Chapter 113 - Act 16. Chance, Connection, Inevitability (6)

Yise struggled to suppress his bewilderment.

Don’t be disappointed. The immortal cuisine has merely changed from roasted egg to young-chicken soup.

Thinking that, he quietly watched the bird hatch.

As obvious as it might be, the birth of a living creature was a scene with… a strangely stirring resonance.

It might even have been impressive, if the thing hadn’t been a demonic beast.

A bird breaking out of its egg is called pipping.

It was the act of breaking through the first obstacle and overcoming itself.

Still, the bird that emerged from the egg was not particularly cute.

How could a bird the size of a human head be considered cute the moment it was born?

No matter how mysterious the sight, he could not grow attached to a Demon hatchling.

This thing was supposed to be his late-night snack today.

‘Wait.’

But soon, he had no choice but to frown.

The energy held by the newborn bird was spiritual energy, not Demonic Energy.

Why? Why did a Demon’s hatchling possess spiritual energy?

It wasn’t even a One-Legged Human-Faced Bird.

It simply had the ordinary form of a bird with red and silver feathers mixed together.

A single hypothesis rang through his mind.

Perhaps demonic beasts and spirit beasts acquired their natures rather than having them innately predetermined.

Could it be because he had used Flame Release with spiritual energy?

Perhaps the thing had greedily absorbed his fire-attribute spiritual energy and been born as a spirit beast. Or perhaps it had never been Feathered Man’s egg in the first place.

He knew absolutely nothing about beast taming, so all he could do was speculate.

The spirit beast hatchling looked at him. Then it blinked a few times before waddling toward him.

Newborn ducklings and chicks followed the first moving object they saw around like a mother. It was called imprinting.

Apparently, this one recognized him as its parent.

In other words, he was about to become… a father for no good reason.

Yise sighed, put the bird into the Heaven-and-Earth Pouch, and immediately took it back out.

He was checking whether it could be stored in the Heaven-and-Earth Pouch in the state in which it had been born. Taking it around outside would be dangerous, at least for now.

‘Peep!’ The thing kept chirping, apparently finding it amusing to go in and out of the Heaven-and-Earth Pouch.

Fortunately, putting in a living spirit beast did not seem to harm it. The problem was that it took up far too much space.

“Stay in there for now.”

The constant chirping beside him was giving him a headache. Wanting to organize his thoughts alone, Yise put it back into the Heaven-and-Earth Pouch.

What was he supposed to do with it?

He pondered deeply.

After much deliberation, he decided to keep it with him for now.

It was not raising it.

It was protection.

Once he returned to Daemudo, he planned to release it into the Spirit Beast Forest.

It was hardly proper for a Daoist belonging to a sect renowned for venerating spiritual beings to abandon a spirit beast hatchling simply because it was troublesome.

‘But what am I supposed to feed it?’

Since it was a bird, should he feed it something like insects?

Or, since it was a spirit beast, did it eat meat as well?

Yise picked up the bones of a snow boar discarded in one corner of the kitchen.

Then he took the spirit beast out again.

“……”

The spirit beast he had put into the Heaven-and-Earth Pouch was staring blankly at him with a spiritual herb—set aside as an ingredient for immortal cuisine—in its beak.

The moment it swallowed the spiritual herb, flames from Firebolt flared up in Yise’s hand.

“You… want to become a roast chicken?”

It was an utterly unforgivable atrocity.

He would teach this insolent spirit beast, which dared to steal a Foundation Establishment Cultivator’s resources—

The spirit beast opened its beak and swallowed the Firebolt resting above Yise’s hand with a loud gulp.

When it belched, even a tiny flame flickered out. The sight was truly absurd.

“What the hell are you?”

* * *

While Yise was racking his brains over the unexpected task of raising a bird, Ryu Seonghan came to his residence.

Apparently, he had gathered the information about the Tyrant Sword Sect and Essence-Draining Ghost-Demon Valley that Yise had requested.

Ryu Seonghan took out a sheet of paper covered in writing and asked,

“But Senior, do you do anything besides eating and cultivating?”

“What else is a Cultivator supposed to do besides cultivate and eat?”

“…Even so, as long as you’re human, you can’t live doing nothing but cultivate. You’d lose your mind.”

“Oh, I’m raising a bird these days.”

Yise pointed toward a shadowy corner of the residence. A spirit beast was curled up there, asleep.

