The Fortunate Sword God of the Zhuge Clan - Chapter 32

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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 32.
Moo Heun shook Dok Go Hyeon awake as he lay sleeping.
“Wake up, will you?”
“Uh… mm… huh!”
Dok Go Hyeon bolted upright and looked around.
“What? Why was I sleeping here? Are you alright?”
The moment he awoke, his concern for Moo Heun’s wellbeing drew a quiet laugh from him.
“I’m fine. No trouble at all.”
“Really? Damn, I’m sorry. I can’t even remember how I ended up passing out like this….”
Dok Go Hyeon rose and bounced lightly on his feet to test himself.
“The body feels fine, but what happened exactly?”
“The place we just came through was a Formation designed to scatter both a person’s vitality and spirit simultaneously. The more Internal Energy one accumulates, the more severe the effect becomes. That’s why you lost consciousness.”
Moo Heun spoke calmly, steadying Dok Go Hyeon’s confusion.
“Perhaps it was fortune—I had no accumulated Internal Energy to burden my mind, so I remained unaffected. That’s how we were able to pass through the Formation.”
“…So you dragged me through?”
Dok Go Hyeon sighed and scratched his head roughly.
“I haven’t shown myself to be much of a guard, have I? I’m sorry.”
Moo Heun shook his head.
“That’s not so. Without your help on the third Formation, we would never have made it through. Don’t blame yourself.”
“Still, though….”
“And besides, there’s something more pressing now.”
“What?”
Moo Heun turned his gaze toward the direction from which golden fragrance poured forth.
“It seems the Gongcheong Seok-yu is within reach.”
“What?”
Dok Go Hyeon’s eyes widened.
“Is that true? Wait, but didn’t you say we’d cut the number of Formations down to two? We just passed one. You don’t mean you disarmed another Formation while you were at it?”
Moo Heun gave a light shrug.
“Apparently so. But don’t worry—it wasn’t a harmful Formation. If anything, I rather enjoyed it.”
Dok Go Hyeon let out a deeper sigh, as if Moo Heun’s words hadn’t reached him at all.
“Ugh… what a disgrace.”
Moo Heun watched the dejected Dok Go Hyeon intently.
“You may feel disappointed, but in the end there’s been no real harm, so there’s nothing to fret about.”
“So that means….”
“And from now on, you’ll be busier than ever.”
“Hm?”
Moo Heun’s lips curved into a slight smile.
“I’ll explain as we go. Shall we move, then?”
Dok Go Hyeon studied him for a moment, then offered a faint smile.
“…Yes, if I’ve made a mistake, I should make up for it. Let’s go.”
“Good. That’s the spirit.”
“Alright, but… you really are fine, aren’t you?”
“How many times must I say it? I’m perfectly sound.”
“Your body looks it, but….”
Dok Go Hyeon pointed toward Moo Heun’s mouth.
“Why are you drooling like that?”
“Hmm?”
Only upon hearing Dok Go Hyeon’s words did Moo Heun realize saliva was streaming from the corners of his mouth.
Moo Heun flushed with rare embarrassment and wiped his lips with his sleeve.
“Good heavens… what an unseemly sight. You’ve seen me at my worst.”
“No, it’s fine. You’ve suffered your whole life—when you think about eating medicine that might cure you, it’s only natural. Not that I’d know how delicious it is.”
“…I’m grateful for your understanding.”
Dok Go Hyeon couldn’t suppress the corners of his mouth from rising.
“I understand, but… heh. Sorry. It’s a little funny.”
“…Ha.”
Dok Go Hyeon could not have known it, but this was a natural phenomenon.
The golden fragrance of the Gongcheong Seok-yu, perceived through the Gi Yeon Bi, was so overwhelmingly enticing that it made one’s mouth water.
He had tasted countless delicacies, yet he had never encountered food with a fragrance of such magnitude.
No—it transcended human appetite and stirred the primal hunger of beasts themselves.
“That’s definitely the direction, right?”
“Indeed, there’s no doubt about it.”
Dok Go Hyeon, corners of his mouth curved upward, fell into step behind the advancing Moo Heun.
The further they walked, the more intense the golden scent became—both in hue and fragrance.
And the more it intensified, the more Moo Heun found himself drooling like a dog awaiting its meal, unable to stop.
Now it was becoming difficult even to maintain a semblance of reason.
‘…Strange.’
