Jaekyung considered himself a lucky one. Of course, the days when he struggled just to get by day to day were difficult, but looking back, that period was not very long. He thought a day might come when he would reminisce about that time and think of it as just a brief moment, or a fleeting instant.
The hard times had already passed, and now he could leisurely devote himself to Cultivation in an environment that could not be better. Unlike these… pitiable Seniors before him.
“I can’t even remember the last time I was able to properly focus on my cultivation.”
Yeo Jang-gyeong let out a lamenting grumble.
“Still, won’t all this hardship become merits? You’ll be able to exchange them for the sect’s cultivation resources later, so can’t you just think of it as preparing for the future?”
Choi Ju-tang soothed Yeo Jang-gyeong with words that were hard to tell if they were comfort or a scolding. He, a mountain sect cultivator, and Yeo Jang-gyeong, a sect cultivator, were in opposite situations, and so while they envied each other, they also felt a sense of pity for one another.
A mountain sect cultivator has freedom but no backing, so they must be cautious with every step. A sect cultivator has backing but no freedom, so they must move according to the sect’s orders even if they do not wish to.
It would not be easy for anyone to judge which was better, but these two would occasionally grumble about each other’s situations, just like now. Listening to their tales of woe, Jaekyung felt that life in the human territories was quite harsh. Resources were scarce, but cultivators were overflowing, so schemes and struggles between them never ceased.
When he had heard Choi Ju-tang’s story about almost dying after encountering a demonic cultivator, Jaekyung thought the ruthlessness of the human cultivation world was no less than the wilds outside the human territories.
'Who knows.
Maybe it’s the other way around.' Jaekyung respected and revered these senior cultivators, but that was within the Garden of Remembrance. Here, they were good Seniors and teachers.
But outside the Garden of Remembrance, in the Azure Abyss Realm? Who could say? For all he knew, these people who were harmless and good cultivators here could be vicious fiends who murdered and plundered outside.
Choi Ju-tang said he met a demonic cultivator, but in truth, he could have been the demonic cultivator himself. Surviving as a mountain sect cultivator was so tough, could he really have kept his hands clean of blood until now? If they were stained, was there not a single drop of an innocent’s blood among the blood on his hands?
Who could know? So Jaekyung neither believed nor judged hastily. Here, he remained a good listener and a quiet junior.
He listened attentively to the Seniors' stories and occasionally threw in questions. Although his cultivation was subpar, the three senior cultivators of the Twilight Gathering treated him as a junior with a promising future. They had shown such tendencies before, but their treatment of him improved even more after Jaekyung planted the spiritual seed.
In their eyes, Jaekyung was already a Foundation Establishment, no, a Great Spirit Beast in the making.
“Junior Jaekyung, you seem to have made some progress in your cultivation.”
Woo Do-baek, who had been quietly watching Yeo Jang-gyeong and Choi Ju-tang’s back-and-forth for a while, said as he looked at Jaekyung.
“Yes. I had a small achievement recently.”
He had been wondering when they would notice, and as expected, Woo Do-baek was the first to realize. But seeing as he was only bringing it up now, it seemed he had been unsure.
It appeared that since a spirit was merely a manifestation of the mind, guessing a change in one’s realm just by looking at the spirit was not an easy task, even for a mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator.
“A small achievement, you say. If you don’t intend to embarrass your seniors, you should put away such modesty.”
“Dao Friend Yeo is right. By the way, your cultivation speed is quite fast. At this rate, won’t you become a Great Spirit Beast in no time?”
Yeo Jang-gyeong and Choi Ju-tang could not hide their surprise. They recalled the time Jaekyung first showed up at the gathering. When was that?
Three years ago? Four years ago? It seemed a bit longer than that, but in any case, it felt like a short time to them.
“I wish that were the case… but it’s not as easy as it sounds.”
Jaekyung tactfully trailed off, feigning a bitter tone. He doubted these senior cultivators would feel jealous of a humble spirit beast junior, but it was better to be careful if he could. 'After I become a Great Spirit Beast…
I won’t have to be so guarded like I am now.' According to the stories he had picked up, in the human cultivation world, the Qi Refining Stage was as common as stones on the ground.
Those who reached the late Qi Refining Stage and knocked on the door of Foundation Establishment were treated as promising prospects who could be looked forward to, but even that was not applicable if they were too old.
Of course, it was a different story for the truly promising ones who were being intensively nurtured by cultivation factions like sects or cultivation families, but they were rare existences, not even a handful among the countless Qi Refining cultivators, so they were not worth mentioning.
