Chapter 32
Translator: T_Fan
The moment Black Leopard Cat saw the sword in Badger’s hand, he wondered if he had misjudged him.
As the beautiful light coiling around Badger’s sword drove back the darkness of the alchemy chamber, a single straight white line cut across the dark stone room.
Spiritual pressure erupted from the two alliance elders facing him as well.
Black Leopard Cat hurriedly slapped his storage pouch, trying to pull out a defensive magic tool. But before the magic tool had even fully emerged from the storage pouch, the light extending from Badger’s sword split into six.
For a moment, Black Leopard Cat thought he was witnessing a work of art.
A snow-white flower was blooming inside the dark stone room.
The enchanted robe of the alliance elder in front tore open in a long gash, and blood spurted from his shoulder. A thin cut appeared on the second alliance elder’s cheek as well.
But Black Leopard Cat had neither the strength to block the sword light nor the time to evade it.
‘Ah…’
Shhk.
Black Leopard Cat felt his body become strangely light. His vision tilted.
By the time he realized Badger’s sword light had passed through him, his limbs and torso were already sliding away in different directions.
‘What a beautiful sword…’
At the instant Black Leopard Cat breathed his last, the sword light that had split the floor also severed the formation inscriptions of the earth-fire formation carved into it. Red earth fire began surging backward through the broken inscriptions.
…
BOOOOM!
One of Chiyao Island’s alchemy chambers exploded with a deafening blast.
Chunks of red rock and fragments of the pill furnace shot high into the sky amid the flames. The entire roof was blown away, and one side of Chiyao Island was engulfed in a massive inferno.
Shouts of alarm erupted across the island.
“What happened?!”
“An alchemy chamber exploded!”
The two alliance elders shot into the air through the flames and dust, wreathed in spirit light. Lee Hyun descended onto the red rocks behind them.
The two alliance elders could not immediately counterattack. They looked back and forth between the shattered alchemy chamber and the wounds on their bodies. The afterimage of the snow-white flower that had bloomed moments ago still seemed to linger in the air.
“The sword light… formed an entire scene?”
“Impossible….”
The sword arts practiced by Qi Refining and Foundation Establishment cultivators were generally closer to techniques that condensed spiritual power into sword light and fired it outward. With the proper method of circulation and sufficient spiritual power, even someone with only a shallow understanding of the sword could produce a certain degree of power.
But the six streams of sword light Badger had just unleashed each traced a different trajectory, yet intertwined and separated to form a single vista.
This was a profound skill separate from the conventional realm distinctions of cultivators, something only a person who had devoted long years to the sword as a weapon could display.
“How could a thief possess such peerless martial learning…?”
At that moment, Lee Hyun kicked off the red rock, and his figure slid away and vanished.
“Don’t let him escape!”
The alliance elder bleeding from the shoulder pressed his palm downward. Blue light gathered in the air and transformed into a giant’s right arm, roaring like crashing waves.
RUMBLE!
A blue palm three zhang (about 9.9 m) long descended upon Lee Hyun as he raced across the red rocks.
Hummm!
More than ten Spirit Light Shields bloomed beneath the palm.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The first five shattered one after another. Even the sixth Spirit Light Shield bent violently, and the impact punched through the Qi Sphere Barrier and into Lee Hyun’s body.
Fortunately, the Force-Dispersing Inner Armor distributed the impact throughout his entire body.
Lee Hyun angled the remaining Spirit Light Shields to deflect the force and used the recoil to his advantage.
BOOM!
His body shot forward even faster than before.
‘That alliance elder isn’t at early Foundation Establishment!’
Lee Hyun realized he had let his guard down. He was not the only one who knew the Aura-Concealing Art.
At that moment, the other alliance elder formed a hand seal in midair. Six bronze flying swords shot out from his sleeve.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
The flying swords scattered in different directions before converging on Lee Hyun all at once.
Lee Hyun swung the Mountain-Suppressing Sword diagonally backward, and the light surrounding its blade once again bloomed into six branches.
