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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Bobt
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“Did you steal it?”
Yu Jeong-mok raised his head and looked at Joo Seo-cheon.
“No, I didn’t.”
Joo Seo-cheon shook his head from side to side in denial.
“Did you snatch it?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then did you bring it here by deceiving someone?”
“Absolutely not.”
To the continuous questions, Joo Seo-cheon answered all of them with denial.
There was no hesitation and no wavering.
His eyes shone as upright and honest as Yu Jeong-mok’s eyes.
However, those eyes seemed to be filled with determination, as if he had resolved something.
“Then where did you get something like this?”
“That’s…”
Joo Seo-cheon told Yu Jeong-mok the truth. But not everything.
What he revealed was that he had secretly left the Mount Hua Sect during the three days Yu Jeong-mok was away and visited an underwater cave.
He didn’t say the crazy words that he had regressed and knew the future.
But he didn’t tell a lie to replace it either. No, to be precise, he couldn’t say it.
“Hmm.”
Yu Jeong-mok silently bent his knee.
“It seems you’re hiding something more from me.”
“…”
Joo Seo-cheon was startled. Although he didn’t say it, the emotion that appeared on his face was a question of “How?”
Yu Jeong-mok gently wrapped his hand around the Water Spirit Divine Fruit that was placed on Joo Seo-cheon’s palm.
“I can tell by looking at your eyes.”
“Master… I…”
“I’ll accept it.”
Yu Jeong-mok received the Water Spirit Divine Fruit from his disciple.
“I believe you.”
There were no further words.
That was the end of it.
There was no interrogation, let alone any questions.
Yu Jeong-mok believed the words of the nine-year-old child. Although he had doubts, he didn’t pry into them.
Then he accepted what was brought to him as a spiritual medicine without any objection.
“Is that really the end of it?”
On the contrary, it was Joo Seo-cheon who was puzzled.
“Why… do you believe me without any doubts?”
He himself wanted to gloss over it. But even to himself, the situation seemed strange.
To that question, his master, Yu Jeong-mok, simply answered with his usual kind smile.
“If a master doesn’t believe his disciple, who else will? If I was truly suspicious, I would have interrogated you about a year ago.”
Joo Seo-cheon couldn’t help but be astonished, his mouth agape.
“So you knew…!”
About a year ago, it was right after the regression, when he had been acting like a child to avoid unnecessary suspicion.
He thought he had been perfect, but it was a futile effort. Yu Jeong-mok truly knew everything from beginning to end.
When Joo Seo-cheon’s expression changed drastically, Yu Jeong-mok smiled bitterly and added.
“I don’t know exactly what it is either. I just felt that you had matured at some point, but you were trying to hide it.”
No matter how quickly a child grew, there was a limit.
From observing closely, his disciple’s behavior was unusual.
At first, he wondered if he had been possessed by a demon.
Sometimes disciples went crazy from practicing martial arts incorrectly.
It wasn’t for nothing that masters stayed close to their disciples when they were young and monitored them.
Because of their immaturity, they made such mistakes.
However, no matter how he looked at it, that wasn’t the case.
He had thought about it and speculated several times. But no logic made sense.
He just had a feeling that it was “alright.”
“You hid it because you had a reason, right?”
Joo Seo-cheon nodded his head up and down.
“Then there must be a reason for bringing this spiritual medicine to me as well. In that case, it can’t be helped.”
Yu Jeong-mok hugged Joo Seo-cheon.
“Master… Thank you.”
Squeeze.
The disciple hugged his master tightly.
Then he buried his face in his shoulder and shed tears.
Yu Jeong-mok patted Joo Seo-cheon’s back and cracked a joke.
“You used to pee down there, and now you’re peeing up here too.”
“Master… That’s not quite right… Sniff!”
Joo Seo-cheon cried out loud and put on a serious face.
Yu Jeong-mok, who had prepared a joke to make him laugh, felt awkward.
“I was trying to make you laugh, but…”
Ah, Master!
* * *
It was good to show the close affection between master and disciple. But what was more important was the consumption of the spiritual medicine.
