Chapter 34: The Peerless Wanderer
There may be trials, but there is no such thing as giving up.
Level 11.
Out of the total eleven stars, I had spent one on the Kunlun Bedchamber Arts and three on the Supreme Ultimate Wisdom Sword. Since I had also used five while mastering the Fighting God’s Boundless Divine Body Art, I should have had two left, yet…
"Six?"
That could only mean one thing.
It meant my current level was 15.
"Wow…"
The Crimson Monster, one of the four guardians of the Blood Demon.
That single red skeleton had granted me an absurd amount of experience points.
I had known it would be more than the others from the sense of fullness in my dantian, but I hadn't expected this much.
"You bastard. You were worth the trouble."
He was truly, filthily strong.
If I hadn't obtained the Fighting God’s predestined encounter in the middle of the fight, I would have undoubtedly died inside that secret cave.
"Huh?"
But that wasn't the only reward.
As I reached level 15, a new stat had been unlocked.
"Damn it. No wonder my internal energy wasn't accumulating."
Originally, my only stats were Strength, Agility, and Stamina.
But finally, Internal Energy had appeared.
First, I invested the point I gained from defeating the Crimson Monster into Internal Energy.
"Let's see. Did my internal energy increase?"
I closed my eyes and checked my dantian.
"……."
My internal energy was exactly the same as the half-year's worth I had before.
In other words, it didn't increase the energy itself, but rather expanded the capacity of the dantian that held it.
"Right. It wouldn't be that easy."
The dantian is a vessel for internal energy.
Until now, my dantian had been hardened like stone, limiting the amount of energy I could store. But now that the vessel had grown, I could accumulate more energy accordingly.
"I'll have to find another decent cultivation manual."
Internal energy is a type of consumable.
You accumulate it steadily in daily life, use it during battle, and then repeat the process of circulating your energy to build it back up.
The better the cultivation manual, the faster the energy accumulates; some manuals, worthy of being called divine arts, even allow energy to accumulate while fighting.
If one possesses such a technique, they can wield virtually infinite internal energy.
Perhaps someone like the Heavenly Demon had reached such a realm.
"I'll leave that for now."
Expanding the dantian doesn't have an immediate, massive effect. So, I decided to save the stat point for the time being.
Since the Fighting God’s Boundless Divine Body Art multiplies my stats several times over, I wasn't exactly lacking in other areas right now.
I assumed that as my proficiency in the Boundless Divine Body Art increased, the multiplier would rise as well.
"Are there no further missions?"
I had laid the foundation to become strong enough.
Even now, it was hard to find a match for me in the Murim, but my goal was the Blood Demon.
He was a powerhouse whom the Fighting God, Zhang Sanfeng, and the Heavenly Demon had barely managed to seal by joining forces, so I couldn't be satisfied with my current strength.
If I hunted down all of his guardians and grew step by step, I would eventually grow strong enough to cross swords with the Blood Demon himself.
Only then would I be able to interrogate him about what he knows.
*Creeeak.*
I opened the shrine door.
"So that's how it is."
A new scroll was hanging next to the Map of Sambong Island.
A god slaughtering enemies on a blood-boiling battlefield.
It was the Painting of the Fighting God.
However, unlike last time, there was no particular change to the altar.
It seemed there were conditions for triggering the quest.
*Thud. Thud. Thud.*
I walked outside without lingering.
Even without a system-mandated mission, my path forward was clear.
I had to find the resting places where the four guardians of the Blood Cult were slumbering.
"Hmm?"
Just then, I sensed a presence outside.
My Heavenly Perceptive Saint Body, blossomed through the Boundless Divine Body Art, allowed me to fully sense external presences even while circulating my internal energy.
I quickly finished my circulation and opened my eyes.
"……?"
The sun had set, and a small lamp had been placed inside the room.
And in the center.
A woman was standing there, watching me quietly.
"Dana? Why are you doing that?"
The flickering lamplight touched Dana's copper-toned skin, scattering like stars.
But what shone brighter than those stars were Dana's eyes.
We couldn't communicate with words, but I could tell what she wanted just by the look in her eyes.
I nodded slightly.
