WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
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◈ Cultivating Underground ◈
Chapter 56
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Yi Hyeon turned toward the source of the Lesser Yang qi.
Shhh.
As he descended along the cracks in the bedrock, the warm energy gradually grew clearer.
At first, he only had to follow the energy seeping between the broken rocks. Before long, however, the flow split in several directions.
Yi Hyeon chose the one that felt strongest.
After traveling for some time, he stopped.
‘Not this way.’
No new Lesser Yang qi was emerging here. Energy flowing in from all directions had merely pooled against the bedrock, unable to pass through.
Yi Hyeon retraced his path. Before long, he found another thin stream of energy rising from below and turned toward it.
...
The sounds from the surface had faded long ago.
Whenever his body, wrapped in primordial unity true qi, passed through earth and stone, they softened before hardening again.
How far down had he come?
Yi Hyeon estimated the direction and distance he had traveled.
‘Even counting only the vertical distance, I think I’ve descended nearly 40 li... In the human realm, I usually reached the earth-vein layer about 25 li down. Is it deeper in this secret realm?’
‘Could it be... that the Danso Sect couldn’t transplant the Fireheart Orchids outside because they didn’t have a Foundation Establishment cultivator capable of investigating this far underground?’
Being able to use the Earth Escape Spell did not mean someone could move freely at such depths.
Spiritual power continued to drain as he changed directions to follow the energy. If he took a wrong turn, he had to retrace the entire distance.
He also had to save enough spiritual power for the return trip.
Nor could every Foundation Establishment cultivator use spells such as the Breath-Sealing Art and Clear Air Art to deal with breathing problems.
‘I see. Even with my mastery of these spells, I need this much spiritual power... Even if the Danso Sect sent someone at Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment, they’d struggle to investigate this far down.’
Fortunately, Yi Hyeon still had plenty of spiritual power.
He continued downward.
...
After he descended for a while, the bedrock began to grow warm.
Yi Hyeon slowed down.
Dense fire-attribute spiritual qi flowed from a crack ahead.
‘The earth-vein layer?’
He circled around the area where the heat was strongest.
A short while later, he sensed a small empty space beyond the bedrock.
Ssss.
Yi Hyeon emerged from the stone wall.
It was a narrow cavern that could barely hold three or four people. A crack of unknown depth opened along one side of the floor, with a faint red glow flickering below.
Whooo.
A hot wind lifted the hem of his robe.
Yi Hyeon thickened his Spherical Qi Barrier.
‘Earthfire runs beneath this place.’
Most of the surrounding rocks were dark red. One mineral vein crossing the cavern wall, however, was a different color.
Orange ore.
Patterns like fine red cracks marked its surface.
Yi Hyeon approached it.
“Hmm?”
The flow revealed by his Qi-Observing Spell was strange.
Dense fire-attribute spiritual qi rising from below seeped into the lower part of the vein. From its upper part, energy of a slightly different nature flowed out.
Warm yet clear energy.
It was the Lesser Yang qi he had sensed in the Fireheart Orchid spirit fields above.
Yi Hyeon brought his palm close to the vein.
After studying it for some time, his gaze changed.
‘It’s coming from here?’
He examined the ordinary rocks nearby one by one.
The Lesser Yang qi merely passed between them. Its flow began at the surface of the orange vein.
Yi Hyeon tapped the ore lightly with his fingertips.
Tap. Tap.
It was quite hard.
He broke a finger-sized piece off the edge of the vein.
He could still sense Lesser Yang qi from the detached ore, but when he carried it to the other side of the cavern and waited, the energy quickly weakened.
Before long, it was nothing more than a warm piece of stone.
“So it really won’t work if I take it outside?”
Yi Hyeon looked down at the ore, then turned his gaze back toward the earthfire vein.
Hot energy continued flowing into the bottom of the mineral vein.
‘Wait...’
Supporting the detached piece with spiritual power, Yi Hyeon brought it close to the crack in the floor.
