Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 715

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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 715
043. The Call of the Secret Teaching
This is the office of Baekrin Uiseon Sojakju.
“My affairs are finally winding down, it seems. I doubt that damned Emperor will assign me any more work for a while.”
Jin Cheon-hee broke into a bright smile, his teeth gleaming.
Time had passed since I gained enlightenment and my sight returned, and the poverty in Baekrin County had decreased dramatically.
The unemployment rate had nearly bottomed out.
At this point, it was safe to say there would be no one left idle without work or driven to banditry.
Unless they were aspiring members of the Heterodox Faction, of course.
“It’s more surprising that the taxes we spent have returned to us.”
At Muyue’s words, Jin Cheon-hee chuckled.
“I agree.”
It seemed humans would find ways to visit places they wanted to see, regardless of poor transportation.
Even in ancient Egypt, they sustained themselves through tourism, and Baekrin County was in a similar situation now.
With agriculture—the foundation of governance—developing as the base, merchants and tourists had flocked in.
However, the tourists of this era were certainly not commoners.
Even if transportation was inconvenient, as long as I wasn’t pulling the carriage myself, it didn’t matter. As long as I wasn’t doing the labor, it was fine.
Even the ancients would have brought slaves along for sightseeing and asked why they’d abandon the pleasant Mediterranean weather for such a journey.
This place was no different.
People of means came to soak in the hot springs, tour the martial arts city, and eat Zhuge’s secret recipe dumplings.
‘Well, it’s a natural flow, I suppose.’
This was possible because we had sufficient reserves of grain and budget stockpiled.
‘Having crossed the great mountain, all I need to do is avoid receiving more land.’
No matter how heartless the Gold and Silver King was, he wouldn’t be so outrageous as to assign me more work here.
Just then, Yoo Ho came in and handed me something.
“Please accept this.”
Thunk—
‘What, does this bastard Yoo Ho always burst in without warning and just toss things around?’
Still, this was typical of him.
Jin Cheon-hee sighed and looked down at the object.
It was a box.
“What is this?”
“It’s something your master sent.”
Jin Cheon-hee hesitated for a moment before opening the box.
Inside was a short blade.
There was something ominous about its aura, and the carving on the handle was unusual.
It was a dual-form carving depicting a man and a woman embracing each other in an obscene pose.
‘This certainly isn’t something commonly used in the Central Plains.’
It wasn’t designed to be gripped and wielded in the first place.
“Is this a ritual blade? For ceremonies or sorcery?”
“Yes. My Master obtained it some time ago. It’s from the Hwanhwi-bul sect.”
Hwanhwi-bul!
Between the Dadu Kingdom and the Selim Theocracy stretched a vast desert, and within that region lay a religious organization called the Hwanhwi-bul sect.
Originally, the Hwanhwi-bul sect was one branch of Buddhism, a group that revered an entity known as Hwanhwi-bul.
‘Hwanhwi-bul… Now that’s quite distinctive.’
A deity who reached enlightenment through the union of dual bodies, described as both male and female, or sometimes referring to two separate Buddhas—one male and one female.
However, the Hwanhwi-bul sect revered Hwanhwi-bul as a Buddha who was both male and female, and taught that through this entity’s teachings, one could explore not only the human spirit but also physical pleasure to achieve transcendence.
Their doctrine held that by pushing both carnal desire and worldly cravings to their absolute limits, one could conversely ascend to a state of non-self and non-thought, achieve liberation, and become a Buddha.
‘If the great Confucian lords heard this, they’d draw their swords and come for me without hesitation.’
Indeed.
Confucian ruffians with blades—that was the Gangho.
You could slaughter a man like livestock yesterday, yet today you must live on, fulfill your filial duties, and support your family.
Men and women might glimpse each other’s innermost nature, yet propriety must still be maintained.
Such was the logic of sword-wielding Confucian men.
Driving a blade through each other’s chests was permissible, but private indulgence was the work of a libertine.
In that sense, Namgung Un was a libertine.
A chaste libertine.
To modern ears it sounds insane, but this distinction was extraordinarily important nonetheless.
In such a world, Hwanhwi-bul—a deity who promised transcendence through physical pleasure—was truly a peculiar existence.
