The World’s Greatest Martial Arts Instructor - Chapter 185

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 185. One-Eyed?

 

 

“That’s what was written in the ancient book, you said. Because it was a study that went beyond human reason and shouldn’t exist in this world, they burned the secret manual that recorded the Blood Poison Art. I can’t verify if it’s true. It was in an ancient book that Grandfather collected. As I mentioned, it was like a memoir. Written by someone unknown.”

Who could that deceased person have been? Someone who could burn the Blood Sect’s secret manuals.

At the very least, they definitely wouldn’t have been from the Blood Sect.

“There were no creatures called Eating Jiangshi in the last war.”

Han Seol-bing said while recalling her memories.

Either the ancient book was false from beginning to end, or it was true.

The clear fact was that both Ha Mu-baek and Han Seol-bing had never encountered beings called Eating Jiangshi.

Even though they had faced jiangshi to the point of exhaustion in the war against the Blood Sect.

“The ancient book says it’s a poison made by combining the Blood Poison Art and blood poison, but since they couldn’t reveal the method for creating blood poison, they only eliminated the Blood Poison Art.”

“You said the poison at Wolryong Inn was a combination of poison arts and poison.”

At Dang Ji-yeon’s words, Han Seol-bing murmured softly.

“It was poison arts and poison that I couldn’t understand at all, but when Instructor Ha mentioned the Blood Sect, it came to mind.”

Ha Mu-baek quietly crossed his arms.

Even if that were true, it was still a problem.

The Blood Poison Art was said to be lost, yet it had appeared.

“In the end, we have no choice but to collect the poison again and analyze it.”

The explanation was long, but the conclusion was simple.

Dang Ji-yeon nodded.

“Then… it seems I can go alone now.”

At Ha Mu-baek’s words, Dang Ji-yeon tilted her head. Her Purple Cloud Ten Thousand Transformations Poison Art would definitely be needed to extract the poison.

“To confirm whether that poison contains blood arts, there’s no need to extract it.”

“Still, I’ll come with you for now. Just in case, I think I should research it to make an antidote.”

So the three of them headed to Wolryong Inn again.

What was different from before.

Was that Ha Mu-baek had eaten an enormous amount. Nearly enough for six adults to share.

“Why did you eat so much?”

Han Seol-bing asked as they left Wolryong Inn.

“To find traces of blood arts, I need a lot of poison. If it was mixed in small amounts with the food, the more I eat, the more there would be.”

It was a simple reason.

“Will you be able to handle the poison energy?”

Dang Ji-yeon asked worriedly.

She wasn’t unaware of that method either. However, from her direct experience, the amount she could suppress the poison’s impulse was about the current meal size, so she simply didn’t use it.

Ha Mu-baek just smiled broadly.

So Ha Mu-baek ate the same amount for lunch and dinner.

After each meal, Dang Ji-yeon quickly cultivated and extracted the poison energy with Ha Mu-baek’s help.

Ha Mu-baek, on the other hand, only ate large meals but didn’t touch the poison energy.

 

***

 

Hyeong Ui-cheon tilted his head at Manager Dong’s report.

Ha Mu-baek had suddenly acted strangely.

He had devoured an enormous amount of food at Wolryong Inn. All three meals.

Hyeong Ui-cheon looked at the food list and calculated the amount of Soul Devouring Poison that went into it.

With this much…

“He’ll have an episode once all the poison energy forms, won’t he?”

A bitter smile appeared on Hyeong Ui-cheon’s lips.

“In two days the poison energy will form, and then he’ll unknowingly lose his reason and only search for food…”

That process was vividly drawn in Hyeong Ui-cheon’s mind.

Soul Devouring Poison.

A poison that devours the soul.

And it turns the victim into a jiangshi.

A jiangshi that endlessly craves only food, an Eating Jiangshi.

Even a martial arts master couldn’t easily detect that poison.

Because they become distracted by two symptoms.

Appetite and addiction.

The real purpose was to infiltrate poison into the head to steal the human soul.

Then Ha Mu-baek had already consumed a sufficient amount of poison.

“Kuk kuk kuk.”

Laughter flowed out naturally.

The Blood Sect’s greatest enemy was eating the poison that would turn him into a jiangshi.

He probably felt something strange about Wolryong Inn’s cooking and ate large amounts trying to figure it out.

But that was truly a suicidal act.

An act of throwing away his own soul.

Hyeong Ui-cheon never expected his worries to be resolved so easily.

Soul Devouring Poison had two fatal weaknesses.

One was that it was difficult to manufacture.

It required the energy of Blood Poison Art, and that process was extremely delicate and sensitive.

The second was that it didn’t show immediate effects on people with internal energy.

At least a day or two.

The poison’s effects only appeared after that incubation period.

So when sending it to the Sect Leader, he had specifically informed them to use those with sealed internal energy as test subjects.

He was conducting research to solve these two issues, but they wouldn’t resolve at all.

