Chapter 9
‘Something’s off.’
She tilted her head again.
Ryu Yeonhwa couldn’t stand letting something bother her.
She drew up her spiritual power, and her eyes glowed blue.
The True-Eye Art (懺眼功) thoroughly analyzed the talisman with its ability to observe objects.
They were ordinary Might Talismans, and talismans were relatively easy to distinguish by color.
That was why she hadn’t thought much of them.
‘What is this…?’
Ryu Yeonhwa’s eyes flew wide with shock as she examined the talisman.
The blue glow in her eyes deepened until her pupils disappeared.
‘Can this structure even work?’
The government’s appraisal department.
Their job was to examine items and assign them an appropriate value.
Cultivators working in the appraisal department inevitably walked the Dao of Myriad Manifestations (萬象之道).
At university, Ryu Yeonhwa had studied the fundamentals of all kinds of cultivation paths, including Talisman Fundamentals, Artifact Refining Fundamentals, Pill Dao Fundamentals, and Formation Dao Fundamentals.
She herself could even draw basic lowest-grade talismans.
That was why she could tell how absurd this talisman was, and how ‘special’ the person who had drawn it must be.
It wasn’t merely a matter of elegant lines or archaic Dao-script characters etched into it.
Its structure was unmistakably the lowest grade, yet its power was on par with a low-grade talisman—a contradiction.
Following the talisman’s path, the Fu Path (符路), Ryu Yeonhwa squeezed her eyes shut.
‘I don’t understand.’
She could understand the interactions between the basic components.
But she couldn’t understand why they produced this result.
It was like watching someone build a one-kilometer-tall skyscraper out of the toy blocks children played with.
She could tell why it worked.
But she couldn’t understand how it worked.
Still, there was one thing she could be certain of.
‘A genius…!’
Ryu Yeonhwa’s emotions soared and plunged.
Her eyes sparkled.
Talented cultivators like Ryu Yeonhwa were a dime a dozen in the cultivation world.
They broke through to Qi Refining before the age of ten and enrolled in prestigious cultivation high schools with an admission ratio of 1,000 : 1.
Many also entered top universities staffed by Foundation Establishment professors and earned doctoral degrees.
But even so, they made up just the top 0.5%.
They were merely 250,000 among 50 million.
Even they were dwarfed by the 50 million people born every year.
But true geniuses were exceedingly rare.
A firefly could never envy the sun.
It could only feel helpless awe before the distant realm beyond heaven (天外天).
Tap, tap, tap.
Ryu Yeonhwa’s fingers moved swiftly.
She erased the 6,200 credits and entered 10,000 credits instead.
[E-eh?]
As Nine looked perplexed, words filled with confusion appeared on the scroll.
Watching her, Ryu Yeonhwa smiled, her eyes curving like crescents.
“Ms. Nine, have you ever heard of an exclusive contract?”
***
An exclusive contract.
It was an agreement between a rogue cultivator with no faction and someone working for the government, rather than a cultivator belonging to a particular clan or sect.
Clan cultivators worked for their clans, while sect cultivators carried out missions for their sects.
They didn’t need to concern themselves with miscellaneous matters along the way.
That was because major factions such as clans, sects, and corporations all had their own sales and procurement channels.
Rogue cultivators, however, had no such channels.
So they sold their goods either to the government or through the private market.
The rogue cultivator gained convenience and saved time, while the government employee earned a small commission and work credit.
An exclusive contract with a government employee made the process even easier.
“…Do you understand?”
Behind the desk, Ryu Yeonhwa wore a neat suit and stylish monocle as she asked her question. Nine nodded.
Nine had a general idea of it, too.
An exclusive contract was practically the hallmark of a successful rogue cultivator.
Ryu Yeonhwa hadn’t explained it, but why would she offer a contract like that to just anyone?
Naturally, Nine was thrilled.
‘If I sign an exclusive contract, I won’t have to come to the Other-Side Cultivation World anymore. I can just send my goods to her.’
The convenience of avoiding all the hassle was nice, of course.
But what Nine liked most was the fact that he wouldn’t have to go outside anymore.
‘This is way harder than I expected….’
He’d underestimated this body far too much.
He’d thought he could at least manage in a virtual world.
But look at him after moving around for just two hours.
Even now, Nine wanted to dive straight beneath his blankets and spend a week shut away.
He wanted to avoid the sunlight and laze around all day!
There was the question of how he was supposed to train as a cultivator, but was that really a problem?
‘I’ll just move the bed into the cultivation room!’
What a brilliant idea.
Impressed by his own ingenuity, Nine nodded along to everything Ryu Yeonhwa said.
He lifted his eyes slightly and looked at Ryu Yeonhwa.
‘She’s pretty, too… And she looks really diligent….’
“…Then.”
[I’ll sign.]
Nine scrawled his signature on the contract Ryu Yeonhwa held out.
Naturally, he’d read the contract carefully.
No matter how difficult things got, that wasn’t something he could afford to neglect.
‘There wasn’t anything suspicious.’