Joo Seo-cheon explained the Water Spirit Divine Fruit relatively in detail so that Yu Jeong-mok could absorb it more easily.
Actually, there wasn’t much to explain in detail.
It was just that the main components were water energy and wood energy.
“Then please guide me through the breathing technique.”
Yu Jeong-mok consumed the Water Spirit Divine Fruit and began practicing Qi circulation.
“This is amazing.”
As soon as he closed his eyes and focused, he felt the energy of the spiritual medicine.
It was the first time Yu Jeong-mok had consumed a spiritual medicine.
Even a major sect like the Mount Hua Sect had spiritual medicines, but not to the extent that they could give them to just anyone.
Spiritual medicines were only permitted to a few late-stage masters. Even for them, it was at most once in their lifetime.
“Yes, like this… Huh?”
Yu Jeong-mok was startled during his Qi circulation.
Fortunately, thanks to the emotional control of Taoist cultivation techniques, he was able to maintain his composure.
“What on earth just happened?”
Although Yu Jeong-mok had never consumed a spiritual medicine before, he knew well what to do from reading the manuals.
When consuming a spiritual medicine, most of the energy had to be guided to the dantian through Qi circulation and accumulated like internal energy.
However, if the energy of the spiritual medicine was considerable, the meridians and dantian would collapse if it was converted into internal energy all at once.
To prevent that, one had to move it slowly and gradually convert it into one’s own, bit by bit.
But what happened to Yu Jeong-mok was completely different.
In a moment that could be described as instantaneous, without being able to move, the energy moved on its own.
It didn’t run wild. If it had, the intense force would have twisted and shredded his meridians and organs.
The energy of the Water Spirit Divine Fruit, the water-wood energy, disappeared deep into Yu Jeong-mok’s body before he could even lay his hands on it.
“Qi deviation?”
His mind and spirit trembled slightly.
And the first thing that came to his mind was…
“He’s only nine years old…”
The face of his disciple, Joo Seo-cheon.
He didn’t suspect that the spiritual medicine was faulty. He didn’t worry about his life or internal energy. His only concern was for his disciple.
And at that moment!
“Ugh!”
The disappeared water-wood energy penetrated deep into his body.
“So that’s what it was!”
The worries and doubts disappeared.
The fog that was not visible completely disappeared.
Instead, he was able to realize something.
However, it wasn’t an enlightenment about martial arts or the Dao.
It was about the constitution that had been unusually weak since childhood.
“There was a problem with the pre-heaven true Qi!”
The Qi that a person had from birth.
The root of life and another type of energy from the great nature.
This was called pre-heaven true Qi.
However, this pre-heaven true Qi was a bit different from ordinary internal energy.
First of all, pre-heaven true Qi was the root of life. Consuming it meant consuming one’s life.
The power of pre-heaven true Qi itself was truly tremendous, and if used, one could gain great strength, but not long after, one would die.
Even if one didn’t use it all up or was lucky enough to survive, the aftermath was determined to be either disability or rapid aging.
Moreover, the consumed power could not be replenished. Once used, that was it. Even consuming spiritual medicines was the same.
Yu Jeong-mok had a problem with this pre-heaven true Qi.
“Seo-cheon saved me, he saved me!”
Yu Jeong-mok jumped up from his seat.
He wanted to rush to his disciple and hug him.
Joo Seo-cheon, who was guarding the breathing technique, was startled when Yu Jeong-mok ran out before even an hour had passed.
At first, he was worried that something might have gone wrong, but he was relieved when he heard the laughter that followed.
Yu Jeong-mok hugged Joo Seo-cheon and rejoiced for a while before calming down and explaining what had happened to his body.
“To be precise, it wasn’t the pre-heaven true Qi, but the vessel containing it that was the problem.”
“The vessel, you say?”
Yu Jeong-mok nodded at Joo Seo-cheon’s question.
“Yes, it seems that the pre-heaven true Qi was leaking from somewhere, although very slightly.”
Joo Seo-cheon didn’t know much about pre-heaven true Qi either.
That was the same in the past, present, and future. Nothing had been clearly identified.
