Doctor’s Rebirth - Chapter 946

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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 946
‘The more I understand the immortals of this world, the more they cast aside human common sense like it weighs nothing.’
The Hyeolseon of the Hyeolseonggyo are all wicked beings, yet aren’t they already transcended immortals?
Just as beasts reach the Dao and touch immortality, humans too can reach immortality by following the beast’s path.
Just as beasts devour humans, humans can devour humans.
That is the immortality of beasts.
It sounds insane, but in this world, it actually works.
If you truly pursue such madness, you can shed your mortal shell and become an immortal.
In other words.
Reaching immortality has nothing to do with good or evil.
Then.
A fundamental question remains.
‘Why must humans live righteously?’
Why must one.
Walk such a difficult and arduous path?
Evil is easy and strong, while righteousness is difficult and exhausting, isn’t it?
Unlike other martial artists, I lack the chivalrous spirit in my heart—do I truly need to live righteously?
Is there any reason to tell someone to walk the path of such virtue?
If one cultivates immortality.
‘A cultivator will inevitably face this question.’
The Moshan Sect appeared to be a neutral faction that neither commits evil nor good. That’s why they pose such a question to me.
‘Does the Moshan Sect seek a different answer than the Gangho?’
An answer different from the chivalrous righteousness that ordinary martial artists speak of.
‘What benefit is there in acting righteously?’
Why is that?
My chest began to feel suffocated.
‘That’s right. What benefit do I gain from doing all this….’
It was also a question directed at myself.
A question asking whether it wouldn’t be better to simply leave things as they are and let martial artists kill each other to thin their numbers.
I said there are no vacancies in the Gangho….
But in truth, there was another way.
To fill those vacancies with factions that suit Baekrin Uiseon’s tastes.
If we fill everything with factions friendly to the military government, security might actually improve.
‘My Master surely must have considered this method.’
Yet he still sent his disciple to this place.
‘Perhaps it’s a test of sorts from my Master.’
Of course, it’s not as if he’s grading me or determining pass or fail.
In a way, it’s like a psychological test.
There’s no wrong choice no matter what I pick.
A question about what my disciple will choose and what I will prioritize.
If I simply ignore the death before my eyes, I might become a more peaceful Baek Rin.
It’s nothing remarkable.
I just need to close my eyes for a moment.
Perhaps that would even be the right thing for the commoners.
I’m not abandoning patient care.
After all, Baekrin Uiseon is saving lives even at this very moment.
‘….’
I splashed cold water on my face.
I could simply pretend not to see the sorcery before me.
It’s not even impressive sorcery—merely the level of patience one would lose after drinking one extra cup of wine.
At this level, ordinary commoners wouldn’t kill anyone.
Only martial artists are different.
‘If I just close my eyes once….’
In that moment, I slapped my own face with both hands.
Because Sama-hye’s back came to mind.
‘That’s right. How shameful to speak so confidently to Hye-a and then waver now.’
Though she may not be my martial arts disciple, Hye-a is undoubtedly my disciple.
She inherited my spirit and my medical knowledge.
To speak so confidently to such a child and then falter like this—how pathetic.
Did my Master feel the same way?
‘That’s right. As a medical master, I cannot become someone who brings shame to Hye-a.’
Why do I practice goodness?
The answer is simple, isn’t it?
‘Because it brings me joy. Because I want to. And because I feel unsettled when people die.’
My body simply moves.
Profit and loss hold no meaning.
In a way, it’s like ‘love’.
I know raising children is a loss, yet I raise them anyway.
I know caring for someone is a loss, yet I end up caring anyway.
In the small moments of daily life.
I could pocket the wallet I just found, but upon seeing the family photo of a stranger inside, I end up taking it to the lost and found.
I know I could sell cheap cafeteria food made with half-rotten ingredients drowning in heavy sauce, yet because it goes into children’s mouths, I use quality ingredients instead.
Humans appear to move with cold calculation, but ultimately, we are beings driven by emotion.
‘And it’s thanks to that emotion that I’m alive.’
The people who donated problem sets and the teacher who rescued me.
There was also a scholarship foundation that paid my tuition.
‘That’s right. From the beginning, the average human body temperature is 36.5 degrees. We are beings who need warmth to embrace us from infancy to survive.’
Why are we born carrying this heat from the moment of birth?
Would we be more free without this spark?
Fire cannot live alone.
Even if the spark of life blooms like a miracle, it is the nature of flame to be extinguished by a single gust of wind.
Fire can only survive by continuously consuming, consuming, and consuming something more.
Human life was no different.
Why were we born with fire flowing through our blood, unable to live alone?
A baby abandoned, wrapped in a red jacket.
Even that baby could only survive because someone held her in their arms.
‘That’s right. That’s how it is.’
The world is not sustained by profit and loss alone.
Warmth inevitably flows through human blood.
I recalled Hye-a’s figure from behind.
Hye-a as a child and Hye-a after growing up.
To hesitate over why one must do good—
It was shameful for a medical master.
That was when it happened.
Uuuuung—
One of the mental images within me began to crystallize.
Enlightenment.
I had gained only a small enlightenment, yet even that alone was enough for one martial technique to begin taking form.
I sank deep into thought within a state of selflessness.
* * *
After consolidating my enlightenment, I rose to my feet.
‘I have grown. But something is still missing.’
I had come close to the answer, yet could I truly call it complete?
It was fine.
Even if I could not keep pace with my Master’s genius, I had still grown.
One step was good, half a step was good.
Even a quarter step was welcome.
I too had my own path to walk.
The path I was treading now was one that only an extremely small number among martial artists ever reached.
Most would spend their entire lives grinding away without ever attaining even a quarter step.
