WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Damned Transmigration ◈
Chapter 116: Uicheon Sword Sect 4
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“Are you really going alone?”
They were having dinner when Haryeong spoke, wearing an unusually worried expression.
“The thought of Yuri going alone worries me as much as letting a child loose by the water.”
“Are you my mother?”
“If you want, I’m willing to be your mother for the time being. That’s how worried I am about you.”
Lorelia’s fists did not discriminate between men and women, nor did they spare faces.
Still, the Sect of War’s holy water worked well, so no trace of violence remained on Haryeong’s face. At least she could furrow her brow without much pain.
“Why not change your mind and come with me?”
“Thank you for worrying, but I’ll be fine.”
“Please think it over once more.”
“If you really want to come, persuade Lorelia yourself.”
In the end, Haryeong clicked her tongue and returned to her usual blank expression. She grumbled as she stabbed an innocent chunk of meat with her chopsticks.
“You’re cruel. Do you want to see me get beaten that badly?”
“You always watch me get beaten too, Haryeong.”
“That’s because Yuri always makes such a pathetic face whenever he gets punched.”
“Your expression isn’t much better, Haryeong.”
It had already been two days since they began staying at the Righteous Sword Pavilion.
Training was not just about sparring. Sometimes Lorelia offered advice on martial arts with words rather than fists.
Then it always led back to sparring. They woke up and sparred, received criticism on their mistakes and what they needed to improve, then sparred again to see whether they had changed.
The cycle of violence, which began early in the morning, ended before dinner.
“Keep the fact that I begged you a secret from Lorelia.”
After quickly checking her surroundings, Haryeong lowered her voice.
Once Lorelia finished instructing the three of them, she began her own training. Without even having dinner, she went to Sharp Sword Valley and meditated alone until dawn.
“You’ll be back soon enough,” Estor said from across the table.
“Right?”
Tomorrow, Yuri would leave the Uicheon Sword Gate for Dunjung.
“You never know what could happen.”
There were two days left until the ten-day deadline he had heard about at Jeongyeon Inn. If he traveled without rest, he could make it there in time.
“To me, Fist Wolf is the first... no, the second person who taught me martial arts. He’s like a master to me. It’s been two years since I last saw him, so we’ll have a lot to talk about.”
Estor and Haryeong gave him chilly looks, but Yuri ignored them and continued.
“We might drink and catch up. A few days could pass before I know it.”
“Are you going there to have fun?”
“I’m not going there to work.”
Estor’s face crumpled at the teasing reply, but he did not press the issue since he did not know the details of their relationship.
“Well... if he’s like a master to you, it can’t be helped.”
Still, Estor knew they shared a special bond. They had not formally become master and disciple, but one who taught was a master, and one who learned was a disciple.
“Will you tell Fist Wolf too?”
Yuri knew what Haryeong was asking.
“I don’t think he hates Transmigrators unconditionally.”
That had been his attitude toward Moonlit Reveller.
“Perhaps that was because he did not know the enemy of his family was a Transmigrator.”
“That could be.”
Unless their identity became public knowledge, as it had for Moonlit Reveller and Cruel Mayhem, most Transmigrators lived in constant lies. The more thorough those lies were, the more their relationships became soaked in falsehood.
“There are lies told for good reasons too. If Fist Wolf hates Transmigrators, I don’t think you need to tell him.”
Haryeong spoke out of concern. Yuri slowly nodded. He had already experienced a relationship built on lies collapsing.
“Did you build your relationship after transmigrating? If it’s someone you knew beforehand, the lies will pile up. But what does it matter if you met after transmigrating? The Yuri Fist Wolf knows is the Yuri you are now.”
“He lost his family to a Transmigrator.”
“If someone wants to kill every innocent Transmigrator in the world because a Transmigrator killed their family, they’ve lost their mind. You’d be better off cutting ties with them. Besides, the culprit was not just a Transmigrator. They were a cultist, weren’t they?”
Estor regarded Yuri with a calm, steady gaze.
“In the end, you’ve partly avenged Fist Wolf for him. You’ve done nothing wrong to him.”
There was no reason to reveal that he was a Transmigrator to someone he would only see a few times. But if he wanted to continue the relationship beyond that, it would be better to tell him. If Fist Wolf understood, that would be wonderful. If he was repulsed...
‘That can’t be helped either.’
Had Elena sent a reply? Thinking that, Yuri rose.
“Where are you going?”
“To practice.”
He had to train properly whenever he had the chance. Fortunately, this training did not involve getting hit or moving his body intensely.
He left the Righteous Sword Pavilion and entered the forest behind it. The moon was clear and the stars glittered in the mountains at night, but once he went even a little way into the forest, darkness quickly swallowed everything around him.
In the middle of the pitch-black forest, Yuri steadied his breathing.