In the first place, an exclusive contract wasn’t a particularly binding agreement.
You could terminate it whenever you wanted.
The parties to an exclusive contract generally looked out for each other’s convenience, so there was no need to terminate it.
…In that respect, Nine personally liked Ryu Yeonhwa a lot.
‘She gave me an extra 3,800 credits, after all.’
Nine understood that this was a gesture of goodwill.
As expected of someone who looked so clever, even her way of expressing her kindness was refined.
Srrr—.
The contract bearing the names Nine and Ryu Yeonhwa crackled with sparks and vanished into thin air.
Ryu Yeonhwa bowed her head.
“The contract is complete. May you achieve success on your path of cultivation.”
Nine tugged on Pou.
Flutter~
Though reluctant, Pou understood and wrote words on its body with a soft rustle.
[Thank you!]
Nine watched it with wonder.
‘Where did this thing come from?’
At first, he’d only reached into his pocket to take out a talisman, but he’d felt something strangely soft and familiar in there.
So he’d pulled it out, and Pou had come along, leisurely fluttering about.
‘Did it come along to the virtual world because I’m its user?’
He had no idea.
Nine shrugged and tugged on Pou to wave goodbye to Ryu Yeonhwa, too.
Of course, he didn’t look her in the face.
Because he was scared.
[Then, I’ll be going.]
Nine stood up.
He wanted to hurry back to his room and shut himself away for a month.
Seeing him, Ryu Yeonhwa hurriedly stood and called out.
“Ms. Nine, please get in touch anytime! I can appraise all sorts of odds and ends for you!”
[Yes.]
As he replied, Nine gave his thumb a small flick.
This was the Other-Side Cultivation World at Depth 1.
The deeper levels were no different from reality, but since this place was so shallow…
You could leave the Other-Side Cultivation World from anywhere with a simple trigger.
Snap!
With the sound of her fingers snapping, her consciousness rapidly surfaced.
And then…
“Uh, eh?”
Nine met a pair of emotionless yellow eyes looking down at him.
Her bright yellow pupils stood out against her black hair.
The striking girl with sharp eyes wore an unusually flustered expression.
Her widened eyes slowly narrowed.
“…Oppa?”
“Eek!”
He needed to say something.
But only a stupid sound came out of Nine’s mouth.
This was the fate of a shut-in who came face-to-face with someone in reality without any warning.
“Uh, u-uh…”
***
Nineteen years old.
Her current realm was Great Perfection of Qi Refining.
Her affiliation was the Golden Core sect Nine Heavens Thunder Sword Sect (九天雷劍門).
A dual-spiritual-root cultivator born with a Lightning Spiritual Root mutated from Metal and Wood Spiritual Roots.
A genius who had completed five of the Seven Tribulations of Foundation Establishment and was preparing to undergo the sixth.
Decia took an aerial taxi to the outskirts of Future Special City.
“It’d be faster to walk.”
She muttered in annoyance, but she knew the truth.
If every cultivator recklessly raced through the sky, it would only be a matter of time before traffic became a disaster.
That was why flying through the sky unaided was a privilege reserved for those at Foundation Establishment and above.
Tap.
Decia stepped out of the aerial taxi and looked around.
“It’s been a while since I’ve been here.”
She walked down the alley with familiar steps.
It was an area so run-down it couldn’t compare to the central district of the city where she currently lived.
The spiritual energy density was terribly low, and turbid qi drifted through the air.
None of the nearby buildings rose above fifteen stories.
Even so, Decia strolled along as if taking in the sights, then stopped in front of a building.
[Tomorrow Building 1]
A multipurpose apartment building fourteen stories tall, with one household per floor.
Decia entered the front door after skillfully punching in the passcode.
[14th Floor]
The top floor of the apartment building.
With her arms folded in the elevator, Decia fell into her memories, her expression complicated.
“…Have you still not managed to get away from here? Poor big brother.”
Every child in the upbringing stage went through the First Selection at the age of five.
Children with spiritual roots who passed the selection received a year of training at a ‘facility,’ then spent another two years living at their guardian’s residence.
And so, at age eight.
When they were old enough to attend a basic education institution, all children in the upbringing stage became independent and left their guardians’ homes.
This was a home that Nine and Decia had bought together with Eun Seolhwa’s support.
Because Decia had adored Nine at the time.
“…Did we not even live here for two years?”
Ding.
Decia stepped out of the elevator at the clear chime and stopped in front of the door.
She hesitated for a moment, then steeled herself and entered the passcode.
[0910]
The number formed by simply joining the ninth (Nine) and tenth (decem).
Beep.
The door lock engaged, and the front door opened.
Hesitantly stepping inside, Decia took off her shoes and entered the living room.
“Haaa…”
Familiar air. A familiar sight.
After taking in the warmth of the memories, Decia turned her gaze to the capsule running against the living room wall.
And then…
“Uh, eh?”
“…Oppa?”
She’d found her former big brother, transformed beyond anything she could have imagined.
Decia’s expression crumpled.
