Chapter 56
Translator: T_Fan
Lee Hyun turned toward the direction from which the lesser yang qi was flowing.
Rustle─
As he descended through the gaps in the bedrock, the warm energy gradually grew clearer.
At first, all he had to do was follow the energy seeping through the cracks between the rocks, but before long, the flow split into several branches.
Lee Hyun chose the direction where it felt strongest.
After traveling for quite some time, he stopped.
‘This isn’t it.’
No new lesser yang qi was emerging here. Energy flowing in from all directions had merely been blocked by the bedrock and temporarily pooled in one place.
Lee Hyun retraced his route. Before long, he found another faint stream of energy rising from below and changed direction toward it.
…
The sounds of the surface had vanished long ago.
Whenever his body, wrapped in Primordial True Qi, passed through, the soil and stone softened around him before hardening again.
How far had he descended?
Lee Hyun estimated the direction and distance he had traveled.
‘Even measuring it vertically, I think I’ve descended almost forty li (about 15.7 km)…. In the human realm, I usually reached the earth-vein stratum after going down around twenty-five li. Is the earth-vein stratum deeper in this secret realm?’
‘Could it be… the reason the Danxiao Sect couldn’t transplant the Fire-Heart Orchids outside was because they didn’t have a Foundation Establishment cultivator capable of investigating this deep?’
Being able to use the Earth Escape Art did not mean one could freely roam around at such depths.
His spiritual power continued to drain even as he changed directions while tracing the energy. If he took a wrong route, he had to retrace the entire distance he had traveled.
On top of that, he also had to reserve enough spiritual power for the return trip.
Nor could every Foundation Establishment cultivator use techniques like the Breath-Sealing Art and Air-Clearing Art to deal with problems related to breathing.
‘I see. Even with my level of mastery over these techniques, it takes this much spiritual power… Even if the Danxiao Sect sent a cultivator at Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment, investigating all the way down here would be difficult.’
Fortunately, Lee Hyun still had plenty of spiritual power.
He continued downward.
…
After Lee Hyun had descended for a while, the bedrock began to grow warm.
Lee Hyun slowed down.
Dense Fire spiritual qi was flowing from cracks in the rock ahead.
‘Is this the earth-vein stratum?’
He avoided the place where the scorching energy was strongest and circled around it.
A short while later, he sensed a small hollow space beyond the bedrock.
Rustle─
Lee Hyun emerged from the stone wall.
It was a narrow cavern barely large enough for three or four people. On one side of the floor was a fissure of unfathomable depth, and a faint red glow flickered beneath it.
Whoooosh─
A hot wind lifted the hem of his long robe.
Lee Hyun thickened his Qi Sphere Barrier.
‘Earth fire runs beneath here.’
Most of the surrounding rock was dark reddish-black, but an orange ore vein ran across the cavern wall, its surface marked with what looked like thin crimson cracks.
Lee Hyun approached it.
“Hm?”
The flow detected by his Aura-Reading Art was strange.
Dense Fire spiritual qi rising from below seeped into the lower part of the ore vein, while a slightly different kind of energy flowed out from above.
Warm, yet clear energy.
It was the lesser yang qi he had felt in the Fire-Heart Orchid spirit field on the surface.
Lee Hyun brought his palm close to the ore vein.
After examining it for a long while, his gaze changed.
‘It’s coming from here?’
He examined the ordinary surrounding rocks one after another.
The lesser yang qi merely passed through them. The flow of energy itself began at the surface of the orange ore vein.
Lee Hyun lightly tapped the ore with his fingertip.
Tap. Tap.
It was quite hard.
He broke off a finger-sized piece from the edge of the vein.
He could still sense lesser yang qi from the detached ore, but when he carried it to the opposite side of the cavern and waited a moment, the energy rapidly weakened.
Before long, it became nothing more than a warm piece of stone.
“So it really won’t work if I take it outside?”
Lee Hyun stared down at the ore, then turned his gaze back toward the earth-fire vein.
Hot energy continued to flow into the lower part of the ore vein.
‘Wait….’
Lee Hyun supported the piece of ore with spiritual power and moved it close to the fissure in the floor.
Whoosh─
Heat and Fire spiritual qi rising from the earth-fire vein enveloped the piece of stone.
