Myst, Might, Mayhem (Novel) - Chapter 28 - Death Aura (3)
Chapter 28 – Death Aura (3)
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Translated by Jinmu
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Guard Gochan, who had been staring hard at Mok Gyeong-un, soon steadied his breathing.
Everything this bastard said sounded like a lie.
That someone who did not even know the exact definition of martial arts, no, internal power, had read a secret manual on his own and in less than half a day sensed qi through self-study was impossible.
No, perhaps it was possible.
But only if one had talent in martial arts great enough to be called a peerless genius of the ages.
‘Even those born with a sense for qi struggle at the beginning.’
Yet Mok Gyeong-un said he had done it.
To be honest, it was impossible to believe, but there was also no reason for this demonic bastard to lie about something like this.
Then the problem was simple.
He just had to confirm it.
Whether it was true or not.
“Young Master. May this subordinate confirm it directly?”
“How?”
“You said that you drew in energy through the breath cultivation method, so just do that. I will confirm whether the energy is truly being circulated midway.”
“So that sort of thing is possible, then?”
“Checking it to that degree is not particularly difficult.”
“I see. Then please do.”
“Understood.”
Mok Gyeong-un sat cross-legged atop the bed.
This much was not difficult, so there was nothing that could go wrong yet.
In that posture, Mok Gyeong-un closed his eyes and began to breathe slowly.
“Hoo.”
Gochan watched him intently.
Then he stepped down from the bed and moved to Mok Gyeong-un’s side.
And then,
“This is only to confirm it, so please do not mind me and continue focusing on the breath cultivation method.”
With those words, he brought two fingers together and placed them against one of the acupoints in Mok Gyeong-un’s neck.
If even a faint amount of energy was being circulated through the breath cultivation method, he would be able to feel it.
He did not expect much, but just in case…..
‘!?’
Gochan frowned.
What was this?
He had thought there was no way it could be true.
And yet,
‘…….Ha.’
Energy really was flowing in through the blood vessels.
That meant he truly was sensing qi and taking it in properly.
Gochan was utterly dumbfounded.
Even at the ages of three or four, when sensitivity to qi was said to be at its sharpest, sensing qi in less than half a day was extraordinarily difficult.
Even the gifted took half a month at minimum, and if unlucky, several months was common.
Yet Mok Gyeong-un, at an age when impurities should have built up heavily in his meridians and his qi sense should already be declining, had sensed qi in only a single day.
‘Does this bastard really have martial talent?’
Gochan’s eyes changed.
Until now he had been half doubtful, but now the thought of perhaps began to arise.
There was no such thing as absolute certainty in all things.
Exceptions existed.
Mok Gyeong-un might have been such a case.
‘Let’s take a closer look.’
Since Mok Gyeong-un had said the energy was scattering, he had to examine it directly to find the cause.
Gochan spoke quietly to Mok Gyeong-un.
“I will send in some internal energy and inspect it once. Even if it feels uncomfortable, please bear with it for a moment.”
“………”
Because he was in the middle of performing the heart method, Mok Gyeong-un only gave the slightest nod.
-Shhk!
Concentrating, Gochan sent true qi into Mok Gyeong-un’s Qimen acupoint.
Passing it through Liangmen and Zhongwan, he guided the true qi toward the dantian area and tracked Mok Gyeong-un’s qi-circulation route.
During that process, Gochan had no choice but to be astonished once more.
‘……..What is with this bastard?’
Only by practicing the breath cultivation method from childhood could one keep impurities from building up in the qi-circulation routes.
Yet there were almost no impurities in Mok Gyeong-un’s meridians now.
It was as though he were looking at a child of three or four.
‘How can this be? He has clearly never cultivated internal power.’
It was truly a bizarre phenomenon.
If someone reached this age without practicing the breath cultivation method and still had meridians this clean, it would have been impossible unless a deeply skilled internal master had spent a long period forcing qi through his meridians and acupoints.
Gochan turned a suspicious look toward the back of Mok Gyeong-un’s head.
‘Didn’t he say he had lived alone in the mountains with his grandfather?’
Just what was it?
Shaking his head at his own doubts, Gochan first sent the true qi onward toward the dantian area.
He was almost there.
There was one thing he was guessing.
‘Most likely, the reason it’s scattering is because he only just began taking in qi.’
