“What is it?
Let go of this!”
The cultivators coldly shook off the woman’s hand as she crawled toward them and clung to the hem of their robes.
“Tsk.
Did she get drunk on Spirit Wine in broad daylight?
What nonsense is she spouting….”
“Please, just listen to me!
Please!”
Even in response to her desperate pleas, the Heavenly Ice Palace disciples merely brushed off their robes as though they had touched something filthy and quickly walked away.
The prostrated woman remained kneeling there for a long while, staring blankly into space.
Ise slowly approached her.
“Could you tell me more about what you were talking about?”
The woman slowly raised her head.
Her face, revealed through the clouds of dust, was completely bloodless.
Her cheeks were sunken, as though she hadn’t eaten for several days.
The woman’s gaze quickly swept over Ise’s appearance.
He wasn’t wearing the Daoist robes of the Heavenly Ice Palace, but a white robe that gave no indication of his affiliation.
However, the moment her spiritual vision confirmed the Foundation Establishment Realm of Ise’s Dharma-Transformation Dantian, her eyes widened in surprise and her expression changed.
A Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t even have dared speak to someone of such a realm without permission.
“…Are you a cultivator affiliated with the Heavenly Ice Palace?”
Ise silently shook his head.
The faint hope that had appeared on the woman’s face slowly faded.
“Then I’m sorry, but please leave.
There’s nothing left for you to take anymore.
I won’t be fooled again.”
Her voice was bristling with thorns.
It meant she had endured quite a lot of hardship.
That must have been why she was willing to show such an attitude despite the difference in cultivation realms.
Someone with nothing left to lose had nothing left to fear.
Rather than trying to placate the highly wary woman with empty words, Ise sent a communication talisman to summon Ryu Seonghan.
The message told him to come to the main entrance immediately, and an hour later, Ryu Seonghan came rushing out.
When a Heavenly Ice Palace cultivator emerged, the woman’s head immediately shot up.
“Gasp, Senior.
What happened?”
– This person seems to be another surviving victim of the Essence-Draining Ghost-Demon Valley.
At Ise’s voice transmission, sparks seemed to fly from Ryu Seonghan’s eyes.
He immediately added,
– Don’t mention what happened to you.
Just in case.
Ryu Seonghan nodded.
Ise used a Soundproofing Talisman to block out the surrounding noise before speaking.
“This fellow is a cultivator of the Heavenly Ice Palace.
I brought her here because I heard something difficult to ignore.
Explain it to him.”
“Thank you, thank you….”
The woman repeatedly bowed her head in gratitude before slowly beginning her explanation.
“I am Xin Yeoran of the Xin Clan of Hwaeum City.”
What followed was a story that the two of them had already experienced firsthand in one form or another.
She was the beloved daughter of the head of the Xin Clan.
Like any other rural city, peaceful days had continued without incident.
Then, one day, a nearby Foundation Establishment city suddenly launched an attack without even issuing a declaration of war.
When defeat became inevitable, the clan head abandoned the war and fled.
He did so to ensure that at least his daughter would survive.
His final words to her had been, “This is a magical artifact of the Essence-Draining Ghost-Demon Valley.
They must have intervened.”
He then used the only Foundation Establishment talisman the city possessed, an Escape Talisman, to send her flying outside the city.
She had endured every sort of hardship, somehow struggling to survive until she finally reached this place.
She had come to expose the truth behind her clan’s massacre to the ruler of the Northern Continent, the Heavenly Ice Palace.
After hearing everything, Ise asked her,
“Do you have that magical artifact?”
“…No.
They took it.”
Ise wasn’t disappointed.
One magical artifact alone wouldn’t have been sufficient evidence anyway.
“For now, stop doing this here and leave.
If word reaches the Essence-Draining Ghost-Demon Valley that you’re doing this, they’ll kill you.”
Xin Yeoran’s pupils widened as though they might burst from their sockets when she realized he seemed to believe her.
Even she had thought no one would believe what she was saying.
Ise told her the name of an inn near his residence and instructed her to stay there.
Xin Yeoran’s face immediately darkened.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t have anything on me.
I was deceived by a cultivator who promised to introduce me to a cultivator of the Heavenly Ice Palace….”
Ise jerked his chin.
Ryu Seonghan sighed and placed some spirit stones into her hand.
“It’s exactly what happened to me.
What do you think?
Could this help us?”
“Who knows.