*Rustle.*
Dana's clothes slipped to the floor.
It had already been half a month since I arrived in the village.
*Thump! Thump! Thump!*
Everyone treated me with the utmost respect, calling me an incarnation or whatever else, but I felt awkward just taking their hospitality without contributing.
So, I helped out with the village chores, chopping firewood and going on hunts.
The people who had been startled and tried to stop me at first had gotten used to it, accepting my help as a matter of course.
"Hehehehe!"
Children are bright and cheerful everywhere you go.
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and spoke to the kids running around me.
"Be careful. You'll trip."
"Ah!"
A little child ran up and clung to my leg.
I smiled and patted the child’s head.
Dana smiled softly, took the child’s hand, and headed somewhere. She was likely taking the child back to its parents. The other children who had been playing along also swarmed after them, calling out, "Dana, Dana!"
"It feels as if you have lived here all your life."
Dang Cheon-u, who was sitting to one side, said in a weak voice.
I turned my head to look at him.
He had managed to recover from his injuries, but his shattered *dantian* could not be restored.
The Young Master of the Sichuan Tang Clan, having lost his power, looked as dejected and spiritless as a man who had lost his country.
"Ugh."
I set down the axe and plopped down next to Dang Cheon-u.
The Yunnan sun was still scorching, but sitting in the shade of the trees, a cool breeze dried my sweat.
Dang Cheon-u stared blankly at the swaying leaves.
"Brother. May I continue to call you Brother?"
Now that I thought about it, it had been a while since it was just the two of us. He had only regained consciousness a few days ago, so this was his first time getting some fresh air.
"Of course."
"That skeleton... you were the one who dealt with it, weren't you?"
"Yes."
Dang Cheon-u, who had been staring off into space, slowly turned his head toward me.
"Just who... are you?"
It was a natural question.
He, along with the elite of the Tang Clan, had been unable to even put up a proper fight before being slaughtered.
Yet, I had dealt with such a monster.
What kind of porter could do that?
Since I had already achieved my goal and there was no longer any reason to hide it, I revealed the truth to Dang Cheon-u.
"My name is Jang U-gil. I faked my identity to join the expedition. I apologize."
"I see."
He could have been angry that I deceived him, but Dang Cheon-u simply nodded and turned his gaze back to the front.
Bright sunlight pierced the ground like rain pouring through the leaves.
Dang Cheon-u and I sat in silence for a while, admiring the light as it scattered here and there.
"Is it because of the Divine Art of the Fighting God?"
"Yes."
"Did you obtain it?"
Yes, I obtained it.
But that was the one thing I couldn't tell him truthfully.
He wouldn't believe me even if I told him, and unless one possessed the Heavenly Perceptive Saint Body, teaching it would be useless anyway.
"As you saw, that secret cave was a trap. There was no such thing as the Divine Art of the Fighting God from the beginning."
"I see. But who could have done it? Yang Jin couldn't have pulled off something like that on his own."
"Yang Jin claimed to be a member of the Blood Cult."
"What?! The Blood Cult?!"
At the mention of the Blood Cult, Dang Cheon-u, who had been slumped over, jumped to his feet in surprise.
I looked up at him and said, "Yes, the Blood Cult. He said that skeleton was Crimson Monster, one of the Four Great Protectors of the Blood Demon."
"What does that even..."
"The Blood Cult is trying to awaken the Blood Demon. This sort of thing will likely happen in various places. We must inform the Murim Alliance and stop them."
Dang Cheon-u’s brow furrowed slightly.
"Are you affiliated with the Murim Alliance?"
"In a way, yes. And in a way, no."
"Whew... I really... I don't understand you, Brother."
Dang Cheon-u sat back down with a thud.
"Still, it is the truth that you saved my life."
"You are my younger brother."
"...I suppose so."
I didn't know why I had saved Dang Cheon-u either.
It wasn't something I had thought through with my head. I had simply run into the illusion formation and carried Dang Cheon-u out.
*I couldn't just let him die.*
Perhaps I had been wishing for a younger brother like him all along.
"You could have just left me to die..."
But now that I had gone through the trouble of saving him, his state was truly pathetic.
