Chapter 180: Finally, After Countless Defeats

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Translated by Frog in the Well

Read more at Nineheavens.org
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Half a month later.

Jin So-myeong, who experienced three more defeats, admitted it.

The wooden dummy looked crude and loose at first glance, but it was far stronger than he thought.

‘It’s not easy.’

The wooden dummy’s energy increased in proportion to the opponent’s spiritual power, and that characteristic was very troublesome.

In fact, the method by which Jin So-myeong had defeated enemies of higher realms until now was simple.

It was because he concentrated all his power to a single point at a critical moment, exceeding the opponent’s capability for a very brief moment, that he was able to win.

However, this move did not work against the wooden dummy.

Even if he amplified his energy with the Blood Wings, the wooden dummy also grew that much stronger, and perhaps because it was a dummy in the first place, it lacked emotional turbulence, so no gaps themselves were visible.

It felt like an experienced master of combat who was even of a high realm.

‘I thought I would win quickly, but… it might take longer than I thought.’

Was it arrogance?

In the depths of his subconscious, the thought that it would end quickly seemed to have coiled up.

Jin So-myeong, who was silently lost in thought, flicked his finger.

Clang!

He had thrown Sword Gang at the wooden dummy from outside the sparring arena, but it was not of much use.

The slash that flew cutting through the air bent vertically and plunged, then was absorbed by the floor.

Wooong…

Ending with a faint vibration, it failed to leave any traces.

Admiration arose at the sight of it absorbing the Sword Gang without even a fine crack appearing.

‘The floor of the sparring arena isn’t ordinary either.’

It was hard enough to make it hard to believe it was filled with traces of being shattered and cracked here and there.

Who made the traces of destruction scattered in the sparring arena?

Did the person who made the floor like that pass the Inheritance Pass?

‘…No.’

Somehow, he had an intuition that no one had passed the Inheritance Pass.

Was not the wooden dummy remaining intact?

Furthermore, Jin So-myeong believed that although there were many people with higher realms than him, there would be no one stronger at the same realm.

Because the wooden dummy grew stronger in proportion to the amount of spiritual power possessed, it did not matter whether the realm was high or low.

They had to settle the contest solely with skill, and it did not seem likely that anyone else had defeated such a monster.

‘Good. Let’s do it once more.’

Loosening his stiffened muscles with light stretching and moving to a place as far away from the sparring arena as possible, then…

Boom!

He kicked the ground with all his might.

He even used the Lightning Escape Art to accelerate before stepping onto the platform.

“Prove that you possess the qualifications.”

Was it because he dashed like crazy?

The wooden dummy fired a flash of light before even finishing its words.

A strike difficult to perceive even with the reaction speed amplified by the Lightning Escape Art.

‘Keup!’

He turned direction sharply enough to twist his ankle.

He intended to run diagonally and avoid the streak of light, but the ray tracked him all too easily.

Just at the moment when he had no choice but to swing his sword and deflect it,

Pat!

A single streak of light split into two.

While wrapping tightly around his sword to hold it like a chain, the other drew a complex trajectory like the character for ‘go’ (之) and tried to bash his chin.

It was too fast to retrieve the bound sword and block it properly.

He condensed spiritual power in his elbow as best he could and deflected the streak of light, but it was too early to be at ease.

A faint tearing sound of air.

He perceived three additional streaks of light flying in, but there was absolutely no room to dodge.

Thwack!

At the intense impact, his head tilted back.

The dull hitting sound resounding from his forehead was truly, damnably painful.

Should he call it a feeling of seeing stars?

Even in his daze, he did not stop his hands and feet.

Following instincts polished by numerous battles, he blocked nine of the twelve split rays.

It was a response splendid enough that he wanted to applaud himself, but the three he missed bashed his ribs instead of applause.

Boom!

Along with a sharp pain piercing to the bone, tinnitus rang.

He forced his eyes, which kept trying to close, to open wide.

“…Hah.”

When he painfully regained his senses, he was already outside the sparring arena.

He had been beaten by the streaks of light and bounced off.

Jin So-myeong, who collected his breath while holding his faltering balance, nodded his head.

‘Indeed strong.’

A clean defeat with no room for excuses.

He had no choice but to accept that it was difficult to win in his current state.

