Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 45

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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 45
I pressed my footsteps across the snow once more.
The young man’s movements continued, paused, and resumed in repetition.
I thought the white snow was like paper. And I was an ant moving across it.
‘So that’s it. The Samjaebo Technique was about two dimensions.’
Then it was obvious that Miribeo would continue as the next stage, a discourse on three dimensions.
No matter how detailed the writings in books were, the enlightenment gained through direct practice was something else entirely.
I stopped mimicking the movements.
Instead, a path that didn’t exist in the Samjaebo Technique began to unfold.
Following the diversified path, my footprints bloomed like a mandala.
The etymology of mandala comes from Mandala.
It also meant ‘essence.’
‘The three in Samjae didn’t merely refer to three directions.’
Why would the truth of enlightenment be contained within a flat plane? And why did it take the form of the Buddha’s wheel?
I began to understand.
At last, my footprints drew a perfect essence.
A mandala. A circle.
As I moved, my inner force began to follow in response.
It was merely the Samjaebo Technique.
My inner force answered to the basic footwork that everyone in the Martial Arts World dismissed.
Following my footsteps, my inner force began to circulate through all the meridians of my body.
Five different natures of inner force drew a circle.
In that moment, turbid qi began to burn from my body.
Metal qi protected my entire body, earth qi nourished it, wood qi drew in the surrounding energy. Water qi drove out the filth and expelled it outward, and fire qi incinerated it.
The end of selflessness.
I realized that the three enlightenments of the Samjaebo Technique had concluded.
This meant the beginning of Miribeo.
In that moment, my body collapsed onto the snow.
“Cough!”
The moment immediately after enlightenment was when a martial artist became most vulnerable.
I realized my dantian was empty.
At the same time, I also realized that the dantian’s size had grown larger and energy was rapidly filling through all the meridians of my body. This alone would be good news.
But there was bad news.
The place of enlightenment happened to be a desolate mountain, on a snowy field.
Normally, I would have used fire qi to warm my body, so thick outer garments weren’t necessary. But now it was different. I had no inner force to maintain body heat.
Moreover, I didn’t even have the strength left to move my body.
The period of selflessness had been too long.
If I had cultivated enlightenment within the Medical Hall, there would have been someone to stand guard. But I realized that if that had been the case, enlightenment would never have come.
Because I was alone, if not for those footprints I had made by myself, enlightenment would never have occurred.
“Haa… haa…”
The cold was brief, but a searing pain as if my entire body had been cut rushed through me.
Frostbite begins in the tissues farthest from the heart—the hands and feet.
Thick snowflakes settled on my hands only to melt away, stealing my body heat with them. The wind began to pick up as well.
For a child wearing no fur coat, the mountain blizzard was merciless. The only reason I endured this long was because this region was a Volcanic Region.
I felt certain that once hypothermia began, there would be no turning back.
I forced myself to stand.
Under normal circumstances, I would have received help from those around me and recovered through proper rest. But that was impossible.
I moved my legs.
My unconscious mind pulled me toward the most familiar breathing technique I had repeated tens of thousands of times.
Dongwun Cultivation.
It was the most fundamental foundation of everything I had practiced.
Dongwun Cultivation began through my newly purified meridians.
Paradoxically, being unable to rest when I should have been resting began to grant me another revelation.
As the snowfall grew more brutal, my feet continued forward in silence.
And in that instant, my feet walked not through the snow, but upon it.
The enlightenment of ice crystallization—something one should only learn upon reaching the fifth stage of the Five Elements Spiritual Cultivation—began to weigh upon my shoulders. Yet driven by the will to survive, I didn’t even realize what I was comprehending.
The cold continued, and my body heat continued to be stolen.
When the blizzard filled my entire vision and I truly could no longer tell where to go.
I stepped the Samjaebo Technique with vacant eyes.
It was the moment the Medical Assistants who had come to greet me gasped in astonishment.
“D-did he just walk on snow without footprints?”
It referred to the realm of a supreme master—walking upon snow.
In truth, it wasn’t really that technique.
I had merely gained the enlightenment of ice crystallization.
But because what I was stepping on the snow with was merely the Samjaebo Technique, the confusion only deepened.
When Yoo Ho heard of this fact later, he forgot even his position as Chief Administrator and laughed until his sides ached.
I earned the nickname “Young Master Who Walks on Snow Without Footprints.”
It was obvious who the culprit was.
* * *
The production of medical texts was progressing smoothly. My Master helped with quite a few sections, but I had to do a considerable amount myself.
Needless to say, medical texts must be accompanied by illustrations. It was impossible to make someone fully understand the human organs through words alone.
Surgery is the act of opening a living human body.
Even under anesthesia, the lungs continue to function.
The heart never stops moving, and depending on the anesthetic, the intestines may also be active.
Without understanding all of these things, surgery is impossible.
Yoo Ho drew illustrations beside me according to my instructions.
Even though he was drawing with a thin brush, somehow the lines came out finer and more distinct than if drawn with a pencil.
Soon, the internal map of the liver was completed.
The four lobes, the hepatic artery, and the portal vein were finished.
It was so precise and easy to understand that it looked like a textbook print.
“What exactly can’t you do, Steward Yoo?”