Whooosh.
Heat and fire-attribute spiritual qi rising from the earthfire vein surrounded the stone.
A short while later, the patterns inside the ore brightened ever so faintly. Lesser Yang qi soon began flowing from its surface.
“Oh...”
When he moved the ore away again, the energy weakened.
This time, he placed an ordinary black stone near the earthfire vein. The stone grew scorching hot, but no matter how long he waited, the same change did not occur.
Yi Hyeon switched the positions of the two stones and repeated the test several times. Lesser Yang qi emerged only when the orange ore received heat and fire-attribute spiritual qi.
‘It isn’t releasing energy stored inside it. This stone is producing Lesser Yang qi!’
To borrow a term from his past life, it seemed to be something like a catalyst.
He would have to learn more about how it worked and how long it lasted, but it seemed usable elsewhere as long as the necessary conditions were met.
Yi Hyeon’s expression brightened.
‘I just need to find an earthfire vein like this beneath Underground Hideout No. 3. If I place these stones nearby and build a spirit field that receives the Lesser Yang qi while avoiding the direct heat... I can build a separate water tank.’
He was beginning to see a way to grow Fireheart Orchids.
Yi Hyeon looked at the mineral vein.
The exposed section crossed one wall of the cavern. When he extended his spiritual sense, he found that the same ore continued dozens of jang into the rock.
‘Given the size of this secret realm, there’s probably a huge amount of this ore... It should be fine if I take some.’
...
One shichen later, Yi Hyeon had mined enough ore to fill a room and stored it in his storage pouch.
Lesser Yang qi continued flowing from the remaining vein at much the same rate as before.
“I don’t know what it’s called. Perhaps it isn’t known outside.”
After a moment’s thought, he took out a wooden tag and wrote on it.
「Lesser Yang Stone (少陽石).
Ore involved in producing Lesser Yang qi.
Requires earthfire heat and fire-attribute spiritual qi.」
He could change it to the official name once he learned it.
Yi Hyeon put the wooden tag into his storage pouch.
...
The ascent was much faster than the descent.
He no longer needed to wander about following the flow of energy.
At some point, he heard running water.
He poked his head out and saw a gorge with rock walls rising on either side and a small river flowing between them.
Something resembling a white dog stood nearby.
‘Huh?’
Four long, sharp legs were attached to a body woven from bones of different thicknesses. Its head looked more like a large rat’s than a dog’s.
Thin green lights flickered inside its eye sockets.
‘A bone demonic beast? No, its energy resembles those bone swords I saw recently... A puppet?’
Just then, his Sound-Listening Spell picked up something approaching.
He looked up.
Three Foundation Establishment cultivators were descending from the low clouds.
‘They’ve spotted me.’
A Foundation Establishment cultivator’s spiritual sense could examine an area with a radius of over 100 jang. In open terrain, however, the Farsight Spell could see much farther than that.
In other words, even if Yi Hyeon’s spiritual sense was stronger than theirs, someone looking down with the Farsight Spell from beyond its range could spot him first.
Yi Hyeon stepped fully out of the rock and stood beside the river. With no fellow disciples around, he had no need to flee or hide his strength.
A young cultivator in a black robe descended first.
He was a pale-skinned man with long, narrow eyes. Behind him stood a white bone puppet taller than a person, with three arms attached to each side of its body.
Each of its six hands held a magical implement, including swords, a saber, a shield, and a hook.
Yi Hyeon examined the fluctuations of spiritual power coming from the young cultivator.
‘Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment... I’d better not let my guard down.’
A middle-aged cultivator in a brown robe and a one-eyed elderly cultivator flew behind him at different heights.
The one-eyed elder was at the late stage, while the middle-aged cultivator was at the middle stage.
The young cultivator moved his fingers slightly.
The six-armed bone puppet raised its head.
Crack.
Its joints straightened one after another.
“Are you from the Danso Sect?” the young cultivator asked.