A short while later.
The patterns within the ore began to glow very faintly. Soon afterward, lesser yang qi began flowing from its surface.
“Oh….”
When he moved the ore away again, the energy weakened.
This time, he placed an ordinary black stone near the earth-fire vein. The stone grew scorching hot, but no matter how long he waited, the same change never occurred.
Lee Hyun switched the positions of the two stones and repeated the test several more times. Lesser yang qi only emerged when the orange ore was supplied with heat and Fire spiritual qi.
‘It’s not releasing energy stored inside it. This stone is producing lesser yang qi!’
To borrow a term from his previous life, it seemed similar to a catalyst.
He would have to investigate its mechanism and lifespan further, but as long as the necessary conditions were met, it seemed like it could be used elsewhere.
Lee Hyun’s expression brightened.
‘Then I just need to find an earth-fire vein like this beneath Tunnel No. 3. I could place these stones nearby and build a spirit field where the orchids can absorb the lesser yang qi without being exposed to the direct heat…. I can make a separate water reservoir as well.’
He was beginning to see a way to cultivate Fire-Heart Orchids.
Lee Hyun looked at the ore vein.
The exposed section stretched across one side of the cavern wall. When he extended his divine sense, he discovered that the same ore continued dozens of zhang (each about 3.3 m) deeper into the rock.
‘Considering the size of this secret realm, there should be plenty of this ore… Taking some of it shouldn’t cause any problems.’
…
One shichen (about two hours) later, Lee Hyun had mined enough ore to fill an entire room and stored it in his storage pouch.
Lesser yang qi continued to flow from the remaining ore vein almost exactly as before.
“I wonder what this is called. Maybe it isn’t something known outside.”
After thinking for a moment, he took out a wooden tag and wrote on it.
「Lesser Yang Stone.
Ore involved in the production of lesser yang qi.
Requires earth-fire heat and Fire spiritual qi.」
He could always change the name later once he learned its official one.
Lee Hyun placed the wooden tag inside his storage pouch.
…
The journey upward was far faster than the descent.
He no longer needed to wander around following the flow of energy.
At some point, he heard the sound of running water.
When he poked his head out and looked around, he saw a valley flanked by rocky cliffs, with a small river flowing between them.
Nearby stood something resembling a white dog.
‘Hm?’
Its torso was constructed from bones of various thicknesses, with four long, sharp legs attached to it. Its head resembled a giant rat more than a dog.
A thin green light flickered within its empty eye sockets.
‘A bone demon beast? No, its aura resembles that bone sword I saw not long ago… Is it a puppet?’
Just then, Lee Hyun’s Keen Hearing Art picked up the sound of something approaching.
His gaze rose.
Three Foundation Establishment cultivators were descending from the low clouds overhead.
‘They spotted me.’
A Foundation Establishment cultivator’s divine sense could survey a radius of over a hundred zhang. However, in an open area, the distance one could see using the Farsight Art was far greater.
In other words, even if Lee Hyun’s divine sense surpassed his opponents’, someone looking down at him with the Farsight Art from high in the sky beyond its range could still spot him first.
Lee Hyun emerged completely from the rock and stood beside the river. With no fellow disciples around, there was no need to flee or conceal his strength.
A young cultivator in a black long robe descended at the front.
He was a pale-skinned man with narrow, elongated eyes. Behind him stood a white-bone puppet taller than a man, with three arms protruding from each side of its torso.
Its six hands each held a magic tool, including a sword, saber, shield, hook, and other weapons.
Lee Hyun examined the fluctuations of spiritual power emanating from the young cultivator.
‘Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment…. I can’t let my guard down.’
Behind him, a middle-aged cultivator in a brown robe and an elderly one-eyed cultivator flew in at different altitudes.
The one-eyed old cultivator was at late Foundation Establishment, while the middle-aged cultivator was at mid Foundation Establishment.
The young cultivator’s fingers moved lightly.
The Six-Armed Bone Puppet raised its head.
Crack. Crack.
Its bone joints straightened one after another.
“Are you from the Danxiao Sect?”
The young cultivator asked.
“Who knows.”
A black-iron longspear appeared in Lee Hyun’s right hand.
The young cultivator narrowed his eyes.
“Kill him.”
Boom!
