WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Episode 8: Great Exorcist Order Headquarters (6)

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The three pureblood cultivators stood in a stiff line on the opposite side of the dueling platform.

One fidgeted with the end of their sword sheath. Another lowered their eyes as they swallowed a nervous cough.

One even kept glancing at Ise before quickly turning away.

Their manner was certainly respectful, but anyone could see this was not normal.

Ise slightly furrowed his brow.

‘The lesson worked, but... at this rate, will they even be able to fight properly?’

He had been a little excessive because he did not want to leave any trouble behind.

Still, he could not turn formal disciples of the Great Exorcist Order into wrecks. Ise let out a quiet sigh.

After gathering his thoughts, he looked at the three cultivators.

The way their shoulders stiffened simply because his eyes landed on them was almost a spectacle.

“Relax. If you don't cross the line first, I have no intention of bothering you again. I'll go easy on you, so show off your cultivation properly. Your families are watching.”

The cultivators let out relieved breaths at his calm tone, then shouted.

“Yes! Thank you for your mercy, Senior!”

...Why did they keep shouting?

Ise waved them away.

Two gazes immediately settled on him. Hong Wonseo and Hae Unchan.

“What exactly have you been doing since coming to headquarters?”

“Putting people in order.”

“...”

Hong Wonseo shook her head as though she could not understand him.

“Ha ha. You really are something.”

Hae Unchan gave a hollow laugh, then watched their opponents return to the other side.

Perhaps he was disappointed by their realms, because he let out a faint breath.

“Can I ask you two for one thing? I want to face them alone in this spell duel.”

“Go ahead.”

Ise knew that even if all three headquarters-born cultivators attacked at once, they would not be a match for Hae Unchan. He agreed without complaint.

Once this spell duel was over, they too would understand that realm was not everything.

Hong Wonseo looked between Hae Unchan and Ise, then answered indifferently.

“All right, then.”

Hae Unchan smiled brightly.

Soon, the Qi Condensation Realm cultivators' spell duel tournament ended, and the platform was prepared.

When the next match was announced, the three went up onto the dueling platform together.

Hae Unchan stepped forward while the other two moved back.

Murmurs immediately spread through the crowd.

“What is he doing?”

“Is he planning to face them alone?”

“No way. He has to be joking, right?”

“I heard this Training Compound class has absurdly talented disciples...”

“Has a Training Compound disciple even won at the exchange match in the last few decades?”

Mortals chattered all around as if the sight were fascinating, while cultivators checked Hae Unchan's realm and criticized him for being arrogant.

“Three opponents at once? That boy is rather presumptuous.”

“That cultivator is the one, the nephew of Hall Master Haeil's great-grandson.”

“So he has confidence worthy of his ability.”

The voices from all around were so amusing that Ise kept smiling to himself. Hong Wonseo scolded him, saying, “At least pretend you're preparing.”

“Begin.”

As the voice signaled the start, Hae Unchan slowly placed a hand on his sword hilt.

His usual sword-drawing stance.

It was a showy pose Hae Unchan had been pushing as his own demon-hunting emblem.

The hand holding the sheath slowly loosened, then tightened again. That tiny movement made the three purebloods' shoulders stiffen even further.

Then he drew his sword.

The stream of water launched from the blade curved like a crescent moon as it flew toward each cultivator.

Ise, who had been watching with interest, pointed something out.

“If he's going to use spells like that, wouldn't it be better to fight barehanded?”

“It's a sword that greatly amplifies the power of water-aspect spells.”

“So he's a fake swordsman.”

The cultivators blocked Hae Unchan's attack in their own ways, then scattered into three directions and rushed him at once. One from the front, one from the left, and one from the right.

Hae Unchan's toes turned slightly. The spell that unfolded along with his perfectly poised downward sword strike stopped their advance and forced them onto the defensive instead.

Then, at some point, his spell naturally changed.

The stream of water that had been shooting outward stopped. It extended in a long line from the sword tip, like the Jet Stream Art, then began spinning like a vortex.

Gale-Water Illusion Art.

Whirlpool Art.

Ise's expression turned serious.

As a one-spiritual-root cultivator, Hae Unchan could not learn anything except water-aspect spells.

Honestly, it was good that his cultivation progressed quickly, but Ise had always thought that made his weakness far too obvious.

Yet the power of Hae Unchan's spells far surpassed what a fifth-star cultivator should possess. It even overturned the elemental restraint of earth over water.

The other two cultivators had already been caught in the vortex and thrown out of the ring. Ju Guyeon, who had tried to block it with an earth-aspect defensive spell, struggled desperately before he too failed to endure it and fell.

‘So this is what he wanted to show me.’

Hae Unchan had likely wanted to show Ise his achievements and current level. As though declaring that he was right on his heels.

Hae Unchan swept back his disheveled hair, then looked up at Ise.

His eyes seemed to ask, What do you think?

Ise slowly nodded.

An excellent spell. For a fifth-star cultivator.

The moment the spell duel ended, headquarters cultivators gathered around Hae Unchan.

“So there really was a talent in this year's entrance class, and it was you.”

“Would you care to visit our gathering sometime? Fellow Daoists who use swords often meet there.”

“Do you keep in touch with Hall Master Haeil?”

“Senior, would you be interested in taking missions together? I'm a Shadow Agent with a fairly high mission success rate.”

Hae Unchan had apparently not expected a crowd to gather around him. Trapped among them, he did not know what to do.

