Chapter 49
A few days flew by like an arrow.
Baek-Cheong was completely free from Yak-seon’s surveillance and could enjoy forum surfing to her heart’s content.
And the Nameless Forum was still heating up with the Cultivation Hundred Arts Debate she had sparked.
『Dao Friend (46.111): Pill Refining is the best?』
[Are you going to choke to death while chewing on a pill during combat? In actual combat, Formation is absolute. A single pre-laid killing Formation can grind up ten cultivators of the same realm.]
『Dao Friend (341.097): The Formation geeks are spouting nonsense again.』
[Flicking a single talisman is a hundred times faster than the time it takes to lay down a Formation. Whether in terms of versatility or efficiency, the Talisman Crafting Art is the pinnacle of the Hundred Arts of Cultivation.]
The Dao Friends' burning pride in their respective Arts showed no signs of cooling down.
Amidst the chaos, Baek-Cheong flitted back and forth between factions like a bat, subtly fanning the flames.
[Dao Friend (913.14): But aren’t the material costs for Formations too expensive? rogue cultivators probably can’t even attempt it.]
[Dao Friend (913.14): Don’t talismans just get soaked and tear if you use the Water Stream Art? It has to be at least a treasure talisman to be any good.]
Every time she tossed out an instigating reply, fierce reactions followed.
The flames then spread from the replies to the Forum Board itself, intensifying the fight.
Repeating this several times, she would occasionally come across interesting posts.
“Oh?”
It wasn’t uncommon to see Dao Friends who appeared to be Grandmaster-level stepping up to post lengthy refutations.
『Dao Friend (899.1): Formation is what truly commands all things and dominates space.』
『Dao Friend (83.214): You ignoramuses wouldn’t even have a Natal Dharma Treasure if it weren’t for artificers.』
Baek-Cheong read through the serious refutations with interest.
She couldn’t fully understand or gain enlightenment from the contents, but she read them as if browsing through an introductory guide to the Arts.
Among them, there was one art that particularly piqued her curiosity.
It was the Puppetry Art, often called a heretical art.
『Dao Friend (99.102): The Puppetry Art is the ultimate Art that overcomes the limits of cultivation realms.』
[As long as you have the materials and spirit stones, you can command immortal puppets that know neither fatigue nor pain. However, because it requires vast Divine Sense and advanced Divine Sense Division, it is an Art that one cannot easily step into. But as long as you obtain the Mind Splitting Art, anyone can enter…]
“Vast Divine Sense and Divine Sense Division.”
Baek-Cheong was captivated by the intriguing phrase.
Those two conditions were practically her specialties.
“I can handle the Multi-layered Technique with ease, after all.”
Perhaps controlling dozens of puppet dolls simultaneously wouldn’t be too much for her.
However, the Puppetry Art had a fatal flaw.
[…The deeper you delve into the Puppetry Art, the more you give your heart to the puppets, until they no longer seem like puppets. Furthermore, the side effects of the Mind Splitting Art create various personalities, and if those personalities inhabit the puppets, the destruction of a puppet will shatter that personality, twisting one’s human emotions. This is why it is rare to find a cultivator deeply immersed in the Puppetry Art who is still entirely sane.]
Moreover, the Puppetry Art was an exclusive and shunned Art in the Cultivation World, making it difficult to even find a proper means to learn it.
Above all, it wasn’t interesting enough for her to endure the hassle of going out of her way to find and learn it herself.
“Well, I guess I can learn it later if the opportunity arises.”
Baek-Cheong dropped her interest in Puppetry Art.
However, after spending several days entirely engrossed in forum surfing, she found that the bait she had thrown into the Nameless Forum was losing its appeal, and boredom began to rear its head.
Even so, the Cultivation Hundred Arts Debate had grown so uncontrollably large that it was beyond her forum-surfing prowess to settle or redirect.
Since it was a debate where cultivators from all over the Lower Realm staked their personal beliefs, the more it intensified, the further it strayed beyond the realm of her understanding.
“I’m bored. Maybe I should do some Training…”
After idling around for a long time, Baek-Cheong sluggishly got up from her Seat.
Since there were no particularly fun games to play, she chose Training to kill time, once again turning the wheel of cultivation she had set aside for a few days.
.
.
.
Thus, as soon as she woke up in the morning, she absorbed the Spirit Energy of Heaven and Earth to fill her Dantian.
Her spirit root, which had grown through all sorts of top-grade medicinal pills and five elements pills, steadily filled her Dantian - which was as vast as an exponentially multiplied ocean - even if only little by little.
At night, she didn’t skip the tedious but essential Training of solidifying her realm and strengthening her qi meridians.
In her spare time, it was quite fun to utilize the Baekju Dharma Tool to raise her proficiency in the Five Elements Shield, Ice Dragon Shatter, and Basic Techniques.
Very occasionally, just enough so she wouldn’t forget, she spent time fiddling with the pill furnace for Pill Refining or drawing 1st-grade talismans on Talisman Paper.
.
.
.
