Chapter 08
“I-I’ll work hard! I won’t slack off!”
“I’ll trust you.”
After finishing the lesson, Baek Unjin immediately departed for Taehur Kingdom.
Ever since transmigrating, I had spent all my time at Cheongwoon Dao Sect together with Baek Unjin, so being alone felt strangely awkward.
Standing in the middle of the White Lotus Training Grounds, I formed hand seals and practiced the Azure Flame Technique.
Blue streams of energy gathered around me before slowly merging together into one.
When I stretched my arm forward, the gathered mass of energy wobbled through the air before suddenly bursting apart.
“Agh!”
Why won’t it work?!
This was exactly where the problem lay.
The Sixth Stage of the Azure Flame Technique was the manifestation of magical power, while the Seventh Stage was the ability to control it freely.
“But this part works just fine.”
I formed another hand seal, and several blue spheres floated above my hand.
When I focused my mind, the spheres split apart into smaller ones.
The maximum number of spheres I could create was twelve.
But while I could create them, the moment I tried to control them, they became unstable like before and exploded.
According to Baek Unjin, I had enough magical power, but I lacked the enlightenment needed to properly control it.
When I asked where I was supposed to gain that enlightenment, all I got in return was a mysterious smile and cryptic words.
***
‘Magical power is not merely qi, but the form of the Dao itself. If I grasp magical power, then it is not truly my strength, but merely chains of energy. But if magical power grasps me, only then does it become a part of me.’
So what does that even mean?
Anyway, since I had never hit a wall like this after properly learning cultivation techniques, the situation was incredibly frustrating.
“I can’t do this anymore!”
After struggling with it for a long time and achieving nothing, I finally left the White Lotus Training Grounds.
Then I just walked aimlessly wherever my feet carried me.
As I reached the outer area of Byeogun Pavilion, I came across a laundry area.
‘Someone’s here.’
Since it was evening, I assumed nobody would be around.
The Cheongwoo Immortal Sect was so massive that ordinary mortals worked there helping with miscellaneous chores.
Most cultivators rarely interacted with mortals, and after becoming Baek Unjin’s disciple, I had been too busy studying the Thousand Heavenly Scriptures and learning cultivation arts to pay much attention to them.
‘Is she washing all of that by herself?’
I approached the girl from behind.
“Excuse me.”
“Eek! Y-You startled me. Who are you?”
The girl, who had been focused on doing laundry, turned around.
She looked about three or four years older than me.
“Are you doing all this laundry alone? Isn’t there anyone else?”
“Ah, well… haha.”
She scratched her cheek awkwardly.
After glancing around the laundry area, I immediately understood why her answer felt so uncomfortable.
After hesitating for a moment, I rolled up my sleeves and confidently walked toward her.
“My name is Yoo Yeonseo. What’s yours, unnie?”
“Me? Myung Seolhwa.”
“I’ll help you, Seolhwa unnie.”
“No, it’s okay…”
“You can’t finish all of this by yourself anyway. If we do it together, maybe we’ll finish faster!”
I dragged over a basket piled with laundry and dropped it beside me.
“……But how do you even do this?”
“You’re a strange kid.”
I learned how to hand-wash clothes from Myung Seolhwa.
Scrub, scrub, scrub.
Doing simple physical labor without thinking for the first time in a while actually made my mind feel clearer.
“I’m done!”
“A-Alread y?”
“Yes! Is there anything else?”
Myung Seolhwa stared in shock as I carried a heavy basket full of laundry.
“Y-You have really good stamina.”
“This much is easy!”
Ever since I started learning cultivation arts, my physical strength had rapidly improved.
I probably wouldn’t lose even against an average adult mortal now.
“Thank you. Thanks to you, I finished early.”
“It’s nothing! It helped clear my head too. Can I come visit again tomorrow?”
“H-Huh? Do whatever you want.”
“Hooray!”
I had been alone for so long that getting permission from Myung Seolhwa made me unexpectedly happy.
From that day onward, I studied in the mornings, trained at the White Lotus Training Grounds in the afternoons, and before evening came, I went to the laundry area to help with the washing.