Actually he had intended to win as fast as possible, pass the Inheritance Pass, and set out to find other fortuitous opportunities, but it was absolutely not a level of difficulty for that.

He discarded impatience.

He completely turned off his mind, especially regarding the outside.

Forgetting the events in the sandy desert for a moment, he decided to focus solely on defeating the wooden dummy.

‘It will be a long-term war.’

As he repeated recovering his injured body and attacking, a month had already passed.

It meant he had skipped cultivation during that time, and it should not be like this.

By the looks of it, it was not something that would end in a day or two.

Since he did not know how long it would take, there was a need to return to a regular life.

‘I must start cultivation again first.’

Fortunately, this open space reminiscent of a temple was a good environment for cultivation.

If rated by spiritual veins, about a Rank 4 extreme-grade?

It was by far the highest level among the cultivation environments he had possessed until now.

The spiritual Qi was also not at the level of heaven and earth spiritual Qi, but was sufficiently pure and the concentration was thick.

Tuk.

When he took out a red bead larger than a person’s height from his sub-space, a bloody stench vibrated.

It was the blood of the Ancient Ominous Beast resembling an anglerfish compressed with spiritual power.

‘With this, there will be no worries about body tempering cultivation for the time being.’

Dishing out a tiny amount and absorbing its vitality, strength settled tightly in his entire body’s muscles.

Even though he had not made a pill to amplify the efficacy, it was far more effective than expected, causing him to nod naturally.

He was worried because the dragon’s True Blood used in his existing cultivation was running out, but he had obtained a useful spiritual object just in time.

Since that day,

He accumulated spiritual power at least once a day without fail, and steadily did body tempering cultivation without skipping.

He did not forget to challenge the wooden dummy whenever he had time.

*

One day, half a year later.

During cultivation, his fingertips began to harden rigidly like stones.

‘Petrifaction poison?’

Tracing his memory, it was exactly one and a half years after he consumed the antidote.

‘Was there poison in the Inheritance Pass as well?’

Because it was quiet despite a year having passed, he thought the Inheritance Pass was safe, but it was not.

‘Is this petrifaction poison originally a poison that existed in the Defeated Sage Dojo?’

Somehow, it did not seem so.

No matter how he looked at it, the Defeated Sage Dojo seemed to be a training ground constructed by predecessors for juniors, and it did not seem likely they would scatter things like petrifaction poison needlessly.

‘Then did the insect humans do it?’

It was not a particularly good omen, but he did not care much.

If the enemy sought him out, it sufficed to fight.

Instead of trivial worries wasting his mental power, he focused on what he had to do.

He accumulated day by day continuously.

To summarize simply… it meant that in the midst of cultivating, he challenged the wooden dummy whenever he had time and got beaten up.

Until dust accumulated to become a mountain. Continuously.

There was progress.

The time he endured against the wooden dummy gradually increased.

At first, let alone a minute, he could not even withstand a few attacks, but now he was able to endure for nearly three minutes.

…

As time flowed and the number of defeats roughly exceeded two hundred times,

he felt a keen need to change his combat style which had focused on close combat.

‘I absolutely cannot pierce through.’

The flashes of light poured out by the wooden dummy were a supreme technique that perfectly fit the phrase ‘integration of offense and defense’.

‘Just what kind of spell was it to have such excellent versatility?’

It was fast like a ray of light, yet possessed heavy physical force.

Feeling like shock permeated to the bone if hit even once, a gasp naturally escaped.

Chachachachang!

Jin So-myeong, who deflected a dozen streaks of light while enveloped in lightning, retreated nimbly.

Without trying to approach forcibly, he drew a large semicircle centered on the wooden dummy and threw slashes.

He decided to try focusing on long-range combat.

Thwack!

Of course, it was not easy.

In a single minute, he bounced off and crashed into the wall.

He unleashed the Sword Control Art to fly his sword imbued with Gang Qi, but the result was similar.

Still, he did not give up and continued.

Because anyone is bound to be inexperienced at first.

Not only long-range combat, but he attempted all kinds of combat methods as they came to mind.

He attacked jointly along with his clones, or entrusted Mu-geuk with controlling the flying sword and focused on pouring out lightning.

The result was total defeat.

The wooden dummy was powerful to a bleak degree.

“Prove that you possess the qualifications.”

Just what qualifications does it mean?

