Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 300

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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 300
‘…I can’t seem to adapt.’
Perhaps because the first meeting was far too shocking.
My appearance as a court attendant feels utterly out of place. So much so that I’m having more trouble adjusting to this role than the Emperor himself in his dragon robes.
I followed hesitantly behind Han Gwang as we walked.
We exited the palace, and the labyrinthine corridors continued ahead.
I traced his path through them. Han Gwang finally spoke.
“There’s no need to be so nervous. The Imperial Palace is simply a place where people live, after all.”
“Ah….”
I couldn’t bring myself to say, ‘It’s not really the Imperial Palace making me nervous—it’s you standing right in front of me,’ so I said something else instead.
“Does the Eunuch General handle such errands personally?”
“Haha, so our silver-tongued friend is curious why someone at the very center of power—the kind that can topple kingdoms—would bother with such trivial tasks himself.”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant….”
Truly, he was the Eunuch General. He grinned cunningly.
“Because if this old servant fails to attend to the Emperor’s needs, His Majesty would find himself inconvenienced.”
“You needn’t speak so formally to me….”
“Ah, how could this old servant ever speak casually to the Emperor’s great benefactor?”
Ah… This man is far more difficult to deal with than Eun Wang-ya.
Several court attendants and officials bowed their heads to the Eunuch General, and I endured the ordeal like a sack of grain, wondering when this torment would finally end.
At last, we arrived at a section of the palace where no one else passed through.
‘I can’t even hear birdsong. Is this a formation?’
There’s truth to the old saying that birds hear daytime whispers and rats hear nighttime ones.
In this era without coal fuel, rats and birds are naturally occurring presences, like air itself.
They simply exist.
Rather, this situation where no small creatures could be seen or heard at all felt profoundly unnatural.
I followed carefully behind him without letting my unease show.
Inside, an ordinary library came into view.
A court attendant stationed there quickly approached and attempted to bow in respect.
“A, aa….”
His bow was clumsy, and his voice emerged without proper articulation.
Upon closer inspection, I noticed the court attendant’s tongue had been severed.
When I showed a hint of surprise, the Eunuch General spoke matter-of-factly.
“The fate of one who divulges secrets that must remain hidden. Yet His Majesty, in his mercy, has granted this man a position here in the library.”
The court attendant bowed deeply. The Eunuch General smiled with the warmth of a kindly grandfather.
“The Emperor’s benevolence, wouldn’t you say?”
Faced with that warm, gentle smile, I thought to myself:
‘I… must read through this as quickly as possible and escape this place.’
This insane place.
I knew it was mad from the start, but the more I see, the more deranged it becomes.
The people who live in such a place are clearly not in their right minds.
Click.
As I reassembled the dragon ornament on the wall according to the prescribed method, it transformed into the shape of a phoenix, and the wall slid inward.
What lay before me were stairs.
True to Imperial fashion, the walls were decorated with night-luminous pearls, dispelling any sense of darkness.
Before opening the basement door at the foot of the stairs, the Eunuch General grasped the door handle and spoke thus.
“From this point forward, powerful formation arrays are deployed. You must follow this old servant’s footsteps precisely.”
At those words, my lips pressed into a thin line.
It was because of the advice my Master had given before I came here.
-Hope, the underground of the Imperial Palace contains a tremendously powerful formation array created by our ancestors long ago. It’s called the Yin-Yang Life-Death Soul-Severing Formation—a truly vicious thing.
I had asked whether a method to break it existed. Of course, I hadn’t meant to actually break it.
It was purely a scholar’s curiosity, after all.
-In truth, the formation was installed precisely because no method to break it exists. It allows passage only according to set rules, and even I don’t know those entry methods. It’s one of the secrets I never managed to pass down to you.
‘So this is what my Master was referring to.’
Well, I certainly had no intention of doing anything reckless against the Yin-Yang Life-Death Soul-Severing Formation—a formation whose very name inspired dread.
I lacked the motivation entirely.
‘If I actually broke it, I’d either end up executed or thrown into the Neuro Cave. That’s certain.’
I began following the Eunuch General through the labyrinthine passages between the formation arrays.
The night-luminous pearls on the ceiling were brighter than expected, and strangely, there was nothing mystical or ominous about the appearance of it all.
‘A formation so natural in appearance, yet impossible to break….’
Once I passed through the formation and arrived completely within the library, the Eunuch General set down his bundle.
“I shall return to collect you in ten days.”
Was he simply leaving me here?
I asked in bewilderment.
“Is there no librarian or keeper of records?”
“Well, in the past there were indeed keepers in the Imperial Palace Bigo. However… due to certain circumstances… three emperors ago, the Previous Emperor abolished the position of librarian entirely.”
I had no desire to inquire what those “certain circumstances” entailed.
It was surely some bloodstained Imperial intrigue—the kind where blood sprayed, flesh scattered, and poison flew.
Seeing my stern expression, the Eunuch General let out a quiet chuckle.
“There exists only those who bring books and stack them. Within this place, we have gathered everything from ancient divine techniques and secret texts that have vanished even from the Gangho, to the secret manuals of the current generation’s martial sects.”
“Impressive indeed.”
“Of course, the most crucial divine techniques and secret texts are said to be stored separately elsewhere… but the knowledge contained here alone would be sufficient to shake the entire Gangho.”
Pride resonated in the Eunuch General’s voice. He added one more thing.
“Though they are copies, not originals, I should mention.”
With that, he placed the bundle into my arms.
