WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Dionysus
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Cultivating Underground ◈
Chapter 95
──────
Yi Hyeon looked down at the stone tablet he used as a homemade status window, then gathered the Seventh-Stem Metal Art at his fingertip and revised the inscriptions near the bottom.
His cultivation realm was not the only thing that had improved over the long years.
【Spells (Major Mastery): Vajra Wisdom Sword Scripture (Sword Condensation Section), Mount Sumeru Visualization Scripture (Vaisravana manifestation), Mount Sumeru Mountain-Suppressing Seal, Metal Escape Spell, ...】
【Spells (Perfect Mastery): Scripture of Refining Intent into Vows, ...】
‘Can I really say I’ve reached Major Mastery in the Wisdom Sword Scripture and the Visualization Scripture...?’
Fortunately, he was the only one writing and admiring this thing, so it would not matter if he was wrong.
Yi Hyeon lightly extended a hand. The Moon-Sinking Sword slipped out of his storage pouch and floated in the air, revealing its silver-gray blade.
The spiritual power filling every part of his body flowed smoothly into the blade. He added his spiritual sense and vow power in turn.
In the past, every time he forced those powers into the blade, he had felt a dangerous tension.
Now, however, his spiritual power, spiritual sense, and vow power followed the image of the sword he had formed in his mind. They worked together as though they had been a single stream from the beginning.
Vmmmm...
A mysterious light gathered at the sword’s tip.
Rather than releasing it, Yi Hyeon slowly steadied his breathing and drew the power back.
Not a single scratch had appeared on the blade.
“Phew... Good.”
Yi Hyeon put away the Moon-Sinking Sword, settled back into a cross-legged position, and circulated the Mount Sumeru Visualization Scripture.
The air behind him rippled, and brilliant golden light bloomed.
It was the image of Vaisravana, holding a jeweled parasol in the left hand and supporting an elaborate treasured pagoda in the right. Thanks to his deeper visualization, everything looked vividly alive, from the closely fitted scales of the armor and the patterns on the fluttering celestial robes to the majesty in those fierce eyes.
As he steadied his primordial spirit while maintaining the Vaisravana manifestation, his mind cleared as though washed with cool jade water.
Yet a small pebble Yi Hyeon flicked toward it passed straight through without any resistance.
Tap.
Watching the stone bounce and roll across the chamber floor, Yi Hyeon smacked his lips.
Although his visualization had reached Major Mastery, this inheritance required the magical power of a Golden Core cultivator. His Dharma manifestation still had no real power.
‘Still something I can see but can’t use. But I’m almost there!’
Yi Hyeon dispersed the golden manifestation and flopped onto his back on the stone floor.
‘Shall I take a short break...?’
He took out a popular novel and began reading.
...
Ten days later.
After rolling around a little longer, Yi Hyeon finally sat up and placed a bundle of jade slips on the stone table.
There was the Golden Core Section of the 《Primordial Unity Single-Qi Art》 he had obtained during his time in the Danso Sect, the commentary on the 《Arhat Golden Body》 he had copied from Jewel Light Temple’s Scripture Repository, and the Gold-Condensing Pill formulas and demonic-marking refining records he had examined countless times in the Inner Alchemy Chamber.
He had read them over and over whenever he had time for hundreds of years. Yet now that his entire body had reached the absolute limit of Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment, every passage carried a very different weight.
Embracing Unity and Returning to the Core!
Gather every kind of energy within the body into one, condensing the entire body at the same time.
As always, the problem was resources.
Even a simple calculation put the minimum at fifty Gold-Condensing Pills. On top of that, some medicinal strength might scatter or be consumed during the process of raising all the true essence in his body at once without the slightest imbalance.
If he entered secluded cultivation with exactly fifty Gold-Condensing Pills and ran short of medicinal strength, he might fail to form the Unsullied Golden Body and end up as “just a young man with a big golden core.”
If that happened, the shock of seeing all his efforts go to waste might well send him into qi deviation.
He would only feel safe starting with a generous supply of seventy to eighty pills.
‘I ended up possessing this body, but I didn’t get one of those common status windows or an ability to turn back time. All I’ve got is a body that doesn’t age... I can’t afford to fail.’
Yi Hyeon rubbed his chin.
