The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything - Chapter 4

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Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈

Chapter 4: The Third-Rate Martial Artist Gathering Elixirs (2)

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“Keeek.”

A spider with a vaguely human face spewed venom from its mouth.

Sizzle.

The potent acid melted not only the trees, but even the packed earth beneath them. Green smoke rose from it.

A cloth covered my mouth, yet my head was slowly starting to spin.

Elixirs usually appeared where the energies of heaven and earth gathered.

Such spiritual lands nurtured not only elixirs, but spiritual creatures as well.

When those creatures were horrifying enough to make people recoil at the sight of them, they were sometimes called monsters.

“You're disgustingly ugly.”

Eight legs. A massive body. A humanlike face with four eyes.

It was a Human-Faced Spider, a monster through and through.

The Human-Faced Spider guarded the Ten-Thousand-Year Flower Ginseng behind it, wary that I might steal its treasure.

“You made me go all the way to Hapchi Mountain.”

I circled around its flank and cut off one of its legs.

“Kieeek!”

Green blood sprayed out as it spewed smoke and acid in every direction.

For someone with internal energy as meager as mine, even the smoke carried enough poison to kill me instantly. Going all the way to Hapchi Mountain to consume the Nine-Leaf Divine Root first had been worth it.

“Even if you survive here, three years from now the Myeon Tang Clan will drag you away. You'll spend the rest of your life producing venom until you rot to death.”

“Kieeek!”

Despite my attempt at persuasion, the Human-Faced Spider showed no sign of listening.

Shwick!

Webbing shot out from its rear in every direction.

The webs spread like a net, quickly blocking the cave passage.

“Idiot.”

I began setting the webs on fire with my torch.

In an instant, the flames raced along the webbing toward the Human-Faced Spider.

The flames followed its slimy trail straight to its rear.

“Kieeek!”

The moment it panicked and tried to scrape its rear against the ground, I splashed the oil I had prepared over its body and lit it.

“Kieeeeeek!”

When I drove my sword into the monster's horrifying mouth as it screamed, it began thrashing madly.

Green blood poured from the eyes and mouth of its humanlike face.

It was hideous enough to haunt my dreams.

I stepped back and waited as its movements gradually weakened.

Only when the cave filled with a fishy stench could I finally catch my breath.

“Whew.”

I had consumed the Ten-Thousand-Year He Shou Wu and King Ginseng, yet I had only absorbed eight years' worth of internal energy.

Both elixirs were rare, but neither was especially useful for increasing internal energy. The Taeul Mind Method also limited how much I could absorb.

“How am I supposed to catch up to that bastard at this rate?”

The Taechung Divine Sword, or Yong Soa as he was now, possessed three gapja[1] of internal energy.

Three gapja. Three whole gapja.

The sheer distance between us made my head swim.

Still, I couldn't just stand around in a daze.

“Could I catch up if I consumed every elixir listed in the Martial World Elixir Compendium?”

The Taeul Mind Method was a fine mind method, but it was only a foundation.

Without an exceptional internal-energy cultivation method, absorbing elixirs would remain a distant prospect.

The energy within an elixir wouldn't go anywhere, but how unfair would it be to get cut down before I could absorb it?

“I need elixir pellets. Elixir pellets.”

Elixir pellets were more efficient than elixirs for increasing internal energy.

The more prestigious the great sect that produced them, the more internal energy they could provide.

“I've got more than enough to do.”

As I mulled over one thought after another and passed the Human-Faced Spider's corpse, I saw the leaves of the Ten-Thousand-Year Flower Ginseng basking in the light filtering through a crack in the cave.

“To think I'd get to eat this in my lifetime.”

My concerns about elixir pellets vanished the moment I saw its leaves.

The Ten-Thousand-Year He Shou Wu and King Ginseng were both precious, but the Ten-Thousand-Year Flower Ginseng, along with the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng, had remarkable effects on yin and yang qi and internal energy.

More importantly, it had the effect of Rebirth. Someone without martial talent who consumed it would gain a body with exceptional martial talent, while someone already gifted would gain a Martial God Physique.

At the very least, after eating this, I wouldn't end up knowing what was coming and still being too helpless to stop it.

Without hesitation, I began with even its smallest roots, absorbing as much sap as I could before chewing and swallowing the leaves.

