"I'll come visit again."
Lee Hyun bade Wen Shenghe farewell and left the Earth Fire Cavern. The six months he had spent training in alchemy had been more enjoyable than he expected.
Now all that remained was the pill recipe for the Barrier-Breaking Pill.
'Five hundred merit points....'
Lee Hyun took out his retainer badge again.
That more or less settled what he would be doing for the time being.
***
One year later.
Tunnel No. 1.
Lee Hyun had returned to his old life as a Military Retainer, and whenever he came back on leave, he would visit Tunnel No. 1 like this.
As usual, he checked the spirit fields before finally harvesting ripe seedpods from the Yin Water Lotuses and ripe Stone Honey Peaches.
Crunch–
The moment he bit into a ripe Stone Honey Peach, a sweet, refreshing sensation swept through his entire body.
"Ah..."
Whenever he happened across spirit insect eggs, larvae, dead spirit insects, or the like, he tossed them into the breeding case he had built in the training cavern as casually as throwing away trash.
Today, Lee Hyun had come to the breeding case to dispose of a few small spirit insects and some eggs he had found in Spirit Field No. 1-6. He lifted the heavy lid.
Scrrrape–
"...Hm?"
Lee Hyun's hand stopped.
Something inside the breeding case was looking up at him.
"What are you?"
Lee Hyun cast the Faint Light Art.
Fwoom.
A fist-sized orb of light floated above the breeding case, brightly illuminating the interior.
Five small, round insects were huddled together atop a piece of stone. Their plump bodies had short legs, and small translucent wings were attached to their backs, undersized compared to their bodies.
Their fur stood out the most. Soft hairs patterned in alternating pale gold and black covered their entire bodies in a fluffy coat. The pitch-black eyes on either side of their round heads were unusually large and glossy.
'What the... bumblebees? Do bumblebees exist in this world too? Even if they do, there's no way they could survive in a place like this....'
They looked like bumblebees made even rounder.
As soon as the lid opened, they all placed their short forelegs against the wall of the case and raised their antennae in unison, like baby birds waiting for their mother to bring them food.
Spiritual qi was clearly flowing through their bodies. It was simply so faint that whenever Lee Hyun had used the Aura-Reading Art from outside the breeding case, their presence had apparently been buried beneath the qi of the soil and the other spirit insects.
'Did I ever put anything like these in here?'
No matter how hard he thought, he couldn't remember doing so.
'Were their eggs mixed in with something else?'
Lee Hyun dropped a dead spirit insect into the breeding case.
Plop.
At once, all five pairs of antennae turned toward the dead spirit insect.
A transparent liquid shot from the mouth of the nearest fellow like a bullet.
Pfft!
The moment the liquid struck the dead spirit insect, it stretched into sticky threads.
Pshh! Pshh!
The others joined in. Within just a few breaths, the dead spirit insect was completely wrapped in translucent mucus, and the fluffy insects climbed on top of it and began gnawing at its shell with their tiny mouths.
Crunch. Crunch.
"So you guys eat bugs?"
Come to think of it, most of what he had thrown into that case so far had been spirit insects and their eggs. If so, that explained how these creatures had survived in such a harsh environment. They had endured by feeding on the other insects.
After considering it for a moment, Lee Hyun picked up the smallest of the five between his fingers. Startled, the fellow buzzed its wings, but it neither bit him nor spat mucus. Instead, it moved its short legs and crawled onto the back of Lee Hyun's hand.
"You're not afraid at all, are you?"
Looking at it closely, it was surprisingly cute. Its round body made its rear sway slightly from side to side whenever it walked, and perhaps because its wings were too small for its body, whenever it tried to fly, it only managed to float one or two cheok (about 30–60 cm) into the air before settling back down.
'I have no idea what kind of spirit insect this is. I'll call them fuzzbees for now. More importantly, do these fellows only eat spirit insects and not spirit plants?'
Lee Hyun took the fuzzbee to Spirit Field No. 1-7 and set it on the branch of a Stone Honey Peach tree. A sweet, refreshing fragrance drifted from the ripe spirit fruits.
The fuzzbee moved its antennae for a moment.
Twitch.
Then it walked straight past.
This time, Lee Hyun cut open a Stone Honey Peach and held the flesh in front of it. The fellow touched the fruit once with its antennae, then turned away.
It was the same at the reservoir where the Yin Water Lotuses grew. Even when Lee Hyun split open a seedpod and placed the tender young seeds directly in front of it, the fuzzbee showed no interest.
Instead, after wandering among the lotus leaves for quite some time, its antennae suddenly perked up.
Pshh!
Mucus shot toward the underside of a lotus leaf. A rice-grain-sized spirit insect hiding beneath it was caught in the sticky liquid, and the fuzzbee quickly rushed over and gnawed it apart.
"Huh."
This time, Lee Hyun headed to Spirit Field No. 1-1.
When he opened the stone door, dense medicinal fragrances and toxic qi drifted out. Toxic dust released by the aged Bone-Rot Flowers and Purple Poison Orchids hung in the air like a faint mist.
