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◈ Ophidian of the Immortal World ◈

Chapter 33: Yeongjong

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Jegyeong was deep in thought with the Fire Crystal before him.

Uh Dobaek's advice had brought Jegyeong great enlightenment.

It had given him a clear direction for the Immortal Path he needed to walk.

‘Senior Uh didn't seem certain, but the advice was like a lamp in the darkness to me.’

He needed to plant a Spiritual Seed that would replace a Spiritual Root and Bloodline.

Those who possessed Spiritual Roots and Bloodlines already had plots of land, large or small, and only needed to water them. Jegyeong, on the other hand, had to break open barren ground and sow the seeds himself.

It was unfair, but he could not complain.

He was fortunate to have land at all, and fortunate again to have seeds to sow.

‘When I look at it that way, obtaining the Fire Crystal was a stroke of luck.’

As Uh Dobaek had said, fire energy was especially intense among the Five Element Spiritual Energies.

That intensity was a burden to anyone trying to absorb and digest it, but Jegyeong thought it could work to his advantage now.

‘Using a Cultivation Treasure to neutralize the Spirit Crystal's fire energy means suppressing some of its power.’

Healing Water was somewhat similar to a Cultivation Treasure.

But just as a watermelon could not be called water, Healing Water was not a complete Cultivation Treasure.

There was not much of it, either, so he could not be sure it would neutralize enough of the Fire Crystal's fire energy.

Even if Healing Water could neutralize the fire energy, Jegyeong hesitated to use it.

‘Senior Uh made planting Root Spiritual Energy sound simple... but I don't know whether it really will be.’

It was like reducing the amount of medicine and diluting it with water because one feared its effect would be too strong.

Would the fire energy of a neutralized Fire Crystal be enough to become Root Spiritual Energy, enough to become a Spiritual Seed? It might be, but what if it was not?

Jegyeong would rather risk damaging his body and be certain.

Once he successfully planted a Spiritual Seed, he would not care even if his body was left in ruins.

Even if he suffered a fairly serious injury, he should be able to recover with Healing Water.

Unless he had no other choice, he did not want to use Healing Water together with the Fire Crystal.

‘After swallowing the Fire Crystal, I need to keep its fire energy from scattering.’

Jegyeong drew upon every bit of knowledge he had, simulating the process in his mind again and again.

From everything he had heard from the senior cultivators of the Full-Wing Gathering, he let one imagined situation branch into another and considered what he would need to do in each case.

At some point, it had ceased to be imagination and become wild speculation, but Jegyeong did not stop.

He pictured every worst-case and best-case scenario he could think of. Before long, the seeds he had sown in his mind numbered in the hundreds.

‘Could this count as a kind of Visualization Meditation?’

He did not know how much time had passed.

It had certainly been more than ten days. Perhaps a month had gone by?

He had told Cheongo and Muk-su in advance that he would remain underwater for a while, but enough time had passed that he should probably surface and show himself.

Jegyeong shook his head several times to clear his mind and moved to leave the nest.

Then an odd sensation seized him.

‘Hm?’

Like sensing rain from a single drop of water landing on his head, Jegyeong coiled up again at the flash of inspiration that passed through him like a mirage.

Like a composer suddenly struck by a melody, stopping what they were doing to pull out blank staff paper, Jegyeong brought the Fire Crystal he always kept carefully wrapped in his tail to his mouth.

‘Ugh!’

When he held it wrapped in his tail, it had merely felt warm. The instant his tongue touched it, scorching heat surged forth.

Jegyeong tried to feel that heat as deeply as possible. Once he had grown somewhat accustomed to it, he swallowed the Fire Crystal whole.

At first, nothing happened.

The heat he had felt when touching it with his tongue seemed like an illusion. For a while, the Fire Crystal in his stomach showed no reaction, as though it were an ordinary stone.

But Jegyeong did not let down his guard. When the Fire Crystal suddenly released explosive fire energy without warning, he met that intense power without panicking.

‘As expected, I can't contain all of it.’

He would make the Fire Crystal's fire energy into a Spiritual Seed and sow it in the land that was himself.

Yet the fire energy was so intense that even his sturdy body and abundant Qi and Blood could not possibly withstand it all.

So Jegyeong guided the fire energy, which was spreading as though it would burst his body apart, out of himself.

He had resonated with Spiritual Energy before, but this was his first time manipulating it directly. It felt unfamiliar, yet the countless scenes he had pictured in his mind allowed him to manage somehow.

‘So this is what it feels like.’

It felt like becoming a Human Race cultivator taking the first step into cultivation.

The sensation of wielding the power of heaven and earth as he wished was dizzyingly intoxicating.

He would soon realize it was an illusion, but that moment remained an unforgettable dream for every cultivator.

Jegyeong was no different, but he quickly came to his senses and returned to reality.

It was not because his will was especially firm. The fire energy still trying to burn him from within forced him awake.

Even the sweetest dream would end if a red-hot branding iron were pressed against one's body.

‘Let it go. Let it go. Let it go.’

It pained him to release so much fire energy, but this was a wave he could not contain.

Greedily grasping at what one could not possess was both foolish and avaricious.

