WeTried Translations

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◈ Ophidian of the Immortal World ◈

Chapter 47: Treasure Hunt

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Yu Jeonggyeom.

The guide who had welcomed Jegyeong when he received his invitation to the Forget-Me Garden.

A voice he had long forgotten now overlapped with that Golden Core Stage cultivator's voice.

‘Is that Yu Jeonggyeom? Or not?’

It certainly sounded similar, but he could not be sure. It was not as though he could suddenly ask, “Are you Senior Yu Jeonggyeom?”

‘And whether it is or not, that isn't what matters right now.’

Was this not the Lecture on the Dao he had waited so long for?

He had gained nothing from True Lord Hyeondo's Lecture on the Dao, but he had to take something away from the Golden Core Stage cultivators' teachings.

“They often call it the Great Dao of Form a Golden Core. It bears the name Great Dao because of how much Form a Golden Core means on the immortal path. The significance of Form a Golden Core lies in creating a Dharma Seed, which is to say...”

The calm voice rang out pleasantly.

Though the speaker did not raise their voice and spoke almost as if talking to themself, every word carried clearly across dozens of kilometers.

Through the Lecture on the Dao given by the Golden Core Stage cultivator who might or might not have been Yu Jeonggyeom, Jegyeong came to understand the basic concept of Form a Golden Core.

He had already opened his own path, but such concepts still mattered to him. Whether it was a Golden Core, a Demon Core, or something else entirely, the day would eventually come when he too had to attempt Forming a Golden Core.

“All right, that is enough from me. I shall take my leave.”

The first Golden Core Stage cultivator to give a Lecture on the Dao laughed heartily, then vanished in an instant.

Another Golden Core Stage cultivator rose high into the air.

“This person will continue from here.”

As if they had arranged it beforehand, the Golden Core Stage cultivators continued their Lectures on the Dao about the Great Dao of Form a Golden Core in turn.

Their explanations were long, but never rambling, nor did they leave anything vague.

At least while listening, Jegyeong understood their words completely, without a trace of confusion.

Four Golden Core Stage cultivators gave Lectures on the Dao in total. Once the last finished speaking, they disappeared like a mirage.

Neither Jegyeong nor any of the tens of thousands of cultivators who had heard the teachings learned the four Golden Core Stage cultivators' names. All they could do was call out, “Thank you for your teachings, Seniors!”

A few cultivators, Jegyeong included, found that strange.

Were they not giving Lectures on the Dao to accumulate merit? Even if they did not openly seek credit for it, they vanished like ghosts without leaving behind even their names...

“It is probably because this gathering was held under True Lord Hyeondo's name.”

After regaining composure from their realization and emotion, Uh Dobaek cautiously offered that guess.

“Since this was a place arranged by True Lord Hyeondo, perhaps they did not dare put forth their own names. Those seniors must have gained quite a bit from the True Lord's Lecture on the Dao as well, so they likely felt no need to concern themselves with a small Good karmic bond.”

Ye Janggyeong and Choe Jutang agreed, saying that seemed likely.

Watching them, Jegyeong clicked his tongue inwardly.

Even at high realms, perhaps because they were Human Race cultivators, they still weighed and calculated everything.

‘A month passed in the blink of an eye.’

When he came back to himself, a full month had already gone by.

They said high-realm cultivators forgot the passage of time once they entered cultivation. Having experienced it himself, Jegyeong now understood it was true.

‘Is it time to return?’

Jegyeong looked at the Teleportation Pillar, which still glowed faintly.

In truth, there was no need to return.

All he did in the Forget-Me Garden was talk to others. As long as there were people to speak with, what did it matter where they spoke? Especially when everyone here existed only as Spirit Bodies, not in the flesh.

Even so, the Forget-Me Garden was excessively vast. He had even heard that it continued expanding as time passed.

Why was that?

Jegyeong knew the answer.

‘Because the Forget-Me Garden is not vast enough.’

It might sound absurd when it had only tens of thousands of members, but one could not forget that every one of those tens of thousands was a cultivator with Divine Sense.

Their Divine Sense represented the distance between their hearts. Even if they were of the same race and Fellow Wayfarers, they could not help keeping their distance without enough familiarity and trust.

‘When I think about it, I am no different.’

Among the tens of thousands of cultivators gathered here, there might be someone living in Yangseo Lake.

Yet even if there truly was, Jegyeong had no intention of seeking them out.

He could not trust them.

‘That is probably why the Forget-Me Garden's cultivators use the Spirit Talisman Merchant Association.’

