DR Chapter 148

Upon returning to the pavilion, everything went back to its original place.

He passed on new knowledge to the White Dragon Medical Pavilion trainees who came from the branch offices and classified the treatment cases that came in from each branch.

The remaining time was used for martial arts training, which now required much more time than before.

“Now that you’ve crossed this threshold, controlling your inner energy should be the top priority, Hee.”

Jin Cheon-hee sat cross-legged and listened to his master’s explanation.

“First of all, you’ve achieved too much for your age, and even considering that, your control over inner energy is usually better than this. That’s possible because you’ve built a solid foundation with the Five-Elemental Cultivation Technique from the beginning.”

“Yes.”

“But I think you’ve realized through this battle that even that has reached its limit.”

Jin Cheon-hee nodded and touched the back of his hand.

The traces of his fight with Siryeong Goema had almost completely faded now. But scars still remained on his body.

However, he didn’t particularly try to remove these scars.

They were traces of his battles, a source of pride, and also a reminder for reflection.

The scar that ran long from the back of his hand wasn’t noticeable unless looked at closely, but when touched, you could feel the hardened flesh.

Since then, he had developed a habit of touching the back of his hand.

When the time comes for the scar to fade, this habit would probably disappear too.

That’s what he thought.

‘The Void Grasping Technique I used and the Void Grasping Technique Yeo Ha-ryoon used were different, even though they’re the same technique.’

Clearly, Jin Cheon-hee should have more inner energy than the current Yeo Ha-ryoon.

But Yeo Ha-ryoon moved the same Void Grasping Technique as if it were his own limbs.

It was the same with mental energy.

The use and release of sword energy, and its density adjustment were also sharp and concentrated.

It was almost like the realm of unity between person and sword.

‘Even though they say the amount of inner energy doesn’t determine victory or defeat, Yeo Ha-ryoon was incredible.’

Is that the level one needs to be to become the future Heavenly Demon?

After only thinking about the young Yeo Ha-ryoon, encountering a Yeo Ha-ryoon who had grown as much as himself was quite shocking.

There was a toughness that couldn’t be expressed by any novel’s words.

‘Can I imitate that?’

It’s a funny thing to say, but it’s true that even with this inner energy, he wasn’t confident he could fight and win against Yeo Ha-ryoon.

But thinking the other way around.

‘If I could control this inner energy as well as Yeo Ha-ryoon, how much stronger would I become?’

Relying on elixir boosts has reached its limit.

Even if he consumed more elixirs beyond this point, it wouldn’t make much difference.

Zhuge Rin said.

“First, well, how about playing a dice game with this master?”

“Dice?”

“If you use Void Grasping Technique to show the face you want, you win, and if you lose, you get a penalty.”

Tak-

What his master put down was an old-fashioned wooden die carved from wood.

Except for one face, all the other faces of the die were covered with tiny writing.

“Master, looking at the writing, I see things like ‘Receive acupoint strikes from the wooden dummy for this time period’, ‘Practice the Three-Elements Sword Technique with left hand and Ten Steps Divine Spear with right hand for this time period’, ‘Climb a cliff with one hand without using footwork’…”

“You’ve seen correctly, Hee.”

This is terrifying. If I roll badly, am I just going straight to hell training?

“I also see ‘Play Go with Master’ here.”

“It won’t be easy to place Go stones where you want using Void Grasping Technique while battling wits.”

Jin Cheon-hee dusted off his hands and prepared.

On the 32-sided die, except for one spot, all were hellish training methods for internal and external martial arts.

‘Human rights… gone. My threshold-level inner energy… gone.’

The master’s hellish training was already incredible before, but now it had returned even more incredible.

In any case, it was either shake off this threshold-level inner energy or shake off every last drop of energy left in the muscles.

“Whew.”

“Now, roll it, Hee.”

His master spoke brightly and cheerfully.

‘No matter how I look at it, it seems like you enjoy rolling your disciple the most.’

It seems she made a terrifying resolution while stitching up her only disciple’s flesh.

Jin Cheon-hee rolled the die.

Then he used Void Grasping Technique to control the direction of the die.

What Jin Cheon-hee wanted was the single space of ‘Rest’.

He planned to control the angle and shape and drop it as is.

But the die twisted just a hair.

Tang!

“Ah, Hee. I didn’t tell you that I would interfere when you throw the dice. Shouldn’t the training be as close to real combat as possible to be meaningful?”

[Use Yoo Ho’s wooden dummy for acupoint strikes for this time period]

Da, Damn it!

His master watched her disciple’s expression as if savoring it and smiled.

“Don’t worry. While you’re training, I’ll be training too. You’re not suffering alone. Yoo Ho!”

Yoo Ho, standing behind his master with an expression like he might start glowing, said,

“It’s a specially modified wooden dummy, young master. I wonder if you’ll be able to block it. But I recommend just lying down comfortably and receiving the acupoint strikes.”

“Who says I’ll take it easily!”

“Oh, Hee.”

“Yes?”

His master sealed the acupoints on Jin Cheon-hee’s wrist and shoulder.

Tak, tatak!

“I’ve placed a restriction making it difficult to manifest your threshold-level inner energy. Try to use your inner energy and avoid in this situation.”

The weight of 10 times gravity presses down.

Jin Cheon-hee was dragged away by Yoo Ho like that.

“Aaaaargh—!”

***

His master’s magical die contained truly many torture methods.

Yoo Ho’s strengthened wooden dummy mercilessly struck Jin Cheon-hee’s acupoints, and Jin Cheon-hee floundered to avoid while feeling gravity in his limbs.

