Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 171

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 171
At Cheon Gyeong’s words, the other disciples of the Thousand Character Formation drew their swords. As Cheonwoo moved to unsheathe his blade to block them, I sent a transmission.
[Leave it. Let’s see how this plays out.]
Cheonwoo found the leisurely tone of my transmission absurd.
‘This isn’t even worth Yoo Ho’s nine wooden puppets. Seriously.’
They would never have known.
I had far more experience fighting one against many than one against one.
“Will this finally become somewhat interesting?”
“….”
Without answering, they unleashed their sword qi. Against their reasonably well-coordinated yin-yang harmony of the Taiji, I responded with the Five Elements.
Caaaaaang–!
Remarkably, the Five Elements cleaved through and shattered the yin-yang.
One of the Thousand Character Formation disciples flew backward, sliced by the blade.
I had struck him with the flat of the sword, not the edge.
Literally.
‘…He’s toying with them.’
Cheonwoo thought this while watching amid everyone’s shock.
Then the second one who rushed at me—I grabbed his arm with my other hand and twisted it in the opposite direction.
Crunch-
“Kyaaaagh!”
“Mm. I’ll reassemble it for you later.”
What it meant for a sword inspector to fight without using a sword in a martial contest was clear.
The sword wasn’t even worth using.
It was repaying in kind the insult of having a sword thrown at me.
“Since you won’t surrender so easily.”
Crack-
“Gaaaagh!”
“Ah, this is advice from me as a Doctor—just lie still. Don’t put weight on other places… mm… you’re moving.”
Thud!
“Kyaaaagh!”
“It’s impressive you still have fighting spirit despite all this. I’ll put it back in order for you, so just stay still. It’s better than getting wounded by my blade thrashing about. Besides, it’s a hassle for me to suture the abdomen I’ve pierced myself.”
“….”
He hadn’t thought of this.
Cheonwoo desperately rationalized the scene before his eyes.
‘R-right. Brother is… Brother is a Doctor after all. To avoid disabling the kids! It might actually be better to incapacitate them by severing an arm or leg rather than spilling their organs!’
It was a method ordinary martial artists could absolutely never employ.
It was a mad sight.
“Now you’ve all surrendered, haven’t you?”
I spoke to the three writhing on the ground in agony.
Unable to answer through their excruciating pain, yet unable to say no, it was effectively a surrender.
“Now, stay still and I’ll restore everything. Normally, I shouldn’t do this for ordinary people, but martial artists recover well thanks to their inner energy cultivation. Ah, that jaw is going to take a while.”
Stop complaining.
That’s what the pain was saying.
‘This crazy Doctor bastard….’
Cheon Gyeong was bewildered.
The endless Inaction was terrifying, but more terrifying than that was Jin Cheon-hee’s attitude.
What martial artist considers treatment and aftereffects following a duel?
In a situation where life and death hung in the balance, such considerations had never existed in the first place.
Seo Baek-ryong before my eyes was quite virtuous in that regard, but in another sense, far more terrifying.
Returning provocation in kind was understandable.
It was possible if one had the strength.
He understood human pain well and, since it was a duel anyway, he cheerfully trampled on the notion that suffering was better than carrying aftereffects.
And then he was fixing it back.
‘Is this a grudge…or not.’
In the Gangho, it was common for grudges to form from disabilities arising after duels.
If an eye was gouged out and one became blind, they would come seeking vengeance for that eye. If one lost an arm, they would swear revenge, saying the wound ached whenever it rained.
But Jin Cheon-hee had none of that.
If someone was injured and their organs spilled out, he found surgery tedious, so he would break an arm in a direction it shouldn’t break and dislocate it.
When they screamed, he asked if they surrendered.
‘What martial artist would surrender in that situation.’
Cheon Gyeong fell for the provocation and ultimately did what he shouldn’t have done.
There was no way back.
Facing Cheon Gyeong’s venom, Jin Cheon-hee nodded and dislocated the other leg.
Crack—!
When he screamed again, this time he asked if he surrendered.
That was…a different kind of benevolent madness.
* * *
There was something Jin Cheon-hee had said to Cheonwoo while breaking Cheon Gyeong and his friends.
[Cheonwoo. You can’t get involved.]
[Why, brother?]
[I’m leaving this place anyway, but you’re staying. And those taking my beating will stay too. If you hastily intervene, you’ll only earn a bad reputation.]
[But brother….]
[…But nothing. You can’t get involved here. Since you’ve already become a hermit, you need to climb higher.]
[!]
Cheonwoo’s eyes widened in surprise. Jin Cheon-hee continued with his transmission.
[I’ve staked everything on the sword. Don’t say I’ve abandoned politics. As long as humans live in groups made of humans, they can’t help but interact with other humans. And the Mudang Sect you belong to consists of over a thousand martial artists.]
Half of them live within the sect, while the rest live outside as lay disciples, are in the Martial Arts Alliance, or engage in activities with Pyoguk or merchant associations.
[Being strong? That’s convenient. But even that is only possible if someone else passes down the teachings—that’s what a sect is.]
