Return of the Mount Hua Sect [EN]: Chapter 42

A deep rumbling sound echoed.

Pitch black. A cave so dark, it felt like swallowing all light. Not a single glimmer reached inside.

A bandaged hand pushed into the darkness.

“Kkeueueueueueung……” The cave groaned again.

Then, a face twisted in pain suddenly appeared.

“Aaaaargh!”

*Thud! Thud!*

Chung Myung scrambled into the cave, hands gripping the rough floor.

“Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! That crazy idiot, Plum Blossom Sword Saint!” he gasped.

What was he thinking, hiding in a place like this? Did training in the mountains make him lose his mind?

Wait. That’s me. *I’m* the Plum Blossom Sword Saint.

“Aigo, I’m dying,” he groaned.

Chung Myung collapsed onto the cave floor. Looking back at the climb, he felt tears prick his eyes. He really could have died.

Climbing a cliff with broken hands that he couldn’t even manage with a healthy body was by no means easy. Anyone thinking clearly would have stopped.

But, Chung Myung was a man who had a brain but didn’t think.

“No! If I don’t get up now, it’ll take even longer!”

As if making excuses to himself, Chung Myung shouted, then collapsed onto the floor again with a groan.

“Aigo. This old man is dying.”

No, I’m a child now. I get confused like this sometimes.

Still, he somehow managed to make a sturdy rope and succeeded in getting up here. If the rope had snapped this time, he would have truly gone to meet King Yama.

If that had happened, King Yama would probably have struggled to suppress his laughter.

It was fortunate that he didn’t have to witness that sight.

“Keueung.”

Forcibly straightening his creaking back, Chung Myung rose to his feet and looked around.

He couldn’t see anything.

Not because of the pain, but because it was too dark to see anything.

“Tsk. This should be around……”

Reaching out blindly, his fingertips brushed against something.

“That’s it.”

He yanked on whatever his fingertips had caught, and the cloth was pulled away, instantly illuminating the interior. Gazing at the light-emitting object, Chung Myung chuckled.

“I really was hopeless.”

The noctilucent pearl glowed, filling the cave with a soft, clear light, like moonlight trapped in a stone.

One couldn’t light a fire inside the cave. Because the entrance was located below, lighting a fire would quickly fill the cave with smoke.

No matter how skilled Chung Myung was, he couldn’t drink alcohol in that smoky atmosphere. To be precise, he could, but this wasn’t supposed to be difficult training, so why would he do such a thing?

‘So he brought a noctilucent pearl to stick in here.’

That thing costs a fortune.

‘I swiped one of the tributes that came into Mount Hua.’

Back then, so many things were coming and going that even if he swiped something like that, it wouldn’t be noticed at all. Later, the Sect Leader and the people in charge of money would have been very upset trying to fix the missing item, but oh well.

“What can you do about things that have already passed?”

Chung Myung was once again realizing just how hopeless the Plum Blossom Sword Saint of the past had been.

Ah, that’s me.

I keep forgetting.

Chung Myung calmly surveyed the now-illuminated interior of the cave.

“Hmph.”

The cave was a medium size. Inside, there was only a bed for comfortably lying down, a small tea table, and a chest.

Yet, it somehow felt old. Perhaps it was because the passage of time had weathered them, but even insignificant things seemed to possess a certain something.

“Wow. So this is how it turns out?”

A fresh realization washed over him.

If Chung Myung hadn’t been reborn and had died here, and then someone from Mount Hua had discovered this place in the distant future? Wouldn’t they have made a fuss, thinking it was the secret hideout of a past teacher?

Or what if someone accidentally fell off the cliff and stumbled in here?

“That’s the Cliffside Skill. Cliffside Skill.”

In reality, it was just a place where he holed up to drink, but it would never appear that way to later generations.

They would probably assume there was a hidden secret inside the cave and do all sorts of things to find it.

“Come to think of it, aren’t all Cliffside Skills created in this way?”

Chung Myung chuckled and walked towards the chest. And with a fearless gesture, he opened the lid. Dust that had accumulated for nearly a century billowed out in a choking cloud.

“Cough! Ugh! Cough!”

Waving his hand to clear away the dust, Chung Myung examined the inside of the chest.

The first thing that caught his eye was bottles of alcohol. Seeing the various bottles, his mouth involuntarily watered……

No, no! Now is not the time for alcohol.

Desperately pushing the bottles out of his field of vision, Chung Myung shifted his gaze to a small box placed beside them.

‘That’s it!’

Chung Myung quickly grabbed the box and pulled it out. It was a bit larger and heavier than he remembered.

“Hoo-ooo.”

Taking a deep breath, Chung Myung carefully opened the lid of the box. Instantly, the cave filled with the strong, sweet smell of plum blossoms.

It was so intense, it felt like standing in a garden bursting with white flowers.

Click.

As the lid was fully opened, round pills filling the box came into view. The bottom of the box was lined with fine material, and five snow-white pills rested on top.

“Keeeuh!”

Relief flooded him, so strong it brought tears to his eyes. He had actually done it. He had found them.

The things lining the bottom were not simply cushioning material to protect the pills.

They were Plum Blossom Pills themselves.

“What a complete madman.”

Even though Plum Blossom Pills were common, to hoard them like this… How greedy does one have to be to do something like this? If Sect Leader saw this, he would clutch the back of his neck and collapse.

“But I didn’t hoard Violet Dawn Pills, Sect Leader.”

Chung Myung made a quick excuse, feeling a bit sheepish.

