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Chapter 17
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“Of course, there’s something I have to do before that.”
He had stopped challenging it a while ago.
It wasn’t because he’d given up.
This was all a tactical retreat for the sake of advancing further.
He was taking a moment to clear his mind and calmly reflect on his accomplishments.
He had gained more than enough experience by now.
Further mindless headbutting could cause permanent damage to his brain.
There was no point in crashing against the wall anymore.
He was already close to reaching the Eighth Star stage.
The foundation to climb the high wall was there, but he needed the trigger to leap over it.
“Today will be different. Today will definitely be different.”
He opened the door and walked toward a nearby stream, throwing off his clothes.
With his shirt off, his lean but muscular upper body was revealed.
“…Jinju, haven’t I told you countless times not to spy on me when I’m bathing?”
The young man sighed into the air.
There was no one around when he looked.
Anyone who saw him would think he was insane.
But before his words even finished, something dropped from the branches.
Squeak?
The Human-Faced Spider slowly revealed itself.
Despite its massive size, the spider was adept at stealth.
When it wanted, it could blend into the shadows and erase its presence, making it difficult to detect.
It tilted its head, as if wondering how he’d known.
“Don’t worry; I’m not planning to run away.”
He wouldn’t consider fleeing after all his attempts thus far.
And he wouldn’t ignore the words of the world’s most eccentric old man.
Though he often acted like a total quack, his words were never wrong.
“And by now, I have my pride. I wouldn’t leave even if you told me to.”
Lee Seon smirked bitterly.
Over the past year, Jinju had dutifully carried out his orders.
It even tried to crawl into his house.
When he had firmly stopped it from squeezing its body inside…
Squeak…
It had hung its head, looking disappointed.
For such a massive creature, its innocent eyes triggered a pang of guilt.
Maybe it wasn’t a spirit beast but a human in a spider’s skin.
After a quick dip, Lee Seon stepped out and got dressed.
Watching him, the spider’s curiosity was piqued.
Normally, he’d bathe only after being pummelled by Jinju.
After all, there was no point in washing off before getting covered in dirt again.
Running around the mountain with Jinju often left him too exhausted to even bathe.
“Wondering why I’m cleaning up?”
Though they were different species and couldn’t speak, three years in the same house had made him familiar with its expressions.
He could read the gist of the spider’s intentions just from its tone and gaze.
It seemed to be asking why he was doing something unusual.
“To show you. The completely changed me.”
Preparing for a crucial moment, he was cleansing his mind and body.
Squeak!
The spider burst into laughter at his overly serious attitude.
“…Go on, laugh all you want. I’ll turn that laughter into cheers.”
Known as the King of Venomous Creatures, Jinju was a dominant figure.
Except for Lee Jeong-gwang, there was no one here who could challenge him.
As the unchallenged ruler of the poison-filled Hyeokmun Mountain, he was a creature immune to most poisons.
To knock him down would take pouring poison down his throat by the bucketful.
Throwing weapons were no use either.
His hide was so thick that even the Blood Sect’s ma-in couldn’t pierce it.
It was clear why Lee Jeong-gwang had chosen the Human-Faced Spider as his training target.
Even if he only had to survive for one Hour, this forest was within the spider’s domain.
No matter where he ran, spiders lay in wait, and webs scattered around the forest would relay his position in real-time.
From the spider’s perspective, Lee Seon’s resolve was laughable at best.
Since Lee Jeong-gwang’s departure, he had attempted to challenge it nearly 360 times.
Squeak…
Yawning with boredom, the spider opened its maw wide.
Lee Seon’s achievements so far were hardly impressive.
But through his life-and-death encounters and daily battles with Jinju, he had grown explosively.
His skill in the Flame Emperor’s Thousand Poisons Art, which had barely reached Five Stars, had advanced to Seven Stars in just one year.
Such growth would be hard to find even in the history of the martial world.
However, despite becoming stronger, Lee Seon was still unsatisfied.
