Chapter 330
Chapter 330
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 330
Chapter Title: One Goat
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Dang Mujin entered an empty house and slept soundly for a full day before waking up.
He had fallen asleep in a state of near mental exhaustion, so it should have been normal to wake feeling refreshed. But Dang Mujin's sleep had been far from comfortable. He had been tormented by nightmares.
The nightmares had been so intense that his entire body was drenched in sweat, leaving his clothes damp.
Dang Mujin glanced around with dazed eyes for a moment, then chuckled softly as he peeled the hair stuck to his face.
'Thank goodness. It was just a dream.'
It had been an utterly horrifying dream. A dream where Hyun-gong broke through the wall to the Transcendent Realm.
It was a situation that couldn't happen—being the only one among his companions left behind, unable to reach the Transcendent Realm—and it absolutely shouldn't happen.
Just then, the door burst open, and Hyun-gong strode into the room.
Hyun-gong didn't enter in an ordinary manner. He appeared using the Cloud Shadow Step, his chin thrust out a couple of inches farther than usual. The arrogant angle of that chin alone was enough to make one's fist twitch involuntarily.
Hyun-gong looked down at Dang Mujin with haughty condescension as he spoke.
"I figured it was about time for you to wake up."
"..."
Hyun-gong strutting around after reaching the Transcendent Realm had clearly been something from the dream.
The problem was that the dream was grounded in reality. Both the dream Hyun-gong and the real one had become Transcendent Realm masters.
'Heavens above!'
Dang Mujin desperately hoped this was still a dream, but his body felt far too vividly alive for that.
With his face crumpled in frustration, Dang Mujin asked,
"What are you here for?"
"What do you mean? Do you not remember what you said when you were heading to Zhongqing?"
"...What did I say?"
Dang Mujin thought hard, but he couldn't recall exactly what he'd said. It must have been something he'd blurted out without much thought.
"You asked me to gather herbs and poisonous plants for you."
"Oh, right."
He remembered belatedly.
Dang Mujin had half-forgotten about it because he knew his friends wouldn't just do whatever he asked.
Who in their right mind would want to bend over and scour every patch of grass and tree root? It was tedious work that offered no fun and little benefit to training.
But Hyun-gong said,
"I've gathered a ton of herbs and poisonous plants in the warehouse next door."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Surprised by the unexpected news, Dang Mujin reacted, and Hyun-gong added casually,
"You need something like that, don't you? Not everyone has to excel at martial arts. A guy like Hong Geolgae might have a tough life if he's weak in martial arts too, but you've got other talents, so you'll get by just fine."
"..."
It was said in a grumbling tone that pretended otherwise, but Dang Mujin sensed an undercurrent of superiority and pity in Hyun-gong's words. So in his mind, he muttered, Hyun-gong, you prick.
Hyun-gong gazed at Dang Mujin with a feigned look of deep sympathy, then smirked with a slight twist of his lips before vanishing outside.
Sitting there idly would only make him feel more depressed. Dang Mujin got up and checked the warehouse next door. Sure enough, a considerable amount of herbs was piled up.
'This isn't something you could gather just messing around casually. He must have worked pretty hard at it...'
After confirming the warehouse, Dang Mujin went to find Yeom Physician.
Yeom Physician happened to be in the middle of teaching Seolhwa how to read. Unexpectedly, Hyun-gong was in the room too, sitting cross-legged in the corner, glancing at Seolhwa now and then.
Yeom Physician lit up the moment he saw Dang Mujin.
"I heard you arrived yesterday and slept the whole day. Looks like you're finally up."
"Yes."
"Good, that's good. Do you know how empty it felt around here without you?"
Unlike Hyun-gong, Yeom Physician seemed genuinely pleased. His consistent warmth eased Dang Mujin's mind a little.
Yeom Physician said,
"Oh, right—did you see the herbs we've gathered?"
"Yes."
"Since we're on the topic, how about we check together if there's anything usable?"
"That sounds good."
"Wait a moment. I'll go fetch the herbs."
"No, it's fine. Please stay seated."
Dang Mujin called over Hong Geolgae, who was passing by outside, and asked him to bring the herbs from the warehouse.
Hong Geolgae didn't refuse the request. He filled a large sack with herbs and dumped them out onto the floor. He then sat down naturally next to Hyun-gong, apparently with nothing else to do.
For a fleeting moment, Dang Mujin wondered why Yeom Physician hadn't sorted the herbs alone and had waited instead—but that doubt was quickly resolved.
His friends knew little about herbs and had simply gathered whatever unusual plants they found, resulting in a jumble of unfamiliar ones.
If it were familiar herbs, that would be one thing, but with so many unknowns, relying on one person's experience to sort them risked discarding plenty of useful ones.
Even familiar herbs posed that risk, and poisonous plants even more so.
That said, there were so many herbs Dang Mujin had never seen before that he had to sense the medicinal properties and toxicity of each one individually.
