. The Heavenly Net that had spread through the whole of the small world like a spider's web had sunk into darkness. The mandala that had glittered in the small world's uttermost heights was nowhere to be found.

Natural, if anything was. She had lost every shred of power in crossing to Earth. There was no way the inner small world would have remained intact. The one mercy was that she had not lost the small world itself entirely. A small world was something only cultivators on the very doorstep of True Immortal could possess. Nothing remained but the foundation — yet with the small world still there, she would be able to raise her realm faster than before.

She had been looking over the small world for a long while when she sensed something touching it. A trace left behind by another person's soul.

As a rule, a remnant soul lingered because of a grudge held at the moment of death. This one was tangled with the po of the flesh Dokseon had possessed.

Po, put simply, was the memory of the body. The experiences a person piled up while living became po. So that was why she had been unable to call up the possessed body's memories and knowledge. With a remnant soul snarled around the po — the root of memory — there was no way recollection would work properly.

She had found the cause, and it was one she had never even considered. It could not be helped. She had fallen in coming to Earth, yes, but the soul she carried had once stood at a supreme realm. The moment she possessed the body, the remnant soul ought to have been crushed beneath the spiritual pressure her soul ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠gave off, leaving not even a trace. That was how it should have gone.

If she had possessed someone still living, she might at least have understood. She had fallen, and her spiritual pressure had weakened to an extreme. Even a mortal soul might have endured the spiritual pressure of a fallen Dokseon, or left behind something on the order of a remnant soul. The possibility was real enough.

But she had possessed the body after the prostitute was already dead. A whole soul, perhaps. A mere remnant soul, enduring spiritual pressure? Even granting that she had fallen, something close to impossible had happened.

Which meant there was something special about the remnant soul. Several causes suggested themselves. The likeliest was that the body's original owner had possessed an extraordinary spiritual quality. Even counting only the ones that came to mind at once, there were three.

Aptitudes of a thousand ages, the sort Heaven itself might have bestowed on someone it meant to become a True Immortal. Only a spiritual quality of this order could endure the spiritual pressure of a soul that had reached a supreme realm — fallen though that soul now was.