“What good is strength if I can’t even stand against a spider?”
He had tried every trick while cursing Lee Jeong-gwang internally.
And his conclusion was…
“I can’t win!”
He acknowledged his limits.
How could he possibly survive for a whole hour against a creature on par with masters of the Flowering Realm?
Right now, it was utterly impossible.
No matter how much he tried, an egg could never break a rock.
For an egg to change the outcome, it had to evolve.
It was time for change.
**
Lee Seon sat cross-legged atop a mountain peak, letting the wind wash over him.
Wooong.
The Flame Emperor’s Thousand Poisons Art resonated within him.
In the dark space of his mind, a flame appeared before his eyes.
It circled him, scattering embers in its wake.
The spirit of the Flame Emperor, who had sacrificed his body to experiment with countless toxic herbs, spoke to him.
“You must become a good man.”
Ever since he’d begun cultivating this art, a voice had echoed in his mind.
At first, he thought it was a demonic influence.
Though he had ignored it at first, he could now see that it wasn’t the voice of a demonic influence.
It was clear and resonant—almost genderless, sounding both feminine and masculine at once.
Now that his mastery of the Flame Emperor’s Thousand Poisons Art was nearly at the Eighth Star stage, he understood.
The vision embedded in the art had been speaking to him all along.
“Become a good man.”
A good man?
He had never thought of himself as a villain, but he’d never thought of himself as a saint, either.
What would it take to be called a “good man”?
A stern face crossed his mind.
Maybe that old man could be considered a good man.
A person who roamed the world under the pretext of saving people.
Though he had taught him a martial art, he never showed his face too often.
Still, that old man could certainly be called a good man.
But Lee Seon had no intention of following Lee Jeong-gwang’s path.
He didn’t know yet what he would become, but he was sure it wasn’t that.
“But why?”
People in this world were all born with different levels of ability.
Sometimes, you could gather a hundred people, and not one could match the talent of a single individual.
If the heavens had given someone talent, there must be a reason for it.
“You have strength.”
But does having strength mean he had to become a good man?
“That is the duty of the powerful.”
Lee Seon nodded.
He’d felt uncertain, but now he understood.
What a madman.
The more powerful a martial art, the more it influences its practitioner.
That’s why those who learn the ways of the Dao or the Buddha become calm and composed.
He wasn’t sure if this vision was the Flame Emperor himself.
But whether it was the Flame Emperor or someone else, whoever created this martial art was anything but ordinary.
At the very least, they were on the same level as that old man, if not more.
To create a martial art that twists the practitioner’s inner world to its will…
The tenacity embedded in this art was enough to make him shiver.
The strange method of consuming poison to convert it into inner strength.
The very disregard for one’s own body made him think it was far from the path of righteousness.
Just as he expected, the madness lurking behind it revealed itself to Lee Seon.
In the darkness, Lee Seon opened his eyes.
A spirit? Trying to manipulate a living person?
He grabbed the flickering flame before him with one hand.
It struggled to escape his grasp, but to no avail.
“…Then, what is it that you want to become?”
What do I want to become?
The Human-Faced Spider wasn’t strong simply because it had poison.
Poison was just one of its many strengths.
Even without poison, the Human-Faced Spider was a fearsome entity.
As a predator, it reigned over many other creatures.
Then, what was poison?
A means to protect oneself.
A last-ditch effort, a creation born from twisting one’s entire being to oppose a predator.
In simple terms, it’s the ultimate act of survival.
Even if one were to die, they would not die alone.
The venom was the embodiment of a relentless resolve to take down the opponent, even at the cost of one’s own life.
Poison was the only way for the weak to resist the strong.
Like the frog that took up poison to avoid being swallowed by a snake.
The reason he first took poison into his own hands.
The reason he began learning martial arts.
It was all to survive.
Survival had always been the core of his approach to life.
Perhaps his affinity for handling poison came from that same line of thinking.
“To become a Poisoned One.”
Lee Seon smirked slightly.
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