Chapter 94: Evolution (2)
Translator: bjgoofy
Grandfather, the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons, and Hwa-eun gazed at the beautiful inner core as if they were entranced, their expressions blank, but when they saw the creature had spit out the inner core and shrunk to about one meter in size, a scream automatically burst out of my mouth.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
And then my legs gave out.
-Thud.
“Why! What’s wrong? Soryong? Are you hurt somewhere?”
“What’s the matter!? Soryong? Were you hit by a shard or something?”
Then the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons and Hwa-eun looked at me with startled eyes, thinking something serious had happened.
Sitting down on the floor, I looked down at the Flying Celestial Serpent with a hollow gaze and spoke.
“My… the, the Flying Celestial Serpent…”
“Flying Celestial Serpent?”
“What about the Flying Celestial Serpent?”
“How could it become so pitiful… I went through so much trouble to catch it…”
“…Eh….”
“…Ahem.”
-Shaa?
Its splendid six-meter-long body and the radiant sheen of its blue scales.
And the hexagonal emerald-colored horn that looked like crystal.
That magnificent Flying Celestial Serpent had vanished without a trace, and what remained before my eyes was a pitiful one-meter-long snake.
The six-meter body of the Flying Celestial Serpent had become a pathetic form just over a meter long, and its once-glossy cobalt-colored scales had faded close to a sky-blue hue.
Moreover, its majestic split horns were gone, leaving only two sharp, tiny goblin-like horns on its head.
At its pitiful appearance, memories of all the hardship I went through came flooding back, and a wave of emptiness washed over me.
With a party made up only of thieves and hunters, we took turns pulling extreme aggro, trying to figure out its patterns, and after spending several sleepless nights chasing it, I finally caught it, only for my Flying Celestial Serpent to suddenly deflate like a balloon.
The rare creature, which had been fitting of all the effort over the past few days, had now been downgraded to something around the Uncommon level.
“That beautiful form… I didn't even say I would eat the inner core, so why!"
‘If it had waited just a bit longer, I would have convinced Grandfather! Even telling Nunim I’d think about it was just because I was trying to find the right words to persuade her. Stupid creature!’
“Haa….”
As I sighed in despair, I heard Hwa-eun sigh behind me and felt her warm hand rest on my shoulder.
Hwa-eun patted my shoulder and comforted me.
“Soryong, can’t you think of it as a good thing? It spit out the inner core, and the Flying Celestial Serpent changed into a more manageable size. Now you can raise it splendidly again, just like before, right? There are a lot of baby Fire Fish in the Tang Family’s pond, so I think feeding those would be good.”
“Well, yes, that’s true…”
As Hwa-eun said, it had become smaller and would be easier to raise and would cost less to feed, but still, a six-meter giant serpent is a rare specimen you hardly come across.
As I stared at the creature in regret, Nunim quickly asked Yohwa for a favor.
“Yohwa, could you take that orb out?”
“Kish!”
The only way to cut Yohwa’s tough and elastic spider silk is either by burning it with fire or by asking Yohwa, who made it, to retrieve it herself.
At Hwa-eun’s request, Yohwa poked a small hole in the pouch with her foreleg and took out the sparkling blue orb from inside.
Then she spun silk again to seal the hole neatly.
-Kishi!
The inner core was passed from Yohwa’s hand to Hwa-eun’s.
The inner core, about the size of a Cheongshim Pill, started to emit an even more brilliant light once it was taken out of the pouch, and Hwa-eun showed it to me and said,
“Look. Just eat this, and Soryong might reach the same level as me, or maybe even beyond. Then you’ll surely be able to catch creatures like this much more easily. Come on, for now, I’ll give it to Grandfather, so let’s go to bed early today.
Grandfather, here. Please check this. Figure out exactly what kind of energy it has so that Soryong can gain as much internal energy as possible.”
“Alright, I got it. Of course, I will. But… why do you look like the sky has fallen? I thought you’d been hit by a shard or something earlier. You really are… Well, anyway, take him and put him to bed.”
“Yes, Grandfather. Soryong, let’s go.”
Led by Hwa-eun, I walked toward the bed prepared by the martial artists.
For some reason, I had no energy left.
‘So empty…’
And for a moment, I thought,
Could it be that I, Maewoon Fabre, who is so sincere about venomous creatures, was punished for having briefly considered eating the inner core?
That kind of thought crossed my mind.
‘But even so, it’s too harsh a punishment…’
***
Waking up in the morning with unbelievable memories still in my head, what awaited me was even harsher news.
