The Black Dragon Gold Pill
I don't need it myself.
He smiled, bitter and dry.
A true elixir, and utterly useless to him. Swallowing it would only let him claw back a fraction of his former martial power a little faster—nothing more.
"You… you knew?"
There's no human who can endure the Ten Thousand Poison Ghost Body.
How could a mere man contain a heaven like the Ten Thousand Poison Ghost Body? It granted colossal power, but only by staking one's life as collateral.
"You know a great deal. Even the Poison Sage himself lived only five years after becoming a Ten Thousand Poison Ghost."
The fusion of blood and poison was a blessing—and at the same time a curse.
"You'll last until twenty at the longest. No more."
Is that so? Want to bet on that too?
He already knew the future. He had lived nearly ten years after becoming a Ten Thousand Poison Ghost. He still remembered how stunned Hwancheonjihwan had been then—how the ring had praised his willpower as the greatest among all humans.
"Something feels off about this."
What, no confidence? And you call yourself the greatest of the Three Great Treasures of Wulin?
At the provocation, Hwancheonjihwan snapped up the bait at once.
"Hmph. This time I'll win. Even the Poison Sage only lasted five years—you think you're any better?"
If I win the bet, what will you give me?
"I'll hand over the Blood Life Ring."
The answer he had been waiting for. The Blood Life Ring ranked among the three greatest divine weapons of the martial world—a sentient armament said to choose its own master. And Hwancheonjihwan knew exactly where it slept.
Not bad.
"Huh? That's all the reaction I get?"
Of course he was unimpressed. In his previous life he had already claimed that very weapon through Hwancheonjihwan. Still, obtaining it through a wager was wiser than hunting it down blindly. He needed the ring's goodwill.
What more of a reaction do you want?
"It's a divine weapon! A weapon with a self!"
So what?
Hwancheonjihwan wore the face of pure bafflement—the expression of someone thinking, What kind of lunatic is this? The next words from Cheonwi made the reaction perfectly clear.
Is the Blood Life Ring greater than you?
"Of course not. There is no divine weapon or treasure in this world greater than me."
That's why I'm not impressed.
For some reason, Hwancheonjihwan's mood lifted.
"Right, right. You're a surprisingly sharp human, aren't you?"
A laugh rose unbidden. Such a simple creature. Having dealt with him once in a previous life made handling him almost effortless—even with that notoriously difficult temperament.
"I'm starting to like you a little."
The words came surprisingly fast. The ring almost never said such things; it was far too proud and high-nosed for that.
"More importantly, you should head back down soon."
Whether he had truly taken a liking to Cheonwi or not, Hwancheonjihwan offered the warning. It was sound advice. He had obtained the Ten Thousand Poison Ghost Body, but he had yet to train with it. Relying solely on a body of extreme resistance could still get him killed.
He followed the ring's counsel and descended.
The crushing weight of the water pressure. And the closer he drew, the more monstrous the poison qi that poured outward.
Without Tyrant Blood Poison Qi and the Ten Thousand Poison Ghost Body, I couldn't even have approached.
There on the lakebed, the Black Dragon Gold Pill rested in solitary grandeur, flaunting its presence—tempting him to take it at once.
He reached for it—
Whoosh!
Black haze erupted and swallowed the space around him in an instant, as if to devour him whole. It flooded into his body.
You think you can eat me?
Just as swiftly, it was expelled. The black haze that had drowned the surroundings in darkness trembled, then fled back into the Black Dragon Gold Pill.
"You—you!?"
Hwancheonjihwan's voice shook. Strange things abounded in the martial world, and the Black Dragon Gold Pill was one of them. A secret known only to a vanishing few: the pill was said to house a primordial will. That black energy was the will itself.
"Any normal person would be terrified…"
Hwancheonjihwan kept staring as if Cheonwi were some freak of nature.
I told you. Thanks to you, ordinary things no longer surprise me.
"This is a completely different matter."
Why else would the character for "forbidden"—"禁"—be part of its name? It was that dangerous. To any who coveted the treasure, the black dragon bared its savagery. Nine times out of ten, the seeker died.
"For a fifteen-year-old brat to possess that kind of willpower and guts…"
Hwancheonjihwan muttered to himself, half dazed. Meanwhile Cheonwi simply closed the small casket that held the Black Dragon Gold Pill. The poison qi that had saturated the water vanished completely.
Yuhyeon is going to love this.
