Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

”No, why is my life so merciless...?”

While I was earnestly praying for Hwa-eun’s merciless success, the red poisonous energy that flowed out of Hwa-eun’s body completely swallowed her up.

The poisonous energy that had been slowly rotating while wrapping around Hwa-eun changed as if it were solid, then completely enclosed Hwa-eun, turning into an egg-like state.

On top of that, Hwa-eun was curled up completely.

She looked exactly like she’d gone into an egg.

I couldn’t not check whether her breakthrough was going well, so I spread my energy and examined Hwa-eun inside the poisonous energy, but the moment I looked into the inside of that poisonous membrane, I ended up gasping in shock.

”Huhhhk!?”

Something strange was happening inside that egg.

I couldn’t tell if things were going well or not, and I couldn’t even touch it.

In a panic, I called Zihwa.

I was going to call her anyway, but now I called even more urgently.

『”Z-Zihwa, come out right now, hurry!”

”What is it? What is it that you’re calling so urgently?”

”R-right now, it looks like Hwa-eun is entering the Golden Core Stage, and it looks like her body’s changing. But something’s weird!”

”Changing? Ah, I see. Hwa-eun was cultivating yao energy based on poisonous energy, wasn’t she? Wait a moment.”』

A little later, Zihwa appeared in human form, like she’d borrowed a magic treasure from Soyeon.

”What is it!?”

Zihwa burst out into Dokmul-hyang and shouted at me, then when she saw the egg-like poisonous energy holding Hwa-eun, she made an impressed expression.

”Ho. Is she rising into the Golden Core Stage? Your wives, every last one of them, have good potential.”

Hwa-eun was entering the Golden Core Stage after Gun Hye-rin, so it seemed impressive, but that wasn’t what mattered right now.

Because right now, inside that egg, Hwa-eun’s body was melting.

”That’s not what matters right now! Inside that egg, Hwa-eun’s body is melting right now!”

It hadn’t been like this with Gun Hye-rin.

Back then, it was just horns, pupils, a tail—things like that growing out.

The process of a membrane of energy wrapping around her was similar, but the change inside the energy hadn’t been this drastic, so I couldn’t help being shocked.

The flow of energy was stable, but her body was melting.

In the time we exchanged a few words, Hwa-eun’s pretty face and her big chest—

both melted, turning into something like water.

The only things left were her brain, and her upper, middle, and lower dantian.

Energy was slowly circulating through the upper, middle, and lower dantian.

As I stood there with a dazed expression at the fact everything had melted, Zihwa looked at my face, then grinned and said,

”Don’t worry. It’s going well.”

It was going very well, so don’t worry.

Energetically, there was nothing strange, so somewhere in my heart I’d been thinking it might be fine, but the fact Hwa-eun had melted made me ask again with a worried expression.

”Really? But her whole body melted. Is it supposed to be like this?”

”Well, demonic energy and yao energy are fundamentally different. If a human cultivates demonic energy, they become a humanoid demon, and if a beast cultivates it, they become a beast-type demon, but yao energy turns the cultivator into a yao beast. Normally, if you were a yao beast from the start, it wouldn’t matter, but Hwa-eun is a human, isn’t she?

Since the species itself changes, everything except the important parts of the body gets remade from scratch.”

I’d thought that once you went through the bone-and-marrow transformation at the peak of the realm, that was the end of drastic bodily changes, but because Hwa-eun cultivated poison arts—which were a kind of yao energy—her body was changing entirely.

In that instant, I thought this merciless roll was a success.

‘Nice! Then it won’t be a mammal.’

Because taxonomy still wasn’t developed in this era, so people here wouldn’t know, but humans are mammals.

Because we give birth and nurse.

So if Hwa-eun were transforming into some animal, there was no way her entire body would change like that.

Since we’d be in the same mammal category, I figured it would only change a little, like when Gun Hye-rin grew ears or a tail.

Thinking it through, melting everything except the brain inside a cocoon and then getting a new body again was an insect trait—especially butterflies or moths.

It was proof of complete metamorphosis.

”Then what kind of spirit creature is she transforming into completely?”

”No. It’s the Golden Core Stage, so it won’t be a complete transformation. It’ll probably be something like half-human half-beast, or a humanoid half-beast.”

Half-human half-beast meant a human, but with spirit creature traits—basically a kind of beastfolk.

Hwa-eun was already attractive, but my heart started pounding, wondering what kind of spirit creature traits she’d end up with.

***

While Hwa-eun was undergoing her yao beast transformation, I left Hwa-eun inside Dokmul-hyang and brought Ji-ryeon the next day.