“Young Master Soryong, it seems the Flying Celestial Serpent can no longer fly.”
The shocking news that the Flying Celestial Serpent could no longer fly came from Gu Pae.
“What!? It can’t fly?”
“Yes, it was very quiet all night.”
“Maybe it just calmed down a bit?”
Yesterday, I had seen that the creature was more timid than expected.
I told myself that maybe it had just settled down because it didn’t want to die, running my happy delusions on overdrive, but then Grandfather, the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons, who happened to be passing nearby, threw a harsh red pill of reality right in my face.
“Its flight was the result of unleashing the technique Controlling Qi to Soar Upward using the energy of its inner core, wriggling and moving through the air. Now that the inner core is gone, of course, it can't fly anymore.”
When Grandfather said that, I realized he was right.
Its flight came from using the inner core, which held enough internal energy for two martial artists, to perform Controlling Qi to Soar Upward, and then it would wriggle to move through the air.
But the fuel that allowed it to fly had disappeared, so of course it couldn’t fly anymore.
“Aaaah!”
“Y-Young Master Soryong! What’s wrong!?”
Another scream burst out of me without realizing it, and Squad leader Gu Pae grabbed me with a startled expression.
Grandfather, chuckling, walked away.
“Haha. Just leave him be. It’s nothing serious. That creature, really....”
The creature’s rank kept dropping.
The stock I had invested in was tanking.
‘I thought it was a blue-chip, but it turns out I bought junk stock....’
While I was staring blankly at the creature that had now become something barely even worthy of being called uncommon except for its appearance, Hwa-eun, apparently having heard from Squad leader Gu Pae, approached and handed me the pouch containing the creature, gently comforting me.
“Soryong, cheer up. You can raise it diligently like me and the centipedes, right? If you feed it well, it’ll grow bigger quickly and should be able to fly again soon. Come on, gather your strength. We should get going; people are about to depart.”
Supporting her fiance’s hobby and even taking care of his mental state, that’s Hwa-eun.
Thanks to her care, I decided to set off again toward Beast Palace with the creature, which could no longer fly and thus could no longer even be called a Flying Celestial Serpent, just a uniquely shaped snake now.
The shock was still there, but we had to get back to Beast Palace anyway.
Not long after we departed for Beast Palace, the pouch that had been too large for the creature to be in alone overnight had been adjusted again by Yohwa for easier care. Then Noona approached at some point and, seeing the now-small Flying Celestial Serpent that could be held in one hand, asked,
“This is the Flying Celestial Serpent? What on earth happened overnight?”
-Shaa!
At Noona’s words, the Flying Celestial Serpent flinched nervously from inside the pouch.
Hwa-eun nodded and replied.
“It spat out its inner core and turned into this.”
“It spat out its inner core?”
“Yes, Unnie. It understood our words. When we said we’d kill it and cut it open, it must have not wanted to die, so it quickly spit it out.”
Eyes wide at the mention that it spat out its inner core.
Seol Noona opened her eyes wide in surprise and asked about the inner core’s whereabouts.
“Really!? Wh-what about the inner core?”
“I left it with Grandfather for now. I’ll show you when we arrive at Beast Palace. It glows with a beautiful, radiant light.”
“It glows? It’s pretty?”
“Yes.”
After Seol Noona spent a while grilling Hwa-eun with curiosity about the inner core, she finally seemed to remember I was walking beside her, tilted her head, and asked,
“But why does Soryong look so down? Shouldn’t you be happy?”
She must’ve sensed that my mood was low.
At Seol Noona’s question, Hwa-eun quietly looked at me, then leaned in to whisper something softly into Seol Noona’s ear.
A moment later, Seol Noona began giggling.
“Really? Ahaha. That’s so like Soryong.”
“Don’t laugh, Unnie. Soryong’s seriously upset.”
At Hwa-eun’s request not to laugh, Seol Noona nodded.
But don’t laugh didn’t mean get angry, and yet Seol Noona feigned an angry expression and grabbed me by the back of my neck.
“Alright. But that means you really were listening with one ear and letting it out the other, huh? Soryong, you rascal! Both this Seol Noona and your fiancee tried so hard to convince you, and you just kept saying yes, yes? Right? Right?”
“N-no, Seol Noona. P-please let go of this…”
Just when I thought it was over, the scolding from Hwa-eun and Nunim began all over again.
***
-Whoosh.
As Grandfather took out the inner core and placed it on the table inside the main hall of Beast Palace, a radiant blue light began to spread.
