Chapter 152
Chapter 152
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 152
Chapter Title: Unveiling the Peach Blossom Physique
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In fact, training Zhuge Seol-ha was quite a familiar task for Baek Yang-hui.
Every year, whenever he visited Gokyeol Mountain for a few months to receive guidance from Eun-hu, Zhuge Seol-ha would always pester him with one question after another.
'Come to think of it, I stubbornly insisted we were the same age and made her call me senior brother, yet she still followed me around.'
Indeed, ever since childhood, Zhuge Seol-ha had trailed after Baek Yang-hui like he was her own brother.
Or perhaps it was better described as the fondness she showed her one and only friend.
Hmm. I planned to show her hell, but my resolve is starting to waver.
'No. That's one thing—this is another.'
I'll make sure she fully grasps the meaning of the calamity she brought upon herself.
For now, though, I need to patch myself up first.
"We'll start training in a few days, so head out for today."
Zhuge Seol-ha, who had been waiting on tenterhooks for Baek Yang-hui's words, suddenly went limp with relief.
"What? The way you were talking, it sounded like you'd drag me straight to the training grounds."
"Seol-ha, I used innate true qi. It's only my transcendent talent that's keeping me upright right now—I could've dropped dead on the spot."
Half a day had already passed since the fight ended.
Wouldn't any ordinary martial artist without pure qi have immediately started circulating their energy?
One wrong move, and he'd have been done for.
"Do you even realize how selfish you're being? Hogging the time of someone with serious injuries."
A normal person might have felt sorry, but Zhuge Seol-ha just snorted derisively.
She knew Baek Yang-hui far too well to feel any guilt.
"Aside from those bloodstained clothes, you look totally fine on the outside. And knowing your personality, senior brother, if it was really that bad, you'd have shooed everyone away and focused on healing first."
The Baek Yang-hui she knew was more rational than anyone, with crystal-clear priorities.
If he'd truly been in agony, he would've shut down the conversation without a second thought.
'Hmm. Can't really argue with that.'
It was an injury that could've killed him without pure qi.
But on the flip side, precisely because he had pure qi, it was more bearable than expected.
His condition wasn't nearly as dire as he'd imagined—enough to make even him marvel.
To get to the bottom of this, it was time to focus on circulating his qi.
"Anyway, get going. Let me circulate in peace."
"Can't I stay here? I'm bored."
"Here?"
Baek Yang-hui ostentatiously craned his neck around the room.
"In another man's bedroom? As a refined young lady of a prestigious house?"
"Ehehe. Senior brother and junior sister are basically siblings. I'll stay quiet. You don't chase A-du away, either."
That was only because A-du refused to leave no matter what—he'd long since given up trying.
Now he had another clingy one on his hands.
"You could hang out with Heon-so or Yeon-yeon outside. Or the Tang brother and sister. Why stick to me?"
"Umm... with people I'm not close to...?"
He found himself rubbing his forehead without thinking.
The daughter of the Zhuge house would need to navigate plenty of social events later in life, but with a loner streak like this...
'Considering her past, it's not surprising.'
In truth, the mere fact that Zhuge Seol-ha had opened up to Baek Yang-hui was a wonder.
He'd done her a favor back in childhood, sure—but even factoring that in, she stuck to him closer than anyone.
Like a duckling waddling after its mother.
"What am I supposed to do with you hating crowds so much?"
"What do you mean? I can just hang out with senior brother. We've got the monk, too. Right, monk?"
"Huh? Oh! Want some rice cakes, Seol-ha?"
"Sounds good. We'll munch on rice cakes and watch senior brother circulate his qi."
Showing off qi circulation was taboo among martial artists... or so the saying went, but he'd done it plenty in front of these two.
Back during training on Gokyeol Mountain, they'd even sat cross-legged side by side, running the great heavenly circuit together.
"Ugh. You two are gonna make me age prematurely."
He threw in the towel and assumed the cross-legged position. Then he closed his eyes.
'Pure qi... the more I learn about it, the more wondrous it seems.'
The abilities of pure qi he'd uncovered so far numbered two.
Guiding the body toward beneficial ends, and wielding the power to dispel evil and dispel demons.
'Maybe today I'll uncover a third.'
He'd drawn out a massive amount of innate true qi and detonated it.
That let him hold his own against Hyeong-san Eum-hyeol, who stood at a higher realm—but in truth, it bordered on suicide.
Innate true qi was, after all, the root vital force inherent to life itself.
'Peak realm masters can replenish innate true qi through cultivation...'
Even innate true qi was qi at the end of the day.
A form of natural qi, breathed in tandem with heaven and earth.
Martial arts, too, involved drawing in that qi from heaven and earth to transcend human limits.
Once a martial artist gained enough control to shape their qi, they advanced to the next stage.
Becoming able to wield energies beyond mere internal qi.
The key enabler was opening the other two dantians, beyond the lower.
'Lower dantian: inner qi. Middle dantian: origin qi. Upper dantian: spirit qi.'
Inner qi was natural qi drawn inward and made one's own.
Origin qi was one's innate root energy—in other words, innate true qi.
And spirit qi was the power born from opening the baihui point to commune with the heavens.
The foundation for the ultra-peak realm's mind-image qi, or intent qi.
"Suuuup. Haaaa."
He closed his eyes. They were already shut, but he closed them once more.
Darkness signified descent, so his cloaked consciousness sank even deeper.
And upon arrival, what he beheld was light.
'Origin qi.'
It was astonishing. He'd clearly expended a great deal, yet the light blazed as bright as ever.
Like a well whose waters were brimming higher and higher.