‘Each batch of Gold-Condensing Pills takes an entire, intact Tier 3 demonic core. It’s not like an ordinary cultivation pill, where you get three or four from one batch. And if I account for cores getting damaged during the hunt, or losing them to failures during alchemy...’
Yi Hyeon went blank.
“...I’d have to kill more of them than all the Golden Core elders in a typical great sect put together!”
Whether in the Nine Kingdoms of Unju or the Nammyeong Twelve-Sect Alliance, a sect might have as few as twenty Golden Core cultivators. Even a special sect like Jewel Light Temple, which could make Gold-Condensing Pills easily, had only a little over a hundred at most.
Beasts might be less intelligent, but Tier 3 demonic beasts were still comparable to Golden Core cultivators. He would have to kill enough of them by himself to wipe out two or three great sects.
Of course, sect elders and wild demonic beasts were different. He would not be facing cultivators who could contact one another and rush to help. He only needed to hunt the beasts scattered across different places one at a time.
However, the fact that they were scattered was another problem.
The Tier 3 demonic beasts he had killed so far, such as the Scale-Armored Sea Ape and the Silver-Eyed Sea Eagle, had happened to appear before him first.
Now the situation was reversed. Yi Hyeon would have to search the world for prey himself.
‘This won’t be over in a year or two. I should allow a few decades... Wait, a few decades? That might not be very long...’
Although medicinal strength faded with time, a properly sealed demonic core or a refined Gold-Condensing Pill would not suffer a serious drop in quality after just a few decades.
But there was something he needed to check first.
Could he make a Gold-Condensing Pill from start to finish by himself?
He had taken part in countless refining tasks at Jewel Light Temple and spent a long time watching the elders make pills. He also had plenty of formulas and records.
But he had never completed one alone.
‘Let’s try making one first.’
Yi Hyeon took out a blank jade slip and began listing the ingredients he needed.
* * *
Half a month later, at Thousand Furnaces Market in the Hwa Kingdom.
The enormous cultivator market was still filled with the smell of molten metal and blazing heat.
Yi Hyeon passed along a road busy with ore carts and headed up the mountain.
Long ago, Moyong Gak had told him that the workshops farther up rented out access to Tier 3 earthfire.
A Foundation Establishment cultivator needed Tier 3 earthfire to reliably melt a Tier 3 demonic core.
Once he actually went looking, however, he found that it was not something he could use whenever he pleased simply by paying spirit stones.
The first workshop he visited said it had no plans to free up a fire vent for the next two years. The second did not rent its facilities to outside cultivators.
At the third workshop, he was able to inspect an empty facility, but this time Yi Hyeon shook his head and left.
Six auxiliary fire vents shared a single earthfire vein with the main furnace in the center. Whenever another artifact refiner in the next room worked the bellows hard to melt materials for a magical treasure, the heat from this room’s vent fluctuated slightly.
Such changes might be easy to overlook when doing preliminary smelting of spirit materials. When refining a Gold-Condensing Pill, however, even a momentary fluctuation could turn expensive ingredients to ash.
...
It was his tenth day of trudging up and down the slopes of Thousand Furnaces Mountain.
At last, Yi Hyeon found a stone chamber that met his standards in a workshop called Fire Cloud Pavilion, set into a relatively quiet rock face on the mountain’s northern slope.
As the stone door opened, a wave of dry heat rushed out.
Unlike the other workshops, which were lined with hammers, anvils, and other tools for refining magical treasures, the interior was surprisingly empty. It measured roughly five or six jang on each side. Formation restrictions for handling heat and poisonous fumes covered the walls, while a single fire vent with a thick red-copper rim sat alone in the center of the floor.
Steward Jang, the mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator showing him around, stroked their beard and explained.
“This was originally a refining chamber for melting down Tier 3 spirit materials and removing their impurities before the main work on a magical treasure. These days, more workshops have started renting out their facilities, so it’s quiet here...”
Yi Hyeon swept his spiritual sense over the formation inscriptions on the floor.
Interlocking formations along each branch of the earthfire vein beneath the vent isolated the flow of fire qi and kept the pressure steady.
When Steward Jang channeled spiritual power into a jade token, the closed fire vent opened about half a cun.
