Chapter 127: Fragmented Secret Manual
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 127: Fragmented Secret Manual
[Ding! Opening Summoning Item List.]
[Martial Arts Manuals: Black Star Finger Technique (10 Coins), Jin Family Fist (30 Coins)...]
[Magic Books: Wind Spike (25 Coins), Flame Strike (50 Coins)...]
[Accessories: Lowest Grade Blink Ring (60 Coins), Earrings Bearing the Smile of the Goddess Mercury (70 Coins)...]
[Miscellaneous: Paladin’s Whip (80 Coins), Spider Wire (85 Coins), Cursed Giant’s Dagger (10 Coins)...]
As he scanned the list, several must-have items caught his eye. Looking at the rewards, the tension that had gripped him since his encounter with the Heavenly Demon finally began to melt away.
“I finally collected them all.”
He had been incredibly lucky to gather all the missing pieces of the Fragmented Secret Manual.
To think there was someone else out there collecting these, he mused. He never imagined anyone else would bother with such a tedious item.
As he continued to browse, a delayed notification chimed.
[Ding! A draw ticket will be awarded to the final five survivors.]
[Player Jin Seo-un, you may spin twice.]
“Come to think of it, the progression for Solo and Quad games is a bit different.”
While Squad games involved voting and draw rewards, Solo games skipped the voting entirely, moving straight from rewards to list confirmation and draws.
It was like that during the first game, too.
Still, it felt strangely stingy that the usual three draw tickets had been reduced to two.
“Feels like I’m being ripped off. Tsk.”
Since he always took first place in Squad games, the loss of even a single ticket felt like a significant blow. Pushing his disappointment aside, Seo-un gave the wheel a powerful spin.
[Clatter-clatter-clatter... Ding! You have obtained the Earrings Bearing the Smile of the Goddess Mercury. Congratulations!]
Seo-un’s eyes sparkled. He had pulled the exact same earrings he was currently wearing—the ones that boosted his Luck stat.
This must be closely related to my Luck stat as well.
Usually, the first spin resulted in useless junk, but pulling a 70-coin item made him appreciate his new stat. Seo-un grabbed the handle once more and gave it a vigorous spin.
[Clatter-clatter-clatter... Ding! You have obtained the Paladin’s Whip. Congratulations!]
With just two draws, he had saved 150 coins.
[Lowest Grade Blink Ring, Spider Wire, Fragmented Secret Manual (3 volumes), Cursed Giant’s Dagger, Black Star Finger Technique. You have spent a total of 345 coins. The remaining 1,274 coins will be banked. Would you like to finalize your selection?]
Looking at his accumulated coins—well over a thousand—Seo-un smiled and pressed the 'O' button.
At that moment, his vision brightened and shifted to the interior of a car.
—Screeeech!
Juriel, still a novice driver, slammed on the brakes, prompting Seo-un to shout.
“You can’t just floor the brakes on the highway!”
—Vrooooom!
Juriel immediately stomped on the accelerator, the force throwing them back into their seats. The Bentley’s rear fishtailed before the car surged forward like a bullet. Once the vehicle stabilized, Seo-un exhaled.
“Whew. Is everyone... okay?”
Li Lingwei was the first to speak, answering the ambiguous question of whether he meant the game or the driving.
“As far as the game goes, it was no different from a Quad game without you and Nam Sa-gwang. Everyone survived.”
“Ah! Come to think of it, everyone except me and Nam Sa-gwang was the same rank, right?”
He hadn't paid much attention to his teammates' ranks, but they were all White Sword, the rank just below Crown.
“Yes. Thanks to that, the game went smoothly. Dump and Jin Long were promoted to Crown.”
Seo-un’s eyes widened at Juriel’s words. “I can see Senior Jin making it, but that guy Dump?”
Li Lingwei nodded, understanding his surprise. “Not long after we entered the survival zone, we were ambushed while trying to raid a boss mob. Most of the team was taken out, leaving only the two of them, Juriel, and me. We set a strategy to hold out until the end and only fight at the very last moment. We were lucky and managed to hide well. All four of us finished around the TOP 50, but for some reason, those two were placed at the bottom of the new rankers.”
Seo-un nodded. They probably died just a split second after the others.
Since fifty Crowns had been eliminated in this game, it was only logical to pull fifty people from the lower ranks to fill the gap.
“By the way, how many people participated in the White Sword game?”
“Eight hundred.”
Seo-un’s expression darkened. “That’s more than I thought. This means the total number of players has been reduced to a third by this single game... This is going to be a problem.”
Juriel looked confused. “A problem? Why is it a problem that the number of players decreased?”
“Because they’ll try to fill the vacancies.”
“Ah...” Juriel’s grip on the steering wheel tightened.
Unlike their original world, almost everyone on Earth knew about Cloyd. If the number of new players suddenly surged, it would lead to chaos. Juriel knew all too well that, unlike their world, these ability users on Earth could cause massive social upheaval.
