A thick, sulfuric stench wafted from the subterranean cave ahead.
While the Baekrin Medical Sect was also in a volcanic region and had its own hot springs, this place was incomparable, radiating an oppressive, scalding heat that bore no resemblance to his home.
Jin Cheon-hee pulled out a towel he had prepared and soaked it in a medicinal solution—a concoction specifically to block the characteristic rotten-egg smell of the sulfur.
He tied the towel around his face like a mask, but as he took his first step, Hwanggu barked—Woof!—and planted himself firmly in the way.
“Hwanggu. No. It’s too hot for you.”
Wang!
Jin Cheon-hee stroked the dog’s head, then squeezed his body into the narrow underground passage.
“Keep watch on the surroundings until I get back.”
Wang, wang!
Hwanggu licked the back of Jin Cheon-hee’s hand, then plopped his hindquarters on the ground. Jin Cheon-hee couldn’t help but smile at the sight.
How far down did he push his body?
Eventually, his feet met only empty air.
Jin Cheon-hee steeled himself and jumped.
Tak—
He landed on solid ground.
Looking up, he could barely see the faint glimmer of surface light filtering through the ceiling. At this rate, it would be impossible to find the exit if night fell.
Wang!
“Yeah, Hwanggu. Bark when I signal later.”
Wang, wang!
Thankfuy, with Hwanggu outside, he could just follow the sound of the barking to get back.
Heat radiated up from the floor.
‘It’s hard to breathe.’
Jin Cheon-hee immediately began to circulate his Ohaengshin-gong to resist the scorching air. As the Ice (Bing) Qi circulated from his danjeon, his body cooled rapidly, and the dizziness faded.
‘When I have time, I should come back to a place like this to train my Fire and Water Qi. I feel like I could achieve a real breakthrough.’
It was a thought that ordinary members of the Medical Sect would never dare to have. If their energy circulation was broken, even for a moment, the heat would make it almost impossible to maintain consciousness. But Jin Cheon-hee saw such extreme situations as an opportunity to advance his internal energy in a single, straight line.
‘That’s right. I’m young. It would be a waste to let this young body go unused.’
He was young, he was strong, and his potential for growth was enormous. He couldn’t miss this opportunity. If he developed a golbyeong—a chronic internal injury from overwork—he could fix it with his own medical skills. The priority was to push this body, to train without rest.
It was a line of thought only possible for someone on their second life.
‘Alright. I’ll keep circulating the Ice Qi until I find the underground lake.’
The Ohaengshin-gong‘s Ice Qi was created by combining Water, Metal, and Earth. It was a rather tricky attribute to form.
But perhaps because he had undergone Hwangol-taltae…
Without him even consciously trying, the Five Elements moved on their own, combining and flowing through his meridians.
‘Now this, I didn’t expect.’
It felt as if the Five Elements themselves had their own consciousness, moving automatically to protect his body. He was inwardly astonished at this unforeseen function. Moreover, his Five Elements Qi, which was already pure, became even more refined. He could now fight the heat with less internal energy than before.
How much further down did he go?
He finally saw a lake of hot spring water.
It was boiling so violently that an ordinary person would suffer full-body burns in less than a gak.
‘Exactly as it was in the novel.’
Periodically, this hot spring water would erupt to the outside through underground vents. This place was as hot as the Hells of legend.
Jin Cheon-hee took a deep, steadying breath.
‘It’s fine. I can do this. I even ate the Hyeonwon Ohaeng Shindan just to break through this place.’
If his Master saw him now, he would have called him a madman, cuffed him on the back of the head, and dragged him out.
Jin Cheon-hee closed his eyes and focused on his internal energy, continuously circulating the Ice Qi through his danjeon.
Normally, this level of cold energy would slow his heart, but in here, it was only just enough to ward off the heat.
‘Colder. I need to get colder. I have to push it into every corner.’
