Sichuan's Mad Dragon (Novel) - Chapter 190 - The Future
Chapter 190 – The Future
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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His vision cleared.
The first thing Ju-seong’s eyes beheld was the jewel, emitting a wondrous hum as it radiated vermilion waves.
-WHOOM, WHOOM, WHOOM…
The waves bursting from the jewel cleared away the surrounding darkness.
Only then did Ju-seong realize he had arrived at a spacious clearing in the center of the labyrinth.
The innermost heart of the great underground maze.
It was a wide chamber with a radius of about four zhang, its ceiling shaped in a rounded hemisphere.
What was remarkable was that despite not a single ray of sunlight seeping in, he could see his surroundings clearly.
“…”
Ju-seong silently gazed at the jewel before him, then said.
“Damn thing, you’re sturdy.”
Ju-seong had struck the jewel with considerable force.
He hadn’t taken kindly to the situation of being blinded and deafened. Naturally, he had viewed this strange formation quite unfavorably.
He had struck intending to shatter it completely with Sword Aura, but…
This peculiar orb, rather than breaking, had absorbed Ju-seong’s internal energy whole and was converting it into light to illuminate the surroundings.
And stranger still, as the released vermilion waves touched the cavern walls…
“Oh?”
Figures carved in intaglio were gradually being revealed.
The vermilion energy seeped into the grooves of the carvings and settled there.
Thus, in the dim chamber, figures drawn in vermilion lines completely filled Ju-seong’s vision.
Ju-seong lifted his head, mouth agape, scanning the forms that packed every inch of the hemispherical space.
They were movements performed by a certain man, and their appearance was quite familiar.
“First of all, these are dynamic techniques. Considering how old this space must be, these are unmistakably primordial martial arts.”
Ju-seong murmured.
Taoist inner elixir cultivation methods, and the Buddhist seated practices brought from Tianzhu.
When these two merged, they formed the foundation of the current Central Plains martial arts system.
But before the Taoist sages existed, before Bodhidharma brought India’s austerities…
The martial arts of that time took the form of dynamic techniques imitating natural things.
Ju-seong examined the forms depicted before him and suddenly understood.
“Three Yang Fist… and it resembles the Karmic Fire Demonic Art as well.”
Looking at each individual movement, they shared a lineage with martial arts Ju-seong already knew.
Three Yang Fist was a martial art the Divine Physician had created to match the internal energy flow of Flame Crow Six Stage Art.
In the case of the Karmic Fire Demonic Art, as an ancient demonic dynamic technique, it had a cultivation method substantially similar to Flame Crow Six Stage Art.
And the drawings on this cavern’s walls were similar to the movements of both Three Yang Fist and the Karmic Fire Demonic Art in several respects.
In other words, this entire space had been arranged for practitioners of Flame Crow Six Stage Art.
‘This is a stroke of fortune.’
Ju-seong murmured inwardly. He had only come to escort Lady Wol-hyang, yet it had returned to him as an unexpected boon.
‘Well, whether it’s fortune or disaster remains to be seen.’
Ju-seong thought. When he had obtained the Karmic Fire Demonic Art, he had initially hoped it would be a blessing, yet he had nearly fallen into qi deviation.
Ju-seong sat quietly, gazing at the drawings in the cavern.
Before long, he noticed something strange.
“Paintings can be drawn however the artist pleases, but still… This was apparently a sacred site of sorts, so would they really have put in such jests?”
Ju-seong tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. Even with Celestial Eye, which made such squinting unnecessary, the strangeness of what he saw warranted the reaction.
First of all, the drawings were extremely crude.
They were ancient… primordial… paintings.
Works from an era when humanity was clumsy at everything, so warped proportions and misshapen eyes, noses, and mouths weren’t surprising.
Rather, the fact that the movements were still recognizable despite such rendering suggested this was one of the premier artisans of that age.
So it seemed unlikely such a person would have inserted jokes into a place like this.
“Then why does the figure have horns on its head?”
Ju-seong puzzled over this, then suddenly widened his eyes.
