Finally, an Inner Core (1)
Geomseonin Wanted
— Pay: 50 taels per month
— Requirements: healthy body, any gender
— Meeting place: Jega Inn
— Benefits: room and board provided, martial arts instruction
It was the writing on the oldest, longest-standing notice board on the street where all manner of news was posted. The notice had first gone up five years ago. A few people were milling about in front of it.
"Do you know what a Geomseonin is?"
A powerfully built young man asked the old man standing beside him, studying the notice.
"You don't know what a Geomseonin is?"
"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking, would I?"
"A human test subject."
"A test subject for what, exactly?"
"What do you suppose a martial artist needs most?"
"Internal force, wouldn't you say?"
The young man answered with an expression that said he found the question beneath him.
"The Jecheon Medical Manor manufactures elixirs that raise exactly that — internal force. The problem is, they have no way of knowing how effective the elixirs they make actually are."
"So the test subjects who try those elixirs are called Geomseonin?"
"Quick on the uptake, aren't you."
The old man smiled.
"Fifty taels a month just for taking medicine?"
A server's wages at a restaurant ran about five taels. Ten times that, and the only work involved was swallowing medicine. On top of that, room and board were provided, and they even taught martial arts.
In the young man's mind, there couldn't be a better deal.
"Five years ago there were people who thought just like you. No — there were a great many of them. More than a thousand people a month entered the Jecheon Medical Manor after seeing this notice. Do you know what became of them?"
"What happened to them?"
"They didn't last a year. Half were dead within six months, and the rest within a year."
"Why would they die from taking elixirs?"
"Who could make an elixir out of legendary treasures like thousand-year ginseng or azure lapis oil? They died because that's not what these were made from."
"Then……"
"Most of the ingredients the Jecheon Medical Manor uses to make its elixirs are poisonous herbs. They blend the poisons into elixirs and feed them to the Geomseonin to test the effects."
"So not elixirs. Poison."
"Strictly speaking, yes."
"Then not a single person survived?"
"If that were true, no one would be lining up to become a Geomseonin today."
"Then?"
"Quite a few survived, earned their seed money, and went home. And one man has stubbornly endured for a full five years."
"He's survived five years?"
"His nickname is 'Jin Ga of the Whale Tendon and Heaven-Blessed Luck.' They gave it to him because he's lucky, and his lifeline is as tough as a whale's sinew."
"So his family name is Jin."
"That's right. And this is a secret only a few people know……"
"A secret?"
"They say that if you survive at the Jecheon Medical Manor, you become an Absolute Master."
"An Absolute Master?"
The young man's eyes went wide.
It was the answer he had been waiting for. He waited for the old man's next words, his face full of expectation.
"What is poison?"
Instead of satisfying his curiosity, the old man asked a question.
"Something that kills you when it poisons you, isn't it?"
"Then what happens to those who survive?"
"Either they have some unusual constitution that poison can't touch, or they've developed a resistance to it."
"And what does having a resistance mean, exactly?"
"That's……"
The young man couldn't answer.
"Having a resistance means that some new substance has formed inside the body. But that substance doesn't come from outside — it was there all along. In other words, some hidden ability has been drawn out of the body. We call that potential."
"So they're making medicine that uses poison to draw out a person's potential?"
"Exactly that."
The old man broke into a wide grin.
"Have you seen the results?"
"Have you ever heard of elixirs called the Myriad Poison Demon Pill, the Little Heaven Divine Pill, the Mad Soul Reverse Burst Pill, the Transcendent Sight Spirit Pill, or the Thousand-Mile Clear Hearing Pill?"
"Of course I have. The Myriad Poison Demon Pill is an antidote, the Little Heaven Divine Pill treats internal injuries, the Mad Soul Reverse Burst Pill makes muscle as tough as whale sinew and harder than iron, and the Transcendent Sight Spirit Pill and Thousand-Mile Clear Hearing Pill sharpen the eyes and ears. Word is they're elixirs money can't buy. Could it be……"
"That's right. The place that created those medicines is the Jecheon Medical Manor. And they're supplied to the Imperial Household itself."
"Impressive."
"Why else would the Jecheon Medical Manor be the foremost medical clan in the Central Plains?"
"Well, thanks for the information."
"Off to the Jecheon Medical Manor, then?"
"Fifty taels a month isn't a bad deal. Who's to say I can't end up like that 'Jin Ga of the Whale Tendon' fellow? You've been a great help. Oh — I'm Bukgung Hansang, by the way."
The young man strolled off.
Before long he entered the Jega Inn. Quite a few people were eating there — fifty at a rough count.
"Did you come after seeing the notice?"
A server approached and asked.
"Yep."
The young man nodded.
"Are you going?"
"If I weren't going, why would I have walked in here?"
"One special order!"
The server shouted toward the kitchen.
While the young man looked around, the food arrived.
"A condemned man's last meal."
He snorted with laughter and ate.
"Guh-huk! Gaaah!"
Jin Yigang writhed, his whole body twisting in agony. Black liquid streamed from his mouth and nose.
So this is how I die.
Yi Seung looked down at Jin Yigang with pity. Over the past five years, Jin Yigang had survived countless medicines.
Clinical trials proceeded in nine stages: Strong-Strong, Strong-Middle, Strong-Weak, Middle-Strong, Middle-Middle, Middle-Weak, Weak-Strong, Weak-Middle, and Weak-Weak. Of the nine, Strong-Strong meant, quite literally, the very first version of a drug. It was pure guesswork — no one had the faintest idea what would happen if a human swallowed it, or what effects it might have.
The one who swallowed it was Jin Yigang.