Actually, it wasn’t that he didn’t hoard them. More precisely, he couldn’t touch the Violet Dawn Pills. Like the Great Revival Pill of the Shaolin, the Violet Dawn Pill was known as the best medicine in Mount Hua.

Therefore, even the elders of Mount Hua couldn’t handle them carelessly.

The Violet Dawn Pill was an item that could only be taken out with the simultaneous permission of the Medicine Hall and the Sect Leader.

As for the other Plum Blossom Pills, an elder could take as many as they wanted. Of course, to touch the Snow Plum Pill, one had to be a powerful elder among the elders, but who was Chung Myung? He was the Plum Blossom Sword Saint, the best martial artist in Mount Hua.

-More like Mount Hua’s greatest troublemaker!

It seemed like he could hear a hallucination from somewhere.

“Who cares?”

The important thing was that he had obtained the elixir now. With this, he could heal his body.

Chung Myung took out one Snow Plum Pill from the box and carefully closed the lid. It was something he used to use carelessly as a hangover cure, but when the situation changed, the value of the item also changed. To Chung Myung now, these elixirs were priceless treasures.

“Ah, I’m getting nervous.”

Carefully placing the box back inside the chest, Chung Myung gazed fondly at the Snow Plum Pill in his hand.

A pure, clean scent rose from the white pill, like fresh snow and spring blossoms. Just breathing it in felt like a healing balm.

“People don’t know the value of things when they have them.”

Back when Mount Hua was competing to be the strongest group in the world, they didn’t even glance at Snow Plum Pills. The only thing they valued was the Violet Dawn Pill.

Wasn’t that why Chung Myung was able to hoard so many Plum Blossom Pills?

It wasn’t just Chung Myung who was like that. That atmosphere was prevalent within Mount Hua. It was only natural. When there were better elixirs in abundance, who would pay attention to lower-grade elixirs?

But now that his circumstances were like this, the elixirs that were nothing special back then felt incredibly precious.

“Aigo. How did my situation become like this?”

I’d rather die than suffer like this.

Chung Myung immediately sat cross-legged on the spot. He could lament his fate later. Right now, he needed to fully recover his body first. And if he could accumulate a little more internal energy in the process, all the better.

Sitting cross-legged, Chung Myung threw the Snow Plum Pill into his mouth. The Snow Plum Pill that entered his mouth melted without even a chance to chew, and naturally flowed down his throat.

A clear fragrance filled his mouth.

But Chung Myung didn’t even have time to enjoy the smell as he began to move the energy inside his body.

It wasn’t as if internal energy would increase automatically just by eating an elixir. He had to completely make the elixir’s energy his own in order to enhance his internal energy.

Here, a subtle problem arose.

When internal energy was lacking and one was young, even if they ate an elixir, they couldn’t fully absorb it. This was because they lacked the ability to circulate the energy.

On the other hand, what about when one reached an age where they could skillfully handle energy?

Even then, the effect wasn’t complete. This was because a lot of internal energy had already been accumulated. An elixir was meant to fill what was lacking. It couldn’t further elevate what was already full.

‘If medicine always made you stronger, people would just keep eating more and more!’

Thus, an elixir was meant to fill the lacking energy. The younger and weaker one was, the more effective it was, but conversely, young children couldn’t fully absorb the energy of the elixir.

But what about Chung Myung?

‘I can use every bit of it!’

Here was a child with the unique ability to perfectly circulate energy.

He was like a beginner with the skills of an expert.

“Hoo.”

The Snow Plum Pill that had entered his stomach began to surge through his energy pathways.

Ooooooooong.

Energy pulsed within his body. He felt a sense of pride at the massive energy he was feeling after so long.

‘I need to focus!’

To gather the energy with his own energy so that it wouldn’t break through the energy pathways and escape, and then fill the core? That was nothing to Chung Myung now. But what Chung Myung had to do now was not that simple.

He had to fill the incomplete energy he was born with.

His dull and thick consciousness became as sharp as a blade. But Chung Myung went even further. Sharpening his consciousness over and over, Chung Myung, who had made it as sharp as a needle, perfectly controlled the energy of the Snow Plum Pill and pushed it into his core.

‘Careful. Careful.’

As gently and delicately as handling a newborn baby.

Inside Chung Myung’s mind, which had sunk into his interior, his own core emerged as clearly as if he could grasp it in his hand.

But Chung Myung’s goal was not the core. It was the deepest part of that core. The place where the origin that humans possessed from birth resided.

‘No!’

Chung Myung, who was about to lead the energy and push it into the core, suddenly reversed the swirling energy.

‘It’s impure.’

Basically, an elixir was created to extract and ingest only the good energy of the elixirs that existed in the world. In other words, it could be said that an elixir was created by refining an elixir and extracting only pure energy.

But even the Snow Plum Pill that Mount Hua boasted of had too many impure parts to enter Chung Myung’s core. If the energy flowing within Chung Myung’s core was clear and pure water from the mountains, the energy of the Snow Plum Pill felt like stagnant, rotten water.

Chung Myung made a firm decision.

‘I’ll filter it out!’

If he filtered out the energy of the Snow Plum Pill like this, he would lose most of the good effects. It was not an easy choice.

But there was no point in accepting all of this energy. Hadn’t he come this long way to create the most complete and perfect foundation? He couldn’t ruin things with a hasty heart.

‘I’ll leave only the purest energy and discard everything else!’

The energy flowed through Chung Myung’s body. As it did, it was gradually shaved off. The impurities mixed in with the Snow Plum Pill were mixed with the impurities in Chung Myung’s body and escaped out of his body.

Soon, beads of thick, black sweat popped out on Chung Myung’s skin, like ink bleeding from his pores.