“Who knows?”
The black iron spear appeared in Yi Hyeon’s right hand.
The young cultivator narrowed his eyes.
“Kill him.”
Boom!
The bone puppet on the ground kicked off the bedrock with all four feet and charged.
At the same time, two flying hooks flashed blood-red as they shot from the brown-robed cultivator’s sleeves. They traced sharp arcs toward Yi Hyeon’s neck and knees.
Above them, the one-eyed elder sent a flying sword plunging down with a sinister whistle.
Swish.
Yi Hyeon’s left hand slid down the shaft of his black iron spear.
As the spear traced a crescent through the air, the primordial unity true qi condensed just below its tip opened into a vast vortex.
Whooom.
“!?”
The descending flying sword veered off course and was drawn toward the spearhead. The two hooks aimed at his neck and knees curved toward it as well.
Claaang!
The instant the three magical implements collided, the butt of the spear swept across the ground and crushed the bone puppet’s jaw.
Twisting at the waist, Yi Hyeon caught all the gathered enemy implements in a single sweep of his spearhead.
Shwaaa!
He stepped on the river’s surface and leaped, sending the water curling upward like a dragon’s tail.
The two hooks and flying sword spiraled through the air, following the exact path traced by his spear tip.
“My magical implements!?”
“What are you doing?!”
The brown-robed cultivator hurriedly changed hand seals. Before the cultivator could retrieve the magical implements, however, Yi Hyeon pointed his spear at the two cultivators.
Thoom!
This time, his Earth-Origin Force anchor seized the two of them.
“Urk!?”
The one-eyed elder, who had been trying to gain height, plunged downward.
The brown-robed cultivator also pitched forward. Though they had been hovering at different heights, both were dragged toward a single point in an instant.
Amid the chaos, four bronze flying swords radiating an unearthly light spread out as brilliantly as the rising sun.
‘No...’
Slash!
White lines flashed, and the brown-robed cultivator’s upper body fell apart and tumbled down.
“Damn...”
Deathly pale, the one-eyed elder took out a round shield and desperately tried to retreat. But then,
Shrrrack!
Two bronze flying swords cut through the spray and pierced the back of the elder’s neck like the talons of a bird of prey.
Splurt!
The elder’s remaining eye bulged.
The other flying swords circled back and pierced the elder’s dantian.
Yi Hyeon gave his spear a light shake and withdrew the pulling force.
The river water that had curled into the air poured down like rain.
The two cultivators’ bodies fell onto the gravel riverbed amid the spray.
Splat! Thud!
Through the drifting mist, six bronze flying swords swam gently around Yi Hyeon.
“...”
Every trace of arrogance and ease vanished from the young man’s face.
His name was Gwak Jin-myeong.
He was Skull Island’s successor and one of the foremost heavenly prodigies among the Yin Bird Sect’s Foundation Establishment cultivators.
Yet he had not even found an opening to intervene while his two companions were being killed.
‘That monster.’
The person before him was on an entirely different level from the Danso Sect disciples he had fought so far.
He wore the shell of an early Foundation Establishment cultivator, but his ruthless attacks and mastery of spells rivaled Skull Island’s old monsters!
‘Is he a true inheritance disciple raised by one of the Danso Sect’s Nascent Soul old monsters? Why is someone like that here...? And what is that spear? What kind of magical implement carries a flight-blocking restriction?!’
Gwak Jin-myeong took a White Bone Banner from inside his robe and waved it.
Kieeeee!
An ear-splitting ghostly wail erupted, shaking the gorge.
Yin poison released by thousands of vengeful spirits surrounded Yi Hyeon, while the wail burrowed into his sea of consciousness.
His Spherical Qi Barrier blocked the energy. The Origin-Protecting Seal merely glowed faintly within his sea of consciousness, and his gaze remained steady.
Sensing that his opponent was unaffected, Gwak Jin-myeong immediately shook out his storage pouch.
