WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Episode 13: Foundation Establishment Breakthrough (5)

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It seemed he had passed out again. The sand timer had completely run out once more.

He did not lose consciousness the third time.

Instead, his awareness repeatedly grew hazy, then clear again.

‘Without a Foundation Establishment Pellet, people have to do this while fully conscious...?’

If they mishandled their spiritual energy and caused damage beyond recovery, they would be crippled on the spot.

Other parts of the body could be restored through various methods, given enough time. The brain was different.

If someone remained crippled and was only discovered later... their life as a cultivator would be over. Perhaps even their life as an ordinary mortal.

Aware of his consciousness gradually dimming, Ise struggled to gather his focus once more.

* * *

Someone was calling me.

Ise, Ise.

When I slowly opened my eyes, I saw a low dining table before me and my mother's face.

“Ise, Ise!”

“...?”

“Why are you staring into space like that? Are you sick?”

I could not answer.

This was probably...

My childhood.

The time when I had first known happiness.

And among those days, my most miserable memory.

“You don't have a fever.”

“No... I'm fine.”

Feeling dazed, I shook my head and forced myself to focus.

When I turned my head, I saw Father eating quietly and my two unruly younger siblings.

“Ah, I want an egg too!”

“Give me an egg!”

“Oh, just eat what you have. Take turns, why are you making such a fuss?”

“Egg!”

My siblings would not listen.

Maybe it was because they had grown up with so little food.

Even a single side dish could turn the table into a battlefield.

“Ise, you're the oldest. Why don't you give in this once? Mom will make sure you get one next time.”

Mother smiled awkwardly as she placed the eggs onto my siblings' rice bowls.

They were only one or two years younger than me.

This was not even the first time.

Every time, I was the one who gave in because I was the oldest. Mother.

Then I said the one thing I never should have said.

“Are you... treating me differently? Because I'm not your real son?”

I had never seen that expression on Mother's face before.

She looked shocked. No, she looked consumed by grief.

Even as I drove a sharpened blade into the hearts of the adoptive parents who had raised me as their own, I did not realize it.

I did not know those would be the final words I spoke to the people whose kindness I had received.

“Aaaah!”

“No!”

Father had willingly taken up a farm tool and charged at the demon to protect his family. The demon tore his head apart first.

My siblings, who had tried to run, became the demon's prey at the same time.

Mother was the last to be eaten. As our eyes met while I hid inside the wardrobe, Mother shaped these words with her lips.

‘Don't come out.’

I wanted to go out.

I had to go out, defeat the demon, and protect my family.

But my body would not move.

My stomach churned.

It felt as though I had forgotten something important...

Why was my head so hot?

I blankly watched my family being devoured.

What had I been doing again?

What was I doing here right now?

Why was I only watching my family get eaten?

That was only a ninth-rank demon.

A creature that would writhe in agony after a sprinkle of salt.

But where had I learned that?

I opened the wardrobe door.

Then I stared at the demon before me.

I rolled across the floor to avoid the demon's outstretched hand, then shoved a precious handful of salt from the kitchen into the Snail-Headed Scholar's mouth.

With no idea why my hands had become so small, I gripped the farm tool Father still held in his headless hand.

I charged at the Snail-Headed Scholar.

Swinging the farm tool in a wide arc, I put all my strength into striking the demon's twisting head.

The moment the farm tool's weight burst the Snail-Headed Scholar's skull apart, Ise sucked in a breath.

The familiar darkness of the cave abode surrounded him. He realized that he had nearly fallen into a heart demon.

‘That left a foul taste.’

He had expected to experience that illusion.

After all, it was the only memory he had that could drag him into a heart demon.

‘But the enemy was far too weak.’

Perhaps it would have been different if it had been a stone puppet like the one he had seen in the secret realm.

After seeing that monster, the Snail-Headed Scholar looked like nothing more than a pitiful local slug with limbs.

Ise focused on Foundation Establishment once more.

Then he felt a strange sensation.

His eyes were clearly closed, yet his vision gradually brightened, and he began to see the inside of the cave abode.

That was not all. He could see behind himself, where his sight should not reach, as if he had eyes on the back of his head.

‘...This is the sight of the Foundation Establishment Realm.’

As though it had finished its work, the Foundation Establishment Pellet's energy slowly left his body through his pores.

But it was not over yet.

The final step remained, the transformation of the demon core.

Transforming the demon core was not difficult. He only had to shatter the compressed core, then form it again with even greater compression.

All he had to do was endure the shock that struck his body when the demon core broke.

Ise drew spiritual energy from the Dharma-Flower Dantian and wrapped it around the demon core. Then he moved the demonic qi that had been lying still and shattered the core.

The demonic qi immediately began to rage, followed by searing pain.

It felt as if his entire body were being torn apart, but Ise had suffered pain countless times. He could endure this much.

The firmly established Dharma-Flower Dantian protected him as well.

As the demonic qi gradually settled, he began compressing it, just as he had when he first formed the demon core.

He gathered the demonic qi flowing through his body beneath the Dharma-Flower Dantian, in his lower dantian, and spun it.

He rotated it under immense pressure, compressed it, then compressed it again. Since he had done it once before, this was not particularly difficult either.

Before long, a demon core slightly larger than the original had formed, its demonic qi compressed to an even greater density.

‘Demons must have an easy time breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm.’

Ise washed his entire body with the Jet Stream Art.