The six streams of sword light struck the flats of the bronze flying swords with perfect precision. The flying swords crossed past Lee Hyun by a hair, then ricocheted separately toward the sea, the sky, and the red rocks.
The alliance elder controlling the bronze flying swords shouted.
“What a formidable fellow! If he gets away, he’ll become a serious future threat!”
Lee Hyun’s figure shot explosively forward.
‘Let’s get out of here before more of them arrive.’
Lee Hyun formed several fireballs above his palm and launched them in every direction.
Whoooosh!
The two alliance elders split left and right.
As the exploding fireballs dyed the sky red, Lee Hyun swung the Mountain-Suppressing Sword.
Shhk! Shhk! Shhk!
More than ten streaks of sword light burst through the flames.
The wounded alliance elder flicked his sleeve, causing a round blue curtain of water to bloom outward and push back the fireballs’ flames. The scattered bronze flying swords also returned to circle the other alliance elder, spinning like a wagon wheel as they knocked away the sword light one streak after another.
The water curtain and flying swords shook violently, but neither alliance elder suffered serious damage.
“How does a mere Qi Refining cultivator have that much spiritual power?”
“He must be hiding his true realm!”
“But have you ever seen a Foundation Establishment cultivator who can’t fly?”
The wounded alliance elder pressed his palm downward again. This time, blue ripples flowed from his fingertips and spread rapidly across the red rocks.
On the opposite side, the six bronze flying swords took up positions in different directions. Thin bronze lines connected between them, forming a massive hexagonal sword net.
“Close the net! He can’t fly!”
As the blue ripples passed beneath Lee Hyun’s feet, his body grew heavy as though he had been submerged in deep water. At the same time, the hexagonal sword net rapidly began closing around him from all directions.
Lee Hyun burst the Qi Sphere Barrier outward from his entire body, driving away the clinging water qi. He moved as though fleeing, then abruptly changed direction.
Thump!
With successive Square-Inch Steps, Lee Hyun shot off in the opposite direction.
That was where the alliance elder controlling the bronze flying swords stood. With his attention focused on maintaining the sword formation, he had never expected Lee Hyun to turn back toward him.
‘…!’
The alliance elder hurriedly raised three layers of yellow protective barriers around himself while sending the bronze flying swords shooting at Lee Hyun.
At that moment, all the Spirit Aura surrounding Lee Hyun’s Mountain-Suppressing Sword surged toward its tip.
The light at the sword tip spread like a round halo, then contracted into a single dazzling point.
Fourth Move of One Ultimate, Six Swords.
White Rainbow Pierces the Sun.
The sword light pierced straight through all three layers of yellow barriers.
“Urgh!”
The alliance elder’s right flank was pierced through and burst open. Blood and fragments of his shattered enchanted robe scattered through the air.
The bronze flying swords also lost direction for an instant and flew past Lee Hyun.
At that moment, Lee Hyun sensed a terrifying wave of spiritual power above his head.
BOOOOM!
The blue giant’s palm shattered eight layers of Spirit Light Shields at once and drove Lee Hyun deep into the red rock.
Red stone dust erupted in every direction.
But when the dust settled, there was no one there.
“It’s the Earth Escape Art!”
Cultivators also rushed out from Chiyao Island’s other alchemy chambers. On one side of the island, alarm bells rang wildly as countless voice-transmission talismans flew into the air.
…
Lee Hyun moved rapidly northward beneath Chiyao Island.
The underground of Chiyao Island was tangled like a spiderweb with earth-fire veins and the restrictions binding them. Rather than burrow deeper through unfamiliar ground and risk being swept away by earth fire, it was safer to detour underground to the northern cliff and then head out to sea.
The Force-Dispersing Inner Armor had scattered the impact, but Lee Hyun could still taste a faint trace of blood in his mouth.
Today had been his first time fighting two Foundation Establishment cultivators. Lee Hyun had confirmed that his spiritual power and techniques were sufficiently effective even against them.
