WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 181
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* * *
The next day, Park Gangseo came to Ise's residence with one of the children.
The little girl who had once scooped rice soup with tiny hands at seven or eight had grown into someone poised somewhere between girlhood and womanhood.
“H-hello...!”
The instant Hyemi's eyes met Ise's, she prostrated herself and offered a formal bow.
It was a perfect bow, her forehead touching the wooden floor.
Park Gangseo must have taught her strictly, because her etiquette was beyond reproach.
Ise gave her a proper greeting.
“It's good to see you. It has been a long time. I am Ise, Hall Master of Azure Dragon Hall. You may stand at ease.”
“Yes!”
Hyemi sprang to her feet and stood straight.
Then, her face flushed with excitement, she subtly thrust out the breast of her robe.
There, the Dine and Go emblem, a spoon resting atop a rice bowl, had been carefully embroidered stitch by stitch.
It was both adorable and amusing to see her present something that belonged on a tavern employee's lapel as though it were a medal.
Trying to preserve his dignity, Ise cleared his throat to hold back a laugh.
“I heard you placed first. Well done.”
“Yes. I worked hard.”
Hyemi grinned sheepishly. She was around the second star of the Qi Condensation Realm.
Her face was full of expectation, but Ise found himself in quite a bind.
She had only just begun to move spiritual energy. Compared to an ordinary person, she had only just started taking her first unsteady steps.
She was, quite literally, only a sheet of paper away from being a mortal.
He sat down intending to teach her something, but once he faced her, there was nothing to teach.
If a Core Formation Realm great cultivator laid a hand on this frail child, it would not be instruction. It would be murder.
Even now, he was worried that the spiritual essence leaking from him might weigh her down.
‘It was a good thing I called Gangseo along.’
Instead of personally teaching her, Ise had Hyemi spar with Park Gangseo, another Qi Condensation Realm cultivator.
“Go easy on her.”
“Yes. Of course.”
Ise leaned against a pillar in the main hall and watched their exchange.
They were forbidden from using spell arts, sparring only with body arts and weapon techniques.
Hyemi showed the fruits of her training quite well.
Her stance, breathing, and control of her gaze were all neat and polished. One could feel the care her instructor had put into teaching her.
She fell before she could endure ten exchanges, but once, her wooden sword touched Park Gangseo's shoulder.
“When you aren't swinging your weapon, don't stop moving your feet. When you do swing it, plant your heel firmly into the ground. Your center of gravity is important if you don't want to lose your balance.”
“Yes!”
Ise recalled his days as an entry disciple as best he could and carefully corrected Hyemi's movements.
She listened to every word as seriously as though receiving a divine revelation.
Though sweat beaded at her chin, her eyes shone with longing.
In truth, her aptitude was excellent.
Compared to Ise's fellow entry disciples, she was well trained.
Other than a few, his peers back then had all been an uncoordinated rabble.
Park Gangseo was the one with the greater problem, allowing an early Qi Condensation Realm cultivator to land a strike.
It was not that the student had surpassed the master. He simply seemed better at teaching than fighting.
“W-why are you looking at me like that...?”
“Tsk. It's nothing.”
About two hours later, Hyemi sat down in the courtyard, drenched in sweat.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, yet she wore a smile.
Seeing how admirable she was, Ise wanted to put something in her hands.
A Qi-Condensing Pellet, a bundle of talismans, even a spirit artifact lying in a corner of his storage pouch.
If he gave her even a hundredth of the resources in his possession, ten years of her life could be reduced to three.
But the rules did not allow it.
The Great Exorcist Order strictly prohibited privately favoring lower-ranked cultivators.
Resources and fortuitous encounters had to be won with one's own hands. One had to climb on one's own feet.
There was much to say about whether that policy was right or wrong.
It was inefficient, and when Ise had been praised for his own talent, he had sometimes found it unfair.
Yet only after becoming a leader did he realize that it was rational, at least for maintaining a sect and raising talented people.
Those who grew accustomed only to being fed would never learn how to win and seize what they wanted.
Favoritism did not save a child. It led them to ruin.
‘Still, one meal should be fine.’
He had learned that children needed to eat well and sleep well. Nowhere in the rules did it say he could not give them a meal.
Ise rose and headed for the kitchen.
“Hall Master?”
“Stay seated. Eat before you go.”
A meal was laid out in the main hall.
There was a bowl of immortal cuisine made with boned Silver-Scaled Fish, topped with Full-Moon Herb and glazed with spirit honey. It came with rice cooked from spirit rice and several vegetable dishes cleansed of turbid qi with the Turbid-Qi Cleansing Art.
It had been famous for its flavor even on Ilgwang Island, so she would surely enjoy it.