Therefore, one had to reach the Foundation Establishment stage to finally act as a true cultivator. Only those who reached this realm received the minimum respect a cultivator should receive and were evaluated as proper ‘manpower’. Jaekyung thought the world outside the human territories would be similar.
When he was an ordinary beast, spirit beasts seemed like beings that roamed the heavens, but once he became a spirit beast himself, he realized that a spirit beast was, after all, just a stronger beast. 'Back then, I felt like I had the whole world.' When he became a spirit beast, it felt like he had achieved something great.
He thought he could live proudly in the cultivation world that had felt so distant, and that a smooth path would unfold before him. But reality only taught him that the sky was higher than it looked. 'How will it be this time.'
How could one know the scenery of a peak one has not climbed, but one thing was clear. Once he became a Great Spirit Beast, he would be able to converse with these Seniors as an equal. Not as a junior, but as a friend walking the same path.
And that day, though he had just spoken of it as being indefinitely far away… in truth, it did not seem so far off. * Jaekyung, who was absorbed in contemplation before the elixir water as always, vaguely felt that the time had come and left his nest.
Each time his massive 40-meter body stirred, a large ripple spread as if a wave had crashed. Clueless fish were swept up in the rough currents and lost consciousness, while the others fled in fright. It was a pity, but still, it was much better than before.
Back when Jaekyung couldn’t control the heat of his spiritual seed and suffered from the heat himself, just being near him would make the water boil, and if he passed by closely, the fish would be cooked on the spot. 'I thought there was no solution... I really never imagined it.'
Jaekyung had constantly contemplated and worried about the spiritual seed's heat problem himself, and he had sought advice from the senior cultivators of the Twilight Gathering, but he could not find a suitable answer. Just when he was thinking he might have to give up, something completely unexpected happened.
The time for molting came upon him at some point, just like before, and Jaekyung, who had anticipated it, skillfully endured the pain and completed his molting. But after finishing the molt, he realized that the dreadful heat was no longer there. It wasn’t that the spiritual seed had withered, nor had the heat from his body disappeared.
His body, after the molting, had changed, no, adapted to become more suitable for the spiritual seed. It was an unexpected stroke of luck, and a joy. For a moment, Jaekyung suspected that he might not be an ordinary snake, but he soon dismissed such a hopeful suspicion.
'Just looking at that snake that was my parent, I can tell. There's nothing special about my bloodline. But just because I wasn't special at birth doesn't mean I can't become special for the rest of my life.'
Jaekyung thought that his bloodline might have undergone some degree of mutation as he became a spirit beast and went through various experiences. Take molting for example; the first molt he experienced did not have such a wondrous effect. As he grew and changed, various effects began to attach themselves to his molting.
'It will change again once I cross the Great Spirit barrier.' On another note, Jaekyung, who had been growing steadily and had just grown a little more through a recent molting, was finally able to overcome the wall that had blocked him for years. In terms of human cultivation realms, he had entered the late Qi Refining Stage.
Although he had only crossed one minor realm, Jaekyung could clearly feel his power had grown stronger. He felt that he could now fight the masters of the territories head-on without being pushed back. This was not arrogance, but rather a conservative estimate.
If they fought purely with physical combat, Jaekyung was confident he could defeat any of the territory masters he had seen. 'I expected it, but as I thought, breaking through the wall doesn't grant new abilities.'
Although he knew in his head that the possibility was slim, Jaekyung had secretly hoped that he would gain a special ability when he broke through the wall.
He didn't even hope for an ability like controlling water, like the catfish that was once the master of the spiritual spring, and had thought it would be nice to get any moderately useful ability, but even that was too much to expect. 'No. Strictly speaking, I do have an ability.' And that ability was, to become hot.
It was a very simple ability that only required him to draw out the spiritual energy of the spiritual seed… Naturally, it had no practical use at all. Still, Jaekyung believed that this humble ability would one day become useful.
It was not a baseless belief; he had his reasons. If it was an ability manifested by drawing out the spiritual energy of the spiritual seed, wouldn't this ability also grow stronger as the spiritual seed grew larger and more powerful? Ssssk- As he was moving, lost in thought, a sound of urgent movement caught Jaekyung's attention.
He looked to see what it was and saw an aquatic spirit beast that generally resembled a stingray but had six tails, flapping its elongated wings like a fly and fleeing in a hurry. It was obvious what it was fleeing from.
'Hmph.'
He glanced at the creature, which occasionally looked back as if to see if it was being followed, and Jaekyung headed towards the surface of the water again. No aquatic spirit beast blocked his path, and there was no aquatic spirit beast that did not flee upon seeing him.