I clenched and unclenched my fists repeatedly.
‘To gain such a harvest already. It seems fortune has favored me….’
One of the heart demons within me had been shed.
‘I must thank Hye-a.’
I began to understand why martial artists, once they reached a certain age and attained a realm, would take on disciples.
I had thought that swinging a sword alone on a mountain like a madman would aid in enlightenment, but it was not so.
Meetings and partings, grace and grudges.
What I had received from my Master, I now passed on to those who came after.
The act of bestowing received karma across the river of time.
To reach the Way, even that karma was a mental image and enlightenment.
Suddenly, I realized my hair tie had come undone.
Perhaps a gust of qi had stirred while I was deeply immersed in perfect unity with the world.
The strands flowing down beside my eyelashes, dark as black feathers, resembled a master’s landscape painting.
I carefully gathered each strand of the cascading hair and tied it back up.
As if binding fate itself.
‘Good. Let’s go.’
Taut.
A crease formed between my brows.
I was ready.
* * *
“You’ll set up a formation for us?”
“Surely you’re aware that my Master, the owner of this Medical Guild, is the last descendant of the Jegallim Family?”
If the Moshan Sect differed from ordinary righteous factions of Gangho, then offering benefits suited to their perspective would suffice.
I approached the Moshan Sect not as one would address martial artists, but as a merchant would conduct business.
And surprisingly, it was the right approach.
“….”
Yeongseong Sanin swallowed his tea and fell into deep thought before finally speaking.
“I’m aware your Master is the last descendant of the Jegallim Family and an unparalleled genius. So what?”
“Among the formation techniques my Master knows, there are some that would aid in sorcery.”
He studied me intently.
‘Indeed, so this is what it means to harbor righteousness in one’s chest while simultaneously pursuing profit.’
He knew how to converse with those like himself.
Yet knowing that method of discourse while still ‘dreaming’ of righteousness—he found me a peculiar person indeed.
“Hmm…. Our sect contends for supremacy in sorcery throughout the realm. Naturally, our formations have been refined and evolved accordingly. You’re saying the Jegallim Family possesses formations superior to ours…. Is that it?”
“Of course.”
It was arrogant.
Yet he sensed this dreamer would not speak falsehoods.
“The Jegallim Family truly has everything.”
I nodded in agreement.
Within my memories lay extraordinarily complex and difficult formation techniques.
All of them learned from my Master, Jegalling.
When I first studied them, I merely thought them vague and incomprehensible, but now that I’ve learned sorcery to some degree, I understand.
‘This formation is designed to accumulate spiritual energy.’
I cannot know why the ancestors of the Jegallim Family left such formations for posterity.
After all, the Jegallim Family never taught sorcery.
‘Come to think of it, it’s strange. Beneath Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong lies the Five Elements Divine Art, and the Taeul Danseonggeom exists as well.’
It seemed as though they had compiled everything left behind by countless martial artists.
Ordinarily, a founder would obsess over their own bloodline, what they themselves left behind, their martial teachings themselves.
Yet the ancestors possessed no such obsession.
Rather, it seemed their goal was to pass on the martial teachings entrusted to them to future generations.
Surprisingly, it seemed Gae Pa Josa hadn’t paid much attention to the harmony of martial techniques.
He’d even given me the Hyeonwon Jeondan Singeong and told me to figure out the harmony myself—if I couldn’t master it, that meant I was dull-witted.
There was even a hint of arrogance in that approach.
Yet despite that, he had taken the martial arts entrusted to him by others—not his own—and their dreams, never wasting a single thing, gathering and accumulating them all.
‘That’s right. When I used the Five Elements Divine Art, dual swords always felt more natural.’
First of all, Jegal Ryang, the ancestor of the Jegallim Family, hadn’t used dual swords.
And the Taeul Danseonggeom originally didn’t employ dual swords either.
If necessary, one could use them.
But that depended on where one’s own martial arts had reached, not something our great Gae Pa Josa concerned himself with.
He wasn’t the type to spoon-feed his own children bite by bite.
Looking at it now, the current Jegallim Family was transmitting the martial arts of these different warriors, patched together haphazardly, transcending time itself.
Yet except for when they fell victim to blood calamity, the Jegallim Family had never been absent from the Eight Great Families.
If this wasn’t genius, what else would you call genius?
I simply couldn’t fathom it.
‘In that sense, the Jegallim Family doesn’t even use sorcery, so I don’t understand why they transmitted formation arrays that aid sorcery.’
Standing before Hyeongyeong and recalling Gae Pa Josa… those clear eyes pursuing harmony and righteousness, and in later generations becoming a symbol of loyalty…
He didn’t play instruments at all, made dumplings, worked like an ox, yet had no desire for power, and for some reason knew an incredible number of mysterious techniques.
He even mastered the crude psychology of seeing through the nature of men like Cao Cao and Sama-ui…
‘Right. Let me give up on understanding. If he’s that much of a genius, even without sorcery in the Jegallim Family, he could certainly create formation arrays that aid sorcery.’
A strange situation—making a scabbard for a sword he didn’t even use.
In any case, analyzing the formation array he’d left behind, I concluded:
‘For those who handle sorcery, spiritual energy is the most precious resource. It’s good for training, and it’s good for maximizing sorcery. A formation array that gathers that spiritual energy… Wait? Now that I think about it, Jegal Ryang couldn’t have been completely ignorant of sorcery, could he?’
Jegal Ryang’s Seven Star Altar was famous, wasn’t it?
What else would you call that if not sorcery?
‘Rather, he knew it quite well?’
Then why didn’t he pass that down, and only left behind the martial arts of other warriors, his own martial arts, elixir refinement techniques, and formation arrays?

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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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