“……What? That’s a spirit beast.”

“It’s a talented one, too. It has fire and wind dual spiritual roots.”

“You really do surprise me every time. Have you given the spirit beast a name?”

“No. I don’t think I’ll name it. If I give it a name, I feel like I’ll have to take responsibility for it until the end.”

Yise knew the power held by the names of spirit beasts and spiritual beings.

He still remembered what had happened with the Bamboo Tube Beauty, which had not been particularly pleasant.

“Senior, you really are an eccentric. Other people can’t raise what you have even if they want to.”

Yise grinned and unfolded the paper Ryu Seonghan had handed him, reading down the page.

The Tyrant Sword Sect. A sect of sword practitioners, just as its name suggested. A gathering of fanatics who intended to conquer the cultivation world with a single sword.

It had a Nascent Soul leader and quite a few Core Formation Cultivators.

The leader of the Tyrant Sword Sect had supposedly lost a one-on-one duel against the Grand Duke and entered his service.

The information was only a general overview, not a detailed account, but Yise firmly committed every character to memory.

Next was the Essence-Draining Ghost-Demon Valley. A demonic-path sect that cultivated Demonic Energy by absorbing vital energy and ghostly energy.

They had declared their complete surrender as soon as the Grand Duke began his war of conquest.

It was a bizarre sect that created farms for ordinary people, absorbing their vital energy while they were alive and their ghostly energy after they died.

Their overall strength was roughly comparable to the Tyrant Sword Sect. However, the accepted view was that they would lose to the Tyrant Sword Sect in a direct confrontation.

They had in fact clashed indirectly on several occasions, and each time, the Tyrant Sword Sect had emerged victorious.

“The relationship between the two sects doesn’t seem very good.”

“It isn’t. I heard the Tyrant Sword Sect dislikes the Essence-Draining Ghost-Demon Valley because it lacks a sense of righteousness. Righteousness, of all things. Honestly, from our perspective, doesn’t that make the Tyrant Sword Sect the more eccentric one?”

“No. They seem perfectly normal to me.”

“So you’re one of them too, Senior…….”

It remained incomprehensible no matter how many times he heard it.

As far as Yise knew, a demonic-path sect would never willingly place itself under a Cultivation sect.

They were clearly plotting some underhanded scheme.

“Do you happen to know a sword Cultivator named Cheong Un?”

“You know Cheong Un? He’s famous. He’s renowned as the greatest prodigy among sword Cultivators.”

So Cheong Un really had been extraordinary. He seemed to be famous even here. His name had spread as far as this remote Foundation Establishment city.

It would be nice if Yise had a chance to meet him. Genuine sword Cultivators were rare, so Cheong Un had left a powerful impression on him.

“I fought him once in a secret realm. More importantly, have you made a decision yet?”

“I’m sorry. There have been some chaotic matters in the family recently.”

“What happened?”

“A Foundation Establishment city nearby has proposed a political marriage. They want their young master to marry one of the young women in our family, but it’s rather troublesome.”

“I suppose it would be, if you had to arrange a marriage regardless of the people involved’s wishes.”

Ryu Seonghan shook his head.

“That isn’t the problem. If necessary, a political marriage can’t be helped. The problem is that the Ryu Clan has no unmarried young women of marriageable age. Even if we started having and raising children now, we would have to wait nearly twenty years.”

“…Then what kind of political marriage is this? What do they expect you to do?”

“Exactly.”

“Don’t tell me they’re trying to start a war.”

“I don’t think so. The Yun Clan’s strength isn’t much different from ours. They have one Late Stage, one Middle Stage, and two Early Stage Cultivators. If we fought, both sides would be crippled. Unless the difference in strength were overwhelming, no one would start a war over such a flimsy pretext when the two sides were this evenly matched.”

Ryu Seonghan’s words made sense at first glance, but Yise knew that the cultivation world did not always operate according to common sense.

Whenever something felt out of place, something was always bound to happen. Why did bad omens always come true?

The moment Yise connected the culture of the Northern Continent with the demonic arts of the Essence-Draining Ghost-Demon Valley, he asked Ryu Seonghan the question that had occurred to him.

“You said there were around a thousand Foundation Establishment clans on the Northern Continent. What was it like long ago? I mean, after unification.”