The inside of the hall was instantly bathed in a blue glow, and people stared at the light as if entranced, exclaiming in awe.
“Amazing, Man of Ten Thousand Poisons. Such a refreshing energy.”
“This is the inner core of the Flying Celestial Serpent.”
“Incredible!”
“An inner core with such energy. Now your statement about it containing the energy of two martial artists makes perfect sense.”
At that, Grandfather nodded and explained to the impressed foster father.
“As the name Flying Celestial Serpent implies, what it held was the energy of the heavens.”
“Energy of the heavens?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm... that's quite unfortunate.”
“Indeed...”
The mood had definitely been good, but at those words, “quite unfortunate”, I tilted my head in confusion, and then Seol Noona’s voice came to me through sound transmission.
“Not all internal energy is the same. Most internal energy techniques of Beast Palace carry the energy of the earth.
Since the Tang Family’s poison arts are also poisons, they basically belong to the energy of the earth as well. That’s why he said it’s unfortunate. The amount of energy one can absorb decreases.”
I hadn’t known it, but apparently internal energy has attributes as well.
The inner core from the Flying Celestial Serpent, as its name implied, was infused with the energy of the heavens, but what I was currently cultivating didn’t match well with it.
“So, at most, only about half can be absorbed?”
“That’s what it seems.”
Over the past few days of returning to Beast Palace, thanks to Hwa-eun and Seol Noona’s care and scolding, my mental state had recovered a lot, so while this news was a little disappointing, it was still fine.
Sixty years' worth of internal energy, just that alone was still a tremendous opportunity.
“I’m alright. Even that much is already a great fortune, isn’t it?”
At my words, Grandfather smiled and spoke.
“Haha, have you recovered your spirits now? You’ve been sulking these past few days like you’d lost your parents.”
“Ahem...”
“Well, since you’re the owner, you hold on to it for now. I’ll look into a way to extract more energy from it.”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
“So Soryong has gained a great opportunity. That’s good. If you take that, your cultivation in Beast Heart Technique will progress much faster.”
Normally, when two factions come upon something like an inner core together, its distribution is very strictly handled, but there was no dispute about the ownership of this one.
Since I obtained it using information I gave to help save Beast Palace, the Beast Palace renounced their claim, and the Tang Family acknowledged my ownership since I earned it through my own effort as the family’s son-in-law.
Well, I belonged to both factions anyway, so me taking it was pretty much the same as both factions sharing it.
So the inner core, placed in a pill case that previously held other medicines, was pushed toward me.
As I stood up and pulled the case containing the glowing inner core toward me.
-Tsurur!
-Tsur!
Suddenly, the Three Centipede Sisters shot out of my sleeve, and began circling the pill case, warily eyeing one another.
Normally so well-behaved, yet now such strange behavior.
“Girls?”
Just as I was flustered by the unexpected sight of them, Nunim stood up and reached her hand toward the creatures and spoke.
“Cho, Hyang, Bin, you can’t behave like this here. There are adults around. Come here.”
-Tsurit!
-Tsururut!
But the three of them bared their fangs at Nunim’s hand as if threatening to bite.
Startled, Nunim quickly withdrew her hand, and then the three creatures suddenly tangled and began fighting each other.
“Girls?”
-Tsurut!
-Tsurur!
“Daddy’s getting angry now? You little rascals! How could you go against Mom like that, and in front of so many guests, too?”
It’s probably normal for kids to fight every now and then while raising them.
But why did their first fight have to be on top of the table in the main hall of Beast Palace, in front of everyone?
They were usually so close and affectionate, so it was a strange sight.
Thinking I should stop them, I reached out with both hands and grabbed one in each hand.
Then the remaining one shot out like lightning and snatched up the Flying Celestial Serpent’s inner core.
It was Cho.
-Gulp.
And then, with a sudden sound, the Flying Celestial Serpent’s inner core and the light it emitted vanished without a trace.
“Cho?”
As I stared at Cho with a dazed expression, Cho looked back at me.
The moment I thought Cho and I had locked eyes.
It felt like something was swelling in my head, and then I began to sense the blue light that had disappeared from Cho’s body flickering again.
It wasn’t that the light was actually shining, but it felt as if it were.
A moment later, I realized that the blue light wasn’t emanating from Cho’s body, it was my field of vision that had been dyed blue.
And in that instant, my consciousness vanished, as if someone had flipped a switch and turned off the lights in my mind.
“S-Soryong!”
Only Nunim’s urgent voice echoed faintly in my ears as it grew more and more distant.
*****
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