To state the conclusion first, even now, right before the duel, I had failed to reach the fourth level of the Qi Refining Realm.
To be more precise… I hadn’t achieved the fourth level of Qi Refining, but the third level of Qi Refining and the first level of Qi Refining.
The third level with Yong’s spiritual root, and the first level with Kang’s spiritual root.
“This is insane!”
That was right.
Just as these two spiritual roots could cultivate different arts and accumulate different types of spiritual energy, their realms had to be raised separately too!
“I’m losing my mind.”
Even a proper fourth level of Qi Refining wouldn’t have been enough, but the third plus first level? What kind of baseless realm was that supposed to be?
After tearing at my hair, I had no choice but to get to my feet.
‘If it’s come to this… can I hold out without getting my arm cut off?’
Let’s recall what Mun Yu did when he fought Yong Yu.
Yong Yu had definitely tried to hit Mun Yu as usual, without thinking… and when Mun Yu saw that, he cut off Yong Yu’s arm in one stroke with the sword he had on him.
After that, there was a description of him beating Yong Yu one-sidedly.
‘In other words, if I bring out a different method on the very first move, I might avoid getting my arm cut off. Mun Yu could feel that he had become stronger than Yong Yu, and even so, he decided to watch how Yong Yu would move. But when Yong Yu mindlessly threw out his fist like he did when tormenting him, Mun Yu thought he was looking down on him, and the memory of all the beatings he’d taken until then made him angry, so he cut off his arm… that was how it was described.’
To think a cultivator’s brain would be useful at a time like this.
Even the brief, single-line descriptions from the prologue of the novel I had read came vividly back to me.
I decided to act based on the description of the situation that surfaced in my mind.
“But I’ve never hit anyone before.”
Should I copy a boxing punch? No. He might get angry, thinking I was doing something weird. Then…
‘Among the cultivation manuals I borrowed, there were a few spell manuals too.’
I rummaged through the books piled in the corner and hurriedly found one spell manual.
‘They say that because Qi Refining cultivators can’t refine spiritual energy into spiritual power, they can only produce about ten percent of a spell’s power, but even so, using a spell should be better than me flailing my arms around like an idiot.’
After checking the time, I grabbed a bottle of liquor and the spell manual, then stood up. If I didn’t leave now, I felt like I would be late for the duel.
* * *
Mun Yu was waiting for Yong Yu at the dueling site.
There, aside from Mun Yu, were Je Sangwu, the senior brother who had arranged the duel, and Do Munhyang, a genius who had reached the first level of Foundation Establishment only ten years after entering the sect.
Je Sangwu had come simply because he wanted to enjoy watching weaker juniors bicker and fight, while Do Munhyang had come because she was worried about Mun Yu.
“Senior Brother Yu, are you really going to be all right?”
“Senior Brother… Hyang-a, your realm is higher than mine now.”
Je Sangwu looked at the two of them with a subtle expression as they called each other not Senior Brother Mun and Junior Sister Do, but Senior Brother Yu and Hyang-a.
When Do Munhyang had first appeared here, he had asked if she and Mun Yu were in that kind of relationship, and she had said no—but judging from how they were acting now, it certainly didn’t look like no.
As the three of them waited quietly, a person appeared in the distance.
Black hair grown out carelessly. A bushy beard covering his lower face from lack of grooming. A brown Daoist robe in the style of an inner disciple of the Gocheon Sect, thrown on without any care.
Holding what looked like a spell manual in one hand and reading it leisurely, while tilting the gourd bottle in his other hand to gulp down liquor, a man exuding a powerful smell of alcohol from his entire body approached the dueling site.
When the man arrived, he greeted Je Sangwu, then continued reading only the spell manual.
“……”
Mun Yu was a little surprised.
The Yong Yu he knew was a frivolous, shallow man.
A thug who kept his slick face and appearance well-groomed and dressed himself up smartly, swaggering around junior sisters, meekly bowing his head to junior brothers stronger than him, while picking on and tormenting those below him.
When there was no one to bully on Hyeonyak Peak, where he belonged, he would go all the way to other peaks in search of juniors weaker than himself, and he had frequently come to Haedan Peak to torment Mun Yu.
Always reeking of alcohol, sincere only in bullying others and never in walking the path of cultivation—he was the very model of a trash cultivator.
But the current Yong Yu was a little different.
The smell of alcohol coming from his body had become far more pungent than before, but the frivolity he always radiated was nowhere to be seen; beneath his filthy, shaggy hair and beard flowed a cold gaze.
“Yong Yu. Get ready already.”
Je Sangwu, too, was bewildered by Yong Yu’s change, so after hesitating briefly, he spoke. Even at those words, Yong Yu read the spell manual to the end before tossing it behind him.
