Chapter 174
Baekgyeong Pavilion stood quietly deep within the clan's inner grounds.
The pavilion, visited after a long time, still greeted Baek Cheong with its old-world grace.
At the entrance, a familiar old man was dozing in a chair, slumped to one side.
He was Baek Un-ho, the guardian elder of the clan's library and, to Baek Cheong, practically a little grandfather.
Baek Cheong hurried over and bowed politely.
“Grand-uncle, have you been well?”
At the sound of footsteps, Baek Un-ho half-opened his sleepy eyes.
Recognizing the one standing before him, he straightened up, the drowsiness draining from his face.
“Oh, if it isn't our Cheong.”
Baek Un-ho looked Baek Cheong up and down with a pleased expression.
Then, as if noticing something, he widened his eyes.
“Heh-heh, your bearing has completely changed in no time at all. So the rumors that you entered Foundation Establishment were true after all.”
“Yes, I only just advanced a little while ago.”
“Just barely, you say? To reach Foundation Establishment with a five-spiritual-root body, and I hear you even achieved Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment? This old man is puffing up with pride.”
Baek Un-ho burst into a delighted laugh as though it were his own achievement.
Then he rummaged through his sleeve and took out a small jade token.
“As it happens, the Supreme Patriarch gave instructions in advance. He said that when Cheong comes, Baek Cheong is to be allowed to freely enter the second floor.”
When he lightly stroked the jade token, the barrier surrounding the pavilion rippled gently.
“Since you've reached Foundation Establishment, there’s no reason to bar you from the second floor. From now on, come and go whenever you like.”
“Thank you, Grand-uncle!”
‘Finally, I’m on the second floor.’
Baek Cheong could barely hide the excitement and stepped inside the pavilion.
Baek Cheong quickly passed the first floor and climbed the stairs, and a different scene unfolded before the eyes.
If the first floor was like a shed piled haphazardly with faded jade slips, the second floor was different from the start.
Faint spiritual energy hung in the air, and rows of packed bookshelves stretched all the way to the ceiling.
Curiosity piqued, Baek Cheong casually browsed the nearest shelves.
‘Oh.’
Even the books on the shelves were no ordinary items, much less the jade slips.
There were maps marking where rare medicinal herbs could be found, and books compiling information on the demon beasts and spirit beasts living in the Yeonha area.
If even the books were like this, the jade slips needed no mention.
Jade slips on all manner of spells, cultivation arts, and assorted techniques filled the vast second floor without a single gap.
The sheer abundance of material filled Baek Cheong with admiration.
‘This might be bigger than most sects.’
Setting the miscellaneous items aside for later, Baek Cheong first set out to look for cultivation arts.
Since Foundation Establishment had been reached, it was time to adjust the cultivation art.
When Baek Cheong entered the shelves holding cultivation arts, there were indeed dozens of different kinds.
As fingers traced over the jade slips one by one, they stopped at a familiar name.
[Yeonha True Water Art (煙霞眞水訣)]
It was the clan's main cultivation art, Yeonha True Water Art.
Its roots were the same as Yeonha Art, the introductory art learned earlier, but it was on a far higher level.
As the signature water-attribute art of the Yeonha Baek clan, it was only natural for it to be on the second floor.
But when Baek Cheong picked up the jade slip right beside it, the head tilted.
[Black-Iron Vajra Art (玄鐵金剛訣)]
It was clearly a metal-attribute cultivation art.
What's more, it was the main art of Heavenly Cloud Manor, a nearby metal-element clan.
‘How on earth did they get this?’
With another clan's signature cultivation art sitting openly on the shelf, it was impossible not to be baffled.
Heavenly Cloud Manor was a metal-element clan that wielded considerable influence near Yeonha Immortal City.
Obtaining the main art of such a clan couldn't possibly have been easy.
‘Well, I’m sure he found it somehow.’
Suppressing the confusion, Baek Cheong carefully continued examining the cultivation arts lined up on the shelves.
In the cultivation world, ranks were judged by Heaven, Earth, Profound, and Yellow (天地玄黃).
Heaven-rank was the highest, followed by Earth-rank and Profound-rank, with Yellow-rank the lowest.
By that scale, the clan's Yeonha True Water Art was Earth-rank.
