***
Dan Se-min, too, looked back and forth in astonishment between her softly glowing hand and the silver scales risen on his own body.
'The Mark of the Naga?'
He had known the scales had the power to protect his body, but he had never imagined that even the Pale Hand Demonic Art, called an absolute demonic art, could not leave so much as a mark.
'Then again, they blocked the Sword Saint's shadowless sword, so maybe it's only natural.'
CLICK-CLICK. The scales vanished as though swept away, then seeped back into his skin, leaving a faint afterglow.
Dan Cheon-hwa slowly clenched her still white-glowing hand into a fist and asked.
"Do you know what those silver scales on your neck are?"
Dan Se-min shook his head.
"I know nothing beyond that they manifest in moments of crisis."
"That is the Mark of the Naga. The dragon's scales said to appear on the heirs of the dragon blood."
Dan Se-min raised a hand and touched the area around his neck.
The touch was cold and smooth, yet hard.
SWISH. The scales that had risen around his neck vanished.
"It is the instinct of the dragon blood, protecting itself from threats to its life."
"This is the first I have heard that such an ability runs in the clan."
"Of course it is. Until now it was nothing more than legend. Since the founder, you are the first to awaken the dragon blood."
"......!"
"The clan's founder, who was the world's best, was known as a master not only of the Blazing Heaven Divine Art but of outer arts as well."
Dan Se-min tilted his head.
He had read every martial arts book in the clan, but there was no record of outer arts.
"Was there an outer art handed down in the clan?"
"Yes. Is that not strange? That the founder, a master of outer arts, left no such martial art to the clan."
As she said, among the martial arts handed down in the Dan Clan there was no outer art worth boasting of.
And since the founder, the clan had never produced a great master of outer arts.
"That secret was most likely the Mark of the Naga. It is not a martial art that can be passed on, but an ability."
"Then are you saying the founder had the same ability as I do?"
Dan Cheon-hwa nodded.
Now that he thought of it, Dan Se-min had never once been seriously wounded while growing up.
Only now did he think he understood why.
'The same ability as the founder, who rose to the seat of the world's best.'
THUMP, THUMP.
Dan Se-min's heart began to burn hot.
Dan Cheon-hwa's eyes glinted sharply in warning as she spoke.
"But the Mark of the Naga is both a blessing and a curse. If you cannot control the power you have awakened, it is nothing but a curse. Had you been able to control that power fully, the people of your clan would not have died to the last."
"......"
Even with ten mouths, Dan Se-min would have had nothing to say.
If the people of the Dan Clan and the masters of the Diancang Sect had all died together, the cause was surely himself.
It was the result of failing to properly control the awakened power of the dragon blood.
"You must find a way to control the awakened energy of the dragon blood. If you cannot govern it, it is a talent without meaning."
If he could not control the power properly, this too would be no different from a curse.
"It will not be easy, of course. If it were easily controlled, it would be no great talent. The only thing you can lean on is the Blazing Heaven Divine Art, which the founder is said to have brought to complete mastery. You must not force the power. Even if it takes time, bringing the Blazing Heaven Divine Art to complete mastery and finding a way to control the dragon blood is the first priority."
At that, Dan Se-min frowned slightly and went on with a bitter look.
"I do not have that luxury."
"I know. Because of the severed meridian, is it not?"
He had never met this woman before, yet there was nothing about him she did not know.
Dan Se-min opened his eyes round as a rabbit's and asked.
"There seems to be nothing about me you do not know."
"Understand it as interest in my only nephew."
"Then do you know something about my severed meridian affliction as well?"
"Of course. The Supreme Yang Body is also a curse running in the clan. It likely has a connection to the Blazing Heaven Divine Art."
"What does that mean?"
"The Blazing Heaven Divine Art is a divine art for handling extreme yang qi. The Supreme Yang Body is born with fire qi by nature, so it is the ideal constitution for learning it. But the fire qi the Supreme Yang Body is born with is so strong that the meridians cannot bear it. They say the only one ever born with a Supreme Yang Body who still lived long was the clan's founder."
Since the founder had brought the Blazing Heaven Divine Art to complete mastery and lived long, there seemed to be no method other than training it.
