The man was called “Namgung Yeon.”
His mother was a member of the Sichuan Tang Clan, and his father was the head of the Namgung Clan.
He was, in every sense, a blessed child born between two powers of the murim.
It was a lineage and bloodline anyone might envy, yet Namgung Yeon himself was living under a terrible curse.
‘I’m back...... at the beginning again.’
His entire body felt horribly heavy.
He had thought he would live a little longer after becoming one of the greatest masters under heaven, but this time, too, he had met his death.
And now, the reality to which he had returned.
How many times had it been already......?
Namgung Yeon let out a sigh and searched his memories.
He was a regressor living an infinite life.
No, to be precise, he was a failure struggling to stop the destruction of Namgung and the righteous murim.
His hands and feet were cold, and his internal energy was severed, so even moving his body a little sent pain surging through him.
This pain meant one thing.
He had returned to the beginning again.
And on top of that......
“This is my last chance......?”
The time given to Namgung Yeon had run out.
His infinite regression had ended, and now only one final chance truly remained.
And that had been decided by one person.
He had been sent to save the world, yet the murim and his clan had already been destroyed more than thirty times.
Had he not grown indolent by taking advantage of living for eternity?
Or had even his will to save his clan now vanished completely?
The one who had granted Namgung Yeon an infinite life had spoken in such a disappointed voice.
And he sent Namgung Yeon back to the beginning once more.
To the time when Namgung Yeon had been terribly weak, and the Namgung Clan had looked down upon the world.
‘In the near future, Namgung will be destroyed. No...... the righteous murim will be swallowed whole.’
They called themselves demonic cultivators.
They claimed to be the ones carrying on the line of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, which had long since been destroyed.
Those who were secretly operating all across the Central Plains would soon plunge the murim into chaos.
The clan would burn to ashes, and every member of the household would die.
And that was not all.
The martial artists who had shouted of peace and justice would all be slaughtered.
Together with the imperial family, they would dye the rivers and lakes beneath heaven in blood.
“I do think it’s lacking...... but it’s not as though I made no preparations.”
The man, Namgung Yeon, knew.
He knew that one day, this regression would reach its end.
To be honest, his talent was not exceptional.
Through infinite regression, he had merely used an overwhelming amount of time to move ahead of others little by little.
But even that had its limits.
In the end, time alone could not save the murim or the Namgung Clan.
Then what was he to do?
Namgung Yeon came up with one ingenious plan.
<If talent will not do, then I will save Namgung with treasures, money, and peerless elixirs.>
Along with infinite regression, there was one other ability he possessed.
Engraved upon his soul was the [Infinite Storehouse].
The ability was very simple.
The ability to store items and retrieve them.
But he had realized that this storehouse possessed a special power.
Namely, that even if he lost his life and returned to the beginning, the items would not disappear.
Items placed inside the storehouse would absolutely never disappear unless his soul itself was extinguished.
Immediately after realizing this ability, Namgung Yeon changed his plan completely.
‘Until I was ready to save the clan, I went around gathering nothing but items.’
The items he gathered that way were stacked neatly inside the storehouse.
Even when his enemies destroyed Namgung.
Even when they killed his dear friends.
Even when they disgraced his family and completed a world of their own.
He silently filled the storehouse with items.
So he could become stronger.
So he could surpass the limits of his talent.
‘So this is the end.’
He did not know how far he could go.
Dozens, hundreds of regressions.
The information and wondrous objects he had gathered in that time.
Money and various materials.
He had no choice but to try using the things he had stuffed into the storehouse with gritted teeth, even at the cost of his life.
If he failed this time as well, well.
Perhaps his talent and destiny went only this far.
With a small sigh, Namgung Yeon made up his mind.
This time, he would hold nothing back.
There was no need to gather more items, either.
On the day this life ended, even his soul would be extinguished, and everything would disappear......
The time had come to take everything out and use it without stint.
‘I had originally meant to gather a little more, but it’s fine. For the rest, I’ll trust the experience I’ve built up and move forward.’
After letting out a small sigh, Namgung Yeon closed his eyes.
First, it was time to fix this feeble body that could do nothing.
***
[Infinite Storehouse]
Namgung Yeon closed his eyes and descended far below, into his own inner world.
Then he began to manifest the storehouse in the form most familiar to him.
[Storehouse]
[Available Items]
[Elixir Ingredients]
[Inner Core of the Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp - 16]
[Head of the Golden Flower Venom Snake - 31]
[…….]