Then again, I understood; for a martial artist, losing one's internal energy was the same as death.
Even if he returned like this, he would lose his position as Young Master and spend the rest of his life doing menial tasks in a corner of the Tang Clan.
That was what Dang Cheon-u feared right now.
I turned my head to look at his profile.
The confident, self-assured man was gone, replaced by someone as fragile as glass on the verge of shattering.
"There must be a way to recover your internal energy."
"I doubt it. My *dantian* is shattered. I think it's impossible."
"So, will you just give up like this?"
"No. You saved my life, Brother; how could I give up? It’s just that, right now... I have no strength."
A thought suddenly occurred to me.
The Boundless Divine Body Art, which maximizes the senses to transcend the limits of the body.
Could that sensation be applied to someone else's body as well?
"May I examine you for a moment?"
"Please, go ahead."
Dang Cheon-u held out his hand.
For a martial artist, letting someone else grasp their pulse point was a fatal risk, but Dang Cheon-u didn't mind at all.
Part of it was his trust in me, and part of it was likely his resignation.
I took Dang Cheon-u's pulse and closed my eyes.
*Thump. Thump. Thump.*
The first thing I felt was Dang Cheon-u's heartbeat.
I heightened my senses and delved deeper.
Since this was my first time looking into someone else's body after mastering my martial arts, I carefully read his energy.
The thick meridians, the sturdy acupoints, the dense muscles, and the well-balanced skeleton.
It was a near-perfect body, as if he had undergone the Cleansing of the Marrow from birth.
*Here it is.*
However, his meridians were slowly drying up because he had lost his internal energy.
If this continued, it was obvious that his bones and muscles would weaken as well.
Most of all, the void where his *dantian* used to be was significant.
Just as Dang Cheon-u said, restoring the *dantian* seemed impossible.
*Is there really no way?*
Still, I didn't give up and examined every corner of Dang Cheon-u's body.
*Hmm?*
Then, I saw a meridian different from mine.
A meridian that shared the path of his internal energy but had established its own independent domain.
Unlike the dried-up meridians, a peculiar energy was lingering there.
*It's poison.*
Just as a poisonous beast has a separate poison sac, this was a meridian containing Dang Cheon-u's poison.
Above all, that meridian was centered around his heart, not his *dantian*.
I slowly opened my eyes.
"Whoa!"
Dang Cheon-u was staring at me with his eyes wide open.
"Do you see something?"
"I think there might be a way."
"What?! A way to restore my *dantian*? What is it! Brother!"
Dang Cheon-u grabbed both of my hands.
The dying look from before was gone, and his eyes burned with more longing than ever.
I looked into those eyes and spoke.
"There is no way to restore your *dantian*."
"...Ah. As I thought..."
"Instead, you have a different meridian in your body. We can use that to create a new *dantian*."
"What? A new... *dantian*? And what do you mean by a different meridian?"
Dang Cheon-u didn't pay much attention to the meridian I had seen.
He probably hadn't noticed it because the poison wasn't overwhelming. It was likely poison that had naturally accumulated while practicing his poison arts.
I conveyed the idea that had popped into my head to Dang Cheon-u.
When it came to martial arts theory, especially poison arts, Dang Cheon-u was surely superior to me.
Dang Cheon-u furrowed his brow and listened intently to my thoughts.
"So... you're saying we should create a *dantian* made of poison, not internal energy?"
"Yes."
"And in my heart, not my shattered lower abdomen?"
"Exactly."
"Hmm... theoretically, it seems possible, but..."
After pondering for a long time while stroking his stubbly chin, Dang Cheon-u nodded.
"It doesn't seem impossible. But there is a critical problem."
Perhaps because a small glimmer of hope had appeared, Dang Cheon-u's expression had brightened considerably.
"What critical problem?"
"If it's a *dantian* strong enough to hold energy, it would require an immense amount of poison. Setting aside whether I can withstand it, where would I even find such poison?"
As he spoke, he seemed to feel the difficulty again, and his face grew gloomy once more.
I chuckled and stood up.
"Don't worry about that. I have something in mind."
Dang Cheon-u's pupils trembled as he looked at me.
0 Comments