WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: DereKimchi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Carefree Tale of Cultivation ◈

Chapter 5: Pitch-Black Space

──────

Darkness.

In that space without a single speck of light, Jin Hyeon reflexively crouched on the floor and covered his head.

The fear of the pain he had suffered before had yet to fade.

But when the headache he expected did not come, even after he had crouched there for quite a while, Jin Hyeon cautiously opened his eyes.

It was the strange space he had entered when his spirit root was examined.

One thing was different. Something new had appeared in this space, which had previously held only darkness and mist.

It was a massive clump.

Pure white, faintly glowing, and swirling irregularly like gas, it floated a short distance away from him.

“Is that the mist from before, gathered together?”

Jin Hyeon could not make sense of the situation at all. Where was this place, and why had he come here again?

After hesitating, Jin Hyeon eventually walked toward the gaseous mass.

There was no apparent exit, and it was the only thing here, so he decided to examine it first.

Yet the moment he approached it, Jin Hyeon experienced something astonishing.

He felt a strange connection to the mass and instinctively understood what it was.

“This is my soul?”

That gaseous mass was Jin Hyeon’s own soul.

He could not close his mouth at the information he had recognized through an inexplicable sensation, without any logical process of understanding.

But it was true.

“Well, in this world, seeing a soul probably isn’t all that surprising...”

It was said that once cultivators reached the Nascent Soul realm, they could shape their souls into a certain form.

In a cultivation world where such things were taken for granted, perhaps observing one’s own soul was not so astonishing.

Thinking that to himself, Jin Hyeon observed the mass with curious eyes.

If this was his soul, then the mist that had covered the floor before had probably been the same thing.

Only its form had changed.

Then why had it changed?

Jin Hyeon did not have to think hard to guess.

It was because he had taken in spiritual qi and become a cultivator.

When cultivators took in spiritual qi, they did not store it in their danjeon as martial artists accumulated inner qi.

Instead, they accumulated spiritual qi directly within their souls, expanding what was called the soul vessel and laying the foundation to advance to higher realms.

His soul gathering from mist into a mass was likely the result of spiritual qi accumulating within it.

“What is that?”

As Jin Hyeon observed his soul, he noticed something black at its center.

It was a stone fragment, slightly smaller than a fist.

Its peculiar surface was unlike anything Jin Hyeon had ever seen, yet it bore no noticeable pattern or feature. It was simply a stone.

Jin Hyeon called it a stone fragment because one side was smoothly worked, as though it had broken away from something.

In any case, that “stone fragment” floated at the very center of his soul, perfectly integrated with it.

Indeed, it even felt like a part of his soul to Jin Hyeon’s senses.

“Could this be the thing I grabbed back then?”

Before he lost consciousness here last time, he had seized something that took away the pain.

It seemed that had been this stone.

“Well, setting that aside...”

Jin Hyeon turned his gaze from his soul and began looking around.

Seeing his soul directly, with a stone fragment inside it, was both astonishing and unsettling, but there was nothing he could do about it right now.

Nor could he see or sense anything in this space that seemed harmful to him, so he had no desire to meddle with it and cause trouble for himself.

Rather than inspect it further, he decided to explore this place and see if there was a way out.

Thirty minutes passed.

Jin Hyeon returned to his soul and sat down on the floor.

He had learned two things during his brief exploration.

First, this was not some infinite expanse of pitch-black nothingness. It was a circular space about the size of an athletic field.

Fwoosh.

Jin Hyeon conjured a flame the size of a human head above his palm.

Then he threw it straight ahead.

Whoosh.

The flame flew onward, struck a black wall with an indistinct sound, and vanished.

The second thing was that he could use spells here as well.

The spell he had just used was Fireball Art, the most basic offensive spell. As its name suggested, it created and launched flames.

It was one of the few spells he knew, and required so little spiritual power that any Qi Refining cultivator could use it, but it was still a spell.

In other words, there was no problem manipulating spiritual qi even in this strange space.

Moreover, perhaps because the space itself was filled with spiritual qi, the spiritual power he had spent on Fireball Art began slowly recovering.

Even so, what he had learned was not particularly useful.

With his meager spiritual power, it was impossible for him to use some overwhelming spell that could shake this space.

Even if he used Fireball Art hundreds of times, it did not seem likely to cause any meaningful change.

So Jin Hyeon finally let out a long sigh and quietly sat cross-legged.

All he could do was hope that, as before, he would naturally leave this space on his own.

Though he had not fully attained the fasting state, he was still a cultivator and could endure without food or water far longer than ordinary people. He intended to wait until something happened.

He did not know how long that would take, but Jin Hyeon had no intention of wasting time.

Slowly, following the cultivation formula of the Minor Five Phases Art, he drew in and circulated spiritual qi.

A cool current flowed into his body and moved according to his guidance.

Every little bit counted. Since spiritual qi worked here too, he intended to spend his time cultivating.

* * *

“Ahem, Senior...”

Gwak Woo, who had just fallen into a deep sleep, frowned at the quiet voice beside him.

‘Qi Refining, Level 2? A new disciple? Calling me Senior shows proper manners, but hmph, how dare they interrupt my nap.’

Ten years had passed since Gwak Woo entered the Blue Willow Sect, but his talent was so poor that he was still stuck at the fourth level of Qi Refining.