It was a hassle, but worth it. Herbs and poisons from the south were hard to obtain back home.
Dang Mujin handled the herbs one by one as he thought,
'Do I even need poisonous plants right now?'
He had needed them because Tu Hui's Wei Jinan-hyang had requested a painless death. But Tu Hui no longer had reason to die, so he didn't think he'd need poisons immediately.
'Still, since we've gathered them, I should sort them carefully.'
Dang Mujin divided the herbs and poisons into three broad categories.
Unfamiliar but seemingly useful ones, familiar and valuable ones, and useless ones.
He planned to keep the unfamiliar but promising ones for himself, and leave the familiar, sellable ones for the villagers in Samgu Village. Those could be sold for money.
While sorting for a long time, Seolhwa took interest in an unfamiliar herb.
By Dang Mujin's classification, it was one of the unfamiliar but seemingly useful ones.
"That's Lesser Yang Seven-Leaf Herb."
"You know it?"
"Yeah. They say if you process it right, it becomes an excellent spiritual elixir."
A spiritual elixir. That piqued his interest. Dang Mujin asked Seolhwa,
"Do you know how to make that elixir?"
"Nope."
Of course not.
Dang Mujin put the Lesser Yang Seven-Leaf Herb in his mouth and chewed it. If it was material for a spiritual elixir, it likely held tremendous energy even raw.
Along with an intense spiciness uncharacteristic of a herb, he felt a dense yang energy. It was as potent as a mid-to-high-grade spiritual elixir after processing.
If the raw material held this much yang energy before processing, the finished elixir would undoubtedly be extraordinary.
But there was a serious issue. The energy in the Lesser Yang Seven-Leaf Herb was extremely unstable.
The yang energy from the Lesser Yang Seven-Leaf Herb melted away like snow before it could pass his throat.
"Aw."
Spiritual elixirs came in many varieties. Extremely yin ones, extremely yang ones, or balanced ones.
But they all shared one trait: the energy within had to be stabilized in its own way.
Unstable energy led to only two outcomes in a person: no effect at all, or harm to the body.
Fortunately, the Lesser Yang Seven-Leaf Herb fell into the no-effect category.
Dang Mujin didn't know how to make spiritual elixirs from spiritual herbs. He figured that to capture unstable yang energy, it would need to be combined with an extremely stable yin energy or yang energy spiritual elixir.
But among the spiritual herbs here, none had stability to handle the Lesser Yang Seven-Leaf Herb's instability.
'It'd be a shame to just give up.'
Dang Mujin ground the Lesser Yang Seven-Leaf Herb in a small bowl to extract its clear juice. He then mixed it bit by bit with juices from other potentially compatible spiritual herbs.
But that yielded no worthwhile results. None stabilized the Lesser Yang Seven-Leaf Herb's unstable yang energy.
Then, Dang Mujin obtained something remarkable. Not from harmony with a stable herb.
It came from mixing it with the juice of No Hoe—a herb that, like the Lesser Yang Seven-Leaf Herb, contained extremely unstable yin energy.
Unstable yin and yang energies typically neutralized each other, resulting in something with no effect.
But mixing the Lesser Yang Seven-Leaf Herb and No Hoe's juice produced something peculiar. It created a liquid with both extreme yin and extreme yang properties. The tradeoff was even greater instability.
Dang Mujin scratched the back of his head.
'I've never heard of something like this being possible.'
Knowing it was dangerous, he still dabbed a bit on his tongue out of curiosity. He hoped it might offer a clue to advancing to the Transcendent Realm.
As expected, nothing happened. The instability caused the yin and yang energies to dissipate the moment they touched his tongue.
In the end, it was just novel, with no real significance.
"What happened?"
Hong Geolgae asked. Since bringing the herbs, he'd been sitting quietly in the corner, watching Dang Mujin and Yeom Physician work.
Dang Mujin explained simply.
"It has abundant yin and yang energies, but they're too unstable to use."
"Why doesn't instability work?"
Dang Mujin pondered briefly, then explained as simply as possible.
"For example, this herb is like two leaves leaning against each other, barely balanced precariously. They can prop each other up."
"And?"
"As you know, living bodies have flowing energy, like a stream. If you place those precarious leaves over a stream, they'll just wash away."
"Can't they just flow?"
The question was so basic it momentarily stumped him, but then he remembered Hong Geolgae had never properly studied medicine. It wasn't that strange.
"Of course not. To get the elixir's effect, its energy has to reach the bottom of the stream without being swept away."
"Hmm."
Hong Geolgae seemed to grasp it somewhat.
After thinking for a moment, Hong Geolgae asked again.
"So, using unstable medicine on a living person means it can't overcome the body's flowing energy, so no effect?"
"Right. It's swept away by the current."
"Then, what happens if you use unstable medicine on a dead person?"
It was such nonsense that Dang Mujin immediately scolded him.
