The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 188

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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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The Decline of the Great Family and the Cursed Lifespan — Chapter 188

The road back to Hang Zhou was flooded with laughter.
Though Bing Xue Yan couldn’t return with them immediately, she’d promised to come once her health fully recovered, and now Ryeon could cultivate internal energy—
‘Ha…… Sigh……’
Yet Ryeon found herself oscillating between tears and laughter.
— When drawing breath, cast stars down like rain; when exhaling, extinguish their light as gently; hold them within so their glow never dies; release them so all who see might walk the righteous path……
Learning the Meteoric True Seal wasn’t difficult. The most vexing part of any Simbeop was typically the beginning—perceiving the energy around you.
Sensing the Spiritual Energy embedded in the flow of nature.
For Ryeon, that was the easiest part. The excess that came surging in had never been an obstacle.
Memorizing the incantations of the Simbeop wasn’t difficult either. With the ability to build internal energy, what was there to fear?
‘Ha…… Does it really take a thousand years to accumulate one Jiapzi?’
The real problem was that upon actually practicing the Simbeop, the rate at which internal energy accumulated felt impossibly slow.
Ordinarily, reaching Peak cultivation required more than one Jiapzi of internal energy—meaning sixty years of accumulation.
Greed at this pace would only compromise the purity of one’s cultivation, resulting in a poor outcome, as was common.
Thus, even the Simbeop of prestigious sects merely improved upon the basic Tonap Method by a modest degree in terms of speed.
She’d heard Hek Cheon Ryeon possessed techniques that accelerated the process twofold or more, but……
‘Though I’ve heard Hek Cheon Ryeon masters sometimes show up at Songsan in tears.’
While the established branches of Hek Cheon Ryeon kept to their proper methods, the sect fundamentally accepted sworn siblings rather than disciples, so practitioners often ended up learning whatever caught their fancy.
In youth, unable to resist impatience, they’d pursue immediate gains, building internal energy haphazardly; then survival drew on, the door to Peak cultivation suddenly looming—only to find they couldn’t pass through it due to turbid impurities in their cultivation. Maddened, frantic, what good would it do them?
Time couldn’t be rewound, regret changed nothing, so they’d find themselves calling upon Buddha, the Celestial Maiden of the Nine Heavens, the Venerable Lord of the Great Principle, and all the gods of heaven and earth……
‘Though time…… can be rewound.’
Hadn’t she herself come back? Even after death, reduced to ash, only to return again.
‘How had that happened?’
If she could return through Spiritual Energy, she should have come back the moment of death.
Why had her soul wandered between this world and the next, drifting through all things, before finally returning?
‘The answer will come in time.’
Just as she’d come to understand how her Spiritual Energy harmed her by transcending time itself.
As she practiced the Simbeop, the principle grew clearer, more tangible in her grasp.
Spiritual Energy, after all, was pure and fierce—the accumulation and compression of nature’s raw force.
How could a human body bear such a thing?
Eat the Ten-Thousand-Year Extreme Blood Jade, born from earth’s pressure and heat, without preparation and you’d burn to death from its flames; consume the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng from the frozen wastes raw and you’d freeze solid in its chill.
Nature’s force was this harsh.
‘No wonder using this force directly instead of internal energy was truly impossible.’
To draw forth Spiritual Energy directly to replace internal energy, it would need to surge violently in and out of her body……
Filtering raw Spiritual Energy—nature’s force condensed—through her body to stabilize it, converting it to a substitute for internal energy, releasing it, reabsorbing it swiftly—all of it imposed tremendous strain on her body.
‘But…… I never imagined internal energy could accumulate this slowly……’
Within her dantian, built of ice-palace walls, sat a single, perfectly clear spring.
To build internal energy, Ryeon had to follow a specific process.
First, freeze the somewhat-condensed natural force drifting through her body with cold, stacking it brick by brick against the ice walls to keep them from crumbling; second, melt a portion with heat to gather purified force.
Operating the Meteoric True Seal all day long might yield only a single drop, if that.
Even this much was thanks to having once observed the Bing Baek Shin Gong, which let her manipulate cold more deftly—without it, the process would have taken far longer.
“Haah……”
“Why the sigh?”
In those first days of learning the Simbeop, Dan Mok Ryeon had chatted cheerfully with Dan Mok Cheon Gi from dawn to dusk, but that didn’t last.
Hwa Ryun, who’d been gazing out the carriage window, turned her head and asked. Ryeon answered in a dejected voice.
“The Simbeop…… The internal energy…… It’s not happening the way I thought.”
At that, Hwa Ryun burst out laughing. Then she spoke as if coaxing a child.
“What, did you think you’d build a whole Jiapzi of internal energy overnight? Everyone takes a long time with it.”
“I’m not trying to build it fast!”
“Right, right. It just takes time, like it does for everyone.”
“No—I’m taking way longer than everyone else, not just ‘normally long’……”
She’d considered building internal energy roughly, then using Purification later to refine it, but that proved impossible.
The ice walls of her dantian wouldn’t let it through.
“Ugh, just being able to build internal energy at all…… Why are you staring at me like that?”
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen my sister want something so badly.”
“How much do I want? Gold and silver and jewels, of course. Ornaments too, and delicious food—I need to have all of it.”
“Hmm. Gold, silver, jewels, and ornaments?”
“And magnificent instruments, and a sharp sword, and a beautiful fan.”
“An instrument, a sword, and a fan?”
“And the orchards and fields and pastures that our clan originally owned—”
“Orchards, fields, and pastures?”
“And safety from accidents and calamities, and a long, healthy life!”
“……That one’s difficult.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you’ve already had no accidents and no calamities—so for the long, healthy life part, do your best.”
Ryeon’s lips moved soundlessly. Since her brother was right about the accidents and calamities, her conscience wouldn’t let her protest.
Hwa Ryun tilted her head and continued.
“And healthy—really? When someone’s spitting blood everywhere like that, it’s a bit much to call it ‘healthy,’ don’t you think…….”
“Hwa Ryun!”
“Then who told you to keep doing such things?”
The face that had been agreeing with everything just moments before had hardened into a pouting expression, and Hwa Ryun was now looking at Ryeon with that stubborn gaze.
Ryeon glanced at Hwa Ryun like that, and before long, she burst into laughter.
Hwa Ryun didn’t press her about why she was laughing, just kept staring with that pouty face, when she suddenly spoke.
“……To achieve all of that, you really do need to be strong.”
“Mm?”
Ryeon’s eyes went wide. There was something strange about the way Hwa Ryun had said that.
But before she could reply, the carriage came to a halt. They had arrived at the camp. At the same moment, the carriage window creaked open and Dan Mok Hyeon U thrust his head through.
“Ryeon! The vice-commander of Cheon Lang Dae says he’d like to hear some good words from you too…….”
“Oh! Of course!”
Ryeon saw a vision of luck points walking toward her and her eyes gleamed bright.

