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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: The First Demon's Legacy
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Overcome with relief, Jinmyeong sank to the floor without realizing it.
Memories of his recent struggles surfaced, and he felt tears welling up.
'It's all been a blur.'
He had woken up abruptly in a strange place, his life immediately threatened.
After realizing he was in a novel, he came here seeking an opportunity, but unlike the story, a great tiger was guarding the place.
If the poison on the dagger had been even slightly weaker, he would have died without ever making it inside.
'And why did the door open?'
A pattern, like some unknown magic circle.
It had clearly reacted to his blood.
'Does this character have some kind of special bloodline?'
If not, perhaps anyone's blood would have worked.
'This is giving me a headache.'
Before, the situation had been so urgent that he'd acted without questioning anything.
But now that he felt safe, all sorts of thoughts flooded his mind.
The first question was why he had come to a world like this.
And as a character who didn't even appear in the original story, no less.
'Whew. In any case, it's clear this isn't a dream.'
The very existence of this place confirmed that he was inside the novel.
And that it wasn't a dream.
The pain from his wounds proved it.
'Now, let's look for it.'
The martial arts the protagonist found here.
'Heavenly Demon Finger. And the Heaven-Embroidering Sword Control Arts.'
The protagonist acquired both of them.
Of the two, the protagonist used the Heavenly Demon Finger more often than the Sword Control Arts.
'The way it was described, it was like a gun.'
In the novel, there were many scenes where the protagonist shot out force energy from his fingertip, piercing his enemies' foreheads.
It was so fast that few could react in time.
'Of course, it was more effective as a surprise attack…'
Many martial artists could dodge it if he pointed his finger straight at them, but when used as a surprise attack in the middle of a fight, most ended up with a hole in their forehead.
'The Sword Control Arts weren't described as much, but…'
However, the protagonist had already reached a level where he could use sword control arts when he came here.
And, perhaps because he preferred to move his body directly rather than use sword control, he learned it but never really used it properly.
But the novel mentioned it was an exceptionally powerful martial art.
'A martial art that allows you to control multiple swords at once.'
It might have been unnecessary for the protagonist, who had learned the strongest martial art in the novel, but not for Jinmyeong.
'Are these them?'
There were about ten manuals in the cave.
Jinmyeong quickly found the Heaven-Embroidering Sword Control Arts and the Heavenly Demon Finger among them.
'Hmm. Is this body really that amazing?'
After skimming through the Heavenly Demon Finger manual once, Jinmyeong closed the book and recalled its contents.
The incantations of the Heavenly Demon Finger began to surface in his mind.
'I memorized the entire incantation of the Heavenly Demon Finger after reading it just once.'
He couldn't understand why someone like this would have been treated with such contempt by others.
'The Heavenly Demon Finger, created by the first Heavenly Demon.'
But it never became the Cult Leader's signature martial art.
The Heavenly Demon thought it was decent, but not satisfying enough.
'But it was too good to just discard, so he created a manual for it.'
Perhaps he hoped one of his descendants would perfect the Heavenly Demon Finger.
'Then is this a hideout created by the first Heavenly Demon?'
And all these manuals are for martial arts he created.
'So that's it?'
Indeed, at the beginning of each manual, there was a phrase stating he was the Heavenly Demon.
However, most of them also stated that the martial art within was a failure.
'They must all be powerful martial arts.'
But the Heavenly Demon must have wanted to create the greatest martial art in the world.
That's why he labeled all of them, except for the Heavenly Demon Finger and the Heaven-Embroidering Sword Control Arts, as failures.
'He even said that while the Heavenly Demon Finger and the Heaven-Embroidering Sword Control Arts were usable, they didn't have the power he'd hoped for.'
Jinmyeong picked up the manual for the Heaven-Embroidering Sword Control Arts.
'Swords embroidering the sky.'
This sword control art wasn't lacking in power compared to other martial arts.
'He probably thought it was easier to just wipe out enemies with a single powerful technique than to go through the trouble of controlling multiple swords.'
So the first Heavenly Demon, despite finding the Heaven-Embroidering Sword Control Arts useful, left it here.
'A martial art that lets you use sword control without reaching the Divine Realm.'
Normally, one had to reach the Divine Realm to perform sword control.
'In this novel, the realms were mainly divided by one's ability to handle internal energy.'
If you could create sword qi, you were considered a peak master, and if you could create force energy, you were considered a transcendent master.
'This means a transcendent master could theoretically have worse swordsmanship than a peak master.'
Of course, the transcendent master would win because they handle internal energy better.
The power of force energy and sword qi can't be compared.
And anyone who has trained for that long wouldn't be lacking in swordsmanship anyway.
But in an extreme example, a peak martial artist or even a first-rate martial artist could have superior swordsmanship to a transcendent master.
'In any case, this martial art seems to forcibly enable the use of sword control.'
It's not meant for killing enemies like other arts; its focus is solely on the delicate manipulation of internal energy.
'Still, it will take a long time.'
Of course, at a low level of mastery, one can't perform actual swordsmanship with it.
At first, it's just moving swords through telekinesis.
You can only make multiple swords fly around and stab at enemies.
'Even that requires immense internal energy. And as your mastery grows, you can perform swordsmanship with them.'
Performing different sword arts with multiple swords at once.
It's clearly an incredible martial art.
'I definitely don't understand it right away.'
Unlike with the Heavenly Demon Finger, he couldn't fully comprehend it after one read.
It took Jinmyeong a second read to completely memorize the Heaven-Embroidering Sword Control Arts, and only on the third read did he begin to understand it to some extent.