By contrast, Heavenly Cloud Manor's Black-Iron Vajra Art was one rank lower, at Profound-rank.
Baek Cheong also looked through the rest of the cultivation arts.
‘There’s one Earth-rank wood-attribute art, and the rest are...’
One wood-attribute art of unknown origin was Earth-rank, and all the others were either Profound-rank or Yellow-rank.
Only after taking it all in did Baek Cheong finally realize something.
As a clan that made water attributes its main focus, it was only natural for them to have decent water-attribute arts.
But there was no reason for them to also have worthwhile metal- and wood-attribute arts.
‘Looks like Grandfather got these for me.’
The words about going around and asking here and there to gather useful cultivation arts came to mind.
He had prepared them in advance, taking into account that Baek Cheong, with five spiritual roots, needed to cultivate all five elements evenly.
Thinking of the care with which even another clan's signature art had been obtained, Baek Cheong felt a warm tingle in the chest.
‘How did he get an Earth-rank art...?’
For a moment, Baek Cheong was genuinely moved.
As the various cultivation arts were flipped through, Baek Cheong's expression gradually soured.
‘But this is more troublesome than I thought.’
The problem was that each cultivation art was of a different rank.
The five introductory arts currently practiced were all the same rank, so the mutual generation of the five elements meshed smoothly.
But if Earth-rank and Profound-rank arts were mixed together, the balance of the five elements would easily be thrown off.
If unevenly ranked arts were carelessly swapped in, the carefully established cycle of mutual support among the five elements could break apart.
That said, using lower-rank arts as the main art just to match ranks was hardly trustworthy.
Now that Baek Cheong had gone to the trouble of reaching Heavenly Dao Foundation Establishment, there was no way Yellow-rank arts could be used to condense spiritual energy.
In the end, matching all five elemental arts to Earth-rank would be the cleanest solution.
The water-attribute Yeonha True Water Art and the wood-attribute art were already Earth-rank, so fire, earth, and metal only needed to be filled in with Earth-rank arts as well.
It was only a pity that Heavenly Cloud Manor's metal-attribute art stopped at Profound-rank.
‘Well, it’s not like I need to train it right away.’
Baek Cheong had only just emerged from long seclusion.
For a while, the plan was to do nothing but lounge around and catch up on forum browsing.
There was no hurry to fill in the cultivation arts.
For now, it was enough to take note of what kinds of arts were available.
‘Later, I'll ask Father or Uncle to help me quietly get one.’
If asked to procure Earth-rank fire, earth, and metal arts, they would surely manage something.
As Baek Cheong thought that over, a thought suddenly flashed through the mind.
‘Ah, right. There was something perfect at the market.’
Baek Cheong remembered an item once seen at the Nameless Forum market.
It was a five-element cultivation art said to be usable from Qi Refining all the way to Spirit Transformation.
Because the art was woven together as one from the very beginning, its convenience was beyond words.
There would be no risk of mismatched ranks and no need to switch arts, so when it came to it, nothing could beat it.
After thinking that far, Baek Cheong shook the thought away.
‘Too bad it was listed by a lunatic.’
Baek Cheong didn't have a good feeling about the person who had put up the five-element art.
It was Do-woo, who supposedly bought a million five-spiritual-root test subjects and experimented on them.
An art put up by someone like that could have all sorts of traps hidden in it.
‘It’s tempting, but also unsettling.’
Baek Cheong gave up on the idea without lingering attachment.
It was best not to step carelessly into something of unknown origin.
Baek Cheong left satisfied after a single pass over the shelves.
With long-awaited forum browsing waiting for her, Baek Cheong had no intention of dwelling on cultivation arts.
With light steps, Baek Cheong left Baekgyeong Pavilion and returned to the quarters.
***
For the next few days, Baek Cheong lazed around like an idle loafer.
The whole day was spent lying in bed and savoring the backlog of forum browsing.
Being able to roam the Nameless Forum to the heart's content after being starved of it since reaching Foundation Establishment felt like heaven.
It was on one of those days, while lost in such idle immortal-like indulgence,
a cautious maid's voice came from outside the room.
“Miss, Elder Yak-seon is looking for you.”