A word had just surfaced in his memory… one that had been written at the entrance to this space.
“Flame Emperor…”
Flame Emperor Shennong.
One of the earliest rulers to govern this land.
“He had horns like an ox on his head. He personally tasted a hundred grasses to distinguish their benefits and harms…”
Ju-seong murmured blankly.
“Beyond being a ruler of the earth, he was revered as a god who commanded fire…”
Ju-seong felt as if something had struck his head hard and passed right through.
The fierce flames of Flame Crow Six Stage Art.
And the bizarrely powerful resistance to poison characteristic of Flame Crow Six Stage Art.
In that distant past.
In the region of present-day Shaanxi, there was a man named Jiang Shiyan who bore auspicious horns on his head.
For the sake of the multitudes, he distinguished the benefits and harms of a hundred grasses, taught the cultivation of medicinal herbs and grains, and moreover, wielded blazing fire like an extension of his body to teach the making of torches.
Only now could Ju-seong understand the origins of his martial art.
His martial art was neither Buddhist nor Taoist.
It was one of the first martial arts that had enabled humanity to stand upright on this land.
Surely the man called Flame Emperor Shennong had possessed comprehension and physique that approached the supernatural.
With that tremendous talent, he observed fire, and striving to emulate its nature, encountered no obstacle in his endeavors.
Carrying flames within his body, he endured poison with that fire to distinguish the harms of a hundred grasses.
He wielded flame-lightning to punish barbarians and repel beasts.
Thus he became the first ruler served by humanity, and one of the first gods.
Ju-seong suddenly recalled a conversation he had once had with his master… a simple overview of martial world history.
[Historians and scholars outside jianghu pursue only what can be verified as true. But the history recorded and preserved by martial artists is different.]
According to him, the supernatural abilities of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, Xiang Yu’s bizarre martial prowess, and the pranks of immortals like Zuo Ci were not mere falsehoods to be laughed off.
[Consider it the work of martial artists who had reached high realms. In particular, those called the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors were probably, in martial artists’ estimation, the first to create martial arts.]
The first martial arts.
What a heart-stirring resonance that phrase carried.
Thus Ju-seong had asked.
[Then if one finds their martial arts, can one truly dream of being the greatest under heaven, the greatest of all time?]
The Divine Physician promptly rapped Ju-seong’s head with a fist.
[What have you been listening to? Today’s martial arts are the superior ones… in cultivation efficiency and power alike….]
Ju-seong rubbed his head and grumbled.
[But they’re the martial arts of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors….]
The Divine Physician shook his head.
[Even in the Tang Dynasty era, monsters occasionally ran rampant, and further back, immortals frequently played their tricks. Likely when martial arts first appeared, the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was far denser than now.]
Only then did Ju-seong understand.
[Because the environment was better, even relatively inferior martial arts could produce powerful strength… is that what you mean?]
[Exactly.]
Ju-seong had completely forgotten that conversation, but now he could dredge up the memory.
He murmured softly.
“…But Master.”
His dantian trembled and resonated of its own accord. Ju-seong slowly rose to his feet and began moving his fingertips.
“…This is so beautiful.”
The martial art carved into the cavern.
Ju-seong too possessed exceptional insight and perception… he knew. This was a dynamic technique inefficient for accumulating energy. Since it didn’t create a dantian but stored internal energy throughout the entire fine vessel system, its output was also inferior.
Yet it was beautiful.
Within these movements existed the majesty that fire, capable of consuming all things, ought to possess.
And beneath that destructiveness, it also held a warmth that nurtured the growth of all things.
Shennong… the God of Agriculture.
It was the stern flame that vanquished evil hosts.
And at the same time, sunlight that warmly embraced the ragged, starving humans wandering the wilderness.
These movements could not be evaluated by such petty measures as superiority in martial prowess or efficiency in cultivation.
They were a solemn ritual, the will of an immeasurably sublime ancient… itself.