"What kind of ridiculous talk is that? Why would you give medicine to a dead person?"
Hong Geolgae's voice grew a bit quieter.
"Well, you said it doesn't work on living people..."
"What are you going to do by giving medicine to a dead person? You're not reviving them or killing them again. What kind of idiot talk is this?"
Hong Geolgae nodded, then looked at Dang Mujin and said,
"So, you're not going to try it?"
"Of course I am."
Calling it idiotic meant there was a high chance of something interesting happening.
He'd never heard of feeding medicine to a corpse, and the reasoning behind it was surprisingly plausible.
But there was one problem. Where to get a corpse?
From the corner, where he'd been sitting cross-legged, Hyun-gong spoke up.
"Want to experiment on Cheonpae's corpse?"
"...Didn't you have a life-and-death duel with Cheonpae?"
"That's right."
"What do you think of someone you dueled to the death with?"
At Dang Mujin's point, Hyun-gong replied as if baffled.
"Dang Mujin. If you carve a wooden block into a bowl, who owns that bowl?"
"Me."
"If you twist straw into sandals, who owns those sandals?"
"Me."
"Then if you cut down a person to make a corpse, who owns that corpse?"
Dang Mujin was stunned. It was a thought even the most vile demonic cultist wouldn't conceive. Its logical soundness made it all the more shocking.
'...Why is this guy a righteous sect warrior?'
When Dang Mujin didn't easily agree, Hyun-gong tried persuading him again.
"Come on, think about it. When a hunter shoots a mountain bird with an arrow, that bird meat belongs to the hunter. It's the same thing."
"Unless you want to become a public enemy of the martial world, never say that anywhere else."
"..."
"While you're at it, go ask the villagers if they have any hunted animals. I saw hides drying around the village, so there must be a few hunters."
At Dang Mujin's instruction, Hyun-gong stood up grumbling and headed outside.
A short while later, Hyun-gong returned dragging a dead goat and placed it in the snow-covered courtyard.
"No hunted animals, but they had a goat that died of illness. It was looking sickly the past few days and died last night. Got it cheap."
He wondered if testing the medicine's effects on a goat that died of disease was the right choice—but there were no other options. If Dang Mujin refused here, Hyun-gong might dig up Cheonpae's corpse.
Dang Mujin went out to the courtyard and stared at the goat, pondering briefly.
Medicine was typically taken orally. But a dead goat couldn't move its throat to swallow.
After a moment's thought, another method occurred to him.
Just as dipping a feed-stained brush in water turns the whole bowl black, perhaps letting the medicine touch the goat's blood would spread the effect throughout the corpse.
Dang Mujin drew his knife and cut into the goat's chest. Cold blood trickled out, staining the snow-covered courtyard red.
'Testing some weird medicine on a dead goat. What am I even doing...'
Dang Mujin poured the freshly made liquid into the wound on the dead goat.
He naturally expected nothing to happen, but unexpectedly, smoke rose from the goat's carcass. Startled, Dang Mujin dropped the carcass and backed away.
"W-What?"
Smoke without fire. Truly bizarre.
The smoke didn't dissipate; it grew thicker. Hyun-gong watched the scene and thought aloud.
"You said that medicine had unstable extreme yang and extreme yin energies?"
"Yeah."
"Looks like the yang energy was much stronger. The medicine's yang is fire, blood is water—so by the five elements, water should extinguish fire with water overcoming fire. But when fire is overwhelmingly strong, it's fire overpowering water, evaporating it."
Hyun-gong offered a fairly convincing explanation.
But another thought crossed Dang Mujin's mind: Thank goodness they weren't doing this to Cheonpae's corpse.
The poor goat carcass smoked for a while, but soon the smoke began to die down.
When the smoke cleared, all that remained was faint ash. Far too little for what a full-sized goat should leave behind.
Dang Mujin crept closer and sifted through the ash with his hand. He felt something like bone fragments. But when he picked one up, it crumbled to dust like a lie.
Burning bones to ash required intense fire. Doing it without fire was astonishing.
"..."
Everyone was speechless. The astonishment was secondary; they were pondering if this medicine had any practical use.
It seemed potentially useful yet not.
Hong Geolgae in particular looked shocked. He'd thrown out the idea as a joke and hadn't expected something so strange.
In such cases, the one who came up with the odd idea deserved credit over the maker, so Dang Mujin asked Hong Geolgae,
"What should we call this medicine?"
Hong Geolgae thought for a moment before answering.
"...Since it turns bones to powder, how about Bone Dissolving Powder?"
A pretty apt name.
Hyun-gong, who had been silent for a long time, spoke up.
"Shouldn't we check if Bone Dissolving Powder works the same on human corpses?"
Hyun-gong apparently still clung to the idea of testing it on Cheonpae's body.
"...Let's not, for humanity's sake."
Dang Mujin thought that when Hyun-gong died, he'd sprinkle Bone Dissolving Powder on him.