Since long ago, only the concept had been passed down. Even where the pre-heaven true Qi lay dormant was unknown.
It just came out from somewhere and was consumed when one focused their mind and spirit whenever they wanted to use it.
The problem was that even the users themselves could only feel and think about it, but they couldn’t understand the principle at all.
It was the same for low-level scoundrels and masters alike.
Anyway, Yu Jeong-mok had a problem with the vessel containing this pre-heaven true Qi, causing the true Qi to be slightly consumed.
The amount was as small as a hair’s tip, no, even less than that. However, even that small amount had a significant impact on the human body.
Since the foundation of life was being consumed, it was natural for abnormalities to occur in the body. If they didn’t occur, that would be strange in itself.
Even if one practiced martial arts and accumulated internal energy to raise their realm, it couldn’t be solved because it was a completely different domain from pre-heaven true Qi.
“Indeed, I roughly understand what happened. The vitality of the tree repaired the vessel of the pre-heaven true Qi.”
Joo Seo-cheon fully understood what had happened just from Yu Jeong-mok’s brief explanation.
Although Yu Jeong-mok was enthusiastically teaching in front of him, Joo Seo-cheon already knew well enough to supplement that explanation.
In the first place, if Yu Jeong-mok knew, there was no way Joo Seo-cheon, who had reached the Awakening Realm, wouldn’t know.
“Trees represent life. Although not to the extent of pre-heaven true Qi, the vitality of the Water Spirit Divine Fruit can substitute for it. It compensated for it.”
Since the leakage was stopped, there was no need to worry anymore.
It seemed that the Water Spirit Divine Fruit had also replenished what was consumed.
To think that wood energy, in other words, vitality, could restore the consumed pre-heaven true Qi!
It shattered the common sense that it could never be restored.
“But that was possible because it was Master.”
Yu Jeong-mok hadn’t used his pre-heaven true Qi.
If he had used it, he would have died regardless of the Water Spirit Divine Fruit.
It was to the extent that it leaked out very slightly due to a problem with the vessel, so little that he himself couldn’t even feel it.
Yet just to restore that amount to the normal range, he had to consume a peerless spiritual medicine like the Water Spirit Divine Fruit.
By the way, the energy of the Water Spirit Divine Fruit was only used for the purpose of repairing the pre-heaven true Qi. It couldn’t be converted into internal energy.
Yu Jeong-mok’s body had only become healthy, but he couldn’t convert a single bit of the spiritual medicine’s energy into internal energy.
In the end, he still couldn’t use his pre-heaven true Qi unless he was prepared to die. Yu Jeong-mok also warned about this.
It was only because Yu Jeong-mok’s situation was very special.
“It’s fine. That’s not what’s important, right?”
What was important now was that the future had changed.
Even when the age of fourteen arrived, there was no need to worry.
His master, Yu Jeong-mok, would not die.
Decades ago, he had sent off his master in such a futile way.
He had lost the person he loved, his only family.
There were still many things he hadn’t learned yet.
“And you should eat this.”
The Water Spirit Divine Fruit was placed on Joo Seo-cheon’s palm.
“Master!”
There were two Water Spirit Divine Fruits obtained from the underwater cave.
One of them had already been used, and one remained.
“Don’t tell me to keep it just in case. I know my body better. Your master is fine.”
“Then for the purpose of enhancing internal energy…”
“Then you’ll need it even more.”
Yu Jeong-mok seemed unwilling to yield.
Joo Seo-cheon tried to persuade him a bit more, but when he saw Yu Jeong-mok’s stern expression, he had to give up.
Although Yu Jeong-mok was infinitely gentle and kind, once he was stubborn, no one could stop him.
Joo Seo-cheon himself knew that better than anyone else.
“Alright, fine. Let’s not overdo it anymore.”
His master had agreed to his disciple’s persistence.
He didn’t interrogate him and even said he believed him.
Even the events up to now were honestly a great discourtesy to his master. It was only because it was Yu Jeong-mok that he could let it slide.
“I understand.”
“You made a good decision.”
Only then did a smile spread across Yu Jeong-mok’s lips again.
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