Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 177 - True Fire Skin Refinement
Chapter 177 – True Fire Skin Refinement
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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A month later, Ju-seong had returned to the Crimson Spider Sect. Won-gong had coldly departed for the Martial Alliance headquarters, saying he’d finished all business in the Guizhou and Guangxi regions.
‘Well, with war clouds gathering…’
War had already begun. Throughout the Central Plains… in streets and fields, along rivers and in mountains… sporadic battles between martial artists were occurring.
That would naturally be how a war among martial artists unfolded.
Ju-seong counted it fortunate that this journey had at least sealed off the Guangxi region.
The last he’d seen of the Green Forest King, he’d truly looked worthy of being called Guangxi’s ruler.
Billowing black leather cloak, wild curly hair streaming like a mane as he charged…
He’d escorted Ju-seong and the Guizhou martial artists, clearing out demonic practitioners stationed along the route.
The Guizhou martial artists had barely needed to act.
‘If there truly were a Hegemon-King’s march, it would look like that.’
Leading the handful of surviving headquarters subordinates, the Green Forest King strode on long legs right into enemy lines.
Kicking open the gates of strongholds that should have been his, he crushed the skulls of the Battle Maniacs who’d set themselves up as masters.
‘One slap and a man’s head just disappears.’
He’d thought that all the Ten Greats Under Heaven used strange and mysterious techniques.
Like the Sword Saint who could manifest Sword Aura in the air, or the Blood Flower Crone who handled chain weapons like ghosts.
But this man was different.
-CRASH, CRASH, CRASH, CRASH, CRASH…
The thundering sounds the man alone had made still seemed to echo in Ju-seong’s ears.
It was overwhelming violence, as if showcasing the very word “savage.”
The sight of self-proclaimed Battle Maniacs, who bragged about mastering combat, being crushed without even putting up a fight when the real fighting beast appeared…
Moreover, the man had apparently taken a liking to Ju-seong and even sparred with him multiple times.
‘Or maybe he didn’t like me, which is why he sparred.’
Ju-seong slightly rubbed his shoulder and let out a groan.
Ju-seong’s fighting technique had blossomed even more through sparring with the Green Forest King. Ju-seong had always been overflowing with combat talent.
After fighting Taowu’s disciple, witnessing the finest martial arts at the Ascending Dragon Assembly and developing greatly…
The finishing touch was receiving guidance from the supreme master called the Green Forest King.
‘I guarantee it… at your age, there was no one in this dynasty as strong as you.’
That was the Green Forest King’s gruff comment.
‘In any case… He’s more friendly than I expected.’
Setting aside his noble birth that gave him a ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude, he was a man worth befriending.
‘And I obtained these precious things too.’
The Yin-Yang Serpent that had been treated as the sect’s spirit creature.
But the Green Forest King apparently couldn’t stand the sight of it after being bitten while fleeing.
Seeing how readily he’d agreed when Ju-seong asked for it as his reward.
“Hmm. What a color this is.”
Ju-seong muttered, looking down at the poison core glowing a smoldering yellow.
When he’d first extracted it, it had shone with pure white light.
Time had passed and its energy had considerably weakened, now showing a vermilion color like heated metal.
“If I swallow it right now, I should be able to handle it.”
Fire by nature was strongly diffusive, so unlike other poison cores, its energy waned with each passing moment.
Of course, Ju-seong’s goal was to take the core itself and cultivate the poison in his body.
As the energy waned, it would actually be easier to absorb… which was welcome.
Even so, swallowing the core of a venomous creature always made him nervous.
What living being would welcome ingesting poison?
He had to suppress his instincts and bolster his courage before swallowing.
Ju-seong placed the core on his palm, glared at it murderously, then let loose a battle cry from his dantian.
“HIYAAAAH!”
Even that wasn’t enough… he took a couple of rough breaths before spitting out curses.
“You bastard, you’re nothing! Come at me, come at me, you piece of shit!”
-CLICK.
The door to his quarters opened and Yi Pyo-eum appeared looking startled.