“The privy is located in a corner of the Bigo. Please use that facility… and I have prepared exactly ten days’ worth of provisions, so you need only eat what is in the bundle.”
“I see….”
“Once I depart, no one will be able to enter or leave this place for ten days.”
‘Wow, truly a fantastic Imperial Palace. Common sense holds no sway here.’
So even if I read quickly, I won’t be able to escape if I don’t finish within ten days.
In any case, the Eunuch General left with only the parting words, “Then I wish you fortune. May you find what the Eunwang desires,” without so much as a backward glance.
I stood dazed, clutching my bundle as I surveyed my surroundings.
The scent of ancient books.
Endless shelves stretching before me.
The bookshelves alone seemed tall enough to reach the ceiling—approximately six meters high.
And those towering shelves were packed densely with books.
I even spotted bamboo slips instead of paper volumes.
The weathered appearance suggested the tales of ancient divine techniques and lost knowledge were no exaggeration.
‘This isn’t the Library of Babylon… Is this really the Imperial Palace Bigo? The kind of place that appears in martial arts novels… but here it is.’
Though I’d be confined here for ten days without moving, my heart couldn’t help but race.
‘Hehe. I’ve always wanted to come here at least once.’
Setting aside the philosophical aspects of martial arts, the foundation of the martial world ultimately stems from martial techniques.
This place where profound martial knowledge gathered.
Standing in the very center of it all, my heart began beating faster and faster.
‘Whoosh! What should I read first? Wow, my hands are actually trembling.’
What kind of books would be in the Imperial Palace Bigo of this true king god martial world?
What secret techniques had Jicheon Cheonma hidden away here!
“The Songshan Sect’s incredibly powerful divine technique—Sword Fixing Middle X! Why is this here? But… it looks incomplete. I can’t master this. What a shame…”
Why did this feel strangely nostalgic?
“Oh! And here’s the Songshan Sect’s super ultra incredibly powerful divine technique—Six Harmonies Return X Divine Art! An inner cultivation method comparable to Cheonma’s divine technique, yet no one has ever succeeded in mastering it… But reading this, isn’t it actually impossible to learn? Master six different divine technique-level inner cultivation methods, perfect them all, then weave them into one? Is this something a human can even do? And I’ve already learned other things, so this won’t work for me. What a shame…”
I was beginning to understand Jicheon Cheonma’s tastes.
‘Hmm, they’re similar to me.’
There was no helping it.
The book I chose was neither ‘SSS-Rank Supreme Cheonma’ nor ‘Becoming a Cheonma Hunter.’
Young people these days might call it outdated, but I preferred books like this.
The kind that could never be fully explained by the trendy one-line summaries floating online.
There existed certain essences in this world that could never be condensed into summaries.
Just as cutting off limbs and heads in an attempt to summarize leaves no living creature behind, I loved books that couldn’t be reduced that way.
“Ten days of complete isolation from the world, reading only martial arts texts…”
A place completely cut off—whether bloodshed erupted outside or people died.
There was food here, and a place to sleep. The temperature was maintained at a constant level.
It felt strange somehow.
“This is true healing.”
When I first heard the explanation, I thought the Imperial Palace had gone mad, but reconsidering it now, there was no better healing than this.
“Where should I start reading…”
Using the Dual Thought Technique and Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong, speed reading posed no problem.
Rather than reading text and reciting characters in my mind, it was the sensation of absorbing the entire image of a whole book through my eyes.
‘At first, I read diagonally. Maybe?’
With fixed break times and martial arts novels being my hobby that I had to read quickly between them, I’d started absorbing entire sentences into my eyes while reading diagonally.
I first reached for a martial arts manual tucked away in the furthest corner.
Flip, flip.
At first glance, it seemed less like reading and more like simply flipping through pages.
Yet my expression remained grave.
“Wow, this is fascinating.”
In less than an hour, I had mastered one martial arts manual and reached for the next.
Had others witnessed this, they would have dismissed it as mere bravado or the behavior of a madman.
* * *
One shichen of sleep per day—roughly two hours—and nothing but reading.
I dispelled minor fatigue through breathing exercises and continued systematically absorbing the martial arts manuals.
‘An opportunity like this will never come again.’
This chance had fallen into my hands purely through Eun Wang-ya’s whim.
For now, she harbored goodwill toward the one who had saved her life, but the favor of the powerful was as fleeting as wind.
It would be difficult to gain entry to the Imperial Palace Bigo a second time.
The third day.
My speed-reading, enhanced by the Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong and the Dual Thought Technique, accelerated further.
My proficiency was steadily accumulating.
‘Indeed, the most exceptional martial arts manuals share surprisingly common principles.’
I began cataloging the similarities and differences between each technique in a corner of my mind.
In that regard, the earlier duel between Cheonwoo and the Demonic Sect master had provided considerable inspiration for establishing my martial theory.
My reading speed accelerated further, and the books I had consumed now comprised one-tenth of the entire collection.
Flap, flap—
With gestures so casual they seemed almost careless, I turned pages with increasing speed.
‘Based on my internal clock and the light filtering from above, I’ve reached the point where I can absorb approximately twelve volumes per hour.’
Of course, I could not sustain this indefinitely.
For these ten days, I would simply push myself to the absolute limit.
For reasons I did not understand, the Imperial Palace Bigo received what could only be called natural light filtering down from the ceiling.
It had been designed to allow outside air to circulate.
Of course, I had no intention of analyzing the mechanism. It would yield no practical benefit.
Better to use that time to dismantle, deconstruct, and reassemble every single book housed in this repository.

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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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