The bone puppet on the ground kicked off the bedrock with all four legs and charged.
At the same time, two blood-red flying hooks shot from the brown-robed cultivator’s sleeves, tracing sharp arcs toward Lee Hyun’s neck and knees.
Above them, the one-eyed old cultivator sent a flying sword plunging downward with an eerie shriek as it tore through the air.
Swish.
Lee Hyun’s left hand slid smoothly down the shaft of the black-iron longspear.
The instant the longspear traced a crescent through the air, the Primordial True Qi condensed just beneath its spearhead erupted into an enormous vortex.
Wooooong─
“!?”
The descending flying sword veered off course and was dragged toward the spear blade. The two hooks aimed at his neck and knees curved toward it as well.
CLAAANG!
The instant the three magic tools collided, the butt of the longspear swept across the ground and shattered the bone puppet’s jaw.
Twisting at the waist, Lee Hyun caught the gathered enemy magic tools around his spear blade and swept them into a single rotation.
SPLAAAAASH!
Lee Hyun pushed off the river’s surface and leaped into the air. The water below coiled upward like a dragon’s tail.
The two flying hooks and the flying sword suspended in the air followed the exact path traced by Lee Hyun’s spear tip, spiraling through the sky.
“My magic tools!?”
“What trick is this!”
The brown-robed cultivator hurriedly changed his hand seal. But before he could reclaim his magic tools, Lee Hyun leveled the spearhead at the two cultivators.
THOOM!
The anchor of the Earth-Origin Force seized the two men this time.
“Urgh!?”
The one-eyed old cultivator, who had been trying to gain altitude, suddenly plunged downward.
The brown-robed cultivator pitched forward as well, and the two men who had been hovering at different heights were dragged toward a single point in an instant.
Amid the chaos, four bronze flying swords radiating wondrous light spread outward with the dazzling brilliance of the rising sun.
‘No…’
SHNK!
Brilliant white lines flashed, and the brown-robed cultivator’s upper body came apart and spilled downward.
“Damn it─”
The one-eyed old cultivator went deathly pale and hurriedly produced a round shield, desperately trying to retreat.
But,
SHRAAAK!
Two bronze flying swords burst through the spray like the talons of a bird of prey and pierced straight through the back of the old cultivator’s neck.
SPURT!
His lone eye bulged as though it might pop from its socket.
The other flying swords returned immediately afterward and pierced through his dantian.
Lee Hyun lightly shook his spear and withdrew the force of attraction.
The river water that had coiled into the sky came pouring down like rain.
The two cultivators’ corpses crashed onto the pebbles of the riverbed amid the spray.
Splash! Thud!
Within the gently drifting mist, six bronze flying swords swam smoothly around Lee Hyun.
“…….”
The arrogance and composure had completely vanished from the face of the last remaining young man.
His name was Guo Zhenming.
He was the successor of Haigu Island and one of the foremost heaven’s prodigies among the Yin Bird Sect’s Foundation Establishment cultivators.
Yet while his two companions were being killed, he had not even found an opening to intervene.
‘That monster.’
The man before him was in a completely different league from the Danxiao Sect disciples he had fought until now.
He appeared to be an early Foundation Establishment cultivator, but his ruthless methods and mastery of techniques rivaled those of the old monsters of Haigu Island!
‘Is he a true-inheritance disciple raised by one of the Danxiao Sect’s Nascent Soul old monsters? Why is someone like that here…? And what the hell is that spear? What kind of magic tool has a flight-suppressing restriction built into it!’
Guo Zhenming pulled a White Bone Banner from his robe and waved it.
SKRIEEEEE─
A ghostly wail violent enough to shake the valley and rupture one’s eardrums erupted.
The yin poison released by thousands of resentful spirits enveloped Lee Hyun’s body, while their wails bored into his sea of consciousness.
The Qi Sphere Barrier blocked the energy. Within his sea of consciousness, the Essence-Protecting Seal merely glowed faintly, and Lee Hyun’s gaze never wavered.
Guo Zhenming instantly realized his opponent was unaffected and emptied his storage pouch.
Three bone puppets, each twice the size of a man, appeared.
Their torsos were wrapped in layer after layer of thick spirit bone, and each held a bone hammer as large as a boulder in both hands.