“…Young Hero? Are you alright?”
Ju-seong settled into a cross-legged position and asked back calmly.
“Did you hear something?”
“…It’s nothing. Should I stand guard?”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Yi Pyo-eum, barely suppressing a laugh, closed the door behind her.
Ju-seong pressed down his embarrassment with lake-like composure.
“Okay, here we go.”
Ju-seong murmured softly and swallowed the poison core.
“Mmph!”
He furrowed his brow while sitting cross-legged. His throat felt like it was being scorched away… but only for a moment.
The moment the core reached his stomach, it BURST apart, releasing enormous heat into his organs.
‘Flame Crow Six Stage Art, come out.’
He immediately called in the suppression team. None other than his trusty internal energy settled in his dantian.
‘Using Poison to Control Poison, Fighting Fire with Fire’… these were wisdom passed down from the ancients of old.
The Flame Crow Six Stage Art’s heat began to tame the Yin-Yang Serpent’s poison core.
But fire was characteristically violent… its expansiveness, volatility, and capricious nature were hard to handle.
Ju-seong was no exception to this, genius though he was.
The Flame Crow Art’s internal energy was like a wild ox. The fire poison he’d swallowed was equally like a crazed colt.
Two mad four-legged beasts meeting meant rather than control, they bit and clawed at each other.
‘Why are you fighting inside my body?’
Ju-seong realized he’d called in the wrong team and summoned the Human-Faced Spider’s poison instead.
-HISSS.
That sound seemed to echo through Ju-seong’s mental world.
Even raging combatants would be startled into a lull if someone suddenly doused them with cold water.
Ju-seong had done just that. Water naturally suppressed fire, so the Flame Crow Art’s mad ox and the poison core’s mad colt both calmed down simultaneously.
Ju-seong carefully lifted the colt onto a cart and coaxed the ox into pulling it.
Ju-seong held the ox’s reins, and the ox pulled the cart.
Carefully circling through organs and completing a Small Circulation, he hesitantly descended downhill to reach the Huiyin point.
Then he climbed step by step up the spine to the Baihui point before…
‘Now… let’s pick up the pace.’
Too much control over fire’s violence wasn’t the answer.
The Flame Crow Six Stage Art was a violent, powerful style. Ju-seong decided not to obsessively control his internal energy, but to just set its direction and let it run wild.
Water was water; fire was fire. Fire at its most natural when blazing freely to its heart’s content.
‘Go!’
At the peak of the Baihui point, Ju-seong slapped the ox’s rear hard.
-MOOOO!
An imaginary lowing echoed in Ju-seong’s mind as the red-furred ox joyfully galloped downhill.
-RUMBLE!
After running enthusiastically, when the ox reached the pond called the dantian, it hurled the colt from the cart straight into it.
With a splash, the colt settled into Ju-seong’s dantian. Ju-seong now harbored four poisons in his dantian. All elements of the Five Phases except Earth.
The ox continued charging even after throwing off the colt. Ju-seong felt a tickling sensation like he was about to break through one more layer and accelerated his internal energy flow.
Only because he’d strengthened his body through Samadhi Body Refinement was this possible.
-HUM, HUM…
Ju-seong’s body glowed a mysteriously bright red.
The shade seemed to be transitioning from red to crimson.
Light flickered beneath his skin; brilliant light leaked from his brow, heart, and lower abdomen.
These were the Three Flowers of Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown.
These were also the Three Yang.
The Three Yang in turn meant the lower dantian, middle dantian, and upper dantian… which corresponded to Essence, Energy, and Spirit.
If the Three Yang rose to the crown of his head like this, Ju-seong would achieve what was called super-peak level… precisely, Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown.
‘Mm.’
Ju-seong inwardly smacked his lips in disappointment.
‘The bigger the vessel, the longer it takes to fill.’
Ju-seong knew his Essence, Energy, and Spirit had all grown excellently, but he also realized all three were still lacking one thing each.
Achieving Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown now would be too premature.
