The Regressed Young Master’s Guide to Living on Easy Mode

Chapter 58 : The Empty Lord (2)

I had once fallen into a trap set by the Orthodox Faction guys in my past life. Although it wasn't a life-threatening danger, it was dangerous enough to be half-dead. Of course, I killed all the guys who had trapped me.

In that process, I was injured, and this was a place I had discovered in the meantime.

A shabby house located in a deep part of a nameless mountain.

Anyone could see that it was a place where no one had lived for quite a long time.

So this place was originally empty, but someone was living here.

"Who are you?"

If I had to say it was fortunate, it was that this person was an old man who looked like he would fall over with a single touch, and that he was a blind man.

In the old man's hand was a cane that served as his eyes.

"I've lost my way, so may I stay here for a while?"

I decided to watch the situation a little longer while telling a lie. This old man might also have been wandering around with nowhere to go and had discovered this place and was living here.

Moreover, the first time I had visited this place was about 10 years from now.

'It's not strange that someone had lived here before.'

And if the old man had seen me, I might have had to kill him, but fortunately, the old man was blind, and I didn't have to kill him.

However, what was a little strange was that although the old man's eyes were clearly closed, he was looking exactly where I was.

The expression on the old man's face was one of doubt.

"This place has a formation, so not just anyone can enter."

"I-is that so?"

"Heh heh! It's a joke. Why are you so flustered? Sometimes, there were several people who got lost in the mountains and visited this place. Now! Come on in."

Sniff, sniff.

"By the way, seeing the smell of blood, you must be injured."

"Yes. I was wandering in the mountains and slipped, and my arm was cut by a branch."

"Tsk tsk. You have to be careful in the autumn mountains. Because the leaves are all over the place, and you don't know what's underneath."

"Yes. That's..."

Uh... suddenly the world is spinning. It seems I overdid it. I fought with the former 10th unit, fought with the Illusion Demon, was internally injured by the sheep mask, was cut by my junior sister's sword filled with her true power, and ran with all my might to escape the territory of the Heavenly Demon Cult and came here.

Thud.

I fainted as I was.

* * *

I opened my eyes to the pungent smell of medicine.

"Ugh! The smell!"

"Oh-ho! You're finally awake. I thought I was going to have to deal with a corpse."

A bandage was wrapped around my arm.

"The elder treated me. Thank you."

"No. I just treated you because I was too lazy to deal with a corpse. I'd be grateful if you just walked out of here."

"I-I see. Still, thank you. Thanks to you, I'm alive."

"By the way, you. Your external injuries are one thing, but your internal injuries are quite deep. If you hadn't been treated in time, you might have never been able to use martial arts again."

"I-is that so?"

I reacted, pretending to be naive.

I'm grateful that he treated me. But this old man is trying to sell me something! Seeing that he's living alone in a mountain like this, he must be short on money. It was obvious that he was trying to rip me off in the name of treatment fees.

"Seeing your tone, it seems you don't believe me."

"I-is that so?"

Internal injuries, my ass! I was fighting and running around just fine until a moment ago.

"Tsk tsk. You don't even know what's wrong with your own body, so you go around getting beaten up. You seem to be a martial artist, so try circulating your energy."

I tried circulating my energy, thinking I had nothing to lose.

At that moment, a pain as if my stomach was being stabbed with a thousand large needles was transmitted, and I had to stop the qi circulation immediately.

"Ugh!"

"See? I was right."

"W-what on earth is this..."

"Your energy is twisted inside your body right now."

"Twisted?"

"Yes. It feels like someone has forcibly twisted it. It's amazing that you're still alive, but that will also reach its limit soon."

"Wait a minute, elder. What do you mean, a limit?"

Just then, my stomach rumbled.

Once I recognized the hunger, it felt as if my stomach had been stuck to my back for several days.

"Let's eat first. You won't be able to hear anything I say right now anyway."

And then the old man stays still.

"What about the food?"

"I'm blind."

"I have to prepare it?"

"Then, should I, who can't see, prepare it?"

"I'm a patient."

"I carried you, who was unconscious, on my back and brought you into this room, and I nursed you for three days and nights, leading my old body that can't see."

I was a little surprised that three days had passed, but seeing this tremendous hunger, it seemed that it wasn't a lie.

"Then it's right for me to prepare it. Where is the food?"

Getting up from my seat, I looked at the old man carefully.

From the outside, he looked like an ordinary person who had not learned martial arts.

Above all, I couldn't leave this place now that I couldn't use my internal energy.