At the thought of giving the Black Dragon Gold Pill to his younger brother, he broke into a broad, unguarded smile.
Tang Cheonwi returned to the Poison Dragon Pavilion.
The moment the maids saw him, they bowed so low their spines nearly snapped, every one of them watching his face with anxious care.
"Did someone stop by the Poison Dragon Pavilion while I was gone?"
The maids flinched.
Plenty of people keep tabs on me.
Those who sought to check him within the Tang Clan were countless. They would have been watching even when he ordered the maids to dispose of Pyeongchil's corpse.
"Th-that is…"
"Who entered without my leave?"
At present only two factions opposed him openly: Yuhongak, under his youngest aunt Tang Cheong, and Chae Myohong, his father's second wife.
"Yuhongak, then?"
"H-how did you know?"
The maid stammered.
"They're the only ones who act without even bothering to read the room."
Yuhongak was Tang Cheong's faction—a place that raised spies and assassins, notorious even within the Tang Clan for its ruthlessness. When a martial artist from Yuhongak came asking questions, what maid would dare refuse to answer?
The maids dropped to their knees in a panic.
"P-please forgive us!"
"We only wanted to live…!"
They trembled, thick with fear.
"I'll give you exactly what you want."
"…Pardon?"
"Everyone except Choeun is to be transferred to another pavilion."
The maids started in shock. The order had come without warning.
"Go to the head maid and tell her I drove you all out. Tell her I threatened to kill every last one of you if you came back. You're free to mention Pyeongchil as well."
"W-we are…"
One of the terrified maids found a scrap of courage.
"…We are maids assigned to the Poison Dragon Pavilion."
"Didn't you complain that you wanted to be reassigned elsewhere?"
"That was only a personal thought—"
He cut her off.
"Leave while I'm still being gracious. Don't end up walking out of here the way Pyeongchil did—as a corpse."
"The head maid will never permit it," the maid said, her face crumpling as if she might cry.
"You keep getting in my way. Who is a head maid to outrank my orders?"
Tang Cheonwi's eyes glittered. The green of his Spirit Eyes flared with menace, and the maids shrank back a step.
"Never! Of course not!"
"How could a head maid's word ever stand above the Young Lord's command? You misunderstand us!"
"Then get out. The Poison Dragon Pavilion does not raise people who leak information to outsiders without their master's leave."
The maids could not lift their heads; the accusation had struck home.
"The only reason you're still breathing is that you never learned martial arts. If you had trained the way Pyeongchil did, I wouldn't have let you walk away."
Seeing that Tang Cheonwi knew everything, the maids scrambled to their feet and fled.
One maid remained alone. Choeun kept her head bowed and did not move.
"You. Stand."
"…May I ask why you kept me?"
She rose carefully as she spoke.
"I can hardly kill a maid my little brother sent me."
"…You knew?"
In his previous life it had taken him some time to learn the truth. That Yuhyeon—still so young—had been so worried his older brother would cause trouble that he had sent his own maid, no, his shadow guard. That guard was Choeun, the assassin known as Silver Thread, and a formidable one.
"Yeah."
"Young Master Yuhyeon was only concerned for the Young Lord—"
"You don't need to make excuses. I know how he feels."
That little brat, sending someone because he was worried about his older brother. She was a guard before she was an assassin—stationed to protect him in case of disaster.
So at this point in time, I was the one he fretted over.
A smile tugged at his mouth. Worry about yourself first, you little fool. How presumptuous.
"You can keep reporting my situation to Yuhyeon."
"Is that truly all right?"
"Yuhyeon is fine."
His brother would never harm him. Even if Cheonwi himself betrayed the boy, Yuhyeon would not turn on him. That was simply the kind of gentle heart he possessed.
"Instead, find these people for me."
He went into his room, brought out a sheet of paper, and handed it to Choeun.
"What are these names?"
"Tang Clan martial artists who belong to no faction."
"May I know why you want them found?"
"I'm going to build a guard unit that will never betray him and attach it to Yuhyeon."
How had Yuhyeon died? He had been broken by Soul Destroying Poison—poisoned by someone close to him. No matter how kind the boy was, he was not so foolish as to eat something of unknown origin. Especially once he became Clan Lord, every bite he took would be scrutinized. That made betrayal by an intimate certain. The same tragedy must never be allowed to repeat. Cheonwi intended to forge Yuhyeon's guard with his own hands.
"And this list is those people?"
"That's right. Men who will never betray him."
"There is one thing I would like to ask."
