The place Geon-mu carried his packed gear to was a quiet mountain on the border between Gyeonggi Province and Gangwon Province.
Not even radio signals reached it, so the smartphone was all but useless.
He had switched it off in advance, since it looked likely to do nothing but drain the battery.
"They say people die without smartphones, do they not?"
An exaggeration, but not a false one.
Modern people lived in an environment where it was hard to leave the city, and harder still to leave the smartphone.
But Geon-mu was unlike those modern people.
He had lived for decades as a pure, hundred-percent man of nature.
After gaining Exceptional Dexterity it became easier still.
With nothing but wood and leaves he could build a shelter, start a fire, and create an environment in which a human could survive.
'I made the right choice picking dexterity.'
Geon-mu looked at the hut he had built with a pleased smile.
There was nothing to properly substitute for a pot or a frying pan, so he had picked those up at a supermarket.
"Good. Shall I begin?"
He dumped water and assorted medicinal ingredients into a large pot and set it boiling.
Once a thoroughly stewed smell began to rise, Geon-mu dropped the Great Azure Pill in.
It was a recipe he had been taught in return for rescuing the Medical Immortal from the Demonic Cult.
The method was so easy that they said a child could manage it once the ingredients were known, so Geon-mu had remembered it.
But he had never been able to put it to use.
The reason was simple.
'I had no skill with my hands.'
He could not manage even something simple enough that children would not fail at it.
For work like that, it had always been Cheon-bi, the celestial maiden, who did it for him.
'Come to think of it, should I have said goodbye to Cheon-bi before I went back?'
Geon-mu was a king of survival, but the first reincarnation had been truly hard.
He could not adapt to the martial world, grew more worn down by the day, and his distrust of people deepened as time went on.
That was when an immortal came down and extended a helping hand to Geon-mu.
That was Cheon-bi.
From building internal force to the postures and states of mind that martial arts required, she supported him thoroughly so that he could understand it all.
She had helped him a great deal, but that aside, she was a long way from a demure, well-bred lady.
If he had to compare her to something, she was much like a real-life high school girl.
-Geon-mu, that isn't how you do the mind method! Compose your state of mind a little more!
-Ugh! Geon-mu! I'll do it, so just leave it alone!
She made it thoroughly obvious that her father had shoved her into coming, and grumbled at every task she was given.
In the end, there were several times he could not hold back and fought with her.
'Well, we got a lot closer thanks to that.'
Because neither of them put on airs, they could act freely around each other, and he could be healed.
That must have been why she missed him so much that she asked him for the Ascension every single time.
The reason the Heavenly Venerable pressed the Ascension on Geon-mu owed a great deal to Cheon-bi's existence.
I really should have said goodbye before leaving.
Geon-mu smacked his lips and came back to the present.
'I really did make the right choice picking dexterity.'
Once again he savored his own decision.
A little later the water began to boil down and thicken, and then a foul smell came seeping up.
Geon-mu pulled the fire at the right moment.
"Done."
The Great Azure Essence, made from the Great Azure Pill.
At a passing sniff it felt like a failure, but that was precisely the sign that Geon-mu had made it properly.
[Crafting has been carried out successfully!]
[You have obtained the Great Azure Essence.]
[Great Azure Essence]
Type: Consumable Item
Grade: B-
Upon consumption, mana regeneration increases dramatically for 30 minutes.
However, maintaining a full mana state will cause an overload.
"There isn't enough information......."
It was the item he had been after, but the information window did not hold what Geon-mu had hoped for.
Geon-mu stared hard at the Great Azure Essence's status window.
Then, just as when he had chosen the random trait card, a change occurred.
[<Myriad Phenomena> sees through the <Great Azure Essence>.]
[Some information has been updated.]
Upon consumption, mana regeneration increases dramatically for 30 minutes.
However, maintaining a full mana state will cause an overload.
*After consumption, endure the overloaded state 10 times over 30 minutes.*
Upon success, you obtain the following.
-All stats rise by 10.
-You obtain the trait <Great Azure Internal Energy>.
The hidden function had come to light just as Geon-mu expected, but the 'real' purpose he wanted still did not appear.
"So it still doesn't show......."
What had been updated was nothing more than stats and a trait.
Geon-mu had made the Great Azure Essence purely for the sake of building his internal force.