He focused, sending his internal energy through every meridian in his body. His body grew colder, and colder, his movements sluggish. It felt like the onset of hypothermia. A headache began to pound at his temples.
Jin Cheon-hee grimly submerged his hand into the underground spring.
The boiling water seared his frozen body, but only for a moment. The heat of the spring and the Ice Qi of his Ohaengshin-gong began to battle. He adjusted his Ohaengshin-gong, forcing the two to find an equilibrium.
Finally.
He submerged his entire body.
Plunge!
“Hu-ha!”
The moment he judged it was survivable, he activated one of the miscellaneous arts he’d learned from the Jegal library: the Manman-cheon-geunchu.
His body became as heavy as a thousand geun, sinking deeper and deeper into the water. The further down he went, the hotter the temperature and the stronger the current became. He kept the Manman-cheon-geunchu active.
Kuuung—
At last, his feet touched the bottom.
Jin Cheon-hee took out a yamyeongju. It was larger and brighter than a normal Night-Luminous Pearl—the very one he had found in the ceiling back when he’d helped Hwanggu. He never thought he’d end up using it like this.
The pearl illuminated his surroundings, giving him just enough visibility to see.
He moved forward.
How far had he gone? He spotted a creature that looked like a crawdad. A living thing, surviving even in this scalding heat. He knew about it from his books, but seeing it in person was a marvelous thing.
Jin Cheon-hee caught it and tied it with a strand of his own hair.
The Soso-jigong.
A minor art for giving simple commands to small animals.
The command he gave was simple: —Take me to the place where the most frightening thing lives.
The crawdad-like creature shivered once, then began to crawl in a single direction. Jin Cheon-hee followed it.
How long did they walk? The crawdad stopped. This meant they had arrived.
He released the Manman-cheon-geunchu. Like a diver dropping their weights, his body shot upward.
“Pu-ha!”
He broke the surface into a vast, underground lake.
He felt his body cooling rapidly and dismissed the Ice Qi. The cold water lapped at his fingers.
‘This is exactly like the novel. Only this place… this water is cold.’
It was a perfect match for the description of the Mannyeon Hwari‘s lake.
‘If I hadn’t read the novel, I never would have found this. No… even with the novel, I couldn’t have found it without Hwanggu.’
Jin Cheon-hee pulled a set of metal rods from his robes. As he locked the joints together, they formed a spear.
‘I’ll catch it with this!’
The Shipbo-sinchang!
He’d been fine using his bare hands against minor lackeys, but the Mannyeon Hwari was the real deal. To face this, he had to put his life on the line.
He re-tied the yamyeongju securely to his waist.
‘I am the bait.’
In this pitch-black, subterranean lake, the only source of light was his pearl. It was obvious the Mannyeon Hwari, sensing the light, would attack.
The problem was that this was an underwater battle.
Jin Cheon-hee unwound the Heukcheonhyeolsa from the bracelet on his wrist and tied it firmly to the spear shaft. The pre-twisted silk strands were just like a rope.
‘My little Heavenly Demon brother. Thanks for this!’
He never thought he’d end up using Yeoha-ryun’s gift this way.
He closed his eyes, floating in the water, and focused on the space beneath his feet.
How much time passed? Something slick and massive brushed past his toes. He felt a hot, hard texture.
The fin of the Mannyeon Hwari.
It swam past him. It hadn’t bitten immediately, likely to determine if he was food or not.
And then, a moment later…
The water churned.
He looked down and saw its gaping maw rushing up to devour him. Jin Cheon-hee frantically tried to swing the spear to stab it.
In that instant, it moved. He couldn’t even see how.
The creature’s tail struck him.
PWACK!
Jin Cheon-hee’s body was launched clear out of the water. Just that one blow made his organs rattle. He felt his consciousness dimming.
‘I’ve seen this before! It’s how orcas play with seals!’
They’d tail-slap the seal, launching it out of the water, and when the stunned seal fell back, they would devour it. As expected of a spiritual beast, its intelligence was considerable.