Yet what struck him even more strongly was the gap created by the ability to fly.
‘So that’s it. Is that why no one seriously discusses a fight between a grandmaster of the mortal martial path and a Foundation Establishment cultivator….’
Lee Hyun had wondered about it for some time. A Profound Realm martial artist should have been capable of threatening a Foundation Establishment cultivator, so why did no one seriously debate who would win between the two?
No matter how powerful a Profound Realm expert was, if a Foundation Establishment cultivator flew high into the air and rained down techniques, there was no way to counterattack. Conversely, a Foundation Establishment cultivator could simply fly away whenever the situation turned unfavorable.
…
The northern cliff of Chiyao Island.
Lee Hyun had already reached the island’s northern end. His figure burst straight through the red cliff and shot toward the blue sea.
“Catch him!”
The two alliance elders circling above the cliff pursued him, wreathed in spirit light.
Lee Hyun’s falling body touched the surface of the water.
Bang!
His body slapped the surface once and bounced upward again like a flat stone.
Bang! Bang!
Lee Hyun turned his body until he lay almost parallel to the water. In that position, every kick against the surface launched him dozens of zhang forward.
Bang! Ba-bang! Bangbangbang!
The intervals between each contact with the water grew shorter and shorter. White foam erupted in rapid succession as he sped away from Chiyao Island.
“What in the world…?”
An unbelievable sight unfolded before the eyes of the two men looking down from above. A Qi Refining cultivator who could not even fly was lying comfortably above the water, bouncing across it like a skipping stone while fleeing at a terrifying speed.
The wounded alliance elder clutched his flank and ground his teeth.
“Dammit! He can’t fly, so he really does seem to be at Qi Refining. But how can he move at such a bizarre speed…?!”
“Stop talking and speed up!”
“Dammit, if it weren’t for my side…”
The two alliance elders drew on even more spiritual power. Their speed briefly increased, but the distance between them and Lee Hyun ahead refused to shrink. If anything, it slowly widened.
Lee Hyun was even putting common knowledge from his past life to use. Using the Reclining Escape Art, he flattened his body parallel to the water to reduce frontal air resistance, then shaped a curtain of the Qi Sphere Barrier over his leading side in imitation of the pointed nose of a high-speed train.
Each time he touched the water, the Distance-Shrinking Step erupted and added more propulsion. As a result, Lee Hyun’s speed surpassed 200 kilometers per hour in the units of his past life. The two alliance elders flew at around 150 kilometers per hour, so the distance could only continue widening.
The wounded alliance elder spoke urgently.
“Can’t we contact the alliance elders living on the mainland ahead and have them surround him?”
“Can’t you see how freakishly fast he is? He’ll reach the mainland before a voice-transmission talisman does! Besides, do you think that guy is insane enough to enter the territory of a cultivation clan? Of course he’ll slip through whatever gap he can find!”
The two continued pursuing Lee Hyun for some time. But the distance kept widening, and the wounded alliance elder’s complexion grew increasingly pale. In the end, they were the ones to slow down first.
…
Even after confirming that the two alliance elders’ presences were fading into the distance, Lee Hyun did not slow down.
In truth, he had no intention of prolonging his grudge with the two alliance elders. They had indeed tried to capture him, but it was not as though they had attacked him for no reason.
Most of the Qingchao Merchant Alliance’s alliance elders were clan heads of cultivation clans that controlled Tier 2 spirit veins along Nanli Kingdom’s southern coast and archipelagos.
For example, among the seven great Foundation Establishment cultivation clans of southern Nanli Kingdom, the clan heads of five also served as alliance elders of the Qingchao Merchant Alliance.
To be fair, it was true that the Qutian Society had secretly made use of spiritual qi leaking from their spirit veins.
Heaven-and-earth spiritual qi had no owner by nature, but from the perspective of the clans that had spent long years maintaining the formations and spirit fields, they had every reason to consider themselves the victims.
That was why Lee Hyun had never intended to fight the two alliance elders to the death in the first place.
Black Leopard Cat, on the other hand, could have driven every remaining member of the Qutian Society to their deaths, so Lee Hyun had been obligated to execute him as society head.
‘A good day to retire…’
His body sped even faster toward the coast of Nanli Kingdom.
…
Two shichen (four hours) later.
An unnamed cliff on the southern coast of Nanli Kingdom.
A black stone slab rested inside a small underground cavern.
At its center was an engraving of a cicada shedding its shell.
Lee Hyun inserted eight low-grade spirit stones into the grooves surrounding the slab.
Hummm–
The formation inscriptions connected to the stone slab lit up one by one.
It was an emergency communication formation the Qutian Society had prepared long ago.
The Qutian Society had established several levels of emergency procedures in preparation for being discovered by cultivation clans or having their meeting sites compromised.
The highest level among them was the Shell-Shedding Order (脫殼令).
Abandon all meeting sites.
Remove the markings from the vein seats and destroy the assignment ledgers.
Members sever contact with one another and scatter.
Do not hold meetings under the name of the Qutian Society.
Lee Hyun placed his hand on the stone slab.
“I issue the Shell-Shedding Order.”
The light split into eight streams and seeped into the slab.
Once the message reached a nearby base, its caretaker would relay the order to the next one. By repeating the process, every member would receive the news within four days at most.
…
Several days later.
Gumu Studio in Baipu Market closed its doors.
The masks, maps, and ledgers in the underground meeting room all disappeared.
At numerous residual-vein pockets, including Qingluo Mountain and Qianhe Valley, the Qutian Society’s markings and concealment formations were removed.
The narrow passages leading to the vein seats collapsed, and the members scattered without asking after one another’s whereabouts.
…
An underground cave near Baipu Market.
Lee Hyun placed the Badger mask on the ground.
After years of use, its edges and the areas around the eyeholes had worn down.
The tip of the Mountain-Suppressing Sword lightly tapped the mask.
Tap.
The mask split cleanly into two.
Lee Hyun burned the pieces with the Fireball Art, then washed even the remaining ashes away into an underground water vein.
He disposed of the identity token belonging to the guest alchemist Li Mo, along with miscellaneous objects bearing the emblem of the Qingchao Merchant Alliance, in the same manner.
“Take care, everyone.”
***
One year later.
Tunnel No. 2.
After escaping Chiyao Island, Lee Hyun spent nearly two months wandering beneath Nanli Kingdom while repeatedly changing direction.
When no pursuers appeared, he returned to Tunnel No. 2. For the next ten months, he remained self-sufficient underground without once going to the surface, carefully watching his surroundings.
Over the past year, he had not sensed anything suspicious even once.
‘At this point, I can assume Tunnel No. 2’s location hasn’t been exposed. There’s no need to move. Moving is such a hassle….’
The situation was different from when he had killed a cultivator from the Azure Cloud Sect, which he suspected was a great sect.
The Qingchao Merchant Alliance had no Golden Core cultivators. Lee Hyun was not afraid of them.
Still, he planned to avoid operating in southern Nanli Kingdom for a while. Some of Badger’s combat methods as society head had been exposed.
“But Lan Kingdom is vast. Who would recognize me if I operated outside Nanli Kingdom?”
Lee Hyun took out a small medicine packet. It was the last dose packet of Tier 1 Bone-Forging Powder he had set aside while working as a guest alchemist on Chiyao Island.
He had already taken several dose packets over the past year, so it seemed he had nearly reached the limit of how much Tier 1 Bone-Forging Powder could strengthen his skeleton.
He poured one-third of the packet’s contents into a jade bottle filled with spirit spring water. When the ivory-colored powder dissolved into the water, he shook the bottle and drank its contents in one gulp.
“Haa….”
Lee Hyun lay comfortably on the floor of the cultivation chamber and circulated the Primordial One-Qi Art.
A short while later, warmth spread through his body.
The medicinal strength passed through his meridians and seeped into his bones.
The stimulation began in his fingers, wrists, elbows, and shoulders. Heat climbed along his spine, while deep within his pelvis and knees, he felt an itch like hundreds of tiny ants crawling around.
Crack.
Every time Lee Hyun breathed, a dull pain throbbed through his ribs and spine.
***
Two years later.
Qinglu Kingdom, Changchun Sect.
Qinglu Kingdom was a mortal kingdom located in the central-western region of Lan Kingdom, a Tier 4 cultivation nation.
It lay 20,000 li (about 7,840 km) north of Lee Hyun’s Tunnel No. 2 in Nanli Kingdom.
The Changchun Sect had gained some renown for refining Essence-Raising Pills, which were used to aid breakthroughs from mid to late Qi Refining.
…
Inside a spacious hall of the Changchun Sect.
Twenty pill furnaces were arranged at regular intervals. In front of each sat a Qi Refining rogue cultivator seeking admission into the Changchun Sect.
Lee Hyun was one of them.
Hummm–
The pill furnace before Lee Hyun trembled slightly.
Today’s examination task was the Spirit-Restoring Pill. It had almost no practical efficacy and was a test pill created by the Changchun Sect solely to assess alchemy.
The Changchun Sect provided three sets of medicinal ingredients and a pill recipe. Anyone who successfully produced at least two low grade Spirit-Restoring Pills within three attempts would be acknowledged as a Tier 1 alchemist.
Fwoosh–
Six fireballs of different sizes bloomed before Lee Hyun. Inside the pill furnace, the three kinds of medicinal ingredients underwent Refining one after another.
Blue medicinal liquid mingled with yellow spiritual qi, while the white energy extracted from the final ingredient gently enveloped the other two medicinal potencies.
Lee Hyun formed the Pill-Condensing Seal.
Hummm!
A short while later, round objects fell onto the bottom of the pill furnace.
Rattle.
When he opened the lid, three Spirit-Restoring Pills appeared.
One mid grade.
Two low grade.
The late Qi Refining cultivator supervising the examination inspected the pills one by one with a surprised expression.
“A mid grade pill on your very first attempt….”
Lee Hyun put on an appropriately pleased expression.
“I was lucky.”
At that moment, an unfamiliar voice came from the entrance of the hall.
“Not bad for such a young Qi Refining rogue cultivator.”
The supervisors hurriedly stood and cupped their hands.
“Greetings, Elder Gao.”
An old man entered the hall. He examined Lee Hyun’s pill furnace and the completed Spirit-Restoring Pills in turn.
“Your fire control is steady. Not bad. I am Gao Yuanhe, peak master of Pill Cauldron Peak and an Elder of the Changchun Sect.”
He looked down at the paperwork the supervisor had filled out.
“Your name is… Li Dong’er?”
“Yes.”
Gao Yuanhe stroked his beard.
“What a strange name. Why in the world were you given such a name?”
‘Because I was near Tunnel No. 2….’
Lee Hyun gave a suitably vague explanation.
“My parents passed away when I was young, so I never had the chance to hear why they chose this name for me.”
“Exactly! That is why we must always remain humble and seek enlightenment. Does not the wisdom of your parents, who lived and died as mortals, surpass even that of living cultivators? The name ‘Dong’er’ sounds like an affectionate pet name the moment one says it. What else could it be but a profound wish that their child be loved by those around him throughout his life? Now that you understand their intention, it is not too late. The path to learning can be found anywhere. With that in mind, would you become my nominal disciple and come to Pill Cauldron Peak? If you study alchemy at our peak, you could progress far beyond where you are now.”
At that moment, an old man wearing clothes steeped in the scent of medicinal herbs approached from deeper inside the hall.
“Now, now! Elder Gao. What sort of conduct is it to poach talent in the middle of an examination?”
“Poach? I am merely showing a talented young man the path most suited to him.”
“This entrance examination is being administered by our Hundred Herbs Peak, and we supplied both the medicinal ingredients and the pill furnaces. At the very least, should we not let him hear Hundred Herbs Peak’s offer as well before he decides?”
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