Bachelor [EN]: Chapter 60

The young man placed a small booklet in Han-lip’s hand and then ran away again, looking embarrassed. Han-lip chuckled at the sight.

It was unexpected to find such an innocent person among cultivators. He didn’t chase after the fleeing young man but instead examined the booklet in his hand.

It was titled “Miscellaneous Writings of Chunggye Jin-in”, but it didn’t seem to contain any magic seals.

It turned out to be a collection of miscellaneous writings by a senior cultivator named ‘Chunggye Jin-in’ [a title for a highly respected cultivator], who disliked training and preferred wandering. It contained detailed records of his secrets and legends.

Some pages even had vivid illustrations, which immediately piqued Han-lip’s interest.

Han-lip returned to his room, lay on his bed, and opened the booklet. The stories in the book included both Chunggye Jin-in’s personal experiences and rumors he had heard. Each one was strange and unusual. Some even detailed the internal affairs of cultivation families, making Han-lip wonder how Chunggye Jin-in had learned such things.

As he eagerly turned the pages, he reached the last one, which featured seven drawings of different spirit tablets. Below them were a few words of explanation:

‘Ascension Tokens, created by the Seven Great Sects of Wol Country. These are given to cultivation families who have made great contributions to their respective sects. If someone with this token appears at a sect, they will be treated as the final winner of the Ascension Tournament, granting them the right to obtain a Foundation Establishment Pill [a pill that helps cultivators reach the Foundation Establishment stage] and enter the sect. However, these tokens have always been passed down within cultivation families, so ordinary cultivators have never seen them. The descriptions are based on rumors.’

At the very end, Chunggye Jin-in added in very small letters:

‘These tokens were sometimes exchanged between cultivation families. The tokens were made so long ago that even the sects can recognize the tokens but not their owners. If you have this token, you can ascend immediately, making it a treasure for lower-level cultivators.’

After reading even the small print, Han-lip’s lips went dry, and his heart pounded.

In fact, when he first heard about the Ascension Tournament, he had vaguely remembered the token he had taken from the dwarf. That token also had the characters for ‘Ascension’ engraved on it. He had wondered if there was a connection between the two.

However, after hearing others explain the Ascension Tournament and not finding any information about the Ascension Tokens, he had dismissed it as a coincidence and forgotten about it. He never imagined that he would learn the history and true purpose of the token from a random booklet. And the purpose of the Ascension Token was so incredible! Excited, Han-lip immediately took out the black token and compared it to the illustrations in the booklet.

‘Yellow Maple Valley! This Ascension Token came from Yellow Maple Valley!’

Han-lip murmured, stroking the token with his hand.

‘But how did such a precious item end up in the hands of someone like the Gold Merchant?’

Han-lip, having regained his composure, found it strange. But in fact, the dwarf was the true owner of the token.

Originally, in the era when the now-famous Jinyeop Ridge was established, there was the Qin family, a cultivation family with similar power to the Ye family. The two families were related and had a good relationship.

This Ascension Token had been passed down through the Qin family for generations. However, the Qin family had never produced a cultivator suitable for the token, so they had not been able to use it. Rather than letting just anyone use it and waste such a precious item, they chose to pass it down, hoping for a chance for their descendants.

However, as time passed, the Qin family declined due to a lack of male heirs, while the Ye family grew stronger. Now, even in the cultivation world, only the Ye family was known, and almost no one knew about the Qin family.

Around the time the Gold Merchant was born, surprisingly, he was the only male heir left in the entire Qin family. His talent was so poor that he could not even reach the Foundation Establishment stage. By then, the power gap between the Qin and Ye families had become too great, and the family ties had faded over time. The Ye family began to covet the Qin family’s precious treasures and the Ascension Token.

However, the Gold Merchant, despite his lack of talent, was good at reading the room and was as timid as a mouse. When he sensed the Ye family’s intentions, he fled Jinyeop Ridge with the Ascension Token and a talisman with a sword drawn on it. However, some of the other family treasures were sealed by a barrier, and he couldn’t take them with him in time, so he had to leave them behind with the Ye family.

The Gold Merchant, having escaped, lived in seclusion in a Taoist temple in a remote area for decades, swindling others with his low-level magic. As time passed, his desire to use the Ascension Token gradually faded.

Later, he got involved in the attack on the Seven Mysteries Sect, and the dwarf’s Ascension Token ended up in Han-lip’s hands.

Han-lip didn’t know about the Qin family’s situation, but he was in a good mood. He paced around the room, fiddling with the Ascension Token in his hand. The more he looked at it, the more he liked it. After a while, he regained his composure and began to think about what he should do next, whether he could go to Yellow Maple Valley and find a master.

While Han-lip stayed up all night, the Southern Heaven Gathering was finally coming to an end. Cultivators began to slowly leave Southern Heaven Valley, and by morning, only about half of them remained.

In the afternoon, the older senior cultivators came to the plaza to encourage and praise the younger ones, officially declaring the end of the Southern Heaven Gathering. Among them was Cheongan Jin-in.