* * *

The Beijing Ice Palace was so far away that it deserved to be called Beyond the Frontier—
(a frontier fortress, beyond the borderlands)—
and even the supposedly closest Moyong Family Estate took more than ten full days to reach.
And with the cheerful Dan Mok Hyeon U inserting himself everywhere, always pestering them to hold Sword Discussions and martial contests, it didn’t take long before she grew close to everyone.
That “everyone” included the Piao Officers from the Dan Mok Clan’s Yuseong Piao Bureau who had come with them from Hang Zhou.
They, who until now had never managed to make any real impression, wanted to show their skill in the martial contests that Dan Mok Hyeon U had kindled.
If they could defeat a member of Cheon Lang Dae, Beijing’s finest martial force, wouldn’t that be a honor, even if it was just a contest to pass the tedium of a long journey?
Of course, it wasn’t easy. When a young Piao Officer from the bureau, only now hitting his stride, faced a member of Cheon Lang Dae whom the Ice Palace Master had boasted were elite, they lost all three times they met.
It was only natural, since the one side was young couriers while the other was warriors whose very profession was the cultivation of martial arts…….
But the fourth time was different.
“……You had a difficult match.”
“Yes, ah, what a good contest…… I’m grateful. I learned a great deal, yes, a very great deal.”
The fourth martial contest of Paeng Ja Gwang, the head of the Piao Officers, was taken on by the vice-commander of Cheon Lang Dae, who had begun to find the others rather dull.
The Yuseong Piao Bureau was, after all, the Dan Mok Clan’s courier service, and the Ice Palace owed a great debt to this clan’s eldest grandchild, so it would be rude to keep showing the head of the bureau being defeated by a mere officer.
He thought it would be better for both of them if the bureau head had lost to the vice-commander or commander instead, so he had stepped forward himself…….
‘How…… how could this be?’
He knew that this bureau head’s martial skill was noticeably growing each time they contested. People had even whispered that perhaps his talent was blooming late.
But had he truly possessed strength enough to drive the vice-commander himself to such lengths?
Even with the constraint of forbidding the use of internal energy during the match.

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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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