Saliva pooling at the mouth upon catching the scent of delicious food—that was nature’s law.
Yet had he ever felt such a craving this acutely before?
Even during the war, when provisions ran scarce, Moo Heun had given his own rations to his warriors first—a man who barely enjoyed eating.
He knew hunger well enough, but this was no mere appetite born of days without food.
‘I must think of something else. I cannot focus on this desire. Yes, perhaps….’
It was at that moment, as Moo Heun strained to conjure other thoughts and shake off the craving, that it happened.
-…Clear it all… from before your eyes….
“?!”
Moo Heun froze, startled by the voice resonating in his mind.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“…You heard nothing just now?”
“Heard? What sound? I haven’t heard anything but our footsteps.”
“…I see.”
“…The Formation broke without trouble, didn’t it? If something seemed off….”
“No. It’s fine. Let us continue forward.”
Moo Heun denied Dok Go Hyeon’s concern and resumed walking.
‘A hallucination? But for it to feel so….’
Hunger. That was what he had felt.
A voice carrying a craving even more bitter than what gripped Moo Heun now—or rather, equally voracious.
‘What could this possibly be….’
Moo Heun wanted to contemplate that voice further.
Yet the brilliant golden shimmer and the mouth-watering scent made it nearly impossible to think of anything beyond the immediate desire.
All he could do was bite down hard and force his legs forward, clinging desperately to the threads of reason. And so he quickened his pace.
How much time had passed?
Whoosh—
“…Ah.”
The golden glow and mouth-watering fragrance that had assailed his senses vanished as though they had never been.
Fortunate to have maintained his reason, Moo Heun felt a sense of escape at last.
And he understood what this meant.
“…Hmm.”
Dok Go Hyeon, approaching from behind, let out a small exclamation as if discovering something.
Moo Heun’s gaze was already fixed in that direction.
There stood an enormous stalactite and stalagmite.
A pair that dwarfed all the other stalactites and stalagmites around them to the point of invisibility.
And between them, a single drop.
A tiny droplet of milky-white liquid suspended in defiance of nature’s law, hovering without falling.
In the pitch-black darkness of the Cave, its color gleamed all the brighter.
It possessed not the luster of mere liquid, but rather the radiance of a tangible jewel.
“Could that be it?”
Moo Heun marveled at its beautiful luminescence and answered Dok Go Hyeon’s question.
“It is. That is precisely the Gongcheong Seok-yu.”
“All this for a single drop no bigger than a nose-picking?”
“The Gongcheong Seok-yu is such by nature. If anything, this exceeds what we expected.”
“…Can that meager drop truly heal all four of them?”
Moo Heun nodded vigorously in response to Dok Go Hyeon’s doubt.
“Within that single drop dwells a thousand years of concentrated essence from nature itself. As to its efficacy—one could say it capable of reviving even one freshly dead.”
“So that’s what you mean. This….”
Dok Go Hyeon’s expression remained suspicious, yet he nodded quietly.
Moo Heun turned to face him and posed a question.
“Do you harbor no desire for the Gongcheong Seok-yu?”
“What?”
“It is an elixir of ages past. Should a martial master of your caliber consume it, one can scarcely imagine how formidable you would become. Take it now, and the Cheon Eung Dan and everything else—your path to vengeance would draw incomparably closer.”
At Moo Heun’s sudden question, Dok Go Hyeon stared at him blankly for a moment, then let out a low chuckle.
“Ha. Isn’t it rather bold of you to stand here and speak such things to a fellow warrior with that very prize before his eyes?”
Dok Go Hyeon raised both arms and clasped his hands behind his head.
“You want to steal the elixir that would cure your illness from me, the man who saved your life? I’m not that kind of person. Besides, I already knew the Dok Go Gusaek doesn’t require Internal Energy to practice.”
Dok Go Hyeon spoke as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“If there had been more of it, I might’ve asked for a drop or two. But there isn’t, is there? Just eat it quickly. Before greed gets any ideas.”
Moo Heun smiled at Dok Go Hyeon’s reply.
“I asked precisely because I knew you would say as much. As expected, you live up to my hopes.”
“Hah, you’ve got quite the tongue on you. So? The favor you mentioned—is it that I stand guard while you take that?”
Moo Heun shook his head.
“I’m grateful for the thought, but I’d like to ask you for something else.”