Time flowed by, and over a month passed quickly in these peaceful days where Training and forum surfing harmoniously blended together.
And a major change also arrived within the Clan.
“As of today, I shall enter Secluded Cultivation.”
At last, Baek Mu-Jin temporarily laid down his heavy duties as Clan Head and embarked on a lengthy Secluded Cultivation to break through the wall of the Golden Core stage as someone at the Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment Stage.
Meanwhile, Yak-seon still showed no signs of coming out of the Pill Refining Room.
He was wrestling with the Pill Furnace day and night to unravel the clues of the Pill Refining Method known as the Realm of Chaos and the Taiji Orbit that Baek-Cheong had tossed him.
Thus, only Baek Mu-Yeong, who had taken on the Clan’s affairs including the Clan Head’s share, spent his days incredibly busy traveling back and forth between the Merchant Guild and the Family Head’s Hall, and once again, over a month quickly passed.
* * *
It was one clear and sunny afternoon.
Pitch-black clouds began to gather in the sky above the peaceful Yeonha Baek Clan, exuding a dreary aura.
It wasn’t a metaphor; a massive dark cloud that truly looked like spilled ink blocked out the sun and cast a deep shadow over the entire Clan.
Rumble!
The dark clouds swirled and rotated like a massive typhoon, and a round hole formed in the center as if the sky had been blown open.
It was a chilling and overwhelming sight, almost as if the Heavenly Dao was glaring down at the Earth with wide-open eyes.
“H-Heavenly Tribulation!”
From Baek-Cheong, who was Training in the garden, to her uncle handling Merchant Guild affairs, her mother, and the other Family members.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and ran outside, looking up at the sky with terror-stricken eyes.
The oppressive pressure radiating from the dark clouds was the undeniable precursor to a Heavenly Tribulation.
It was a judgment delivered by the Heavenly Dao upon a cultivator who defied the principles of heaven and went against the natural order, but the faces of the gathered Family members were filled with deep confusion alongside their shock.
This was because it was an ambiguous situation where they couldn’t guess whose Heavenly Tribulation it was.
“Is the Supreme Clan Head ascending to the Late Golden Core?”
“The momentum of the Heavenly Tribulation is a bit too strong for a minor realm tribulation surpassing the Late Golden Core. Could it be that the Clan Head has already achieved the Golden Core?”
“No matter how great the Clan Head is, isn’t it too early to summon a Golden Core Heavenly Tribulation after only a month or so in Secluded Cultivation?”
Standing among the murmuring Family members and looking up at the sky, Baek-Cheong felt a bead of cold sweat run down her spine.
“Could it be… me?”
She remembered the karma she had accumulated recently by constantly trolling and deceiving people in the Nameless Forum, bringing inner demons to many cultivators.
She wondered if the Heavenly Dao had truly come to strike her with lightning to make her pay the price for her verbal karma.
Because she had done so many things, there weren’t just one or two guilty spots pricking her conscience.
“Everyone, step back!”
Not long after, a thunderous shout rang out loudly.
The Source of the shout was the Supreme Clan Head, who hadn’t been seen for a while after entering a lengthy Secluded Cultivation.
At the sudden appearance of the Supreme Clan Head, the Family members hastily knelt and paid their respects.
However, Baek Mu-Ae’s gaze was fixed not on the Family members, but on the center of the fiercely swirling tribulation cloud.
“That Gok fellow has finally caused an incident.”
At the low lament flowing from Baek Mu-Ae’s mouth, Baek Mu-Yeong and the Family members doubted their ears.
“Supreme Clan Head, do you mean… Venerable Yak-seon has summoned a Heavenly Tribulation?”
When Baek Mu-Yeong asked with a trembling voice, Baek Mu-Ae nodded heavily.
Everyone knew that Yak-seon had entered Secluded Cultivation due to an enlightenment regarding a Pill Refining Method.
Therefore, the phenomenon before their eyes inevitably meant that he had crafted a pill using a new Pill Refining Method.
Summoning a Heavenly Tribulation purely through the process of Pill Refining was a heaven-defying event worthy of being recorded in history.
“Just what kind of Pill Refining is he doing…”
That meant he was Crafting a pill that the heavens did not permit, one that could shake the Principles of the Heavenly Dao.
They could only stare at Yak-seon’s tightly shut Pill Refining Room with fearful eyes, without anyone even able to guess the true nature of this Heaven-Defying Pill Refining.
However, there was one single person mixed in the crowd.
Baek-Cheong was screaming internally with a face drained of all color.
“Pill Inscription Refining Method…!”
She remembered the Pill Refining Method she had cleverly tossed to Yak-seon to escape from the Pill Refining Hell.
Baek-Cheong immediately realized that Yak-seon had actually managed to manifest that absurd Pill Refining Method, committing the heaven-defying act of artificially carving a pill inscription onto a pill.
“But on what pill…?”
At the same time, curiosity surged within her about the identity of the pill Yak-seon was Crafting.
However, since it felt like the Heavenly Tribulation would strike down at any moment, even her stray thoughts vanished, and she could only stare intently at the tribulation cloud.