'Come to think of it, I need internal energy, don't I?'
As he closed the manual for the Heaven-Embroidering Sword Control Arts, Jinmyeong realized the biggest problem.
There was no manual for an internal energy cultivation method here.
'No matter how hard I try to remember, nothing about a cultivation method comes to mind.'
He had naturally assumed there would be an internal energy manual here.
But among the manuals, there was no cultivation method.
'Hoo. What do I do about this?'
The novel mentioned very little about this place.
It was simply the location where the protagonist obtained the Heavenly Demon Finger and the Heaven-Embroidering Sword Control Arts.
'And that moss.'
Jinmyeong looked at the moss growing on one side of the cave.
'I don't know its name, but it was said to help accumulate internal energy.'
The greatest opportunity the protagonist gained here was that very moss.
Simply eating it didn't increase one's internal energy, but consuming it consistently while cultivating was said to increase the amount accumulated in the dantian.
'There's water, too.'
Just as he'd read in the novel, water was pooling next to the moss.
Rainwater must have been dripping through a hole in the ceiling.
'I should be able to survive on that for food and water.'
The protagonist also survived by drinking only that water and eating the moss.
'So, back to the problem at hand: the internal energy cultivation method.'
The first Heavenly Demon's hideout.
And the Divine Arts of the Heavenly Demon, created by the first Heavenly Demon.
'What if the Heavenly Demon created the Divine Arts here?'
If so, he thought, perhaps its failed versions were here as well.
'But I don't see any here.'
If he were in the Heavenly Demon's shoes, what would he have done?
'I would have hidden it, of course.'
After all, it would contain some of the principles of the Divine Arts of the Heavenly Demon.
'And that character.'
Just like at the entrance, the character for 'Bright' (明) was written on the wall.
Jinmyeong suspected that was where the Heavenly Demon had hidden the cultivation method.
'But the protagonist never found another location here.'
The protagonist had also suspected a hidden space when he first saw that character.
But unlike the entrance, he couldn't find any special mechanism.
'I'm pretty sure the protagonist couldn't break this wall either.'
That meant it was protected by something even the protagonist couldn't destroy.
Jinmyeong immediately got up and approached the wall.
'Then, could there be a pattern like the one I saw earlier?'
He recalled the location of the pattern he'd found at the entrance and began searching for a similar spot.
'It should be around here.'
Of course, the entrance had been dark, and he'd based his search on the door-opening mechanism, so the location might not be exact.
Besides, hadn't the pattern been incredibly small?
'Found it!'
But with incredible persistence, Jinmyeong managed to find the pattern.
'I can't believe it was on the opposite side.'
The structure was different from the entrance, so it took him a long time to find the pattern.
If he had given up, thinking it wasn't there, he would have never found it.
'Was it blood?'
Jinmyeong drew his sword and lightly cut his thumb.
Wincing slightly, Jinmyeong smeared the flowing blood onto the pattern.
Rumble!
And soon, the wall began to turn.
"Oh?"
As soon as he stepped inside, the first thing he saw was a single book lying on the floor.
'There's more here than I thought.'
As he picked up the book, Jinmyeong's eyes scanned his surroundings.
'Quite a few weapons, too.'
He could probably take a sword from there.
'Should I read this first?'
Jinmyeong began to read the book.
'This was also written by the Heavenly Demon.'
And it was written by the first Heavenly Demon shortly after he founded the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
'This martial art is…'
Reading the Heavenly Demon's words, Jinmyeong could tell that the martial art he held was no ordinary one.
'A martial art that even the Heavenly Demon, who created the Divine Arts of the Heavenly Demon, couldn't completely master.'
To be precise, it was a martial art that even the Heavenly Demon gave up on because it took too long to achieve great mastery.
'To think the Divine Arts of the Heavenly Demon is just a watered-down version of this.'
The Divine Arts of the Heavenly Demon was created to compensate for the long training time, but its power was said to have been greatly reduced.
'Even with reduced power, the Divine Arts of the Heavenly Demon is one of the greatest martial arts in the world.'
He wondered just how incredible this martial art must be.
'It's a completely different art. Unlike the Divine Arts of the Heavenly Demon…'
The manual he was reading was related to the first Heavenly Demon's origins.
'Persia and Zoroastrianism.'
In other words, it was related to Zoroastrianism in Persia.
'This martial art was created by adapting Zoroastrian techniques to fit his own ideals.'
But in the end, the Heavenly Demon abandoned this art.
Since it took so long, it was a failure in its own right.
'But the Heavenly Demon was confident that if one mastered this art, they would have no equal in the world.'
It was a martial art that even the first Heavenly Demon had given up on.
It was hard for Jinmyeong to guarantee that he himself could master it.
'Still, I have no choice but to learn it.'
There were no other internal energy cultivation methods available to him right now.
'A fire that purifies all things. Could 'purify' mean burning people to death?'
Thinking of it that way, the word 'purify' suddenly felt unsettlingly eerie.
'The content is difficult.'
Jinmyeong read the internal energy manual several times.
It couldn't be helped, as it was too difficult to understand in a single reading.
In terms of complexity, it was on a different level from the manuals he had just seen.
'It's no wonder it takes so long to master.'
Jinmyeong sighed softly and closed the manual.
He couldn't understand for what purpose the Heavenly Demon had created this manual.
'Could it be that he wanted to become an immortal?'
The thought couldn't be helped; this martial art was so different from all the others.
Staring at the manual, Jinmyeong soon sat down on the floor, crossed his legs, and began to recite the incantations.