“Would it really be a problem if a few more players were added?” Li Lingwei asked.
“Lingwei, this place is different from our world. Back home, a surge in ability users wouldn't be anything special, but this is a world where martial arts and magic didn't even exist until recently.”
Juriel nodded in agreement. “Are you saying the Modogo Incident could happen again?”
“Modogo?” Seo-un tilted his head.
As he showed interest in the unfamiliar term, Li Lingwei explained. “I saw it on the news yesterday. A high school student who gained abilities murdered four of his classmates and two teachers.”
Juriel added, “Apparently, he was a child who was frequently bullied. According to witness interviews, he used a simple Wind Arrow. There seems to be a legal issue regarding how to punish him.”
It was a complicated mess. Legally, a murder sentence varies based on intent and method. Since the victims were killed with magic rather than a conventional weapon, the court was struggling to define the intent.
“In our world, such a killing would have been dismissed as establishing justice. Earth is just too rigid,” Li Lingwei remarked.
Seo-un frowned. “Establishing justice? He killed six people.”
Juriel stepped in to defend Lingwei’s perspective. “Those students severely abused him. They put a leash around his neck, stripped him, and dragged him around the school like a dog. They even uploaded videos of it to a group chat with the two teachers and mocked him. In our world, if a master abused a disciple like that, they wouldn't escape beheading.”
Hearing these two women, who had lived in a world with a rigid caste system, speak like this made him realize how dire the situation must have been. A surge of fury rose in his chest.
“What on earth were those teachers thinking?”
“From what I heard, it was about not receiving chonji,” Juriel said. “Most of the other parents gave this chonji, but the students whose parents didn't were subjected to discrimination and excessive corporal punishment. They should have just paid that little bit of chonji. Why didn't they?”
Seo-un shook his head. “Lingwei... chonji is... well, it’s a bribe. It’s when parents slip money to a teacher to ask them to look after their child.”
“Ah, a bribe! So you’re saying a teacher bullied a student just because they weren't paid off? Doesn't the state pay teachers a salary in your world?”
“They do.”
“Then they deserved to die. That student established justice.”
“No, that’s not it. I understand the sentiment, but in a country governed by the rule of law, you can’t just go around killing people.”
Li Lingwei thumped her chest in frustration. “Then what would you do if that happened to you?”
“Me? I’d tear them all to pieces.”
At his contradictory statement, even Juriel looked at Seo-un through the rearview mirror with an absurd expression.
“I have legal immunity. That kid doesn't,” Seo-un added. “He could have handled it more wisely.”
As they talked, they eventually reached their destination in Wonju. Li Lingwei finally asked the question on her mind.
“Oh, you survived, right? Obviously.”
“Survival wasn't that difficult.”
“How did you finish?”
“I couldn't do anything about the TOP 2, the Heavenly Demon.”
“The Heavenly Demon...” Li Lingwei’s expression turned heavy.
“You know him?”
“I heard that’s what they call the Leader of the Sun and Moon Divine Cult. The Heavenly Demon of Ten Thousand Demons. But I heard he hasn't appeared in the Gangho since my grandfather was in his prime.”
Seo-un understood the weight of that name, seeing her harden just from stories.
“The rankers who survived until the end tried to team up against him, but he didn't even blink. He was more like an Epic Monster than a player.”
Hearing such a thing from Seo-un caused even Juriel to revise her perception of the player known as the Heavenly Demon. He wasn't just a Rank 1 Crown; he was an impregnable, absolute being.
Seo-un used his Lightness Skill to leap up to the vacant lot. Li Lingwei followed closely behind, tilting her head.
“Something... seems to have changed?”
“Really?”
“How should I put it... you feel subtly more stable?”
“You’re saying the same thing as Nam Sa-gwang.”
Reaching the lot, Seo-un smiled and began pulling items out of his subspace. The first thing he took out was the earring that boosted luck.
Click!
As he pierced his earlobe, Juriel watched him quietly. Next, he pulled out the eight volumes of the secret manual.
It’s better to boost my luck just in case. That way, a better manual might come out.
Initially, it wasn't an item he had intended to collect. In terms of coins, it was a manual worth a staggering 480 coins—something an ordinary player could never hope to complete. As he laid out the eight volumes, even Li Lingwei swallowed hard.
[Ding! You have collected all the pieces of the Fragmented Secret Manual. Would you like to combine them?]
The moment he pressed 'O', the manuals were enveloped in a brilliant radiance, merging into a single book. As he reached for it, the image of a translucent lock shattering appeared, and the light faded.
Seo-un’s eyes sparkled. I knew it!
As expected, the Fragmented Secret Manual wasn't a simple item; it was a locked treasure.
—Forgotten Memoir of Museon.
“A-a memoir? Not an insight, but a memoir?”
At Seo-un’s bewildered voice, Juriel and Li Lingwei approached.
