WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Episode 12: Dark Heaven Secret Realm (9)

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After getting away from the deathly aura that seemed to flay his skin, Ise calmly reviewed what had just happened.

‘That would be nearly impossible to dodge.’

Without a body-tempering cultivation technique that had strengthened the body, or a movement spirit artifact that could be activated instantly, that attack would have split someone cleanly in two.

He had barely avoided it because he could use Ghoststep Boots and Dokkaebi Steps at a moment’s notice. An ordinary Qi Condensation Realm cultivator would have vanished before even realizing they needed to run.

That stone puppet could return a person to nature with a single attack.

Ise resolved to put as much distance as possible between himself and any thudding footsteps he heard from now on.

* * *

Corpses, corpses, and more corpses.

There were so many that he nearly kicked one with every step.

What was shocking was their condition. If not for the pools of blood spreading around them, he would not have recognized them as corpses.

Calling them lumps of meat would have been more fitting.

There were only two kinds. Some had been crushed into pulp until they were completely unrecognizable. Others had only a tiny part of their bodies left, an arm, a leg, half a head.

Thump, thump-thump!

The footsteps of a stone puppet echoed again.

Without even having time to inspect the corpses, Ise immediately fled toward the outer edge of the Inner Reaches.

Compared with the Outer Zone, the Inner Reaches were comfortable.

Though he was not sure whether comfortable was really the right word.

It only felt comfortable because so many people who had entered had died.

Still, battles against cultivators were exhausting, so it was comfortable enough.

Ise continued forward slowly without letting down his guard. For the first time since entering the Inner Reaches, he encountered a living person.

A man sat slumped on a flat slab of limestone in the shade of a collapsed stone pillar, staring into empty space.

The man wore faded Daoist robes, his long hair hanging loose and disheveled. A sword as tall as he was hung at his waist.

A sword cultivator.

It was the first time Ise had seen a cultivator outside the Great Exorcist Order use a sword, so he watched the man’s movements warily.

The man who had been staring into space slowly turned his head.

There was no hostility in his gaze.

No, there was no emotion at all.

“Are you going to fight?”

The man’s voice was low. Ise shrugged.

“Not unless you attack first.”

“I see.”

The man turned back toward whatever he had been watching.

“Then go on.”

Ise followed his gaze, but there was nothing there. Only the ruined city.

After giving the sword cultivator one last look, Ise passed him by.

‘What a straightforward person.’

He smiled faintly to himself.

If the other side did not attack first, he would continue on his way.

That was the rule Ise had set for himself.

* * *

With no sun or moon, he had lost all sense of time.

It felt as if he were inside a seclusion chamber.

How much time had passed since he entered the secret realm? Seven days and nights? Ten days?

He had once roughly measured time in seclusion by hunger, but after reaching Great Completion, even that was impossible.

His body no longer truly felt hunger. He no longer needed food.

It felt as though several days had passed.

During that time, the only cultivator Ise had encountered was the sword cultivator in gray robes.

Perhaps he had passed others without noticing them, but at least he had sensed no other presence.

It was enough to make him wonder whether every cultivator who had entered the Inner Reaches had already died.

Then Ise stopped again.

The roof of a collapsed pavilion had been punched through, and dense spiritual essence seeped out from beneath it.

When Ise leaned over to look, he saw a porous black rock the size of a human head.

It looked as though it had flown in from somewhere, smashed through the building, and fallen there. It was small enough to fit inside a storage pouch.

He dropped down and picked up the rock. His body lurched from the weight. It was quite heavy.

Ise set it down, filled his hatchet with spiritual energy, and struck it with all his strength.

Clang!

A crisp impact rang out. The rock did not even have a scratch.

Ise decided to take it with him for now.

But there was a problem.

‘Why won’t it go in?’

The rock would not enter either the storage pouch he normally used or the pouch that showed its contents through mental imagery.

‘Is it over the weight limit? Or is it full?’

He had already found the nine storage pouches hanging from his Daoist robes irritating.

He had planned to sort through them as soon as he left the secret realm, worried that greed for treasure might put him in danger.

This was a good chance to organize them.

After stepping outside and checking that the area was safe, Ise tore a Lampfire Talisman and floated it into the air. A yellow flame bloomed at its tip, slowly illuminating the surroundings.

Then he began taking out the contents of the three storage pouches he had seized from the demonic cultivator, along with the storage pouch he had taken from a dead cultivator.

‘That’s a lot.’

The amount made his jaw drop.

He finally understood why cultivators called secret realms both lands of death and lands of opportunity.

In only a few days here, Ise had gathered resources that an ordinary cultivator might never obtain in an entire lifetime.

Though they had technically been inherited from other people.

He kept only four storage pouches.

The belt pouch he had owned from the beginning.

The backpack-style pouch with the greatest capacity, taken from the demonic cultivator.

The pouch that showed its contents through mental imagery.

And the Spiritual Herb Pouch.

He set the rest down to one side.

‘The day has come when I’m throwing away storage pouches. I really have become rich.’

That did not mean it did not hurt. No, it hurt terribly.

