Chapter 326: Chapter 326
From then on, we hunted without rest.
As if the slow pace until now had been for the sole purpose of avoiding Demonic Beasts, Yang Ja-pyeong began blazing a trail without hesitation.
And when we moved that aggressively—
“Ugh, uwaah……!”
—Demonic Beasts leapt out, as if to prove why the Black Forest was the Black Forest.
Blue-Scaled Gold-Line Snakes and Heaven-Flying Centipedes, of course, and even a Human-Faced Spider after a long absence.
Ah, naturally, Seong Mo-ran fainted when we encountered the Human-Faced Spider.
Demonic Beasts that were rare enough to encounter even once in the Central Plains popped out here as freely as rabbits on a neighborhood hill.
‘Of course, rabbits don’t charge at you with bloodshot eyes trying to eat you.’
The team members, who’d initially flinched at the terrifying appearances, gradually adapted as their kill count grew, and their hunting speed increased accordingly.
“Another grain-of-millet-sized one this time.”
The most dramatic change was Seong Mo-ran.
She no longer panicked at the sight of insects.
Apparently, after seeing the Human-Faced Spider, ordinary bugs were bearable now.
But she’d gone beyond merely bearing it.
“Whose turn is it this time? Dong-ryong?”
She was even taking the lead.
A warm smile formed naturally.
Seong Mo-ran deftly extracted the Spiritual Pill and held it out to Dong-ryong, who stared at it in silence.
She pushed her hand closer.
“What are you waiting for? Eat it and circulate your qi.”
“……”
After gazing at the Spiritual Pill wordlessly, Dong-ryong turned his head toward me.
“……But Eldest Senior Brother, you haven’t eaten a single one this whole time.”
A surge of emotion welled up in my chest at the boy’s thoughtfulness.
Yeah, this was exactly why I went through all this trouble for them.
I blinked back tears and patted Dong-ryong’s shoulder.
“Seeing you eat them and take one more step forward—that’s what this Eldest Senior Brother wants.”
“But……”
Watching Dong-ryong try to give me the millet-sized Spiritual Pill, Seong Mo-ran spoke in a mocking tone.
“That’s not it, Dong-ryong. Even if he ate it, it wouldn’t make a dent for someone like him.”
“……”
“I hear he’s eaten Spiritual Pills from the Namgung Clan and the Murong Clan too? Hah…… and here I was, worrying so much about whether the Iron Heart Pill could heal the damage to his qi center.”
Ahem. Where on earth was the leak? They say in the murim you should always keep seventy percent hidden.
I pretended not to hear Seong Mo-ran.
“Dong-ryong, just watching you all eat makes this Eldest Senior Brother feel as though his inner arts are growing. Don’t worry about me, eat up.”
In truth, my inner arts actually were growing.
Most of the Demonic Beasts carrying Spiritual Pills also had poison cores larger than the pills, and I’d been secretly absorbing them all along.
Compared to Spiritual Pills, the energy in poison cores wasn’t as great, but using the Azure Dragon Bracelet, I could extract a decent amount of inner arts from them.
That meant there was no need to eat the millet-sized Spiritual Pills.
The problem was that using the Azure Dragon Bracelet was anything but easy.
‘Hah, the number of poison cores I’ve missed because of prying eyes……’
If only he could roam freely, he’d happily retrace his steps, use the Azure Dragon Bracelet in secret, and come back.
But who in their right mind would wander alone through terrain this treacherous just to eat those?
No matter how unhinged I might be, I could at least exercise that much judgment. Yes, indeed.
As my sighs piled up, a commotion echoed from below the ridge.
“Hm?”
My team and I all craned our necks downward, and there, roughly two hundred Academy students were moving together.
‘What’s going on?’
Sharpening my eyesight, I saw it was a mixed group of Righteous Path Association and Orthodox Path Association members.
“What are they doing?”
“I was about to say. They should’ve been on exploration missions…… why are they moving in a mass?”
As Seong Mo-ran and Eun-ho pointed out, the group’s behavior was thoroughly bizarre.
Rather than exploring, they seemed to have organized into a hunting formation.