Usually, that was the case.
Mok Gyeong-un had only been practicing the breath cultivation method for half a day at most.
No matter how much energy he had gathered, the amount would be too small, and because he had not properly formed a dantian, there was a high chance it had scatte…..
-Flinch!
Suddenly goosebumps rose on Gochan’s skin.
He felt something cold and spine-chilling.
And then,
‘Huh?’
He had not removed his hand, yet the connection to the true qi was severed.
What kind of phenomenon was this?
Frowning, Gochan sent true qi into the Qimen acupoint once more, just in case.
And once again he guided it toward the dantian area.
But,
-Flinch!
Again, together with that bizarre sensation, the true qi he had sent in was cut off.
No, to be precise, it scattered.
Gochan blanked out for a moment.
‘What?’
He found it impossible to understand this phenomenon.
It was not energy Mok Gyeong-un himself had absorbed but his own true qi.
Yet the moment it reached the dantian area, it lost all control and simply scattered away.
Why was that?
Unless the true qi itself were being severed directly, this could not happen.
As he stood there unable to understand, Mok Gyeong-un’s voice sounded.
“Guard Gochan’s energy scattered too, didn’t it?”
“………You felt even that?”
“Yes.”
‘This is absurd. This bastard’s sensitivity to qi really is unbelievably innate.’
At this point, there was no choice but to say he had been born with it.
He had only just begun to take in qi, and yet he could already observe another person’s energy.
It made one click the tongue.
What would this bastard have been like if he had learned martial arts from childhood?
‘He might have had talent on par with the youngest young master.’
The youngest young master of Yeon Mok Sword Manor, Mok Yu-cheon.
His talent was overwhelming enough that it might not appear even once across three generations of the manor.
At the age of fourteen he had reached the realm of a first-rate master, and only two years later, at sixteen, he had entered the threshold of the peak state.
It was truly overwhelming talent.
And yet, Gochan felt that if this bastard had begun early, he might have approached even that.
If not for one problem.
‘Why does it scatter?’
He had sent it in once more just now as well.
But the result had been the same.
If only the faint energy gathered by Mok Gyeong-un through the breath cultivation method had scattered, then the reason would have been obvious, but this time Gochan truly could not understand the cause.
“Young Master…….”
“Do you know why?”
“Forgive me, but with this subordinate’s level of skill, it is difficult to determine the reason.”
His pride was hurt, but Gochan was no more than second-rate.
In the martial world, only those from the first-rate realm onward were called experts.
That meant that up to the second-rate level, one might be stronger than ordinary people, but still not be considered to have reached the realm of masters or adepts.
“Unless someone much more skilled than this subordinate examines it, I do not think the reason can be known.”
“Even so, since you’ve learned martial arts, is there not even some guess you can make?”
“…….I do not know. I can feel some alien energy around your dantian area, Young Master, but I cannot identify what it is.”
It was completely different in nature from internal power.
It was so cold and unpleasant that Gochan was not even sure it was right to call it energy at all.
To Gochan, Mok Gyeong-un asked in a low voice,
“Then I won’t ask indirectly. If this keeps happening, does that mean I can’t form a dantian?”
A blunt question.
At that, after hesitating awkwardly, Gochan answered.
“…….To speak honestly, yes. If the energies you gather through the breath cultivation method keep scattering like this, you will not be able to form a dantian.”
“So in the end, ‘that’ is the problem.”
“Pardon?”
“No, no. I was talking to myself.”
With that, Mok Gyeong-un stroked his chin.
Gochan had not grasped it exactly, but the cause now seemed fairly clear.
The death aura around the dantian area was most likely the cause.
‘Hmm.’
What should he do about this?
The energy he absorbed through the breath cultivation method scattered away, as if it did not suit this.
And with this breath cultivation method and qi-circulation pattern, he could not move the death aura at all.
He could not think of any way to solve this.
‘This is a problem.’
His objective from the start had been to learn martial arts.
That monstrous man he had met back then.
When he revived the sensation of that day exactly as it had been, he still could not imagine defeating that man, no, not even confronting him.
‘Can I not learn martial arts?’
If that was the case, then there was no reason for him to remain here.
For a moment, Mok Gyeong-un’s mind became complicated.
