Jaekyung noticed that while the cultivators of the Twilight Gathering talked about all sorts of things, they never asked about or mentioned each other's personal details. Only then did he understand the reason for the strange sense of intimacy and distance he had felt ever since the gathering began.
In a way, their relationship could be close precisely because they were distant. They probably knew little about each other besides their names and cultivation levels. Perhaps even the names they were calling each other now were aliases.
And it was highly likely that their places of residence and activity in the cultivation world did not overlap or were not close to one another. 'They're like internet friends.' He tried to avoid using knowledge from his past life as much as possible, but when his thoughts reached this point, the idea came to him naturally.
They knew and yet did not know each other, and because their interests were not intertwined, they could associate with one another purely based on their likes and dislikes. Thinking this way, Jaekyung felt much more at ease.
“Dao Friend Woo. What became of the matter you mentioned before?”
As Yeo Jang-gyeong asked, Woo Do-baek spoke in a bitter tone.
“You mean the Fire Crystal? I could not obtain it. As you know, Dao Friend Yeo, isn't finding spiritual objects for cultivation like plucking stars from the sky these days?”
“Indeed, it is.”
Chae Yeon-ri said with a sigh.
“Although the cultivation world is said to have been in an age of prosperity for the last few thousand years, that only means the number of cultivators has increased." "The competition to get ahead has become that much fiercer, so obtaining things like the spiritual objects you mentioned is becoming more and more difficult." "In other words, the cultivation world may be in a prosperous age, but for individual cultivators like us, it has become an even more difficult time.”
“Dao Friend Chae’s words are correct. But to build one's Cultivation without the help of external objects is like building a castle of sand, so we have no choice but to climb a tree to find fish.”
The atmosphere subsided after everyone let out a sigh. At that moment, Yoo Gye-yoon, who had rarely spoken, broke the silence.
“Is that not the nature of Cultivation? It is something that can only be achieved by contending with people, contending with time, and contending with the heavens. There is no need to rejoice in opportunity, nor to be disheartened by difficulty. Rather than that, you should fear not being able to do all that you can.”
“Senior’s words are right.”
Everyone here called each other Dao Friend, but they addressed only Yoo Gye-yoon as Senior. Now it seemed that it was not simply because his cultivation level was the highest. He did not speak much, but he was clearly the focal point of this gathering.
'He seems to be the oldest, too.' Despite existing as a faint spirit, he exuded an air of transcendence. His calmly spoken words were tinged with an indelible sense of experience and fatigue, and Jaekyung guessed that Yoo Gye-yoon was an elderly man.
And perhaps... one who did not have much time left. 'Is this the weariness of the Immortal Path?' There were many opponents a cultivator walking the Immortal Path had to contend with, but the most threatening among them was their own lifespan.
This was especially true for human cultivators. Some say that humans are the number one race of the Immortal Path, favored by the heavens. This claim was not just something humans spouted to praise themselves.
It had its own basis. First, humans had large numbers. Of course, there were races in the Azure Abyss Realm with larger populations than humans, but humans possessed an absolute advantage that they could never match.
That was their unity. No other race in the world could unite like humans. When there was an external threat, they might join forces to face a common enemy for a time, but the unity of humans was on a different level.
They gathered together to create villages, cities, and nations. Such unity and the collective power that came from it were something other races could neither dare to imitate nor withstand. With this power, humans were able to rise to the position of a hegemonic race, competing for control of the Azure Abyss Realm.
But nothing in the world is perfect. The heavens added one flaw to humanity's perfection, and that was a short lifespan. A lifespan that could not be compared to the long-lived races, and one that was shorter than most other races.
That was the greatest shackle that frustrated human cultivators. How many human cultivators had withered away before the wall of their lifespan, under the oppression of time? Everyone knew that no one could dare to guess.
That was why human cultivators desperately tried to raise their cultivation level. They knew they had to constantly move forward to avoid being crushed by time. 'Perhaps they see their own future in Yoo Gye-yoon.'
Jaekyung had not yet felt it himself, but he had heard many times about the hardships of Cultivation. Of those who set their minds on the Immortal Path, only one in a thousand successfully enters it. Of those, only one in a hundred continues the arduous training for decades to knock on the door of Foundation Establishment.
The important thing here was not that one in a hundred reached Foundation Establishment, but that one in a hundred reached the point of knocking on the door. The firmly shut door does not open for just anyone. How many of them would reach Foundation Establishment and earn the right to challenge higher realms?
Who could say, but it was certain to be a small number. Thinking this way, the people before him seemed remarkable. But even they were ultimately one in a thousand, no, one in ten thousand, gazing at the final Core Formation.
They were one of those who struggled desperately to become the one camel that passes through the eye of a needle.
“Let's set aside the heavy talk for now. How is everyone's Cultivation coming along?”
“What could have changed in just three months? I am still wandering in a fog.”
“The wind is bound to blow someday, so as long as you do not regress, the path will eventually open.”
“I can only hope that wind blows sooner rather than later.”