Then he stood before Mun Yu and raised the liquor bottle in his hand, gulping down the alcohol.
After drinking every last drop, Yong Yu carelessly tossed the bottle aside as well, then looked at Mun Yu with a slightly reddened face.
Seeing Yong Yu like that, Mun Yu’s eyebrow twitched.
‘Just how much are you looking down on me, you bastard…’
Je Sangwu glanced back and forth between Yong Yu, whose expression was calm, and Mun Yu, who was grinding his teeth, then said with a smile.
“Good~ You’re both ready, right? Then begin.”
Since it wasn’t an official duel anyway, the duel began with Je Sangwu casually waving his arm as the signal.
The instant the duel began, Yong Yu moved exactly as he had planned beforehand.
He charged forward and swung his arm. If there was one difference from the Yong Yu of the original story, it was that he did not clench his fist, but instead thrust out his palm with his fingers neatly extended.
But his movement was far too clumsy, and Mun Yu, enraged at the thought that Yong Yu was underestimating him far too much, drew his sword and swung it.
The sword reflected the sunlight, scattering a dazzling sword light as it rushed toward Yong Yu’s arm.
‘Mm. Here, I draw up the spiritual energy… move it like this…’
Even as he watched it clearly, Yong Yu silently carried out the strategy he had decided on.
In his demeanor, there was no fear, hesitation, or wavering from fighting for the first time in his life.
He had been transmigrated into the xianxia world of a novel after an abrupt death, and despite suddenly finding himself in a situation where his arm would be cut off ten months later, he had shown no great agitation, even if he complained and grumbled inwardly.
On the contrary, the moment he grasped the situation, he had immediately begun thinking about what he should do from then on and put his thoughts into action.
Ten months.
For a full ten months, a person who had lived an ordinary life ate, slept, and relieved himself inside a crude cave, handled fieldwork he had never done before relying only on the memories Yong Yu had left behind, and even smoothly produced spiritual liquor he had never made before, safely reaching the first level of Qi Refining.
Even if his spiritual root was the Five Spiritual Roots, Kang Yeongjun’s mentality itself was a talent supremely and incomparably suited to a cultivator.
It was the same now.
Even though he wanted to prevent his arm from being cut off, he willingly repeated the very action that had gotten Yong Yu’s arm cut off in the original work.
There was only one goal.
‘Pour all the spiritual energy accumulated through the Oon Myeonggak Art into one strike… and break Mun Yu’s sword!’
If he broke only the sword, his arm wouldn’t get cut off!
Thinking that, Yong Yu followed the foundational procedure of the spell manual he had been reading until just moments ago and manifested a spell for the first time in his life.
‘Heat Brand.’
He converted the non-attribute spiritual energy in Yong’s spiritual root into fire spiritual energy and drew it up, then added the spiritual energy of the Oon Myeonggak Art extracted from Kang’s spiritual root.
The palm Yong Yu thrust out turned bright red in an instant and was wreathed in an auspicious golden light.
And then.
Kwaaaaaang!!
Yong Yu’s palm strike melted Mun Yu’s sword in an instant and lodged itself in his solar plexus.
“Huh?”
Struck by the Heat Brand infused with the effects of the Oon Myeonggak Art, Mun Yu writhed in pain as his entire body caught fire, while at the same time all the karmic force he had accumulated through his sins melted away.
“Kkyaaaaargh!!”
Yong Yu was dumbfounded by the power of the Heat Brand, which had carbonized an area over ten jang wide in an instant while setting Mun Yu ablaze. Je Sangwu, too, was shocked that the match had been decided in the blink of an eye and looked back and forth between Mun Yu and Yong Yu.
Only Do Munhyang was pouring out her water spiritual power to help Mun Yu.
“Wow… You, don’t you have talent in combat arts? Oh, right.”
Je Sangwu, who had been admiring Yong Yu’s completely unexpected performance, seemed to remember something and placed a hand on Yong Yu’s shoulder as he declared,
“Winner! Yong Yu!”
After declaring Yong Yu’s victory, Je Sangwu, amused at having discovered an unexpected talent in a junior brother, kneaded Yong Yu’s shoulder.
“Junior Brother Yong, work hard from now on. I think you’ll bloom once you reach Foundation Establishment.”
After Je Sangwu left, Do Munhyang extinguished all the flames clinging to Mun Yu’s body, then carefully lifted him into her arms and glared at Yong Yu.
“Did you have to go this far… did you really have to go this far? Yong Yu!”
“Uh, no, that’s—”
“Just you wait. I will never let this matter slide!”
“No!”
Do Munhyang did not listen to Yong Yu and flew into the sky with Mun Yu in her arms, disappearing.
“……This is insane.”
Left alone, Yong Yu could only stand there blankly in a daze at the completely unexpected situation of having defeated Mun Yu.