They fed it to him, observed the outcome, and if he survived, they moved on to the next stage.
That man……?
The person Yi Seung understood least of all was Je Simhak. In truth, only five years earlier, the Jecheon Medical Manor had been nothing more than an ordinary medical clan.
When the martial artists rose in rebellion, drove out the Emperor, and founded a martial empire, Je Unseong, patriarch of the Jecheon Medical Manor, changed his business strategy overnight. He pivoted from a treatment-centered practice to pharmaceuticals.
What he began producing were medicines for martial artists: elixirs that boosted internal force, antidotes that neutralized poison, salves for internal injuries, muscle-forging pills, and the like.
The single most essential thing for making such drugs was test subjects to try them on.
He immediately put up a notice recruiting test subjects under the name Geomseonin, and lured by the promise of fifty taels a month, thousands poured in.
Of all of them, the one who had contributed most to the manor's drug-making was Jin Yigang.
Granted, Jin Yigang was paid for his work — but without him, the Myriad Poison Demon Pill, hailed as the finest antidote, and the Little Heaven Divine Pill, hailed as the finest medicine for internal injuries, would never have been created.
Jin Yigang could rightly be called the founding hero who raised an unremarkable clan into the greatest medical house in the Central Plains.
And yet Je Simhak despised Jin Yigang — the man who was, for all intents and purposes, the manor's benefactor — with a venomous hatred.
"Are you recording the symptoms?"
Je Simhak said.
"Yes."
Yi Seung hurriedly wrote down Jin Yigang's condition.
— Half a quarter-hour after ingesting the Thousand Poison Demonic Pill: vomits black blood.
— One quarter-hour after: black spots begin to spread from the abdomen, over the stomach.
— Three quarter-hours after: black blood flows from the nose.
— Four quarter-hours after: black spots cover the entire body.
— Five quarter-hours after: hair begins to fall out.
— Six quarter-hours after: breathing grows shallow.
"Kyaaaaah! Aaaaagh!"
That lunatic.
A curse slipped out of its own accord. It was aimed not at Jin Yigang, but at Je Simhak.
Soon the black spots began to swell. Blisters were forming, their insides filling with black pus.
— Seven quarter-hours after: blisters form on the black spots and fill with pus.
Yi Seung recorded Jin Yigang's condition exactly as he saw it.
Pop! Pop! Pop-pop-pop! Pop-pop-pop!
The blisters burst, and Jin Yigang's entire body turned black.
Sizzle!
When the pus dripped to the floor, white smoke rose up.
"Stop breathing."
— Eight quarter-hours after: blisters rupture. The pus appears to contain extreme poison — it melts the floor and gives off white smoke.
Hm?
Yi Seung's eyes went wide. Part of the white smoke was being drawn in through Jin Yigang's nose.
He looked at Je Simhak. Je Simhak, staring at Jin Yigang's dantian, seemed not to have noticed the smoke being sucked into the man's nose.
Wait—!
Yi Seung's face twisted as he watched. Jin Yigang had stopped breathing altogether.
— Nine quarter-hours after: Jin Yigang's breathing ceases.
"He's dead."
Yi Seung said.
"From now on, I will examine the body. Write down everything I say."
Je Simhak said, gazing at Jin Yigang.
"Yes."
Yi Seung readied his brush.
Je Simhak began at Jin Yigang's head, palpating as he described the condition. Soon he lifted Jin Yigang's eyelid.
"Huh?"
His eyes went wide.
"What is it, sir?"
Yi Seung asked.
"He's not dead."
"I beg your pardon?"
"When a man dies, his eyes roll back. This one's pupils are normal. Which means he isn't dead yet."
Je Simhak felt an urge to strangle Jin Yigang on the spot. But he suppressed the impulse and continued examining the body. What he was doing was a form of palpation diagnosis.
Having finished the face, he moved on to the upper body.
Even touching the pus laden with extreme poison, he was unbothered — he had already taken the antidote.
As expected……
Je Simhak nodded to himself.
Jin Yigang was not dead. He had merely lost consciousness from the poison. Je Simhak's hand passed over the upper abdomen and down toward the lower abdomen — the dantian.
At first he palpated with his fingers only.
"Hm?"
He tilted his head and stared at Jin Yigang's dantian. After a long look, he laid his palm against it.
"It can't be……"
Je Simhak pushed his inner force into Jin Yigang's dantian.
"It's there!"
Je Simhak cried out despite himself.
"S-sir!"
Yi Seung called to him.
"It's there. I've finally done it."
Je Simhak shouted.
"The— the antidote! Where's the antidote?"
Je Simhak yelled.
"I don't know, sir."
Yi Seung shook his head.
"Right. Of course you don't."
Je Simhak rushed out of his chamber and sprinted to the dispensary. A moment later he returned carrying a large pill.
"What's that?"
Yi Seung stared at Je Simhak in astonishment.
The medicine Je Simhak had brought was the Medicine King Divine Pill, the most potent elixir in the entire Jecheon Medical Manor. Je Simhak hastily peeled off its silver foil and pushed it into Jin Yigang's mouth. The pill melted into liquid at once and went down. As soon as it was swallowed, the color rapidly returned to Jin Yigang's face.
"Whew—"
Je Simhak let out a breath of relief.
"Is there something I should record?"
Yi Seung asked.
"There is."
"What should I write?"
"Write that we have created an Inner Core."
"An… an Inner Core?"
Yi Seung's eyes stretched nearly to tearing.
"That's right. At last, our Jecheon Medical Manor has created an Inner Core!"
Je Simhak shouted, beaming.