As Yoo Gye-yoon skillfully changed the mood of the meeting, lively conversation resumed. It was mostly about various difficulties in Cultivation, but unlike before, it was more like lighthearted grumbling.
“Our junior from the demon race is quiet. No need to be so reserved. This small gathering was originally created to chat freely. If there's anything you want to say or ask, don't swallow it.”
Woo Do-baek said with a smile. Did he feel a slight sense of responsibility as the one who had invited Jaekyung to the Twilight Gathering? In any case, Jaekyung did not refuse Woo Do-baek's kindness.
Feeling the curious gazes pouring in from all around, he carefully opened his mouth.
“To my seniors, I am ignorant of the Immortal Path, and it was difficult enough just to understand your words, so I had no room to speak.”
“There is no need to be so humble. It might be different in the outside world, but there is no need for that here.”
“I thank you for your generosity, Seniors.”
With permission granted, Jaekyung no longer held back.
“Seniors. A little while ago, when you were talking about the demon race from the Prosperous Treasure Guild, you mentioned something called the Transformation Secret Art. What is that?”
Jaekyung's gaze turned to Chae Yeon-ri. From the moment he heard those words, he had found it hard to contain his curiosity. Transformation Secret Art?
Just from the name, it sounded like a secret art to change one's appearance. If so, did that mean he could change into a human form if he learned it? If asked whether he had any lingering attachments to his past life, he would probably shake his head.
But if asked whether he wanted to become human, Jaekyung felt he would have to think about it. Because in this life, he had become a snake and a spirit beast, but he still considered himself a person. To be precise, Jaekyung did not specifically define himself.
He considered himself a snake, a spirit beast, and at the same time, a person. The first two were his identity in this life, and the last was an identity carried over from his past life. He did not deny any of them; he affirmed them all.
That was why he felt a strong curiosity about the Transformation Secret Art. If he could learn it, he wanted to.
“The Transformation Secret Art is a secret art that allows other races to take on the form of humans. If you master it, you can become a perfect human, at least in appearance.”
“Why do other races train in such a secret art? Is it for interacting with humans?”
“That's not entirely without reason, but it's more likely because of the Transformation Tribulation. After all, having prior experience with transformation would surely be helpful when facing the tribulation.”
Woo Do-baek added a word to Chae Yeon-ri’s comment.
“It is a strong rumor, but nothing is certain. Little is known about the cultivation of the demon races. Especially something like the Transformation Tribulation... to us, it's like a story from another world.”
Even though Woo Do-baek had openly contradicted her, Chae Yeon-ri didn't mind and agreed.
“That's right. I have heard that great powers who have overcome the Transformation Tribulation are extremely rare, so what would people like us know about it? I just think this rumor is plausible. If one can achieve transformation even through a secret art, wouldn't that experience itself be a valuable reference?”
“Of course, it could be. Who knows? Haha.”
After thinking for a moment, Jaekyung asked again.
“Seniors. Then why do other races undergo transformation? From what you've said, it seems they have to endure a dangerous tribulation. I am curious why they would go to such lengths to achieve transformation.”
“That is because the human race is the number one race of the Immortal Path.”
Yeo Jang-gyeong answered immediately in a tone full of pride. Then, once again, Woo Do-baek added a word.
“To be more precise, it is to gain the help of the human legacy.”
“The human legacy?”
“Yes. The true power of the human race is the legacy left behind by countless senior cultivators over long ages. There are cultivation techniques, of course, and also the Hundred Arts of Cultivation. Shall we take the Dao of Alchemy as an example?”
The Dao of Alchemy. An art of combining all sorts of materials from heaven and earth to create medicinal pills. The profoundness of its knowledge is so deep that it is considered one of the foremost among the Hundred Arts of Cultivation, even regarded as a Dao in itself.
It is said that those with deep cultivation in the Dao of Alchemy are revered as Great Grandmasters of Alchemy in the cultivation world, transcending their own cultivation realms. That is how important the Dao of Alchemy is to the human race.
“In the beginning, humans, just like other races, would have recklessly put anything that looked good into their mouths. In the process, they would have wasted the value of treasures and suffered harm by consuming the wrong things. Then, as such experiences accumulated over a long period, someone began to classify and record which things were helpful and which were harmful to Cultivation.”
No one knew how deep the history of the human race was. Some said that the ancient era was the beginning of history, while others speculated that there was a distant past that was not even passed down through oral tradition. And yet another said that the legacy of the human race was its history itself.
There had been countless attempts over countless ages. There were also countless successes and failures, but all of them were valuable.
“There were herbs that were previously considered of little value. But one day, someone discovered that by properly combining those herbs, they could help accumulate spiritual energy. Herbs that had been nothing more than worthless weeds for thousands, no, tens of thousands of years, suddenly became cultivation resources in an instant.”
Woo Do-baek's story was long, but it was not boring. On the contrary, it was quite fascinating. At first glance, it seemed like irrelevant talk unrelated to the question, but Jaekyung had a faint idea of what Woo Do-baek was trying to say.
