Weapon-Eating Bastard [EN]: Chapter 49

Weapon-Eating Bastard – Chapter 49

The Mountain Keeper emerged from the cave as morning arrived.

With someone having entered the mountain to begin training, he felt obligated to watch over the mountain’s various areas for a while.

He needed to calm the magical creatures that had become sensitive to the presence of a stranger, reinforce the enchantments on the training grounds and the Healing Spring, and further isolate the mountain from the outside world.

Once he took care of these tasks, there wouldn’t be much to worry about, but the fact remained that he had to move diligently for a while.

It was then.

“I greet the Mountain Keeper.”

In the dim darkness before sunrise, Lee Cheol bowed and approached as if he had been waiting.

“…What is it? Why are you here?”

“I have something to ask.”

As soon as the Mountain Keeper heard Lee Cheol’s question, his eyes widened, thinking, ‘What’s with this guy?’

“What? You’re going to gather herbs? Why?”

The Mountain Keeper had never seen anyone come to train and then say they were going to gather herbs.

“Herbs are herbs, but I need Mana Herbs.”

“Do you even know anything about geomancy [the art of arranging buildings and other objects auspiciously] or feng shui [a similar Chinese practice] at your age?”

“I have this, you see.”

Lee Cheol tapped his eyes.

The ability of the Mystic Eye, which allows him to perceive hidden things and the flow of power.

Well, if he could control that at will, he would be able to read the energy of the land better than most geomancers.

“Do you know how to distinguish poisonous herbs? Not all poisonous herbs for humans contain sinister energy. And if you mess with medicine carelessly, it becomes poison.”

“Yes, I know how to handle the herbs I need.”

‘How do you know that?’

The Mountain Keeper couldn’t bring himself to ask that.

It was absurd.

Judging by the way he spoke, it seemed like he really knew what he was doing, but how could a 14-year-old kid identify herbs?

‘…Are all the kids these days like this?’

There were a lot of eccentrics from the Soongmoo House, but Lee Cheol was the first to ask if he could gather Mana Herbs.

“Well, do as you please. It’s fine as long as you only collect enough for yourself. Just keep in mind that being greedy on a sacred mountain can bring about negative karma.”

“Thank you. Then I’ll go train now.”

The Mountain Keeper nodded, watching Lee Cheol smile, and then was startled.

‘Looking at the position of the stars… it seems to be around Myosi (卯時, 5 AM to 7 AM), but he’s already going to train?’

And to think he was waiting in front of me; what time did he wake up?

And so, every morning at 6 AM.

Before the start of full-scale training, he began running around the mountain, looking for Mana Herbs and medicinal herbs, while also doing physical training.

‘This is quite difficult too.’

The Mystic Eye was like a wild horse running rampant.

If the reins were loosened even a little, it would try to run out on its own, and it would devour mental strength and mana ravenously.

‘A place where the energy of the earth gathers. Let’s distinguish the energy of the grass and the energy of the water. Mana Herbs are usually in such places.’

It might just look like a beautiful sacred mountain to the ordinary eye, but to my eyes, with the Mystic Eye activated, it looked like a web of dozens of intertwined strands.

These were the energies emitted by the countless things of Cheonwui Mountain.

Each of the stones that had been in the sacred mountain for a long time had energy dwelling within them.

This was because the beasts that did not hibernate and the numerous plants sprouting everywhere each had their own energy.

I groaned and tried to activate the Mystic Eye by force.

And then.

‘Hoo… Mana depletion. Everything aches.’

Eventually, my mana ran out, so I sat down for a moment and performed Mana Technique [a method of manipulating mana].

The Mystic Eye was activated and deactivated repeatedly due to excessive use, but I closed my eyes tightly and focused on absorbing mana.

‘This might be an advantage.’

Mana Circuit, like muscle training, grows when used to its limit and then recovered.

On Cheonwui Mountain, mana recovery was fast, which helped strengthen the Mana Circuit.

Physical training, Mystic Eye training, Mana Herb collection, and even improving the durability of the Mana Circuit itself.

It was hardcore for morning training, but that wasn’t the end of it.

“…….”

While searching for herbs, rummaging through the mountain, I stopped moving.

An alien energy was caught in the senses that I had deliberately spread around.

Slowly turning my body, I looked at a pile of stones about 100 meters away.

‘A magical creature.’

As I focused my gaze, the unfamiliar energy quickly erased its presence.

‘It’s still not easy to detect properly.’

This morning hike was also effective for training my sixth sense.

Noticing the presence of magical creatures secretly hiding around me.

There was no other way to train my senses as effectively as this.

‘Okay, let’s start again.’

I opened my eyelids very slowly.

With eyes that glowed with sunset light, I began to read the complexly intertwined energies of the sacred mountain again.

* * *

My daily routine after entering Cheonwui Mountain was like this.

Mornings were spent hiking, combining physical training, Mystic Eye training, and sensory training.

And until dinner, I swung my weapons at the Zelkova Tree Training Ground.

I took thorough breaks every meal, and the breaks were, of course, not for sleeping, but for recovering in the Healing Spring.

And evening.

In the evening, I trained in Mana Technique.

‘I need to become proficient in Aura Skills.’