Three bone puppets, each twice the size of a person, appeared.
Thick spirit bones wrapped their bodies in layers, and each hand held a bone hammer as large as a boulder.
The six-armed bone puppet also advanced, its six weapons flashing.
Energy erupted from the four bone puppets as they flew into the air and attacked Yi Hyeon from every direction.
The leading puppet brought its bone hammer down as though to crush his skull.
Whoooosh!
Amid the savage sound of the air being torn apart, Yi Hyeon left his spear floating in the air and spread his hand.
Whooom.
Primordial unity true qi condensed into a huge hand more than three jang across. It was the Essence-Condensing Grasping Hand.
At the very instant the bone hammer fell, Yi Hyeon’s five fingers closed into a rock-hard fist.
“Get lost.”
Boom!
With an explosive roar, the enormous fist struck the bone hammer and the puppet’s upper body head-on.
The hammer and bone joints burst apart together. Shattered fragments and bone dust scattered into a white mist, and the puppet’s remaining lower half plunged into the river.
As the puppets on either side rushed into the opening, Yi Hyeon spread his hand and seized the one on the left. The enormous fingers wrapped around its waist and snapped it.
Craaaack!
He swung his arm, smashing the captured puppet into the one on the right. The Essence-Condensing Grasping Hand crushed the two puppets together and drove them straight into the cliff!
Rrrrumble!
Dozens of jang of rock face split and collapsed.
While the three bone puppets were reduced to scrap, the six-armed puppet crossed its sword and saber and slipped into Yi Hyeon’s blind spot.
Swish, swish!
Yi Hyeon leaned back, caught his floating spear, and thrust it between the two blades.
Scrrrape!
The two weapons slid along the spearhead and sliced through empty air.
The spear’s butt struck the puppet’s knee joint. Letting the unbalanced puppet pass behind him, Yi Hyeon looked at Gwak Jin-myeong.
Beneath Gwak Jin-myeong’s skin, his bones twisted, and blood-red flames flared up.
“Die!”
A dark red bone nail one cun long shot from between his fingers!
Flash!
‘Fast!’
The moment Yi Hyeon’s spiritual sense detected it, the blood-red streak was already before his face.
Yi Hyeon immediately swung his black iron spear straight upward. At the same time, he twisted his upper body and formed three layers of Spiritlight Shield in front of his side.
Clang!
The bone nail scraped savagely along the side of the spear.
An impact that felt as though it would tear the skin from his palm knocked the shaft backward.
Though deflected, the bone nail pierced all three layers of Spiritlight Shield and tore through his Protective Spiritlight.
Scrrrape! Boom!
His robe burst open as the dark red flash struck his side.
Craack!
The bone nail scraped a long line across the scales of his Dark-Scale Underarmor and bounced away.
The impact sent Yi Hyeon spinning half a turn in midair.
Booooom!
Behind him, the enormous cliff face burst apart as though struck by lightning.
Blood-red cracks spread from the spot where the bone nail had embedded itself. Boulders as large as houses came crashing into the river.
Amid the swirling dust and powdered stone, Yi Hyeon stepped on a falling rock and regained his balance.
‘That was dangerous.’
His side burned.
Yet Gwak Jin-myeong was the one truly shaken.
That had been his lifebound bone nail, into which he had poured his own blood essence. Watching Yi Hyeon deflect it head-on and stand lightly on a falling rock with only a small tear in his robe filled him with terror.
“Y-you fucking monster...!”
Gwak Jin-myeong put away his White Bone Banner and shot upward. The six-armed bone puppet raised its weapons and blocked Yi Hyeon’s path to cover its master’s retreat.
Killing intent filled Yi Hyeon’s eyes.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The savage pull of an anchor erupted from his hand.
Weakened by firing his lifebound bone nail, Gwak Jin-myeong could not resist. His body folded at the waist as he was dragged back. When he raised his head, six bronze flying swords were splitting around either side of the six-armed bone puppet in a magnificent display.
