"Uuuuuuuugh!"
A dark cave.
Into the empty cave, where not a single ray of light enters, a bandaged hand pushes its way in.
"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh…."
And then, a face that couldn't possibly be more contorted suddenly appears.
"Aaaaaaah!"
Thud! Thud!
Chung Myung, stretching out both hands to grip the ground, crawls hurriedly into the cave.
Chung Myung: "Huff! Huff! Huff! That crazy bastard, Maehwa Geomjon!"
What was he thinking, making a hideout in a place like this and living here? Did he lose his mind after spending all his time training in martial arts on the mountain?
Ah, Maehwa Geomjon is me.
Chung Myung: "Ah, I'm going to die."
Chung Myung plopped down on the ground. Now that he's finally made it to the cave, he feels strangely like crying.
'I almost died for real.'
Climbing that cliff with both hands broken was no easy feat, even for someone in perfect health. Anyone with a brain and the ability to think would have recognized their limitations and planned for another day.
But unfortunately, Chung Myung has a brain but no ability to think.
Chung Myung: "No! If I don't make it now, it'll take even more time!"
As if making excuses to himself, Chung Myung shouts in desperation before collapsing back onto the ground with a groan.
Chung Myung: "Ah, this old man is going to die."
No, wait, I'm a kid now. Sometimes I get confused.
Still, he somehow managed to make a sturdy rope and succeeded in getting inside. If the rope had snapped this time, he would have really gone to meet the King of Hell.
If that had happened, even the King of Hell would have struggled to hold back his laughter.
It's a relief that he didn't see that sight.
"Ugh."
Chung Myung forced his creaking back straight and stood up, looking around.
He couldn't see anything.
Not because of pain, but because it was too dark to see.
Chung Myung: "Tsk. This should be about…."
Groping around, his hand touched something.
Chung Myung: "That's it."
Grabbing what his hand found, he pulled it, and a curtain was lifted, brightening the inside. Looking at the source of the light, Chung Myung chuckled.
Chung Myung: "I really had no plan."
The light of the Yamingju was truly radiant and clear.
You can't light a fire inside the cave. Since the entrance faces downward, lighting a fire would quickly fill the cave with smoke.
Even Chung Myung couldn't drink in that thick smoke. To be precise, it's possible, but why would he do such a thing when it's not even a form of ascetic practice?
'But he went and placed Yamingju here.'
Do you know how much that costs?
'I must have swiped it from one of the tributes brought to Mount Hua.'
Back then, so many things were coming and going that no one would notice if something like that went missing. Later, the accounting department and the finance office probably had a hard time balancing the books, but whatever.
Chung Myung: "What can you do about the past?"
Chung Myung was once again struck by how reckless the Maehwa Geomjon of the past was.
Ah, that's me.
I keep forgetting.
Chung Myung calmly surveyed the now-brightened interior of the cave.
Chung Myung: "Hmm."
Inside the cave, which was neither too big nor too small, there was only a bed to lie down on, a small table, and one chest.
Yet, it felt somehow antique. Even the simplest things seemed to carry a sense of significance, perhaps weathered by time.
Chung Myung: "Wow. So this is how it turns out?"
A sudden realization hit him.
If Chung Myung hadn't come back to life and had just died, and someone from Mount Hua discovered this place in the distant future? Wouldn't they have thought it was the retreat of a past master and caused a huge uproar?
What if someone had fallen off the cliff and stumbled upon it by chance?
Chung Myung: "That's the Cliff Divine Technique. The Cliff Divine Technique."
In reality, it was just a place where he holed up to drink, but to future generations, it would never look that way.
They would probably think there was some hidden secret in the cave and do all sorts of things to uncover it.
Chung Myung: "Isn't this how all the Cliff Divine Techniques are created?"
Chung Myung chuckled and walked toward the chest. Without hesitation, he opened the lid. A cloud of dust that had accumulated over nearly a hundred years billowed up.
Chung Myung: "Cough! Ugh! Cough!"
Waving his hand to clear the dust, Chung Myung peered inside the chest.
The first thing that caught his eye were the liquor bottles. Seeing the variety of bottles, his mouth watered…
Chung Myung: "No, no! Liquor isn't important right now."
Desperately pushing the liquor bottles out of his sight, Chung Myung shifted his gaze to a small box placed beside them.
Chung Myung: 'This is it!'
Chung Myung quickly grabbed the box and pulled it out. It was bigger and heavier than he remembered.
Chung Myung: "Huuuu."
Taking a deep breath, Chung Myung carefully opened the lid of the box. At the same time, a thick plum blossom fragrance spread throughout the cave.
It felt as if a fully bloomed plum tree had filled the surroundings.
Click.
When he fully opened the lid, he saw round red pills filling the box. At the bottom of the box, there were small, delicate things spread out, and on top of them, five snow-white pills were placed.
Chung Myung: "Ugh!"
A wave of emotion surged over him. Tears welled up in his eyes.
The things spread at the bottom weren't just padding to protect the pills.
They were Maehwa Dan.
Chung Myung: "He's really a lunatic."
No matter how common Maehwa Dan were, who would stack them up like that and hide them away? How greedy do you have to be to do something like that? If the elder brother had seen this, he would have grabbed the back of his neck and collapsed.
Chung Myung: "But at least I didn't hide the Jasodan, elder brother."
Feeling a bit embarrassed, Chung Myung made a half-hearted excuse.