Many people use the mechanics of a car to explain Mana Technique.

Natural mana is crude oil.

Mana within the body, processed through each Mana Technique, is refined gasoline.

Mana Technique and Mana Origin, that is, the Mana Circuit, is the engine.

And Amplification, Swiftness, Concealment, Reversal, etc., which are sub-branches of my Mana Technique, could be said to be the gears of the engine.

Since I even handle the Mana Furnace, I have more gears than other Mana Techniques that only handle Mana Origin.

So I can create many kinds to suit the situation.

And finally, Aura Skill.

Aura is hard to compare to a car.

Aura is pure energy itself, refined from mana to the extreme.

‘The Aura Skill of the Mana Technique I created with my aunt has various possibilities.’

The Aura Skill of a common Mana Technique tends to have one direction.

This is because it is greatly influenced by the nature of the Mana Technique one has learned or the way one fights.

A good example was the Aura Skills of my brothers in the history before regression.

During his time as Baekya, the eighth brother’s Mana Technique mostly focused on self-healing, defense, and physical enhancement.

The first brother pursued a balanced Aura Skill that did not lean towards attack or defense.

But my Mana Technique does not have such a ‘direction’ in particular.

-If you can think it up, create a theory, and unfold it according to that theory, you can unfold thousands and tens of thousands of Aura Skills.

That’s what my aunt told me about my Mana Technique.

In other words, the direction of my Mana Technique is towards where I myself decide.

‘The problem is that I don’t have enough mastery of Aura Skills to properly utilize that diversity.’

Aura Skills consume a lot of mana and require tremendous concentration.

Therefore, my current Aura Skills are unstable.

Even when using the same technique, the amount of mana consumed varies from time to time, and it sometimes exerts less or more power than expected.

‘I need to fully master Aura Skills. This is not a matter of mana, but a matter of skill.’

In the end, there’s no other way than to use it a lot.

I took out Mujin again.

Ganggi Art, Thunder.

Ganggi Art, Blizzard.

Ganggi Art, Yama.

…….

I unleashed all the Aura Skills I had like crazy.

Whether I had a lot of mana or not, whether it was a comfortable gesture or an uncomfortable one.

‘So that I can unleash Aura Skills that are the same no matter when or in what environment.’

Kwaang! Kwaaaang!

Since it was a training ground created with the magic of goblins, there was no need to control the power.

I didn’t care about internal injuries or mana depletion.

The intensity I unleashed when I started training had to be the same as the intensity I unleashed when I finished training.

* * *

Before long, time passed, and spring arrived.

For the few weeks after Lee Cheol came, the Mountain Keeper was quite busy.

There were several things that happened, but the most difficult thing was calming the magical creatures and beasts that had become sensitive to the smell of Lee Cheol.

When that was all over, the Mountain Keeper had nothing to do.

At first, he occasionally watched Lee Cheol training through the mirror, but after a day or two, it was just boring to keep watching.

‘Ugh, Choi. You said it would be fun to watch, but it’s just boring. That nasty kid only trains all day; how could that be fun?’

He never saw him doing anything else.

The guys who came to train during that time usually took seclusion training when they were full of energy, so they would do strange things whenever they got bored.

Some carved, some suddenly sang, and some muttered to themselves.

But Lee Cheol, what’s wrong with him? He doesn’t do anything but train.

What’s more, that training is, to put it nicely, stubborn, and to put it badly, just ignorant repetitions.

Simple repetitions and basic things.

So how could it be fun?

An outsider came in, but there was no change in the mountain.

Thinking of him as just a slightly unusual magical creature called Lee Cheol, he didn’t care much.

From then on, the Mountain Keeper turned off his attention.

Whether or not to allow the final test would be decided then, and there was nothing to do now, so he just kept drinking.

If something happened to the mountain, he would know right away, so he continued his life of drinking, sleeping when drunk, and drinking again.

“Tsk, I’m out of alcohol.”

It was the moment when the Mountain Keeper, who had finished another bottle of makgeolli [Korean rice wine], clicked his tongue.

-Kkiing!

A sound like a mixture of a goat and a cat’s cry brushed past his ears.

‘Did Bakyi (猼訑) [a magical creature that looks like a sheep with nine tails and four ears] have something happen?’

He’s not usually timid, so what could have happened to make him whine?

‘Did something come into the mountain? I put up a barrier, so that can’t be. Did the guys from the main family who delivered the alcohol and food do something?’

No matter what, how could a magical creature scream?

‘I should take a look.’

The Mountain Keeper hesitated for a moment and took out the old mirror again.

Soon, a mysterious energy settled on the mirror, and a scene of the forest was reflected.

‘What? Why is he running away?’

The mirror showed Bakyi leaping over the mountainside.

He was holding something in his mouth, but it wasn’t clear, and it looked like he was running away from a hunter.

‘Who is chasing him… oh, oh?’

The moment he discovered the existence chasing Bakyi, the Mountain Keeper’s eyes widened as if they would fall out.

It was a boy who was fiercely chasing Bakyi.

Lee Cheol, the youngest of the Soongmoo House.

That sly kid was chasing Bakyi with all his might, with murderous intent in his eyes.