They felled trees and hacked through undergrowth indiscriminately, focused solely on advancing—heedless of anything around them.
“Nnngh……”
Yang Ja-pyeong let out a long groan, as though he knew something.
“I was wondering from the start why the instructors would order something this dangerous……”
“Do you know something?”
“Hah…… it seems they’re trying to hunt a Divine Spirit.”
I froze solid on the spot.
“A Divine Spirit?”
“The Four Great Divine Spirits that rule the Black Forest. What on earth are they thinking?”
“Is that really true?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Why would they do something so reckless……”
Fury surged all the way to the top of my skull.
“Representative Jin, please don’t concern yourself too much……”
“There are…… Spiritual Creatures in the Black Forest?!”
Why are you only telling me this now?
“They’re really there?”
“……”
Yang Ja-pyeong stared at me blankly.
If he had to put words to that gaze, it was: That’s what you’re fixated on?
I forcibly tamped down my excitement and asked again with due courtesy.
“If there are Spiritual Creatures…… they must be carrying enormous Spiritual Pills, right?!”
“……Did you not hear the part about it being extremely dangerous?”
“If they have Spiritual Pills, how big are we talking? If they’re called the Four Great Divine Spirits, they must be enormous?”
“Excuse me, Representative?”
“Enormous…… heheh……”
“Represen—hey! Representative Jin! You! Can you not hear me?!”
“The Four Great Divine Spirits…… heheh…… the Four Great Divine Spirits……”
That’s right, who had time to build a mountain out of dust?
Life was all about the one big score!
“Listen! Representative Jin! Your eyes are doing something weird right now! You know that?!”
The words of Yang Ja-pyeong—that habitual liar—no longer reached my ears.
***
“Solar Monkey.”
“Heeheehee.”
“Azure Snow Ice-White Serpent.”
“Kahahaha.”
“……Ten-Thousand-Year Earth Bear.”
“Puheeheeheet.”
“Golden-Armored Roc.”
“Bwahahahahat!”
“……”
Icy stares stabbed into me.
I cleared my throat and composed my expression.
Come on, the laughter just burst out on its own—I couldn’t help it.
“Together, these four are called the Four Great Divine Spirits of the Black Forest.”
“Heeheehee.”
“……”
“Oh, oh, I’m sorry.”
Yang Ja-pyeong pressed his fingers firmly into his throbbing temples.
“……As I said, these are not existences that can simply be hunted. They are beings beyond human limits. They aren’t called Divine Spirits for nothing.”
Yang Ja-pyeong spoke with fervor.
“Moreover, whether the Divine Spirits even possess Spiritual Pills has never once been confirmed. Do you know why?”
“No idea.”
“Because no one has ever succeeded in hunting one.”
“Not even once?”
Namgung Seon-hwa asked, sounding astonished, and Yang Ja-pyeong nodded.
“They’re cunning enough to rival humans, possess the strength of Demonic Beasts, and the Black Forest is their own backyard. Forget hunting them—you’re more likely to lose your way while tracking them.”
“……”
“If you say you’re going to hunt a Divine Spirit, I will stop serving as your guide. No matter my obligations, I cannot throw my life away.”
My soaring excitement settled and cold reason returned.
If Yang Ja-pyeong—who’d readily assisted with the poison-resistance work and Demonic Beast hunts—refused this categorically, it truly had to be dangerous.
No matter how tempting the Spiritual Medicine, it wasn’t worth gambling the lives of my junior brothers and teammates.
I dipped my head lightly toward him.
“Understood. I’ll accept Sir Yang’s judgment.”
Yang Ja-pyeong let out a long sigh of relief.
Just as I shelved my regret about the Divine Spirit hunt and prepared to move—
“Eldest Senior Brother, there are people heading this way.”
A group from the Divine Spirit hunting party was approaching us.
The people who emerged, hacking through the undergrowth, were none other than instructors and Academy students.
“Hm? Some weasel-like bastard came to interfere with our hunt, so I came to warn them off…… well, if it isn’t the Academy Representative.”
No Jin-ha spoke with a sneer curling his lips.
What an ugly face, now even uglier.