“Y-you personally prepared a meal for me... This is far too much.”
“Children have a duty to eat well and sleep well. Eat, before it gets cold.”
Hyemi's eyes widened and the tip of her nose reddened. Then she began emptying the bowls in a daze.
Ise watched with his arms crossed.
His divine sense caught the spiritual energy beginning to circulate through her body.
Hyemi scraped her bowl clean, stood, and bowed repeatedly.
“Thank you for the meal! Truly!”
“Good. Focus on your cultivation for a while. You will see results.”
“I-I will digest all of it. I will not even go to the bathroom.”
“At your realm, you are nowhere close to that.”
“...”
Hyemi closed her mouth dejectedly at the cold reality he pointed out.
But she soon recovered, widened her eyes, and spoke.
“I will definitely reach the Foundation Establishment Realm and be the first among my siblings to enter Azure Dragon Hall.”
Rather than mocking her bold ambition, Ise encouraged her with a smile.
“I will give you two final pieces of advice.”
“Yes. Please tell me. I will engrave them in my bones and never forget.”
“First, do not die.”
“Do not die.”
Hyemi repeated the words.
“Second, do not forget the first advice.”
“...”
Hyemi blinked. A moment later, she looked as though she understood something and bowed again.
“I will remember it.”
Park Gangseo took Hyemi and left.
Even as she walked out of the hall, she kept looking back several times, until the back of her head vanished beyond the courtyard.
Ise looked down at the empty bowl left on the table.
A spoon rested neatly over it.
It looked exactly like Dine and Go's emblem.
The will of his master, now reduced to glowing embers, had not gone out. It still burned, and the future of the Great Exorcist Order continued on as well.
* * *
“I told you to come visit comfortably. I did not mean you should suddenly show up without even sending word.”
“I do not understand the difference between those two statements, Acting Leader.”
“Calling me Acting Leader instead of senior feels a little irritating. Did you cross a minor realm boundary?”
“Yes. I achieved something small.”
Halla Gwitak.
Ise paid no mind to Gong Wol-a's grumbling complaint as he drank the tea she held out.
Dokkaebi tea tasted terrible.
“There is an intoxicating feeling to it. Did you not call this tea?”
“Just drink it.”
“Yes.”
Still, it was liquor offered by a junior. He could not exactly refuse.
Ise considered making a joke, then decided against it.
For some reason, he felt she would take it to heart.
“So, why did you come?”
“I came to ask about Gwisu Temple's divine artifact.”
“Speak more casually. You are making me uncomfortable.”
“This is what makes me comfortable.”
“If you had spoken casually right away, I might have found it a little irritating, but I mean it. It is not an empty courtesy.”
Strictly speaking, Gong Wol-a should have been speaking formally to him, but Ise did not care unless the other person cared about such customs first.
“I do not expect Gonga to speak formally to me. Then when the three of us are together, we would all be speaking casually to one another.”
“...”
Gong Wol-a fell silent at the thought of the tangled hierarchy that would create.
“The dokkaebi clan has its own order, does it not? Please think of it comfortably.”
“Do as you please. So, what are you curious about regarding Duhyeoksini's Sachet?”
“So that is what it is called.”
“Yes. It is an item left behind by the first Dokkaebi King.”
Gong Wol-a added that Duhyeoksini had been the Demon King who led the dokkaebi clan when it first came into being.
“Please tell me exactly how it functions.”
“You hold the sachet in your hand, use visualization to imprint the cultivation method and operating conditions into it, then hang it on the statue of the First Dokkaebi King. That creates a warding barrier. When we lived at Gwisu Temple, we set it so that those who had learned the Dokkaebi Shadow-Hunting Demonic Art, as well as anyone beside them, could come and go.”
The statue of the First Dokkaebi King. Ise carefully memorized the exact location of the divine artifact.
“Can it be set so that only the person who learned the cultivation method can enter and leave?”
“It can.”
“What about changing the cultivation method after it has been set?”
Gong Wol-a searched her memory for a moment before answering.
“That can be done too. But you would have to accept that the warding barrier would disappear for roughly the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.”
A tea-time.
It was not a long period, but it was long enough for cultivators watching the warding barrier to notice a change.
“What if a person or a spirit beast was placed in a storage space and secretly brought through?”
“Well. We have never tried that.”
Gong Wol-a tilted her head at the question.
“It would probably be difficult. The sachet was made by a Demon King. There was no established cultivation system back then, so I cannot know the exact realm, but it is estimated to be around the Spirit Transformation Realm. Would you not need an item made by a spirit-artifact artisan of at least the same caliber?”
A Spirit Transformation Realm spirit-artifact artisan. It was nothing but an impossible dream.
Still, the Secret-Realm Key in his possession was a Nascent Soul Realm talisman treasure. It was nothing like the storage pouches commonly found in the world.
