WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Episode 17: Abyssal Labyrinth (3)
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The first market town.
Ise first visited a spirit artifact shop. As soon as he entered, he handed over a Spiritual Stone and asked,
“Has anyone recently come looking for a spirit artifact related to breaking seals?”
“You aren't looking for a seal-breaking spirit artifact. You're asking about someone who was looking for one?”
“Yes. I'm looking for a wanted criminal.”
Worried the shopkeeper might find it suspicious and report him to the Heavenly Ice Palace, Ise answered honestly.
“Well, not that I know of.”
After thanking the shopkeeper, he visited every nearby spirit artifact shop and asked the same question.
Next, he went to the secret-manual bookshops and public libraries.
“Has anyone been coming here unusually often lately?”
“This place mainly serves regular customers. What's this about?”
He found nothing, but Ise did not give up.
He identified every Foundation Establishment cultivator in the market town and compared them against the rumors.
Once he had checked their faces with a Far-Sight Talisman, confirming their identities was not difficult.
Most were local figures of influence, elders of sects, or sect leaders.
Whenever he failed to gather information, he activated the Spirit-Seeking Mirror in the center of town and waited patiently for at least three days.
He had already confirmed that even someone who normally concealed their spiritual energy would appear in the mirror the moment they began circulating qi to cultivate.
Once he was certain that no one appeared in the mirror after lifting their concealment, he moved on to the next market town.
* * *
The third market town.
Ise found a Foundation Establishment cultivator concealing their spiritual energy.
It was in the largest secret-manual bookshop in town.
Ise's gaze shifted when he felt their divine senses brush against each other.
The other cultivator was concealing their spiritual energy with a spirit artifact.
‘Could it be? Did I find him?’
Without making it obvious, Ise slowly examined their face.
It did not match the wanted poster.
Still, altering one's appearance was the most basic precaution.
Ise looked away first. The divine sense that had been examining him gradually lost interest as well.
‘They're quite composed.’
The Foundation Establishment cultivator glanced at Ise, then left the bookshop as though Ise did not matter.
It was an oddly relaxed attitude for a wanted fugitive.
Either they were not the wanted criminal, or they were an incredibly calculating actor.
Ise hurriedly handed a Spiritual Stone to the bookshop owner and asked,
“Fellow Daoist, do you know who that cultivator who just left was?”
“Oh, that person? They're the leader of the Gaedu Sect.”
Ise immediately gathered information about the nearby Gaedu Sect, only to be disappointed.
Its leader had been an influential figure in the area for quite some time.
‘Even people with established identities sometimes carry spirit artifacts that conceal their spiritual energy.’
Bounty hunting was harder than he had expected.
Looking slightly tired, Ise moved on to the next market town.
* * *
Fifteen days into the search.
He had searched the fifth market town and was traveling to the sixth when the sun began to set.
There was still no clue leading to Jang Yeonggeol.
Instead, and rather absurdly, Ise spotted a different wanted demonic cultivator in hiding and sealed them inside the Demon-Sealing Talisman Book.
His strategy and tracking process had been flawless.
Ise activated the Spirit-Seeking Mirror and calmly searched each market town.
Yet negative thoughts kept creeping in.
He could not search every market town forever, like looking for a needle in a haystack.
He had already invested a fair amount of resources.
‘At this rate, I might not even make back what I spent...’
Three large market towns and four medium-sized ones remained.
If he could not find Jang Yeonggeol after searching those seven towns, he would have to consider his initial strategy a failure.
After that, he would have no choice but to waste time without any real plan.
By then, giving up would be the right choice.
* * *
A month into the search.
Ise was wandering through the tenth market town, barely keeping his mind in check before a heart demon took root.
Then a Foundation Establishment cultivator's spiritual energy suddenly appeared in the Spirit-Seeking Mirror.
It definitely had not been there a moment earlier.
Ise's gaze snapped in that direction.
It was a mountainous region with four steep peaks.
It looked like the perfect place to hide.
Ise vanished, concealing his spiritual energy.
He also reduced the range of his divine sense to the bare minimum. Relying solely on the Spirit-Seeking Mirror, he calmly approached his target.
After expanding his vision with a Far-Sight Talisman, he discovered a warding barrier formation.
It concealed a cave so thoroughly that it would be difficult to detect with the naked eye or ordinary spirit sight.
This was not even a blessed grotto, yet someone had set up a warding barrier to hide there.
