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◈ Ophidian of the Immortal World ◈

Chapter 20: Cooperative Hunt

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After completing his Molting, Jegyeong realized that his body had grown once more.

What had originally been a little over twenty meters long now seemed to be twenty-five meters, perhaps even a little more. His body had thickened to match.

The cave, which had seemed small but manageable when he first entered, now felt stiflingly cramped after his Molting.

As he dragged his larger, heavier body out of the cave, the passage he had entered with room to spare now pressed tightly around him.

When his body lightly brushed the cave walls and ceiling on the way out, small cracking sounds rang out and stone fragments fell.

“Whew.”

His larger body brimmed with greater strength.

He never tired of this feeling of growing stronger.

It was not merely a matter of becoming stronger and larger. He knew he was becoming superior on the level of life itself, which made it all the more satisfying.

If he experienced this several times, dozens of times, or even more, he would become a Great Demon Beast.

Then the seniors of the Forget-Me Garden might call him Fellow Daoist and acknowledge him as one of their true kin.

‘Not that such things are important.’

Still, having a goal and feeling a sense of accomplishment was a good thing.

Wouldn't the long Immortal Path, with no end in sight, be far too bleak without even small joys like this?

After emerging from the cave, Jegyeong considered waiting for Cheongo before deciding to visit the Wood Demon first.

Wooooo-

The small cave that had served as Jegyeong's temporary home was not far from the Wood Demon's habitat.

When he appeared in the distance, the Wood Demon awkwardly greeted him.

With Cheongo absent, Jegyeong naturally could not understand what it was saying, but he took it for an awkward greeting.

‘The fruits look fully grown.’

As Cheongo had said, six smooth fruits hung from the Wood Demon's branches.

They looked ripe on the outside, but on closer inspection, they seemed slightly less appealing than the fruits he had eaten before.

Still, the difference was subtle. Jegyeong expected them to ripen completely within a day or two.

“······.”

When the Wood Demon showed no further reaction after greeting him, Jegyeong settled at a suitable distance and coiled up.

The soft mud floor heaved beneath his enormous weight, a weight for which even heavy seemed inadequate, sending small waves through the mud.

Jegyeong felt the soft, waterbed-like mud beneath him as he glanced sideways at the Wood Demon.

Bubbles occasionally rose from the mud around it, making the ground seem as though it were breathing.

Of course, it was really the Wood Demon's roots, buried beneath the mud, that were breathing.

Its thick roots served as respiratory organs, weapons, and a means of movement.

‘It really is a monster.’

Jegyeong considered himself something of a monster in terms of size, but he could not compare to the Wood Demon in any respect.

No matter its size or grotesqueness, that tree truly was a demon fiend.

Yet he felt neither revulsion nor fear as he watched it.

If anything, the large creature only looked tempting.

Wouldn't it be nice if he could make that thing work for him like Cheongo? He could use a few fruits for hunting and snack on the rest whenever he felt like it...

Flinch!

Perhaps his gaze had been too intense. The Wood Demon, quietly enjoying photosynthesis, shuddered and subtly lowered its leafy branches to hide the fruits.

Tension seeped into the once peaceful atmosphere.

As that uncomfortable moment dragged on for one of them, Cheongo appeared to the vigorous beat of wings.

“Jegyeong! I'm back!”

“Good. How did it go?”

Cheongo loudly announced their return, then flew between the Wood Demon and Jegyeong, though closer to Jegyeong.

“I checked. I checked everything. All those guys from before were still there.”

Jegyeong had instructed Cheongo to check on the nearby Demon Beasts and their habitats.

Since Cheongo had always been watching and searching for things, they had become a skilled scout by now.

On top of that, Cheongo had eaten plenty of good things and was now halfway to becoming a Demon Beast, making scouting, which they had already excelled at, even easier.

“There were so many. Leopards, monkeys, birds that can't fly, bugs...”

Thinking Cheongo would list every creature they had seen if left alone, Jegyeong cut them off at an appropriate moment.

“Good work. Now tell me which of the ones you saw looked slow.”

“Slow?”

“The ones that barely reacted even when you flew over their heads.”

“Oh. Um...”

Cheongo thought for a moment, then named several creatures that came to mind.

Jegyeong chose one of them.

Then he looked at Cheongo, who was staring blankly at him.

“How do I look?”

“Huh?”

“Don't I seem different from before?”

“Different? How?”

Cheongo tilted their head, then narrowed their eyes as though they had noticed something.

After tilting their head several more times in confusion, Cheongo flew around Jegyeong and chirped.