The Sect Leader urged completion, but in Hyeong Ui-cheon’s opinion, this was the limit.

So he had long since turned his research direction toward finding the dosage that could achieve maximum efficiency.

The result was Wolryong Inn and Wolryong Pavilion in Muchang.

And he had achieved some results.

The minimum dosage needed for martial artists, and the minimum dosage needed for ordinary people.

Based on that calculation, with the current Soul Devouring Poison remaining after being consumed in experiments.

“I can turn three hundred martial artists into jiangshi. A thousand if they have no internal energy.”

It was enough to throw Muchang into chaos.

Hyeong Ui-cheon’s gaze, which had been looking at the dark night sky, turned toward Dan Mok House.

“With that much chaos… even those beggars won’t be able to do anything. Keu heu.”

Laughter flowed out.

In two days, Ha Mu-baek would transform into a jiangshi.

That day.

He would spread Soul Devouring Poison throughout Muchang.

A thousand ordinary people turned into jiangshi.

They would turn Muchang into a crucible of chaos.

In that gap, he planned to extract Yeo Hwa.

“I really need to release the restriction technique.”

Just this morning, he had been wondering whether he should release the restriction technique.

But now, he had completely decided to release it.

During this one day, things had suddenly been progressing as he desired.

Opportunities must be seized when they come.

Who would have thought Ha Mu-baek would consume that much Soul Sleeping Poison himself.

For once, heaven was helping.

 

***

 

Deep night.

Ha Mu-baek left Gyoryong Hall and headed toward the wild mountain where he usually cultivated.

“So it’s called gluttony.”

Since the amount of food he ate today was considerable.

He still wasn’t sure if it was the Golden Spirit Gluttony Blood Poison Art, but he had to prepare.

In case he couldn’t overcome the poison energy.

Of course, he was confident there wasn’t even a one in ten thousand chance of that happening.

Ha Mu-baek sat cross-legged and slowly circulated his internal energy.

The seed of poison energy had already appeared.

He gently stimulated and nurtured that seed with his internal energy.

The poison energy gradually grew larger.

It seemed to grow beyond a grain of rice to about the size of a soybean, then before he knew it, it had expanded to the size of a peach pit.

Ha Mu-baek slightly frowned.

The poison energy was too large compared to the amount of food he had eaten.

‘It doesn’t just increase proportionally to the amount of food, but grows through accumulation.’

This was the reason why the intervals and severity of symptoms differed from person to person.

The accumulation of poison energy.

If it had been proportional to the amount Ha Mu-baek ate today, the poison energy would be equivalent to eighteen grains of rice.

The size of one peach pit was close to combining four hundred grains of rice.

Moreover, its shape was strange. It took almost the same form as a tongue, with a thin tail extending toward the head along the back of the neck.

The deeper the poison energy penetrated toward the head, the stronger the impulse seemed to become.

So the impulse Ha Mu-baek currently felt was tremendous. It was incomparable to when it was just the size of a grain of rice.

It was enough to make Ha Mu-baek clench his teeth momentarily.

He immediately wanted to eat something.

No specific food came to mind.

He just wanted to devour whatever was in front of him indiscriminately.

He barely suppressed the impulse.

‘Phew.’

The moment he sighed with relief in his heart.

“Kugh.”

A tremendous impulse dominated his mind, enough to make him groan through his clenched teeth.

Along with the feeling that the tail of poison energy heading toward his head was slowly creeping upward.

An impulse arose to immediately shovel dirt from the ground into his mouth.

He really wanted to eat anything and felt like he could eat anything.

As his appetite returned, saliva pooled in his mouth.

Ha Mu-baek’s eyes became bloodshot with red veins.

Crack.

His clenched teeth ground together, making an unpleasant sound.

The tendons throughout his body bulged out.

‘Damn it.’

The impulse far exceeded his expectations.

Even Ha Mu-baek wanted to surrender his body to that desire.

No, he wanted to immediately burn away this poison energy to escape the craving, but he couldn’t.

He had to find traces of Blood Poison Art here.

‘Gluttony.’

Two characters floating in his mind.

It was an impulse that made it impossible to maintain his sanity.

Based on the symptoms, there was more than a ninety percent chance it was the Golden Spirit Gluttony Blood Poison Art that Dang Ji-yeon had mentioned, but he had to be certain until the end.

Ha Mu-baek gritted his teeth and poured all his mental strength into suppressing the desire.

‘Just one moment is enough.’

An instant to break free from the impulse.

That was the time Ha Mu-baek needed right now.

It felt like his eyes would burst at any moment.

Even the muscles throughout his body swelled up.

Just when the swollen muscles seemed about to rupture.

He succeeded in operating the Mugeuk Yeoui Heart Method.

Then the maddening impulse subsided somewhat.

Ha Mu-baek concentrated even more on the Mugeuk Yeoui Heart Method in that gap.