'Now that I think about it, internal force isn't expressed anywhere.'
Geon-mu had assumed the status window could display anything at all.
Even if it could not, he had assumed that Myriad Phenomena would at least display the concept of internal force.
But there was nothing relating to internal force.
The closest thing was mana, current in the fantasy world, being shown as a number.
When he built internal force through meditation, it was logged as having been gained through the Nine Dragon Divine Meridians and the Heaven-Breaking Divine Art.
It simply told him that the two traits functioned as internal force.
'Then again, internal force isn't a thing that can be tallied up so simply.'
Internal force was power, and yet it was not power.
It could not be described, and it entangled itself with the body in complicated ways.
The reason Geon-mu could kill goblins with such low specifications was not something numbers alone could explain.
Thinking of it that way, he slowly began to understand why 'internal force' was not displayed at all.
'Well, does it matter?'
Displaying it meant either that you did not know yourself, or that you wanted to show off.
In other words, information that was not displayed could become a hidden card for Geon-mu.
Geon-mu began his internal force training with the Great Azure Essence.
The Great Azure Pill expanded internal force in a single stroke, but the essence was different: energy kept rising up continuously, endlessly replenishing what internal force was lacking.
As good as it sounded at a glance, it was an item with an equally large risk.
'The problem is that you can't let the energy simply pile up.'
Unless you kept discharging that energy, it turned into poison instead.
In the worst case you fell into qi deviation and might never be able to use martial arts again.
Geon-mu knew that perfectly well, and still he drained the Great Azure Essence without hesitation.
[You have consumed the Great Azure Essence.]
[Magic Power regeneration increases dramatically for 30 minutes.]
"Hmmmm......."
Hot energy rose up from his heart.
Left as it was, it would cook his body through.
Geon-mu sat straight where he was and focused on the energy.
If he did not discharge his internal force, he would fall into qi deviation exactly as expected.
Knowing that perfectly well, Geon-mu still did not discharge it.
'Gather the energy.'
He slowly condensed the energy he refused to release.
The more it condensed, the fiercer the heat grew.
A burning ball of fire gathered in his chest, and a heat shimmer rose off Geon-mu's body.
[An overload is occurring!]
His eyes were shut, so he could not see the message in any case.
Even if the warning had appeared, Geon-mu would not have cared.
He was the Heaven-Breaking Divine Lord, who had founded the Heaven-Breaking Divine Art and pacified the martial world.
The endurance and concentration to bear pain were more than sufficient in him.
'Just a little more....... Just a little more.......'
The energy produced by the Great Azure Essence gathered in his dantian and condensed without pause.
When thirty minutes had passed, the fireball of energy cooled away as though it had never been.
[The effect of <Great Azure Essence> has worn off.]
"Whew...... Rotten thing......."
The curse came out of its own accord.
Geon-mu glanced around himself.
The ground was left with black marks, as though scorched by something sharp.
It was not soot; this was body toxin.
It was the trace of Geon-mu circulating yang energy and expelling the poisons inside his body.
'Quite a lot came out.'
Awakened or not, his body was no different from a civilian's, so poison had been building up in it.
He had discharged a great deal of poison, but there was still no visible change.
The energy the Great Azure Essence produced was like an ox raised in the wild.
Hot and rough, and the moment you let your guard down it finished you.
But if you clung to it stubbornly and got a bridle on it, you could make it your own.
That was training through the Great Azure Essence.
'Nine more to go?'
The doses came to ten in total, one a day, spread over ten days.
He was confident he could take them faster and absorb them, but the efficiency would drop if he did.
'When you are a blank slate, the first step is what matters.'
It was for that first step that he had come to a low mountain untouched by human feet.
Geon-mu did not waste a single second.
He filled his meals simply with the protein bars he had brought, and when he was not training with the Great Azure Essence, he went over the Heaven-Breaking Divine Art in his head and honed it.
'A little more. Just a little more.......'
At last he absorbed even the final Great Azure Essence.
[You have completely absorbed the Great Azure Essence.]
[All stats have risen by 10.]
[You have obtained the trait <Great Azure Internal Energy>.]
[The stage of the Heaven-Breaking Divine Art has risen. Ⅰ→Ⅱ]
[Great Azure Internal Energy]
Type: Passive
Grade: A
Mana regeneration speed increases.