How much was a storage pouch worth? Even a small one could cost several hundred Spiritual Stones.

If not for the stone puppets, he would have found a way to keep them all hanging from his body.

Ise resented the heavens.

Why, why could he not put a storage pouch inside another storage pouch?

Why could spirit-artifact artisans not make storage-storage pouches, or storage-storage-storage pouches?

It was a tragedy.

Ise stopped complaining and calmed his inner demon.

Then he organized the magical items as best he could.

Medicinal pellets, talismans, and other items he needed to draw quickly went into the belt pouch.

Heavy and bulky magical items, such as ores and cannon-like artifacts, went into the backpack pouch.

The pouch that showed its contents through mental imagery was for the other unidentified spirit artifacts and Spiritual Stones.

His hands suddenly stopped as he sorted through everything. His eyes narrowed.

‘Wait. This is...’

A golden silk box from the demonic cultivator’s storage pouch caught his attention.

Consumables like Healing Pellets and poison pellets were not stored in silk boxes. Even most low-grade medicinal pellets would not be kept in a box that looked this precious.

This was at least a middle-grade medicinal pellet.

Ise hurriedly opened the lid.

A single medicinal pellet rested inside, shining with brilliant golden light and noble splendor.

Its gold color gleamed brighter than actual gold. It gave off a honeyed scent sweeter than flowers. The Pill Altar Sect’s symbol was engraved on its surface.

“Foundation Establishment Pellet?!”

Ise blurted it out loud, then quickly closed his mouth.

‘Why is this here...?’

A Foundation Establishment Pellet.

As its name suggested, it was a medicinal pellet cultivators consumed to break through into the Foundation Establishment Realm.

But it stood apart from other medicinal pellets. The Pill Altar Sect refined it through a secret method, and even within the sect, its yearly supply was limited. Only extraordinarily gifted disciples received one.

In other words, they almost never circulated outside the sect. It was common knowledge on the Eastern Continent that most of the tiny number of Foundation Establishment Pellets available on the market were spoils taken from others.

Ise was dumbfounded. This was not something that should have come from a Qi Condensation Realm demonic cultivator’s storage pouch.

Then he slowly considered the age of the demonic cultivator he had killed, the existence of the medicinal pellet, and the black cannon-like spirit artifact capable of displaying Foundation Establishment Realm power.

When he put those three things together, a picture emerged.

‘...Could that demonic cultivator have been someone Cheoryang Thunder Gate was raising?’

It was highly likely that they had treasured the person. Neither a Foundation Establishment Pellet nor a Foundation Establishment Realm spirit artifact was something handed out to just anyone.

Perhaps the demonic cultivator had seized it here while guarding the entrance to the Inner Reaches.

Single-use magical items and medicinal pellets were constantly consumed in battle. Spirit artifacts were destroyed over time as well, so the total amount acquired was small compared to the number of people who had entered.

But the Foundation Establishment Pellet was different.

No matter how many times it had changed owners, anyone who obtained it would have wanted to carry it out of the secret realm, even if they died trying.

There had been no reason to bring it inside unless they intended to break through a major realm boundary here.

One thing was clear, though.

The demonic cultivator who had died with a Foundation Establishment Pellet tucked behind their back could not have rested easy even in death.

Cheoryang Thunder Gate must have been hurting badly too, after losing a demonic cultivator they had raised so carefully.

Grinning from ear to ear, Ise carefully put the Foundation Establishment Pellet away in a storage pouch.

Once he finished sorting through the storage pouches, he finally took in the inside of the half-destroyed building.

An unknown material clung to the walls. In one corner of the floor lay the remains of a brazier carved from stone.

A ring had been set into the ceiling corner, likely for hanging something like a lamp.

‘...Their way of life seems very different from the Human Realm.’

After satisfying his curiosity by looking around the interior, Ise continued exploring the Inner Reaches of the secret realm.

* * *

When he judged that he had traveled roughly halfway around the outer edge of the Inner Reaches, Ise noticed something strange.

He had encountered five stone puppets so far.

Their shapes were subtly different, so they were clearly all separate constructs.

Yet they seemed to patrol their own assigned areas.

First, once he moved a certain distance away from what seemed to be the center of the Inner Reaches, they stopped pursuing him.

Second, when two stone puppets appeared at the same time, their areas of movement did not overlap.

Finally, whenever he entered a certain area, a stone puppet always came for him.

The evidence was the cultivators’ corpses.

Places where corpses were especially concentrated were always near the boundary where a stone puppet’s patrol range ended.

Ise closed his eyes and pictured the locations of the corpses he had passed.

If he rose into the air and looked down upon the Inner Reaches, the corpses would form...

A circle.

The stone puppets patrolled circular territories, killing intruders within them.

‘There’s something inside.’

In other words, the Inner Reaches had been divided into further zones based on the stone puppets’ patrol ranges.

They were guarding something.

Most likely, the most precious thing this secret realm had to offer.

The scent of a fortuitous encounter tickled his nose.

Ise’s eyelids lifted, and his eyes gleamed brightly.

Footnotes:

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