“There is something called the Foundation Establishment Pill. As its name suggests, it is an item that helps cultivators in the late Qi Refining Stage who have hit the bottleneck of Foundation Establishment to reach the Foundation Establishment stage. Today, the Foundation Establishment Pill is considered an essential treasure for reaching Foundation Establishment. All sorts of bloody battles are fought over it.”
At that point, a few people showed a slight reaction, as if smiling. It seemed the story about the Foundation Establishment Pill had stirred some nostalgia in them.
“But was there such a thing as the Foundation Establishment Pill from the very beginning? Of course not. The Foundation Establishment Pill was also devised by some genius senior in the distant past. That senior deserves to be called the savior of the human race. Without that person, there would be no Foundation Establishment Pill today, and the human race would not have wielded its current influence in the cultivation world.”
This was the importance of a legacy. No peerless genius can rise up and reach the heavens on their own. There must be a foundation, and for the human race, that foundation was its legacy.
“Why do other races go through transformation to obtain a human form? It is to enjoy the benefits of the human legacy.”
“Don't other races, for example, the demon races, have such legacies?”
“As you are also from a demon race, you would know, but are all demon races the same?”
Jaekyung shook his head. He did not have a head to shake at the moment, but his spirit conveyed the sentiment, and Woo Do-baek understood.
“That's right. They are grouped under the broad name of demon race, but a quick look reveals that they are all different from one another. Then what about spirit beasts? It's the same. Some spirit beasts have wings, and some have tails. Some have one head, and some have many. Their physical structures are so varied, so how can they be called the same spirit beast?”
The physical body is by no means everything in Cultivation, but it is certainly one of its great foundations. If even a trivial flaw can cause one to fall off a cliff on the Immortal Path, what more needs to be said about the physical body?
“Since they are not the same, they cannot communicate with each other. So what meaning would a legacy have? The ten-thousand-year legacy of the Black Tortoise is worth less than a single earthworm on the ground to the Blue Bird.”
The human legacy is the fruit of countless individuals' endless research and interaction over countless ages. Endless research and interaction. Among them, interaction is the key.
No matter how hard one tries inside a small well, the size of the result cannot exceed the well. But the fruits of labor accumulated in the wide world outside the well can become as large as the world itself.
'I see.'
Jaekyung finally understood completely. The legacy of the demon races was bound to be meager. They could never escape their wells.
Even if that well was several times larger than a normal well, in the end, a well is just a well.
“If one achieves transformation, can other races enjoy all the benefits of the human race?”
“Not all of them. Even if they achieve transformation and take on a human form, their essence does not change. But they can enjoy some of them. Isn't that alone worth the risk of transformation for the other races?”
Jaekyung fully agreed with that. To take himself as an example, right now he had no other way to cultivate besides eating and sleeping. But what if he could ingest human cultivation resources, for example, medicinal pills?
His cultivation speed would become as fast as a ship with a favorable wind.
“Returning to the main topic of the Transformation Secret Art, it's not particularly valuable. That's likely because the number of those who wish to cultivate it is fixed. If you try to obtain it, you can find it without much difficulty, but if you try to get it openly, you will have to pay a considerable price.”
Jaekyung understood immediately. In short, it was a stone to those who didn't need it, but a jewel to those who did.
“Also, one's cultivation level must be at least at the Foundation Establishment stage to practice it. For a spirit beast, that means you have to be a Great Spirit Beast.”
“I see.”
It was only a matter of curiosity for now, so he wasn't disappointed. Even if he learned the Transformation Secret Art now and took on a human form, what use would it be other than to gaze at his reflection in the water and get lost in sentiment? Jaekyung thanked Woo Do-baek and Chae Yeon-ri for their kind explanation.
And a little while later, when he felt the seniors had talked enough amongst themselves, he asked another question.
“Seniors. Is there perhaps a way to hide one's aura?”
“There is.”
“It’s easy. Just use the Aura Concealment Art.”
As if he had asked what one plus one was, answers immediately came from all around. Jaekyung was delighted and asked about the Aura Concealment Art, and the kind seniors explained it in detail. According to their explanation, the Aura Concealment Art was not some great secret method, but a simple trick for handling one's energy.
However, while the method itself was simple, how skillfully one could use it depended on individual ability, so its effect varied greatly depending on who used it. It was like how, even if two people throw a punch in the same way, one's is a ridiculous flail, and the other's is a sharp punch.
“The method is simple.”
The kind and admirable seniors went ahead and taught him how to use the Aura Concealment Art on the spot. Jaekyung expressed his gratitude again and again as he received the seniors' teachings. The Aura Concealment Art was fundamentally a trick for handling spiritual energy, so Jaekyung, who had already mastered spiritual energy sensitivity, was naturally able to use it.
In the Garden of Remembrance, he had no choice but to exist as a spirit, so he couldn't check if he was doing it correctly, but it still didn't feel very difficult. 'It's certainly not hard. Of course, getting used to it will be another matter.'
If he tried to use it right away, he probably couldn't even fool Cheong-o, but what mattered was that he had taken the first step. With consistent practice, it would surely be a great help in hunting.