'Normally... this should take dozens—no, hundreds of times longer.'
He knew this well from his previous life, having tapped innate true qi back then too.
Innate true qi was the purest energy under heaven and earth.
Even peak realm masters required arduous years to restore it.
That was how it should be...
'I see. It's the pure qi.'
When he'd first obtained pure qi, Baek Yang-hui had sensed as much.
This energy was the clearest and most pristine in all the world.
A trait shared with innate true qi.
'But that's not all there is to it. Pure qi's true power...'
Pure qi's abilities had now expanded to three.
Yet those three all converged upon a single truth.
It guided the flesh toward prosperity.
It righted evils and demons, turning wrong to right.
And it aided the restoration of innate true qi.
'The common thread among these three powers is...'
The moment he reached that conclusion.
Baek Yang-hui's inner sight fixed upon his lower dantian.
The qihai acupoint—the sea of qi.
From that limpid, vast, profound ocean rose a dragon.
The dragon was named Harmonious Celestial Pure Qi: Baek Yang-hui's internal energy.
'My internal energy... moving on its own?'
He could clamp down and force it back under control, but he let it be.
Movement implied intent.
And that intent was mind-image—the very path to the ultra-peak realm.
Thus, one key enlightenment for peak realm experts was the vitality of qi.
'Mind begets qi, which follows—an enlightenment that propelled one to the peak realm. Next comes...'
Vital intent qi. The step of infusing qi with life itself.
"Suuuup, haaaa."
The Harmonious Celestial Pure Qi writhed free of the qihai.
It surged toward the middle dantian along the straightest, widest path.
The Ren and Du meridians.
The Harmonious Celestial Pure Qi rode the Ren meridian upward.
Due to his forced extraction of innate true qi, part of it had been blasted open.
Blasted open—or more accurately, torn, leaving a hole for qi to leak through.
'Looking back, that was reckless. I got too worked up facing Hyeong-san Eum-hyeol.'
In the eye of his mind, the meridian's wound resembled shattered pottery.
You couldn't gather spilled water, nor mend broken ceramics.
In other words, without pure qi, he'd have been left with an irreparable scar.
With a sigh of relief, he refocused on the Harmonious Celestial Pure Qi's movements.
And realized one crucial fact.
It caressed the wounded meridians and acupoints, darting in and out of the middle dantian to invigorate the origin qi.
That entire sequence could be summed up in four words.
All things return to righteousness.
'Ah!'
What did "righteousness" mean for a living being?
The answer was simple: life.
Pure qi was the force that guided all things toward righteousness.
Hence the swift recovery of his innate true qi.
Like gentle rain falling on parched, cracked fields.
'So that's how it works.'
Joy surged through him in that instant. The emotional peak shattered his no-mind trance.
His consciousness rebounded. Wounded, it scattered outward.
"Ah..."
Baek Yang-hui's eyes snapped open as a lingering sigh of regret escaped his lips.
Regrettable. Infuriatingly so.
A little longer, and he might have embodied vital intent qi—one of the core enlightenments for reaching the ultra-peak realm.
'Well... enlightenment strikes like lightning and fades like mist, after all.'
It stung to his bones, but repeating it daily would let him grasp at least a clue eventually.
Still, one session of circulation had yielded impressive gains...
"Seol-ha, why are you staring like that?"
Zhuge Seol-ha gaped at him as if she'd witnessed the dead rising.
"Senior brother."
"Yeah."
"You just levitated."
"Huh?"
"Your body... it floated up on its own!"
"For real?"
"Would I lie to you?"
"Yang-hui! I saw it too. It was just like our big monk."
'I thought I'd only grasped a clue to vital intent qi, but void grasping too?'
Extremely positive.
Levitation during circulation meant his qi was beginning to exert physical force.
In essence, the subtlety of void grasping—one of the enlightenments for the ultra-peak realm.
'The problem... I have zero sense of how.'
He extended a hand toward Zhuge Seol-ha, precisely as he'd done with void grasping in his previous life.
But not a single strand of her hair stirred.
He knew it in his head, but it hadn't sunk into his body.
Void grasping's enlightenment required a corresponding transformation in one's qi to hold meaning.
'Well, I did grasp a clue, so practice should get me there.'
Three achievements from a single circulation, then.
A deeper grasp of pure qi's essence, plus clues to vital intent qi and void grasping.
From peak realm to ultra-peak could take decades—or a lifetime.
'This confirms I've surpassed my previous life's self.'
As that thought crossed his mind and a grin tugged at his lips.
He caught sight of Zhuge Seol-ha's expression.
How to put it—more downcast than ever, tinged with deprivation.
No, more like...
The face of a little sister watching her brother dash off into the distance.
"Senior brother."
"Seol-ha."
"Don't go too far ahead alone. To me..."
A companion who'd spent more years at her side than blood family.
That was what Baek Yang-hui was to Zhuge Seol-ha.
It was then.
A firm yet warm palm gently stroked her head.
"Junior sister. No brother in the world abandons his sister. Senior and junior or not, that never changes."
"Senior brother..."
"Ahem. I was planning to rest today, but let's just start training now."
If she hated being left behind, he'd force her to keep pace—even drag her faster.
Anyone else, maybe not—but Zhuge Seol-ha had what it took to run ahead.
"Chilju. Let's awaken righteous qi transcendence within Chilju."
"Huh? Is that even possible?"
"Yeah. You can do it, junior sister."
Baek Yang-hui flashed his usual cheeky grin.
Yet somehow, it looked more dependable than ever before.
"Let's go—time to draw out the true essence of that Peach Blossom Physique."