An Uninvited Guest
Pill refining — or more precisely, Jeongryeon — shared a certain kinship with spellcraft.
It began with hand seals, one of the foundational arts of spellcasting, and so some claimed that the first alchemists had been spellcasters themselves. Most of the records that might have settled the matter had long since vanished, leaving the truth impossible to verify. Still, when those who advanced the theory backed it with scraps of evidence and plausible argument, a few conceded it was a reasonable claim — and a handful even studied both disciplines side by side. Only to a basic level, of course. The practice did yield real benefits, and more than a few people recommended it for that reason alone.
Following their example, the boy wove his fingers into an intricate seal — the hand configuration required for Jeongryeon.
Spellcasters do have an edge over martial artists when it comes to pill refining, but the connection doesn't seem all that deep. Master is living proof of that.
It was probably just that spellcasters tended to be the sharper sort, and both alchemy and spellcraft demanded a working mind.
Not that I'm stupid. I just can't get a feel for it.
One success. That was all he needed.
A soft hiss of gathering energy —
That single success, however, was proving stubbornly elusive, and he had already tried more times than he cared to count. With a sigh, he began the refinement once more.
A deep, resonant hum filled the air as the force he was drawing upon condensed, slowly taking shape before his eyes. He had reached this point dozens of times; the process was familiar by now. The real difficulty always came next — the advanced stage, where everything tended to fall apart.
The boy steadied his ragged breathing and focused.
Today feels different, though. Better. I might actually pull this off. No wavering, and my condition is the best it's ever been. The color looks good, too. If I can just grow it to a decent size without botching anything…
He poured every scrap of concentration into the final stretch.
A long, whispering draw of energy —
He could not have said how much time passed before he shifted the hand seal one last time and moved into the finishing phase. This was only the second time he had ever gotten this far. The previous attempt had failed to a blunder so absurd he still winced to remember it. Knowing the mistake, he would not make it again.
A fine, sifting hiss —
Seal the top. Feed in more energy. Did it tremble? Reinforce it a little more. Wrap a thin membrane around the outside, and… done.
A translucent sphere wreathed in soft blue light — modest by any measure, yet forged entirely by his own hand.
It was nothing extraordinary, strictly speaking. But he had done it himself, and that made it something to be proud of.
The boy reached out — and in that exact instant, the world shuddered.
A deep, rolling boom — light, yet far from small — rippled through the space.
What…?
The suddenness of it set every instinct screaming that something was wrong. Instinct was hardly necessary, though. However long he had been here, this place had remained a pocket of unbroken solitude. Nothing like this had ever happened before.
Alarm was natural — but tension arrived first. Thinking back, he himself had not always been here. There was no reason a newcomer could not have arrived by the same path. If anything, it was strange that no one else had found this place until now.
This space was connected to Gu Mang-gyeol, and it had clearly existed for centuries at the very least. Manjang Cliff was infamous for its dangers and rarely traveled, yet a handful of the adventurous — or those hunting rare herbs — still came and went. That even a fraction of them might have stumbled upon this place first would have been entirely unsurprising. By that reckoning, at least a dozen visitors, perhaps far more, could have passed through over the years. Why none of them had found the cabin was harder to explain — but if the tremor he had just felt was the aftershock of an intrusion, there was nothing odd about it at all.
He needed to check.
I'll have to be careful. But unlike when I met that Black-clothed Man, even if a master has come, I won't just sit here and take it. Given how they arrive, their condition might not be perfect either.
The space itself was not large, and it did not take long to grasp the situation. Just as he had expected, there was an intruder.
A Black-clothed Man? Not the same one I saw before. And just as I thought — he doesn't look whole. Hard to tell with the covering, but…
Several wounds were visible at a glance. The man was breathing hard. The boy did not approach rashly; he watched from a distance. A martial artist, that much was clear — but of what caliber, he could not yet say. If he simply waited, the man's condition would only worsen.
Time is clearly on my side. Leave him alone and he'll die.
Martial artists did not die easily, of course.