It had been a few days since he reached the sixth tier. He had grown accustomed to his senses through sparring close to real combat, but expanding his awareness and handling Intent was still incomplete.
‘It can’t be complete.’
He was not even at the level where he could discuss such things. Slowly, very slowly, unlike during urgent sparring, he carefully expanded his awareness and connected Sealing Thunder at the Gate of Death.
─Whoooosh!
An overwhelming amount of information flooded in at once.
The strength and direction of the drifting wind, every bush swaying from it, tiny insects crawling over them, the soil through which interconnected roots spread, the insects, the towering trees overhead and their spreading branches, mountain birds settling upon them, their chirping, and the natural energy encompassing it all.
‘I can’t endure this if I try to perceive everything one by one.’
He perceived only what he wanted to see, hear, and feel.
Before he realized it, his entire body was drenched in sweat. He needed to react and move instantly in response to this tremendous amount of information. Yuri steadied his breathing and prepared for the next step.
Art of Corpse Dissolution, Eternal Thirst.
These were the Corpse Dissolution Immortal’s unique spells, obtained from the Withered Crone’s house. They were spells one could barely begin learning only after reaching the sixth tier.
He had memorized all the formulas contained in the thick book long ago, but when he had been at the fifth tier, the magic had refused to activate no matter how many times he tried.
Even the Withered Crone, a sixth-tier mage, had been unable to use them.
Yuri was also at the sixth tier, but he could not compare to her in his understanding of magic. It was only natural that no matter how hard he struggled, he could not cast Eternal Thirst.
All things contained energy.
That was true of living things, but also inanimate objects such as rocks.
Eternal Thirst reaped the life in a designated area. It gathered the flowing natural energy, drew out the vital energy possessed by living beings, and added it to the caster.
What Yuri focused on was the vital energy perceived during Eternal Thirst’s activation process.
He still lacked the magical ability to draw out vital energy, but simply perceiving it opened the door to many possibilities.
Sealing Thunder at the Gate of Death spread lightning energy to detect the flow of mana. Even without directly seeing or hearing something, it could be sensed through a web of lightning energy.
That perception was not always accurate. There were many ways to counter it. But what if he added the perception of vital energy within life to the mana flow detected by Sealing Thunder at the Gate of Death?
‘Orca and I use Sealing Thunder at the Gate of Death differently.’
Using her immense Soul Power, she spread lightning energy across a vast area. She did not allow anyone to approach. The moment she detected an enemy, lightning-fast magic intercepted them.
Yuri intended to use Sealing Thunder at the Gate of Death purely for martial combat. If he could fully blend in the perception gained through Eternal Thirst...
‘I can see through even attacks much faster than me.’
A feint could not contain sufficient inner power. At close range, if he could perceive vital energy, he could even distinguish feints from real attacks, which had been Sealing Thunder at the Gate of Death’s weakness.
The problem was...
“Ugh...”
Even with the awareness of the sixth tier, he could not sustain it for long. He could not even attempt to add Intent. It felt as though his Upper Dantian would explode if he pushed himself too far.
‘Still, I’m starting to see the path.’
Where would he go by adding Intent to the martial arts he had honed to reach this point?
The sixth tier, where one truly began learning Intent, was the process of creating Conceptual Apotheosis. Everything Yuri attempted from now on would become the beginning and foundation of his Conceptual Apotheosis.
‘According to my plan, I can see through every attack I can’t see. But how do I respond?’
He could not strike someone with lightning like Orca. He could respond with both arms and legs, but he wanted to see beyond that.
Faster. Stronger.
* * *
The Ascard Family had inherited alchemy for generations, and the head of the Ascard Family was an alchemist counted among the best of the age.
The greatest of those heads was the current patriarch, Alfreon Ascard.
“It is an honor to meet the head of the Ascard Family.”
He thought she was a child who drew the eye.
She had been so beautiful that she earned the nickname Marigold at an early age. What about now? The radiant beauty that had once made her worthy of being called a flower was gone.
Her combed golden hair had lost its shine and hung dry and limp past her waist, as though she had not cared for it. Her skin was pale and bloodless, her blue eyes dull, and dark shadows lay beneath them.
“She resembles you.”
The gray eyes behind his monocle shifted.
“She is my disciple.”
Orca smiled as she answered. It was not that their faces resembled one another. The current Marigold, no, Mad Thunder, reminded Orca of herself decades ago, when she had gone mad in pursuit of the end of magic.
The Ascard Family had supported the Dersia Mage Tower for a long time.
Even before that relationship, though, they had known one another for decades and considered each other friends.
Orca knew Alfreon from the days when he had desperately struggled to become family head, and Alfreon knew Orca from the days when she had gone mad in pursuit of the end of magic.
As time passed, Alfreon became the head of the Ascard Family as he wished, but Orca had yet to see the end of magic.
Did an “end” to magic even exist in the first place?