Taking advantage of the opening, Ise quietly slipped away from the crowd. Hong Wonseo naturally followed at his side.

“He likes attention.”

“Thanks to him, it ended easily. We also drew less attention ourselves.”

Then someone nearby began clapping.

“Ho, this went very differently from what I expected. I suppose Senior did not need to step in after all?”

It was Park Gangseo. He approached with a pleased expression.

He put on an exaggeratedly casual manner, placed a hand on Ise's shoulder, and leaned close to his ear.

“But listen. There's a rumor going around that you beat up all the purebloods beforehand to teach them a lesson?”

“It's slander. Who's spreading such a nasty rumor?”

“Who else? Senior's left hand.”

“Buchun?”

“That's right, Senior's left hand. Naturally, I'm the right hand.”

Thinking that he needed to teach Buchun to keep his mouth shut, Ise removed Park Gangseo's hand. No Lingering-Scent Powder remained on it.

“When did you two become so close?”

“It's good for the right hand and left hand to get along. By the way, Senior, when are you going to check on my cultivation?”

“When I have time.”

“When will you have time? Come with me!”

* * *

That night, at his residence.

Ise sat cross-legged and slowly began circulating spiritual energy through his body.

The wall of the eighth star. He faced the minor realm boundary head-on.

The eighth-star formula was Cast Off Turbidity, Purify Spirit.

It was the stage of picking out and removing the turbid qi from the spiritual energy circulating through the body, leaving only pure spiritual energy behind.

At the next stage, the ninth-star Reforge Bones with Spirit, that refined spiritual energy shattered the bones and forged them anew into spirit bones.

At Great Completion, Shed the Mortal Form, Remake the Body, even the skin and organs were shattered and remade.

Then only the brain remained.

It was a process that remade the body free of all turbid qi, brutal enough to be frightening.

From this point on, one wrong step could leave a cultivator crippled. He had to climb each step with care.

At the end of it, a body invulnerable to blades and swords and immune to all poisons would be complete. Only then would one be qualified to step across the threshold of the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Ise exhaled slowly.

It sounded impressive when explained in words, but the actual process was not easy.

First, he had to empty the spiritual energy in his body until it was nearly depleted.

Then, through the principle of the seventh-star Spirit Drawing, he had to draw in only the spiritual energy drifting between heaven and earth that contained no turbid qi.

He had to repeat the process until his body rejected turbid qi and naturally accepted only pure spiritual energy.

It was like endlessly shaking sand through a sieve, sorting every grain again and again.

Tedious and frustrating, but there was no shortcut.

Once he understood the nature of the wall, his mind became calmer instead.

What he needed now was not enlightenment. He needed spiritual energy and time, an enormous amount of spiritual energy and a very long time.

His instincts told him that the amount needed to leap into the eighth star was easily twice what he currently possessed.

He lightly rose from his seat.

He would reach Great Completion before the secret realm opened, then obtain a fortuitous encounter inside it and cross the threshold of the Foundation Establishment Realm in one leap.

That was the path he had planned.

At the beginning of the new year the next day, Ise headed to the Mission Pavilion in the administrative district.

The Mission Pavilion was the busiest building in the entire administrative district.

It was a neat three-story pavilion finished in black wood from its foundation to its eaves.

The first floor was a spacious hall where missions were posted and accepted, with mission notices densely covering every wall.

Administrative workers who sorted missions and managed contribution points sat on the second floor. The third floor was open in the center, and countless Message Talismans and cultivators waiting to receive them scurried back and forth.

Ise let out a hollow laugh when he realized that every Message Talisman he had seen flying around until now had been handled manually.

‘This is semi-automatic in its own way.’

Formal disciples continuously entered and left the first floor as they examined the missions. Ise slowly moved his gaze along the wall as well.

- Exterminate plague ghosts in the Dongheung Valley area. (Acceptance requirement: Shaman at the middle stage of the Qi Condensation Realm or above.)

- Seeking a tutor for a child cultivator scheduled to take the entrance exam, three spiritual roots, eight years old. (Acceptance requirement: A former first- or second-place entrance-exam graduate.)

- Search for missing people in Soha County. (Acceptance requirement: Shadow Agent at the middle stage of the Qi Condensation Realm or above.)

- Request for a custom spirit artifact. (Acceptance requirement: Spirit-artifact artisan at the late stage of the Qi Condensation Realm or above.)

- Supervise workers at a Spiritual Stone mine during the first month of the year. (Acceptance requirement: None.)

- Infiltrate the Zheng Empire and monitor the Saehyeon Sect's movements. (Acceptance requirement: Foundation Establishment Realm, available for missions for at least three years. May be converted into a formal mission.)

- [Urgent] Request to rescue mission personnel. (Acceptance requirement: Foundation Establishment Realm Demon Hunter.)

...The scale and variety of the missions were enough to make it clear why this was headquarters.

Ise's finger slowly moved between the mission notices.

Missions to hunt demon beasts that could become ingredients for immortal cuisine, missions to hunt demonic cultivators that offered decent extra income, and ordinary, safe escort missions.

For a new mission-taker, suitable choices usually fell within those three categories.

Ise's hand naturally moved toward them.

Then his finger stopped before one mission.

He slowly read its details once more.

The corner of his mouth rose slightly.

‘...This looks like an interesting mission. The extras that come with it are not bad either.’

The fact that the mission could not be taken again, with a penalty for failure, made it feel as though it had been waiting for him.

Footnotes:

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