‘No...’
Slash!
Gwak Jin-myeong plunged to the ground, spilling blood. With its master gone, the six-armed bone puppet also fell limply.
Thud! Crash!
...
The gorge fell silent.
Yi Hyeon examined his surroundings with his spiritual sense and various detection spells, but found no other presence.
He lifted the front of his robe. Several thin marks remained on the black scales of his Dark-Scale Underarmor. When he rubbed them with his fingertips, they did not feel deep, but a long bruise was forming on the skin beneath them.
Yi Hyeon looked at the rock face where the bone nail was embedded.
‘I was careless. I should have taken out the Dark Iron Buckler right away.’
In the heat of the moment, he had first cast the Spiritlight Shield he was used to. Simply performing ritual refinement on a new magical implement was not enough. He needed to practice drawing it immediately in situations like this.
He closed his robe and approached the fallen cultivators.
...
Three storage pouches and the magical implements were gathered in one place.
Most of the bone puppets were smashed beyond recognition. Yi Hyeon selected pieces that still had their joints and formation inscriptions.
‘Perhaps I should study puppets too.’
He put the useful remains into his storage pouch one by one.
His hand paused when he came to the six-armed bone puppet. Small spirit stones were embedded inside its chest. Countless patterns spread from them along the bones, while tiny restrictions overlapped at the shoulder and elbow joints.
Yi Hyeon studied its structure for a while.
‘So this is how they engrave them.’
Only the six-armed bone puppet’s knee and arm joints were slightly damaged. Compared with the other puppets, it was almost intact. Yi Hyeon stored it away.
Finally, he gathered the bodies in one place.
Fwoosh.
After burning the bodies and bloodstained clothing, he collected the ashes and the soil soaked with blood. Only after burying them in a deep layer of bedrock beneath the gorge did he leave.
...
Half a shichen later.
In a small underground cavern far from the site of the battle, Yi Hyeon set down the three storage pouches.
“Let’s see.”
One by one, he erased the remaining traces of spiritual sense and restrictions on the pouches.
The first pouch contained ten mid-grade spirit stones, recovery pills, and several kinds of bone materials.
The second belonged to the one-eyed elder.
It contained about twenty mid-grade spirit stones. There were also pieces of metal that seemed suitable for repairing flying swords, along with a few unused talismans.
Then he opened the young cultivator’s pouch.
Yi Hyeon’s gaze changed.
Clatter.
Several bags of spirit stones came out onto the floor.
Jade cases, medicine bottles, and long pieces of bone followed one after another.
Yi Hyeon first gathered all the spirit stones.
There were over two hundred mid-grade spirit stones alone!
‘This will more than make up for all the spirit stones I spent before setting out.’
He gazed at the pile for a moment before putting it into his own storage pouch.
The jade case he opened next contained jade slips and books.
A black jade token lay on top.
One side bore a pattern resembling white bones. On the other, a name and status were written.
「Gwak Jin-myeong, true inheritance disciple of Skull Island, Yin Bird Sect.」
‘So he was a true inheritance disciple.’
Small characters were engraved on the jade slip beneath it.
《Profound Yin White Bone True Scripture (玄陰白骨眞經)》
After removing the remaining restrictions, Yi Hyeon pressed the jade slip to his forehead. Maintaining his Origin-Protecting Seal, he slowly fed his spiritual sense into it.
In the past, he would have been reluctant to send his spiritual sense into an unidentified jade slip. Now that he had a way to protect his primordial spirit, he felt much more at ease.
A long spoken incantation and an image of a human body entered his mind.
Countless patterns covered the skeleton within the image. Spiritual power circulated through the meridians while also seeping deep into the bones. Energy gathered at certain points, then extended outward from the body.
As Yi Hyeon read the general principles at the beginning, he opened his eyes.
“Oh...”
This was the foundational cultivation art of the Yin Bird Sect’s Skull Island!
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