“Museon?!” Li Lingwei gasped, emphasizing the name.
“That’s not the point... Why on earth is it a memoir...”
“It’s quite thick,” Juriel said calmly. “Try reading it first.”
Seo-un calmed his excitement, sat on the ground, and opened the book.
—I write this candidly, knowing well that it will likely never reach anyone.
Once, I lived for 160 years as the Invincible Heart Blade, and thereafter, I existed for 2,000 years as the Immortal of Void and Infinity, Jinmu.
Even after achieving Wuji and ascending, I had no regrets, but a concern has recently troubled me. It is... that there is no one to inherit my legacy.
Though I once shook the world with the name 'Invincible,' it left a bitter taste in my mouth to see my legacy treated as something useless, rolling around in a field of dung...
The story continued like that for over ten pages. No matter how thick the book was, seeing ten pages filled with the personal ramblings of this 'Museon' fellow made Seo-un’s patience run thin.
“That’s not what’s important!”
As he shouted in frustration, Li Lingwei pulled a small pill from her robe. “What’s this?”
“You’re about to study an important manual, so take this. It will calm your mind.”
Juriel also pulled a potion from her subspace. “Take this as well. It will activate your cranial nerves.”
After taking the Awakening Potion and the calming pill, Seo-un regained his composure and began reading carefully again.
—...It is a pity that my legacy is treated as such in the human realm simply because it consists of only seven forms.
Martial arts is the process of accumulating the energy of heaven and earth within the body to form a microcosm within the human frame, gaining enlightenment, and understanding all things in the universe.
One creates a Dantian, learns the balance of Yin, Yang, and the Five Elements, opens the Middle Dantian to experience Immortal Qi, opens the Baihui to place the energy of heaven and earth beneath one's feet, and masters nature. Once one begins to master nature, a Nascent Soul dwells in the Middle Dantian. By nurturing the Nascent Soul and becoming nature itself, one discards the physical body, unites with the Nascent Soul to create an immortal body, and ascends to become a deity who has realized all things.
From now on, I intend to go through these processes one by one and explain why my legacy is so magnificent.
“Ah... so he just recorded why his own sect's martial arts are superior...”
Seo-un felt an impulse to close the memoir, which seemed to have been written solely for the author to brag about himself. However, he shook his head and focused again.
—...Thus, once the delivery of internal power becomes free, one begins to study the manifestation of Qi, which is called Aura Arts in the human realm. Aura Arts is...
As he read that passage, Seo-un’s gaze began to grow hazy.
Seeing Seo-un stare at the same page with a vacant gaze for a full two hours, Juriel grew anxious. She was about to call out to him when Li Lingwei blocked her, placing a finger to her lips. Juriel realized she must not disturb him, but she couldn't hide her worry.
“Cough!”
Every time he coughed, black blood trickled from Seo-un’s mouth. The blood splattered onto the manual, but it vanished without a trace.
—Juriel. It will take a long time. Nothing bad will happen, so we must just watch quietly.
—Until when? What if he suffers from excessive blood loss?
—That won't happen. It might take several days. If you touch Seo-un now, he could suffer great harm or his enlightenment could be ruined. This is the most important moment in a martial artist's life. We must never interfere.
Juriel finally nodded and stepped back to watch over him from a distance.
*
The moment Seo-un opened his eyes, he was met with a bright light. The vibrant energy of the forest felt as natural to him as sensing a person's presence. Seeing the dried, black bloodstains on his clothes that reeked of a fishy smell, Seo-un realized he had been in a deep meditation for a long time. He looked at Li Lingwei.
“How long have I been like this?”
“Yawn. Five days.” She answered with a yawn, her face showing her exhaustion.
“Are you okay?!” Juriel ran up and threw herself into his arms, her eyes brimming with tears. “I was so worried! You kept coughing up handfuls of blood, I didn't know what to do!”
Seo-un was flustered by the sudden, intense reaction. To Li Lingwei, who was used to states of self-transcendence, it was no big deal. Seeing Juriel’s reaction, she clenched her fists with a look of regret, berating herself for not thinking of that move first.
Seo-un gently pulled Juriel away. “I’m fine. Actually, rather than just being fine... I feel much better.”
He extended his arm to the side, and a Hand Aura similar to Nam Sa-gwang’s surged forth.
“What! You’re saying your Aura Arts developed this much overnight?!” Li Lingwei gasped.
Seo-un nodded. “Well, for me, all the other conditions were already met. Once I understood the theory, it wasn't that big of a deal.”
Li Lingwei’s eyes turned toward the manual in his hand.
“Ah. Don't worry. I’ll give it to you once I’m done reading it.”
As Seo-un sat back down, Juriel pulled at him. “Eat something first. You’ll ruin your health.”
His body wasn't one that would be ruined by a bit of fasting, but looking at the two women who had stayed by his side for five days to protect him, Seo-un nodded.