WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Episode 18: Lesser Defeat Sword Cheongun (3)

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Ise’s Dream-Saving Cloud began spiraling through the air.

He had escaped even a demonic cultivator at the Great Completion of the Core Formation Realm.

It was a little embarrassing to take pride in it, but he was confident in his ability to run away.

‘All I have to do is deflect one attack.’

Dream-Saving Cloud traced a sweeping curve as it rapidly gained altitude.

He intended to enter a powerful updraft and evade the attack along an unpredictable flight path.

Yet the pollen’s flower-light chased after him, moving against the wind as though it were alive.

‘It’s tracking me?’

This was not a demonic spell fired in a straight line.

It was clearly a tracking spell that pursued its target.

Then he had no choice but to block it.

The attack did not contain primordial qi.

Judging by the power his divine sense detected, it was an illusion-type demonic spell. He should be able to block it.

Ise immediately cast Hardening Art.

His skin hardened under the spell, and he raised the Yellow Great Parasol before him.

In case it was a mental attack, he gripped the Vajra with the left hand to which the Yellow Great Parasol was attached.

Finally, he wrapped primordial qi around the blade of the Black Phosphorus Axe and prepared to strike back.

Just before the pollen reached him, the Black Phosphorus Axe, infused with primordial qi, swung in a short, powerful arc.

He had struck at precisely the right moment, yet it felt like cutting empty air. There was only the hollow sensation of having swung at nothing.

As Ise flinched, the flower-light touched his body.

‘What was that?’

He had clearly seen it make contact, but he felt nothing.

No pain, no foreign sensation invading his mind, not even a trace of demonic qi.

As though nothing had happened.

Then the demon creature’s voice struck his consciousness.

It was a message driven directly into his mind, like a voice transmission.

[Arrogant human. One day, you will pay for the sin of interfering with me.]

Only then did Ise understand the nature of the demonic spell it had fired.

It was likely a spell meant to track his location while carrying its message.

Ise let out a breath of relief.

“I don’t know if you can hear me, but when we meet again, I’ll hunt you properly. If you come looking for me, I’ll welcome you.”

If it came to the Heavenly Ice Palace, where Core Formation and Nascent Soul great cultivators stood guard, it would only end up as a flower arrangement.

If he was still worried, he could simply stay away from the Heaven-Demon Great Mountains for a while.

He only had to find different hunting grounds.

Besides, he had already been planning to attack one of the demonic cultivators’ Foundation Establishment cities.

He could not stand the sight of those filthy demonic cultivators calling themselves city lords and living in luxury.

Once he found the Two Principles Return-to-Origin Art, he would have no reason to return to this land anyway.

The teleportation formation was in the north.

It was disappointing to lose the chance to hunt a Core Formation demon creature, but it had still been worth trying.

Seeing a heavenly tribulation with his own eyes had also been valuable experience.

It was an overwhelmingly tall wall that would block his path in the future, yet for some reason, it felt more manageable than he had expected.

Satisfied, Ise leisurely headed north.

To reach the middle stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm.

* * *

After returning to his residence, Ise prepared immortal cuisine, stored it in the Meat Preservation Vault, and entered the Living-Spirit Cave Abode.

First, he broke off small pieces of a Qi-Condensing Pellet and carefully balanced yin and yang as he prepared to cross the minor realm boundary.

Unlike the Qi Condensation Realm, which was divided into ten stars, the Foundation Establishment Realm had only four stages.

Early stage, middle stage, late stage, and Great Completion.

The state where all preparations had been made and only the challenge of Core Formation remained was sometimes called Great Perfection, but it was generally included under Great Completion.

Two words ran through every stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Soul and primordial qi.

If the Core Formation Realm was the stage of serious preparation for reaching the Nascent Soul Realm, Foundation Establishment was where a cultivator laid their foundation.

At the early stage, one opened divine sense.

At the middle stage, one contemplated the soul. At the late stage, one sensed primordial qi.

Upon reaching Great Completion, one finally filled the soul’s deficiencies and underwent the process of separating spirit and flesh. Once the body grew accustomed to the qi-rejection phenomenon, where two or more attributes repelled and devoured one another, the preparations for Core Formation were complete.

That was the very process that had once caused Ise’s body to explode.

One-spiritual-root cultivators, who had joyfully advanced through the realms until then, faced a wall that reduced them to tears here, because primordial qi could only be created by combining at least two attributes.

Ise tried to contemplate his soul while maintaining the harmony of yin and yang.

The formula for breaking through to the middle stage of Foundation Establishment was:

If you gaze upon the soul, the soul will gaze upon you.

The sensation of feeling the soul was different from spiritual energy.

Spiritual energy felt like handling a part of the body that did not physically exist. The soul, on the other hand, felt more like divine sense.

Since opening divine sense was the process by which a human took one step closer to the soul, delving deeper into the sensation of controlling divine sense was the right approach.

Everyone had moments like that in life.

Moments when, after wondering whether life was no more than a dream, an illusion, or imagination, realizing they were truly alive made life itself feel unfamiliar.

A strange daze, where the crushing sense of reality made thoughts vanish and the mind grow faintly hazy.

Some said it was a trace of having glimpsed a fragment of one’s soul.

Ise erased every thought and sank into a state of no-self.

Oddly enough, the more he tried to reach perfect no-self, the more thoughts intruded upon his consciousness as though to interfere.

It was the complete opposite of meditative circulation, where every thought disappeared.

‘My beloved disciple, you little bastard.’

Of all the memories, it was the one he most wanted to avoid. Too precious, and therefore too painful.