Dok Go Hyeon tilted his head, inviting him to speak.
“Could you catch some wild game from outside and bring it here?”
“Wild game?”
“Indeed. It would be even better if you could cook it.”
“Ah, so that’s why you were drooling earlier—you were hungry? You should’ve said. I could’ve given you the dried meat I had left.”
“It’s more than that. I’m preparing for what comes after I consume the Gongcheong Seok-yu.”
Moo Heun continued with an awkward smile.
“My body now bears little resemblance to a normal frame. I’m over six feet three inches tall, yet I weigh less than fifty pounds.”
“I can believe it. You’re taller than me, yet so gaunt….”
“But when I consume the Gongcheong Seok-yu, it won’t end with merely erasing my Severed Meridians. As blood flows through the blocked meridians, my body will undergo a transformation to match my frame.”
“Is something like that even possible?”
“Given how potent this elixir is, it should be. However, it won’t happen on its own. I’ll need to replenish my body’s nourishment immediately.”
Dok Go Hyeon nodded in understanding.
“So that’s why you want wild game. You’re right—meat is best for building mass.”
“Exactly. May I ask this of you?”
Dok Go Hyeon shrugged.
“I’m a mountain man by birth. I can catch wild beasts with my eyes closed. I’ll bring back something large, so look forward to it.”
“Thank you so much!”
“Just make sure the Cheongseong Sect doesn’t catch wind of it.”
At Dok Go Hyeon’s words—spoken with clear understanding of the situation—Moo Heun nodded eagerly.
“That would be ideal indeed.”
“Good. Then right away… but how do we get out of here? I was asleep earlier….”
At Dok Go Hyeon’s question, Moo Heun didn’t answer immediately but looked around the space carefully.
“Hmm, given a structure like this… would it work like this?”
Then, just as he had when facing Dok Go Hyeon, he snapped his fingers.
Snap—
Whoosh….
The ground twisted with a grinding sound, and a new entrance opened behind Dok Go Hyeon.
“…How in the world did you do that?”
“I had occasion to understand the structure of the Formation clearly. Follow that passage straight ahead, and you should be able to exit the Cave.”
“I see.”
Dok Go Hyeon, deciding not to question Moo Heun’s mysterious abilities further, rolled his shoulders loosely from side to side.
“I’ll be back soon. You just sit there patting your belly and digest the Gongcheong Seok-yu.”
“Understood. I’ll make sure to swallow it completely.”
Dok Go Hyeon gave a casual nod.
“Don’t overdo it. If you can’t catch something easily, let it go. Someone who’s never handled Internal Energy getting greedy might succumb to Demonic Deviation. Though I suppose that’s difficult without a Dantian anyway….”
Moo Heun waved away Dok Go Hyeon’s concern as if it were obvious.
“Of course. Do I appear to you as the sort of person who would do something so foolish?”
“Well, no, I suppose not.”
Dok Go Hyeon chuckled and walked through the entrance Moo Heun had opened.
“Then, see you in a bit.”
With those words, Dok Go Hyeon’s form shot forward like an arrow.
Moo Heun watched for a moment as Dok Go Hyeon disappeared, then turned his attention toward the Gongcheong Seok-yu.
Seen up close, the milky white gleam of the Gongcheong Seok-yu was so beautiful that even the finest jewels in the world would pale beside it.
Moo Heun carefully extended both hands and tenderly placed the single drop of Gongcheong Seok-yu in his palm.
He exhaled softly.
Moo Heun took a small breath, and without hesitation, let the Gongcheong Seok-yu pour into his mouth from his hand.
Whoosh—
The Gongcheong Seok-yu was neither hot nor cold.
Yet strangely, by its presence alone, it made Moo Heun acutely aware of the exact shape of his esophagus.
Until that moment, he had felt only wonder.
“Hack!”
The moment the Gongcheong Seok-yu dropped into his stomach, Moo Heun felt a searing burn and an explosive wave of energy wash through him.
The pure yang essence contained within the Gongcheong Seok-yu was piercing through the yin qi centered at the Zhongwan Point, the heart of the stomach.
‘…Forgive me, Dok Go Hyeon.’
Feeling that sensation, Moo Heun silently apologized to him in his heart.
‘A heavenly remedy so rare that one might never have another chance to take it—isn’t it only human nature to wish to experience all of its benefits?’
Moo Heun had no Dantian.