To believe in the Hwanhwi-bul sect in these lands, one had to do so in secret and silence.
Yet apparently, it enjoyed considerable popularity in those distant regions.
And for reasons I couldn’t quite fathom.
Hwanhwi-bul was said to govern wealth and fortune, making him a deity widely worshipped by merchants alongside the Selim faith.
‘Wealth and fortune? Does he grant more than our Yoo Ho Toyong?’
The reason Yoo Ho Toyong was popular everywhere.
Apparently, he helped people earn substantial wealth, which is why people kept his statues.
‘Come to think of it, foxes are traditionally said to bring great fortune.’
Though usually treated as inauspicious beings that siphoned wealth between people, in certain regions of the Central Plains they held a favorable image.
For some reason, people began purchasing Yoo Ho Toyong statues, calling him efficacious.
A meme of the Central Plains era, one might say.
I placed the dagger engraved with Hwanhwi-bul beside my Yoo Ho Toyong statue.
‘If Hwanhwi-bul and Yoo Ho Toyong fought, which one would bring in more wealth?’
A modern person finds such things important.
“You’re thinking of something strange again, I see.”
“Master, why did you give me this?”
“Ah, there was an incident where I dealt with some Hyeolsaeng Nogoe followers.”
“Really?”
“When you were away, there was a minor ‘settling of accounts,’ so to speak. In any case, this dagger was discovered there. Should you ever need to investigate the Hyeolsaeng Nogoe, it will surely prove essential.”
‘Hmm… The Hwanhwi-bul sect… Should I head west?’
West referred to the region where the Selim Theocracy was located.
While Serim Gyoguk was the largest nation in that region, in reality, numerous smaller nations were clustered around it.
Whoooosh—
I utilized the mysteries of Suction to draw the bamboo slip toward me.
In an instant, the desired bamboo slip was sucked into my sleeve.
‘…So I’ve grown to this level now.’
During the period when my eyes couldn’t see, my five senses had become even more acute, and the martial arts I wielded as naturally as breathing contained profound martial wisdom.
I casually unrolled the bamboo slip with a rustling sound.
It contained a world map as conceived by the Central Plains.
The scale was somewhat crude, but it was still easy enough to understand roughly where things were located.
“Beyond Dadu Kingdom lies a desert, and north of the desert spreads a jungle, and above that are highlands and plains, right?”
“Yes. That region is dominated by nomadic peoples.”
“In the middle jungle region, the kingdoms of Ganbo, Miam, and Seokam are the most powerful… and there are several other nations besides those.”
My fingers traced downward.
“Below that is the massive desert separating Dadu Kingdom and Serim Gyoguk… There are nations within a desert so enormous that four or five countries could fit inside it, right?”
“Yes. There is Damjin, which adopts Lamaism, a sect of Mahayana Buddhism, as its state religion, and Milsan Kingdom, where Serim Gyoguk’s Serim Religion and Lamaism are mixed equally.”
“It’s also adjacent to Dadu Kingdom.”
Hwanhwi-bul was widely spread throughout Damjin and Milsan, with its headquarters located in Damjin.
In fact, names like Damjin and Milsan were all given by the Hwa Empire. Even King Aisha’s kingdom had a separate name in Hwa Empire style.
Despite their language being different from the Hwa Empire’s language, the Hwa Empire was an arrogant nation that called others by its own conventions.
Anyway, after tracing this with my fingers….
“This is incredibly far, isn’t it!”
Dadu Kingdom was already far, but from there I’d have to go further west—from Baekrin Uiseon’s headquarters at the eastern end of the Hwa Empire to the western end and then to Serim.
‘Clues about Hyeolseonggyo are certainly important, but….’
This doesn’t seem right?
“Three months to get there, three months to return! That means work will pile up tremendously!”
“Is that so?”
“For an ordinary person, it’s six months to go and six months to return, a full year round trip. Why do silk merchants going to Serim only see their families once a year! It’s because they have to traverse this distance.”
“I see. Well then, I shall go.”
Yoo Ho seemed to be leaving with an attitude of ‘suit yourself.’