A clear fragrance filled my mouth. Each time I exhaled, that refreshing scent spread through the air.

“It's coming.”

Not long after swallowing the Ten-Thousand-Year Flower Ginseng, warmth began rising from my lower abdomen.

Not wanting to miss the moment, I quickly sat cross-legged and began circulating the Taeul Mind Method.

The hot energy was far stronger than the Taeul Mind Method's energy, racing wildly through my body.

The gentle, pure Taeul Mind Method diligently chased the Ten-Thousand-Year Flower Ginseng's energy, trying to restrain it, but it refused to listen.

“Urgh.”

It ran through my heart meridians, forcing open blocked passages as it pleased and burning away impurities.

Each time it did, agony tore through my entire body, as though I were being ripped apart.

Yet because of that, the energy gradually, very slowly, began to weaken.

The chase continued without end.

How much time had passed?

Flash.

When I opened my eyes, the light filling the cave was so bright that I frowned.

‘Bright?’

Only the small patch where the Ten-Thousand-Year Flower Ginseng grew received any light in this cave.

Even that had been so dim that I had needed to make and bring in a torch.

So if the light looked bright...

‘I've changed.’

My body had changed. Vitality surged through every part of me.

Boom.

I struck the wall with my fist, and part of the solid cave wall collapsed.

Even so, I felt no pain at all.

When I examined my dantian, there was a lump inside about the size of a finger.

“Roughly fifteen years' worth, then?”

It was far below the prodigies of the Nine Sects One Gang and the Five Great Clans, but this was internal energy I had gathered through the Taeul Mind Method, whose accumulation speed was atrocious.

I had also refined my body to support martial arts, so the pace at which my internal energy accumulated would no longer be as slow as before.

“I can afford to covet a precious elixir pellet now.”

As it happened, I knew of a precious elixir pellet not listed in the Martial World Elixir Compendium.

“More precisely, it's an elixir pellet the Gyerong Merchant Group lost.”

Gye Yeonseok had purchased Mount Hua's Snow Plum Pellet for Gye Cheolyeong.

Aside from the Violet Mist Pellet, Mount Hua's finest elixir, it was considered their best elixir pellet.

To obtain the Snow Plum Pellet, which even direct disciples rarely got to see, Gye Yeonseok had mobilized not only the family fortune but every connection the Gyerong Merchant Group possessed.

At last, Gye Yeonseok had obtained the Snow Plum Pellet and nearly secured Gye Cheolyeong's brilliant future.

Perhaps because he had accomplished something so extraordinary, his vanity ended up ruining everything.

“Maybe Gye Yeonseok trusted the masters of Mount Hua too much.”

A master from Mount Hua was visiting the Gyerong Merchant Group.

Gye Yeonseok was not the sort to let such an opportunity pass. To advertise the close relationship between Mount Hua Sect and his merchant group, he held a banquet.

Yet the day before Gye Cheolyeong was to take the Snow Plum Pellet, it vanished without a trace from the deepest vault of the Gyerong Merchant Group.

An unknown figure had stolen it while avoiding the eyes of the Mount Hua Sect masters.

Left empty-handed, Gye Yeonseok clung to Mount Hua Sect for help. But since the sect had already handed over the Snow Plum Pellet before it was stolen, they only said they could not take responsibility and left.

Later, Gye Yeonseok spent another enormous sum to acquire a Plum Blossom Pellet, but the incident remained a permanent wound in his heart. Nobody around him could even mention the Snow Plum Pellet.

Still, someone else's misfortune always made good drinking-table gossip.

People talked about the matter for years.

There had been much speculation over who had taken the Snow Plum Pellet, but the lost pellet never appeared in the world again.

“Who knew playing the role of a moving library would help me this much?”

I began searching through the materials in my mind.

First, the monthly reports sent by the Martial Alliance's Hefei branch.

I would review the events that took place in Hefei and the movements of key Black Path figures for roughly one month before and after the day the Snow Plum Pellet was stolen.

Second, the Martial Alliance's entry records.

Any master of the White Path capable of avoiding the eyes of Mount Hua Sect's masters would likely belong to the Martial Alliance.

By examining the Martial Alliance's entry records, I could determine who had moved and when.

Third, mission reports.