Thinking about Gun Hye-rin’s case, it would take at least three days for Hwa-eun to finish changing.

It felt like a waste to just wait that long.

I didn’t have just one or two wives, so there were plenty of people waiting their turn for the dual cultivation method, and I couldn’t just spend time doing nothing.

After Ji-ryeon, I had to do Zihwa too.

And Senior Sister was waiting outside, so I needed to raise my wives quickly and go back out.

”So-ryong!”

Ji-ryeon, who’d washed clean and even rubbed on fragrant oil, dove onto the bed the moment she came out into Dokmul-hyang.

The bed I was lying on.

”Kghk. W-welcome.”

Ji-ryeon is on the light side, but when you add the position energy from diving onto me, it’s only natural that the air in my lungs got swallowed away.

”It’s been so long. Hah, So-ryong smell.”

Ji-ryeon rubbed her face against my chest as she lay on the bed, looking happy, then said in a sulky voice,

”These days So-ryong has been so busy that I was really upset, you know? You don’t even have time to hug me.”

She said “hug,” but that “hug” definitely wasn’t just a contextual meaning.

With Gun Hye-rin or Hwa-eun, it would mean a hug, but this was Ji-ryeon.

Among my wives, Ji-ryeon had the highest sexual curiosity, so that definitely meant “hug” in a different sense.

She knew I’d been busy, but it seemed she couldn’t help feeling hurt anyway.

Ji-ryeon quickly fixed her expression, put on an adorable face, and said,

”So-ryong, you have to do a lot for me today.”

”A lot?”

”Yeah. Ten times, a hundred times.”

No—how does the number jump like that all at once right after ten?

I was dumbfounded, but I couldn’t show it.

I probably couldn’t do a hundred times time-wise, but I’d already learned that I absolutely couldn’t say that.

I already knew that if I showed the rational T that values logic, facts, and efficiency over emotions, my wives wouldn’t give me a good evaluation.

A famous animal known for having the shortest mating time among animals is the rabbit.

People say a rabbit’s mating time is five seconds, so unless you’re a rabbit, a hundred times would be hard, but if I said something like, “Ji-ryeon, unless I’m a rabbit, I can’t do a hundred times,” then it was obvious I’d be “the guy with no tact” to Ji-ryeon for a while.

”A-a hundred. Sure, why not. I’ll do it.”

”Ah, I love it. This is why I like our So-ryong.”

Excited, Ji-ryeon hugged me and slipped her hand in through a gap in my clothes.

Ji-ryeon’s hand burrowed into my clothes like when Cho, Hyang, and Bini were little.

Each time Ji-ryeon’s hand dug in under my clothes and brushed my skin, my body jolted.

I made Ji-ryeon’s body jolt too, then decided to properly go into the dual cultivation method.

”All right, Ji-ryeon. Let’s start.”

”Okay.”

Ji-ryeon seemed more interested in something else than the method, but isn’t it true that no matter how you go, as long as you get to Seoul, it’s fine?

Just like with the other wives, after swallowing a spirit stone and drinking spirit liquor, we went straight into yin-yang unification.

”Haaang.”

The process was similar to Gun Hye-rin and Hwa-eun’s.

It was a process of using my energy to bolster Ji-ryeon’s energy so she could step into the next realm, and with the energy from the spirit stone and spirit liquor we’d taken, plus the surrounding energy that was denser than the Lower Realm, energy began surging rapidly inside Ji-ryeon’s body.

”Ah... It shouldn’t be like this from the start...”

Ji-ryeon sounded regretful as the energy surged and spun quickly through her body.

It seemed she wanted to share plenty of love today, but since it looked like she’d go straight into breaking through her realm, she felt regretful.

-Fwoosh.

Energy bloomed like an explosion.

It was a holy energy I’d never felt before.

I panicked because I suddenly felt such an overwhelmingly holy energy, but when I thought about it, Ji-ryeon was a disciple of Bo-ta Hermitage.

She’d cultivated a Buddhist inner art—meaning, an inner method containing dharma power.

‘Ah, right. Even though it doesn’t fit her, Ji-ryeon really did cultivate a Buddhist inner method?’

If you put it in fantasy terms, Ji-ryeon was in the “fallen saintess” position.

I thought it wouldn’t be strange if a god said something to her, and Ji-ryeon floated lightly up into the air and slowly crossed her legs in meditation.

She joined her hands, forming a circle below her navel.

A lotus made of energy bloomed beneath Ji-ryeon’s butt.

”Ooh.”

I’d already heard that dharma power was holy energy, so it didn’t make the body change.

