The next morning. Seol Ri-hyang, looking better than usual in the face as befitting someone who had risen in realm, waved her hand.
"Good morning, Cheon Hwi!"
"Yeah. Good morning. …But it seems Bing Yerin is greeting a different kind of morning than we are."
After waving back at her in a half-hearted manner, I looked toward Bing Yerin, who was walking alongside Seol Ri-hyang.
There she was, drooping like a dried fish, trudging along with her arms and legs swaying lifelessly.
"Good morning… is it?"
"Euh-heu. Good morning? Yeees. That's right. If it's a good morning, then I suppose it's a good morning."
Bing Yerin muttered in a voice that was nothing short of sinister. When she jerked her head up, a rippling blue light flickered through her disheveled hair.
It was a kind of light in her eyes—raw, unrefined internal energy overflowing and leaking out through her gaze.
This was a phenomenon usually seen right after attaining enlightenment, or during Qi Deviation… but since there was no sign of the twisted aura characteristic of Qi Deviation or internal energy tinged with blood, it had to be the former.
"Surely not, Bing Yerin, you too…"
"No. I haven't attained any enlightenment."
"Hm?"
"It's just that Miss Seol said my internal energy management was inefficient and went ahead and reworked it on her own. This is the result."
"…Ah, I see."
"Ah, it's not that she taught me an improved method of operation—she directly moved the internal energy she'd infused into my meridians herself."
Having said that, Bing Yerin's body trembled slightly as she glared at Seol Ri-hyang.
"Kugh… Do you have any idea how strange it feels to have my own internal energy, against my own will, churning through meridians I don't normally use?!"
"W-what! You enjoyed it too! Your internal energy efficiency improved, and with my energy mixed in, the purity of your cold energy went up as well!"
"Ugh, I don't care, I don't! It's weird, that's all! It feels like my insides are tickling, I tell you?! I can't even scratch it, and it's kept me from sleeping…!"
With those shouts, Seol Ri-hyang and Bing Yerin began bickering with each other.
Hm. Looks like they've gotten closer.
…It's definitely not that I'm just nodding along vaguely because I don't want to get caught in the middle of that. Definitely not.
After a long while of grumbling between the two, it was Seol Ri-hyang who finally steered the conversation elsewhere.
"Um, anyway, Cheon Hwi."
"What is it?"
Seol Ri-hyang, who had been sneaking closer to me to avoid Bing Yerin, fidgeted with my hand as she asked.
"So now that I've reached the Harmony Realm too, right?"
"That's right."
"But why haven't I gone through something like a Bone-Exchange Rebirth?"
"…Hm?"
I froze for a moment and looked at Seol Ri-hyang.
Her hair and eyes were black as ebony. In contrast, her skin was as white as snow that had fallen over the North Sea, and if you touched her lightly, you could actually feel her cool body temperature.
Now that all traces of youth had completely faded, her features were those of a woman by anyone's standards.
No, it wasn't just her face. Whether it was due to her Pure Yin Constitution, the curves below her face were also indescribably feminine.
In other words, she looked exactly the same as usual.
"Wait a moment."
I cupped Seol Ri-hyang's face with both hands as she stood completely still.
"Bweh."
"Stop making that strange face and hold still for a moment."
Ignoring Seol Ri-hyang's playful antics, I quickly examined her.
Her forehead was still round, and her chin was appropriately slender. In other words, her bone structure hadn't changed.
Next, I looked closely into her pupils. They were still dark, but not merely black—they sparkled and reflected light as before.
At least in terms of internal energy… that is, there were no noticeable changes regarding her meridians either.
If there had been a drastic change like Bone-Exchange Rebirth, there would have been visible changes without even needing to check her pulse.
Finally, I kneaded her cheeks, which were still soft and squishy even after losing her baby fat. There was no particular reason for this. I just fiddled with them because they were there.
Seol Ri-hyang asked me with a slightly worried look in her eyes.
"How is it?"
"Soft."
"…That's not what I meant!"
She pouted her lips, so I took my hands off Seol Ri-hyang's cheeks and answered her seriously.
"Well. I don't see anything wrong, for now. Your condition does seem a bit better than usual… but it's still within the normal range."
"No, I mean, you didn't have to take your hands off that quickly…"
Seol Ri-hyang tapped the ground with the tips of her feet. Seeing her like that, Bing Yerin, who was standing beside her, shook her head.