It was still too early to fall into despair.
As Gochan had said, he was only second-rate, so it was possible that he simply could not identify the true cause.
Would the answer be to seek the help of a real expert?
As he was thinking that,
“Still, this is strange. If it makes true qi scatter, then it seems completely opposed to energy born from proper circulation……”
“Opposed?”
At Mok Gyeong-un’s question, Gochan waved his hand and said,
“Th, that is only my guess. There is no need for you to pay too much attention to…..”
“Opposed…….. opposed…….”
Mok Gyeong-un frowned and sank into thought.
The moment he heard the word opposed, he remembered that when he had first absorbed this cold, yin energy, he had felt something similar.
If the energy taken in through breathing was life energy, that is, the energy of the living, then this was literally death aura.
Then had the method been wrong from the beginning?
Coming to his own conclusion, Mok Gyeong-un said,
“Guard Gochan is right. I should try reversing the qi-circulation essentials and the breath cultivation method.”
With those words, Mok Gyeong-un closed both eyes.
He intended to carry out exactly what he had just realized.
‘What?’
At once, Gochan could not hide his bewilderment.
Had he just said he would reverse the qi-circulation essentials and the breath cultivation method?
For a moment he doubted his own ears.
The breath cultivation method had originally branched from Taoist health-preservation practices and was a method that strengthened life energy and yang energy.
To reverse that literally meant drawing in death and yin energy.
And if one reversed qi circulation itself, that was called the great method of reverse meridians, by which one drove oneself into the demonic path.
“Yo, Young Master! Stop! You may suffer qi deviation!”
Qi deviation.
That was a phenomenon that could occur even from the slightest distortion of the qi within one’s body.
And if even a slight distortion could do that, then completely reversing the direction of qi circulation was no different from choosing self-destruction.
-Pfft!
Watching this, the corner of the Blue Spirit’s mouth rose.
She had wondered what that foolish bastard was doing, only to find him attempting something idiotic with half-baked knowledge.
-How can someone even think of such a thing?
Even the great method of reverse meridians that her own school had developed through long research often ended with the dantian destroyed, crippling side effects, or death after use.
Yet this immature brat, who had not even formed a dantian, intended to reverse his own qi circulation.
It was literally an act of suicide.
-If things go well, I may be able to regain my freedom.
The Blue Spirit sneered and spoke to the Demon Monk.
If the master received harm from an external source, or if a shikigami harmed the master, that harm would return to them through kill.
But it was different if he took his own life.
If that happened, they too might be released from this shackle and recover their freedom.
-Do not interfere, sentient being.
-Shhk!
The Blue Spirit lightly swung her smoking pipe.
At once, Gochan, who had been about to stop Mok Gyeong-un, was pushed backward of his own accord, then slammed down onto the bed he had been lying on and stuck there.
-Tight!
“Wh, what is this?”
Flustered, Gochan tried to raise his body by drawing up his internal power.
But he could not move an inch.
“Yo, You….. mmph!”
-Shh. You should stay quiet.
At a single gesture from the Blue Spirit, Gochan could not so much as move his lips.
Meanwhile, Mok Gyeong-un was already carrying out the breath cultivation method and qi circulation in reverse.
Watching that, the Blue Spirit’s red lips twitched.
-If you end up dying by your own hand, I will personally tear your soul into five pieces.
The anticipation was immense.
But then,
-Swaaaaaaa!
White breath flowed out from Mok Gyeong-un as he circulated his energy.
‘!?’
That breath was not warm but extremely cold and yin.
Just a moment before, the Blue Spirit had thought Mok Gyeong-un would force the reversed circulation too far, suffer qi deviation, and die.
But when events turned in a direction she had not expected, one eyebrow rose on its own.
‘What is this?’
It was something she had never seen in life either.
When he was circulating his energy in reverse, why were yin energies gathering around him?
The Blue Spirit’s ghost eyes saw it clearly.
It was not only life energy and yang energy that spread through the world.
Naturally, because the yin and yang energies maintained balance, death aura and yin energy were likewise spread correspondingly throughout the world.
But there was one important fact here.
That was that living beings could neither sense nor feel these opposing energies.
Then what was happening here?
-How?
How was Mok Gyeong-un, a living being, drawing in the energy of death?
It was something she simply could not understand.
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