That is, he had no way to circulate Internal Energy throughout his entire body.
Most martial methods are founded upon a Dantian, after all.
Ordinarily, then, the energy of the Gongcheong Seok-yu would have simply radiated outward from his stomach, shattering the cold barriers blocking the meridians throughout his body and leaving him healthy—nothing more.
‘But I possess the Cheonsan Yeongong.’
Moo Heun waited for the moment to deploy the Cheonsan Yeongong, sensing the position of the Gongcheong Seok-yu.
For someone who had never properly wielded Internal Energy to handle such a tremendous force as the Gongcheong Seok-yu was akin to suicide.
One careless slip, and the energy could reverse course—not healing his Severed Meridians but instead driving him toward Demonic Deviation.
And yet, there was a reason he undertook this perilous gamble.
‘The voice I just heard is likely also an effect of the Gi Yeon Bi.’
Even before that, while speculating on the identity of the Gi Yeon Bi, he had experienced memory loss for the first time in his life.
With this incident stacked upon that, the functions of the Gi Yeon Bi felt even more suspicious.
‘It wasn’t a problem I couldn’t fathom—it was a truth I couldn’t bear to face.’
Moo Heun concluded that the reason his memories had vanished then was instinctive terror.
‘If that’s the case, then growing stronger is essential. At minimum, I must accumulate first-rate Internal Energy with the power of the Gongcheong Seok-yu.’
Moreover, Moo Heun’s own growth held even deeper significance.
In his past life, he had only discussed plans from behind a desk—but if he could now participate directly in combat?
The range and effectiveness of the strategies available to him would expand beyond measure.
And so, he could not afford to squander this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that the Gongcheong Seok-yu represented.
‘Besides, I have something to rely on… Ugh?!’
Suddenly, Moo Heun felt as though he had been struck hard in the chest.
Simultaneously, an irresistible wave of nausea washed over him.
“Retch!”
Splat.
For the first time since his return, Moo Heun coughed up blood.
It was a clot of blood as dark as pitch, unmistakably viscous—to any observer, the sign of a man in grave peril.
Yet Moo Heun knew this was no sign of failure.
‘The yin qi blocking the Juque Point has been breached.’
Though he had certainly been breathing all this while, the sensation of drawing breath felt completely transformed.
‘Next, the energy will flow toward…’
Whoosh—
From his lower abdomen, from where his Dantian should have been, Moo Heun felt an indescribable heat surge forth.
At the same instant, the Mingmen Point at the base of his spine was engulfed in warmth, and his body—stiff and rigid his whole life—began to loosen.
‘The energy that melted my lower abdomen… now flows upward again, circulating through the Jucheon.’
Indeed, as the yang essence of the Gongcheong Seok-yu climbed the spine, passing through the Zhiyang and Dazhui points, his hunched back gradually straightened.
“Urgh…”
The energy was so intense that Moo Heun felt as though a ball of fire were clawing through every fiber of his being.
Yet paradoxically, his mind grew only sharper.
As the meridians that had been sealed for so long opened, sensation flooded back into his entire body, vivid and raw.
Then, as the yang essence reached the Yamen Point at the nape of his neck—
Boom!
“Ahhhhh!”
Thunder itself seemed to crack open in his skull.
As the thunderous roar echoed again and again, and the searing pain sharpened his senses further, Moo Heun felt a desperate urge to simply close his eyes and surrender.
But he refused to lose his focus.
‘Almost there! I can’t falter now!’
The suffering was mercifully brief, yet to Moo Heun it felt like an eternity.
But as all things must, it came to an end.
At last, having pierced through even the yin qi of the Yamen Point, the yang essence of the Gongcheong Seok-yu reached the crown of the head—the Baihui Point, the gateway called the passage of Heaven.
In that moment, from every pore of his body, the accumulated impurities of years poured forth with sweat, and Moo Heun’s form finally became a vessel capable of mastering martial arts.
And in that very instant, Moo Heun felt an inexplicable sense of omnipotence.
‘Ahhh…’
He had never believed his mind was lacking.
Yet now he could perceive just how profoundly the yin qi that had sealed the Baihui Point had constrained his very thoughts.
Whatever problem might arise, whatever variable might emerge in the days ahead.
He felt as though he could overcome anything.
Lost in that sweet sensation, Moo Heun’s eyes grew unfocused for a moment.
