Once the order was given, everything moved swiftly. People acted as though their lives depended on Father’s every word, and in truth, they probably did.
By evening, I was already looking at an object called a Salamander’s Tongue. It was a long, red substance that gave off heat on its own.
I understood why the nobles had been so appalled. This was no ordinary tongue. It was, in a sense, a concentrated mass of pure Fire Qi.
“Senior.”
Thalia glared at Viten.
“Does that look like an appropriate toy for someone the Young Master’s age?”
“It is too dangerous. He could get burned.”
With Lily joining in, Viten had nowhere left to turn.
“I only mentioned it in passing. How was I supposed to know it would turn out like this?”
He protested in a dispirited tone before finally raising the white flag.
“Sorry.”
Viten looked as dejected as a man who had committed a crime.
You do not need to be so downcast, Viten. You are my benefactor.
I was not joking. From this moment onward, my fate had reached a crucial turning point.
Here was irrefutable proof. Proof that this world was wholly different from my previous one, and proof that the Cold Yin Severed Meridian was not incurable.
The object of awe I had spent my entire life searching for was before my eyes, and I regretted deeply that I alone could see it without Master.
“Young Master.”
Lily approached and spoke carefully.
“You see the heat haze rising from it, right? If it touches your hand, it will hurt. It will hurt.”
“Hurt’s okay.”
“No, it will hurt so much that tears will spill. The Young Master must not get hurt, so I will put this in the storeroom first. All right?”
“No!”
I pulled the container holding the tongue to my chest. After all the trouble I had gone through to obtain it, there was no way I would give it up.
“Young Master, if you give that to me, I will bring you lots of Lava Elemental cores later! This many!”
Viten tried to coax me with a lie. It was a clever strategy based on the fact that I had shown interest in Lava Elemental cores.
An ordinary child might have fallen for it, but unfortunately for you, Viten…….
“I am sorry, Young Master.”
Thalia lowered her head.
“Please forgive my rudeness.”
It seemed she intended to take the tongue from me by force. If a child’s safety came before everything else, it was an unavoidable choice.
Now, the moment of decision had come.
For a trained knight, taking one object from a child’s hands was no difficult task. It would soon happen to me as well, since I had yet to recover my strength.
‘Move, Ivan.’
Before Thalia could reach out, I commanded Ivan through my will.
RATTLE.
THUD—!
A loud noise rang out behind them. Ivan dropped his head—his helmet—onto the floor, and all three turned at once.
“What was that?”
GULP.
Taking advantage of the opening, I swallowed the tongue whole. Then I summoned the True Fire of Samadhi and incinerated it inside my stomach.
Master once said that whenever Daoists found something good for the body, they first shoved it down their throats.
Fire Qi flared like a wildfire, coursing along my qi and blood into every corner of my body. Beads of cold sweat formed at my temples, and my tongue burned as though it had been seared with a branding iron.
“Young Master!”
Lily let out a piercing scream.
“S-Spit it out! Quickly!”
Viten was so startled that he stuttered, while Thalia used lightning-fast hands to force my mouth open.
But I had already burned the tongue away with the True Fire of Samadhi, leaving not even a trace behind. Instead, immense heat was erupting volcanically from the pores across my entire body.
And my judgment had been correct.
I had attained all the enlightenment I could need in my previous life. All I required now was a supply of qi.
“Young Master, are you all right? It does not hurt, does it?”
“No owie.”
What pain? A new realm was opening wide before my eyes.
“Sir Viten, could you fetch some water? Not hot water—cold water!”
At Lily’s request, Viten bolted for the kitchen. Perhaps because of his original sin, it was as though his feet had grown wings.
Meanwhile, Lily felt over every part of my body, checking for anything unusual.
“You must tell me if you are hurt. Do you understand?”
“Yep!”
This was why one could not take one’s eyes off a child, even for a moment.
Contrary to Lily’s worries, I was in the midst of a fortuitous opportunity.
It was probably similar to molting. Just as an insect was most vulnerable when changing from a pupa into an adult, a Daoist was most vulnerable when leaping into the next realm.
How vulnerable?
Even a well-meaning touch could throw my qi and blood into disorder, causing qi deviation.
I could die.
But the highest realm I had reached in my previous life was the Incarnation Realm.
I knew every detail of the qi disorder that occurred when breaking through to the Foundation Establishment Realm.
Inside my head, the assault on the next realm was in full swing. Yet at the same time, I could still play the innocent Young Master before Lily.
With tears in her eyes, Lily checked my condition for a long time. At last, after confirming that nothing was wrong, she pressed a hand to her chest in relief.
I did not want to frighten her.
But when I did not know when the Cold Yin Severed Meridian might seize again, how could I simply watch the tongue be locked away in storage?
I had learned in my previous life that if I did not seize an opportunity when it came, it was no opportunity at all.
I could feel the Fire Qi gradually settling into place. Obtaining the tongue had been the hardest part. From now on, I only needed to control the turbulence in my qi and blood. At the latest, my breakthrough would be complete before dawn.
Everything was proceeding exactly as I intended, so everyone could rest easy.
“Y-Young Master?”
“Mm?”
I answered calmly. But Lily’s expression was anything but calm. She pointed at me and cried out.
“Fire is coming out of your eyes!”
…What?
***
Chris was in an especially bad mood today. In truth, he had not been in a good mood at all lately.
The main culprit was the bastard who had not even been on the family tree until two years ago.
Iden Esterji.
Chris had surely used enough poison on Mother, yet that bastard had crawled into the world anyway.
He had even awakened an Awakened Ability in the process.
The ability itself was nothing special. In fact, it appeared to be the type that consumed its own bearer. But Awakened Abilities were prone to evolving in new directions as their wielders grew older.
The very fact that Iden had awakened the rare Nature-Type ability twisted Chris’s insides.
There was no need even to mention how unpleasant their first meeting had been. If that bastard had simply swallowed the poison then, there would have been no more trouble.
“Stanis.”
“Yes, my lord.”
A black-haired boy named Stanis bowed to Chris. A glossy raven rested on his shoulder.
“Father visited that bastard’s palace?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Why?”
“Young Master Iden suffered a seizure of unknown cause. Father was so worried that—”
“Why?! Why does he only do that for him?!”
Chris grabbed the inkwell from his desk and threw it at the wall. Stanis did not so much as twitch an eyebrow, even though it narrowly grazed his cheek.
“Because of sympathy.”
He said.
“Sympathy blinds people’s eyes.”
Chris breathed harshly.
A few days earlier, Duke Drek had been leading his army to the ducal estate to hold a Victory Commemoration Ceremony. Chris and many nobles had gathered at the estate to await him.
But upon hearing that Iden, his third son, was ill, the Duke changed his route without hesitation.
“That is not all. I heard that he also bestowed a treasure from the vault on him on the spot. That prized Salamander’s Tongue.”
Chris panted as he glared at Stanis. His dark brown eyes were filled with rage, then gradually became soaked with fear.
“Will Father… Will Father abandon me?”
Stanis moved close to Chris.
“That could certainly happen, if you leave Young Master Iden alone.”
“B-But the assassination failed, and Father assigned two knights to him. What can I do now?”
“For the time being, you must refrain from direct attacks. Too much public attention is focused on him.”
“Then what? Do I just watch that bastard run rampant?”
“Leave it to me.”
He leaned close to the child’s ear and whispered softly.
“I will make sure you are never troubled by this issue again.”