It was like twisting off the legendary century-ripening Crimson Fruit at exactly one day before the hundred years, at the wrong hour.
‘At least I can perfect the immature body here.’
What he’d conceived while watching Master Jeong-hwa’s cremation.
Seeing flesh melt and congeal with internal energy to form a sarira, Ju-seong had wondered if a martial artist’s skin could be similarly strengthened.
Ju-seong looked at the Flame Crow internal energy still racing wildly through his body, then drew out the Yin-Yang Serpent’s fire poison from his dantian again.
Fire met fire, and the heat was tremendous.
The stone floor where Ju-seong sat glowed red hot. In the midst of this, Ju-seong rose to hover a handspan above the floor.
-WHOOOOSH.
Red flames whirled around Ju-seong’s body, forming rings.
Within, the skin strengthened by Samadhi Body Refinement began heating like metal, slowly melting.
His skin was becoming soft as molten metal.
-CRASH!
Beneath Ju-seong’s skin, the Purple Gold Centipede’s poison he’d summoned held firm.
From outside, the circling fire rings struck Ju-seong’s skin like hammers.
The Purple Gold Centipede’s metal poison was an anvil; Ju-seong’s skin was the heated metal ingot.
‘This means I need some cold too.’
The heat was too much for the Human-Faced Spider’s water poison to cool.
From Ju-seong’s sleeve, Heavenly Silkworm Thread poked out, opened a distant wooden box, split the inner core inside in half, and brought it over.
Ju-seong swallowed the Yin-Yang Serpent’s Cold Core… the core containing cold energy.
The moment it dissolved in his stomach, he immediately spread it throughout his entire body’s fine vessels, expelling it through all eighty-four thousand pores.
-HISSSS!
Ju-seong’s heated skin cooled briefly before immediately heating up again.
Ju-seong continued this cycle… tempering his skin wildly, then cooling it with cold energy.
After an achingly long-seeming time of repetition…
“Phew…”
Ju-seong slowly lifted his trembling eyelids and quietly exhaled. His rear had returned to the floor at some point.
Ju-seong lightly ran his hand over his strangely toughened skin and murmured.
‘I shall call this True Fire Skin Refinement.’
Having forged his skin with Samadhi True Fire…
Ju-seong’s hide had reached the level of being impervious to blades and swords, as if armored.
Sure enough, even slashing hard with his Crimson Iron Flying Knife only left a red mark… not a single drop of blood emerged.
If this was the result with the Crimson Iron knife, ordinary weapons swung by ordinary martial artists couldn’t hurt his skin at all.
He’d achieved an unexpected great accomplishment. He hadn’t reached Three Flowers Gathering to leap to super-peak level, but he’d at least perfected Essence… the body… of Essence, Energy, and Spirit.
Opening the door and stepping outside, Ju-seong couldn’t contain the surging heroic spirit and let out a mighty shout.
“HRAAAAAH… !”
“Young Hero, it seems you’ve achieved something. I’m glad.”
Yi Pyo-eum had been standing guard all night without even going to the privy, still in the same spot.
Ju-seong pressed down his embarrassment with heroic spirit and said.
“Thanks to you, I’ve achieved something wonderful. Thank you.”
As he spoke, Ju-seong glanced at her forehead.
She was still wearing the green silk scrap he’d tied around her instead of a headscarf.
‘Hmm.’
Ju-seong stared directly at her, rubbing his chin.
“Wh-why are you looking at me like that?”
Yi Pyo-eum blushed slightly around her ears and avoided his gaze. Ju-seong didn’t answer but thought to himself.
‘Now I have a way.’
Healing only skin diseases and injuries didn’t make one a physician.
A disciple of the Divine Physician should naturally be able to heal ailments of the heart as well.
But Ju-seong had such a rotten personality that he lacked the finesse to tend to hearts.
‘But I can remove the cause of the heart’s sickness.’
If ill-fated karma was the disease, then its cure would be good karma.
Ju-seong wanted to be effective medicine for Yi Pyo-eum and leave behind good karma.