Chapter 239: Situation of the Human Race
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Translated by Frog in the Well
Read it only at Nineheavens.org
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There was no great difficulty in renting a 5th-rank spiritual vein.
Taiyin City, where Jin So-myeong was currently staying, was a city built on top of a super-large 5th-rank spiritual vein.
According to legend, some high-tier cultivator pulled out hundreds of spiritual veins scattered in all directions to artificially construct a super-large spiritual vein and establish the city, which is exactly Taiyin City.
Whether it was true or not, at least it was certain that 5th-rank spiritual veins were extraordinarily numerous in Taiyin City.
If one had Immortal Stones, renting a spiritual vein in Taiyin City was a piece of cake.
He was worried that his identity might be revealed in the process of renting a 5th-rank spiritual vein, but because Soul Formation stage cultivators were flocking from all directions due to the Sacred War, his worries could be lessened.
Of course, not everything worked out smoothly.
Among the spiritual veins that could be rented with Immortal Stones, the best one was a 5th-rank high-grade spiritual vein.
Places better than a 5th-rank high-grade spiritual vein were all associated with giant forces, so they could not be rented simply by paying many Immortal Stones.
‘If I form a connection with a giant force, the possibility of my identity being revealed will grow… I must be satisfied with a 5th-rank high-grade spiritual vein.’
Even a 5th-rank high-grade spiritual vein was considerably outstanding.
Is the heaven and earth origin energy of the upper realm not far more abundant than the lower realm?
The cultivation period, which had been shortened to thirty years using the pills, was cut down dramatically once more.
‘Twenty-one years.’
Jin So-myeong, who was gauging the effect of the spiritual vein, stroked his chin.
Although it was good, it was still far from enough.
He had to shorten the cultivation period of about twenty years to five years to become a mid Soul Formation stage cultivator before participating in the Sacred War.
At that moment when he was tapping his waist instead of the habitually tapped scabbard.
-We have obtained three lumps of the Mysterious Jade Crystal you mentioned. If you have the intention to purchase them, we will transport them here from our Muk-gak Merchant Union’s main headquarters.
A Voice Transmission Talisman flew from Nok-myeong, who operated the largest merchant guild in Taiyin City.
‘They obtained Mysterious Jade Crystal already?’
It was absurd and admirable at the same time.
To think he obtained so easily the Mysterious Jade Crystal, which he could not find despite trying for forty years in the lower realm.
He could clearly feel how abundant the resources of the upper realm were.
-I will buy all of them, so please prepare them.
Sending a reply with a pleased mind, and contemplating what to do while waiting, he sent out five of the clones who were organizing his sub-space.
‘Go and find out what situation the human race is placed in right now.’
The instructed clones disguised themselves as various Asuras and scattered throughout the city.
How long did he wait?
A result came from a clone who headed to a tavern frequented by low-tier cultivators.
“Human race? Why do you ask about those venomous ones?”
“If you got treated to expensive wine, answer instead of asking back.”
“Hmph. A prickly friend.”
A red-nosed Asura old man giggled and then stroked his chin as if retracing his memories.
“Human race… Actually, I have only heard of them and have never met them in person. That is natural, as it has already been fifty thousand years since we concluded an agreement with the human race.”
“Agreement?”
“Ah, a youth like you might indeed not know. I also heard this from my grandfather; long ago, our Asura Race and the human race fought a war.”
“I have roughly heard that a war broke out, so I know. But how did it turn out?”
“…”
The old man, who suddenly stopped speaking, glanced at the empty cup, and it was clear what he was demanding.
When the clone, who clicked his tongue, ordered a bottle of spiritual wine worth one medium-grade spirit stone, the old man’s mouth opened wide.
“Hehe, a likeable friend.”
“Forget it. Answer properly. I do not look kindly on old men.”
“A youth with such a way of speaking. Tsk!”
Although it was an extremely rough way of speaking, this much was average for the Asuras, who had a strong combative tendency.
“Yes. Where was I… Ah! The result of the war? Well, there is no need to even explain that.”
The old man, who drew attention by spreading both of his hands to the left and right, pointed directly below, to the ground.
“Can you not know looking at us stopped in the Red Lotus Realm? In the end, we failed to finish off the human race and ended up concluding a truce agreement.”
“…”
“Both the human race and the Asura Race became unable to enter each other’s territories recklessly. The Bright Blood Grand Valley is the boundary line.”
The clone, who was thinking deeply with folded arms, opened his mouth.
“If the truce agreement was concluded fifty thousand years ago, does it mean you fought the war for a hundred and fifty thousand years?”
“What, probably.”
“…I do not understand. I heard the human race was a weak race? What on earth happened for you to fail to finish off a weak race during that long time?”
“Heh. You will surely hear somewhere that you are ignorant.”
When the clone narrowed his eyes, the old man, who coughed, sipped the wine and spoke.
“Ignorant rogue cultivators ignore the human race, saying their history is short. However, the human race is venomous enough to be compared to our Asura Race. Extremely persistent.”
