Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 752

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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 752
Wherever Sulgye’s martial prowess touched, crimson flowers bloomed without fail.
Flowers fashioned from human corpses.
Life withered in those blossoms, and grudges bloomed instead.
The fragrance was so intoxicatingly sweet that humans wielded their blades in madness until death claimed them.
And in that place of death, new flowers would blossom anew.
Jegalling had once been captivated by those flowers, burning his life away in their thrall. But now, he had changed professions.
His side work was being a doctor, and his true calling was gardening.
Jegalling was also quite skilled at bonsai. Young saplings that fell into his hands would swiftly transform into the form of ancient trees that seemed to exceed a thousand years in age.
And so Jegalling sought to weave grudges into a beautiful garden for his disciple.
“This time, I intend to track down all the Hyeolseon Sect members in our allied territories and sever them limb by limb.”
“Yaoling Province of the Gongseon Family. Zhejiang Province of the Ami Faction….”
“Yes. Once we expel the Hyeolseon Sect from those two regions, things will become much easier.”
“That will be quite an undertaking.”
“It will be easier than you think. All things are thus. The hardest part is before the first spade strikes the earth. Once the work truly begins, does it not unfold with relative ease?”
Jegalling continued.
“And while we’re at it, we can seize the territories weakened by the war between the Martial Arts Alliance and Sadoren, one by one.”
-Hyeolrin never moves with just one objective in mind.
This is what the old masters of Gangho say.
When he makes his move, one must identify two goals—the true objective and the hidden one.
When this madman sets fire to another family’s estate, his primary goal may be to annihilate them completely, but he’ll also happen to kidnap a guest who came for tea that day and use them to blackmail the Heterodox Factions as well.
“Shandong Province, which lies between Jiangsu and Yaoling. I also intend to seize the business interests there. And of course, I will eliminate all the Hyeolseon Sect members in that region as well.”
Beneath the will of heaven.
So it shall come to pass.
He recited the secret verse of the Jegallim Family.
“Except for that disciple of yours.”
“Quite right. Except for that one.”
A master who gives him a thousand-year-old bonsai, yet he only grows potato flowers.
Give him land stretching beyond the horizon, yet he’ll be digging in the fields making antibiotics from microorganisms.
Yoo Ho closes one eye. Then he speaks.
“At least he appears to be alive, so there is no need for excessive worry.”
“Alive means he is injured somewhere, does it not.”
“Well. That one is always like that, is he not?”
This is the only category Jegalling had anticipated.
That with such martial prowess, such wealth, such status, and such intellect, he would be crashing into something somewhere.
“It will kill me. He’ll bore a hole right through my stomach.”
“Yet you find it amusing.”
“Can gambling with a disciple’s life truly be called amusing?”
“Is it not the gamble every master in Gangho takes?”
“Yoo Ho, you have no disciple, so you cannot understand this feeling.”
At those words, Yoo Ho clicked his tongue.
The more Jin Cheon-hee ventured forth and grew, the more peculiarly Jegalling’s life brimmed with vitality.
‘All humans die someday. That’s why life gains such vibrancy. And therein lies the amusement.’
To a being who lived eternally, humans appeared in such a light.
The stronger death loomed, the brighter life shone.
In Yoo Ho’s eyes, Jin Cheon-hee was the sole existence capable of ceaselessly reminding Jegalling of death.
A monster who had abandoned even his own life, yet could be made to charge toward living.
‘A madman endlessly rushing toward the cliff’s edge.’
Rather than breaking this lunatic’s limbs to prevent him from running further, Jegalling had instead planted himself at the cliff’s edge to see just how far he would run.
‘And now I’m being drawn into this as well.’
Tiresome human.
Yoo Ho suddenly recalled the fragrance of Cheonil Chwi.
‘Don’t go out there and die.’
* * *
Night descended upon the desert.
Jin Cheon-hee rose from his seat after watching the sleeping Hwang-gu and Noeji.