Red light spilled out, and the temperature in the stone chamber rose rapidly. Yi Hyeon carefully observed the flames.
“This should do.”
“What materials are you planning to work with?”
“I intend to use it for alchemy.”
“Alchemy?”
The steward looked around the empty chamber in puzzlement.
“As you can see, this is an artifact-refining workshop. We don’t have a pill furnace or anything of the sort.”
“I’ll get my own pill furnace. I only need to rent this fire vent and the room.”
The fee was five mid-grade spirit stones per day.
He also had to leave a deposit of a hundred mid-grade spirit stones against possible damage to the fire vent. There was a further condition: if Fire Cloud Pavilion received an urgent refining commission of its own, his reservation could be pushed back.
Since he would only rent it when making pills, the price was not a burden. He was grateful enough simply to have exclusive use of Tier 3 earthfire this good.
...
Next came the pill furnace.
The Tier 2 pill furnace that had served Yi Hyeon so well when making Origin-Nurturing Dao Pills could not withstand the heat of Tier 3 earthfire.
Yi Hyeon visited shops that sold pill furnaces and explained his requirements.
The elderly owner of Ancient Cloud Hall, the fifth shop he visited, listened to everything he had to say, then went down into an underground storeroom without a word.
A little later, the owner brought out a deep-blue tripod furnace that stood as high as an adult man’s waist.
Various patterns were engraved into its surface, and an octagonal bronze base was attached beneath its three short legs.
“This is called the Jinyo Tripod Furnace. In terms of grade, it’s a low-grade magical treasure, but it was made so that a Foundation Establishment cultivator could use it.”
The owner tapped the broad metal plate beneath the furnace.
“Fit spirit stones into these grooves and place it over an earthfire vent. The restrictions that receive and contain the fire qi run on spirit stones and earthfire, so it doesn’t take much spiritual power to control. Of course, it won’t provide the skill needed to handle it...”
Yi Hyeon examined the furnace for a long time.
“How much?”
“Twelve thousand mid-grade spirit stones. If you pay in high-grade spirit stones, I’ll lower it to a hundred and fifteen.”
...
The next day.
The Jinyo Tripod Furnace stood in the center of the stone chamber Yi Hyeon had rented at Fire Cloud Pavilion.
He fed Tier 3 earthfire into the furnace and tried making several kinds of Tier 2 pills.
Controlling the chamber’s formations and the furnace’s restrictions at the same time required careful adjustments, but Yi Hyeon handled it skillfully with his wealth of experience.
As he sent Clear Yang Purifying Flame flowing in every direction in the form of the Fire-Dividing Thread Spell, he looked less like a Foundation Establishment cultivator than an experienced Tier 3 alchemist.
After testing things all day, Yi Hyeon was certain he could refine Gold-Condensing Pills in this environment.
“Now, shall I go find the ingredients?”
* * *
Yi Hyeon bought plenty of the finest jade cases to hold demonic cores, along with bundles of high-grade Tier 2 Spirit-Sealing Talismans, then descended Thousand Furnaces Mountain.
From there, he traveled more than a hundred thousand li south, visiting the large and small cultivator markets scattered along the coasts of the southern Seo Kingdom, the southwestern Hyeon Kingdom, and the western Gon Kingdom.
Compared with inland markets, coastal markets had far more merchant companies dealing in demonic beast materials and experienced cultivator hunters.
Changing his identity and appearance as he went, Yi Hyeon bought illustrated guides to marine demonic beasts. He also collected rumors from foragers who traveled among the reefs and uninhabited islands of the outer sea, asking about waters where high-tier demonic beasts had been sighted in recent decades.
He even paid extra to obtain five sea charts marked with the locations of Tier 3 demonic beasts.
...
Yi Hyeon continued roaming the coast.
In one sea cave, enormous claw marks scarred the rock walls, and the bones of fish as big as houses lay scattered across the floor. Yet when he nudged them with his toe, they crumbled away.
Sometimes he found recent traces among dangerous reefs.
Fragments of formation flags and scorched magical implements lay embedded among shattered rocks, while the remains of an enormous demonic beast were half buried in the beach sand.
Naturally, its chest and head, where a demonic core might have been, had already been neatly split open and emptied.
