WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Episode 8: Deathly Aura (3)
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Guard Go Chan stared at Mok GyeongUn for a moment, then steadied their breathing.
Everything this bastard said sounded like a lie.
It was impossible for someone who did not even know the proper definition of Martial Arts, no, internal energy, to feel ki after less than half a day of studying a martial arts book alone.
No, perhaps it was possible.
But only for someone with martial talent so exceptional they could be called a genius unseen in a thousand ages.
‘Even those born with keen Ki sense struggle at first.’
Yet Mok GyeongUn claimed he had done it.
Go Chan honestly could not believe it, but there was no reason for this demon to lie about something like that.
Then the matter was simple.
Go Chan only needed to confirm it.
Whether it was true or not.
“Young master. May I verify it myself?”
“How?”
“You said you absorbed energy through the Breathing Technique. Simply do it again. I will check whether you are circulating that energy.”
“I suppose that is possible?”
“It is not difficult to merely check.”
“I see. Then please do.”
“Understood.”
Mok GyeongUn sat cross-legged on the bed.
There was nothing difficult about that much, so nothing could go wrong yet.
Having settled into position, Mok GyeongUn closed his eyes and began breathing slowly.
“Whoo.”
Go Chan watched closely.
Then he got down from the bed and approached Mok GyeongUn.
“Since this is only to confirm it, please do not mind me and continue focusing on the Breathing Technique.”
As he spoke, he placed two fingers against the Qimen Acupoint on Mok GyeongUn's neck.
If even faint energy was being circulated through the Breathing Technique, Go Chan would be able to feel it.
Go Chan did not expect much, but perhaps...
‘!?’
Go Chan frowned.
What was this?
Go Chan had thought there was no way it could be true.
Yet...
‘...Ha.’
Energy really was flowing through Mok GyeongUn's blood meridians.
That meant he had properly sensed ki and was taking it in.
Go Chan was utterly dumbfounded.
Even children of three or four, said to have the most sensitive Ki sense, found it incredibly difficult to sense ki in less than half a day.
No matter how gifted they were, fifteen days was the minimum. If they were unlucky, it often took several months.
Yet Mok GyeongUn, whose blood meridians should have accumulated considerable impurities and whose Ki sense should have dulled with age, had sensed ki in just one day.
‘Does this bastard truly have martial talent?’
Go Chan's gaze changed.
Until moments ago, Go Chan had only half believed it. Now, the guard began to wonder.
There were no absolutes in anything.
Exceptions always existed.
Mok GyeongUn might be one of them.
‘Let me examine him.’
Mok GyeongUn had said the energy kept dispersing. Go Chan needed to see it for themselves to find the cause.
“I will infuse some internal energy and examine you. Please endure it for a moment, even if it is uncomfortable.”
...
Since he was practicing his Cultivation technique, Mok GyeongUn gave the slightest nod.
Swish!
Go Chan focused and infused life energy into Mok GyeongUn's Qimen Acupoint.
Go Chan passed it through Liangmen and Zhongwan, guiding it toward the dantian while tracing Mok GyeongUn's ki circulation pathway.
During that process, Go Chan could not help being surprised once more.
‘...What is this bastard?’
One had to practice the Breathing Technique from childhood to keep impurities from accumulating in the ki circulation pathways.
Yet Mok GyeongUn's blood meridians contained almost no impurities.
It was as though Go Chan were examining a child of three or four.
‘How can this be? He has never learned internal energy.’
It was an extremely strange phenomenon.
For someone's blood meridians to remain this clean at his age without practicing the Breathing Technique, he would have needed to receive the Meridian Opening Technique from an internal energy master with profound cultivation for a long time.
Go Chan looked doubtfully at the back of Mok GyeongUn's head.
‘Didn't he say he lived alone with his grandfather in the mountains?’
What was going on?
Shaking their head, Go Chan pushed their life energy toward the dantian for now.
Go Chan was nearly there.
Go Chan had considered one possibility.
‘The most likely reason the energy is dispersing is that he only just began absorbing it.’
That was usually the case.
