WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Episode 12: Dark Heaven Secret Realm (1)
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Preparations for closed cultivation proceeded steadily.
After hunting demon beasts and stocking the Meat Preservation Vault with ingredients for immortal cuisine, Ise submitted his closed-cultivation application in advance and postponed his formal mission as far as possible.
Fortunately, the Great Exorcist Order’s rules were flexible in such matters.
Once he had gathered exactly the amount of demonic qi needed for the tenth star, he taught Pi Garam how to prepare immortal cuisine.
That was to keep Dine and Go running while he was in closed cultivation.
Since obtaining ingredients would become difficult for a while, they reduced the number of customers they served each time and raised their prices.
Interest had faded somewhat from its initial height, but they retained enough regulars for meal vouchers to sell at a reasonable pace.
If they lowered the price, they could sell out in no time again anyway. For a while, earning enough to cover labor and maintenance costs would be sufficient.
After setting Dine and Go to operate semi-automatically, Ise focused on cultivation.
News came from Hong Wonseo exactly ten months and fifteen days later.
Ise pushed open the door to his cultivation cave.
A ray of light slipped through the gap in the stone door and fell across his face.
The air at headquarters was still thick with spiritual energy, while the trace amounts of turbid qi mixed within it pricked at his skin.
His demonic qi had already reached the threshold of Great Completion. Now, he only needed to replenish his spiritual energy.
Ise made his way to the Yeomhwa Hong Clan’s pill-refining room.
Thin red smoke seeped from its chimney.
When Ise stepped inside, he found Hong Wonseo sprawled out as though exhausted.
Her apron hung half undone, and faint soot stained her face.
“You’re here?”
“Yeah. Good work.”
“I don’t have the strength to move a finger. Check them yourself.”
Hong Wonseo pointed with trembling fingertips toward the wooden boxes beside the pill furnace.
One large wooden box and two smaller ones sat on a low table.
Ise opened the largest box.
Thirty Spirit-Gathering Pellets and thirty Qi-Condensing Pellets lay inside.
“Those are lower-grade. Check the one beside it too.”
The more ornate box held three mid-grade Spirit-Gathering Pellets and three mid-grade Qi-Condensing Pellets, each faintly glowing.
Their surfaces were smoother than the lower-grade pellets, and their fragrance was richer.
The spiritual energy lingering around each one spread faintly beyond the pill-refining room.
“They smell good.”
“I had a major breakthrough thanks to them too.”
Hong Wonseo gave a faint smile.
“With this amount, you should have no trouble reaching your goal of the tenth star in one attempt.”
Without a word, Ise ran his hand over the inside of the box once more.
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you. Oh, and the box beside it is for you too, Senior.”
Ise turned toward the third wooden box.
Three black medicinal pellets with an unfamiliar scent rested within it.
“What are these?”
“Detoxification Pellets. They remove pill toxin. If you swallow too many medicinal pellets at once, pill toxin builds up in your spiritual meridians and disrupts the flow of spiritual energy. Take one from time to time to remove it. I heard that if you don’t clear out pill toxin early, it will cause trouble when you reach the Foundation Establishment Realm.”
He had heard of that before.
The Demon Extermination and Spirit Subjugation Method was especially vulnerable to pill toxin. He had heard that raising one’s realm with medicinal pellets alone would almost certainly bring side effects.
“They’re a gift from me.”
“There’s a saying in the mortal world that people who like free things go bald. How much are they?”
“What cultivator is bald? Everyone likes free things, yet they all have full heads of hair.”
Hong Wonseo frowned at the absurd mortal-world joke.
“There’s a condition, though.”
“What is it?”
“Promise that from now on, you’ll supply any spiritual herbs you obtain only to me. Never give them to another pill refiner. Their quality is excellent.”
“We already agreed on that.”
“And grant me one request later. Even if it’s a somewhat difficult request.”
Hong Wonseo’s eyes differed from the expressionless gaze she wore when concentrating on pill refining.
They were like tightly shut floodgates, impossible to read.
Ise met her eyes for a moment.
Her pride as a pill refiner reached the heavens.
She was someone who always demanded full price, even when selling a single fasting pill.
Yet for the first time, she was trying to make someone indebted to her.
“…So it was a bribe.”
Ise smiled faintly, trying to lighten the mood.
“Fine. If I can.”
“You’re leaving yourself room to escape with ‘if I can.’”
“You caught me.”
“Let’s see after you achieve your goal.”
Leaving behind a word of thanks for her support, Ise gathered the items he had prepared at Cheongyu Pavilion and headed for the cultivation cave.
Four people were already waiting outside when he arrived.
“Why are you all seeing me off again? It’s not as though I’m going far.”
“This is what you asked for last time.”
Pi Garam handed Ise a Spirit-Gathering Plate. Ise thanked him briefly and put it into his storage pouch.
“What are you here for?”
“Why are you only cold to me?”
“…When was I?”
When Seolryeong grumbled, Ise asked back. Muttering under her breath, Seolryeong handed him two spirit artifacts.
“One is a Life-Transmission Pearl. If an emergency happens during closed cultivation, it will send word outside. The other is a Mind-Settling Mirror. Looking into it when a heart demon comes will help calm you. Try them and return them. I’d appreciate an evaluation too.”
“You’re using me as a test subject…”
“Then don’t take them.”
Ise placed both spirit artifacts into his storage pouch before Seolryeong could snatch them back.
“Thanks for looking out for me.”
Park Gangseo and Buchun approached last.
“Don’t worry about Dine and Go. It’s settled into business with regular customers now.”