The Six-Armed Bone Puppet also stepped forward, its six weapons gleaming.
The four bone puppets erupted with power, shot into the air, and descended upon Lee Hyun from every direction.
The leading puppet swung its bone hammer down as though to smash Lee Hyun’s skull apart.
Whoooooosh!
Amid the savage shriek of tearing air, Lee Hyun released his longspear to float in midair and opened his hand.
Wooooong─
Primordial True Qi condensed, and an enormous hand more than three zhang in size appeared.
It was the Condensed-Essence Grasping Hand.
At the exact instant the bone hammer came crashing down, Lee Hyun’s five fingers clenched with rock-hard force.
“Get lost.”
BANG!
With an explosive roar, the enormous fist struck the bone hammer and the puppet’s upper body head-on.
The hammer and the puppet’s bones exploded apart simultaneously. Fragments of the shattered bone hammer and clouds of bone dust scattered through the air, forming a white haze, while the puppet’s remaining lower half plunged into the river.
The two puppets to either side rushed into the opening, but Lee Hyun spread his hand and seized the one on the left.
The gigantic fingers wrapped around its waist and snapped it in half.
CRUNCH!
Lee Hyun swung his arm, smashing the captured puppet into the one on the right. The Condensed-Essence Grasping Hand crushed both puppets together into a single mass and rammed them straight into the cliff face!
RUMBLE!
Dozens of zhang of the cliff cracked and collapsed.
While the three bone puppets were being reduced to scrap, the Six-Armed Bone Puppet crossed its sword and saber and slipped into Lee Hyun’s blind spot.
Swish-swish!
Lee Hyun leaned his upper body back, grabbed the floating longspear, and thrust it between the two blades.
SKRRAAAAPE!
The two weapons slid along the blade of the longspear and sliced through empty air.
The spear butt slammed into the puppet’s knee joint. Lee Hyun let the off-balance puppet tumble past him and looked toward Guo Zhenming.
Beneath Guo Zhenming’s skin, his bones warped as blood-red flames burst forth.
“Die!”
A dark-red bone nail one cun (about 3.3 cm) long shot from between Guo Zhenming’s fingers!
Flash!
‘Fast!’
The instant Lee Hyun’s divine sense detected it, the blood-red flash was already right in front of him.
Lee Hyun immediately swept the black-iron longspear vertically upward. At the same time, he twisted his upper body and erected three layers of Spirit Light Shields in front of his flank.
CLANG─
The bone nail scraped violently along the side of the longspear.
The impact was so violent that it felt as though the skin of his palm might be torn away, and the spear shaft was knocked backward.
The deflected bone nail pierced through all three Spirit Light Shields and tore through his body-protecting spirit light as well.
SKRRAAAPE! BOOM!
His long robe ripped apart as the dark-red flash slammed into his side.
KRRRCH!
The bone nail scraped a long line across the scales of his Black Scale Inner Armor before ricocheting away.
The impact sent Lee Hyun’s body spinning half a turn through the air.
BOOOOOOM!
Behind Lee Hyun, an enormous section of the cliff exploded as though struck by lightning.
Blood-red cracks spread from where the bone nail had embedded itself, and boulders as large as houses came crashing into the river.
Amid the swirling clouds of dust and powdered stone, Lee Hyun stepped onto a falling boulder and regained his balance.
‘That was dangerous.’
His side burned.
But Guo Zhenming was the one who was truly shocked.
It had been his life-bound bone nail, infused with his own essence blood. Seeing Lee Hyun deflect it head-on and stand effortlessly atop the falling rocks with nothing more than a slightly torn robe filled Guo Zhenming with soul-devouring terror.
“Y-you goddamn monster…!”
Guo Zhenming recalled the White Bone Banner and shot into the sky. The Six-Armed Bone Puppet raised its six weapons and blocked Lee Hyun’s path to cover its master’s retreat.
Killing intent filled Lee Hyun’s eyes.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The ferocious pull of the Earth-Origin Force anchor erupted from Lee Hyun’s hand.
Guo Zhenming, weakened from firing his life-bound bone nail, was unable to resist. His body folded at the waist as he was violently dragged backward. When he raised his head, six bronze flying swords split around both sides of the Six-Armed Bone Puppet and streaked toward him in a spectacular formation.
