Chapter – 01
Living in a martial arts clan with a weak and unhealthy body was like having guilt planted in your chest instead of a heart, and breathing with that guilt as your blood.
That was how Dan Mokryeon’s not-so-long life had been.
The backs of the adults were always far away, and the younger sibling who once stood behind her eventually surpassed her as time passed.
Yet no one could stop the martial world from being shaken and their clan from crumbling under the renewed rise of the Blood Luo Valley.
When death finally drew near, she almost welcomed it.
The agony that felt as if awls had pierced holes throughout her body would finally end. So too would the helplessness of watching her family suffer hardships she could do nothing to change.
At last, it was over.
At last…
It should have been the end.
But it wasn’t.
“I don’t understand…”
A young girl sat on her bed wearing a deeply serious expression.
She looked pale and fragile from obvious illness, but her eyes sparkled from different angles as though stars shone within them.
How? How did I come back to life? And not just that—how did I return by turning back time?
The girl, Dan Mokryeon, stared at her shortened arms and legs and buried her head in her hands.
She had died. That memory was unmistakable.
The pain that had tormented her throughout her life had slowly faded away, and she had sunk into that endless sleep that seemed eternal. Afterward, she had been buried in the earth, and her spirit had drifted through the world for a very long time.
Then suddenly she had been pulled somewhere. She saw far too many things, and when her mind finally cleared again, she found herself here.
She had seen all things beneath heaven.
She had seen this place and that place.
The past and the future.
Places she knew and places that had never existed.
And during all that time, I…
As she traced back her hazy memories, thinking deeply, a realization struck her like lightning.
“Ah!”
Before she could examine the memory she had just recalled, someone entered the room.
“Miss, you’re awake?”
The person who opened the door was Nursemaid Jang, the woman who had cared for Mokryeon since birth.
Because she always smiled whenever she saw her, gentle wrinkles had formed around her eyes.
“Nu… rse…”
“Miss, there’s yakgwa today as well. If you finish your medicine, you can have it as a reward.”
Beside a white porcelain bowl containing herbal medicine so dark it looked almost black sat a piece of yakgwa coated with a thin layer of sugar.
But Mokryeon, who knew exactly how awful the medicine tasted, made a miserable face.
“…Can’t I skip both the yakgwa and the medicine?”
“Now, don’t say such things.”
Nursemaid Jang spoke firmly.
Unable to protest, Mokryeon accepted the bowl.
Nursemaid Jang had always taken meticulous care of her.
She was also the person who had never once left her side during the seven years she had lain bedridden.
Knowing how much worry and anxiety the nursemaid had endured all that time, Mokryeon couldn’t bring herself to refuse.
Gulp. Gulp.
After forcing herself to drink every drop and finally opening her tightly squeezed eyes, she saw Nursemaid Jang staring at her with overwhelming emotion.
It looked as though tears were gathering in her eyes.
Ever since Mokryeon had awakened, everyone in the household had reacted this way.
Whenever she tried to speak.
Whenever she frowned from the bitter medicine.
Whenever her expression softened from eating sweet dried persimmons.
Everyone looked as though their hearts were overflowing and tears were about to spill out.
And how could they not?
I was unconscious for seven whole years. So this is the time I’ve returned to.
For reasons she still didn’t understand, her soul had been knocked out of her body immediately after birth.
For seven years, her body had been little more than an empty shell.
Unless someone sat her up, she remained lying down forever.
Unless someone force-fed her, she ate nothing.
She neither cried, laughed, nor spoke.
Eventually, the clan decided to attempt a great technique called Beolmoseisu in order to awaken her somehow.
Mother really… She didn’t even know whether Beolmoseisu would work, yet she insisted on trying such an expensive technique.
Beolmoseisu was normally performed on newborn children.
It rapidly established the foundation of the dantian, burned away impurities, and corrected the bones and muscles, creating a body well suited for martial arts training.
It wasn’t even a medical treatment.
Desperate enough to grasp at straws, they forced the procedure through anyway.
And astonishingly, it worked.
The technique succeeded, and Mokryeon miraculously rose from her bed.
A child who had finally begun making expressions and speaking after years of silence—
How could the adults watching not be overwhelmed?
Her mother had cried so much after seeing her awaken that she had nearly fainted, which was why Nursemaid Jang was caring for her now instead.
The nursemaid seemed overcome once more. She quickly wiped away her tears and placed the yakgwa before Mokryeon.