‘There are nine of them. Crazy, he made nine wooden dummies!’

To block this, not a single point of inner energy should move carelessly. He had to move his inner force along the shortest path to avoid attacks.

However, on the first day, Jin Cheon-hee only managed to avoid for about half a time period before getting hit in the stomach and receiving merciless acupoint strikes from 9 wooden dummies.

His external martial arts increased in proportion to how much he was hit.

The result of the die thrown on the second day was separating white rice and brown rice.

“The key is to see with your eyes and separate them one by one. Until now, you had to move your inner energy to manipulate large things like swords, but now you have to separate them one by one with only a very small amount of inner energy. It’s quite a tedious task.”

“Couldn’t we separate rice and millet instead? That seems like it would be more helpful for meals.”

“Hahaha, Hee. If we did that, wouldn’t you use the weight difference between the two grains to classify them? That would be easy if you just finely control the Wind Cloud Technique.”

‘…As expected, you saw through it.’

The master and disciple of the Zhuge family knew each other well.

“By the way, there might be subtle weight differences between white rice and brown rice, but you know well that using the Wind Cloud Technique based on that alone would create chaos. Right, Hee?”

His master smiled brightly and patted Jin Cheon-hee’s head.

“Yoo Ho, cook the brown rice for Hee. It’s the height of his training period, so brown rice would be better now.”

“Understood.”

Yoo Ho answered like that and glanced at Jin Cheon-hee.

Seeing Yoo Ho like that, Jin Cheon-hee thought,

‘I’ve been working Yoo Ho hard again lately, but that guy doesn’t seem to tire as much as I expected.’

I wonder if he’s had opportunities to grow as much as I have.

There was no way to know.

“Well then, young master. Please call me when you’re finished.”

“Just don’t open the door too forcefully.”

“Hmm, that’s also part of the training.”

I’m doomed.

It seems that after separating the white rice and brown rice, I’ll have to either fix them in place with the Five Elements True Energy or master Void Grasping Technique delicately to hold them in anticipation of Yoo Ho flinging open the storehouse door.

With that, his master and Yoo Ho left the storehouse.

Left alone, Jin Cheon-hee recalled the children’s classic fairy tale, Kongjwi and Patjwi.

‘Don’t I have any animal friends to help me? Damn. No… if I called Hwanggu or Noe-jin, they’d just spill everything.’

And even if he used such tricks, it wouldn’t help with training.

‘Right. This is proof that I’ve become lazy.’

Jin Cheon-hee raised an inner energy the size of a millet in his danjeon.

To distinguish brown rice from white rice in this dark storehouse, he needs to constantly maintain the Profound Origin Heaven and Earth Divine Technique. And in this state, whether using Wind Technique or Void Grasping Technique, he needs to classify them one by one with minimal inner energy.

‘This is tough.’

It might be mentally easier to just get beaten by nine wooden dummies.

Jin Cheon-hee continued separating the grains of rice like that.

***

‘This time it’s sewing.’

He has to embroider on tough cowhide by inserting a needle.

This is similar to a surgeon practicing sutures.

To properly suture human flesh, countless such practices were necessary.

The problem is that he has to do the embroidery using only inner energy without touching it with his hands.

‘To prevent the leather from tearing, I need to pierce it in one go, which means I need to infuse a tiny bit of sword energy into the needle and stab it?’

Since it’s come to this, he decided to enjoy it.

‘Hmm, I should make gifts for Yeo Ha-ryoon and the siblings.’

Jin Cheon-hee fell into contemplation about what to send.

He had been busy since returning to the pavilion.

He needed to send a letter checking on them, and also send a letter about Yeo Ha-ryoon holding a vehicle collision tes… no, a “World’s Best Medical Brother Selection Tournament. Subtitle: To Become a Brother, Fight to the Death” kind of thing.

‘I need to send an urn to the Wudang Sect too, but hmm, it would be better to deliver that in person.’

The martial world is a Confucian society that lives by the sword.

It seems like two things that shouldn’t meet have met, but they coexist in a mysteriously harmonious way.

Jin Cheon-hee couldn’t know what kind of curses he would receive if he sent the urn of the previous generation’s elder by express mail.

Not knowing means he really doesn’t know.

Among the martial arts novels Jin Cheon-hee had seen, he had never seen one where they just plucked out the grudges and sent the remains by delivery.

If you’re going to be a bad guy, you might as well not hold a funeral at all, rather than this half-hearted good deed.

‘No matter how long it takes, I should go in person and dramatically present it with a ta-da!’

Even if he wasn’t a martial artist, his experience in modern social life was telling him to do so.

After contemplating, Jin Cheon-hee decided to make fur scarves for his three siblings.

Time has flown by like an arrow while training after returning to the pavilion.

Just as Jin Cheon-hee has grown, his siblings would have grown too.

It’s the time when they’re growing rapidly, so he doesn’t know how much they’ve grown.

‘If I cut it generously and sew it double-sided, they should be able to use it for a long time.’

So Jin Cheon-hee received wolf fur, marten fur, and rabbit fur from Yoo Ho.

“The materials are very expensive high-quality furs, young master. If you ruin it and need to get new fur, I’ll deduct the material cost from your monthly allowance at that time.”

Gulp-

Hearing those words, Jin Cheon-hee gathered inner energy at the needle tip with a high level of concentration.

Puk-

Yoo Ho’s warning was the best spell for increasing concentration.