At first, he had found it somewhat strange that a Nascent Soul True Lord operated a merchant association. Looking back now, though, perhaps the Spirit Talisman Merchant Association itself was a form of consideration for the Forget-Me Garden's junior cultivators.

Knowing they would not trust one another, had the True Lord created a means for them to interact more safely through the merchant association?

‘Come to think of it, I'll need to use the Spirit Talisman Merchant Association to obtain a Transformation Secret Art...’

As Jegyeong sank into thought, every Teleportation Pillar suddenly flared with light, and a low, familiar voice reached his ears.

“I leave behind this place and these Teleportation Pillars for my juniors, so the vastness of the Forget-Me Garden will trouble you no longer.”

The light around the Teleportation Pillars faded.

Where it vanished, a tall pillar appeared, as though cast from bronze.

The pillar, carved with strange patterns whose meaning he could not understand, looked even more mysterious than when it had been covered in light.

“We thank you for your grace, True Lord Hyeondo!”

It did not matter who shouted first.

Before they could finish the sentence, everyone had already joined in with the same cry.

* * *

After returning with the senior cultivators of the Full-Wing Gathering to the place where they usually met, Jegyeong left the Forget-Me Garden.

“Hmm.”

This was the first time he had remained motionless for so long, yet his body was perfectly fine.

It had not stiffened or grown sluggish. He was not even hungry.

He had known it already, but Jegyeong once again felt how far his body had departed from the realm of ordinary living creatures.

‘Did Cheongo go out?’

He remembered Cheongo calling to him and pecking him with their beak while he was in the Forget-Me Garden.

When he still gave no response, they seemed to have become quite sulky. Yet when he glanced at their “nest,” it was piled high with shiny things.

He had thought there were already quite a few when he saw it a month ago, but now there were several times as many.

‘At this rate, the cave will become cramped.’

There was still plenty of room, but Cheongo's obsession with collecting shiny things was steadily worsening. If it continued like this, there was no telling what would happen.

Then again, by the time Cheongo's collection made the cave too cramped, they would likely have moved to a new home already.

‘Muk-su is the same as ever.’

Perhaps because Muk-su had eaten only ordinary fish Cheongo brought back instead of Demon Beasts while Jegyeong was in the Forget-Me Garden for a month, there did not seem to be any notable change.

“When are you going to wake up?”

Jegyeong suspected that Muk-su had already regained consciousness but was lazily enjoying free meals. The image of a smiling pig that had overlapped with that plump fruit before had been that shocking.

Of course, he knew that image itself had been an illusion born from his own suspicions...

‘It would put my mind at ease if I at least had some of this one's fruit.’

He missed Muk-su, but he also missed Muk-su's fruit.

It was somewhat lacking, but it could still be called a spiritual treasure. If he had some of that fruit, it might prove useful when trading with Uh Dobaek.

“Enjoy yourself if you want, but later I'll collect the price for those free meals, with interest.”

Flinch!

Was it his imagination? The fruit, half-buried in the ground, seemed to tremble ever so slightly.

Jegyeong narrowed his eyes, then soon shook his head.

‘Must have seen it wrong.’

Like the smiling pig he had seen before, it was probably because his resentment toward that freeloading fruit had piled up.

‘To be swayed by such trivial emotions. Pathetic.’

Jegyeong closed his eyes and meditated.

Once his mind settled, he began thinking about how to obtain resources for trading.

‘The price Senior Uh asks for will probably be cultivation resources.’

Cultivation resources.

The first thing that came to mind was spiritual treasures, but were such things easy to obtain just because one wanted them? Besides, if Uh Dobaek wanted a spiritual treasure, it would surely be a Cultivation Treasure, making it even harder to find.

‘Senior Uh doesn't seem like the kind of person to overcharge me, but one never knows.’

Jegyeong wanted to trade with Uh Dobaek because he trusted the familiarity they had built and Uh Dobaek's character.

If the price did not seem right, he simply did not have to trade. He did not need to cling to Uh Dobaek alone.

If the deal with Uh Dobaek fell through, Ye Janggyeong and Choe Jutang remained. If things went wrong with them as well... he would have to think of something else then.

‘That is all for later.’

For now, his first priority was building up some capital.

‘If there are any useful resources, they would be somewhere beyond the Human Race's reach. That means places where the water is deep or the depths of another race's territory.’

The latter was not something he could consider now.

Not only the territory of the Horned Insect Race, but even the Demon Race's territory was a place where he could easily come to harm if he wandered around recklessly, relying only on the Qi Concealment Technique. Unless he had no other choice, he did not want to go.