“Don’t push yourselves. Just keep it maintained.”
With those words, all four stepped back at the same time.
Ise gave a small smile before entering the cultivation cave.
The stone door descended.
The cave was dark and quiet.
He set the Spirit-Gathering Formation Plate in the center of the floor and activated the formation. Flowing heaven-and-earth spiritual energy gathered within the cave and pooled there quietly.
Sitting cross-legged, he drew one long breath.
Ise opened the box of lower-grade spirit pellets.
The moment a medicinal pellet passed down his throat and dissolved inside him, spiritual energy burst forth and flowed through his spiritual meridians.
‘Don’t rush.’
Ise steadily circulated his internal qi.
He carried the newly arrived spiritual energy through every corner of his spiritual meridians, careful not to waste a single drop or allow it to leak down an improper path.
When he finished refining the first pellet, he took the second. Then the third. The fourth. He continued absorbing medicinal pellets.
When he felt pill toxin beginning to gather faintly inside his spiritual meridians, Ise swallowed a Detoxification Pellet among them.
He immediately swept his spiritual meridians with the pellet’s energy, burning away the hardened pill toxin.
Heat surged through his body as though he were sitting beneath the blazing midsummer sun.
Sweat began at his brow and ran down his back.
Ise furrowed his brow and settled his breathing.
He could not tell how much time had passed.
All sixty lower-grade Qi-Condensing Pellets and Spirit-Gathering Pellets passed through his stomach in turn and dissolved into his spiritual meridians.
His spiritual energy rose from the early eighth star to the start of the ninth star.
There was still a gap between it and his demonic qi, but it had narrowed considerably.
Ise replenished the immortal cuisine whose effects had weakened, then opened the wooden box containing the mid-grade spirit pellets.
One mid-grade Qi-Condensing Pellet glowed softly. The moment he placed it in his mouth, the spiritual energy it released was different.
It was greater and purer.
One pellet alone visibly increased the amount of his spiritual energy.
Even after refining all three mid-grade pellets, though, he still lacked enough to reach the tenth star.
‘Still, I can do this.’
From now on, he would use the Spirit-Gathering Pellets, Spirit-Gathering Plate, and immortal cuisine all at once to properly draw in heaven-and-earth spiritual energy.
Even Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators would not be able to cultivate in such a lavish environment.
It represented the full value of all the time and effort he had put in.
The cycle of internal and external qi continued.
How much more time passed?
When Ise felt the effect of the immortal cuisine fading, he put another serving into his stomach.
He continued repeating the same process.
His spiritual energy gradually caught up to his demonic qi.
He poured another serving of immortal cuisine into his mouth. Before he knew it, the small Meat Preservation Vault had been emptied.
The process of matching the amounts of internal qi was nearing its end.
The scales holding the two energies were almost level.
From this point on, every moment was crucial.
He had to make the amounts of spiritual energy and demonic qi match exactly.
Foundation Establishment normally involved two processes.
Breaking apart the spiritual meridians to form the Dharma-Flower Dantian, and opening divine sense.
The Great Exorcist Order’s Foundation Establishment process added another stage before that, reconstructing the body itself.
Dual Cultivation of Dharma and Body. It was a cultivation method that tempered cultivation power and the physical body at the same time.
The process was correspondingly difficult and dangerous, but its benefits were clear.
At the same realm and level of armament, they would not lose.
The body itself became another weapon.
An opponent of the Great Exorcist Order had to guard against spells while also dealing with a trained body charging at them like a hungry ghost.
Ise slowed the rate at which he absorbed spiritual energy and accepted it into his body as though letting in one drop at a time.
He had only one chance. If he failed, he might have to go out at once and gather demonic qi again.
The amount of spiritual energy he accepted became smaller than droplets, like grains of sand.
Little by little, as though balancing weights on a scale, he placed one grain of sand at a time on the opposite side.
The final grain fell.
Spiritual energy and demonic qi became perfectly level.
‘Now.’
He held his breath.
Then he immediately activated the talisman he had prepared.
It was an Isolation Talisman that prevented heaven-and-earth spiritual energy from entering his body.
A sealed barrier that blocked the movement of energy instantly wrapped around Ise’s body.
Ise made the spiritual energy and demonic qi within him bind together into a single mass.
As he slowly recited the Reforge Bones with Spirit incantation from the Demon Hunting, Spirit Release, and Qi Condensation Art, the two energies began to rotate, pushing against each other like a vortex.
At that moment, Ise became certain. This cultivation method was known as one for ordinary cultivators, but at its root, it had clearly been created for the Heaven-Demon Dual-Meridian Physique.
‘Starting from my toes.’
Ninth star. Reforge Bones with Spirit.
It shattered every bone in the body, rebuilt them, and transformed them into spirit bones.
Crack. Crunch.
One of the bones in his toes broke.
Internal qi spiraled around it, grinding the bone in his toes into tiny fragments.
The bones throughout the sole of his foot shattered piece by piece. Internal qi seeped into their place and sprouted the seeds of spirit bones.
A dull, tingling pain stabbed through him, but he could still endure it.
The vortex of internal qi gradually rose upward.
His ankles. Shins. Kneecaps. Femurs.
Dull sounds of breaking bones echoed inside his body.
His pubic bone. Iliac bones. Ribs. Collarbone. Shoulder blades. Vertebrae.
At some point, Ise’s body lost all support and slid to the floor.
Ise drew a long breath, then shattered the bones in his neck as well. Spiritual energy supported a body that would already have died if he were an ordinary person.
Finally, his skull.
Ise stopped for a moment and steadied his breathing.
Footnotes:
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