“An instructor who’s supposed to be at base camp—what are you doing crawling all the way out here?”
“What? Crawling?!”
As No Jin-ha surged forward, Kang Tae-ha held him back and spoke.
“……We came out to explore as well, partly to protect the Academy students.”
I jerked my chin toward the men dressed as hunters standing beside Kang Tae-ha.
“With guides who aren’t from the Southern Fist Sect, no less?”
One of the hunter-clad men furrowed his brow and stepped forward.
“The Southern Fist Sect doesn’t know everything about the Black Forest. They’re little more than greenhorns guarding the entrance.”
“Grrrind.”
Yang Ja-pyeong—apparently acquainted with the hunter-clad men—ground his teeth and glared at them before snarling at the instructors.
“A Divine Spirit hunt during the Great Journey……! What are you all thinking?”
“Unlike you cowards, we’ve come all this way—might as well get a look at a Divine Spirit, wouldn’t you say?”
“Hunting a Divine Spirit is……”
“Ah, spare us the lectures. We’ve already prepared countermeasures for the Natural Formations and all that.”
The hunter-clad men chimed in smugly.
“Natural Formations are only scary when you try to navigate around them. Just bulldoze through and it’s done.”
“Hah……!”
Leaving Yang Ja-pyeong with an expression of utter disbelief, No Jin-ha turned his gaze toward me.
“The Representative, who’s supposed to be exploring the Demonic Reaches, is still loitering here? Could it be you want in on the Divine Spirit hunt?”
After a round of shared laughter, No Jin-ha spoke again.
“How about it—prostrate yourself, and maybe I’ll think about letting you join.”
“……!”
For a split second, my body lurched forward involuntarily, but Eun-ho caught my arm just in time.
—Get a hold of yourself.
Phew. I almost bowed.
The kid’s instincts were sharp, at least.
I brushed off my robes and shook my head.
“I’ll pass. A Divine Spirit isn’t some neighborhood stray. How could I trust incompetent commanders with a hunt?”
“What did you say?!”
“Whether it’s a Divine Spirit hunt or whatever, go ahead and knock yourselves out. I sincerely hope you succeed.”
With that, I turned my back.
From behind came something like ‘that damn bastard, I’ll definitely……’ but I cheerfully ignored it.
After walking for a while, Yang Ja-pyeong sidled up next to me, unable to conceal his elation.
“Wise decision. A Divine Spirit hunt—what an absurd idea. It’s not quite a substitute, but…… I’ll guide you to areas with as many Demonic Beasts as possible.”
Once we’d put sufficient distance between us and No Jin-ha’s group—
I seized Yang Ja-pyeong’s sturdy shoulders and asked.
“You’re certain…… they won’t succeed, right?”
“Huh? In, in what……”
“The hunt…… the Divine Spirit hunt. They really can’t pull it off, right?”
“……”
Yang Ja-pyeong’s expression turned as black as burnt charcoal.
I shook his shoulders vigorously and asked again.
“You’re absolutely, positively sure they won’t succeed?!”
“……”
“Hah…… they’d better fail.”
Otherwise, the envy might actually kill me.
***
We continued hunting Demonic Beasts even as we headed toward the Demonic Reaches.
Some I’d seen in the Murim Compendium of Spiritual Medicines or the Secret Record of Ten Thousand Herbs; others were bizarre creatures I was seeing for the first time.
As proficiency grew, the hunts no longer posed much difficulty.
Everyone quickly grasped each Demonic Beast’s tendencies and knew exactly what to do.
Without a word, they fell into position and assisted with the kill.
Eventually, small ones or those with weak venom could be hunted even without me.
Yang Ja-pyeong was impressed enough to praise the hunting speed—proof that we’d thoroughly mastered Demonic Beast hunting.
By the seventh day, the team members seemed to feel no discomfort in the Black Forest.
Thanks to the poisons they’d consumed for resistance training, no one was bitten by insects anymore, and with Eun Seol-ran around, they could even enjoy cool, refreshing breaks.
“How wonderful it is…… this Ice Arts.”
Yang Ja-pyeong marveled endlessly as he drank water with a thin layer of frost on it.