“I’m not sure. According to the history I know, the number of cities has probably always been about the same. When it decreases, it increases, and when it increases, it decreases.”

About the same.

Yise mulled over those words.

“Why?”

“No. It’s nothing.”

Human beings were tenaciously vital and highly fertile, so they naturally continued to prosper as time passed.

The number of Cultivators should likewise always increase under natural circumstances.

If wars broke out frequently, however, the number of cities should decrease instead.

Whether increasing or decreasing, things should naturally move in one direction.

Yet a continent where the number of cities remained almost unchanged even as the years passed…

Was it merely his sensitivity that made it feel somewhat contrived and artificial?

Yise looked at the sky beyond the window.

It would have been nice to have the ability to read heaven’s secrets at times like this.

At that moment, he inexplicably thought of the frivolous shaman beyond this continent.

After Yise spent a moment blankly organizing his thoughts, Ryu Seonghan, who had been waiting for him, carefully spoke up.

“Senior. If it’s all right with you, could I delay my answer for a little while? I think it would be more comfortable for both of us if I settled this matter before leaving.”

“All right.”

Yise readily gave his permission.

In the meantime, he only needed to keep cultivating.

* * *

Yise was flying across the snowfield.

He was looking for the main ingredients needed to prepare immortal cuisine before entering seclusion for cultivation.

It seemed he had spent nearly an entire day wandering around.

‘This is really inconvenient…….’

There was no one to provide information, and having to search, hunt, and cook all by himself was extremely troublesome.

He had never realized how inconvenient it would be not to belong to a sect that found out where demonic beasts were and brought him that information.

He keenly felt how difficult life was for independent Cultivators.

Even he, having advanced to his current realm and possessing all kinds of methods, found everything this inconvenient. Qi Refining independent Cultivators must feel as though they were living through a thorny path every single day.

On the second day, he found a rank-five demonic beast.

It was a fish demonic beast that traveled through the snow. On the Northern Continent, it was called a snowfish.

It was quite large for a fish, enough for him to eat twice.

When Yise returned to his residence, he made spicy fish stew with the snowfish. He prepared two bowls and put one into the Heaven-and-Earth Pouch.

He tossed the bones and inedible parts to the spirit beast.

The thing caught and ate them with gusto.

He was already short-handed, and having to look after a spirit beast as well was enough to drive him mad with annoyance.

‘It doesn’t seem like it’ll be much help, either…….’

He felt like selling it off somewhere, but whether it understood his feelings or not, it patted its belly and began to curl up beside Yise, nodding off.

“Don’t doze off. You cultivate too.”

Yise grabbed the spirit beast by the scruff of its neck and entered the secluded abode with it.

He tossed the spirit beast to one side and began practicing energy circulation.

He had finally finished digesting the fragment of the supreme-grade Qi-Condensing Pill he had consumed before setting out.

He intended to continue immediately without interrupting the flow.

He tore off a slightly larger piece than the one he had eaten at first and pushed it into his mouth.

Soon, a massive current of spiritual energy surged through his body.

After subduing the rampaging energy, Yise raised his proficiency in his spells.

Most of his Qi Refining spells had reached Great Attainment, but most of his Foundation Establishment spells remained around the eighth star.

Within the Dokkaebi Shadow-Gathering Demonic Art, only Thousand-Catty Strike was at the seventh star, while Dokkaebi Flame was at the sixth. Among them, Forceful Darkness Art remained at only the third star.

‘I don’t have any use for Forceful Darkness Art, so it’s difficult to practice it.’

Forceful Darkness Art was a demonic art that destroyed a person’s mind.

It was the only spell among the Dokkaebi arts related to the mind.

It did not work on Demons, and Yise found it somehow unsettling to use against Cultivators, so he did not want to use it; consequently, its proficiency had advanced slowly.

‘Still, it’s better to practice it for now.’

It was better not to use something than to be unable to use it. Yise devoted himself to training.

* * *

When Yise finished cultivating and opened his eyes, the spirit beast was nowhere to be seen.

Only a half-open wooden plank that failed entirely as a door was rattling.

“What? Where did it go?”

Even after he stepped outside the secluded abode, it was nowhere to be found. His divine sense could not detect it either.

It seemed to have run away.

‘Well… that isn’t necessarily bad.’

If it had left of its own accord rather than being abandoned, he had no reason to feel guilty.

Yise stretched once and headed toward his residence.