The internal energy of the Mugeuk Yeoui Heart Method circulating through his limbs and body drove away the poison energy that had been trying to dominate Ha Mu-baek’s spirit.

And it also found the poison energy hidden throughout his body.

‘Tremendous.’

The poison energy clustered in the shape of a tongue was scattered throughout the blood meridians under his tongue.

Now it was in a state where it couldn’t exert any power, suppressed by the internal energy of the Mugeuk Yeoui Heart Method.

Ha Mu-baek thoroughly searched through the poison energy under his tongue with the Mugeuk Yeoui Heart Method.

What exactly was its origin?

Was it really Blood Poison Art?

If it was a martial art of the Blood Cult, he should definitely be able to sense its traces.

Ha Mu-baek concentrated on the Mugeuk Yeoui Heart Method and the poison energy.

After thoroughly breaking down and searching for who knows how long.

He was able to find an energy as small as a millet grain.

An energy that seemed to be the core of the poison energy.

However, when it was small, he couldn’t even sense its traces.

It was turbid beyond measure.

Among those turbid things, he could faintly sense traces of Blood Art.

‘Found it.’

It was slightly different from the Blood Art Ha Mu-baek knew, but he thought it might be because it was Blood Poison Art.

If he could, he wanted to show this to Dang Ji-yeon, but there was no way.

Ha Mu-baek didn’t have the ability to liquefy and extract the poison from his body.

And he couldn’t make Dang Ji-yeon consume this amount of poison energy either.

It was an impulse that even Ha Mu-baek himself barely endured. No, he almost succumbed in a moment of carelessness.

Surely Dang Ji-yeon would be completely consumed by gluttony.

Having examined everything, Ha Mu-baek now burned away all the poison energy remaining in his body.

It resisted violently, but it couldn’t match the internal energy of the Mugeuk Yeoui Heart Method. He gradually burned it away until it was extinguished.

It was poison energy that absolutely should not exist in a human body.

What would happen if the tail extending toward the head reached the head and completely devoured it?

“Cannibalistic jiangshi.”

Ha Mu-baek muttered quietly as he continued his thoughts.

Indeed, this poison was meant to create jiangshi.

The Blood Cult bastards were experimenting on unspecified numbers of people in Muchang, trying to recreate the disappeared poison.

Ha Mu-baek opened his eyes and raised his body.

Dawn was already breaking.

He had spent the entire night here.

It had been such a difficult and arduous task. Even for Ha Mu-baek.

A terrible smell rose from his clothes. The energy from burning the poison had flowed out through his pores and soaked into his clothes.

It was truly a vicious poison.

To think they were experimenting with such poison in Muchang.

Ha Mu-baek looked toward Muchang with eyes full of killing intent.

“Those Blood Cult bastards….”

 

***

 

The Beggars of the Beggar Sect gathered at Gwanje Temple were observing the facial features of countless people.

It was because of Byeokryeokgae’s orders.

They said Gwang Hoe-cheon was at Wolryong Inn, but there was no one with the same appearance as him.

Of course, he would be hiding in disguise.

Even taking that into account, they couldn’t find him.

So they hired several skilled portrait artists to test how appearances would change when altered within humanly possible methods.

It cost quite a lot of money.

Instead of begging for money, the beggars were spending money to hire people.

They were truly putting their all into finding Gwang Hoe-cheon.

They gathered facial analyses of everyone related to Wolryong Manor, Wolryong Inn, and Wolryong Pavilion.

All in just one day.

Since they had been collecting information from the moment Wolryong Manor entered Muchang, they were able to gather it in such a short time.

“First, let’s exclude all the women.”

Only the men’s facial analyses remained.

“Remove all those shorter than Gwang Hoe-cheon.”

You could increase height, but you couldn’t decrease it.

The artists were adding drawings to each person’s facial analysis, transforming them to match Gwang Hoe-cheon’s appearance.

“No. The eye corners are different here. This one goes sideways, but this person’s goes upward.”

“Couldn’t the eye corners be changed?”

“Even Seonyu Valley probably couldn’t do that?”

The beggars debated while looking at the drawings.

The drawings deemed impossible were excluded one by one.

“One-eyed?”

“He might have just put an eye patch over a perfectly good eye.”

“Or maybe he really gouged out his eye.”

“No way?”

“Wouldn’t that be better than dying?”

The beggars discussed while looking at one person’s facial analysis.

“Artist Choi. What do you think would happen if we removed this thick flesh here?”

The artist corrected the drawing.

“Huh? The eye shape changed?”

“When you lose weight, the flesh reduces and the eyes appear larger.”

Artist Choi answered one beggar’s question.

As they corrected the portraits one by one like this.

“Th-this is….”

The beggars’ eyes widened.

Dawn was already breaking in the east.

One beggar took three portraits and ran out of Gwanje Temple at full speed.

Toward where Byeokryeokgae was.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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