So I thought she’d safely just raise her realm like this—but something strange happened to Ji-ryeon’s body while she was seated on the lotus, sunk into selflessness.

The translucent lotus supporting Ji-ryeon.

In an instant, one petal of the lotus made of holy energy turned black and slipped off.

Like petals falling from a flower whose lifespan had ended.

”What?”

Then the energy that should have been rising felt like it weakened a little.

But it wasn’t just a feeling—when another petal fell, it became an obvious decrease in energy.

Because of the dual cultivation method, the energy remaining in her body should be stimulated, swell greatly, and carry her into the next realm, but forget the Life-and-Death Realm—at this rate, it felt like she might not even reach the Profound Realm.

Ji-ryeon’s face had also changed into an expression like she felt stifled.

Completely different from the expression of bliss she’d had earlier.

With no choice, I called Zihwa again, and Zihwa, who came out, said with an “ah” expression.

”Th-this. Ji-ryeon cultivated Buddhist energy...”

It sounded like she’d forgotten, but honestly, even I couldn’t believe Ji-ryeon cultivated Buddhist martial arts, so how could Zihwa not be the same?

I said as if it were obvious.

”It’s hard to believe, but yes.”

Then Zihwa, flustered, bit her lower lip and said,

”If things go wrong, she might never be able to raise her realm again.”

”What!? Why?”

You said it was fine with Hwa-eun, so why are you making it sound so serious with Ji-ryeon?

I looked at Zihwa with an expression like I couldn’t believe it, and Zihwa explained why she said that.

”Originally, those who serve divine beings say that when they rise into the Golden Core Stage, they can behold the feet of the one they serve.

It’s not that they truly come—it’s more like they manifest in the mind with energy?

A lowly being has grown into energy strong enough that those beings can notice their presence, so those beings come to decide whether the realm increase will be granted—whether it’s acceptable to bestow more of their energy.

That’s why those who serve divine beings often gain various abilities after beholding those feet. But the problem is, divine beings like it when you keep the laws and precepts they established.

They dislike the opposite. But Ji-ryeon, she...”

Zihwa trailed off while looking at Ji-ryeon.

At that moment, one more petal fell from the eight petals.

Now there were five left.

From Zihwa’s explanation, I felt like I understood why she said Ji-ryeon might never be able to raise her realm again.

Originally, Buddhism is a religion that values enlightenment—liberation.

That enlightenment is gained through meditation, ascetic practice, and celibacy.

But wasn’t Ji-ryeon a heretic even among Buddhists?

She was far from ascetic practice or celibacy.

On top of that, she’d raised her realm with the dual cultivation method.

So if that being saw it, what would they say?

They tell you to be celibate, but you raise your realm through sex and then go to behold their feet—there was no way you’d hear anything nice.

No, they might clutch the back of their neck and collapse, or strike a bell-slap of scripture.

‘This is a mess.’

So Buddhist martial arts were basically borrowing the energy of a higher being, and to get promoted, you needed approval, but Ji-ryeon’s performance evaluation was terrible, so it looked like she was about to be passed over for promotion.

The lotus energy supporting Ji-ryeon right now was energy I’d activated.

Once it flew away, it would be hard to create that kind of energy again.

Because only the first time you do the dual cultivation method gives a huge benefit—you can’t squeeze out the same efficiency just by doing it over and over.

So it meant the energy I’d activated this time was definitely going to get wasted, and even if she piled energy again and applied for promotion, if she didn’t change as a person, it sounded like she wouldn’t be able to raise her realm again.

That was probably why Zihwa said something like that.

‘Come on, accept it generously! So what if she liked sex a little—why are you being so strict?’

I was stomping my feet in regret.

The fifth petal was already starting to lose its color—

and then it happened.

From somewhere in this blocked-off space, light suddenly burst.

-Fwoomp.

”Ugh.”

It was dazzling.

I shielded my eyes with Zihwa’s body and looked toward where the light was pouring from, and that light began shining on Ji-ryeon.

”Th-that is!?”

I cried out in shock, and behind me, Zihwa shouted in an unbelievable voice.

”Intervention by another divine being!”

”What!?”

The light that had been slightly struggling against the existing energy had already driven all the existing energy away and settled in, completely on its own.

At the same time, the five petals supporting Ji-ryeon changed from a white lotus into pink.

No—It felt like the flower itself was changing.

It was clearly a lotus, but the flower supporting Ji-ryeon completely changed into a familiar flower I knew well.

”Peach blossoms?”

The changed flower was peach blossoms.

Peach blossoms.