Jin Cheon-hee’s airborne body crashed back into the water’s surface. And right where he landed, the Mannyeon Hwari‘s mouth was waiting.
Any other master would be finished the moment they entered those jaws.
Jin Cheon-hee recalled the chant for the Miri-noechang—the Ten-Step Divine Spear’s hidden art—and thrust the spear downward.
Miri-noechang (Mystic-Departure Lightning-Spear)! Noejeon-chulsu (Lightning-Hand Strike)!
A blue noejeon, lightning energy, erupted from his danjeon and gathered at the tip of the spear.
‘Right now, thankfully, its guard is down!’
If it learned his true strength, the fight was over. Even if he was Jin Cheon-hee, he wasn’t a novel protagonist like Yeoha-ryun. He couldn’t maintain this crazy fight, a martial arts duel against a fish, underwater, for long.
He had to end this in one blow.
The blue lightning at the spear-tip began to grow thicker. But suddenly, the Mannyeon Hwari tried to snap its jaws shut.
‘Dammit! It’s sharp, too!’
Before the lightning could gather to a satisfactory level, Jin Cheon-hee just shot the spear into the creature’s mouth.
SHWEEEE-EK—!
The spearhead embedded itself in the roof of its mouth. In agony, the Mannyeon Hwari began to resist, and the entire lake thrashed.
Jin Cheon-hee let go of the Heukcheonhyeolsa and swam for the lake’s edge. The line spooled out rapidly, following the creature’s movements.
The moment his feet touched solid ground, he grabbed the Heukcheonhyeolsa.
Kkwaak!
But the Mannyeon Hwari‘s strength was so great that his body was dragged, skidding across the ground.
‘Again, Manman-cheon-geunchu!’
His body became leaden, his feet planting firmly on the lakebed.
The next skill he would use was the one and only: Taesan-georyeok!
That’s right. It was the secret manual hidden within the erotic art book he had “borrowed” from the library. It was an external art left behind by a monster who had trained his body to the absolute limit, and who, for some unfathomable reason, had hired an artist to hide it within a pornographic text. To learn it, you had to tear out the pages and reassemble them.
Jin Cheon-hee recalled the chant for Taesan-georyeok and moved his muscles accordingly.
He anchored himself with the Manman-cheon-geunchu and pulled with the strength of Taesan-georyeok.
The iron spear, embedded by the Miri-noechang, was lodged in the creature’s throat and would not come out.
The Mannyeon Hwari thrashed.
CHWAAAAAAK!
Jin Cheon-hee held his ground.
The Heukcheonhyeolsa, the divine treasure Yeoha-ryun had given him, was pulled taut with incredible force, but it did not break.
As long as it didn’t break, there was hope.
Jin Cheon-hee wrapped the Heukcheonhyeolsa rope around his shoulder, gave a mighty heave, and pulled.
“Heave! Ho!”
From here on, it was a battle of endurance.
If he could just pull it onto land, even by a single centimeter, he would win.
He pulled, and pulled again, in a steady rhythm.
He continuously maintained the flow of internal energy to the Manman-cheon-geunchu while simultaneously circulating the Taesan-georyeok external art.
How many shichen passed like this?
Jin Cheon-hee felt his entire body screaming in exhaustion. A purple bruise blossomed on his arm where the rope was wrapped. He couldn’t feel it anymore. But the monster was just as tired.
Jin Cheon-hee circulated his Ohaengshin-gong. It wasn’t a full circulation, just a single lap through his meridians, but it was enough to send a thread of vitality through his body.
He fought back the fatigue and pulled again.
“Heave! Ho!”
This was no elegant battle between a human and a spiritual beast, like the one Yeoha-ryun had once shown. This was just a repetitive, stubborn tug-of-war.
Finally, the creature’s snout began to break the surface of the water.
Peodeodeok—
It began to thrash, its final, desperate resistance.
At that moment, Jin Cheon-hee dredged up the last dregs of his strength.
‘Pull!’