Chapter 319
"...ya! ...Unhwi-ya!"
"Ugh..."
Someone's voice calling me is so loud that I can't sleep.
I can't even remember when I last slept so sweetly, and to be honest, I'm starting to get a little annoyed.
But why was I sleeping?
"Unhwi-ya! Open your eyes! Are you okay?!"
That voice, which is now clearly audible.
Ah... I know whose voice it is.
It's Senior Brother Un Cheol's voice. Did something happen to my senior brother? To be calling me so desperately.
No, it seems the problem is with me.
Seeing as he's trying so hard to wake me up.
"Senior Brother... my head hurts. Stop... shaking me."
"Ah! You're awake!"
I barely opened my mouth and said to my senior brother.
My eyes are so dry that they won't open properly.
And slowly, everything starts to come back to me.
Who I am, where this place is. Why I was suddenly sleeping here.
'I definitely met a fragment of the Meteor King's soul... and I received something called the Divine Eye Art...'
As I thought that far, I also remember putting some liquid in my eyes.
That must be why my eyes are so dry.
I suddenly felt a sense of regret.
Although I don't know what that liquid was, it had been stored in a cave like this for hundreds of years.
It might have gone bad, but I was possessed by a ghost and put it in my eyes.
'He hated it when I called him a ghost.'
Seeing that I even remember this, I definitely met the soul of the Meteor King.
It was a vivid memory that could never have been a dream.
"Huu..."
I took a deep breath and began to put strength into my eyes.
I lifted my eyelids, which were sticking together and didn't want to separate.
Jjeo-eok—!
Of course, a sound like this couldn't have really been heard.
Although my senior brother right next to me couldn't have heard it, I somehow felt like I heard a sound like this.
As if a newborn baby who had never opened its eyes before was opening its eyes, I opened my eyes with difficulty, and.
Hwa-ak!
At that moment, because of the unbearably bright light, I ended up closing my eyes again.
"Ugh! Senior Brother. Why is it so bright around here? Did you find something like a huge night-luminescent pearl?"
"What do you mean by that? Although light is coming in because the day has broken, it's about the same as yesterday."
"Yes?"
"Although it's not difficult to distinguish the surrounding objects, I don't think it can be said to be bright..."
"Really?"
I tried to open my eyes slightly again.
Now that tears were starting to well up, my eyes opened more smoothly than before.
But, this time too, it's too bright. At least it's not to the extent that I couldn't handle it at first, so I blinked a few times and adapted my eyes to the light.
Soon, as if my eyes were starting to function normally, my eyes hurt less and I began to distinguish what was in front of me, and soon, I could see Senior Brother Un Cheol's face.
"Hwi-ya. Are you okay?"
"Senior Brother. Why was I like this?"
"That's what I want to ask. You said you were going to get some firewood and then there was no news, so I went to the back to look for you, and you were collapsed in a corner of the cave. I was so surprised, thinking you had been attacked."
Seeing Senior Brother Un Cheol's relieved expression, I felt like I could feel how surprised he was at that time.
"What about the other senior brothers?"
"They all scattered to look for you. I have to call them all now. Cover your ears for a moment."
As I covered my ears with my fingers, Senior Brother Un Cheol, putting internal energy into his voice.
"Hwi is here! Come this way!"
He shouted in an incredibly loud voice.
While the other senior brothers were coming, I got up and moved here and there, loosening my body.
I also loosened my stiff neck by turning my head in circles, and looked around with my eyes.
For now, the first feeling is that it's definitely bright.
Although it should be the same place as yesterday, it's so clearly bright that it's as if I'm in a completely different cave.
'Is this also the effect of the Divine Eye Art?'
In fact, in a way, it's a great side effect.
The basis of assassination is to hide one's body in the dark and approach the opponent.
But if my eyes have become this bright, darkness will now be useless in front of me.
"Ah..."
And I turned my head again and looked at the inside of the cave.
Then, in one corner, I see something like a haze shimmering.
I instinctively walked towards it.
I think I know what this is. This must be the ability to see things that do not conform to the principles that the Meteor King had mentioned.
Not only have I become able to instinctively know where a formation is set up, but I can also see at a glance why the energy is flowing strangely.
With this ability, formations will no longer work on me.
Dal-kak!
As I went to the place where the haze was particularly gathered, there was something like a piece of wood stuck in a crack in the wall.
I grabbed it with my hand and pulled it out.
Then, as the shimmering haze scattered, a small hole that was not visible to the eye appeared.
Although the inside of the hole was very dark, with my eyes that had learned the Divine Eye Art, I can clearly see what is inside.
"Ah..."
Inside, there is a small jar.
Although even with the Divine Eye Art, I can't know what is inside that jar, for some reason, I feel like I know what is inside.
"Meteor King..."
It probably contains the bone powder of the Meteor King.
The Meteor King, even after he passed away, could not be buried peacefully in the ground, and had been guarding this place for hundreds of years.
I stepped back a few steps and bowed deeply to the bone powder jar of the Meteor King.
"I will surely deliver it well to your descendants."
I, after carefully taking the bone powder jar, got up.
As if my eyes had completely adapted, I began to see clearly in front of me.
"Hwi-ya!"
"Unhwi. Are you okay?"
"Where were you? What happened?"
At that time, the other three senior brothers also appeared from here and there, performing a movement technique.
Seeing my senior brothers' faces, the words that the Meteor King had said to me naturally come to mind.
'You... you still only think of your senior brothers as beings that you have to take care of.'
As he said, now, on the contrary, my senior brothers are looking for me and worrying about me.