Whimper?
As their master stirred, both creatures began to open their eyes.
“It’s fine. Sleep more.”
Stroking their necks with those words, both drifted back into slumber.
It had been an exhausting day and a deep night.
A night deep enough for the two spiritual creatures to sleep soundly.
Jin Cheon-hee gazed at them with a smile, then retrieved the Bing Jeong Sword and stepped outside.
The way he disappeared into the darkness resembled Yeo Ha-ryun’s concealment technique.
“The desert night truly is cold.”
There was no particular reason for Jin Cheon-hee to venture out alone.
He needed to traverse the royal palace at night.
If Hwang-gu or Noeji accompanied him, they would certainly be discovered, so he moved silently and alone.
His concealment technique, perfected to its peak, left not a single footfall.
No sound, no presence, no form.
He simply walked forth, colorless and odorless.
‘The root of Ha-ryun’s concealment technique must be Cheonma Divine Art.’
Jin Cheon-hee practiced the Samjae Bobeop.
It sounds mad, but it’s true. Of course, the insights from Jegallim Family’s Cheongi Miribu are woven in, but the form closely resembles Samjae Bobeop.
He suddenly wondered if he could now infiltrate even the Hwa Empire’s imperial palace.
Having perfected Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong and advanced to the realm beyond.
With the Imperial Palace Secret Records’ books now entirely stored in his mind, he could grasp virtually any form.
Merely witnessing a high-level concealment technique had yielded such achievement.
‘Excluding my Master, perhaps only the Three Elites and Two Emperors could stop me through force?’
Such a thought suddenly crossed his mind.
Of course, there were countless eccentrics wandering the Gangho like grains of sand, and since the true strength of the Hyeolseon Sect and the Demonic Cult remained unknown, I couldn’t afford to be careless.
‘At least the Demonic Cult is detailed enough in the novel “Jicheon Cheonma” that I can make some predictions, but the Hyeolseon Sect’s true power remains uncertain.’
And then there was Baekcheon-gun’s warning—or rather, not quite a warning.
‘If the celestial energy is scattering and they’re recovering their original strength, could that mean they rival the Three Elites?’
There was no certainty. For now, if I could discover Baekcheon-gun’s whereabouts and investigate further, I might find out.
With those thoughts, I drifted through the royal palace like a wandering phantom.
Soon I passed through the palace and arrived at the location the Prince had shown me beforehand.
Behind the imperial palace, a rocky mountain.
I followed the path carved between the rocks.
‘This is a place the palace strictly forbids entry to.’
It was one of the places outsiders could absolutely never visit.
Inside, a temple carved entirely from stone stood before me.
There wasn’t just one temple.
Countless temples of various sizes appeared, as if forming a city.
And at the center, a colossal Buddha statue sat in meditation, holding a stone tablet in its hand.
‘Wow, humans carved this out?’
Surrounding the tablet and statue, a towering ancient tree grew, and it was one I recognized well.
‘Ah, it feels similar to that tree I saw in the underground ruins.’
I wasn’t a botanist, so I couldn’t know for certain.
But it was I who had exorcised the vengeful spirits and burned that tree.
That pitch-black cursed sensation was something I could never forget in my lifetime.
Meanwhile, the tree before me now shimmered with fresh leaves, swaying beneath the moonlight.
It looked healthy. And…
‘I don’t sense any vengeful spirits.’
Then a voice reached me.
“I’ve heard that the tree in those ruins is the same species as the tree here.”
“You’ve heard?”
“It happened before I was born. My father, my grandfather… going back through the ages, that tree has always existed. The fact that the two trees are connected by roots is merely an ancient record, something from ages past.”
This nation had simply accepted human sacrifice as natural since ancient times.
The span of time was too vast to even question it.
The Prince stepped forward.
“You’ve arrived.”
The Prince wore a golden mask. In his hand, he held the Stone of Covenant.
“An ancient sacred tree. An ancient place.”