Regrettably, I still hadn’t been able to absorb the poison cores.
After Geum-pyo nearly got poisoned while searching for a Spiritual Pill, Yang Ja-pyeong had begun meticulously extracting poison cores, burying them, and refusing to take his eyes off them until they moved on—leaving me with no opening whatsoever.
In the end, I decided to let it go to some degree.
The inner arts were a shame, but not worth the risk of the Azure Dragon Bracelet being discovered.
That was when something else caught my eye—Yang Ja-pyeong’s own abilities.
After nearly two weeks together, I’d noticed something.
Yang Ja-pyeong seemed to have a rough sense of his own bearings.
There had been times when they’d strayed far from the original path—either avoiding Natural Formations or fleeing from Demonic Beasts—yet each time, Yang Ja-pyeong found his way back to the original route as if by magic.
When I asked about this, Yang Ja-pyeong grinned.
“Of course I can gauge direction and position to some extent.”
“But you said no sense functions properly in here.”
“That’s correct. The spiritual vein’s energy is simply too overwhelming.”
“Then how on earth do you navigate so well?”
Confidence spread across Yang Ja-pyeong’s face.
“Every sense is disrupted and confused by the spiritual vein, but conversely, there’s one thing that isn’t disrupted, isn’t there?”
“Something that isn’t disrupted?”
Yang Ja-pyeong pointed at the ground.
“The spiritual vein itself.”
“Oh!”
A small exclamation of admiration escaped me.
Using the very spiritual vein that disrupted all other senses as a compass—now that was something.
“The spiritual vein flows broadly from north to southeast. Of course, if you could memorize every subtle current, you could navigate the Black Forest like your own home—but that’s beyond human capability. However, just remembering the main arteries and their flow is enough to find your way in the Black Forest.”
There was good reason the Southern Fist Sect had become the sect entrusted with managing the Black Forest.
“Is there a specific method for sensing the spiritual vein?”
“Anyone can do it, of course. It’s similar to how a martial artist perceives energy. Though ordinary Breathing Methods won’t be sufficient.”
“Could I learn how?”
I asked cautiously, in case it was a secret transmission of his sect, but Yang Ja-pyeong answered readily.
“It’s not terribly difficult. An ordinary Inner Arts Heart Method stores energy inside the body through the union of Essence and Qi, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“Reading the spiritual vein’s flow uses Qi and Spirit. You extend all your senses outward as energy and allow your Spirit to perceive the spiritual vein’s current flowing beneath the earth.”
While Yang Ja-pyeong was explaining, I began channeling the Taeul True Scripture.
Without assuming a cross-legged posture or initiating formal circulation, I simply sustained the union of Qi and Spirit as I was.
In an instant, my five senses expanded and a torrent of information flooded in.
The rank scent of Demonic Beast fluids, the humid air on his skin.
His teammates’ forms observed as though from a detached vantage point, and the distant sounds of battle.
Even the lingering chill of cold water still on his tongue.
After that flood of sensory information passed—
WHOOOOSH.
Something like the sound of a vast river flowing beneath his feet began to emerge.
A cold, stinging energy that seemed to press against his very skin.
No—it wasn’t heard.
It was seen and felt.
Too light to be water, too heavy to be air—the unapproachable, immense energy of the earth itself.
‘So this is it.’
The moment he finally comprehended what the spiritual vein flowing through the Black Forest truly was.
I slowly retracted my five senses.
Because I needed to ask what to do next.
“……ive years of training, you can perceive the energy faintly.”
Yang Ja-pyeong, as it happened, was still in the middle of his explanation.
I asked him in a nonchalant tone.
“I can sense the spiritual vein. What do I do next?”
“……”
Yang Ja-pyeong, mid-sentence, tilted his head like someone who’d just heard something unbelievable.
“I’m sorry?”
“I said I can sense the spiritual vein. What’s the next step?”
“……”
An inexplicable, uncomfortable silence descended.
“Why the face……”
“……”
What was this atmosphere?
Had I done something wrong again?
I scratched my cheek and glanced around, but no one offered an answer.