The first thing that met his eyes was a jet-black sludge that carried a foul stench. It was, in other words, the accumulated waste products expelled from his body. The second, surprisingly, was his fingernails. They were immaculate, tinged with a healthy peach color, making his hands look so fine they might never have known a day of rough labor in their life. And yet, the knuckles were thick and the fingers long—a form perfectly suited for a martial artist.

“What is this…”

Jin Cheon-hee pushed his upper body up.

His hard, muscular body remained, but it was now perfectly symmetrical, as if carved from a sculpture. Beneath smooth, unblemished skin, a defined waist, hips, and muscle-packed thighs and calves were visible.

Startled, he hurried to the pond to see his reflection.

The face that stared back was that of someone who, by Korean standards, had entered his late teens. His eyes were large and gave a strong impression, yet the length of his lashes lent them a strangely languid feel. His lips, neither too thin nor too thick, were a stark, vivid red. The corners of his mouth turned up just slightly, giving him the constant appearance of a faint smile.

He resembled a cat.

He’s handsome.

It was a face that had taken the best features of his original appearance and amplified them. Anyone who knew him would still recognize him as Jin Cheon-hee, but it was also undeniably a beauty that could make one’s heart race. His physique was the same. Piece by piece, it was the body of a martial artist, yet it exuded an air of nobility, as if he had never experienced a day of hardship.

I’ve read about Metamorphosis in countless wuxia novels…

Metamorphosis, or Rebirth.

He was unaware of the exact mechanisms behind its activation. He could only comprehend it as a phenomenon that transpired when the three elements—Mind (心), Qi (氣), and Body (體)—met a “fateful opportunity” and interlocked in perfect harmony.

When Metamorphosis occurred, all the qi meridians in the body were transformed, reforming into the optimal state for practicing martial arts. An old body would become young; a young body would be reconstructed to perfectly suit its martial path. It was a realm signifying a true rebirth, where all impurities and waste products were completely purged. Any illness, no matter what, could be cured by this single event.

This is the realm my master needs to reach…

As the Bloodborne Elder Eccentric had mentioned in the past, the only thing stopping him was none other than his master’s physical constitution. His Mind and Qi already far exceeded the requirements, but his Body simply couldn’t keep up. It was a terrible irony: the very Metamorphosis that could cure his severed meridians was a realm he could not achieve unless his severed meridians were cured.

Jin Cheon-hee washed his body in the cold pond water, completely rinsing away the filth.

“But why was my Sea of Blood acupoint open?”

The Sea of Blood acupoint located at the crown of the head. It is open at birth but gradually closes over time. As it closes when one opens the upper danjeon, it is an extremely dangerous point to meddle with—a mistake could easily turn one into a cripple.

He was certain it had been closed all this time. He wasn’t just a martial artist; he was a physician who knew how to read a pulse. There was no mistake. And yet, this time, his body had opened the Sea of Blood acupoint as if it had been waiting, readily accepting the internal energy.

This is strange.

Jin Cheon-hee looked down at his new hands.

A body with unknown parents, an unknown age, and according to Yoo Ho’s investigation, an unknown hometown. I just thought I was an extra who died at the very beginning of the novel. This is strange.

This time, my internal energy…

Jin Cheon-hee searched for the internal energy that should be in his danjeon.

Huh? It’s gone…? Where did it all go?

This was strange. He had calculated that he should have gained roughly two gapja of internal energy from consuming the elixirs. If one consumed the Profound Origin Five-Elemental Divine Elixir the orthodox way, one would gain one gapja of internal power. However, if one consumed them all at once and managed to control the energy, they would gain at least two gapja. The internal energy one would have to train over a hundred years to obtain, all at once!

That energy, which should have been there, was now gone.

No… it has increased…

Jin Cheon-hee frowned. Feeling more closely, his internal energy had indeed grown. His original internal energy was worth about ten years. Since one gapja was sixty years, that was about one-sixth of a gapja. In truth, even that was fast, considering how little time he’d been in this world.

But now, he saw that his internal energy had doubled. About twenty years’ worth!

Did the Metamorphosis use it all up?

It didn’t matter. He had obtained something far more important than a gapja of internal energy.

Jin Cheon-hee circulated his Fire Qi to dry the water from his body. Now, with no preparatory motion, just his will alone, Fire Qi and Wind Qi moved to blast the moisture away.

The realm of Using Will to Harm!

It was the realm where one could harm another purely by controlling qi with one’s will. It was known that one had to reach the Transformation Realm to achieve this. But for Jin Cheon-hee, this had become possible because his upper danjeon had opened. To be precise, he wasn’t in the Transformation Realm… perhaps it was a half-version? This was partly because his internal energy was woefully low, but also because he lacked real combat experience.

Good. With this… I should be able to catch that spirit carp bastard. The preparations are complete.

After drying himself, he looked for his spare clothes.

“You’ve got to be… kidding me. They’re gone.”

His last set of clothes had become a sacrifice to the Metamorphosis, along with all the filth. They were already closer to rags than clothes, but now their death sentence had been definitively carried out.

A dry laugh escaped him.

“I have nothing to wear.”

He subconsciously reached up to tie his hair.

“And no hair tie. Hohoho.”

Even the bitter laugh that crossed his Metamorphosis-perfected face was devastatingly beautiful.

“Right. It’s truly time to get out of here.”