‘I’ve got competition... Tier 3 demonic beasts used to come right to me when I didn’t need them. Now that I’m looking, there’s not a single one in sight. Should I try the coastal forests of the Vast Verdant Forest Sea?’
But powerful demon-race factions were said to lurk in the Vast Verdant Forest Sea, so he needed to be careful. He might also end up in a dispute with the monks of Jewel Light Temple over hunting Tier 3 demonic beasts.
For now, he roamed the seas and islands mainly along the coasts controlled by the humans of Unju and Nammyeong.
On stormy days, he dug a small temporary tunnel beneath the cliffs of an uninhabited island and rested inside for days, brewing tea. When the sea calmed, he resumed searching beyond the shipping routes.
After wandering for several months, Yi Hyeon grew so bored that he visited a cultivator market in the Gon Kingdom.
He went to a shop where he had previously bought a map marked with Tier 3 demonic beast locations. The owner had charged extra, claiming the map reflected recent sightings. When Yi Hyeon checked, however, he found that it merely copied records that were decades old.
When Yi Hyeon challenged the owner about it, the demonic cultivator sneered.
“What an idiot. If you’ve got a brain, use it. If someone discovered a Tier 3 demonic beast nesting somewhere, do you think they’d sell that information to a Foundation Establishment cultivator like you? It would’ve been sold to a Golden Core Senior or a great sect for a high price long ago!”
“Oh, really?”
A short while later, the demonic cultivator, now sporting badly swollen black eyes, spoke politely.
“I’ve received a recent sighting report. However, I haven’t confirmed whether it really is a Tier 3 demonic beast or whether it’s still there.”
“Oh, really?”
...
A few days later.
Armed with new information, Yi Hyeon was crossing the tidal flats of an island away from the shipping routes.
Half an enormous blue-green shell was wedged between shore rocks where waves broke against them.
Judging by its thickness and the demonic power lingering within it, the shell had belonged to a Tier 2 aquatic demonic beast with considerable defenses. Yet the middle of that iron-hard shell had been crushed as though something had bitten it. Tooth marks as large as a human torso were clearly gouged into the broken edges.
Yi Hyeon crouched down, turned the shell over, and examined the inside.
Torn pieces of organs and red flesh remained where the seawater had not yet washed them away, giving off a fishy smell of early decay.
‘Traces of a Tier 3 demonic beast’s hunt!’
...
That night, in a shadowed crevice halfway up the craggy island.
Using the Earth Escape Spell to conceal his presence as though he were part of the rock, Yi Hyeon quietly watched the dark-blue water opposite him.
Before long, the calm surface began to swell.
The first things to rise above it, without stirring a single bubble, were two yellow eyes the size of wagon wheels.
A long snout lined with interlocking, saw-like teeth followed. Then a thirty-jang body covered in thick black scales emerged.
It was a fierce predator of the sea, a Tier 3 demonic beast known as the Iron-Armored Crocodile!
Grrrgl...
The enormous crocodile planted its forefeet on the shore rocks and crawled onto land. With a single sweep of its tail, thicker than a house, hard coastal rock crumbled like sand.
A smile appeared on Yi Hyeon’s lips as he watched from the shadows.
Dark-blue demonic light glimmered between its scales, and several bone spines rose along its back.
It matched the records kept in the study of Jewel Light Temple’s Inner Alchemy Chamber. More importantly, the Iron-Armored Crocodile’s demonic core was a familiar material he had handled himself while assisting with refining.
Pale moonlight filtered through the clouds and shone on the black strait.
Dark-red blood dripped from beneath the Iron-Armored Crocodile’s jaw as it climbed over a rocky ledge and headed toward a broad, flat slab of stone as though it knew the place well.
It moved slowly, then settled its thick belly in the middle of the rock.
Its enormous jaw came to rest on its forefeet. Just as its eyelids began to droop halfway shut, a shadow approached.
The keen instincts of a wild demonic beast made the Iron-Armored Crocodile’s yellow eyes snap open. But Yi Hyeon had already formed a brilliant golden hand seal with his left hand and thrust it upward.
Vmm...
An enormous golden palm imprint appeared in the air.
It was the Mount Sumeru Mountain-Suppressing Seal at Major Mastery!