Ise's hypothesis slowly became certainty.
Like a predator waiting for prey, he held his breath and watched.
Was this really his target? Did the fugitive have accomplices? Were there hidden defensive formations or traps?
A battle between cultivators was always full of variables.
This time, he also had to ensure the fight went unnoticed.
No matter how carefully he checked, twice or three times was never enough.
As expected, the fugitive was cautious.
The fugitive remained holed up in the hiding place for days, only appearing again after four days.
Using a Far-Sight Talisman, Ise secretly followed the fugitive from beyond the range of the fugitive's divine sense.
The fugitive made a circuit around a nearby market town, then returned.
Once every seven days.
That was how often the fugitive went out.
The fugitive's face was different every time they left the cave abode.
They seemed to be using single-use disguise talismans that changed their appearance.
The instant the fugitive stepped into the warding barrier around the hiding place, Ise did not miss the brief gap when the disguise talisman was dispelled.
The fugitive had even worn a wig and attached a beard, but the appearance Ise saw through divine sense was unmistakably identical to the portrait sketch on the wanted poster.
At last, he had found Jang Yeonggeol.
Once he was certain he could hunt him, Ise moved.
‘It has to end in one strike.’
‘If I don't give him even a moment to react, no one will notice the battle.’
‘I'll take his head in one blow. I can't risk damaging his storage pouch.’
Ise poured spiritual energy into the Twin-Curtain Spirit-Domain Sealing Banner and sent it flying with telekinesis.
He drove it into the cliff above the cave, enclosing the fugitive's hiding place, then immediately burrowed underground with the Earth-Escape Art.
The response came quickly.
He felt the divine sense of the Foundation Establishment cultivator, whose spiritual energy had suddenly been sealed, urgently probing beyond the hiding place.
The moment it touched Ise's divine sense, the fugitive hurriedly withdrew it like a snail whose eyes had been touched.
Ise could not read the fugitive's thoughts, but the panic was obvious.
For an instant, time seemed to slow.
Unable to withstand the unspoken pressure of the Twin-Curtain Spirit-Domain Sealing Banner, Jang Yeonggeol finally burst out of his hiding place.
“Who are you!”
Killing intent poured from him.
He appeared to have decided to kill the intruder who had entered his residence, silence them, and flee.
As a Foundation Establishment cultivator, Jang Yeonggeol must have accurately understood the warding barrier's range.
Still, in his haste, perhaps he had not thought to search underground with divine sense. Or perhaps he had decided it was safer to escape the formation sealing his spiritual energy.
The moment he stepped beyond the warding barrier.
Ise's hatchet burst from behind him, swinging with primordial qi.
The Black Phosphorus Axe's pitch-black blade swept through the air, and the Foundation Establishment cultivator's head rose cleanly into the sky with almost laughable ease.
It was a near-perfect hunt.
Thud. Roll...
Rather than impaling the head with an Earth Spear, Ise checked once more to make sure the cultivator was truly dead.
‘I hold no grudge against you, but you harmed others for a fortuitous encounter as well. Consider this karmic retribution.’
He felt no guilt.
He avoided needless killing whenever possible, but he was no leisurely pacifist.
Senior Ujeol had said that taking things from thieves did not make their resentment accumulate as karma.
He had said that mortals should be handled carefully, and cultivators should be killed on sight for the good of the world.
Ise was someone who listened well to his seniors.
Still, because he had killed someone without a personal grudge, he offered a small spirit requiem as recompense.
With a tense expression, Ise searched Jang Yeonggeol's body and checked his storage pouch.
Fourteen thousand Spiritual Stones, along with quite a few spirit artifacts.
Jang Yeonggeol had clearly prepared thoroughly to betray his sect. There were all kinds of spirit artifacts meant for escape, concealment, and avoiding pursuit.
Ise carefully gathered them all.
Lastly, he found a jade slip much larger than those that normally contained cultivation methods.
Five-Element Life-Accelerating Art was written on its front.
It was a name he had never heard before.
For now, Ise cleaned up the scene, buried the body underground, and returned to the residence he had rented.
He desperately wanted to break the seal at once, but remaining at the scene for too long was dangerous.
* * *
After returning to his residence.
The first thing Ise took out was the jade slip containing the sealed secret map.
Five-Element Life-Accelerating Art.
He first tried to infer the cultivation method from its name.
Five Elements, five attributes. Life acceleration, accelerating life.