If there is another witness in addition to the testimony of you, someone affiliated with the Heavenly Ice Palace, its credibility will certainly increase.
But would that really be enough to put a dent in a force that is practically the Heavenly Ice Palace’s left arm?
I doubt it.”
“I see….”
“Still, it can’t hurt to secure her.
Let’s protect her for now.”
“Yes.”
The fact that he kept getting entangled with the Essence-Draining Ghost-Demon Valley felt like a troubling omen.
It was almost as though something kept drawing him toward a particular direction.
Ise fell into thought for a while before changing the subject.
“By the way, when is the martial competition?”
“In fifteen days.
Tiandao city will probably be bustling enough that you’ll hear it even while cultivating.
They’re setting up the fighting platform in an open area behind that city.”
“I’ll have to go watch.”
“I’ll come pick you up that day.”
“Thanks.
But it’s a martial competition, right?
Can a sword cultivator who doesn’t even use Arts participate?”
“That’s because it’s a friendly competition between cultivators, which is why it was given that name… I’ve never really thought about it.”
Ise shrugged as though it wasn’t particularly important.
“Anyway, I’ll see you then.
Take care of Xin Yeoran for me.”
“Yes.”
***
For fifteen days, Ise cultivated the Life-Promoting Art and diligently tended to his crops.
In the garden of the Life-Spirit Cave Abode, he was currently growing Ten-Year Grass, spiritual rice, Cold-Ice Jade Grass, and Snow Ginseng.
He had heard that Ten-Year Grass and Cold-Ice Jade Grass were the most fundamental spiritual herbs used in alchemy throughout the Northern Continent.
Snow Ginseng took a full ten thousand years to grow, and its value varied enormously from Ten-Year Snow Ginseng all the way to Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng.
‘I wonder how much this one would be worth if I grew it into a Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng.’
Ten thousand years was an absurdly unreal number.
Yet once he reached Great Completion, he could turn it into a Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng by investing only a hundred years.
‘Whatever.
Let’s do it.’
Even if he disposed of everything else, Ise resolved to keep this one for the future.
He drank a bowl of Spirit Wine as his laborer’s drink and gazed at the densely planted spiritual herbs with a satisfied expression.
There was nothing more fulfilling than working up a sweat through honest labor.
Of course, that was only a metaphor.
He hardly ever broke a sweat.
‘If I had never entered the cultivation world, I probably would have lived by farming like this.’
If he had never become entangled with Snail-Head Scholar and Bi hyeongrang, and had survived to be raised by another peasant, this probably would have been his everyday life.
That wouldn’t have been so bad either.
“Senior.
It’s Ryu Seonghan.
Shall we go?”
Ryu Seonghan’s voice came from outside the Life-Spirit Cave Abode.
Following his guidance, Ise headed toward the martial competition grounds.
The open field on the outskirts of Tiandao city was already packed with people to the point that there was hardly room to set foot anywhere.
A barrier that absorbed damage had been erected around the fighting platform, and enforcement cultivators wearing the Daoist robes of the Heavenly Ice Palace were taking their positions one after another above it.
“It’s been a while since I’ve seen an atmosphere like this.”
“Whoa, it’s absolutely packed.”
They had barely managed to find a place to stand, but with so many people around, his view was unclear.
If the fighting platform hadn’t been raised higher than the audience area, most people would have had trouble seeing.
Of course, Ise had no particular inconvenience because he could simply use his divine sense.
“How many are competing?”
“Eight.”
“That’s not many.”
“It’s because of the age restriction.
The only restriction is being under fifty, but if they can’t reach Foundation Establishment during that period, they aren’t worthy of being called promising young cultivators of the Daoist sects.”
Considering that Ise, with his unusual constitution, had twisted his entire body into cultivation and reached the Foundation Establishment Realm in his mid-twenties, it was certainly no easy standard.
‘So there are eight people like that.’
The Northern Continent was clearly a place with no shortage of talent.
The elimination-style matches proceeded one after another.
The first match.
The second match.
The third match.
Ise watched the spectacle with interest.
Their level seemed comparable to the Foundation Establishment cultivators of the Great Exorcist Order.
In other words, they were definitely superior to ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators.
However, the nature of their cultivation techniques was considerably different, so even within the same Foundation Establishment Realm, they displayed a much wider variety of Arts.
Two people in particular stood out.
He was a man wearing blue-gray Daoist robes and carrying a heavy black saber.
The Arts he used hunted his opponents by mercilessly draining their life force and gradually devouring them.