Crack—
Having heard the surrender declaration, Jin Cheon-hee was now reassembling the bones.
“There’s no problem associating with virtuous and righteous people. The damnable part of the human world is that you must also deal with greedy and selfish ones.”
I exhaled softly to myself.
It was because memories of those people from my time at the Medical Kingdom surfaced.
“If I shattered the pot every time I found someone disagreeable, I’d earn the title of ‘Monstrous Person.’ A Mudang Monstrous Person—not a bad epithet, but you don’t have the strength for that yet.”
“Are you saying I’m still too weak to help you, brother?”
“No. It’s that I’m too strong.”
“….”
At my single remark, Cheonwoo’s eyes shifted.
I treated everyone calmly and methodically.
Cheon Gyeong and his companions couldn’t utter another word, their faces flushed crimson.
Multiple people had attacked together, yet not a single blade had touched me, and I’d even earned their pity in the process.
None of them could lift their heads. If they’d at least sustained serious wounds, they might have used that as justification to cause a commotion, but they bore no injuries at all.
It was cowardly, but having come this far, Cheon Gyeong couldn’t retreat.
All that mattered was determining whether I had mastered the Dual Thought Technique.
Without accomplishing anything, Cheon Gyeong pondered what to do next.
Then a voice rang out.
“Puhahahaha. Now that’s a masterpiece. Pukkkkkk.”
It was a laugh so frivolous it bordered on mockery.
Naturally, the three men whose joints had been dislocated and forcibly reset contorted their faces even more grotesquely than before.
“Ah, so the elder laughs, yet you scowl?”
‘From beside me?’
The earlier laughter had come from some distance away, but this voice came from right beside me.
A chill ran down my spine.
My instincts screamed at this fact. I could hear the voice, but I sensed nothing of the person through my energy perception.
I turned my head and saw an Aged Taoist standing there with a smirk.
He appeared to be in his fifties, yet also seemed over eighty. I could tell he was quite old, but I couldn’t discern his actual age at all.
The Aged Taoist moved forward, his sleeves fluttering gently.
‘When did he arrive here?’
My hair stood on end. I nearly stepped backward without realizing it.
Despite him being right before my eyes and his voice reaching my ears, I felt nothing at all.
This was my first experience of such a thing.
“We… we greet the Great Ancestor.”
The three men who had undergone forced bone-setting trembled as they prostrated, showing proper respect.
The fact that they maintained this posture despite being unable to control their bodies from the earlier pain indicated this Aged Taoist was someone of great significance.
Cheonwoo also immediately prostrated, and though I watched him do so, cold sweat seemed to form on my skin. I elevated my senses to their peak.
Meanwhile, I used the Dual Thought Technique’s function to contemplate repeatedly.
‘Great Ancestor…? If he’s the sect master’s grand-teacher, that means the highest elder of the faction, right? Wait, at this time, there’s only one person who hasn’t ascended to immortality and is still alive…?’
One of the ten greatest masters of Gangho.
One of the Two Emperors my Master mentioned in the past.
The Fist Emperor, Myeong-gil Jingin!
Remarkably, that Elder’s fists were said to have reached the realm of pushing mountains and splitting rivers. However, that Aged Taoist does not appear in the novel Supremely Celestial Demon.
Yeo Ha-ryun of Supremely Celestial Demon begins his serious activities in the Gangho about seventy or eighty years from now, and by then the Aged Taoist will have already passed away.
It made sense. At this point in time, the Aged Taoist was already over ninety years old.
“Tsk tsk. My body isn’t even in good condition, so there’s no need for such formalities.”
The Aged Taoist’s hand became hazy like mist. Then Cheon Gyeong and his three companions simply collapsed and fell asleep.
He must have sealed their vital points.
“Sigh. That Jeong Gwang fellow is skilled at counting money, but he has absolutely no talent for teaching disciples. Taking in chaff like these… tsk tsk.”
The Aged Taoist clicked his tongue and then smiled at Cheonwoo.
“Your name is Cheonwoo, is it not? Whose disciple are you?”
“I have not yet been assigned a master.”
“Hooh….”
If the Jeong generation disciples were the first-generation disciples of this era, then the Cheon generation disciples were the third-generation disciples.
Moreover, since Cheonwoo had entered the Mudang Sect relatively late, he was still receiving communal instruction without having been formally assigned a master.
“To think your martial foundation is so excellent even without a master assigned… Good. Very good. Excellent indeed.”
The Aged Taoist kept smiling, clearly pleased about something.
“But you, Cheonwoo—did you not hear my words? Stand up at once.”
“This junior receives the command of the Great Ancestor.”
“Receiving a command, what nonsense….”
Cheonwoo stood up, and the old man turned his head toward Jin Cheon-hee with a grin still on his face.
“So. You are the young dragon that the White Qilin supposedly captured, the one who’s become famous recently? I heard that fellow became a Hermit Beyond the Eight Restrictions and caused quite a stir… indeed, it seems worthy of such rumors.”
‘Master….’

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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