Jegyeong let go of his greed and imagined himself as an outlet through which the fire energy flowed.

He released it naturally, again and again. Then, the moment he judged that he could bear what remained, he abruptly turned himself into a massive prison.

The Spiritual Energy of heaven and earth possessed Spiritual Essence.

It was not intelligence, but something like instinct.

Just as water naturally flowed from high places to low ones, Spiritual Energy also had a tendency to return to where it belonged.

The Fire Crystal's fire energy had been breaking free of its crystal shell and returning to heaven and earth.

Yet Jegyeong now forcibly raised walls and trapped it. The already violent fire energy exploded with even greater force and charged at those walls.

Boom!

There was no actual sound, but Jegyeong heard it clearly.

His body and mind shook uneasily, as though they might collapse at any moment.

He had already released more than half of it, yet it was still this fierce.

Uh Dobaek's warning had been right. Among the Spiritual Energy of heaven and earth, fire energy truly was foremost in strength and violence.

‘But that is exactly why it is best suited to become a Spiritual Seed.’

He had to make a sprout emerge from barren, cracked earth that held nothing.

Without this much intensity, would it not simply be swallowed by the wasteland instead of sprouting?

The unbearable pain and vigorous fire energy trying to burn him made Jegyeong strangely happy.

He endured. Then he endured some more.

At some point, he forgot he was even enduring pain and blankly waited for this moment, which felt eternal, to pass.

He could endure only because he knew this suffering would end. If he had not known, he would have been unable to bear it.

How much time passed in that indescribable ordeal?

At some point, the fire energy's fury subsided, and Jegyeong gathered himself again.

‘Now.’

Jegyeong squeezed out every last bit of his will and guided the fire energy.

Though weakened, it still retained its nature and resisted fiercely. Jegyeong suppressed that resistance with desperate determination.

Then he led the fire energy, which continually tried to escape his control, toward his barren Spiritual Essence.

Barren was no exaggeration.

It had no foundation and no reason for being. It simply existed, alone and empty.

That was his fate and his shackle.

Now he had to break both.

Only then could his severed Immortal Path continue farther.

‘Go in.’

The fire energy resisted violently.

Compared with its previous resistance, this could be called a desperate struggle.

It truly did not want to enter that dead land.

‘Get in!’

Jegyeong's will had begun to run dry.

What moved him now was obsession and madness.

He knew exactly what this spiritual sowing meant.

It was defying the heavens by breaking what had been ordained, transcending the shackles that bound him.

The ultimate goal of all cultivators.

Even if it was only a step as small as a speck of dust, he had achieved it.

‘Ah.’

The moment he realized it, his mind, which had become as barren as his Spiritual Essence, swelled to its fullest.

His mind became vast as a mountain and clear as a mirror. It drove the fire energy, which had been holding out with all its strength, forward in a single push.

The force did not seem particularly strong, but for some reason, the fire energy could not resist it.

Thud!

A tiny seed.

That reddish seed fell upon the silent wasteland.

It rolled slowly across mounds of soil piled like ash, then slipped into a small hollow.

Then the change began.

A faint warmth spread through the land of his Spiritual Essence.

It was as small a change as a pebble falling into a vast sea, but to Jegyeong's Spiritual Essence, which had been as good as dead, it was as though heaven and earth had been overturned.

What had been dead came alive. Meaning appeared where none had existed before, and the severed path connected once more.

“Haah.”

Jegyeong opened his eyes with a long sigh.

His wide eyes took in the surrounding waters, boiling and bubbling, but his gaze was fixed on the inner self that had undergone a world-changing transformation.

‘So this is Spiritual Energy.’

The tiny trace of Spiritual Energy within his Spiritual Essence resembled the Spiritual Energy of heaven and earth all around him, yet it was different.

Jegyeong could sense an affinity and tremendous power in that little spark.

“Hahahahaha!”

Loud, skyward laughter burst from him.

Jegyeong did not even realize he was laughing.

He was simply overwhelmed by joy he could not contain.

He had finally entered the Immortal Path.

Not an incomplete Immortal Path that ended halfway, but a whole path that let him see beyond.

Of course, there would come a day when he encountered another wall and sighed, but he would not despair then.

At this very moment, he had surpassed the impossible.

Perhaps his greatest gain was not the spark that had lit his Spiritual Essence, but this experience itself.

He had realized that the limits granted by heaven and the unfairness of reality were not walls that could never be crossed.

That great realization would become a lamp that forever illuminated the Immortal Path he would walk.

* * *

After successfully sowing the Spiritual Seed, Jegyeong gained a new hobby.

Strictly speaking, it was cultivation, but it gave him joy beyond mere accomplishment, so he considered it a hobby.

His new hobby was contemplation.

He had practiced contemplation whenever he could before, but now it was nothing like before.

He spent more time with his eyes closed than open.

He focused on the small spark warmly illuminating his Spiritual Essence.

At first, though he knew the spark could not suddenly go out, he still worried that it might.

Now, he considered how to help this little thing grow.

‘It's absorbing Spiritual Energy little by little, but it isn't enough. It's like waiting for the occasional raindrop to fill a basin.’