He had only managed to become a clerk at the Hundred Treasures Pavilion because he was recognized as a long-serving disciple among the low-ranking early Qi Refining disciples. Still, he had plenty of grievances.

Being a clerk at the Hundred Treasures Pavilion was a very good position, but watching the countless disciples who visited regularly soar far beyond his cultivation left Gwak Woo feeling miserable about himself.

So whenever disciples with lower cultivation than his came by, he enjoyed putting them in their place or teasing them.

Of course, he never went so far that they would vow revenge after growing stronger.

“Ahem! For a newly entered brat to wake this Elder Gwak, at the very least, twenty spirit stones...”

Gwak Woo rose slowly from his seat with an exaggerated cough, ready to face today’s target of his teasing.

The visitor was a handsome teenage boy with shaggy hair.

Judging by the pale blue robe issued by the sect to new disciples, he seemed to be a novice, just as Gwak Woo had expected.

But...

“?”

‘Why is he at the fifth level of Qi Refining?’

Gwak Woo froze as he stared at the boy, who wore a somewhat blank expression.

Where had the disciple at the second level of Qi Refining he had sensed just moments ago gone, and why was there now a senior at the fifth level?

Though there was only one level between him and Gwak Woo, the fifth level marked the middle stage of Qi Refining. The actual difference in spiritual power was enormous, making it a realm where Gwak Woo had to address him as senior.

Gwak Woo did not know what had happened, but his reaction was worthy of someone who had spent ten years in the cultivation world.

“Ah, Senior Brother! Calling me senior is too much. What have you come to purchase today?”

“...”

Seeing the boy stand there with wide, vacant eyes, Gwak Woo felt that he had picked the wrong target.

“Senior, just now, I was still half-asleep and talking nonsense...”

“How much is a bottle of Qi Refining Pills?”

A smile tugged at Gwak Woo’s lips when the boy answered without calling out his mistake.

“A bottle of Qi Refining Pills costs five spirit stones.”

“That’s more expensive than I expected.”

With that, the boy shook his head repeatedly and left the Hundred Treasures Pavilion.

Left alone, Gwak Woo blinked blankly.

‘What was that?’

* * *

Rumble.

With one hand pressed to his head, Jin Hyeon entered his cave dwelling and used Object-Controlling Art to move the heavy stone door shut.

With the aid of the telekinesis-like spell that moved objects through spiritual qi, the heavy stone door smoothly sealed the entrance.

Having shut himself off from the outside, Jin Hyeon let the emotions he had held back all the way here burst forth.

“Hahahahaha!”

Unable to contain his laughter, Jin Hyeon leaned against the cave wall and laughed until his lungs felt ready to burst.

Only after wiping away tears brought on by laughter and coughing several times did Jin Hyeon calm down.

“Right. I may be a reincarnator, but I need a cheat like this.”

He felt spiritual qi in quantities incomparable to before circulating through his body and enveloping his soul.

When he had left this cave dwelling, he had been at the second level of Qi Refining. Yet he had already reached the fifth level.

Jin Hyeon felt the spiritual power of his middle Qi Refining stage cultivation and recalled what had just happened.

The moment he began cultivating in the Pitch-Black Space, he sensed something strange.

The speed was too fast.

The Minor Five Phases Art’s rate of absorbing spiritual qi, once like a slow stream, became a brook swollen by torrential rain. The spiritual qi was also incomparably pure, rapidly raising his spiritual power.

In the end, only fifteen days after he began cultivating, Jin Hyeon rose from the second to the fourth level of Qi Refining. Then, after crossing the threshold into middle Qi Refining, he reached the fifth level in ten more days.

Jin Hyeon was startled and delighted by such an unbelievable leap.

Then, on the twenty-eighth day, he felt himself being expelled from the Pitch-Black Space and breathed a sigh of relief. At least he would not be trapped there for the rest of his life.

But then a concern suddenly came to him.

Before entering that place, he had been looking for medicinal pills in front of the Hundred Treasures Pavilion.

Nearly a month had passed. Other disciples might be at the Hundred Treasures Pavilion by now, so what would they think if they saw him suddenly appear out of thin air? What would the clerk think?

Jin Hyeon realized this was a serious problem.

If it became known that he possessed a special ability or secret, high-level cultivators would surely take an interest in him.

Even martial artists in this world did not hesitate to kill over secret manuals or spiritual medicines. Jin Hyeon did not even want to imagine what would happen if high-level cultivators learned that he possessed an unusual ability.

Yet unable to stop his body from leaving the Pitch-Black Space, Jin Hyeon steeled himself and returned.

Then he saw the clerk greet him as though he had sensed nothing amiss.

Seeing that, Jin Hyeon realized that not even a moment had passed since he left.

He suppressed his turbulent emotions, gave the clerk a suitable reply, and departed.

On his way back to the cave dwelling, Jin Hyeon felt an invisible connection form between himself and the Pitch-Black Space.

He still did not know exactly what this cheat was, whether he had gained it through reincarnation or encountered it through some other stroke of fortune.

But he knew that this ability was not temporary.

And at least two things about it were clear.

Within the Pitch-Black Space, the immense spiritual qi and special environment accelerated his cultivation.

And... while he was inside that space, time stood still.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried