Chapter 55
Turning His Entire Fortune into Internal Energy (2)
For the first time, Baek So-cheon was using his three years’ worth of internal energy in the forest behind his manor.
He had begun properly practicing the fourth fist of the Nine Fists of Overturning Heaven.
Starting from the fourth fist, the techniques began to require internal energy in earnest.
Fourth Fist of the Nine Fists of Overturning Heaven: Bright Moon, Sparse Stars.
Although internal energy was required from the fourth fist onward, Baek So-cheon could still execute the fourth fist with the mere three years of internal energy he currently possessed.
Of course, its power did not even approach a fraction of what it was supposed to be, but it could still be performed.
From the fifth fist onward, however, there was a minimum amount of internal energy required even to attempt the techniques.
The fifth fist required at least twenty years of internal energy, while the sixth required half a cycle—thirty years.
Without that much internal energy, one could not even attempt them.
If the first three fists had mainly been created by observing the movements of wind and sea, then from the fourth fist onward, the martial art had been created by observing the moon, the sun, and the movements of the heavens.
The fourth fist, whose name meant that the stars grew sparse when the moon shone brightly, consisted of five techniques, most of which used both hands.
It was from this fourth fist that the Nine Fists of Overturning Heaven began to reveal its true power.
Boom!
Even though he possessed only three years of internal energy, the thick log shattered completely.
Once internal energy was added to his already exceptional physical strength, the destructive force multiplied. It was powerful enough to collapse an ordinary wall.
Baek So-cheon tossed another log into the air and struck out with his fists.
Papapapapapak!
The log exploded into several fragments and scattered through the air.
Dying Moon, Dawn Star, a technique that repeatedly hammered both fists into an opponent’s chest at great speed, boasted the most destructive and powerful force among the fourth fist’s techniques.
Once he could properly infuse internal energy into those strikes, his opponent’s body would be crushed beyond recognition.
After completing a full sequence of the fourth fist, Baek So-cheon felt exhilarated.
It was the first time in three years that he had performed a martial art using internal energy.
The energy had a slight tendency to linger within his meridians, but because his internal structure had changed, he focused on adapting to it.
At that moment, someone spoke from behind him.
“Fist techniques suit you surprisingly well.”
Baek So-cheon looked up and saw Cheon-geuk sitting on a high tree branch.
As always, he could not sense the Guardian Killing Stars anywhere around her.
“I think it’ll look incredible once you start properly infusing internal energy. Why not take this opportunity to switch to fist techniques altogether?”
“I’m considering it.”
“Really?”
He needed some kind of change.
In their previous battle, he had used swordsmanship and lost to the Cheokcheon Alliance Leader.
He could not simply trust that his newly refined internal energy would be enough and challenge him again. The Cheokcheon Alliance Leader was far too powerful an opponent.
Moreover, it was entirely possible that the man had grown even stronger while recovering from his injuries.
“Did you get them?”
“Yes. By becoming an ill-mannered bitch.”
She turned around and showed him the leather bag strapped to her back.
Baek So-cheon’s face lit up.
“Your face suddenly looks incredibly welcoming. That’s completely different from how you reacted when you saw me!”
“Come down.”
Baek So-cheon turned and began walking toward the house.
Cheon-geuk pouted and jumped down from the tree.
As she followed him inside, she looked around.
“This is a nice house.”
At that moment, she happened to come face-to-face with Beon Saeng, who was leaving his room.
“Gah!”
Beon Saeng froze in front of the door.
She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life.
The problem was that he knew who she was at first glance.
“You’re her, right?”
“Yes, I am.”
She always concealed her face beneath a bamboo hat, yet he had now seen it.
“Am I going to die?”
“No.”
“Whew. That’s a relief.”
“We usually just gouge out the eyes of people close to us. Sometimes we cut out their tongues, and sometimes we don’t.”
Beon Saeng laughed as he watched her walk past after saying something so chilling.
“Haha! As expected, assassins have terrifying senses of humor.”
Cheon-geuk looked back at him, tilted her head as though asking, Do you really think that was a joke?, and followed Baek So-cheon into the room.
“You’re supposed to tell me it was a joke before leaving.”
The closed door did not reopen.
“She’s beautiful and funny too.”
Beon Saeng walked away as though nothing had happened.
When he reached the end of the corridor, his legs buckled and he collapsed.
He looked back down the empty hallway with a tearful expression.
“…It was a joke, right? Right?”
Inside the room, Cheon-geuk spoke to Baek So-cheon.
“For some reason, he makes me want to tease him.”
“I know exactly how that feels.”
“Why are you looking at me while saying that?”
Baek So-cheon smiled and opened the leather bag.
He opened the three boxes one by one.
After inspecting their contents, his eyes widened. He recognized all three spiritual medicines.
“You bought all of these with that money?”
“Yes. The market prices were low.”
“Even then, I don’t think you could have bought all three.”
“You must have been lucky.”
Baek So-cheon suddenly remembered what she had said earlier.
By becoming an ill-mannered bitch.
He understood.
She had pushed herself to obtain all three.
“You didn’t have to go this far.”
When she realized he had noticed, she answered calmly.
“The same applies to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You could take that money, hide somewhere, and live comfortably by yourself. You don’t have to go this far either, yet you still do.”
“No. I’m doing this to survive. The Cheokcheon Alliance Leader will find me and kill me.”
“Do you really think someone could find you that easily if you seriously decided to hide?”
“Regardless, thank you.”
“That’s enough, as long as you understand. Since I’ve already gone this far, I may as well help you to the end. I’ll guard you, so take them and circulate your energy.”
Baek So-cheon was sincerely grateful.
Consuming spiritual medicine and circulating its energy was an extremely important process.
It was unlikely, but if someone interfered even once while he was doing so, the consequences could be disastrous.
He stared at the three medicines and considered which one to take first.
His first choice was the thousand-year-old fleeceflower root.
He slowly chewed and swallowed it.
A deep, mystical fragrance incomparable to that of a hundred-year-old fleeceflower root spread through his mouth.
Baek So-cheon began circulating the Immovable Wisdom King Heart Method and dissolving the medicinal energy.
Sssssss.
It had been a very long time since such an enormous amount of energy had filled every meridian in his body.
Baek So-cheon felt intense pleasure.
It was similar to the pleasure of lying with a woman.
After completing a full circulation through his body, the energy gathered in his dantian.
Naturally, he extracted the medicine’s full effect—one complete cycle of internal energy.
The amount that actually accumulated in his dantian was exactly one-third of that: twenty years.
Yet its purity was indescribable.
Even though it was his own internal energy, he felt an urge to immerse himself completely in it.
The three years of internal energy he already possessed had also been pure, but not nearly as pure as these newly acquired twenty years.
He had expected the two energies to mix and average out in purity.
Instead, the less refined energy transformed into pure internal energy as it merged with the new.
Oh!
It was another moment in which he discovered how extraordinary his new dantian was.
Twenty-three years in total, including the original three.
It happened at that moment.
Swoooooosh!
The internal energy gathered in his dantian began flowing back outward through his entire meridian network like seawater receding from the shore.
Baek So-cheon had not willed it to happen.
It spread throughout his whole body on its own.
After carefully examining the changes inside himself for some time, Baek So-cheon was stunned.
How can this be possible?
This new dantian was not truly a dantian.
It functioned more like an entrance, while his entire body served as the dantian.
When he had possessed only three years of internal energy, the quantity had been so small that it had remained near the entrance.
The reason his internal energy had shown a tendency to remain in his meridians whenever he performed martial arts was that the meridians were where it naturally belonged.
His physical cultivation had already surpassed ordinary limits.
When the Great Reforging of the Bones and Marrow was added to that foundation, it had created an entirely new kind of body.
Baek So-cheon calmed the internal energy spread throughout his body.
As he did, the energy settled throughout his meridians as naturally as it once would have settled in his dantian.
He extended his arm toward Cheon-geuk.
“Check my internal energy.”
“You’re already showing off?”
“Hurry.”
Cheon-geuk grabbed his wrist and examined the inside of his body.
“Huh? Where did all your internal energy go?”
“You can’t feel it?”
“Where did you hide it?”
She searched tenaciously for the energy, but could not find it.
Baek So-cheon understood.
He could completely conceal his internal energy throughout his meridians.
Even a second dantian could eventually be discovered, but no one would ever detect energy hidden within the meridians.
No one would even imagine such a thing was possible.
Baek So-cheon activated his internal energy.
Normally, it would have emerged from the dantian and spread through the body.
This time, it rose directly from every part of his body.
In other words, he could summon his internal energy far more quickly than before.
And it was internal energy of incomparable purity.
Something unprecedented in the history of the murim had occurred.
His internal and external cultivation had fused into a single form.
From now on, every trace of internal energy he accumulated would settle throughout his entire body.
His internal energy had transcended the limitation known as the dantian.
Baek So-cheon clenched his fist.
Internal energy surged instantly, and enough power to shatter a lump of iron filled his hand.
Its response was vastly faster than before.
Cheon-geuk watched him with an expression that showed she had no idea what had happened.
“Are you all right?”
Baek So-cheon nodded.
“Keep guarding me.”
Had it not been for her, his joy might have ended there.
Because she had pushed herself to obtain all three spiritual medicines, there was still another one.
And another after that.
The second medicine he chose was the Seven-Colored Centipede Pill.
This one was incomparably more bitter than the thousand-year-old fleeceflower root.
Frowning, he chewed and swallowed it.
He once again circulated the Immovable Wisdom King Heart Method.
After carefully absorbing as much of the poison elixir’s medicinal power as possible, he gathered it into his dantian.
As before, he extracted the maximum effect of one full cycle.
Twenty years of internal energy accumulated within his dantian.
It seemed as though it would remain there.
Then it once again surged outward in all directions like a flood.
Swoooooosh!
Baek So-cheon carefully observed what would happen to this internal energy, which possessed slightly different qualities.
The two energies began to mix.
Then the new energy transformed into the same pure internal energy created from the thousand-year-old fleeceflower root and settled throughout his meridians.
“Ah!”
A cry of pure joy escaped him.
His combined internal energy had now reached forty-three years.
Baek So-cheon consumed the final Emperor Pill.
Its medicinal effect was the weakest of the three, but the result was no different.
He absorbed the full twenty-five years of internal energy it contained, and one-third of that—eight years—settled throughout his meridians.
Altogether, he now possessed fifty-one years of internal energy.
He was nine years short of one complete cycle.
However, because his internal energy was so pure, he would likely be able to fight with far greater power than he had when he possessed a full cycle in the past.
Baek So-cheon finished circulating his energy with a radiant smile.
Everything felt completely different.
He no longer felt internal energy concentrated in his dantian.
Instead, he felt profound power throughout his entire body.
He experienced an overwhelming urge to unleash it like erupting lava.
When he calmed that impulse, the internal energy settled into his meridians as though nothing had happened.
From Baek So-cheon’s expression, Cheon-geuk could tell that an enormous change had occurred within his body.
He certainly did not look like someone who needed to worry about his internal energy being undetectable moments earlier.
Baek So-cheon looked at her.
“I will not forget what you did today.”
She smirked.
“Why do you express gratitude as though you’re threatening an enemy?”
“Did it sound like that?”
Baek So-cheon laughed as well.
“Why did you help me? As you said, you could have killed me and taken the one million four hundred thousand nyang.”
“I already have enough money to live on.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to have more?”
“Maybe it’s because I grew up learning nothing but killing arts from such a young age, but I’m not particularly greedy for money. As long as I can live comfortably and eat well, that’s enough. I don’t have anything in particular I want to buy with money.”
Baek So-cheon felt the same way.
That was why the money had remained untouched in the bank all this time.
Cheon-geuk asked,
“How do you feel?”
“I probably won’t get beaten wherever I go anymore.”
“Don’t hit me just because you’ve become stronger.”
“I hit you because I was weak back then. I’m sorry.”
A smile appeared on Cheon-geuk’s lips at his sincere apology.
An apology played an extremely important role in human relationships.
She knew that when conflict arose between two people, unless one of them offered a sincere apology, their relationship would always remain stuck in the same place no matter how often they smiled at each other.
“Can you defeat the Cheokcheon Alliance Leader now?”
Baek So-cheon shook his head.
It would be fortunate if he could kill the man by pouring all fifty-one years of internal energy into a single opportunity.
But if he missed that chance and the fight became prolonged, he would certainly die.
“For now, I have to conceal the fact that I’ve recovered my internal energy. I also need to accumulate more.”
Cheon-geuk nodded.
She had personally met the Cheokcheon Alliance Leader and knew just how powerful an enemy he was.
“Come with me for a moment.”
“Where?”
“There’s someone I want to introduce you to.”
Cheon-geuk left the house with Baek So-cheon.
“By the way, you’re completely broke now.”
“I kept one hundred thousand nyang.”
“Really?”
Baek So-cheon had kept it without much thought as emergency money.
Coincidentally, it was exactly one hundred thousand nyang.
Cheon-geuk’s steps immediately became so light that she almost seemed ready to fly.