An unexpected problem had also appeared.

The environment of the Spirit Spring, which had once felt nothing but profound and comfortable, was suppressing the spark's growth.

That was because the Spiritual Seed Jegyeong had planted was a spark born from the Fire Crystal.

Naturally, a small spark would be affected underwater, where water qi overflowed.

Fortunately, the spark was not ordinary Spiritual Energy but a Spiritual Seed that Jegyeong had already refined once. The water qi did not place it in danger, but it could not help slowing the spark's growth.

‘Should I leave the Spirit Spring?’

Jegyeong was torn.

This home had been hard-won, and he had occupied it for only a short time. How could he abandon it and leave already?

Giving up this place meant giving up prey he could hunt relatively easily, as well as the Healing Water he could use in an emergency.

Should he abandon all of that just to raise a Spiritual Seed, which was not especially useful yet, a little faster?

‘Even if I leave one day... not yet.’

The Spiritual Seed in the form of a spark was still growing.

It was as slow as a half-asleep turtle crawling along, but it was growing steadily nonetheless.

For now, that was enough.

‘It's hot.’

There was another reason, perhaps the decisive one, why he did not want to leave the Spirit Spring yet.

It was the heat, like being dried beneath the blazing midsummer sun.

It was only bearable because he was on the cool riverbed. If he went out of the water, he would soon have to stick out his tongue.

Even if he found a way to move the Healing Water and no longer had to worry about finding prey outside the water, he had no intention of leaving the Spirit Spring unless he could solve this problem of heat.

‘I just can't get used to it.’

Jegyeong suffered from the heat because his body itself had become hot.

With only slight exaggeration, it felt as though his entire body had become a ball of fire.

Even if he stayed still and only breathed, the water around him would soon become scalding. Fish that carelessly wandered nearby were cooked where they swam, their eyes rolling back.

If that were all, it would have bothered him, but he could have managed.

The problem was that this change affected his hunting as well.

The heat radiating from his body made it difficult to approach prey.

Every time, he had to use the Qi Concealment Technique with all his strength to suppress his presence. Thanks to that, his already high proficiency with the Qi Concealment Technique grew even greater.

‘Learning the Qi Concealment Technique was a truly excellent choice.’

The senior cultivators dismissed it as a trivial technique, but it served as a dependable source of sustenance for Jegyeong, as much as, if not more than, his sturdy body, his greatest asset.

Crunch!

The fish Demon Beast Jegyeong had bitten around the middle thrashed in terror.

But its desperate struggle meant nothing to Jegyeong.

This Water Demon was an ordinary fish Demon Beast with no Bloodline or other special trait. Compared to Jegyeong, it was no bigger than a minnow.

Smack!

He struck its head with his tail, then shook it a few times while gripping it tightly in his jaws. That was enough.

Jegyeong adjusted his grip on the limp creature and headed for the surface.

Woooo.

Muk-su, whose roots were stretched out in their usual place, greeted him.

Unlike before, Muk-su was more cautious around him. That was because of Jegyeong's Spiritual Seed, which contained fire energy.

“Here.”

Jegyeong tossed the fish Demon Beast he had just caught to Muk-su.

Muk-su extended a branch and snatched it, then plucked two ripe Spirit Fruits and handed them to Jegyeong.

They had begun this trade some time ago.

Jegyeong had proposed it after accidentally discovering that Muk-su's Spirit Fruits helped cultivate his Spiritual Seed, and Muk-su had readily agreed.

Muk-su used Spirit Fruits to lure Demon Beasts and ordinary animals anyway.

There was no reason to refuse when Muk-su could remain still and trade them for Demon Beasts without hunting personally.

Woooo.

Muk-su made a pleased sound and wrapped the fish Demon Beast tightly in two roots.

Blood that had been flowing from the wound changed direction and began seeping into Muk-su's roots.

The roots that absorbed the blood repeatedly swelled and shrank, like a beating heart.

Jegyeong watched the grotesque sight with interest for a moment, then swallowed the two Spirit Fruits he had received in a single bite.

Gulp!

The Spirit Fruits' effect appeared immediately.

The single spark trembled as though it might go out, then soon returned to normal.

Someone who did not know better might think it had simply been in danger, but Jegyeong, the Spiritual Seed's owner, could tell that the spark, which had seemed unsteady, had actually become purer.

Jegyeong did not know what it meant for the Spiritual Seed to become purer, but he instinctively knew it was a good change.

‘What an interesting fellow.’

Jegyeong looked back and forth between the fish Demon Beast, now noticeably thinner, and the satisfied-looking Muk-su, marveling inwardly.

He had eaten Muk-su's Spirit Fruits before, but he had not felt this kind of effect then.

Was it because of the Spiritual Seed? Certainly, but Muk-su's growth had also played no small part.

Cheongo, who often plucked Spirit Fruits from Muk-su when bored, said they tasted better than before too.

‘If this one grows further and reaches a higher realm someday, it might truly bear a spiritual treasure.’

No one knew whether that day would come, or when it would come if it did.

Still, Jegyeong was certain that if it did, that easygoing tree would cause a great stir.

Footnotes:

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