Choeun pressed on despite the breach of propriety.
"Is the purpose protection—or surveillance?"
"You know it's an affront and you're asking anyway?"
"I do not yet understand what kind of man the Young Lord is. If some misdeed of yours should ever cause my master to bleed—"
"You'll kill me?"
"…Forgive me."
A servant of the Tang Clan would leap into a thousand-foot inferno for their master. She was no different.
"Let me make one thing clear. You need to understand that my regard for Yuhyeon is greater than yours."
"Ghhk—!"
An indescribable force crushed down upon Choeun.
Crack!
The floor fractured in a spiderweb of splits. At the same time the air itself grew heavy. The source of that pressure was Tang Cheonwi. He had not so much as moved, yet his presence settled over her shoulders, her back, her meridians—as if invisible hands were forcing her down.
"Haaah… haaah…!"
"Never question my faith in Yuhyeon again."
Choeun's face was pure disbelief. The Tang Cheonwi she had observed until now had been a third-class martial artist—pathetic even in the basics of hidden weapons and swordsmanship. So what was the power that had just pinned her in place?
From the moment he killed Pyeongchil, he became a completely different person.
This was not the Young Lord people called a tyrant and a bastard. For a brief instant just now she had felt as if she were facing the Clan Lord himself—no, something even more savage.
While she reeled, Tang Cheonwi's voice reached her again.
"Recruit everyone on that list at once. You bear the alias Silver Thread—I'm sure you can manage it quickly."
He even knew her hidden identity.
"…I receive your command."
She vanished without a sound, as if the earth itself had swallowed her.
Tang Cheonwi sat in the training grounds, circulating his energy.
A full month. Without eating, he had driven Tyrant Blood Poison Qi without pause.
"Y-you ruthless bastard."
Hwancheonjihwan was struck speechless. Maintaining Tyrant Blood Poison Qi for so long, without interruption, was no simple feat. The poison of the Ten Thousand Poison Ghost Body and the cataclysmic nature of Tyrant Blood Poison Qi—when those two forces combined, the risk of them invading the brain soared. And still he forced the circulation onward.
"Heaven's own Dao must have descended on this one. How else does he keep gambling his life like this?"
By the end of the month, his mastery of Tyrant Blood Poison Qi had reached a full three stars. A growth rate that bordered on insanity. Three stars—when compared to the All Streams Return to the Origin Divine Art studied by Clan Lords and heirs, that was double the achievement. And he had done it in a single month.
"There are people who train for decades and still fail to raise even a single star…"
A prodigy of the age. The kind of genius who might appear once in ten thousand.
"To bring him to the level where he can learn the Dark Blood True Scripture… this bastard—did he foresee all of this?"
Suspicion stirred. Did he somehow already know of the poison art—the Dark Blood True Scripture?
"Hooo."
In that moment, the poison qi that had saturated the air was drawn into Tang Cheonwi's nose. His eyes snapped open; the green of the Spirit Eyes was deeper than before.
"I thought I could reach four stars. Greedy of me, I suppose."
"What!? F-four stars? Have you truly lost your mind?"
"You get surprised far too often."
"Ahem. I'm not surprised—my voice is just naturally loud. I am absolutely not surprised."
"Heh."
At Hwancheonjihwan's reaction, a laugh escaped him unbidden.
"I'll take your word for it."
"That's not the point! Even the Poison Sage could never have grasped three stars of Tyrant Blood Poison Qi in a single month!"
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"That's not something you say so calmly!"
It had been the same before. Why are you so unfazed? Be more excited! The ring had ranted that nothing like this had ever happened.
"My ears hurt. Be quiet."
"Are you some kind of emotionless freak? I've never seen anyone like you."
"Enough. Hand over the Dark Blood True Scripture."
"Huk!"
Hwancheonjihwan recoiled once more in pure shock.
"What are you so startled about?"
"You—you!?"
Tang Cheonwi shook his head. He already understood why the ring was reacting this way.
"How do I know the conditions for the Dark Blood True Scripture?"
"Th-that's right."
The condition for the Dark Blood True Scripture he had learned in his previous life was simple: Tyrant Blood Poison Qi had to reach three stars before the poison art could be practiced. In that life, too, the moment his Tyrant Blood Poison Qi hit three stars, Hwancheonjihwan had offered him the scripture.
"You told me—"
He was about to answer playfully when the sound of the Dark Dragon Pavilion's gates being thrown open with brutal force reached his ears.