Mana consumption increases by 30%, but magic effects increase by 50% in exchange.
Judging by what was written, it was an A-Grade trait for using magic.
But Great Azure Internal Energy was something Geon-mu had obtained in order to raise the recovery speed of his internal force.
The effect cut what would take an hour to recover down to forty minutes, so it amounted to a 50% increase.
"Would mages like an effect like this?"
In the fantasy world where Geon-mu had lived it would have been an item to make people gasp, but he had no way of knowing the circumstances of this world.
When he opened the search listings, there was a magic item similar to the Great Azure Internal Energy he had obtained.
It was a bracelet accessory priced at three hundred thousand coins.
'......Would it be all right to sell this training method?'
Worth three hundred thousand coins it might be, but it was not something he could dare recommend.
The process of obtaining it was no different from gambling with your own mental fortitude.
Geon-mu could hold out that long because he was Geon-mu; an ordinary person would have given up at the second dose, and even a human who prided himself on being tough would have failed to endure and quit at the seventh. That was how brutal the training was.
In the end he decided not to do anything so pointless as making money from it.
"Hmm."
Geon-mu rose to his feet.
His body had changed noticeably, and he could feel it just from clenching his fist.
Geon-mu set his stance and swung a fist.
WHOOSH—!
His arm thrust out as lightly as if it had turned into a sheet of paper.
His weight would not have changed.
It was only that discharging the impurities inside his body would have shed some ten kilograms, and he had filled that back in through protein and exercise.
It meant his body had been remade into one specialized for combat.
'I can feel that my body is faster, but.......'
Just how much stronger had this alone made him?
That was what Geon-mu was curious about.
It was at that moment.
[In 5 minutes, the <Trial of the Goblin King> will begin!]
A suitable punching bag had walked in on its own two feet.
[<Goblin King> shouts that it has been patient enough.]
[<Goblin King> wishes for your death.]
"Fitting for a king of rats, the contents of your messages are as petty as you are."
Geon-mu sneered at the Goblin King's behavior.
He tried a provocation, but this time there was no answer.
'Thank you kindly for even giving me a chance to test myself.'
It had been properly humiliated at Tapgol Park, so the <Goblin King> would have come with preparations of its own.
Geon-mu warmed up thoroughly until the start.
[The trial has begun!]
[Trial of the Goblin King]
Trial Type: Annihilation
Difficulty: C
Recommended Level: 25
Annihilate all enemies.
A gate opened before Geon-mu, and the monsters inside came pouring out.
"Kek-kek-kek!"
[Goblin Elite Warrior]
Race: Goblin
Level: 23
Lineage: Hungry Ghost
Rank: Elite
As high as the difficulty and recommended level were, it had picked out goblins with something of a name among their kind.
The goblin race had low specifications overall and settled matters by sheer numbers, but elite troops were another story.
They stood about the height of a middle school student, but their bodies were so well conditioned that the fine blood vessels stood out on them.
They knew how to use their small builds, and were skilled at strategic combat that brought down opponents larger than themselves.
'They still look like nothing more than middle schoolers, though.'
A pack of middle schoolers fresh out of elementary school and puffed up over wearing a uniform.
The resemblance was so exact that he marveled at his own comparison.
"The King has commanded, kekit."
"We take your neck!"
The elite goblin soldiers drew their swords.
The moment Geon-mu saw the swords they carried, he could tell.
They were forged well enough to leave most artisans in the dust.
"You lot use rather good blades."
Good enough that Geon-mu, who possessed nothing, eyed them covetously.
"Kek-kek! Sword mine! Give to nobody!"
"Die, human!"
The elite goblins lunged all at once.
Their speed was on a different plane from the goblins he had met before.
'So they really aren't beneath notice after all?'
It was the briefest instant, but Geon-mu read everything.
What they were after was Geon-mu's life.
What they staked to seize that life was their own.
That must be why they had chosen the reckless option of attacking from all directions at once.
'The cut-the-flesh-and-break-the-bone tactic.'
Give up your flesh to take the bone.
They closed in from every direction at once so that completely evading the attack was not an option.
Narrowing in from all sides at the same moment, cutting at the vital points at the same moment.
If even one landed, the victory was theirs.
"I would have no choice but to dance to those options."
If I hadn't purified my body, that is.
Swallowing those words, Geon-mu moved.