Mok GyeongUn had been practicing the Breathing Technique for less than half a day.
No matter how much energy he had gathered, the amount was too small, and it was likely dispersing because he had not properly formed a dantian...
Jolt!
Go Chan suddenly broke out in goosebumps.
The guard felt something chilling and deeply unsettling.
Then...
‘Huh?’
Go Chan had not removed their hand, yet the life energy connected to Mok GyeongUn had been cut off.
What kind of phenomenon was this?
Go Chan frowned, then infused life energy into the Qimen Acupoint again.
The guard sent it back toward the dantian.
But...
Jolt!
Once again, that strange sensation came, and the life energy Go Chan had sent was cut off.
No, to be exact, it had dispersed.
Go Chan was stunned.
‘What?’
Go Chan could not understand this phenomenon.
It was not even energy Mok GyeongUn had absorbed himself, but Go Chan's own life energy.
Yet the instant it reached the area around the dantian, Go Chan lost control of it, and it dispersed and vanished.
Why was this happening?
Unless someone deliberately severed the life energy, this should not have been possible.
As Go Chan struggled to understand, Mok GyeongUn's voice reached them.
“Your energy dispersed too, Guard Go Chan?”
“...You felt that as well?”
“Yes.”
‘Unbelievable. This bastard's Ki sense is absurdly innate.’
At this point, it could only be instinctive talent.
He had only just begun absorbing ki, yet he could already perceive another person's energy.
It was astonishing.
What would have happened if this bastard had learned Martial Arts as a child?
‘He may have possessed martial talent comparable to the youngest young master.’
Mok YuCheon, the youngest young master of Yeonmok Sword Manor.
His talent was so overwhelming that Yeonmok Sword Manor might see one like him only once in three generations.
He had reached the level of an Advanced master at fourteen, then attained the beginning stage of Expert only two years later, at sixteen.
His talent was truly overwhelming.
If Mok GyeongUn had started early, he might have come close to that level as well.
If not for one problem.
‘Why does it disperse?’
The guard tried once more.
Yet the result was the same.
If the faint energy Mok GyeongUn gathered through the Breathing Technique had dispersed, the reason would have been clear. But this was impossible to explain.
“Young master...”
“Do you know why?”
“I am sorry, but I cannot determine the reason with my current ability.”
Go Chan's pride was wounded, but the guard was only Second-rate.
Martial artists only called someone a master after they reached Advanced.
Second-rate martial artists were stronger than ordinary people, but they had not entered the realm of masters or true adepts.
“I believe it would be difficult to know without someone more skilled than myself examining you.”
“Still, now that you have learned Martial Arts, is there not even a guess?”
“...I do not know. There is some unfamiliar energy around your dantian, but I cannot determine what it is.”
It was entirely different from internal energy.
It was so cold and unpleasant that Go Chan was not even certain it could properly be called energy.
Mok GyeongUn asked quietly,
“Then I will not beat around the bush. If this continues, can I not form a dantian?”
It was a direct question.
Go Chan answered awkwardly.
“...To be honest, that is correct. If the energy you gather through the Breathing Technique continues to disperse, you cannot form a dantian.”
“So that is the problem after all.”
“Pardon?”
“No. I was talking to myself.”
Mok GyeongUn rubbed his chin.
Go Chan had not identified it precisely, but the cause seemed clear now.
The deathly aura around his dantian was likely the cause.
‘Hmm.’
What should he do?
Perhaps the energy absorbed through the Breathing Technique was incompatible with it, causing it to disperse.
And neither this Breathing Technique nor this method of ki circulation could move the deathly aura.
No solution came to mind.
‘This is troublesome.’
His purpose from the beginning had been to learn Martial Arts.
That monstrous man he had encountered before.
Whenever he recalled that sensation, he still could not imagine defeating that man, no, even facing him.
‘Can I not learn Martial Arts?’
If that was the case, there was no reason for him to remain here.
Mok GyeongUn's thoughts became complicated.
It was still too soon to despair completely.
As Go Chan had said, the guard was only Second-rate, so perhaps Go Chan simply could not determine the exact cause.