"What's with that disappointed tone? What are you even doing this early in the morning?"
Of course, neither I nor Seol Ri-hyang paid it much mind. We just continued our conversation.
"Are you sure nothing's changed? Like your body being so full of strength you can lift heavier things than usual, or your internal energy flowing so smoothly that you move the instant you think of it."
"Hmm. My body's the same. Internal energy… as I said, it moves almost the moment I think of it. But my meridians are narrow, so it feels like it takes a bit of time to actually reach its destination?"
"Huh… Then what about using your Intent?"
"That's much more natural than yesterday. Well, it's only to be expected since I trained all night. If I put my mind to it, I feel like I could even handle some of the Natural Qi around me as if it were my own internal energy."
"Hmm… At this level, it certainly seems you've reached the Harmony Realm."
So what on earth was the problem that the Bone-Exchange Rebirth had been skipped?
After pondering it over and over, I suddenly recalled the moment I had first ascended to the Harmony Realm.
Clearly, there had been no change at the moment I had drawn out my Force Qi. It was only after I lost consciousness and Tang So-wol finished her emergency treatment that the Bone-Exchange Rebirth finally proceeded.
Everyone who reaches the Harmony Realm undergoes a Bone-Exchange Rebirth. But it doesn't happen just anytime.
It occurs when the body—consciously or unconsciously—judges the situation to be optimal.
If I was unconsciously delaying the Bone-Exchange Rebirth despite having no injury severe enough to put my life on the line…
"It seems Seol Ri-hyang's body has decided that now isn't the time for a Bone-Exchange Rebirth."
"What's that supposed to mean? I want to do it, so why is it making decisions on its own?"
Seol Ri-hyang said that, slapping her own arm in disbelief.
I lightly stroked her slightly flushed arm and let out a small chuckle.
"Don't worry. I have a few guesses."
"Guesses? Like what?"
"Seol Ri-hyang, your martial art is a Yin-Cold Energy Cultivation rarely seen in the Central Plains."
"Right?"
"Even more so, you combine it with a Yin Art like a Force Qi Skill, blanketing the surroundings in a massive amount of cold energy, focusing it on your opponent, then striking them with a mass of cold or freezing them from the marrow of their bones."
"Why are you bringing this up all of a sudden?"
"That's why."
"Huh?"
"What your martial art needs is a massive amount of Yin Energy. And meridians specialized solely for handling it better, along with a keen Qi Sense."
"That's probably true."
"Aside from the Qi Sense, the other two aren't suitable to resolve right now, are they?"
"…Is that so?"
"That's how it is. Think about it. What would happen if you absorbed a massive amount of Natural Qi—unbiased, pure in the best sense, ordinary in the worst—from anywhere in the Central Plains and used it to reconstruct your body? And what would be different if you did the same thing in the North Sea instead of the Central Plains?"
"Ah!"
Seol Ri-hyang's eyes widened as if she had finally realized something.
Having lived most of her life in the Central Plains, she hadn't thought that far… but her martial art was originally from the North Sea Ice Palace.
Naturally, training there would be far more efficient than anywhere else, and if she were to undergo Bone-Exchange Rebirth, absorbing the Natural Qi of the North Sea would yield the best results.
If she had lived her entire life in the Central Plains, it would be one thing. But she had, after all, been to the North Sea once.
Thus, Seol Ri-hyang's body had made the decision unconsciously.
Suppress it for now, then complete the delayed Bone-Exchange Rebirth in the North Sea.
"Haah. If that's the case, we have a problem. Are you saying we need to make a trip to the North Sea in a situation like this?"
"No. There's no need. It should be complete by now."
"Complete… ah, surely not that?"
"Yes, that's exactly it."
I shrugged my shoulders toward Seol Ri-hyang, whose face had brightened considerably, and continued.
"That Azure-White Flood Dragon I brought down the other day. I used its inner core to build a training hall. It should be complete by now."
A precious treasure I'd brought back to replace the Ice Crystal I'd smashed—I'd named it the Millennium Ice Crystal.
That immense cold was sealed within, and the training hall boasted a chill rivaling the North Sea… or perhaps even surpassing it. It lay beneath the Tang Clan estate.
***
After exchanging brief greetings with the Haomun Leader, who still seemed lost in thought even a day later.
I boarded the carriage she'd arranged and returned straight to the Tang Clan.