By this point, he became incredibly curious about what intentions the wooden dummy’s creator had.

Would he know if he won?

One must win.

No, the reason he wanted to win increased by one more.

*

Time flowed quickly.

Exactly four years based on the day he entered the Inheritance Pass.

【Jin So-myeong】

【Lifespan】: 97 / 1963

【Realm】: Nascent Soul Stage 5th Layer

【Supreme Great Ability】: 24.2 Million / 60 Million

【Divine Abilities】: ,

His realm rose to the 5th layer of the Nascent Soul stage.

It was thanks to cultivating steadily even in the midst of challenging the wooden dummy.

Since his realm rose, did the battle with the wooden dummy become easier?

It was not so.

As much as his spiritual power increased, the wooden dummy also grew that much stronger.

Rather, the number of flying streaks of light increased by 1.5 times, feeling even trickier.

It was a situation that might be felt as despairing, but Jin So-myeong just chuckled.

‘I thought it would be like this.’

He had roughly expected it since it reacted to the energy amplified by the Blood Wings.

Therefore, he simply celebrated the rise of his realm and enjoyed the joy fully.

After that… he returned to the same daily routine as yesterday.

The result of the 671st challenge.

Thanks to his combat skill itself increasing, he became able to endure for twenty minutes against the wooden dummy.

And simultaneously.

He hit a wall.

He absolutely could not exceed twenty minutes.

It was the same no matter how many times he repeatedly challenged.

It felt like spinning in circles in place as if blocked by a wall.

Until now he had at least felt a sensation of developing little by little, but stopping completely drove him crazy with frustration.

Is there even meaning to this hard struggle…

Doubt welled up in his mind.

In the first place, the wooden dummy seemed to be an object designed to be absolutely unbeatable at the Nascent Soul stage level.

“……”

He quietly closed his eyes.

He did not try to forcibly eliminate the negative thoughts that crept in from somewhere.

Since that was also just a single attachment, he simply let it drift as it flowed.

Instead of dwelling on emotions, he focused on action.

‘What can I do right now?’

Should I master a new spell?

It also seemed like a decent method to pull up a Minor Success-level cultivation method to the next stage with the Supreme Great Ability he was pouring into cultivation.

Pondering this and that method, he suddenly realized the root cause of the problem.

‘The problem is my combat skill is lacking.’

If so,

let’s return to the basics.

*

Jin So-myeong, who stepped onto the sparring arena, stood still and let his sword hang loose.

Instead of charging violently, calmly,

he decided to polish his defense first.

Pat—!

He held out his blade against the streak of light flying in while drawing an honest trajectory.

Staring straight at the sparks flying from friction, he focused on deflecting it with minimum force.

Until half a year passed,

every single day.

Thus, when he thought he had become sufficiently accustomed, he walked forward step by step.

Ti-ti-ting!

The sword moved first before he even thought.

It felt as if deflecting attacks by swinging the sword was engraved in his instinct.

He walked forward silently while cutting and splitting seventeen flying streaks of light like a bombardment.

Chwak!

At that moment when the blade that drew a vivid straight line was about to cleave the wooden dummy,

the wooden dummy that was standing still in its place and only firing streaks of light showed a different reaction for the first time.

Thud!

Stepping on a heavy stomp like a martial artist, it deflected the tip of the sword with the back of its hand.

Then it closed the distance in an instant and shoved its shoulder…

Kwaaaahang!

Along with a heavy impact like being struck by a massive force, he was bounced off outside the sparring arena.

“…Haha, ahahaha!”

Jin So-myeong, who crashed into the wall after a long time, burst into laughter.

The wooden dummy was also excellent in close combat.

Although he found out that winning grew several times harder, he was rather glad.

It was because the situation of being unilaterally beaten developed into something similar to combat for the first time.

If he advanced little by little like this, ultimately…

“Good.”

Jin So-myeong, who roughly treated his ribs shattered by being shoved by the shoulder, stepped forward again with a body that was not even fine.

“Prove that you possess the qualifications.”

Repeating it over and over,

splitting and cutting the streaks of light blocking his way, he advanced step by step.

***

On exactly the tenth year based on the point he entered the Defeated Sage Dojo.

Using one thousand eight hundred and twenty-three defeats as a teacher, finally,

I felt a premonition of victory.

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