Yoo Ho continued speaking without lifting his brush from the paper, sketching away with practiced strokes.
“I cannot save my master’s life.”
His voice was flat, yet the words carried considerable weight. Jin Cheon-hee spoke.
“Your loyalty to your master always seems remarkable. Is there some particular reason for it?”
“Well, that’s not something Young Master need concern yourself with. Anyway, it appears you have considerable talent in martial arts. I hear you’ve already grasped the insights of the Fifth Stage Ice Seal Technique with a body at the Fourth Stage of the Five Elements Spiritual Cultivation.”
He deftly changed the subject. Yoo Ho always did this.
Whenever I tried to probe for information, he erected an impenetrable wall. But from my perspective, this attitude of his only fueled my frustration further.
‘This Yoo Ho fellow—gathering information from a background character is far too difficult.’
Information is crucial. In a world where blades dance freely, it’s my only weapon.
Gungwi, constantly tormenting the Heavenly Demon as a villain, had abundant information from the start, and the Medical Directors of Baekrin Uigak, while not comprehensive, I understood well enough.
But Yoo Ho was different.
He was background among background characters—no, even calling him a background character was too generous.
We call such beings ‘scenery.’
If we rank by importance, the protagonist is a king. Supporting characters are nobility.
Extras are commoners.
And Yoo Ho was something beneath even that.
So naturally it was frustrating that such a being had settled in as my quasi-confidant.
Yoo Ho spoke.
“Young Master takes far too much interest in me. Was merely threatening to kill me insufficient entertainment? I’ve heard there are people in this world who enjoy being tormented.”
“Ha, haha….”
Jin Cheon-hee laughed awkwardly.
‘He really does see me as a complete lunatic. This bastard.’
Yoo Ho continued.
“Even if you pry into me further, I cannot accomplish more. Are you aware that the workload Young Master has assigned me is already at a level that would cause nine ordinary men to work themselves to death?”
The face of the man saying this was utterly composed.
That had always been a mystery to me. How in the world did this bastard manage to accomplish so much work?
“I’m not trying to pry to give you more work. It’s simply that you and my master have been together for so long—I’m merely curious as a disciple.”
“Hmm, is that curiosity as a disciple following your master? Or is it curiosity as a doctor wondering what more might aid in treating your patient?”
“Neither. I’m simply curious because we’ll be together for a long time.”
“Well, quite so. If I fail in treatment and don’t end up killing Young Master, we shall indeed be together for quite some time.”
‘This bastard threatens to kill me as casually as breathing, despite being mere background.’
He was certainly convenient, handling the workload of nine men alone, but on the other hand, he was precisely the type to make casual death threats as naturally as eating meals.
Of course, I wasn’t the sort to bat an eye at such things.
I hadn’t forgotten the resentment from when I demonstrated before the Martial Arts Guild Master.
I responded with an adorable smile and assigned Yoo Ho even more staggering work, and he managed that murderous workload while simultaneously working on illustrations for the medical text compilation.
Perhaps because of the increased workload, he’s been making death threats more frequently than usual lately.
Jin Cheon-hee asked.
“Will you really kill me?”
“…If I do, will you stop assigning me this workload and let me live?”
What Yoo Ho was currently doing was this.
The Martial Arts World’s first nurse + the Martial Arts World’s first graduate student + the Martial Arts World’s first lab assistant + medical textbook illustrator + medical equipment manufacturing engineer + Uidan administrative director + original duties as Chief Steward + duties assisting Master + Jin Cheon-hee’s personal slave.
Each one was a job stressful enough to tear a person apart and kill them.
Nine of them in total.
Yoo Ho, who threatened to kill a child, was certainly a cunning villain,
was/were
but Jin Cheon-hee, who laughed carelessly at such a man while putting him to work, was equally out of his mind.
I cannot provide a translation for this as it appears to be an incomplete Korean word fragment or suffix. A complete word or phrase is needed for accurate translation.
Yes.
“I am a bodhisattva, Young Master. You may not wish to acknowledge it, but that’s not my concern—I am indeed a bodhisattva.”
“Your self-evaluation is rather high, isn’t it?”
“I’m letting you breathe, am I not, Young Master? It seems my death threats are becoming familiar to you. Shall I emit some killing intent for you?”
‘Hmph, threatening to kill over merely juggling nine tasks at once.’
Jin Cheon-hee felt not a shred of sympathy for Yoo Ho’s suffering.
“Eh” or “Um”
It was simply not his concern.
Yoo Ho was a useful personal slave of Jin Cheon-hee’s.
That was authority granted directly to Jin Cheon-hee by Master.
“Hmph, Chief Steward Yoo. If you hadn’t threatened to kill me, I wouldn’t have gone this far.”
“That’s not true, Young Master. You would have done it anyway. Because you don’t empathize with others’ workload.”
“Could you phrase it more charitably—that I stop at nothing to treat patients?”
“Well, I’ll grant you that. As evidence, you yourself are grinding away like this, after all. That’s why I endure it.”
‘If I push him any further here, he’ll cause trouble.’
Although Jin Cheon-hee was a sociopath incapable of empathizing with others’ labor, he understood human limits better than anyone.
Because he himself was already working to his own breaking point.
It was because Jin Cheon-hee was already working to the limit.

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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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