That left the former, exploring deep waters.

After all, he was a Water Demon if one wished to call him that. He was relatively free from the burden of water pressure.

That was a Water Demon's advantage and strength. Jegyeong intended to make use of his strength and go treasure hunting.

* * *

“Gasp!”

A turtle Demon Beast was startled by the enormous shadow that suddenly fell over them.

The turtle reflexively withdrew into their shell, then cautiously stuck their head out after seeming to remember something.

“D-Dragon Lord. We meet again.”

“Yes. What a coincidence.”

“Yes. Haha... Indeed. Such an astonishing, no, pleasant coincidence...”

The turtle seemed to think something was strange, but did not dare say it aloud. They laughed awkwardly and scratched their head with a flipper.

Watching them, Jegyeong smiled inwardly.

‘They don't know.’

Of course, his encounter with this turtle was no coincidence.

He had deliberately sought them out through the Divine Sense mark he left behind before.

This Divine Sense mark was fundamentally the same as the one Sagaewan had left on him. Yet compared to Sagaewan's crude method of merely leaving behind a trace of Aura, Jegyeong's was far more delicate and refined.

Thanks to that, even after quite a long time, it still retained a faint trace.

Jegyeong had thought this clever turtle might notice his Divine Sense mark and try to erase it. Seeing them now, though, it seemed they had not even noticed it existed.

Being intelligent and possessing sharp Spirit Awareness were separate matters.

“It is good that I found you. There is something I would like your help with.”

“If this lowly one can be of help to Dragon Lord, it would be a great joy.”

Despite the smooth words, their voice trembled faintly as if holding back tears.

Jegyeong pretended not to notice the turtle's emotional turmoil and asked whether the water was especially deep anywhere nearby.

“A place where the water is deep?”

The turtle blinked, apparently caught off guard by the unexpected question.

Jegyeong decided further explanation was needed and roughly explained his thoughts, phrasing them carefully.

At first, the turtle only stared blankly, unable to understand. Then their eyes lit up.

“Could it be that Dragon Lord wishes to search for ownerless underwater treasure?”

“That would not be entirely wrong.”

Struck squarely on the mark, Jegyeong answered calmly, as though to say the turtle's words were not completely mistaken.

“Hmm.”

The turtle, who had asked proudly, flinched at the unexpectedly lukewarm response and carefully continued.

“Certainly, the Human Race scum will not have reached places where the water is deep, so there should be quite a few decent things there. But there may be something like a powerful vortex in such places, and there are sometimes Human Race scum who come to retrieve treasures that have drifted out.”

“The Human Race?”

The vortex did not concern him, but the Human Race was different.

When Jegyeong asked in a slightly sharper voice, the turtle hid half their head in their shell, then slowly brought it back out and answered in a shrinking voice.

“Ahem! Yes. They are not affiliated with any sect, though. Most are water bandits. Sometimes, they fight and kill other Human Race scum among themselves. When those people appear, members of the Demon Race quietly follow beneath the water as well. If fighting breaks out, cultivators' corpses sometimes fall into the water.”

“Oh?”

Hearing they were water bandits unaffiliated with a sect eased Jegyeong's caution.

It also piqued his interest.

Earlier, he had thought the turtle's explanations too long-winded and interrupted them midway. Who would have thought they had been hiding such interesting stories?

“Is there a place like that nearby?”

“There is.”

“Lead me.”

“Yes.”

Jegyeong slowly followed the turtle, who seemed to have become somewhat dejected.

The turtle appeared to be moving as quickly as they could, but to Jegyeong, they only seemed frustratingly slow.

Thinking they would take five hours to cover a distance that should take one hour, Jegyeong gently bit the turtle's shell.

“Eek?! Dragon Lord! Dragon Lord! Please spare me! I am hard, and I do not even taste good...!”

The turtle's eyes nearly rolled back as they struggled desperately and shouted.

“I'm not going to eat you. You're too slow, so just point out the direction.”

“Pardon? Ah, yes!”

At the words that they would not be eaten, the turtle instantly became quiet and cautiously raised a flipper to point the way.

Their flipper trembled now and then as if seized by spasms, so their direction shifted slightly at times. Even so, they moved far faster than when the turtle took the lead.

As they neared the destination the turtle had described, a group of cultivators entered Jegyeong's Divine Sense.

At least twenty cultivators were aboard a rather small boat.

‘Human Race cultivators. Are they the water bandits the turtle mentioned?’

Jegyeong narrowed his eyes.

Footnotes:

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