Then he took out the Mind-Settling Mirror and composed himself. His body and mind felt calm, and he felt grateful to Seolryeong for giving him such a fine spirit artifact.

Ise stepped out of the cave abode.

“Senior, your cave abode rental period has expired, so you must pay an additional fee. You appeared to be in the middle of an important cultivation session, so I did not inform you.”

“How much time has passed since I entered the cave abode?”

“Two months and fifteen days. The additional fee for the forty-five extra days is four hundred and fifty Spiritual Stones.”

Another year had passed while he was breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm.

Ise handed over the Spiritual Stones, thanking the manager for their consideration.

“Is there a discount for a long-term rental?”

“I can deduct one stone. Congratulations on crossing a major realm boundary.”

The cave abode manager returned one Spiritual Stone to Ise.

Ise gave a short laugh, accepted the stone, and started walking away.

“By the way, Senior. West Lake Guild has continued asking after you. Shall I tell them that you have emerged?”

“Hui-dan?”

“Yes.”

“Tell her.”

“Understood, Senior.”

The cave abode manager bowed deeply.

Year 320 of the Order's Founding.

Seven years after he had entered the world of immortal cultivation.

At last, he had broken through to the Foundation Establishment Realm.

* * *

Around the time Ise completed his Foundation Establishment breakthrough in the Zheng Empire, an unexpected commotion had broken out at the Great Exorcist Order headquarters.

“So, you were separated in the Inner Reaches, and you emerged again not long afterward.”

“Yes, Chief Master. The Inner Reaches were not a place for fortuitous encounters. It was a land of death.”

Sugyeom, the Great Exorcist Order's Chief Master, had summoned the formal disciple Hae Unchan to investigate what had happened in the secret realm.

Of the sixteen formal disciples who had entered the secret realm, nine had died and six had returned.

One remained missing.

The pledge binding the Great Exorcist Order's disciples, managed by the divine artifact, was clearly still valid. Yet that disciple had not returned even after several months.

Since the Message Talisman could not reach the disciple, it was clear they were not nearby...

‘Could Ise have fallen onto another continent?’

From the reports received so far, Ise did not seem to have the temperament to betray the order. There appeared to be an unavoidable reason he could not return.

The Chief Master would not normally concern himself personally with one or two missing Qi Condensation Realm disciples.

But matters changed when the disciple was a core talent whose cultivation speed was fast enough to rewrite Great Exorcist Order records, who had drawn the attention of several Hall Masters, and who was a blood relative with the same physique as the Great Exorcist Order Lord.

Even Sugyeom, who never gave disciples a reason to hold anything against him, had quietly made small accommodations for Ise.

‘What should I do?’

Should he dispatch a search party to find a Qi Condensation Realm cultivator?

Should he assign one of the Hall Masters to the mission?

Or should he turn a blind eye and accept this as the natural course of things?

Sugyeom sank into thought.

There was no answer he could reach.

* * *

After leaving the cave abode rental office, Ise walked slowly as though taking a stroll, naturally familiarizing himself with his new realm.

First was the Dharma-Flower Dantian.

Unlike before, when spiritual energy flowed through his spiritual meridians, it was now held within the vessel called the Dharma-Flower Dantian.

Yet it was strangely difficult to judge the amount. He could not tell how much spiritual energy it could hold, or how full it currently was. The same was true of a Foundation Establishment Realm demon core.

‘...So that is why it is hard to distinguish the early, middle, and late stages of the Foundation Establishment Realm.’

When he saw Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators, he could tell that they had reached that realm, but it was difficult to guess their exact stage.

Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators could generally estimate each other's stages, though, and Ise finally understood why.

‘It is the range of divine sense.’

The moment the divine senses of Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators touched, they could immediately perceive each other's range.

It was like ordinary people making eye contact.

Ise came to understand this after his divine sense brushed against that of a passing Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator.

Although countless people stood between them, he perceived the other as clearly as if they stood face to face.

That cultivator's divine sense extended more than twice as far as Ise's.

The Foundation Establishment Realm cultivator briefly met Ise's awareness, then passed by without interest.

Something suddenly occurred to him, so he moved into a secluded place where no one passed.

As a Qi Condensation Realm cultivator, he could only operate one spell at a time.

Just as a person could not read two books at once, it had been natural.

That was why ordinary battles between cultivators involved using single-use spirit artifacts to cover the gaps between spells.

But the divine sense of the Foundation Establishment Realm allowed one to surpass that limitation. It was not merely an expansion of perception, but a division of consciousness.

Ise raised a hand and formed an Earth Spear.

He drew out earth-element properties from his spiritual energy, causing a pillar of earth to rise beside him. While maintaining it, he formed another Earth Spear with his other hand.

He could now manifest several spells of the same type at once. The number would likely increase as he continued cultivating.

‘Can I use different spells too?’

Ise formed an Earth Spear and a Fireball at the same time.

But as soon as he manifested the two spells, a crunch sounded in his head, followed by pain.

His divine sense was overloaded.

‘...Still, it is not completely impossible.’

He had only just reached the Foundation Establishment Realm. He lacked cultivation and familiarity.

Ise shook his head a few times to clear away the pain, then stepped out of the alley.

He headed straight for the cultivators’ market street.

He planned to buy Foundation Establishment Realm spirit artifacts with his remaining Spiritual Stones.

Above all else, he needed a flying spirit artifact. Only then could he return quickly to the Great Exorcist Order headquarters.

Footnotes:

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