‘N-no…’
SHNK─
Guo Zhenming plummeted toward the ground, spraying fresh blood. The Six-Armed Bone Puppet, having lost its master, also fell powerlessly from the sky.
Thud! Crash!
…
The valley fell silent.
Lee Hyun surveyed his surroundings with divine sense and various detection techniques, but sensed no one else nearby.
He pulled open the front of his robe. A few thin scratches marked the black scales of the Black Scale Inner Armor. When he rubbed them with his fingertips, they did not seem deep, but a long bruise had already formed across the skin underneath.
Lee Hyun looked toward the cliff where the bone nail was embedded.
‘I was careless. I should’ve taken out the Profound Iron Buckler immediately.’
In that urgent moment, he had instinctively used the Spirit Light Shield he was accustomed to.
It was not enough to merely finish bonding a new magic tool. He needed to practice with it so that he could draw it instantly at moments like this.
He straightened his clothes and walked toward the fallen cultivators.
…
Three storage pouches and the various magic tools were gathered in one place.
Most of the bone puppets had been shattered beyond recognition. Lee Hyun picked out the pieces whose joints and formation inscriptions remained intact.
‘Maybe I should study puppets too.’
He placed the usable wreckage into his storage pouch one piece at a time.
His hand paused briefly when he came to the Six-Armed Bone Puppet. Small spirit stones had been embedded inside its chest. Countless patterns extended from them along the bones, while several tiny restrictions overlapped around the shoulder and elbow joints.
Lee Hyun examined its structure for quite some time.
‘So this is how they’re inscribed.’
The Six-Armed Bone Puppet had only suffered minor damage to the joints of its knees and arms. Compared to the other puppets, it was nearly intact. Lee Hyun stored the puppet away.
Lastly, he gathered the corpses in one place.
Whoosh─
After burning the bodies and their bloodstained clothes, he collected the ashes and the bloodstained soil.
Only after burying them deep within the bedrock beneath the valley did he leave.
…
Half a shichen later, Lee Hyun set down the three storage pouches in a small underground cavern far from the site of the battle.
“Let’s see.”
He erased the remaining traces of divine sense and restrictions from each storage pouch one by one.
The first contained ten mid-grade spirit stones, restorative pills, and several kinds of bone materials.
The second belonged to the one-eyed old cultivator.
It contained around twenty mid-grade spirit stones. There were also metal fragments that could likely be used to repair a flying sword, along with several unused talismans.
Then he opened the young cultivator’s storage pouch.
Lee Hyun’s gaze changed.
Clatter.
Several pouches filled with spirit stones spilled onto the ground.
Jade caskets, medicine bottles, and long pieces of bone followed one after another.
Lee Hyun first gathered all the spirit stones together.
There were more than two hundred mid-grade spirit stones alone!
‘That’s more than enough to recoup all the spirit stones I spent before setting out.’
He stared at the pile of spirit stones for a moment before placing them in his own storage pouch.
The jade casket he opened next contained jade slips and books.
A black jade token rested on top.
One side was engraved with a pattern resembling white bones, while the other bore a name and status.
「Guo Zhenming, true-inheritance disciple of Haigu Island, Yin Bird Sect.」
‘So he was a true-inheritance disciple.’
Tiny characters were engraved onto the jade slip beneath it.
《Profound Yin White Bone True Scripture》
After removing the remaining restrictions, Lee Hyun pressed the jade slip to his forehead. Keeping the Essence-Protecting Seal active, he gradually sent his divine sense into it.
In the past, he would have been reluctant to pour divine sense into an unknown jade slip, but now that he had a means to protect his primordial spirit, he felt considerably more at ease.
A long mnemonic formula and an image of the human body entered his mind.
Countless patterns ran across the skeleton in the diagram. Spiritual power circulated through the meridians while also seeping deep into the bones, and energy gathered at specific points before extending outward beyond the body.
Lee Hyun opened his eyes after reading the opening general principles.
“Oh….”
This was the sect-defining cultivation art of the Yin Bird Sect’s Haigu Island!
*****
TL Note: Bonus chapter for the review posted on NovelUpdates by ‘Impy_imp’.
https://www.novelupdates.com/series/hiding-tunnels-in-xianxia/
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