“That's strange. Jegyeong, did you get weaker?”

Concealing his Aura with the Qi Concealment Technique seemed to have made Cheongo think he had weakened.

That meant Cheongo judged a target's strength by its Aura.

Jegyeong doubted Cheongo was the only one who used such a standard to judge strength.

An ordinary beast could gauge strength simply by looking at another creature's size, but Demon Beasts were different.

‘So the Qi Concealment Technique can hide not only my presence, but my strength as well.’

Jegyeong felt that the Qi Concealment Technique might be more useful than he had expected.

It was difficult to judge a Demon Beast's strength from its appearance alone.

That was why one had to rely on the Aura it gave off rather than its visible form, and the Qi Concealment Technique could conceal that Aura.

In other words, he could pretend to be weak and make an opponent lower their guard.

It might not work on suspicious creatures, but it would be quite useful against single-minded idiots that charged at anything that looked weak.

“Jegyeong! Did you really get weaker?”

Without a word, Jegyeong released the Aura he had restrained with the Qi Concealment Technique. Only then did Cheongo stop making a fuss.

“What about now?”

“Jegyeong is strong again! What was that? How did you do it?”

Jegyeong was reminded once again that Cheongo was a born audience.

They made a huge fuss over every little thing, making it satisfying to show off in front of them.

Perhaps that Immortal had been so impressed by the little bird's enthusiastic reactions that they had specially used Ignition to awaken Cheongo's Spiritual Intelligence.

‘Come to think of it, what realm was that Immortal at?’

Jegyeong had picked up many things from the seniors in the Forget-Me Garden, but he had never heard of an ability to perform Ignition on a beast's Spiritual Intelligence.

Considering what Cheongo had told him happened after the Immortal's death, that Immortal could not have been at the Foundation Establishment Stage.

‘Then the Golden Core Stage?’

Jegyeong had gained some understanding of how the world worked in the Forget-Me Garden.

The Azure Basket Realm where he lived was also called the Cultivation World, and that name had not been given without reason.

Everyone in the Human Race was either a cultivator or someone who lacked the talent to become one.

In other words, anyone capable of cultivation would cultivate and try to become a cultivator.

How many people lived in this world? No one likely knew.

The Human Territories, where the Human Race lived, made up only a portion of the Azure Basket Realm, yet even that portion was unimaginably vast.

Countless people lived across that unimaginably vast land, and a considerable number of them were cultivators.

Yet more than ninety percent of those countless cultivators remained at the Qi Refining Stage for their entire lives, and specifically in its early phase.

Foundation Establishment cultivators? Perhaps only one would emerge among several hundred thousand people. In most Human Race cities, they were treated as important figures.

Then what about Golden Core cultivators? Most held status comparable to the leaders of major cities and belonged to the upper ranks of the Human Race as a whole.

‘If that Immortal was a Golden Core cultivator, why did they die in a remote mountain valley like this?’

Had they grown weary of worldly troubles, cultivated alone in solitude, and eventually undergone Meditative Passing?

As his thoughts reached that point, Jegyeong returned to a question he had unconsciously set aside.

‘Where is this place?’

Jegyeong had learned from the seniors of the Forget-Me Garden that the Human Race's sphere of influence was called the Human Territories, but even those seniors did not know exactly where the Human Territories began and ended.

Wondering why, Jegyeong had asked whether the Human Race had maps. The seniors answered that maps existed, but most were small maps made by individual Human Race cities. There were no maps covering the entire Human Territories.

This was because, as mentioned before, the Azure Basket Realm and the Human Territories were simply too vast.

It was like someone who spent their whole life in a small rural village never bothering to look at a Star Chart.

Even if they made up their mind to leave home, they would at most visit a neighboring village or city. What use would they have for knowing the positions of stars beyond the sky and throughout the universe? Would they even be curious?

For that reason, no map covering the entire Human Territories existed.

At least, that was what was publicly known.

When he heard that much, Jegyeong wondered whether concealing all information about himself in the Forget-Me Garden had been unnecessary secrecy...

But he soon dismissed the thought.

Even the kind seniors of the Full-Wing Gathering thoroughly concealed their identities. How could he, a member of the Demon Race, allow himself such carelessness?

‘Leaving aside that Immortal who may have been at the Golden Core Stage, there were also the two Human Race cultivators I saw before. Just considering them, this place is likely within the Human Territories or near them.’

The two cultivators who had taken his parents away had been terrifying at the time, but thinking back now, they had not been all that remarkable.