Ju-seong’s upper dantian spun more intensely than ever before. By rights, he should have been bleeding from all seven orifices at such speed, but…
-WHOOOOM…
The jewel at the chamber’s center emitted ethereal light and a wondrous hum, and the strain on his upper dantian lessened.
Of course, Ju-seong, oblivious to this, was following those movements as if entranced.
Ju-seong realized that Flame Crow Six Stage Art and the Karmic Fire Demonic Art were merely descendants… lower branches… of this primordial martial art.
Flame Crow Six Stage Art was an improved form of this primordial martial art, what might be called the ‘Flame Emperor Art.’
It had minimized the unstable, volatile nature as much as possible, and introduced seated cultivation and dantian training to maximize efficiency.
Thanks to this, the martial art’s demonic nature was reduced and its power increased, but it had lost its profundity.
Meanwhile, the Karmic Fire Demonic Art Ju-seong had obtained in Yunnan…
‘Had captured only the volatile, fierce nature of fire.’
That had transformed it into a demonic art that amplified the practitioner’s frenzy.
‘Taotie…’
Indeed, at the shrine in Yunnan where the Karmic Fire Demonic Art had been hidden, there had been a statue of Taotie.
And as far as Ju-seong knew, Taotie was…
‘Shennong had a son lacking in talent, one who coveted food and wealth. The world called him Taotie, and all under heaven loathed him.’
Something he had heard from the Divine Physician while studying martial world history. An excerpt written by some historian.
In other words, Taotie had been one of Shennong’s descendants or disciples in that ancient time.
But his nature was greedy and wicked, so he had modified Shennong’s martial art for his own purposes.
The mention of lacking talent might have referred to character, not comprehension.
Perhaps that Taotie, along with the other Four Fiends, had been exiled to the frontier and founded the Cradle of the Demonic Path.
And perhaps they were the progenitors of the demonic path that had appeared in every age of chaos throughout martial world history.
Even as such speculations flowed through Ju-seong’s mind, his movements never ceased.
Ceaseless, unbroken movements. Within them dwelt both the gentle warmth of the sun and the ferocity of karmic fire.
-WHOOOOSH…
In his mental image, a crow beat its wings vigorously. Ju-seong noticed the creature had sprouted three legs.
Three… a number of good fortune, representing the Three Powers, and also referring to the entirety of all creation.
The three types of miraculous medicinal ingredients contained in the Three Talents Five Elements Pill that Ju-seong had consumed.
Still enshrined in his dantian, not yet fully claimed as his own… that energy now burst free and rushed through his entire fine vessel system.
Those ingredients were famous treasures said to grant immunity to cold and heat, immunity to all poisons, and immunity to blades, but…
‘…I don’t think I’ll gain those properties.’
The Three Talents Five Elements Pill was a pill aimed solely at creating the legendary Golden Elixir to become an immortal.
The name Three Talents Five Elements Pill was what the Divine Physician had given it; the original name of this transmission was ‘Golden Pill Synthesis Dissolution.’
Perhaps because of this, Ju-seong’s body had grown more robust, but he hadn’t obtained the three legendary properties.
‘A pity, but not a great loss.’
These weren’t ingredients he had gathered through his own toil anyway. They were things his master had spent his youth acquiring.
Moreover, the three ingredients hadn’t vanished entirely.
The grand flow of internal energy from the Flame Emperor Art had stimulated those three ingredients, and they had finally risen from their heavy slumber to continuously nourish Ju-seong’s dantian.
‘…Golden Elixir.’
True to that term, the dantian in Ju-seong’s mental image was gradually being reborn in golden hue.
It wasn’t merely a glossy color change. The very solidity and size of the vessel had grown to an absurd degree.
Ju-seong already possessed a substantial amount of internal energy, but even his internal energy was now like a droplet on a saucer inside this new dantian.
It was as if saying that to ascend to some higher place, one must possess at least this size of vessel beforehand.
In the end, his internal energy hadn’t increased, and he hadn’t gained those terrifying properties of immunity… yet Ju-seong had obtained the future.
A magnificent future that the martial artists of the current age couldn’t even dream of.