After crossing the wall, Jaekyung had become the master of the spiritual spring in the true sense. However, he did not monopolize the spiritual spring like the catfish, and he gave all aquatic spirit beasts the freedom to come and go. But is there anything in the world that is only good?
Jaekyung gave the aquatic spirit beasts the freedom to enter and exit the spiritual spring, but in return, he occasionally hunted them to receive his due. In a way, it was a tax, but fortunately, no one complained.
* “Here.”
Having hunted a suitable aquatic spirit beast on his way out of the water, Jaekyung handed it over to Mook-soo as usual and received two spiritual fruits.
“Anything unusual?”
It was a question he always asked whenever they met, but it was not just a casual question. For the past few years, this question had become a necessary one.
Wooo- “Good.
That’s a relief.” Ever since Jaekyung and Cheong-o stole the Fire Crystal, this area had rarely seen a quiet day, and there was always a sense of tension. This was because the master of the territory from which the Fire Crystal was stolen, a hippo-like spirit beast, began to frequently leave its own territory to vent its anger.
'It was a relief it didn't come all the way here.' The distance between the hippo's territory and Jaekyung's spiritual spring was far, and thanks to the several territories in between, Jaekyung did not have to experience the attack of the enraged hippo.
The masters of the other territories would not just stand by and watch their domains be invaded, so no matter how angry the hippo was, it could not run wild as it pleased.
According to Cheong-o, a few times it really couldn't control the heat in its head and rammed into other territory masters, but in the end, it returned to its own territory, fuming. In any case, because that hippo creature caused such a huge disturbance, the atmosphere in this area had been grim for several years.
And that grimness was still being maintained, so Jaekyung always advised Mook-soo and Cheong-o to be careful. The hippo creature would not dare to come here, but wanderers who were spurred on by the commotion could show up here at any time.
Before, he had no choice because of his body's heat, but even after finishing his molting, Jaekyung still stayed in the spiritual spring and avoided going out as much as possible for that reason as well. It wasn't that he was afraid of such vagrants, but there was no need to get caught up in a commotion for no reason.
There was plenty of prey he could hunt comfortably in the water, after all.
“Where’s Cheong-o?”
Wooo- “You don’t know?” After learning that the hippo was rampaging all over the place, Cheong-o had become more cautious and rarely wandered far. Even when he hunted occasionally, he would only do so around the spiritual spring.
He had left without even telling Mook-soo where he was going?
'That's strange.
Could he be being chased by some foul-tempered monstrous bird somewhere?' He thought it was unlikely for that cautious fellow, but you never knew, so he was slightly worried. Normally, he would have just exchanged the spiritual fruit and returned to the water, but this time, he was concerned about Cheong-o, so he stayed a while longer.
How much time had passed? Just as the bright sky was getting dark, Cheong-o flew in, looking visibly frantic.
“Trouble! Big trouble! Jaekyung! Mook-soo! We’re in big trouble!”
Jaekyung, who had been coiled up next to Mook-soo with his eyes closed, quickly raised his body.
“What is it?”
Jaekyung was already feeling uneasy, so his words came out with an edge. He was used to Cheong-o's fussing, but the creature's reaction now was more severe than at any other time before. What on earth could it be?
What happened to cause such a reaction? Intuition, a premonition, some kind of instinctive feeling he couldn’t quite name, seemed to be ringing alarm bells in his mind.
“A monster! A monster is coming!”
“A monster? What monster?”
“I don’t know. It’s scary… scary like them from before.”
“Them?”
“The ones who ate the Immortals! It feels like them!”
For a moment, Jaekyung was about to demand what he was talking about, but seeing Cheong-o looking half out of his mind, he swallowed the words he was about to spit out and racked his brain. 'A Great Spirit Beast? A Great Spirit Beast?
Or a Foundation Establishment cultivator?' For Cheong-o, who had seen territory masters and all sorts of demon races, to call something a monster and be so terrified, the approaching monster must be at least of that level. But why would such a being come here?
And if it was coming, where exactly was it headed? 'No, that's not what's important right now.' Should he hide?
A human cultivator at the Foundation Establishment stage with divine sense would be one thing, but even the detection ability of a Great Spirit Beast could not be ignored. Could he hide in the spiritual spring and conceal his aura with the Aura Concealment Art to avoid being detected? But then what about Cheong-o and Mook-soo?
As his mind raced with complicated thoughts, Jaekyung sensed something and abruptly raised his head.
'That is...'
Far in the distance, he felt an intense presence looming like a mountain. And that same presence was getting closer and more intense in real-time.