Chapter 191
“Do you know what this formation glyph is used for?”
Daoist Xuanhe pointed to the glyph on the stake with his fingertip.
Baek Cheong peered at the glyph and tilted her head inwardly.
It was a glyph for opening a waterway with a fence glyph subtly layered over it.
Judging solely by their meanings, they were glyphs she had understood perfectly long ago.
But these days, simply knowing their meanings was nowhere near enough.
‘There must be another trap hidden in it.’
Daoist Xuanhe was a formation master who had grasped the knack of wielding glyphs beyond merely understanding their meanings.
So Baek Cheong carefully pointed to the place where the strokes divided.
“If you move this stroke back by half a span... I think the waterway could double as a fence.”
“Hoho, exactly!”
Daoist Xuanhe immediately brightened and clapped his hands.
His voice was brimming with excitement as he showered her with praise.
Baek Cheong demurely lowered her head while swallowing a sigh inwardly.
This sort of glyph game had been repeated several times over the past few days.
.
.
.
Once the day ended, it was Yak-seon’s turn.
When she moved to the alchemy room, a mountain of third-grade pill formulas awaited her.
She could concoct anything up to the second grade with her eyes closed.
But third-grade pill formulas were on an entirely different level.
The number of medicinal ingredients doubled, and controlling the flames was also far more difficult.
That was only natural, since they were pills used at the Golden Core stage.
‘Could this be real alchemy?’
For the first few days, she struggled in front of the alchemy furnace.
Several times, the energies fell out of alignment and left behind nothing but ashes.
Even so, she ground her teeth, examined the pill formulas, and analyzed the reasons for her failures.
Whenever she ran into an obstacle, she clung to Yak-seon and pestered him for answers.
Yak-seon pointed out the tricks without showing even a hint of annoyance.
Thanks to that, she gradually mastered one third-grade pill formula after another.
.
.
.
After being kept busy all day and into the evening, only the night was entirely hers.
Having returned to her cave abode, Baek Cheong began working through her postponed tasks.
With Baekju in hand, she alternated between casting the Ice Dragon Lock and the Five-Element Shield, growing accustomed to the spells as she worked toward Great Perfection.
From time to time, she floated the One-Star Sword and practiced the sword paths of sword-flying.
In one corner of the courtyard, the Yunryeong Bead slowly grew as it ate clouds.
At the very end, she refined the Yunryeong Bead and Baekju little by little.
‘When on earth is this refinement going to end?’
By the time she finished refining them, her body was already exhausted.
She could only check the Nameless Forum just before falling asleep.
She had no time to see how far the bait had rolled.
She often read a few of the replies she had missed and then promptly collapsed asleep on her bed.
‘I’m dying because I don’t have time to browse the forum.’
A cultivator’s daily life was unbelievably arduous.
Those days rolled by like a treadmill, and a full month passed in the blink of an eye.
In the meantime, she had finally mastered every last one of the mountain of third-grade pill formulas.
***
Just as on any other day, she was on her way to the annex to prepare for formation practice.
But when she entered the courtyard, Daoist Xuanhe was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, her second older brother stood there with his hands clasped behind his back to greet her.
“Cheong-ah, there will be no lessons today or tomorrow.”
“...There won’t be any?”
Baek Cheong involuntarily let her eyes sparkle.
She desperately composed her expression and asked again while pretending to be disappointed.
“Has something happened?”
“Master has some business to attend to. I also have somewhere I need to accompany him, so I’ll be away for a few days.”
Baek Sang shrugged and continued speaking.
She did not pry into the details of what sort of business it was.
“Don’t neglect your cultivation while we’re gone. Even if Master isn’t here, you must behave like a disciple.”
“Yes, Brother. Take care.”
Baek Cheong demurely lowered her head to see him off.
Of course, that was only on the surface.
The moment her second older brother’s back disappeared beyond the wall,
‘Freedom!’
She threw both arms into the air and let out a cheer inwardly.
The formation lessons that devoured her entire day had a break of several days.
On top of that, she had already finished the third-grade pill formulas that had continued every evening.