As he poured in vast amounts of spiritual power without holding back, the golden palm became so clear it seemed solid.
The ten-jang palm, filled with terrifying power, crashed down like lightning toward the Iron-Armored Crocodile’s back and neck!
Kraaa-boom!
With a deafening crash, the broad stone slab beneath the crocodile, dozens of jang across, caved in.
Grrraaaagh!
The Iron-Armored Crocodile roared in pain and twisted its massive body. Every scale stood on end as dark-blue demonic light surged upward, fiercely pushing against the Mount Sumeru Mountain-Suppressing Seal pressing down on its back.
At the same time, its steel-like tail tore through the air toward Yi Hyeon.
Whoooosh!
But Yi Hyeon was already lying flat against the ground with the Reclining Escape Art. With a Shh-shhk!, he slid around to the crocodile’s flank, beyond the reach of its tail.
The little human pest’s movements, so much like a sea slater’s, sent a shudder through the Iron-Armored Crocodile. It quickly turned its head and opened its jaws as wide as they would go.
Demonic power swirled deep in its throat, and a high-pressure jet of water burst toward Yi Hyeon’s face.
Rrrroooom!
The black water narrowly passed over his shoulder, scraping violently against his Protective Spiritlight before punching through the jagged cliff behind him.
Yi Hyeon sank into the rock on the spot and sprang out elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the Iron-Armored Crocodile barely managed to shake off the palm imprint pinning its back. Digging its four bleeding feet into the shattered ground, it desperately turned toward the underwater cave beneath the coastal cliff.
The rock beneath its forefeet shattered. Just as its massive body was about to slide down toward the water, fear appeared in its yellow eyes.
A yellow flying sword had appeared directly ahead, shining with radiant light and releasing murderous sword intent!
The third form of the Supreme Unity Wisdom Sword, Heavenly Dipper Vertical Slash!
The crocodile hurriedly opened its mouth. Before its demonic power could erupt, the force surrounding the flying sword shot forward like lightning.
Sword intent raced ahead of the blade’s tip and pierced the Iron-Armored Crocodile’s primordial spirit, freezing its awareness for an instant.
Shraaak!
Sword light split the Iron-Armored Crocodile’s snout and pierced precisely into the brain inside its skull.
Thud!
The Iron-Armored Crocodile’s enormous body went rigid.
Its powerful claws lost their strength and slipped across the ground. Its tail gave one final twitch, broke a rocky ledge, and fell limp.
“Phew... A clean kill.”
Yi Hyeon retrieved the yellow flying sword and examined it. There was no damage. Unlike the Moon-Sinking Sword, it was only a top-grade magical implement, not a supreme-grade one. Seeing it withstand the technique made him truly feel that he had reached Major Mastery in the Vajra Wisdom Sword Scripture’s Sword Condensation Section.
...
Only the quiet sound of nighttime waves washed over the shattered stone slab.
Yi Hyeon planted a few formation flags around the area for concealment and warning, then crouched beside the Iron-Armored Crocodile’s corpse.
Sharp sword qi carefully cut along the seams in its tough belly hide.
He used the Spherical Qi Barrier to push away the spilling blood and fishy smell, then opened it up. A sphere containing heavy demonic power floated out from beneath the heart.
It was a Tier 3 demonic core the size of an adult’s fist.
Yi Hyeon took the core and sent his spiritual sense into it.
Because he had destroyed the brain in a single strike, the intricate, netlike structure of condensed power inside the core was in perfect condition, without a single hairline crack.
He placed it in a jade case he had prepared beforehand and attached a Tier 2 Spirit-Sealing Talisman.
Then, using the Essence-Condensing Grasping Hand and Heavenly Dipper sword qi, he carefully stripped away the Iron-Armored Crocodile’s thick, scaly hide and teeth, along with the large, intact bones that had survived a direct hit from the Mount Sumeru Mountain-Suppressing Seal. He packed them all into his storage pouch.
He had spent a hundred and fifteen high-grade spirit stones on the Jinyo Tripod Furnace. Selling these materials would at least help cover the stone chamber’s rental fee and the supplementary medicinal ingredients for his Gold-Condensing Pills.