His saber techniques seemed to perfectly embody the name of the Essence-Draining Ghost-Demon Valley.
Ryu Seonghan quietly pressed his lips together as he watched.
The opponent was a cultivator from the same sect as those who had destroyed his family.
Swallowing that anger could never have been easy.
And then there was the other one.
A man wearing bluish robes and carrying nothing but a light longsword.
Cheongun of the Tyrant Sword Sect.
The corners of Ise’s mouth subtly lifted.
It was a face he hadn’t seen in a long time.
The matches ended quickly.
Six of the eight were eliminated one after another, and as everyone expected, the two who reached the final were Neungbyeok and Cheongun.
The two faced each other on the fighting platform.
Neungbyeok raised his black saber diagonally and twisted the corner of his mouth.
“Small Tyrant Sword Cheongun.
I think I’ll accidentally kill you today.”
“That’s a murderous thing to say.”
Cheongun merely answered indifferently and placed his hand on the hilt of his sword.
At first, the two simply seemed to be standing opposite each other.
Then blood suddenly burst from Neungbyeok’s body.
The next moment, Cheongun’s sword had already been drawn.
Even Ise briefly wondered whether his eyes had deceived him.
‘When did he cut him?’
It was a swift sword strike at an unbelievable speed, fast enough to escape even his divine sense.
Neungbyeok had apparently prepared for the swordsmanship of the Tyrant Sword Sect and wasn’t simply going to endure the attacks.
Every time his black saber swung, blue-black demonic qi stretched toward Cheongun like thick smoke.
It was a type of demonic art that drained the vitality of everything it touched.
It was the bizarre demonic art that had left most of the Foundation Establishment cultivators unable to respond earlier, allowing them to be defeated helplessly.
Yet Cheongun’s swordsmanship was even more mysterious.
His sword strikes were invisible even to divine sense, crushing his opponent.
The energy contained within the sword was difficult to sense, much like when Ise had first encountered primordial qi.
Cheongun barely moved, seemingly standing in place and simply swinging his sword.
Yet every one of Neungbyeok’s attacks dispersed into the faint glow surrounding the tip of Cheongun’s sword just before they could make contact.
It was almost as though Cheongun already knew Neungbyeok’s next move.
It was swordsmanship that could only be displayed by someone who predicted an opponent’s actions a fraction of a moment ahead and placed his sword light in that exact position beforehand.
‘This is another realm entirely.’
Ise was genuinely impressed.
It was a kind of power fundamentally different from that of any opponent he had faced until now.
The match didn’t last long.
Neungbyeok gripped the black saber with both hands and unleashed his final strike.
Blue-black demonic qi erupted along the blade like an explosion.
At the moment that strike reached for Cheongun’s chest—
Cheongun’s sword traced a short arc that was almost invisible.
And the next moment, Neungbyeok’s black saber had been split cleanly in two down the middle of its blade.
“Just as expected from Small Tyrant Sword Cheongun.
I knew sword cultivators were powerful, but this is on an entirely different level.
It feels impossibly far away.”
“Yeah.
He’s strong.”
“Are you going to go meet him?”
“Yeah.
Just to say hello.”
“You really know him, right?
It’d be embarrassing to go all the way there only to be treated like a stranger.”
“Then there’s nothing I can do.”
“Honestly, I still can’t believe you won.”
When Ise raised his Small Axe, Ryu Seonghan hurriedly covered his head.
After descending from the fighting platform, Cheongun headed toward the area where the sword cultivators of the Tyrant Sword Sect were staying.
Around him stood seven or eight sword cultivators from the Tyrant Sword Sect, surrounding him like guards.
Other cultivators from various sects kept coming over nonstop, hoping to become acquainted with Cheongun or at least exchange a few words with him.
The expressions of the sword cultivators acting as guards clearly conveyed the sentiment: “Annoying flies.”
As Ise pushed through the crowd and headed in their direction, two sword cultivators immediately blocked his path.
“Sorry, Senior.
Our senior brother is tired right now.”
“I only came to see his face from afar.
Don’t be so cold.”
Before Ise could even finish speaking, Cheongun, who had been sitting inside, turned his gaze toward them.
His divine sense seemed to have noticed Ise.
Cheongun’s expression changed instantly, revealing clear delight.
“Wait, you are…?”
“It’s been a while.”
“Everyone, move aside.”
Apparently, Ise wasn’t the only one who had remembered the other vividly.