She had no idea how long it had been since she had enjoyed a day like this.
‘I’m going to hole up in the cave abode and browse the forum to my heart’s content.’
In a good mood, Baek Cheong used the Cloud-Rain Technique to head to her cave abode.
The cave abode, where no one else could lay eyes on her, was the perfect place for browsing the forum.
The moment she flopped down on her bed, she logged into the Nameless Forum.
‘Let’s see.’
She had decided to make a shitpost for the first time in ages.
As she racked her brains, a memory from her previous life suddenly surfaced.
It was a pointless question that people had once tossed around for fun.
Which would you choose between a red button and a blue button?
‘This might get a decent reaction.’
Unable to suppress the smile creeping across her face, Baek Cheong wrote a post.
『Daoist(913.14): If there were a red button and a blue button, which would you pick?』
[If more than half press the blue button, everyone survives. Conversely, if more than half press the red button, those who pressed the blue button die.]
It was a shitpost she had tossed out without any particular meaning.
Yet the moment she posted it, replies began appearing like bamboo shoots after rain.
Countless Daoists each added their own two cents.
[Daoist(231.7): Obviously the red button.]
└Daoist(231.7): The cultivation world is already short on resources, so reducing the population even a little is a gain.
[Daoist(11.23): Red button, I guess.]
[Daoist(108.8): The blue button, of course. Life is precious, and death must not be taken lightly. Only when all Daoists take refuge can we live together amid compassion and merit.]
The way the responses split was quite entertaining.
Baek Cheong leisurely scrolled through the replies one by one as though she were snacking on treats.
Then one of the replies sent the argument veering off in an unexpected direction.
[Daoist(462.9): But does that include demon beasts?]
└Daoist(462.9): Surely it includes mortals too, right?
└Daoist(77.31): Are you seriously putting demon beasts and mortals on the same scale?
└Daoist(462.9): They’re equally uncivilized, aren’t they?
On one side, people raised their voices, insisting that there was no distinction of noble or lowly when it came to life.
On the other, people shot back, asking how those ignorant of the Dao could possibly be compared to Daoists.
The bait swelled in an instant and swallowed the entire message board.
‘Oh, they’re biting. They’re really biting.’
She could only watch the whole scene with satisfaction.
The hotter the argument grew, the more related posts came pouring out.
『Daoist(305.2): Why You Should Press the Blue Button』
[If everyone presses blue, no one dies and everyone survives. They’re creating deaths for no reason because they can’t trust one another, even though no one has to die.]
『Daoist(88.4): Why You Should Press the Red Button』
[Suppose this question isn’t limited to the lower realms but includes the True Immortal Realm too. Then there’s bound to be at least one soft-hearted True Immortal who presses blue. The moment half the people press red, that True Immortal who pressed blue dies too. Can you really stomach indirectly killing a True Immortal? I’m pressing red, counting it as killing one True Immortal, lol.]
“Hehe...”
Baek Cheong’s shoulders bounced with satisfaction at having stirred up the bait all by herself.
One side was tearfully trying to persuade everyone to press blue with the most noble-sounding words.
The other was dragging True Immortals into it and egging everyone on to press red.
Neither side showed any sign of backing down, making it impossible to imagine a more entertaining spectacle.
It was just as she was enjoying the argument.
『Daoist(451.0): Daoist(913.14) Has Once Again Shown Us the Dao of Jesus』
[At first glance, this appears to be a divisive post, but it clearly conceals a profound meaning. Asking us to choose between red and blue is surely a lesson that even different Daoists should cherish and shelter one another in the end. Jesus’s teaching to cherish the Daoist you dislike first is contained in the red-and-blue post as well, so let us all press blue and honor our great senior’s will.]
To think someone would drag the Dao of Jesus into a mere shitpost.
‘What is that even supposed to mean...?’
Even with one strange post mixed in, the situation was thoroughly entertaining.
More importantly, she had turned the entire message board upside down to this extent, making it nothing short of a resounding success.