Of course, he had no intention of using the front door. If he did, his master would find him. As far as anyone knew, he was in the middle of closed-door training. The plan was to slip out through the training hall’s hidden exit and catch the Ten Thousand Years Fire Carp. The only ones who knew of this plan were him and Chief Steward Yoo Ho. As long as Yoo Ho kept his mouth shut, he wouldn’t be discovered.

Jin Cheon-hee grabbed the money pouch and various items he had prepared beforehand and stood before the pond.

“Let’s see where this water leads.”

It was a secret briefly mentioned in the novel. The training hall’s pond was connected to a valley somewhere via an underwater spring. The only problem was that the waterway was a spiderweb of tunnels; if you got lost, you would die. Ordinarily, one would suffocate and drown long before reaching the valley.

But for Jin Cheon-hee, who had mastered the Five-Elemental Divine Art, pushed the Bewildering Footwork to its limit, and completed Metamorphosis, it wasn’t a problem.

On top of that… “I finally get to use this.”

It was one of the miscellaneous books he’d brought into his training.

Jin Cheon-hee reached out and grabbed a fish. It was large and fat, the big boss of this pond.

He forcibly injected his internal energy into the fish. It wasn’t a grand martial art.

Lesser Summoning Art. A miscellaneous art of infusing internal energy into small animals to control them. It didn’t work on intelligent animals, and you couldn’t give them anything more than a simple command.

The command Jin Cheon-hee gave was simple: ‘Flee as far as you can.’

The creature’s body thrashed. He took one more small measure to ensure he wouldn’t lose it, then released the fish. The fish thrashed its tail fin wildly and dove deep into the pond.

Jin Cheon-hee immediately dove into the water, chasing it.

I’m going to look like a total pervert when I get out of the water like this. I’ve got money, that’s not the problem. The problem is going to buy clothes.

***

The water continued. Even though it was underground, the stream twisted and turned. Jin Cheon-hee followed the fish, using the sensation at his fingertips.

I never thought I’d use the Dark Heavens Blood Thread the Little Heavenly Demon gave me like this.

The Dark Heavens Blood Thread was tied to the fish’s tail. The thread, so thin and transparent it was invisible unless one looked closely, yet with the tensile strength to withstand an elephant’s tread, was the lifeline connecting him and the fish.

The big boss of the pond, terrified by a predator it had never encountered in its life, swam frantically. It guided Jin Cheon-hee along the fastest route it knew.

Even in this, Jin Cheon-hee was careful not to be swept away by the whirlpools created by the underground spring. But even more terrifying was the scalding temperature of the pure hot spring water. The fish that lived in this volcanic region were adapted to the rough currents and hot water, but Jin Cheon-hee, a human, was not.

But if I die here, I’ll never even reach the Fire Carp’s location.

Jin Cheon-hee circulated his Five-Elemental Divine Art to protect his body.

And finally… light became visible on the water’s surface. It seemed to connect to a spot high up in a valley.

Jin Cheon-hee swam toward the surface with all his might.

“Puhaat!”

He emerged in a deep valley, too deep to stand. Just below him, a waterfall roared.

Kugwagwagwa—

Jin Cheon-hee quickly untied the thread from the fish. Then, he applied the second of his miscellaneous arts, the Ten Thousand by Ten Thousand Catties Weight.

Kuuung!

The Thousand Catties Weight was a basic art that temporarily increased one’s body weight. The Ten Thousand by Ten Thousand Catties Weight cost double the internal energy, but it increased his weight faster and more powerfully. It also temporarily made his body as hard as steel; at its peak, it was said one could even deflect hidden weapons. However, it was difficult to learn and had poor internal energy efficiency.

In other words, it was an inefficient miscellaneous skill. Because of its low importance, it had been tossed in the Zhuge Clan’s Secret Archives, specifically, the miscellaneous archive, and was left to gather dust.

But for gaining footing in rushing water, nothing was better.

Jin Cheon-hee planted both feet on the valley floor. Then, he walked out of the valley.

Kung. Kung. Kung.

“A miscellaneous skill learned for exactly this kind of moment.”

Jin Cheon-hee greedily gulped in the fresh valley air. It had been so long; the outside air had never tasted so sweet.

That lasted only a moment. He grabbed his long, seaweed-like hair and wrung it out like a wet rag.

“All right, what’s next?”

He opened the bundle he’d brought.

“I brought plenty of money, the items I prepared for the Fire Carp, and my White Qilin Token to prove my identity…”

Jin Cheon-hee paused, then shook his head. “Hmm, but if I use that carelessly, word will get back to my Master. I shouldn’t use it unless I absolutely have to. I had the Beggar’s Sect make me a fake identity token in advance, so I’ll just use that. The distance to the destination is… about a month’s round trip on foot.”

It was only a month’s round trip because it was in an adjacent region.

A bigger problem remained. He had read descriptions of the place where the Ten Thousand Years Fire Carp lived, but it was all just novelistic prose. It wasn’t as if the author had included a map. He needed a guide to narrow down the search area.

“I need someone to narrow the search. I’ll have to hire a guide.”

With that settled, one final diagnosis remained.

“Just how much stronger have I become?”

The Bewildering Lightning Spear, that is, the Ten Paces Divine Spear, had already reached a high realm. It wasn’t at the level of ‘Grand Completion’, but it was enough to be considered top-tier in the Gangho. The Three Talents arts had been mind-numbingly tedious, but after perfectly mastering them, his speed of learning the Bewildering Lightning Spear had been exponential.

I think I’m strong enough to catch the Fire Carp, but I can’t be certain.

Jin Cheon-hee lightly struck a nearby tree with his palm.