I would narrow down the masters dispatched on Martial Alliance missions who had stopped in Hefei around the time of the incident.

Then I organized the gathered information using the method of deduction Jegal Cheongi had taught me.

“Four people.”

Four identities surfaced in my mind.

Soul-Chasing Wanderer Joo Jangmok.

Five-Star Gentleman Song Wongi.

Gu Ilmu of the Five Swords of Mount Cang.

Jang Hangi of the Five Swords of Mount Cang.

Two members of the Five Swords of Mount Cang had stopped in Hefei three days before the incident, rested there for three days, and then left to resume their mission.

Five-Star Gentleman Song Wongi.

They had stayed in Hefei from a month before the incident, remaining there for another two months after it occurred.

They were a wandering martial artist of upright conduct, so people in the martial world had given them the sobriquet Gentleman.

Their martial skill had reached the Peak Realm. They could have earned enough wealth to buy as many Snow Plum Pellets as they wanted, but they were someone who devoted themself solely to the sword, like a gentleman devoted to literature.

The last was the Soul-Chasing Wanderer.

The Soul-Chasing Wanderer belonged to the Black Path.

Their throwing arts were superior to their martial arts, and they were greedy for wealth.

They appeared in Hefei when rumors of the Snow Plum Pellet began to circulate.

Then, on the day the Snow Plum Pellet disappeared, they vanished.

After that, not a single Martial Alliance report contained any trace of them.

“The Soul-Chasing Wanderer...”

As I continued my deductions, I came upon something that did not fit.

Every branch across the realm was required to report the movements of important individuals, yet nowhere was there any record of the Soul-Chasing Wanderer.

The fact that no trace of them appeared in the Martial Alliance's reports after the incident meant there was a high chance they had concealed their identity.

Thieves like that often had several identities by using human-skin masks.

After stealing the Snow Plum Pellet, they might have erased the identity of the Soul-Chasing Wanderer from the world entirely.

“But no new thief appeared around that time.”

I raced through the library in my mind, searching for a thief who had newly appeared around the time the Soul-Chasing Wanderer vanished, but no one fit.

Then, while looking through another mission report, a hollow laugh escaped me.

“Hah!”

So that was the trick.

“No wonder there were no traces.”

If this went well, I wouldn't have to worry about being pursued even after stealing the Snow Plum Pellet.

“This should be easy.”

Thinking that, I stepped over the Human-Faced Spider's corpse and was about to leave the cave when an unprecedented force tugged at my left arm.

“?”

The instant I looked down at my left hand, I was shocked.

A blue dragon coiled around my wrist.

The Azure Dragon Bangle I had possessed in my previous life was glowing beneath my skin.

‘What is going on?’

It was strange enough that the Azure Dragon Bangle I had worn in my previous life was inside my skin. Stranger still, it was clearly drawing the Human-Faced Spider's corpse toward it.

“Do you want its inner core?”

The Human-Faced Spider's inner core contained poison so potent that merely touching it could cause severe poisoning, so I had left it alone.

But for some reason, the Azure Dragon Bangle was pulling at the Human-Faced Spider's inner core.

Rip.

When I cut open the Human-Faced Spider's abdomen, even the smell alone stung my eyes.

The Azure Dragon Bangle shone more brightly, as if it had found its meal, and reached toward the inner core.

“What should I do...?”

The Azure Dragon Bangle was a relic of the Vampiric Fiend, one of the Sect-Protecting Dharma Kings.

I had kept it because it commemorated the Sojeong Unit's valuable victory. Until the moment I died, the Azure Dragon Bangle had symbolized the Sojeong Unit to me.

“Ah, whatever.”

The moment my hand reached out and grabbed the Human-Faced Spider's inner core.

Sizzle.

“Urgh.”

A scorching energy seeped into my hand, threatening to melt my palm.

I tried to let go in panic, knowing that absorbing the poison into my body would mean the end.

Then...

“Huh?”

A cool, refreshing sensation began to flow in through my palm.

The energy, which had begun as a small stream, soon became a great river racing through my entire body.

A shudder ran through me at the wholly different sense of refreshment compared to when I had absorbed the Ten-Thousand-Year Flower Ginseng.

The Human-Faced Spider's inner core vanished from my hand without a trace. In my dantian, I felt a lump slightly larger than before.