“…What on earth did the human race do?”
When the old man shut his mouth again, the clone added more wine. To begin with, compared to the wealth Jin So-myeong possessed, the cost of wine was a mere speck, so there was nothing to regret.
“Ahem. Thank you. So… they say at the beginning of the war, the human race was unilaterally pushed back. Well, since their cultivation history is short, that is a natural thing.”
“Hmm.”
“They swept away the territory occupied by the human race, and while the Insect-Armor Race and our Asura Race, who participated in the war at the time, were quarreling over how to divide the territory. Indeed.”
“…”
“They say that using that gap, the human race, who gathered their remaining forces, resisted stubbornly. They struggled in a situation that was no different from being completely finished.”
“And that worked?”
“So I said they were persistent bastards. Even if they called what was left to the human race a land, it was not even a single Realm. Did they say they only had nine Provinces? It was a situation where any other race would have given up long ago.”
“Hmm.”
“However, no matter how much they trampled them, they tenaciously held on. Eventually, they say twelve Unity stage cultivators threw away even their own lives and perished together with an Integration stage Daoist Lord. An extremely absurd event broke out.”
The sipping wine bottle revealed its bottom, but the excited old man did not stop speaking.
“Everyone was astonished by that event. Because no one knew the human race possessed such reserve strength.”
“To think twelve Unity stage cultivators defeated an Integration stage Daoist Lord…”
“It makes no sense! What kind of realm is the Integration stage? Is it not a supreme realm where only four exist even in our Asura Race, which possesses a two-million-year history?”
As one became a high-tier cultivator, the gap between realms grew exponentially.
It was dozens of times more difficult for a Golden Core stage cultivator to defeat a Nascent Soul stage cultivator than for a Qi Condensation stage cultivator to defeat a Foundation Establishment stage cultivator.
If a Soul Formation stage cultivator was unilaterally defeated by a Unity stage cultivator without being able to budge even a finger, the gap between the Unity stage and the Integration stage would be even larger.
If so, how on earth did they perish together?
‘Did they all sacrifice their lifespans to display the Moon-Burning Diagram Scripture?’
While he was having various speculations, the old man shouted with a flushed face.
“Actually, once you reach the Unity stage, regardless of race, you can survive wherever you go. Yet they went out of their way to rush in while even sacrificing their lives, so from our Asura Race’s perspective, it was bound to be absurd. Is it not so?”
At the moment when Jin So-myeong, who was dwelling in the clone, stroked his chin.
“Hey, old man. Keep it moderate, will you? I tried to let it slide, but it is quite a spectacle. I cannot stand listening to it.”
“What?”
“You do not even know properly, yet you blabber as you please.”
When an Asura youth with broad shoulders strode close and looked down, the old man’s expression turned fierce.
“I truly cannot stand the way of speaking of these youths nowadays. Yes, kid. Blabber about what was wrong in what I said.”
“Everything! From one to ten, everything is wrong! Old man, have you ever even met a human?”
“…”
The youth, who shouted so loudly that the entire tavern vibrated, sneered.
“You haven’t! If you had met a human even once, you would have known immediately how much nonsense you were spouting! They are an extremely useless race. Miserable to the extreme!”
“…Does it mean you have met a human?”
“Hmph. Of course.”
The youth pointed at his chest as if to show this, where the words ‘Jade Gold Merchant Guild’ were written.
It seemed he had seen humans while participating in the trade secretly carried out.
“…”
At the moment when a silence flowed because the old man, who merely trembled his lips, could not answer.
Thud!
Out of nowhere, a powerful striking sound echoed, and blood flowed from the youth’s mouth.
Because the old man, whose face turned red and blue, gnashed his teeth and swung his fist out of the blue.
“…The old man’s fist is quite spicy.”
“Hmph. Since you were sucking your mother’s milk, I… Argh?!”
The head of the old man, whose nose was crushed by a pot-lid-sized fist, was thrown back.
“Wretched bastard!”
Once fists were exchanged, from then on, there was neither age nor gender.
Crash!
A blood-splattering fight began, and when two body temperers collided, the tavern became a shambles in an instant.
‘Phew… they fight whenever there is a gap.’
Jin So-myeong, who shook his head, dwelled in another clone.
This time it was a clone conversing with a merchant on the street, and there was a decent result on this side as well.
“Do you say you know about the Nine Heavens Wild Wind?”
“Yes. Actually, it is not a particularly secret story. Because low-tier cultivators like us do not need to care about it, they do not know well, but it is common sense for high-tier cultivators.”
When he flicked a spirit stone as the price of information, the merchant, who grinned, continued speaking.
“Three thousand li above the sky? They say if you go up that much, a strange wind blows that makes it impossible to control spiritual power just by touching it. That is the Nine Heavens Wild Wind.”
Three thousand li was roughly 1,200 km.