Baek Cheong propped her head on one arm and leisurely enjoyed the Daoists’ uproar.
“Huh?”
But that was when she was basking in her satisfaction.
An ominous force stirred deep within her dantian.
‘...What is this?’
Baek Cheong was startled and thrust her divine sense into her dantian.
She searched the bottom, then froze when she discovered the cause.
The latent spiritual root that had reached harmony was truly beginning to reveal its presence, however faintly.
It was clearly no more than a speck.
Even so, what followed was anything but insignificant.
An enormous amount of spiritual power suddenly poured into her dantian.
Her spiritual power increased in an instant, reaching a level comparable to the Golden Core stage.
‘Wait, can I handle this...?!’
Fear overtook her joy.
Spiritual power that exceeded the capacity of her vessel was overflowing from within.
Her qi channels swelled taut as though they would burst, and her dantian creaked.
The body of someone at the first level of Foundation Establishment was nowhere near a vessel large enough to contain it.
At this rate, her body looked as though it might burst apart on the spot.
‘It’s not too late yet...’
Baek Cheong gritted her teeth and awakened her Five-Element spiritual roots.
Fortunately, the Five-Element spiritual roots harmonized through the Five Elements Art were no pushover either.
The five elements meshed and spun together, suppressing the rampaging power.
The starving latent spiritual root was gradually pushed back by the force of the Five-Element spiritual roots.
She watched with her divine sense until it sank all the way back to the bottom.
At last, the overflowing spiritual power ebbed away like the tide going out.
Only after her dantian returned to normal did she finally breathe a sigh of relief.
“Haa, haa...”
Her entire body was clammy with cold sweat.
She had barely managed to lull the latent spiritual root back to sleep.
But she had absolutely no idea what had caused it.
The latent spiritual root had remained quiet ever since she switched to the Five Elements Art.
Besides, she had been taking her Five-Element Spirit-Sealing Pills every month without fail.
Even so, she had never expected it to suddenly flare up like this.
‘I didn’t even skip a Spirit-Sealing Pill, so why?’
No matter how much she turned it over in her mind, she could not come up with a reason.
It merely felt different from the way the latent spiritual root had rampaged in the past when it was starving.
This time, it had revealed its own presence and expelled its power.
The problem was that it had revealed no more than a speck of itself.
Even after revealing only a speck, it had poured out power comparable to the Golden Core stage.
‘If the latent spiritual root reveals half of itself...’
The thought sent a chill down her spine.
The day it revealed nearly half of its presence, there would be no hope.
With her current body, she would not merely be unable to endure it; she would certainly burst apart on the spot.
At least if her realm were a little higher, she felt her dantian might be able to hold out that much longer.
‘The vessel has to be big enough to contain it.’
Another dizzying fact belatedly came to mind.
If, despite being a spell cultivator, she had not diligently taken body-tempering elixirs,
she would have been unable to contain spiritual power that exceeded her vessel, and her body would have burst apart.
Thanks to having strengthened her physical body with body-tempering elixirs, she had barely managed to endure it.
‘That could have been a real disaster.’
The more she thought about it, the more gooseflesh rose across her entire body.
The excitement she had felt while absorbed in browsing the forum vanished in an instant.
Baek Cheong rose from her seat and pulled her collar closed.
There was no telling when the latent spiritual root would reveal itself again.
If there was no way to prevent another flare-up at its source, only one path remained.
‘Whether it turns out well or badly, I need to raise my realm first.’
She had no choice but to raise her realm and expand the vessel known as her dantian.
Only then would her body be able to withstand the next flare-up.
If things went well, she might even be able to aim for Five-Element Harmony without reaching the late Golden Core stage or Nascent Soul.
‘It won’t be easy, but...’
Once a sense of urgency seized Baek Cheong, her previously slack little chest drew taut.
She left the Nameless Forum and headed straight for the training room.
There was no harm in waiting until later to see how far the bait had rolled.
The moment she entered the training room, she sat cross-legged on the jade platform and closed her eyes.
Drawing in the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth with a much stronger attraction, she began filling her dantian.