[Armament Materials]
[Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron - 10 chunks]
[Meteoric Iron - 7 chunks]
[…….]
[Inner Cores, Elixirs]
[Small Rejuvenation Pill - 99]
[Great Rejuvenation Pill - 5]
[Purple Cloud Spirit Pill - 17]
[…….]
The storehouse was, in essence, an inner image, a thought-form he had used most familiarly throughout dozens, hundreds of regressions.
It was the form of visualizing items and manifesting them like a document.
That did not mean something truly translucent floated before his eyes, but it was an ability he could use in a similar way.
He had truly gathered them with vicious persistence.
The wealth he had collected while doing even despicable and cruel things.
He had met mysterious beings.
He had crawled into cursed places.
He had scoured the cold North Sea and the hot Southern Barbarians.
The storehouse he filled that way began to brim with all manner of goods, mysteries, elixirs, and wealth.
The process of filling the storehouse had been a continuous chain of pain, frustration, and challenge.
The storehouse he had filled while turning away from his own life, his family’s lives, his clan’s lives, and the lives of the righteous murim grew richer by the day, but......
Among the items gathered that way, the first thing he needed to do was already decided.
‘First...... this damned body.’
Namgung Yeon suffered from severed meridians.
It was an illness in which the energy meridians throughout the body did not naturally connect, making even breathing painful.
He had heard that such cases occasionally appeared among the bloodlines of martial artists...... but he had never imagined it would be him.
That was why no one entered this place.
‘Mother will visit soon. So before that, I should take the elixir that will completely change my body.’
[Infinite Storehouse]
[Heavenly Talent Spirit Pill]
A round sphere whose name meant that it would let one command a heavenly talent.
A legendary pill that changed one’s constitution and allowed one to reach the Heavenly Martial Body.
It was a unique pill, and an elixir refined at the very center of the Heavenly Lake.
It was the one and only elixir created over several decades, and also a divine object that was the sole key to making his talent bloom.
With this, not only would his severed meridians be cured, but his lacking talent would be completed as well.
He had gathered all the materials after ten deaths.
He had obtained permission after five deaths.
And he had refined this peerless elixir by devoting his final life to it.
The death of his previous round had been a life offered precisely to create this elixir.
“At least that’s fortunate...... If I’d received my last chance without completing it, I would never have been able to complete it.”
The faces of countless people flashed past him.
Those who had thrown away their lives for him.
Those who had used dirty, filthy moves to drag him down.
And even those who had rushed in to take his life.
They would not remember, but Namgung Yeon himself remembered clearly.
When they met again, how would the way they looked at him have changed?
‘It always began with contempt and scorn.’
It always took a long time to overcome those gazes, but this time would be different.
He had thought his emotions had simply been worn down through regression, but after living on, he found that was not the case either.
Or perhaps he was simply special.
Namgung Yeon turned his head and looked at the bronze mirror.
They said eyes could not lie, and the eyes of a man who had lived through hardship and adversity had become hollow.
Would the day ever come when emotion returned to those two eyes?
With a self-mocking smile, Namgung Yeon swallowed the Heavenly Talent Spirit Pill.
Gulp. The moment he put it in his mouth, the Heavenly Talent Spirit Pill melted away like cool water.
Namgung Yeon began to feel a prickling sensation all over his body.
The Conception Vessel and Governing Vessel slowly connected.
His energy meridians, which had been severed strand by strand, began to tangle together and join.
Until now, he had needed to devote quite a lot of time to this work.
But from now on, things would be different.
He would become stronger faster than anyone, and he would dominate Namgung even faster.
In order to prevent his death and his family’s.
‘Since this is the last time, I don’t want to fail.’
For the first time in a long while.
For the first time in a very long while, something called will and longing flared up inside him.
His had been a life of repeated failures.
He had improved after countless deaths, but it had also been a life far removed from success.
A vast treadmill that had repeated without any motivation at all.
Now that the wheel had begun rolling across the ground, should he not see where its destination lay?
Since he had come this far, he hoped that destination would be the place he wanted.
Making that resolve deep in his heart, Namgung Yeon opened his eyes.
His severed meridians had been cleanly healed.
And now, he was no longer the sick man despised within the Namgung Clan.
“From now on, I’ll have to solve everything with what’s in the storehouse.”
People? He could just buy them with money.
A divine object powerful enough to destroy the world?
He would buy that with money as well.
As for raising his realm...... he intended to solve that with the elixirs overflowing in his storehouse.
Behold.
At long last, the money-slinging was about to begin.
Namgung Yeon’s eyes shone fiercely.