Partly, that was because meeting the seniors of the Forget-Me Garden had greatly raised his standards. Yet even when he calmly recalled that time, he reached the same conclusion.

The pressure and fear he had felt from them had been far weaker than what he felt before the seniors in the Forget-Me Garden.

‘They were definitely Qi Refining Stage cultivators.’

Jegyeong guessed that Qi Refining Stage cultivators would not dare risk their lives wandering through the Demon Region. This place was likely within the Human Territories or near them.

‘If so, then the direction I'm heading is away from the Human Territories.’

The Human Race was united. In other words, they liked gathering together.

Even if this area lay within or close to the Human Territories, Jegyeong did not think those two Qi Refining Stage cultivators would have wandered around alone.

They surely had a small group or organization.

‘Going as far away as possible is still the right answer. But getting too far away could be bad as well.’

The fact that the Human Race was active nearby meant there was a good chance no powerful members of the Other Races lived close to their territory.

From that perspective, moving too far from the Human Territories might not be a good choice either.

He had heard that the law of the strong devouring the weak also applied in the Human Race's Cultivation World, but it was nothing compared to the Other Races, especially the Demon Race.

When the Human Race spoke of the strong devouring the weak, it was somewhat figurative. Among the Demon Race, the weak were literally eaten.

Kinship? There was no way such a concept existed.

As Jegyeong saw it, the Demon Race lived by the rule that if someone was not oneself, they were an enemy.

Still, Jegyeong did not think those Demon Beasts were pathetic.

After all, he too regarded other Demon Beasts and members of the Demon Race as competitors or prey.

To him, kinship was nothing more than a meaningless classification.

As long as someone was trustworthy and could remain with him, he did not care whether they belonged to the Human Race or the Demon Race.

That was a long way of saying that he needed to avoid powerful beings, whether Human Race or Demon Race, as much as possible.

‘I can't depend only on Cheongo forever. Thankfully, I have the Qi Concealment Technique, so I need to practice it as much as possible.’

Uh Dobaek had said that once he became proficient in the Qi Concealment Technique, he could evade even a Foundation Establishment cultivator's Divine Sense to some extent.

Here, “to some extent” meant that even if Divine Sense detected him, he could reduce his presence.

Put simply, he could pass himself off as an ordinary beast rather than a Demon Beast.

Of course, that required a considerable distance between them, but it was still far better than nothing.

Having renewed his resolve to cultivate, Jegyeong looked at the still-confused Cheongo and spoke.

“When the fruits are fully ripe, take one in your beak and head toward that lizard. As you pass it, fly low over its head so it can see the fruit in your beak.”

“Okay!”

“Once you've passed it, return quietly. Then do the same thing again about two days later. Do you understand?”

“Okay! You want it to know where I got the fruit, right?”

“That's right.”

Working with someone intelligent was convenient.

Jegyeong looked away from Cheongo, whose eyes were bright with understanding, and turned to the Wood Demon.

“I'll hide nearby with my Aura concealed like before. If that lizard comes here, you deal with it first. It would be even better if you pretend to be weak and make it attack more eagerly. Once it begins fighting you, I'll ambush it immediately.”

Wooooo!

“It says it understands.”

“Good. Let me know when the fruits are ripe.”

It took two days for the fruits to ripen fully.

During that time, Jegyeong practiced the Qi Concealment Technique, carefully adjusting its intensity so it would not interfere with the hunt.

Controlling his Aura was completely different from using his body, so practicing the Qi Concealment Technique did not tire his body. Instead, it exhausted his mind.

Although he adjusted the intensity as best he could, by the time the fruits ripened two days later, his mind felt sluggish, as if he had fallen into lethargy.

‘In a way, this must be Heart State training too.’

It was fortunate that the fruits had not taken too long to ripen.

Otherwise, even after they ripened, he might have needed to rest for several days.

‘My motivation has dropped, but it won't interfere with the hunt.’

Jegyeong restrained his desire to rest through sheer willpower.

Soon afterward, Cheongo took flight with a fruit in their beak.

Then, three days later, a giant Thorn Lizard covered in long spikes from its head to its back and tail emerged from among the dried trees, its tongue flicking.

Wooooo!

Sensing an enemy, the Wood Demon let out a long howl and raised several roots.

But the Thorn Lizard paid no attention to its threat.

Its gaze was fixed on the fruits hanging in clusters from the Wood Demon's branches.

“Krrk!”

Eyes wild, the Thorn Lizard charged like a boar.

The Wood Demon swung its roots in response.

From far away, Jegyeong remained hidden and watched the scene.

Footnotes:

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