Baek Cheong reluctantly left the Nameless Forum and sat up from bed.
After roughly straightening the disheveled clothes, Baek Cheong walked to Yak-seon's alchemy chamber.
Upon entering the alchemy chamber, Yak-seon was busy before the pill furnace.
His expression was serious as he coaxed the flames with his fingertips and focused intently on the refinement.
Thinking it might be a distraction, Baek Cheong stood quietly to one side and waited for the refinement to finish.
Before long, Yak-seon let out a long breath and withdrew his hands.
When the pill furnace lid opened, a faint medicinal fragrance spread through the chamber.
‘That is...’
Baek Cheong recognized the pill Yak-seon had refined at a glance.
The pill, shimmering with five colors, was none other than the Five-Element Sealing Sleep Pill.
Just like the last one, silver pill runes were densely engraved on its surface.
Yak-seon carefully stored the pill in a jade bottle and handed it to Baek Cheong.
“Take it. I refined it for you.”
“This...”
“Seeing your condition not long ago, it seemed you had used the Sealing Sleep Pill I gave you last time. So I made a new one.”
Baek Cheong accepted the jade bottle with gratitude, though a little awkwardly.
Indeed, right after stabilizing Foundation Establishment, Baek Cheong had used the Five-Element Sealing Sleep Pill to suppress the spiritual roots that had gone berserk.
He was clearly at the same Golden Core stage as Grandfather, but his qi sense was on another level.
It wasn't for nothing that he was known as a fifth-rank alchemist who had twice surpassed his level while at the Golden Core stage.
‘As expected, you can't fool Grandfather Yak-seon.’
While Baek Cheong was fiddling with the jade bottle, Yak-seon stroked his chin beard.
Then he casually brought it up.
“You seem to be in good shape, so I didn't mention it separately to Muae. But can you tell me how that ferocious spiritual root came to be?”
At the roundabout question, Baek Cheong fell silent for a moment.
Yak-seon had at least a vague idea that the ferocious spiritual root existed from long ago.
After all, he had known it existed from the start when he first refined the Five-Element Sealing Sleep Pill.
He just didn't seem to know exactly what kind of spiritual root it was.
‘How much should I tell him?’
Baek Cheong thought quickly.
The identity of the ferocious spiritual root was the Unified Dormant Spiritual Root.
It had formed deep in the dantian during the process of attempting five-element unification.
But five-element unification had already been shown before Grandfather long ago.
So even if the Unified Dormant Spiritual Root was revealed, nothing new would be exposed.
‘It isn't related to the Nameless Forum, so it should be fine to tell him.’
Baek Cheong spoke up, pretending to have known nothing until now.
“Actually, I found out during seclusion. It's called a Unified Dormant Spiritual Root.”
“A Unified Dormant Spiritual Root?”
“Yes. I once tried imitating five-element unification in front of Grandfather. I think I strained myself then, trying to gather the five streams of qi into a single point, and a dormant spiritual root formed deep in my dantian.”
With a deliberately troubled expression, Baek Cheong continued.
“If this dormant spiritual root is left alone, it slowly gnaws away at the nourishment of the five-element spiritual roots. So I think I'll have to take Five-Element Sealing Sleep Pills regularly to keep it suppressed.”
As the explanation ended, Baek Cheong quietly watched Yak-seon's reaction.
Yak-seon, who had been listening in silence, slowly nodded.
“So that's why it was so ominous.”
Yak-seon stroked his beard as if something had occurred to him.
“Five-element unification, huh. At such a young age, you reached for the ultimate enlightenment only to end up carrying a burden instead. Tsk, in any case, you're no ordinary child.”
Yak-seon clicked his tongue, yet he couldn't hide how proud he felt.
Then he nodded and added,
“This works out nicely. I was just about to tell you the pill formula for the Five-Element Sealing Sleep Pill.”
“The pill formula?”
“Yes. If you have to keep suppressing a ferocious spiritual root for the rest of your life, you can't come looking for me every time, can you? If you learn the formula, you'll be able to refine and use it yourself.”
Before long, Yak-seon's eyes lit up as though he'd remembered something.
Then, with anticipation in his expression, he asked casually,
“Come to think of it, didn't you say you had come up with a new pill formula during your seclusion?”