Alfreon did not care. He had no grand dream of seeing the end of alchemy, nor was he arrogant and romantic enough to devote himself to such a pursuit.
That did not mean he intended to mock his friend for dreaming a dream that seemed impossible to achieve. If Orca still dreamed, Alfreon intended to support her with all his heart.
Heinderga was Orca Dersia’s old surname. Though they were not related by blood, Mad Thunder was Orca’s daughter. At the same time, Mad Thunder was Orca’s disciple. Mad Thunder was the one who would carry on Orca’s dream.
“Let’s go down.”
Alfreon raised a staff adorned with a red gemstone. ─Rumble. The floor shook, and the entire room began descending underground.
Beneath the Ascard Family’s great estate lay a space several times larger than the estate grounds.
It was the alchemy workshop used by the family for generations. When Alfreon opened the door of the room that had descended underground as a whole, it connected to the workshop he sought.
“The adjustments are complete.”
A pitch-black cube floated in the center of a pure white space.
Thunder Prison, whose vessel Alfreon had crafted and whose formulas Orca had inscribed.
“It won’t be enjoyable.”
Orca placed a hand on Elena’s shoulder as she stood there motionless.
“Inside that, your mind will experience things impossible in reality. To put it simply, inside there, you become me.”
Every spell that Orca Dersia, the master of the Dersia Mage Tower and Heavenly Thunder, could use was contained within it.
“Knowing a formula doesn’t mean you can use every spell. To cast magic, you need a deep understanding of the formula and Soul Power that corresponds to it. But inside there, it’s possible.”
The Akashic Records Orca had envisioned began with accumulating a mage’s knowledge, experiences, understanding, and even the soul itself that held their magic.
“Everything about my magic has been copied inside there. What you must pursue in there is not memorization or learning. It’s understanding. You’ll probably feel a strong sense of disconnect at first.”
Inside Thunder Prison, Elena could become Orca and use her unique magic. Yet she could not do so in reality. Unless her Soul Power could support it, high-tier magic would not manifest.
“Thunder Prison forcibly makes your Soul Power correspond to magic. Inside, you’ll be able to use all my magic and remember the formulas, but it won’t make you understand them. Whether you can understand them depends on you.”
Thunder Prison forced someone to struggle alone to understand why an answer was correct, even when they knew both the question and the answer.
They had already verified through Lacey that it was impossible in reality.
Orca had sent part of her soul into Lacey’s body and tried using magic through it, but she could not use all her unique magic.
The memories remained after the transmigration ended. Yet Lacey could not properly recall the memories related to magic, because Lacey’s soul, the one that cast the magic, rejected magic that was not her own.
Thunder Prison had been made to overcome that. Before pursuing her distant ambition, Orca had made it as a small library for her beloved disciple.
“I’ll first experience magic I could never cast at my current tier, understand it, and rapidly develop my soul. My soul could collapse if I’m not careful.”
“There are safeguards for that. Whether your mind can endure is another matter. You’ll feel terrible pain each time you come to understand a spell. Don’t enter too often or stay too long. Still, you don’t have to enter if you’re worried.”
“No. I’ll go in now.”
Elena turned to Orca with a bright smile.
“Yuri nearly died many times, didn’t he?”
Without waiting for an answer, she approached Thunder Prison.
A line formed across its pitch-black surface and became a door. Elena entered Thunder Prison without hesitation.
‘This is...’
A pure white world.
The moment she entered, she knew. This was a space created through alchemy and magic, one governed by laws different from reality.
After blinking several times, Elena looked around.
Bookshelves appeared in the once-empty world. The books packed tightly on them each bore the name of a different spell as their title. Dersia magic, Orca’s unique magic, and every other spell Orca knew.
Lightning Radiance Star Shattering.
What she needed to understand was unique magic. Elena did not hesitate to pull out the book on Lightning Radiance Star Shattering. As far as she knew, it was the most basic offensive spell among Orca’s unique magic.
The moment she opened the book.
“Ah!”
The book vanished from her hands. At the same time, terrible pain began, as though her head were being scorched by lightning. Elena clutched her head and collapsed where she stood.
Her awareness expanded on its own as vast knowledge was forced into her.
It was not only her head that hurt. Her body, no, her soul, swelled. To cast magic she could never use, this space was stretching Elena’s soul.
‘Endure it...!’
Biting her lip, Elena raised her trembling fingers.
‘Yuri must have hurt even more than this. He almost died. If I, if I become stronger...’
Light flashed through her crackling thoughts.
─Kwarrrrumble! The light bursting from her fingertips surged forward as intense lightning that shattered stars.
“Ahhh...!”
The pain continued without end. But Elena did not think about the pain.
‘How did I do that?’
She did not know.
She wished for Lightning Radiance Star Shattering, and Lightning Radiance Star Shattering was cast.
Learning how was what Elena had to do in Thunder Prison.
Footnotes:
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