“Oh my. How can you be so mature?”
Thinking it was preferable to the bitter medicine, Mokryeon nibbled on the yakgwa while cautiously studying the nursemaid’s expression.
“Nursemaid… I’d like to go outside. Just to the garden in front.”
“Then I’ll ask the elders and get permission for you, Miss.”
As she spoke, Nursemaid Jang gently lifted her into her arms and patted her back.
After spending seven years like a doll, the child was far smaller than an ordinary seven-year-old.
The moment the nursemaid quietly left, believing she had fallen asleep, Mokryeon jumped up.
Grabbing a mirror, she infused it with the faint bluish energy rising from her fingertips.
Immediately, words began appearing on the mirror’s surface.
If anyone had witnessed such a mysterious technique, they would have fainted from shock.
[Identifying User: Dan Mokryeon]
[Display mode is being adjusted for user convenience… ■■□□□]
A line of text slowly scrolled beneath it.
[Displaying information observable by the user.]
[Outputting in the format easiest for the user to understand.]
The progress bar gradually filled.
[■■■□□]
[■■■■□]
[■■■■■]
[Adjustment Complete!]
[The Immortal Mirror is now visible!]
The format easiest for the user to understand…
So it had chosen a way she could quickly comprehend the situation.
D-Damn it. Is that all my level of understanding amounts to?
Unfortunately, she couldn’t deny it.
“Coming back from the dead really is something…”
During the long period she wandered the Nine Heavens as a soul, she had seen countless things—and learned even more.
To know something is to understand it.
To understand it is to be able to reveal it again.
Although returning to the past had caused her to forget most of what her body could not withstand, knowledge once learned could never truly return to a state of complete ignorance.
And through the understanding engraved upon her soul, she could observe.
Only to the extent she was capable.
Only in a way she could comprehend.
That was what this display was.
Suppressing her embarrassment, Mokryeon stared firmly into the mirror.
Soon, words appeared upon it as though written in ink.
Like this:
Dan Mokryeon
Traits:
- Infinite Spring of Spiritual Energy
- Half-Enlightened
- Mourned by Evil
- Sickly Flower in a Greenhouse
Harmony: 7 Stars
Insight: 2 Stars
Purification: 1 Star
Physical Strength: 3 / 100
Internal Energy: Impossible to Learn
External Martial Arts: Not Learned
Talent: Measurement Error
Comprehension: Measurement Error
Spiritual Energy: 76 / 100
Warning: Maintain Spiritual Energy below 50. If this state continues for more than two months, death will occur.
A mirror that shows only what I can understand, in a form I can understand…
But being able to see something and possessing the ability to use it were entirely different matters.
Most of her statistics were pitifully sparse.
Physical Strength: 3 out of 100.
External Martial Arts: Unlearned.
And Internal Energy is completely impossible to learn?
Mokryeon clutched her head.
Meanwhile, her Spiritual Energy value alone was soaring through the heavens.
This was the greatest obstacle of her life.
In a martial world where no one could ever reach the highest realm through external techniques alone, she was incapable of cultivating internal energy.
Even if she somehow avoided dying from her body’s inability to contain the overwhelming spiritual energy pouring from her, could she truly survive as a martial artist like this?
In her previous life, she had never been able to learn martial arts, so she hadn’t known any of this.
Her Talent and Comprehension were both listed as Measurement Error, making them impossible to judge.
Meanwhile, the Spiritual Energy entry flashed bright red.
And beneath it was the warning.
Warning: Maintain Spiritual Energy below 50. If this state continues for more than two months, death will occur.
Right now, the most important issue was the fact that she only had two months left to live.
Keep Spiritual Energy below 50?
Still, seeing the numbers clearly made her feel slightly less lost.
It meant that somehow, she only had to reduce it to 50.
Though she had absolutely no idea how.
“What are these traits supposed to mean…?”
She had no idea what Mourned by Evil or Half-Enlightened meant.
But Infinite Spring of Spiritual Energy and Sickly Flower in a Greenhouse were easy enough to understand.
The reason she had finally died in her previous life—
Her body had been unable to endure the endlessly overflowing spiritual energy within it.
But things were different now.
Mokryeon clenched her fist tightly.
She didn’t know why, but somehow she had returned to the past.
She now understood why she had always been sick.
And she knew that there must be a way to become healthy.
“From now on, I’m going to live a long life—without accidents, disasters, or illness… no matter what!”