Actually, he didn't hide it. To be precise, he couldn't touch the Jasodan. Like Shaolin's Great Return Pill, Jasodan was considered a top-tier elixir even within Mount Hua. Therefore, no matter how high-ranking an elder of Mount Hua was, they couldn't just take it without permission.
Only with the simultaneous approval of the medical hall and the sect leader could Jasodan be taken out.
As for Maehwa Dan, elders could take as much as they wanted. Of course, to touch Seolmae Dan, you had to be an elder with significant power, but who is Chung Myung? He's the Maehwa Geomjon, the greatest swordsman of Mount Hua.
—The greatest troublemaker of Mount Hua, that is!
He thought he heard a voice from somewhere.
Chung Myung: "Whatever."
What's important is that he now has the Hwan Dan in his hands. With this, he can heal his body.
Chung Myung took out one Seolmae Dan from the box and carefully closed the lid. In the past, he used it as a hangover cure, but when circumstances change, so does the value of things. To Chung Myung now, these elixirs were priceless treasures.
Chung Myung: "Ah, I'm shaking."
Carefully placing the box back into the chest, Chung Myung looked at the Seolmae Dan in his hand with great care.
A refreshing fragrance continuously flowed from the snow-white pill. Just smelling it made him feel like his body was recovering.
Chung Myung: "They say people don't appreciate what they have until it's gone."
Back when Mount Hua was aiming for the position of the greatest martial sect in the world, they didn't even glance at things like Seolmae Dan. The only thing they valued was Jasodan.
So, isn't it natural that Chung Myung could gather so much Maehwa Dan?
It's not just Chung Myung. That atmosphere was prevalent throughout Mount Hua. It's only natural. When you have an abundance of better elixirs, who would pay attention to lower-grade ones?
But now that his situation has changed, even those elixirs that seemed insignificant back then feel incredibly precious.
Chung Myung: "Ah, how did I end up like this?"
I'd rather die than suffer like this.
Chung Myung immediately sat down in the lotus position. There's plenty of time to lament his fate later. Right now, he needs to fully recover his body. If he can accumulate a bit more internal energy in the process, that would be even better.
Sitting in the lotus position, Chung Myung tossed the Seolmae Dan into his mouth. The pill melted instantly, sliding down his throat without even needing to chew.
A refreshing fragrance filled his mouth.
But Chung Myung didn't have time to savor the scent. He immediately began circulating his energy.
Eating an elixir doesn't automatically increase your internal energy. You have to fully absorb the energy of the elixir to enhance your internal energy.
Here, a subtle problem arises.
When you're young and lacking in internal energy, you can't fully absorb the elixir even if you eat it. That's because you lack the ability to control the energy.
But what about when you're older and skilled in controlling energy?
Even then, the effect isn't complete. That's because you've already accumulated a lot of internal energy. Elixirs are meant to fill what's lacking. They can't raise what's already full.
Chung Myung: 'If internal energy filled up every time you ate an elixir, those Shaolin guys would chew ten Great Return Pills and become the greatest monks in the world.'
Thus, elixirs are meant to fill the gaps in your internal energy. The younger and weaker you are, the more effective they are, but conversely, young children can't fully absorb the energy of the elixir.
But what about Chung Myung?
Chung Myung: 'I can suck it all the way to the marrow!'
Here is a child, the only one in the world, who can perfectly control energy.
A true legend, a seasoned rookie. No, a rookie with unparalleled experience.
Chung Myung: "Huu."
The Seolmae Dan that entered his stomach began to surge through his meridians.
Whoooooosh.
Energy stirred within his body. The immense energy he hadn't felt in a long time made him feel proud.
Chung Myung: 'I need to focus!'
Controlling the energy to prevent it from escaping through the three meridians and filling the dantian? That's nothing to Chung Myung now. But what Chung Myung needed to do now wasn't that simple.
He had to fill his incomplete innate energy.
His thick and dull consciousness sharpened like a blade. But Chung Myung went further. He honed his consciousness to a needle-like sharpness and perfectly controlled the energy of the Seolmae Dan, pushing it into his dantian.
Chung Myung: 'Careful. Careful.'
As gentle and delicate as handling a newborn baby.
In Chung Myung's mind, his dantian appeared as clear as if he could hold it in his hand.
But Chung Myung's goal wasn't the dantian. It was the deepest part of the dantian. The place where the origin that humans are born with resides.
Chung Myung: 'No!'
Just as he was about to guide the energy into his dantian, Chung Myung suddenly pulled back the surging energy.
Chung Myung: 'It's impure.'
Elixirs are essentially made to extract and consume only the good energy of the world's medicinal herbs. In other words, they are refined to extract only the pure energy.
But even Mount Hua's prized Seolmae Dan was too impure to enter Chung Myung's dantian. If the energy flowing in Chung Myung's dantian was like the clear water of a mountain stream, the energy of the Seolmae Dan felt like stagnant, rotting water.
Chung Myung made a firm decision.
Chung Myung: 'Filter it out!'
If he filtered out the energy of the Seolmae Dan like this, he would have to discard most of its efficacy. That wasn't an easy choice.
But accepting all this energy was meaningless. Hadn't he come this far to build the most complete and perfect foundation? He couldn't ruin things now out of impatience.
Chung Myung: 'Leave only the purest energy and discard the rest!'
The energy circulated through Chung Myung's body, gradually being whittled down. The impurities mixed in the Seolmae Dan combined with the impurities in Chung Myung's body and were expelled.
Soon, thick, black sweat began to seep out of Chung Myung's body.