At the same time, the remaining cultivators left Southern Heaven Valley in groups or alone. Song Mun-do and his group also suggested that Han-lip join them. However, after a moment of silence, Han-lip shook his head, refusing Song Mun-do’s request, which displeased Oh Gu-ji and the Black brothers.

“Since Brother Han doesn’t want to travel with us, I won’t force you any further, Song Mun. Be careful on your way.”

In the end, Song Mun sighed and spoke with regret. He patted Han-lip on the shoulder and then left the valley with the others. Han-lip didn’t notice, but when Song Mun patted his shoulder, a colorless and odorless powder came out of his sleeve and landed on his clothes.

As Oh Gu-ji and the others were about to leave the fog at the entrance of Southern Heaven Valley, Song Mun-do was suddenly at the back of their group. When the others weren’t paying attention, his face turned into a vicious expression. He suddenly raised his sleeve and shot a flame into the air, then returned to his original dignified and imposing demeanor.

Han-lip, completely unaware of Song Mun’s actions, followed his cautious habit and stayed in the valley for another night. The next day, at sunrise, he left Southern Heaven Valley unnoticed.

* * *

As soon as he left the valley, Han-lip set his direction and used the Wind Riding Technique [a technique to move quickly] to move away from his original location. Suddenly, two people rushed to the spot where he had been. A thumb-sized light orb floated in front of them, guiding their way. The orb circled the spot where Han-lip had been, then flew in the direction Han-lip had gone. The two people were following the orb, tracking Han-lip.

Han-lip had been running non-stop. He finally stopped at a small hill to recover his stamina and magic power.

Han-lip found a hollow spot on the hill, sat cross-legged, and closed his eyes. The only sounds were the chirping of insects, long and short, and nothing else.

Then, dozens of white lights shot out of the nearby mud and flew towards Han-lip. Instantly, Han-lip’s eyes flashed, and with a strange hand movement, he pushed off the ground and floated into the air, landing elsewhere.

‘Thwack!’

The white lights naturally missed and struck the spot where Han-lip had been sitting. The transparent tips of the objects that had pierced the ground glittered. They were more than ten extremely sharp ice spikes. Han-lip’s face darkened.

He immediately extended his right hand. A faint popping sound came from his five fingers, and five small fireballs appeared at each fingertip. They were about half the size of the fireballs used in the usual Fireball Technique.

“It’s your turn to taste my Five-Shot Barrage,” Han-lip muttered grimly, facing the direction from which the ice spikes had come. He slightly bent and flicked his fingers, and the five fireballs shot out in a straight line. Just as the fireballs were about to hit the ground, a yellow shadow suddenly appeared in the air and dodged the attack.

‘Boom!’

The small area was turned into a huge crater by Han-lip’s fireballs. The inside of the crater was filled with heat, and some parts were even melting due to the extreme temperature. It was no wonder that the person who had just escaped was sweating profusely.

However, Han-lip paid no attention to the crater and was only staring at the yellow-clad man who had jumped out of it. The yellow-clad man was a thin man with a cunning face, appearing to be in his thirties.

“Why did you ambush me?” Han-lip asked coldly, and the yellow-clad man smirked.

“You’ll find out in the next life! Attack!”

Just as Han-lip was about to move, he suddenly heard something breaking through the ground beneath his feet. A hand covered in yellow metal grabbed Han-lip’s foot.

“You bastard, you’re as good as dead! Let’s see if you can dodge my Ice Spike Technique with your feet trapped!” The yellow-clad man said triumphantly, smirking. He raised both hands and began chanting a spell towards Han-lip. A cold aura began to form in front of his hands, gradually taking the shape of sharp, transparent ice spikes. Han-lip’s face changed, and he reached for his waist, pulling out a shining longsword and swinging it.

‘Clang!’

The sword was powerful enough to split a huge rock, but the yellow hand was still intact. Han-lip was shocked and was trying to think of another way when he heard the yellow-clad man’s voice from the front.

“Haha! Now die!”

Han-lip quickly looked up at the yellow-clad man’s voice and saw twenty sharp ice spikes flying towards him. Han-lip took a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and twisted his body into a strange shape, dodging most of the ice spikes. However, his right shoulder and left leg were pierced, and blood stained his clothes.

‘Thud!’

Han-lip threw away the longsword he was holding and used his ten fingers to apply pressure to the acupoints around his wounds, instantly stopping the bleeding. The yellow-clad man, who had been so confident, was shocked by what had just happened.

With a serious expression, Han-lip put strength into his feet, and his ankles twisted as if he had no bones. Then, a strange sound came from his feet, and they began to shrink and change shape. Han-lip’s feet, which had been trapped by the giant hand, slipped out smoothly as if they were live fish. He flew into the air, stopped, and looked at the giant hand with cold eyes.

“Impossible! How can you escape when I’m holding you with the Giant Strength Technique!” A buzzing sound and a scream came from the spot where the giant hand had been. Then, the man with the giant hand, covered in yellow light, rose from the ground.