Still, I wonder what happened. Those wounds don't look like he took a fall. A fight? That's the feeling I get. Especially that long gash across his back — that looks like a blade, and—!
A shrieking blade of pure keen energy, loosed without warning through the air.
The boy twisted the moment he saw it coming — and sure enough, a razor-thin current of wind whispered past, cold enough to raise the hair on his neck. A few severed strands drifted to the floor.
Cold sweat beaded on his skin, but understanding flooded his mind at once. That technique had been Sharp Qi — the pure manifestation of cutting force itself. It could be layered over fists, feet, or weapons, or launched as a free-flying blade of energy across a distance. At the boy's current level, even attempting it was impossible. The ability to wield Sharp Qi was regarded as a hallmark of true masters, and his wariness spiked well past mere tension into outright vigilance.
Poison was considered one of the most dangerous tools up to a certain realm, so there was a slim chance it could close a gap this wide — but whether it truly could reverse a disparity of this magnitude was another question entirely. As it turned out, the question was moot.
"You there… cough! Behind me. Come out."
Once the attack had been thrown, concealment was already finished. The boy let out a long breath. Hiding was pointless now, so he stepped forward at once.
Footsteps on hard ground —
"I came out, as you asked."
"Keh keh keh! Cough. Rotten luck. I was just congratulating myself for stumbling onto a realm gate by chance — and it already had an owner."
"You look terrible. Spent all your internal energy?"
"Changing your tone that fast, are you? Cough, cough! Looks like I've run into a real madman."
Resignation flickered in the man's eyes. He did not feel particularly dangerous anymore.
"A realm gate. So you were running from someone. What's happening outside?"
"Hah — cough! Why should I tell you? Figure it out yourself. Cough, cough! This place… it's good. Every breath settles the heart. If I'd known sooner, I never would have lived the way I did. Only at the end do I regret it. I don't want to finish my life as nothing but a tool… but…"
His words cut off mid-sentence as his breath stopped. The boy approached and held a hand beneath the man's nose. Nothing. He was dead.
His thoughts tangled. He had barely had a moment to celebrate succeeding at the Wondan before this had happened. What was he supposed to do now?
Honestly, he had wanted to remain here as long as possible, training until he reached some lofty height — but he had always known that was unrealistic. He simply had not expected to feel the truth of it so directly. The whole situation left him slightly dazed.
The first time was the hard part. A second, a third — incidents like this could happen whenever they pleased. Now that he knew this place was not an absolute sanctuary, he would have to scale back his original ambitions considerably. He would need to leave once he had reached a level he could live with, or the moment things grew too difficult to manage.
The world, as ever, refused to go according to plan.
The boy clicked his tongue inwardly, roughly sorted through what had just occurred, and returned to the cabin.
So this isn't the time to sit around being pleased with myself.
It was a clear reminder not to swing between joy and despair over every small success. This time he had been fine — the man had staggered in half-dead. But if the intruder had been in better shape, or a stronger master who had landed that first strike cleanly, the boy himself might well be the one lying cold on the ground.
In the end, even this place had not escaped the Murim. And the Murim was a world where strength was everything — where the strong reigned absolute. He had no choice but to drive himself harder in training. He was not satisfied with where he stood. If anything, he felt the shortfall more keenly than ever.
Stepping back into the cabin, the boy allowed himself a quiet smile.
I've been putting off learning proper attack methods. No more room to be picky. The Eumjangdokgyeong has palm techniques in it, doesn't it? I should go through the book again and throw everything into training.
A poison cultivator's methods of combat were varied. The common image was of someone who never fought face-to-face, instead inducing a quiet, fatal poisoning from the shadows. That approach was not bad — but the Murim was a place where personal power mattered, and one could not always fight from a position of advantage. That was how the Poison Palm had been devised: a martial art that loaded the palm with toxin and delivered it through direct strikes. Contact alone was enough to poison an opponent, and so most poison cultivators learned the Poison Palm as a matter of course.
The boy intended to follow that same line of thinking — to forge a weapon of his own.
I'll have to devote the next few days to this alone.