"That is why I gave you the Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Crystal. It would help govern the fire qi. But since it instead brought the clan to extermination, it was a pointless act. The sins I have piled up in this world have grown again."
In truth, Dan Cheon-hwa had left long ago and held no attachment to the clan.
It was a decayed house in any case, sparse in offspring, and its line would have been cut off someday.
Her only regret was that a needless act of hers had provided the spark for the clan's destruction, and that she had brought about the death of the one half-brother she had cared for.
"I do not have a severed meridian, so I will not say that I understand the heart of one living on borrowed time. But a martial artist's fate is by nature to live on the edge of a blade, so you and I are not so different. Think of the people of your clan. Did they not reach death sooner than you, the one with a numbered life, simply for having set foot in the murim?"
It was not wrong.
'I, with the severed meridian, survived the longest.'
At the contradiction, a hollow laugh escaped Dan Se-min before he knew it.
"To what stage have you trained the Blazing Heaven Divine Art?"
"The fifth stage."
'The fifth stage already? It is too much. However outstanding the talent, this growth is too fast.'
If his martial arts alone grew strong while he could not govern the energy of the dragon blood, this child's existence would become a great calamity for the murim in time. The Demon Empress concluded that she had no choice but to watch over him at his side until Se-min could control the power perfectly.
"Good. Consume the Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Crystal."
"Now?"
"Yes. From the beginning, that crystal was given to your father so that you would consume it once your Blazing Heaven Divine Art reached the fifth stage. It will help you govern the fire qi."
Dan Cheon-hwa gestured for him to come closer.
"Absorbing the crystal's energy properly will take a fair amount of time. Consuming it in front of others is a very dangerous thing. I will stand guard from now on, so consume it at once."
As she said, carelessly consuming a spiritual medicine in front of others was very dangerous.
But could the Demon Empress be trusted?
'Strange.'
Perhaps because she was his own blood, though Dan Se-min had met the Demon Empress for the first time, not an inch of doubt rose in him.
Without hesitation he settled into a cross-legged seat, and the Demon Empress nodded with a satisfied look.
"Swallow it when you are ready. The extreme yin qi of the crystal is no different from poison, so do not let the thread of your concentration go slack. Absorbing even three tenths of its energy is a great feat, so you must not be greedy."
Se-min drew a small breath.
Then he took the Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Crystal from the necklace and gripped it in his hand.
A crystal of extreme yin holding the cold of ten thousand years.
Without a word he put it into his mouth.
His mouth felt as if it would freeze solid in an instant.
Using the true qi of the Blazing Heaven Divine Art, he bit down on the ice crystal.
CLACK. It broke on his tongue like shattering ice.
SHISHISH!
The cold qi that burst out from inside Se-min's body covered the room.
An energy that seemed to freeze the lungs at the mere drawing of breath.
Frost settled over the floor in an instant.
Dan Cheon-hwa immediately drew up her energy and placed a hand on Dan Se-min's shoulder.
"Focus on your breathing. One slip and you could fall into qi deviation!"
Se-min's body shook.
An intense chill climbing his spine.
At that moment, the hot extreme yang qi surging from his qi center began to stand against the crystal's energy.
As the extreme yin qi of the crystal spread outward once more as if exploding, the faint fire qi he had carried since birth rose like a flame from deep inside Se-min's body.
A great collision of extreme yang qi and extreme yin qi erupted.
The ice crystal melted away completely.
Dan Se-min's qi center froze over in an instant.
The extreme yin qi poured in like a waterfall and clawed at his meridians. His breath choked, and his heart grew sluggish as if submerged in ice.
When he tried to circulate the Blazing Heaven Divine Art, the fire qi rebounded and yin and yang crossed apart.
A phantom sound rang in his ears, and the Sword Saint stood there as if sneering.
'If I stop, I die.'
Se-min clenched his teeth.
'I can't avoid it. I have to accept the extreme yin qi.'
One moment of carelessness and he would fall into qi deviation.
On that boundary, Dan Se-min composed his will.
As he steadied his mind, the faint flow of qi became visible.
A fragile balance formed within the cold, and the rampaging extreme yin qi slowly subsided.
He let out a trembling breath.
'I've gotten through it. It's still precarious, but the path is open.'