Ise’s master had been smiling.

Even to the very end.

Ise’s master must have known the difference in their realms before fighting Bi Hyeongrang, the Ten Thousand Demons in Turmoil.

Even knowing death was certain, Ise’s master had continued joking until the end so Ise would not worry.

Then the faces of the dokkaebi he had formed bonds with appeared one after another.

The moment Gwisu Temple had fallen.

The rage and helplessness he had felt then rose within him once more.

‘A heart demon.’

Ise recognized it at once.

He kindled flames and burned away the heart demon with pain.

He would not forget.

He would remember, but he would not be consumed by it. He would only dwell on his goal and move forward.

* * *

Ise rose to his feet, opened the door of the Living-Spirit Cave Abode, and headed into the living room.

Letters Ryu Seonghan had left behind were stacked neatly on the table.

After checking their contents, Ise found they were reports sent once a year. Ryu Seonghan was working hard in his own way.

- I completed my first mission safely.

- I have reached Great Completion. I will devote myself to preparing for a Foundation Establishment breakthrough.

- I caught the eye of Ancestor Song Sobaek, a Core Formation cultivator, and joined that faction. I will serve the faction well so that I may receive help if I need it in the future.

- It is said that rising Daoist stars under fifty from every sect will soon gather for a Spell Duel Tournament. Cultivator Cheongun of the Tyrant Sword Sect is coming. Would you like to watch?

The last message was especially interesting.

Cheongun. He was a cultivator Ise remembered more clearly than most passing acquaintances.

Since he had come all the way to the Northern Continent, Ise wanted to ask how he was doing.

He immediately sent Ryu Seonghan a reply.

- Tell me the time and place.

Ise slowly adapted to the range of his divine sense, which had expanded by about half.

There was one more thing.

Somewhere deep within his body, he could clearly sense something faint as mist.

His soul. Until now, it had only been an abstract concept to him, but he could finally feel it.

He had reached the middle stage of the Foundation Establishment Realm.

It was nearly five years to the day since he had crossed into the Northern Continent.

To grow accustomed to his expanded divine sense, Ise headed to a spiritual-herb shop in a nearby market town to sell the first Full-Moon Hundred-Year Herb he had harvested.

It was the first harvest from the Living-Spirit Cave Abode, the herb he had planted first and raised with the most care.

It had already contained about thirty years of growth when he planted it, so it had matured faster than expected.

Ise entered the shop and took out the spiritual herb.

The owner picked it up, set it down, then hesitated for a moment.

“This is a Full-Moon Herb. It’s rare for one to grow for a hundred years...”

That was only natural. The Northern Continent had a brutally cold climate, and the only places where Full-Moon Herbs could grow were cultivators’ gardens.

Unless it had grown naturally, no sane person would spend a hundred years raising one.

“How about one thousand?”

“Is there demand for it?”

“There is plenty. It can replace Ice Jade Herb. Ice Jade Herb sells for two thousand Spiritual Stones, so pill refiners in a hurry sometimes buy this for fifteen hundred.”

It was a fair price, nearly twice what it would fetch on the Eastern Continent.

More than that, Ise liked the owner’s honesty in openly stating the resale price.

“Fine.”

“Thank you.”

He had fifty Ten-Year Herbs planted in the cave abode, so in a few years, he would have fifty thousand Spiritual Stones.

He was practically a walking Silver Dragon Mine.

‘I need to raise my attainment in Life-Accelerating Art quickly.’

His current attainment in Life-Accelerating Art was at the fifth star. It was what he had been training most intensely.

Once he turned all fifty Ten-Year Herbs he had planted into Full-Moon Hundred-Year Herbs, he would no longer be stopped by a lack of Spiritual Stones.

‘It would be nice if I could buy time.’

A day’s twelve double-hours were not enough.

If there were a medicinal pellet or spirit artifact that could double the length of a day, he felt like he would buy it even for an astronomical sum.

After repeatedly earning and spending, he currently had around twenty thousand Spiritual Stones.

That was enough that he did not need to go bounty hunting just to earn more.

He had wasted too much time searching for Jang Yeonggeol, and he did not want to do that again.

Ise sold all the Qi Condensation talismans he carried and replaced them with Foundation Establishment talismans.

Until now, he had hated spending Spiritual Stones on consumables, but he intended to invest more in his equipment.

He also sold the Yellow Great Parasol.

Qi Condensation Realm cultivators could not break through his Hardening Art, while against Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators, the Yellow Great Parasol was mostly useless.

It was time to let it go.

‘Rather than a shield, I need a defensive spirit artifact that activates on its own.’

Even when worn on his wrist, it sometimes got in the way during battle.

It would be better to deploy a defensive spell with his bare hands.

After making a round of the market town, Ise was about to return to his residence when he passed the entrance to the Heavenly Ice Palace’s headquarters and saw something strange.

A woman at the middle stage of the Qi Condensation Realm was completely prostrated on the ground, repeatedly striking her forehead against it.

Her hair was loose, and her entire Daoist robe was blackened with dirt.

Passing cultivators stole glances at her.

The woman paid no attention to their gazes. Like an old tree rooted in the ground, she remained prostrate.

Ise assumed she was someone with a complicated story and was about to pass by when two cultivators emerged from the headquarters entrance.

The woman raised her head and screamed.

Her voice was cracked, almost a shriek. The desperation in it was unmistakable.

“Please listen to me! Esteemed cultivators! The Essence-Draining Ghost-Demon Valley is betraying the Heavenly Ice Palace!”

Ise stopped where he stood.

Those were not words he could simply ignore.

Footnotes:

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