I don't know if the old man's words are true or not, but whether I like it or not, it seemed that I had no choice but to stay here until my internal energy could move again.

The old man answered.

"Go outside and it's on the left."

As the old man had instructed, I went and found a kitchen. Surprisingly, the kitchen was neatly organized with dishes and food.

I first put the rice on, and roughly chopped some meat and vegetables and put them in water to boil.

And so, a soup with rice was made.

Although it smelled a little of meat, it wasn't inedible.

Holding two bowls of soup with rice, I went into the room, and the old man was dozing off. Seeing that he was still dozing even though I had come right next to him, it seemed certain that he had not learned martial arts. However, since my internal energy was not moving, I couldn't check, so it wasn't certain.

I called the old man and woke him up.

"Elder! I've brought the soup with rice."

The old man did not wake up. I had no choice but to nudge the old man.

Thud.

At that moment, the old man fell to the side as he was.

"Elder!"

Thinking 'no way', I quickly put my hand to the fainted old man's nose, and fortunately, he was breathing. The old man was just sleeping deeply.

I shook him harder than before, and this time, he woke up.

"Elder. You have to eat."

"Ah! I must have dozed off. As I get older, I fall asleep whenever I have a chance."

"I've brought the rice in the soup so it's easy to eat. If you're going to sleep, eat and then sleep."

"Yes. They say that a ghost that has eaten and died has a better color."

For some reason, when the old man said this, it didn't sound like a joke.

It was in the middle of that. I had taken a big spoonful of the soup with rice and was about to take another big spoonful.

"Ah! That's right! You. That twisted energy. The cause is an unknown internal force. So the two energies, whose positions have been reversed, are not returning to their proper places. Ah! And you're on a time limit. At most, a year. If you don't return the reversed energy in your body to its proper place within that time, your body will explode and you will die."

Thump.

I had to put down my spoon while eating the soup with rice.

* * *

A week passed.

At first, I had thought that the old man was lying to scare me. Or that he was senile. To be honest, if a strange old man you've never seen before says, 'You! You'll die in a year!', who would believe it?

But after a week, I had no choice but to believe the old man's words.

If I tried to move my internal energy even a little, a pain as if a thousand large needles were stabbing my stomach was transmitted. And as time passed, the pain became even more severe.

If I were to return to the Heavenly Demon Cult right now, I would be able to get rid of this pain.

If this is a disease, the old Demonic Doctor will fix it, and if it's a problem with my internal energy, the Heavenly Demon will solve it.

But I was in a situation where I couldn't return to the Heavenly Demon Cult right now.

And I couldn't just go outside with a body that couldn't use internal energy.

In other words, I had to solve it myself in the given situation... of course, since I had no solution, I went to the old man.

"Elder. I have something to ask."

"Yes. Ask away."

"Do you happen to know a way to solve the condition of my body?"

Since it was the old man who had found out about my body's condition, I was clutching at straws.

"The solution is simple. If you resolve the internal force that is blocking your body with a stronger force, the twisted energy will find its proper place, and your body will return to normal."

As expected, the twisting of the energy was because of the Reversal of Heaven.

I had twisted it once upwards, and once left and right.

At that time, it was a crisis situation, so I had acted recklessly, but looking at it now, it was a completely crazy thing to do.

'It's a miracle I'm alive.'

And there was also something I had expected about the internal force.

'The sheep mask!'

I had thought he had returned too easily.

And it was an internal force that a master of the Soul Detachment realm had put directly into my body.

To resolve this, a master who had reached at least the Soul Detachment or the Profound Realm was needed.

Or I would have to enter the Profound Realm myself.

'This is completely ridiculous.'

In other words, there was no way at all.

"I've thought about it, and it's not like there's absolutely no way."

"Yes?"

"Your body is in a state of extreme imbalance right now. Normally, an ordinary person's body would have exploded long ago from that imbalance, but paradoxically, you are still alive like this. You must have been born with a very strong body. And this is very important in the current situation."

"That my body is strong?"

"Yes. The point is the imbalance of the energy in your body. To be more precise, it's the imbalance of the yang and yin energy. In your body that I have examined, there is too much yang energy and too little yin energy. Perhaps even if this hadn't happened, assuming that time had passed, you would have faced a similar situation to now. In the end, what was to come has come. It's that kind of feeling. Though what was supposed to come in a few decades has come a little too early."