There was sufficient reason to test it.
“This has been a great help.”
“Yes. Come visit from time to time.”
Ise answered with a smile and started to rise, then held out three jade slips.
“What are these?”
“Cultivation methods of the Cheoryang Thunder Gate. They are probably registered as conditions of the warding barrier.”
“...”
“If you could personally avenge the seizure of Gwisu Temple and the harm done to its leader... would you, Acting Leader, accept learning wicked cultivation methods and be prepared for your siblings' blood to be shed?”
“Th-that...”
Ise calmly added to the flustered Acting Leader.
“Take your time and think it over.”
Ise then stopped by a nearby government office and received a criminal scheduled for execution.
The official told him to kill or spare the criminal as he pleased, but Ise only intended to perform an experiment before returning the person.
If the person was still alive afterward.
Ise pushed the bound man into the Living-Spirit Cave Abode and headed for Gwisu Temple.
He asked a Mountain-Guarding Disciple of Vine Serpent Hall about the enemy sentries' positions, confirmed them, and slowly approached the warding barrier.
He completely withdrew his divine sense, used both the Spirit-Veiling Art and the Concealment Art, and even stilled his breathing.
Like a Shadow Agent on an infiltration mission, he moved toward the warding barrier one step at a time.
At last, he found a gap in the surveillance, reached the warding barrier, and extended a hand.
The barrier admitted his wrist without any resistance.
‘The cultivation method is unchanged.’
The barrier's condition was still the Blood Cultivation Art.
It was information Hae Unchan had smuggled out after casting aside both his life and identity, and it was still valid.
Bi Hyeongrang would believe Hae Unchan was dead.
The breaking of a binding curse meant that the person bearing it had breathed their last.
If Bi Hyeongrang had even suspected that Hae Unchan was alive and had passed something along, he would have replaced the registered cultivation method long ago.
The fact that he had not meant the Cheoryang Thunder Gate still did not know Ise could cross this threshold.
Ise withdrew his wrist, then pushed it forward again while holding the Secret-Realm Key.
Crack! A searing pain struck him, and the hand holding the Secret-Realm Key could advance no farther.
The warding barrier had recognized the human within the cave abode.
‘...What a pity.’
He discarded his plan to load great cultivators into the Living-Spirit Cave Abode and sweep the enemy away in one blow.
Ise threw the man back inside the government office walls and returned to headquarters.
* * *
“I understand for now. I will keep it in mind.”
Haeil's expression did not change even after hearing the entire report.
Ise chose his words for a moment, then finally spoke what he had been holding back.
“Order Lord. I have a bad feeling.”
“Speak.”
“Since the blockade began, the other side has been too quiet. They must know that time is clearly on the Great Exorcist Order's side, yet given Bi Hyeongrang's cunning nature, this silence is strange. I wonder if he has another move prepared.”
“Continue.”
“I heard that you calculated it would take him fifty years to break through to the Nascent Soul Realm. I am concerned about that calculation itself. I do not doubt your judgment, but he has never once acted within another person's calculations.”
“I have considered that as well.”
Haeil looked outside the Order Lord's office.
By ordinary calculations, there could be no mistake.
But it also meant that Haeil had kept the possibility of exceptional circumstances in mind.
“Is there a variable you anticipate?”
“There is. We simply have no countermeasure for it.”
“...”
Headquarters was already devoting its full effort to finding a way through Duhyeoksini's warding barrier. Yet at least within the Human Realm, there was no solution.
“For now, the best course is to keep the Cheoryang Thunder Gate caged, leave it to you or Woo Yu-hui, and destroy the Zheng Empire first.”
They would first deal with the Zheng Empire's cultivators, then gather all remaining strength and surround the Cheoryang Thunder Gate.
If the Great Exorcist Order committed its full force, Bi Hyeongrang would have no way to resist even if he broke through to the Nascent Soul Realm.
“Then should you not move now?”
Haeil did not answer.
“Stopping him now, while he is still in the Core Formation Realm, seems more suitable than waiting until he reaches the Nascent Soul Realm. Kunlun has withdrawn, and the Pill Altar Sect will be in disarray. There will never be another time like this.”
There was no answer for a long time.
Ise weighed the meaning behind that silence.
“You are reluctant to move while leaving Bi Hyeongrang behind you. You cannot guarantee victory if you wage war while both of us remain behind, but leaving only one of us behind also troubles you.”
“You think we would lose, regardless of which of us remained.”
“We possess two geniuses with monstrous rates of growth. Time is undeniably on our side. I have merely chosen the option most beneficial to us from among many choices.”
Haeil's face held both pride and expectation, yet Ise read the emotion hidden within that expression.
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