Even the Gonghwanjin, they broke out of it with their own strength.
"Nothing happened. I think I was unknowingly caught in a formation. Fortunately, I'm not hurt at all."
"That's a relief. I was really worried."
"I know, right. But since you're like that, it seems you have a human side."
I feel a grin coming on without me realizing it.
Because for some reason, it wasn't bad to be worried about like this.
"Thank you for worrying about me, everyone. Then shall we move again? Let's really get to the end before the sun sets today."
"Is it okay to move right away?"
"Wouldn't it be better to pull yourself together a little and then move?"
"No. Let's go right now."
To be honest, I want to quickly check how amazing this new thing called the Divine Eye Art is.
We moved our steps towards the inside of the cave without hesitation.
***
About half a day passed.
During that time, we were able to go down much deeper and more easily than we had come down all day yesterday.
It's all thanks to the Divine Eye Art.
I was curious how amazing the Divine Eye Art was that its name was the Divine Eye, but this is a level that I could believe even if you said you had brought the eyes of a god.
"Senior Brother Un-mi! If you look closely at the wall, there's a stone of a different color embedded. Push that stone hard. And Senior Brother Un-sik! If you look right under your feet, there's a small piece of iron stuck in a crack. Please take out that piece of iron with your sword!"
Because just by glancing at it, I could see what kind of formation was installed, and how to disarm it.
And the Divine Eye Art was not only effective on formations.
I also began to see the mechanisms to some extent.
To be precise, it wasn't that I had suddenly become a master of mechanisms.
Rather, because my eyes had become so good and bright, I could now see the small cracks and very small devices that were not easily visible even when I concentrated.
Since they are clearly visible, it is, in a way, really natural that disarming them is easy.
"Everyone, stop! I'll take care of that formation."
And so, when the sun was about to set again, we were finally able to reach the end of the cave.
The last formation is a formation that hides something at the end of the cave from human eyes.
This time too, with the Divine Eye Art, I was able to figure out how to disarm the formation at once, and I manipulated a few objects.
Seu-euk—
Then, from the part that looked just like the wall of the cave, something like a table came out.
And on top of it, there are a few things.
I, with a relieved expression, looked back at my senior brothers and said, "It's over. This must have been the last formation."
"The end? Is it really over?"
"That's a relief. We succeeded without anyone getting hurt."
"Huu... I can finally take a breath now."
My senior brothers said one by one, and I, approaching the table, checked what the objects on it were.
"No... you called this insignificant?"
The Meteor King had said that if I just learned the Divine Eye Art, the things at the end of the cave were worthless, so there was no need to take them.
But what was there was not something that could be said to be of that level.
"For now, the gold... I think there are about a hundred. Even if the five of us divide it, it's twenty taels per person."
"T-Twenty taels of gold!"
Shock and joy bloomed on my senior brothers' faces at the same time.
Twenty pieces of gold is an incredibly large amount of money that ordinary people would never see in their lifetime.
In fact, if you just want to live comfortably, you could take that money and build a large manor somewhere in the countryside and live in luxury.
Of course, neither I nor my senior brothers would do that.
"And. This is... a secret manual. It seems the Meteor King wanted to leave his sword art to his descendants."
On the cover of the secret manual, it was written 'Meteor Sword Art' in stylish calligraphy.
It seems to be the unique sword art that the Meteor King used.
"This... how about we give it to Yu-hoe and Su-yeong, not us? Since we have the Wudang Sect's martial arts."
"Yes. Let's do that."
"I think that's a good idea too."
I, looking at my senior brothers who were readily nodding their heads, chuckled.
Originally, people cannot hide their greed for money, and martial artists cannot hide their greed for martial arts.
But my senior brothers are satisfied with dividing the money equally and are not greedy, and they do not covet the martial arts of the Meteor King.
Come to think of it, they are really people who are well-suited for the Wudang Sect.
"And this... it seems to be an elixir. And there are exactly five of them. It seems the name is written on the wooden box. Great One Pill? No, Great One Pill?!"
I, without thinking, read the characters written on the wooden box and, surprised, shouted.
"What's a Great One Pill?"
"Is it a great elixir? I've never heard of it."
My senior brothers, as if they had never heard the name, asked me back with a face as if they knew nothing, and I couldn't hide my surprised face.
"The Great One Pill... is an amazing elixir that is compared to our Wudang Sect's Great Purity Pill. No, to be precise, it's not wrong to say that the Great One Pill and the Great Purity Pill are fundamentally the same elixir."
"Really? I've never heard of such a thing."
Senior Brother Un Cheol, who had been in the Wudang Sect the longest among us, expressed his doubt.
But it's understandable. Because the last time the Great One Pill was made was at least a hundred and fifty years ago.
"A long time ago, one of our grand-ancestors had doubts about our Wudang Sect's Great Purity Pill. He said that the Great Purity Pill was originally not eaten to enhance martial arts, but to become an immortal, and that the enhancement of internal energy was a kind of side effect."
"The Great Purity Pill originally had that purpose."
"So he seems to have researched. If he could make an elixir that only had the effect of enhancing internal energy, leaving out all the ingredients for becoming an immortal... wouldn't it take much less effort and money than making the Great Purity Pill?"
I, after swallowing hard, continued, "But he, because he was too engrossed in his research, was kicked out of the Wudang Sect, and even after leaving the Wudang Sect, he continued his research for over ten years and finally completed the elixir."
"That elixir, could it be?"
"That's right. That's the Great One Pill. This elixir right here."
(End of Chapter)