One day, after finishing the laundry as usual and preparing to leave—
“Yeonseo, wait a second. Take this with you.”
“What’s this?”
“Honey rice cakes. Thank you for always helping me.”
Myung Seolhwa handed me some honey-coated rice cakes wrapped in white cloth.
When I unfolded the cloth, I found soft glutinous rice cakes rolled in honey.
“Wow, can I try one?”
“Of course.”
The moment she finished speaking, I stuffed one into my mouth.
The soft rice cake and sweet honey filling spreading across my tongue tasted amazing.
“It’s delicious! Thank you, unnie!”
“It’s nothing compared to the help you’ve given me. I’ll bring you more later.”
“Yes!”
I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d eaten snacks like this.
The next day, I finished my training and headed to the laundry area again.
“This is…”
There was more than twice the usual amount of laundry piled up.
‘I knew the amount had been slowly increasing, but…’
This was too much.
There was no way one person could handle all of it alone.
Until now, I had pretended not to notice for Myung Seolhwa’s sake, but not anymore.
“Unnie, they’re bullying you, aren’t they?”
“……”
“Who’s doing this? I’m going to teach them a lesson!”
Myung Seolhwa hurriedly stopped me as I rolled up my sleeves angrily.
“Calm down. Let’s figure out what to do with this first…”
“You’re seriously planning to wash all of this?!”
“……It all has to be finished by tomorrow.”
She was either too kind or too innocent.
‘Even if the two of us stayed up all night, there’s no way we could finish this.’
No matter how I looked at it, this was clearly malicious bullying.
“Hmmm.”
“It’s okay. I’ll somehow manage.”
“But… Ah! What about this?”
I dumped all the laundry into one giant pile.
Then I slowly stretched out my hand.
‘It feels like I should be able to use magical power for this.’
As I carefully focused my mind, an enormous amount of laundry began floating into the air.
“Oh! It worked!”
But only for a moment.
“Aaaah!”
The second my concentration slipped, the clothes started flying wildly in every direction.
The endlessly moving laundry threw everything into chaos.
My inability to precisely control magical power was currently my greatest weakness.
“Y-Yeonseo!”
“Wait! I’ll figure something out!”
The laundry flew around like possessed ghosts.
‘Whatever! Let’s just do it!’
I formed a simplified hand seal for the Azure Flame Technique and focused intensely.
‘Concentrate!’
The clothes that had shot into the sky suddenly stopped above Myung Seolhwa and me.
Water dripped down from the wet laundry, instantly turning us into drowned rats.
“Huff… Huff… This wasn’t exactly what I intended… but it worked!”
Once I succeeded once, the rest wasn’t difficult.
The laundry floated freely through the air exactly as I wanted.
Thanks to that, we finished an amount of laundry that would’ve taken all night in less than half an hour.
“That just now… Yeonseo, are you… perhaps a cultivator?”
“Ah, yes. Hehe.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“You look so young, though. No wonder your stamina was so good.”
“Ah, I only became a cultivator recently.”
Although ordinary mortals worked inside the Cheongwoo Immortal Sect doing chores, most of them stayed in the outer areas and rarely interacted with cultivators.
And even when they did meet, cultivators for some reason rarely spoke to mortals.
“Now that the laundry’s done…”
“What else is left?”
“Obviously!”
I couldn’t keep letting her be bullied forever.
***
“Hmph, how does she keep finishing all that laundry every time?”
“There’s no way she’ll manage this time.”
The next morning, the maids bullying Myung Seolhwa arrived at the laundry area while giggling amongst themselves.
The clothes they had dumped there earlier were now neatly hung out to dry.
“W-What?”
“She washed all this by herself?”
“No way. Same as last time, someone must’ve helped her.”
As the maids whispered among themselves, I stepped out from between the clothes fluttering in the wind.
“That’s right. I helped her.”
“W-Who are you?”
“What’s with this little brat? Hey, this isn’t a place where kids can wander around.”
“You’re the ones bullying Seolhwa unnie, right?”
“Where did this kid even come from?”
“In the name of justice, I won’t forgive you!”