Lee Hyun set the fuzzbee down on the soil near the entrance.
'Can it really withstand this toxic qi too?'
The fellow briefly drew in on itself. A little poisonous dust from the Bone-Rot Flowers settled on its golden fur.
Lee Hyun examined it with the Aura-Reading Art.
'There's no change in its qi.'
The time it takes to eat a meal went by.
The fellow was perfectly fine. If anything, it seemed bored as it wandered deeper into the spirit field, passing beneath the Purple Poison Orchids' long leaves and circling around the roots of the Yin Soul Grass. It rubbed itself against the soil around the Earth Vein Flowers for a while, but never took a bite from the leaves or stems of any spirit plant.
'Could it be....'
Still crouching, Lee Hyun followed behind it.
Before long, the fuzzbee stopped. Its antennae pointed toward the ground.
Pshh!
Mucus shot into the soil. The fellow rapidly scratched away the dirt with its forelegs.
Beneath it were three translucent spirit insect eggs.
Crunch. Crunch.
One egg vanished in an instant.
Lee Hyun's eyes gleamed.
'This fellow... couldn't I use something like this as a guard for the spirit fields?'
Of course, drawing a conclusion from a single test would be dangerous. Perhaps it simply wasn't hungry enough yet to eat spirit plants, or perhaps its diet would change once it reached a certain stage of growth.
Lee Hyun moved just that one fuzzbee into Spirit Field No. 1-5.
"Try living here for now."
The fuzzbee waved its antennae as though it understood.
Lee Hyun closed the stone door.
...
For the next several years, Lee Hyun continued observing the creatures whenever he visited Tunnel No. 1.
The results exceeded his expectations. They were especially fond of living spirit insects and eggs, and even when he deliberately starved them, they never touched the spirit plants. They also remained perfectly active amid the toxic qi of the Bone-Rot Flowers and Purple Poison Orchids.
Another interesting point was that the fuzzbees took to Lee Hyun quite well.
Whenever he opened the lid of the breeding case, they would swarm toward the edge even if he had no food, and when he held out his hand, several would naturally crawl onto his fingers or sleeves. Perhaps because Lee Hyun had been throwing food into the breeding case for so long, they had come to associate his scent or spiritual power with food.
Of course, not every individual was docile. Occasionally, one would bite his finger or spit mucus before trying to flee.
Lee Hyun killed those individuals and kept only the docile ones that hunted nothing but insects.
As the years passed, an interesting change emerged. Their population rose and fell over time, but at some point, most of the newly emerged young became more docile than the individuals he had first discovered.
More and more of them even climbed onto his hand first whenever he held it out.
'Could it be because I've kept only the ones that listen to me?'
He recalled the silver fox domestication experiment he had heard about in his previous life. The story went that after selecting only the least aggressive individuals to breed, a clear tendency toward friendliness with humans emerged within just a few generations.
He hadn't intended it, but it seemed he was doing something similar.
Still, he had no idea what their breeding cycle was like, how they developed, or how long they lived. His life as a Military Retainer made it impossible to observe them continuously, and Lee Hyun had no knowledge of spirit insects to begin with.
Even so, one thing was certain. The creatures were extremely useful in the spirit fields.
Before he knew it, Lee Hyun had released them into every spirit field from Spirit Field No. 1-1 through Spirit Field No. 1-7. Before, he had needed to inspect every leaf and root to check for damage from spirit insects, but once the fuzzbees became established, the number of pests dropped noticeably.
Whenever Lee Hyun entered a spirit field, a few fluffy balls would occasionally buzz over and land on his shoulders or head.
Plop.
"...Don't poop on me."
***
And so, the years Lee Hyun spent traveling back and forth to Tunnel No. 1 while serving as a Military Retainer reached fifteen.
During that time, Lee Hyun traveled not only to Hui'an Fort but to many other fortresses throughout the south. Profound Realm powerhouses like Zhao Bingyue appeared on several occasions, and skirmishes large and small never ceased along the border between Qianyang Kingdom and Yunze Kingdom.
He captured scouts, dealt with infiltrating masters, supported outposts in danger, and stopped martial artists who targeted military provisions.
Once Lee Hyun realized that his strength was a little too overwhelming, he actually began restraining his involvement so that he would not influence the course of the war between the two kingdoms too heavily. He feared that having too great an impact on a war in the mundane world might attract the attention of Kun Kingdom's cultivation world.
Even so, over the years, his merit points eventually surpassed six hundred. That was enough to buy the pill recipe for the Barrier-Breaking Pill, his original goal, and still have more than a hundred points remaining.
Merit points weren't the only thing he had accumulated.
During his travels throughout the south, countless martial arts manuals passed through Lee Hyun's hands. Some were secret manuals taken from fallen martial artists, while others were personal insights offered by captured masters in exchange for their lives. There were also martial artists indebted to Lee Hyun who showed him portions of their own martial learning.