Jin So-myeong, who contemplated for a moment, stretched his Divine Sense as long as possible toward the sky, and indeed, a strange atmospheric layer existed.
Even though he had only examined it with his Divine Sense, his temples tingled and his dantian felt like boiling.
‘So I was swept away by that.’
According to the merchant’s explanation, to control spiritual power in the Nine Heavens Wild Wind, one had to at least be at the Integration stage.
Jin So-myeong, who found out the information he was curious about, left the merchant, and similar things were repeated several times.
The main body focused on cultivating, and the clones focused on asking around.
*
A fortnight later.
A contact flew from the merchant Nok-myeong saying that the Mysterious Jade Crystal had arrived safely.
‘Finally.’
Because the Mysterious Jade Crystal was something he had been searching for continuously since the lower realm, he did not hesitate.
Disguising himself as an old man with a prickly impression, he visited the merchant guild, and Nok-myeong smiled.
“You are here. Here is the Mysterious Jade Crystal you ordered.”
“Hmm.”
“It is 70,000 Immortal Stones per lump. Since it is three lumps in total, it is 210,000 Immortal Stones, but I will specially give it to you for 200,000 Immortal Stones.”
“I will verify it first.”
“Ah, of course. However, because the Mysterious Jade Crystal explodes if handled wrongly, we hope you will be careful.”
“I know.”
Opening the handed-over storage pouch, a mineral with a diameter of about 3m was placed on a large dish, and if examined closely, one could know that it was floating in the air without directly touching the dish.
Because the Mysterious Jade Crystal was sensitive to physical force and exploded if handled wrongly, it had to be kept in a special container like this dish that floated the object inside.
‘It is indeed the Mysterious Jade Crystal.’
When he held the light green jade stone-like Mysterious Jade Crystal against the sun, a dark blue light wavered inside.
Seeing that five layers of wave shapes drew concentric circles centering on the light, it was certainly the Mysterious Jade Crystal.
“How is it?”
There was no need to answer.
Bestowing 200,000 Immortal Stones to Nok-myeong, who wore a smile, he stood up from his seat as he was.
“No, are you leaving already? We prepared precious spiritual tea to treat you.”
“Sorry, but I am busy.”
Formidably cutting off Nok-myeong, who wanted to share friendship…no, who wanted to pry information…he departed.
Guarding against whether a pursuer followed, he returned to his cave dwelling, and
He took out the jade slip containing the recipe of the Mysterious Heaven Brilliance Pill.
‘It has been a long time since I personally refined pills.’
Because the Mysterious Heaven Brilliance Pill was a precious pill that raised one’s spiritual root talent to the Heavenly Spiritual Root, he had to make it with his best efforts.
Only after reading the already completely mastered jade slip several times repeatedly did he finally start the refining.
First of all, he took out the Heavenly Thunder Wood Core, which was one of the core ingredients, and
Crack!
He cleanly split the Heavenly Thunder Wood Core, which looked like half-burnt firewood, in half.
At the moment when the vitality condensed inside the Heavenly Thunder Wood Core was about to disperse, he spread the Five Elements Divine Lightning like a shroud to wrap the vitality.
Originally, to extract this vitality, one had to go through several complicated processes, but possessing the Heavenly Thunder Body and having an overwhelming dominance over lightning qi, he could handle it easily.
After finishing the preparation of the Heavenly Thunder Wood Core.
He took out the ice cauldron, the Mysterious Ice Crystal Cauldron, which he kept in his sub-space, and the temperature of the cultivation room fell rapidly.
Crackle!
Controlling the cold qi trying to freeze the entire cave dwelling, he concentrated it on the Mysterious Jade Crystal.
After freezing the mineral that exploded even if a little pressure was applied to lower its reactivity.
Crunch!
Pouring in Soul Formation stage-grade spiritual power, he compressed the 3m-diameter mineral to the size of a grain of rice.
‘It is done.’
Heavenly Thunder Wood Core and Mysterious Jade Crystal. Since the preparation of the core ingredients finished safely, the rest was not that difficult.
It was because while in the lower realm, he had fully understood the recipe of the Mysterious Heaven Brilliance Pill with the help of various alchemists.
Still, just in case, he even used Supreme Great Abilities to pull up the refining success rate, and…
Without any anomaly, he could cleanly complete the Mysterious Heaven Brilliance Pill.
‘So if I eat this, I will become a Heavenly Spiritual Root.’
He stared spellbound at the dark-colored pill he had made with all his devotion. The golden lightning qi wavering on the surface of the pill looked like stars scattered in the night sky.
Although he wanted to consume it right away, he exercised patience.
‘I went through hardships to make it, so I cannot just eat it as it is.’
There was something he absolutely had to do before consuming the pill.
Only after completely recovering the Supreme Great Abilities consumed during the refining process.
He poured in all three billion Supreme Great Abilities.
Like that,
Only after magnifying the medicinal effect to the maximum using the Supreme Great Abilities did he finally swallow the Mysterious Heaven Brilliance Pill.
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