It was not easy to guess what kind of cultivation method it was, but in the cultivation world, it was commonly accepted that any cultivation method with the character for life in its name was an exceptional advancement art.
Like the renowned Longevity Art and Heaven-and-Earth Living Spirit Art, both widely known throughout the Zheng Empire.
Perhaps Jang Yeonggeol had known the true nature of this cultivation method.
Ise carefully examined the sealed jade slip.
He poured in spiritual energy, then demonic qi, then both spiritual energy and demonic qi together, but it did not react.
Even when he cautiously fed it primordial qi, worried that the jade slip might be damaged, nothing happened.
‘I’d expected this wouldn't be easy.’
Nothing was marked on the jade slip except its name.
It folded in half, but the joined section was so tightly sealed that the seam was nearly invisible.
‘Strange.’
He was no expert on seals, but ancient masters were said to leave one thing in common within their seals.
A clue.
As eccentrics who enjoyed testing the qualifications of later generations, they wanted someone to meet a certain requirement.
They would not have made it possible to open the seal through outside help from a clan's spirit-artifact artisan or formation master.
Yet no clue was visible, no matter how he looked.
For several days, Ise tried everything he could think of.
He submerged it in water, lightly scorched it, held it under light and in darkness, and used a single-use appraisal talisman.
He even had Bisang try to bite it.
Bisang opened its beak wide and bit down on the secret map with all its strength, then rolled around on the floor in pain.
Ise sought out and attempted methods that spirit-artifact artisans supposedly used for appraisals, but they were useless as well.
‘The secret must be hidden somewhere inside this jade slip.’
It would not be an ordinary method.
It had to be something only the person who obtained the jade slip could discover. It would be marked only on the physical object itself.
How would someone hide it?
They could cover it with something or make it smaller.
He had already tried every means of removing something hidden beneath a covering.
Then perhaps... it was written in letters so tiny that even a cultivator's naked eye could not see them.
Ise used a Far-Sight Talisman.
His vision, expanded dozens of times beyond the naked eye, began examining the jade slip.
In the end, there was not a trace on either its front or back.
‘If it could be found just by expanding one's vision, Jang Yeonggeol would have tried it.’
But if Ise had made this jade slip, he would have gone one step further.
He held the jade slip vertically.
Then he traced the seam down its length.
At last, he found them.
Five tiny grooves carved along the straight seam, so small they were nearly impossible to see even with the Far-Sight Talisman.
When he sent divine sense into the grooves, he saw five minuscule beads of different colors within them.
The problem came next.
Even when he carefully poured spiritual energy into only the seam, nothing changed.
Ise's thoughts raced.
Five-Element Life-Accelerating Art.
Five Elements.
Why Five Elements?
The colors of the beads inside the grooves represented the Five Elements.
‘Could it be?’
A hypothesis flashed through Ise's mind.
A cultivation method with Five Elements in its name.
And five grooves that could only be found through a Far-Sight Talisman and divine sense.
Could the qualified successor sought by this cultivation method's owner be someone with five spiritual roots who had reached the Foundation Establishment Realm?
For someone with five spiritual roots, reaching the Foundation Establishment Realm was like plucking a star from the sky.
The Great Exorcist Order had managed it from time to time because of its unique cultivation methods, but compared to the total number of cultivators, they were few and far between.
What would it be like on other continents?
Of all the Foundation Establishment cultivators Ise had met outside the Great Exorcist Order, not one had possessed five spiritual roots.
Even Ryu Seonghan, who had two spiritual roots, had expected it to take around a hundred years to reach the Foundation Establishment Realm.
Of course, Ryu Seonghan's environment had been poor, and he had been naturally lazy.
Still, unless one lived in an environment where medicinal pellets could be eaten like meals, even someone with four spiritual roots might or might not reach the Foundation Establishment Realm after using up all one hundred and fifty years of their lifespan.
That was the cultivation world.
So someone with five spiritual roots who had reached the Foundation Establishment Realm would surely be... a rare talent.
Ise cast one Five Elements spell of each attribute at the same time and pushed them into the grooves.
He had always focused on increasing power and scale, so he struggled for quite some time to control them with such fine precision.
At last, the moment he succeeded in sending all five Five Elements spells into the tiny grooves at once.
The folded jade slip began opening in a dazzling light.
Inside was a map marked with the location of the Bottomless Labyrinth.
Footnotes:
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