“Yes. This is the nation’s holiest sanctuary, housing the Sacred Dragon Flower Tree.”
A sanctuary!
I understood well what that word meant to the people of this world.
Yet I calmly observed my surroundings.
As if I were merely sightseeing.
In a sense, that’s exactly what I was doing. There were no dead here, no vengeful spirits.
Only a quiet, foreign holy site revealed itself.
“By placing this covenant stone into the covenant stone tablet, our wager will take effect.”
With those words, he ventured deeper beneath the tree.
There, fragmented stone tablets filled the cavity within. Like a puzzle, only the spaces for the piece I held and the piece the Prince held remained empty.
The Prince inserted his piece first, as if to demonstrate.
Click—
Watching this, I reflected.
‘Hmm. I thought he might have set a trap, but this is unexpected.’
That was why I had brought the Bing Jeong Sword. I too inserted my covenant stone into the tablet.
Then the stone tablet revealed its true form perfectly.
It was covered in countless inscriptions of an incomprehensible script, and those characters glowed as they whispered directly into my mind.
-The covenant is sealed here.
Instinctively, I recognized it as the voice of a being equal to Eungryong.
‘So it truly is no ordinary stone tablet.’
With this, the Prince now had reason to abolish human sacrifice.
At that moment, the Prince drew his sword.
Shing—
“What is the meaning of this?”
I asked without drawing the Bing Jeong Sword.
The Prince answered my question.
“I will honor the covenant. A wager is a wager, and having invoked the pride of the royal house, it must be repaid with my life.”
“And yet?”
A question as to why he had drawn his blade and sat.
The Prince laughed broadly at me.
“Surely you are necessary for that, are you not?”
“Pardon?”
“The knowledge you possess. Do you remember when I called it a cheat?”
“Yes. But I explained why it cannot be called merely a cheat. If one sufficiently utilizes the kingdom’s ancient ruins, it is possible.”
“Spare me the wordplay. If it were merely a matter of pure technique, I would have thought the same. However, what you have accomplished in this kingdom is far too much. Far too much.”
From suppressing the plague to that peculiar administrative ability. The inventions.
“…I see?”
“I must make use of the knowledge you possess. To ensure we no longer perform human sacrifice going forward.”
At those words, I nodded as if in agreement.
“Indeed, if you were to extract my mind, there would be much that could be accomplished.”
“From what I have personally investigated, only Gangso Province under your rule develops far more rapidly than other regions. I do not know the reason, but you must be either a genius or possess the knowledge of the Heavens themselves. Am I wrong?”
His voice carried a certain roughness.
Glass shards bearing the name of jealousy.
He envied how I accomplished everything through knowledge alone. So he sought to make it his own.
“And then?”
“I shall capture you and extract your knowledge. With it, I will revive the kingdom and bring both the arrogant Empire and the Seorim Theocracy to their knees.”
“Hm? Even if you arrest me, what about the diplomatic incident?”
“We’ll rule it an accident and buy ourselves time. It’s fine. With knowledge like yours, even the Hwa Empire won’t be a threat.”
“You’re overestimating me.”
I answered him that way.
But the Prince shook his head.
“Do you really think so? I don’t believe that’s the case.”
What did he see in me to make such a choice?
His eyes, having made this decision, were still filled with conviction.
“It’s merely sacrificing the small for the greater good.”
“By ‘small,’ do you mean my life? Or your conscience?”
Sharp words pierced through his conviction.
Yet he neither bled nor faltered.
“It’s acceptable. That’s the duty of a ruler.”
I watched as cracks formed in his pride.
If this small sacrifice for the greater good was truly his glory, then perhaps it was a kind of honor for him.
But on the other hand.
‘Foolish man. He’s crossing a point of no return.’
I should have beaten him more thoroughly that night.
“Perhaps you’ve been careless, thinking me weak since I’ve let you strike me from behind all this time.”
He brought his palms together.
Then small lights began to rise from his body like stars.

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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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