So my body is in a state of imbalance between yang and yin energy, and due to my reckless use of the Reversal of Heaven, that imbalance has become even greater, and in the middle of it, the sheep mask's internal force is blocking it, so the state of the Reversal of Heaven is not being released. That was it.

Now I completely understood. Why my stomach hurt as if it were being stabbed with a needle whenever I tried to circulate my energy.

But this old man, for someone who doesn't know martial arts, has quite a profound knowledge of martial arts.

'Was he a physician in his prime?'

For now, what was important was not the old man's identity, but my body's condition.

"If it's as the elder says, then even if I remove the internal force..."

"The two energies that are out of balance are being blocked by the internal force, so it can be said to be rather safe. If you were to release that internal force in a state where you haven't resolved the balance, the power that the reversed energy had been holding would be released at once, and your body would be shattered to pieces. This is a problem on a different level, no matter how strong your body is."

"If it's as the elder says, then I'm screwed, right?"

"The expression is a little vulgar, but you're on a time limit. But as I said before, it's not like there's absolutely no way."

"Is there a way?"

To be honest, no matter how I think about it, the only way to solve this is for a master who has reached the Soul Detachment realm to directly resolve the internal force in my body and also resolve all the power that has accumulated from the long-term Reversal of Heaven.

"The biggest problem in your current state is the imbalance. The cause is the excessive yang energy compared to the yin energy. The internal force is the next problem. In other words, you have to first raise the yin energy to a level that matches the yang energy. The balance of yin and yang, that is the first task you have to do. And the best way for that is to eat a yin energy spiritual medicine."

"Of course, there are no spiritual medicines here, right?"

"Of course. If there were, I wouldn't be living so shabbily in a mountain like this."

"Then there's no way."

"What I just said was the best option, and what I'm about to say now is the next best option. It's to learn a yin energy qi art."

Of course, this also didn't make sense.

First, I'm not in a state to learn martial arts right now.

Second, even if I could learn martial arts, the yang energy martial art I have learned is the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. The strongest of the existing yang-strong martial arts.

There was no way there was a yin energy martial art that could correspond to it.

It seems that the only way in the current situation is to return to the Heavenly Demon Cult. Then my location would be exposed, but since I'm in a situation where I'm about to die, I have to live first.

I made up my mind to return to the Heavenly Demon Cult.

Just then, the old man threw one of the books that were rolling around in the corner of the room at me.

There were no letters written on the cover. I opened the book.

"This is a martial arts manual?"

Although I had read it quickly, it was not a common third-rate martial arts manual sold on the streets.

And it was not a general martial arts manual either.

Above all, this was at least a first-rate martial arts manual.

"T-t-this is..."

If what I was thinking now was correct, it meant that the old man in front of me was not just an old man. And it was all understandable that he had found out about my body's condition.

"Who are you, elder?"

Who on earth is he to be holding the Ice Soul Divine Art of the North Sea Ice Palace?

"I may have been something in the past, but now I am just an old man waiting for death."

Could this old man be?

In the past, when the martial world was at its peak, there were three kings.

The now-dead previous Lord of the Heavenly Demon Cult, the Radiant Heavenly Demon, Yoo Jin-seong. His nickname in the Orthodox Faction was the Demonic Emperor.

And the Martial Alliance Lord of the Orthodox Faction, who had died at the hands of the Demonic Emperor during the Orthodox-Demonic War, the Heavenly Emperor, Yoo Mu-gun.

Finally, the idol of all the swordsmen in the Central Plains, the Sword Emperor, Jin Cheol-ho.

There is a famous anecdote about the Sword Emperor; it is said that there was always frost on the ground where he had passed with his sword.

He was also known to have died at the hands of the Demonic Emperor, the previous Heavenly Demon, during the Orthodox-Demonic War.

To know my body's condition, one had to have a martial prowess of at least the Demonic Zenith or higher. Or have the martial arts knowledge of the Demonic Zenith.

Furthermore, to know about the sheep mask's internal force, one needed an ability of the Demonic Zenith or higher, whether it was skill or knowledge.

In the current martial world, there was only one person in my knowledge who used ice arts and had a skill of the Demonic Zenith or higher.

"Are you the Sword Emperor, elder?"

At my question, the old man answered.

"The Sword Emperor is dead. The one here now is just an old body."

That's bullshit, the Sword Emperor was alive.

However, he was living in hiding in the mountains without anyone knowing, having lost all his martial arts.

"Child who has inherited the martial arts of the Demonic Emperor. The choice of whether to learn the Ice Soul Divine Art is yours."

See! It was a lie!

Three years passed.