It was far slower than spreading my Lightness Skill as I had on my first visit to Haomun… but in exchange, it gave Seol Ri-hyang time to organize the insights she'd gained. That wasn't a bad trade-off.
I needed time to think through and organize what I had seen in the Heavenly Demon's memories, so this worked out perfectly.
After several days of travel, we finally arrived at the Tang Clan. The atmosphere felt unsettled.
So the moment we arrived, I asked Tang So-wol, who had come out to greet us.
"Tang So-wol. The mood in the household seems a bit off. Did something happen?"
"Nothing has happened to the Tang Clan. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say something almost happened, but was stopped before it could."
"Hm?"
"The spies the Demonic Cult has hidden throughout the Central Plains. They attacked nearby martial artists sporadically, either directly or by rallying other Demonic Cultists."
"Damn. So it wasn't just Haomun."
"Really? Did something like that happen at Haomun too?"
"It did. And plenty more besides."
I explained to Tang So-wol, whom I hadn't seen in a long while, everything that had happened.
The affair with Seol Ri-hyang's biological father. His betrayal. And the memory of the Heavenly Demon I had been able to glimpse… no, that he had deliberately shown me.
When I refused him, Haomun was attacked right away, and I managed to stop a martial artist who had half-ascended to the Harmony Realm from attempting self-destruction there.
Unfortunately, in the ensuing chaos, a hidden assassin managed to steal several of Haomun's secrets.
"All sorts of things happened, but in the end, it worked out fine."
"It really does sound like a lot happened… I'm terribly curious about the Heavenly Demon's memory, though. Would you perhaps be willing to explain it in more detail later?"
"Of course I intend to, but if we only talk among ourselves, I'll have to explain it again later. I'll call my father-in-law and Senior Seomun Hwa-rin and explain it all at once."
"That would be best. …By the way, what about the half-siblings of Hyang-i that Lady Bing looked into?"
"Ah, that… what happened with that?"
Come to think of it, so many things had happened that I'd completely forgotten to ask.
I shook my head with a voice that sounded slightly weary from having been subjected to the Soul-Devouring Grand Ritual (not) and the True Qi Daoist (not) alternately over the past few days.
"From what I investigated, Lady Seol had no remaining blood relatives. To be precise… a few courtesans or newly made concubines had conceived, but all of them either miscarried or lost their lives along with the child."
"Could it be…"
"No. It wasn't due to her constitution, but rather a kind of accident. They miscarried after being beaten by a drunken Seol Du-ho, or got caught up in fights among the dark path—ah? Wait, this can't be…"
"Well. Seol Du-ho, having once cast aside a child, might have deliberately pretended to be drunk to prevent a new one from being born, or he might have hired dark path thugs to do the job. Perhaps it really was an accident, or perhaps the Heavenly Demon was up to something. Well. Whichever it is, it hardly matters now."
"…True enough. He's going to die soon anyway, so it's fine. As far as the North Sea Ice Palace is concerned, we've done all we can."
Bing Yerin nodded. Tang So-wol let out a brief hum, as if to say she hadn't known about such circumstances.
"Huh? But where are you going? This isn't our room, nor does it have my father's office…"
"Remember the underground training hall that the North Sea Ice Palace's artisans were building for Seol Ri-hyang? I'm heading there."
"It was just completed a few weeks ago, but… why would you go to a training hall the moment you arrive?"
"Ah, that's…"
"No. Cheon Hwi. I'll explain."
Seol Ri-hyang stepped forward, cutting me off mid-sentence.
Perhaps it was because she had been suppressing her Bone-Exchange Rebirth for so long.
She gently wrapped both hands around her Dantian, which was churning as if it could no longer be contained, and spoke with a proud tone.
"Tang unni. Actually, I… reached the Harmony Realm."
"…Huh?"
"So I'm going to go through with the Bone-Exchange Rebirth I've been putting off. I figured a place full of cold energy would be better."
"…"
Tang So-wol's expression hardened stiffly at Seol Ri-hyang's words.
Tang So-wol, who had been frozen as if time itself had stopped, suddenly jumped to her feet.
"Th-this is a violation of the speed limit…!"
Bing Yerin, who had been watching the scene, shook her head from a distance.
"I wonder who she takes after, saying things exactly like someone else. Sigh. Sigh."
Indeed. Who could she possibly take after?
I had absolutely no idea.