At first, he studied any martial arts that caught his eye, but as his discernment grew with time, he naturally learned to separate the gems from the dross. Now, unless something was the supreme art of a Profound Realm master, he wouldn't even give it a second glance.
...
In a mountain valley a little over a hundred li (a little over 40 km) north of Hui'an Fort.
There was a broad clearing that had been abandoned long ago.
Thud!
The instant Lee Hyun's right foot struck the ground, his body shot forward half a jang (about 1.5 m).
But no second step followed.
His toes scraped diagonally across the ground, and his forward momentum vanished as if it had never existed. The next instant, he slid roughly one cheok (about 30 cm) to the left. He advanced another half step, lowered his body, twisted at the waist, and drove diagonally to the right.
Short, rapid movements flowed one after another without pause.
At most, he covered only one or two jang (about 6 m)with each movement. Most carried him less than a single step. Yet within the span of one breath, Lee Hyun's position changed several times.
《Square-Inch Step》.
Of all the footwork Lee Hyun had encountered, this was the supreme art he judged to be the finest when it came purely to close combat.
Its creator was Liu Baichuan, a Profound Realm martial artist who had made a name for himself in Qianyang Kingdom sixty years ago. Liu Baichuan had participated in invasions of Yunze Kingdom since his youth and spent decades fighting aboard swaying ships and narrow decks. It was said that he placed little value on lightness skills that only displayed their true worth across broad, flat ground.
The essence of Square-Inch Step lay in momentary bursts of acceleration and abrupt stops, minute shifts of one or two cheok (about 30–60 cm), continuous changes in direction, and quickly recovering from a compromised stance.
Thud!
Lee Hyun shot forward,
Whoosh!
and in the next instant, he had already slid sideways and was straightening his upper body. Had an opponent been standing before him, he would have dodged the attack while simultaneously slipping within range of his sword.
"Not bad."
Square-Inch Step suited Lee Hyun's Primordial Body particularly well.
Martial artists had to draw internal energy from their dantian and send it through fixed meridians into their legs, but Lee Hyun could draw on the Primordial True Qi already spread throughout his body directly from whatever area he wished.
On top of that, his physical abilities were beyond comparison with those of a mortal.
His understanding of Square-Inch Step still fell short of its creator, Liu Baichuan, but judging by the outward movements alone, he had already surpassed Liu Baichuan by a wide margin.
Shff–
Lee Hyun abruptly stopped after sweeping across the clearing.
Clang!
An ordinary iron sword of the sort used by Yunze Kingdom soldiers slid free from his waist.
Alongside Square-Inch Step, the art Lee Hyun had devoted the most effort to mastering was 《One Ultimate, Six Swords》.
This swordsmanship was also something he had selected after comparing the supreme arts of countless Profound Realm masters.
The creator of One Ultimate, Six Swords was Chen Baishan, a Profound Realm swordsman known as the Iron Sword Elder in Qianyang Kingdom thirty years ago.
Among the Profound Realm masters of his generation, Chen Baishan did not possess especially deep internal energy. Instead, he spent his entire life delving into the principle of One Point Pierces the Surface, concentrating the same amount of internal energy into a single point to draw out greater power.
The result was One Ultimate, Six Swords. An anecdote from his later years even claimed that he once shattered the defensive technique of a late Qi Refining cultivator with a single sword strike and gravely wounded him.
"Hoo."
Light flowed along the blade of the iron sword in Lee Hyun's hand.
At a glance, it resembled the sword aura used by martial artists, but its essence was entirely different. What Lee Hyun had wrapped around the sword was spiritual power.
By drawing on several supreme arts, Lee Hyun had succeeded in creating something with spiritual power that resembled sword aura, and for convenience, he called it Spirit Aura.
Following the principles of One Ultimate, Six Swords, he compressed that Spirit Aura to the extreme along the blade.
Flash!
The sword cut through the air.
A finger-thick strand of Spirit Aura shot from the blade and pierced a perfectly smooth hole through the center of a cliff face a little over ten jang (about 30 m) away. The end of the hole could not be seen.
"Hm."
Lee Hyun lowered his sword.
'Martial arts really do suit me well. Is it because of the Primordial Body...? Now that my entire body has been tempered, I'm in a position similar to a body refiner.'
A body refiner was a cultivator who tempered the flesh through a body-refining art. Body refiners naturally excelled in close combat, and in that regard, they had quite a lot in common with the martial artists of the mundane world.
'I'll take my time studying the rest of the martial arts.'
The supreme arts possessed by Profound Realm masters were truly profound, so there was no way he could master all of them in a short period.
Lee Hyun had only been able to reach this level because, as a cultivator, his concentration, memory, and physical abilities far surpassed those of mortals.
...
Lee Hyun slowly looked around at the surrounding scenery.
He had obtained nearly everything he had wanted from Yunze Kingdom. He had learned alchemy, studied numerous martial arts while accumulating real combat experience, and gathered more than enough merit points to obtain the pill recipe for the Barrier-Breaking Pill.
"It's time to leave."