The energy pouring from Dan Se-min's body began to find its balance as well.
As though the flows of yin and yang were meshing at daybreak, his chaotic qi felt as if it were being reorganized into another form.
Dan Cheon-hwa let out a hollow breath.
"......The energies have already begun to neutralize? I cannot believe it even as I watch."
An ordinary person would have had the extreme yin bore into his bones and would be screaming, maddened with pain.
But Se-min was enduring with his teeth clenched.
'If this goes well, he may even absorb five tenths of the crystal's energy.'
At that moment.
KRAAAK!
A ferocious energy shot up from Se-min's body as if exploding.
A biting blue energy spread deep once more.
"......What is this?! It is still not over."
Dan Cheon-hwa's eyes wavered.
Se-min went on absorbing the crystal's energy without stopping.
Four tenths, six tenths, eight tenths......
At last the crystal's energy scattered through every one of Dan Se-min's minor meridians and was absorbed entirely.
The energy radiating around Dan Se-min's body settled into a dark blue and began to merge with the extreme yin qi within his qi center.
With every breath Dan Se-min took, the energy in the room shook.
His breathing settled into stillness, and the light in his eyes shone blue.
"Th-this is......"
Dan Cheon-hwa stepped closer.
Her voice trembled.
"He absorbed the entire energy of the Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Crystal? That is the equivalent of a full sixty-year cycle. At this age his inner arts have already passed two sixty-year cycles?"
Dan Cheon-hwa murmured in a trembling voice.
"A terrifying talent. A talent like this...... I have never seen it, not in the demonic path, not in the orthodox sects. If he simply does not die, becoming the greatest of all time would not be impossible."
Dan Cheon-hwa shivered without realizing it.
It was a talent she had never seen before, and she could say no more.
***
It was a long while before Dan Se-min opened his eyes.
But although he had taken in all of the crystal's energy, it had not yet become fully one with his existing qi.
With every breath in, a cold energy seeped deep into his lungs, and with every breath out, that chill poured from his mouth.
He drew up the energy of the Blazing Heaven Divine Art.
A week passed like that, governing the extreme yin qi.
The extreme yin qi of the Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Crystal no longer ran wild.
As though it had been his from long ago, it circulated quietly between his qi center and his meridians.
"Whew......"
Se-min stepped outside and carefully raised a hand.
When he drew up the extreme yin qi and gathered his will, a chill mist bloomed above his palm.
The mist soon took shape and condensed into a clear, transparent ice sword.
"So this...... is a sword that gives shape to extreme yin qi."
He had made the ice sword while recalling the technique the Shadowless Sword Saint showed at the end.
It was not a sword made by the mind alone, like a mind sword.
But because it was an ice sword made to follow the nature of extreme yin qi exactly, it responded quickly to the flow of true qi.
Se-min recalled the last battle.
The duel with the Sword Saint.
The dozens of mind swords the Shadowless Sword Saint had floated in the air.
The mind swords he had formed from qi had flown freely through the air at a single gesture of his hand.
Even facing them again now he had no confidence he could evade them, and Dan Se-min shook his head.
Se-min closed his eyes and went back over that scene piece by piece.
But he had no confidence yet of reaching the realm of the mind sword.
Instead, there was a small enlightenment he had gained through that fight.
"Go."
At the short whisper, the ice sword above his palm rose into the air.
It was not as fast as the Shadowless Sword Saint's Sword Control Through Qi, but it moved at Dan Se-min's will, drawing a slow, clear path.
To the left, to the right. Sharp changes of direction were still impossible, but as far as his awareness reached, the sword did not stop and whirled through the air.
"Still slow."
Se-min frowned. A speed that could not be compared to the Sword Saint's sword control art. In a real fight, it was a movement a master could easily break with a single move.
When he withdrew his energy, the ice sword stabbed into the ground and shattered. As the cold fragments vanished, the temperature around him returned to normal as well.
Se-min slowly clenched his fist.
'Still...... I can see the path.'
It was a path of balancing it with the fire qi of the Blazing Heaven Divine Art and making it another weapon.
"I will have to refine it a little more."
He murmured low.
"Because if I am to become the world's best, the Sword Saint's shadowless sword will not be enough."