“First…. Uh… Yoo Ho, thank you.”
“Very well.”
“You’re not upset, are you?”
“I am not.”
I picked up Yoo Ho Toyong, who resembled a potato, and patted his head.
“Yoo Ho, thank you. I love you~ Mini Yoo Ho. Say goodbye to Father. Father, thank you!”
Only then did Yoo Ho realize that this wretched human was making fun of him.
“You bastard!!!!!”
Crash crash crash!
* * *
It was strange.
Having reached this level of cultivation, why can’t I still see Yoo Ho’s movements?
Only after getting beaten did I realize it.
Even having grown this strong, I couldn’t see the end of Yoo Ho’s techniques.
Without even using Shimmoo or awakening my intent, Yoo Ho was simply overwhelmingly powerful.
“Your father is way too tough, isn’t he?”
I gently brushed across Yoo Ho Toyong’s forehead.
Yoo Ho disliked being called ugly, but I found it endearing.
Actually, because Yoo Ho reacted so strongly to it, he looked even cuter.
After sending Yoo Ho away, I scanned through the map again, and suddenly my fingers stopped.
“Hm? This…?”
Soon after, I used the Suction technique to pull a book toward me.
Thud—
It was a book with more detailed descriptions of the regions marked on the map.
The book contained extensive information about the Damjin Kingdom, and I looked down at the map again.
There, written in the phonetic script of the Seryim Church Kingdom—not in Beast Script—was a name.
The pronunciation was… Natron.
‘Natron Mine. Natron Lake.’
I rubbed my chin.
“So alchemists in Damjin mine it for their use…”
In simple terms, it’s the continent’s largest soda deposit.
Strangely, the name here was identical.
Of course, its scale was absurdly larger compared to Earth.
The ancient Egyptians had long used sodium bicarbonate to create preservatives and soda water.
They mined from the Natron deposits back then, using what they obtained to remove moisture from corpses.
Not only that, but they also used it to make glass, to bleach linen, and according to ancient records, they were already using it as medicine back then…
The very etymology of modern sodium comes from this mine—Natrium—so that says it all.
‘Wow, but it’s really huge. On Earth, we never had deposits this size.’
Well, the Central Continent itself was larger than Earth, and even when place names were the same, the climate and geography differed slightly.
‘If I could just establish the right trade routes, I could produce baking soda and toothpaste… much more easily.’
Even now, if I wanted it, I could obtain it.
Not all soda in this world comes from there—there are places in the Central Continent where it can be harvested too.
Besides, private trade was possible.
The problem was the unit cost.
There, sodium bicarbonate was cheaper than bread.
Even neighborhood children who had indigestion drank soda water regularly.
But in the Central Continent, this stuff was expensive, and prices fluctuated with market rates, swaying at the whim of merchants.
‘If I could just secure royal trade, I could bring back massive quantities using sea routes.’
The mine belonged to the royal family, so to lower the unit cost, I’d need to establish trade with them.
“Hm… I’m getting greedy over this.”
* * *
“Toothpaste?”
“Yes, Master. Most martial artists maintain healthy teeth, but depending on their realm and martial philosophy, many Kang Ho-in still suffer from cavities.”
“That’s true. Especially with Heterodox Faction techniques—since they don’t practice life-cultivation arts, teeth and bones begin to deteriorate once one passes thirty.”
“Exactly. And for commoners, once a cavity forms, they have to extract it, right? Pulling a tooth doesn’t make a new one grow back, so that’s when true suffering begins.”
It’s not without reason that teeth are counted among the five blessings.
When teeth deteriorate, consuming food becomes difficult, digestive function declines alongside it, and lifespan takes a direct hit.
“Haven’t you created something for this?”
“I have, but the production cost is the problem.”
“Hmm. So you’re going to Damjin Kingdom just to gather toothpaste ingredients?”
Master still doesn’t understand the true power of sodium bicarbonate.
He’s a man who has never experienced bad breath or indigestion in his entire life.
The traditional dental care methods of this region are sufficient for him.
But I desperately wanted to gargle.
I wanted to scrub my molars with minty-scented foam.
‘Master, I’m suffering.’
A pain only a modern person could understand!

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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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