As the eastern horizon began to brighten, Yi Hyeon erased the traces of his energy, collected his formation flags, and flew away.
...
Yi Hyeon first headed north toward the Seo and Hwa Kingdoms, selling the materials at several cultivator markets along the way. Apart from a few high-quality intact bones he kept for his bone puppet research, he sold most of the hide, teeth, and other materials for three hundred and fifty mid-grade spirit stones.
Then, referring to the Gold-Condensing Pill formula for Iron-Armored Crocodile cores that he had copied at Jewel Light Temple, he bought all the supplementary medicinal ingredients he needed.
...
A month after hunting the Tier 3 Iron-Armored Crocodile, inside a stone chamber at Fire Cloud Pavilion.
Having finished refining the demonic core, Yi Hyeon held the fiercely spinning essence of demonic power at the center of the furnace while expertly controlling Clear Yang Purifying Flame and earthfire for several shichen.
Finally, he picked up the jade bottle beside him.
Shhhhh...
A stream of special medicinal liquid flowed into the furnace. Guided by the Fire-Dividing Thread Spell, it wrapped gently around the tightly spinning essence like a soft quilt.
Ssssss...
As the medicinal liquid seeped into the essence, the sharp, rampaging demonic power weakened.
Yi Hyeon closed the furnace lid. A short while later, his hands formed the profound Pill Condensation Seal.
Vmm...
The furnace trembled slightly. Yi Hyeon quickly lifted the lid, and brilliant light burst through the gap, illuminating the stone chamber!
The light streaming out vanished as though being drawn back inside. A Gold-Condensing Pill floated up, pale-blue light shimmering over its golden pill markings.
“It worked! Hahaha!”
A sense of achievement filled Yi Hyeon’s entire body. He had perfectly handled every step himself, from hunting a Tier 3 demonic beast to refining a Gold-Condensing Pill!
There was a clear difference between taking part in a few stages and completing the entire process alone, starting with hunting down the raw material.
He immediately used the Qi-Observing Spell and his spiritual sense to inspect his first creation carefully.
Apart from the condensed structure of demonic power, not a trace of the Iron-Armored Crocodile’s distinctive properties or toxicity remained. Everything had been purified.
The medicinal strength was only at the level of a middle-grade Gold-Condensing Pill because of the Iron-Armored Crocodile’s cultivation realm. Yet it contained almost no impure qi, perhaps because he had taken such care with every step, knowing he would consume it himself.
He could confidently call it a good pill.
‘This is a huge success for a first attempt!’
Yi Hyeon now felt that almost no uncertainties remained on his path to the Unsullied Golden Body. All he had to do was repeat the process of hunting and alchemy.
* * *
About ten years later.
On the deck of a medium-sized flying boat crossing a remote reef archipelago in the outer sea west of the Gon Kingdom.
Five cultivators from Skull Island, a branch of the Nammyeong Twelve-Sect Alliance’s Yin Bird Sect, looked down at the sea with bitter expressions.
The Yin Bird Sect had expanded north relatively late, so it had not had a branch in the Gon Kingdom in the past. Recently, however, it had advanced as far as several islands in the outer sea southwest of the kingdom.
As one of the Yin Bird Sect’s branches, Skull Island had expanded alongside it.
Of the five cultivators aboard the flying boat, four were experienced hunters ranging from late Foundation Establishment to Great Perfection. The one-eyed elderly cultivator at the front was an early Golden Core elder.
“Damn it! We’ve spent four whole months combing the outer sea. How can we not have found so much as a hair from a Tier 3 demonic beast?”
The elder vented in frustration.
Having reached Golden Core through extraordinary luck, the elder still held little influence on Skull Island.
Somehow, the elder had secured a position and an inheritance, but had received no support for the materials needed to make a personal magical treasure.
In the end, the elder had led the junior cultivators out to hunt.
The elites of the Nammyeong Twelve-Sect Alliance had a firm grip on the southern seas’ sources of resources. That had forced the group to venture here, near the Nine Kingdoms of Unju, despite the danger.
Yet, for some reason, every place known to be home to a Tier 3 demonic beast held nothing but traces.
Unlike Yi Hyeon, ordinary cultivators could not dismiss four months as a short time they could afford to waste. The elder and the juniors following along were growing anxious.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