Was receiving the help of a proper master the answer?
As Mok GyeongUn pondered this...
“How strange. If it makes life energy disperse, it seems completely opposed to energy created through normal ki circulation...”
“Opposed?”
Go Chan waved their hands at Mok GyeongUn's question.
“I-I am only guessing. You needn't take it too seriously...”
“Opposed... Opposed...”
Mok GyeongUn furrowed his brow and sank into thought.
The instant he heard that word, he recalled feeling something similar when he had first absorbed this cold, Yin deathly aura.
If the energy absorbed through breathing was living vitality, then this was literally deathly aura.
Perhaps the method itself was wrong from the beginning.
Having reached his own conclusion, Mok GyeongUn said,
“You are right, Guard Go Chan. I need to try reversing the essential formula for ki circulation and the Breathing Technique.”
Mok GyeongUn closed his eyes.
He intended to put what he had realized into practice at once.
‘What?’
Go Chan could not hide their shock.
Had Mok GyeongUn just said he would reverse the essential formula for ki circulation and the Breathing Technique?
For a moment, Go Chan doubted their own ears.
The Breathing Technique was originally a type of health-preserving practice derived from the Taoist path, a method that invigorated living vitality and Yang ki.
Reversing it literally meant taking in deathly and Yin energy.
Furthermore, reversing one's ki circulation was a great art of reverse acupoints that dragged the practitioner into demonic deviation.
“Y-young master! Stop! You may suffer Ki Rampage!”
Ki Rampage.
It was a phenomenon that occurred when the ki inside one's body became even slightly distorted.
Yet even a slight distortion could cause this. Reversing the entire direction of ki circulation was no different from choosing self-destruction.
Pfft!
Blue Spirit, who had been watching, curled their lips.
So that fool had merely been doing something stupid with half-baked knowledge.
“How could he even think of that?”
Even the Reversed Blood Great Art, developed through long research by their sect, often destroyed the dantian after use or brought such severe side effects that its practitioners were left crippled or died.
Yet this brat, who had not even formed a dantian, intended to reverse his ki circulation himself.
It was literally a suicidal act.
“If things go well, I may find freedom,” Blue Spirit said to the Demonic Monk with a sneer.
If an outsider harmed Mok GyeongUn, or if a spirit familiar tried to harm him, that harm would ultimately return upon them as malign force.
But it was different if he ended his own life.
If that happened, they might escape their shackles and regain their freedom.
“Do not interfere, mortal.”
Swish!
Blue Spirit lightly swung their long pipe.
Go Chan's body was pushed away on its own, and the guard was forced to lie on the bed they had been occupying, stuck fast to it.
Squeeze!
“What is this?”
Startled, Go Chan raised their internal energy to force themself upright.
But the guard could not move at all.
“Y-young mas... Mmph!”
“Shh. You must be quiet.”
At a gesture from Blue Spirit, Go Chan could not even move their lips.
Meanwhile, Mok GyeongUn was already reversing the Breathing Technique and his ki circulation.
Blue Spirit's red lips twitched as they watched.
“If you kill yourself, I will personally tear your soul limb from limb.”
They could hardly wait.
But then...
Whoooosh!
White breath streamed from Mok GyeongUn as he circulated his ki.
‘!?’
The mist was not warm. It was extremely cold and Yin.
Until moments ago, Blue Spirit had believed Mok GyeongUn would suffer Ki Rampage and die from recklessly reversing his ki circulation.
But as events took an unexpected turn, one of their eyebrows rose.
‘What is this?’
They had never seen anything like it, even in life.
Why were cold Yin energies gathering around Mok GyeongUn when he was circulating ki in reverse?
Blue Spirit's Ghost Eyes saw it clearly.
Living vitality and Yang ki were not the only energies spread throughout the world.
Naturally, because Yin and Yang were balanced, deathly aura and Yin ki were spread throughout the world in equal measure.
But there was an important fact.
Living beings could neither sense nor feel those opposing energies.
Yet what was this?
“How?”
How was Mok GyeongUn, a living being, drawing in the deathly aura?
It was utterly incomprehensible.
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