‘To have lived my entire life without knowing such a feeling, and to compare it to the mere warmth gained from Cheonsan Yeongong….’
Suddenly, Moo Heun snapped to attention.
‘That was close—I almost lost myself.’
The refreshing clarity of the yin energy and turbid qi that had been sealed at nine acupoints vanishing all at once was a sensation no earthly thing could compare to.
And when the searing pain and deafening roar from the Jucheon coursing through the Gongcheong Seok-yu finally ceased, Moo Heun nearly faltered in his concentration without realizing it.
Of course, the illness was cured by this point. Yet….
‘Fortune favors me. The qi still remains untapped.’
The Gongcheong Seok-yu’s qi, burning with the heat of the sun itself, still had much to give.
The volume was such that a talented martial artist could not accumulate it in a lifetime, but if he simply let it sit without circulating it through his meridians, it would dissipate into nothing.
Moo Heun began to calmly operate the Cheonsan Yeongong.
At the same time, feeling his “foundation” prove its worth, a faint smile crossed his lips.
‘Seo Ryong, our design was correct.’
The Cheonsan Yeongong, which Moo Heun had designed and Seo Ryong had refined into completion, was already a supreme ascending meditation technique in its own right.
Its foundation, the Jeolgal Family’s Minor Celestial Brilliance Art, was itself an ascending technique.
For Moo Heun, a member of the Jeolgal Family, it could only be a perfect fit.
The key lay in distributing the qi throughout the three major meridians of the entire body.
It surpassed even the difficulty of the Great Circulation’s fundamental requirement—circulating through all twelve channels that lay within the body—yet the two of them had succeeded.
Conducting the Great Circulation through the Dantian was actually far simpler by comparison.
Moo Heun’s body, having operated it as naturally as breathing, already had its qi pathways fully completed.
Without difficulty, Moo Heun spread the Gongcheong Seok-yu’s tremendous qi throughout his entire frame.
From that alone, his emaciated, withered body began to take on the true form of a martial artist.
‘Better than I expected, but….’
Could he contain any more?
Moo Heun’s body, having not trained in martial arts, could not hold all of the Gongcheong Seok-yu’s vast qi, even with its distribution across all three major meridians.
There was a way, though.
‘Everything else is full. If there’s anywhere left to fill….’
The Middle Dantian. In other words, the heart.
The qi already filling his body was knocking at that gate.
If he drew the remaining qi up into the Middle Dantian, he could integrate the Gongcheong Seok-yu’s qi completely.
‘Opening the barrier of the Middle Dantian means… reaching the peak.’
Accumulating qi in the Middle Dantian was not simply a matter of pulling it upward.
Between the Lower and Middle Dantians existed something called the Crimson Palace—a wall of sorts.
Failing to break through it meant the qi would reverse course, and he would fall into Demonic Deviation, just as Dok Go Hyeon had feared.
Moo Heun had watched countless martial artists fail at this very point.
‘Do I have the qualifications for this?’
Do I possess the talent and effort required?
To ascend to the peak on a single elixir alone—is that not a deception of the martial path?
Moo Heun, who had yearned for martial arts his entire life, hesitated only briefly.
‘I will do it.’
If he wished to stand on a battlefield rather than behind a desk as he had in his former life, this was something he would have to face eventually.
And though Moo Heun had never trained in martial arts, he had spent his life obsessively accumulating knowledge of martial studies.
It was an expression of his longing for a talent he did not possess, and simultaneously a genuine love for the martial path itself.
Moo Heun recalled a conversation he had shared with Seo Ryong in his previous life.
—This Cheonsan Yeongong of yours. You employ it like a health cultivation method, but it’s nothing of that caliber. How did you design such a meditation technique?
—Even one who cannot learn martial arts ought to have something to take pride in, shouldn’t he? Besides, I could never have created it without your guidance.
—Still, it’s remarkable. A meditation technique that improves one’s constitution merely through its use. Had your body been even slightly stronger….
You might have reached the Divine Martial Form.
He was the one who had designed such a meditation technique.
Whatever else might be true, he yielded to no one in the time and effort he had invested in the theory of martial studies.
‘How could one who shrinks back when the moment he has always longed for finally arrives ever hope to stand against the Imperial Throne?’
Steeling himself, Moo Heun no longer hesitated and thrust his qi toward the Crimson Palace that stood as the barrier to the Middle Dantian.

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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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