Birth, The Immortal (3)

Neung Je-gang began training in earnest with the martial arts carved on the stone tablets from the next day onward. Since the distinction between inner energies no longer existed, simply memorizing inner cultivation methods was enough.

But the various peerless martial arts that could shake the martial world were different. The manuals on weapon use made all weapons indistinguishable to Neung Je-gang, while the body movement and lightness techniques forced him to ponder which to apply depending on time and place.

The peak of it all was the multitude of assassination arts. Among them were the Hidden Form Escape Technique and the Stealth Tracking Skill, which caught his interest. Against members of intelligence organizations like the Eastern Depot, they were essential to master lest one fall into ruin.

Neung Je-gang decided to memorize all those martial arts first. The vast knowledge engraved on the stone tablets was imprinted one by one in his mind. To prevent forgetting, he repeatedly recited them, and once memorized, he destroyed the stone tablet.

The Demon Doctor, having no greed for martial arts, told him to do as he pleased with the tablets, break them or not. At times, he seemed to show a detached air as if preparing for death.

After all the tablets were gone, Neung Je-gang began training his body with what he memorized. Among them were techniques difficult to practice, such as Energy Supplement through Yin and Energy Supplement through Yang, as well as arts of sexual cultivation like the Paradise Ecstasy Dual Cultivation Technique, which left him in a bind.

At those times, he only studied the theoretical aspects and moved on to other arts. He judged that even without mastering them, at the very least he needed to know them to avoid falling victim.

Then one day, the Demon Doctor called Neung Je-gang. Recently the Demon Doctor had grown haggard and often fell ill, and whenever that happened, Neung Je-gang used his inner energy to bolster his vitality. Though he disliked his character, he could not simply let a man who had aided him die unattended.

“Once you leave this place, will you return to the Eastern Depot?”

“I do not know. I have only thought of avenging my younger brother and hunting down those who destroyed my clan. I have not thought beyond that.”

“Keukkeukkeuk! So you had such blood-deep resolve. Yes, debts must be repaid. Then I have one request for you. If I have ever been of help, I hope you will grant it.”

“Speak.”

“In Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, there is a man called the Soul-Returning Divine Doctor, Je Yeong-hak. I do not know if he still lives there, but he bears some responsibility for the evil I committed in pursuit of medicine.”

“Responsibility? Was he your accomplice?”

Neung Je-gang had heard of the Soul-Returning Divine Doctor by rumor. In Zhejiang, his name rang out as a miracle healer.

“Keukkeukkeuk! No, not that. He was a wall I could never surpass. I, a so-called genius, no matter how hard I tried, could not reach even his toes in medicine. That is why I resorted to human experimentation. If he had not existed, my nickname would not be Demon Doctor, but Divine Doctor.”

“Are you shifting your sins onto him now?”

“No. I merely wish to let him know, even now, that I have surpassed him. Go to him and show him your body. Ordinary men will not see, but he will know at a glance. Tell him this: above the Divine Doctor was the Demon Doctor. That acknowledgment was the reason I lived.”

“So you killed more than 300 people for nothing but such ambition? Do you claim that was right?”

Neung Je-gang clenched his fists. But the Demon Doctor was unmoved.

“Keukkeukkeuk! Three hundred? Not at all. Did you never wonder why only a handful survived the Forbidden Demon Prison?”

“Th-then, surely not…?”

“Keukkeukkeuk!”

The Demon Doctor ended with laughter, then lay down slowly. He closed his eyes and waved him away.

Neung Je-gang instinctively sensed his life was fading, and that he had left those words as his dying will.

Thus the Demon Doctor passed from the world.

West of Beijing, continuing into Hebei Province, lies Xiao Taishan. The Forbidden Demon Prison, managed by the Eastern Depot’s Capture Bureau, was located there.

In a valley of Xiao Taishan, someone lay hidden without moving.

“Damn! Digging in this mountain is truly tough.”

From within a small burrow, barely large enough for a man to crawl into, came a voice.

“Ptui, ptui!”

Ssslurp.

He spat dirt from his mouth and stuck his head out of the hole.

“What now?”

A man sitting outside the burrow asked.

“Damn, let me rest. The iron ore keeps blocking me, I tire quickly.”

The head emerging from the hole grumbled.

But the man outside did not even blink.

“Mole!”

“What?”

“One month left.”

“Y-you bastard! What? Nam Yeong is righteous? What bastard says such things? Taking hostages and breaking into prisons—is that justice?”

The face in the hole cursed bitterly.

Nam Yeong.

The master of Neung Je-gang, who had made him practice poison arts forged from the Three Yang Energy Art and peculiar martial theories. Now Nam Yeong had coerced an expert of Earth-Burrowing Arts to dig all the way to the Forbidden Demon Prison.

“It took over a year just to learn the prison’s location. Another year to find survivors of those who once worked the mines there and learn its approximate size. Then over three months to find you, Mole, hiding like a rat. One more month, and it will be three years. Do you think you can last three more years in that prison?”

“Me? Well, maybe I’d have dug myself out long before that?”

“…!”

“…?”

“Hmph, mistake. I wasn’t asking you. Anyway, I say three years is the limit—living crippled, drained of inner power, licking damp stone walls and eating moss. And now just one month remains. If you fail to bring me that child within the month, you will be the first to see how righteous Nam Yeong changes, Mole!”

“D-damn it! Fine, fine. Haa! How did this Golden-Furred Rat, Bibun, end up meeting such a bastard? And stop calling me Mole, it pisses me off. Got it?”

The Mole, Bibun, ducked his head back into the hole. His grumbling voice echoed faintly from deep underground.

When even that faded, Nam Yeong sighed deeply.

“Sigh! What else can I do, Mole? You are the only one I can trust. If only I can save that child, Je-gang, then I will grant whatever you wish, Mole. Anything…”

Nam Yeong’s lamenting voice carried bitterly through the lonely valley of Xiao Taishan.

At the underground lake of the Forbidden Demon Prison, shrouded in darkness.

“One, two, three, four!”

Neung Je-gang dangled his line into the water and counted. It might seem he was counting fish, but the count always ended at four.

Yet the fish he caught exceeded ten, proving the numbers had nothing to do with them.

Then what did the numbers mean?

“One!”

“Eek!”

“Two!”

Thud.

“Three!”

“Groan!”

“Four!”

Thud.

Something moved in rhythm to his counting.

Neung Je-gang paused and reeled in another fish.

“Oh? Already caught them all? Damn, Majil!”

“Yes, sir!”

The one moving beside him answered.

“It seems the fish love you. Seventeen caught already.”

“I-it seems so.”

Majil forced a smile as he replied, though inside he surely cursed.

Neung Je-gang had left the seventeenth fish on the line without pulling it up. Seventeen was the exact number of living prisoners remaining.

“Majil!”

“Yes, sir!”

“I understand you are hungry. But you are not the only one living here. If you keep catching fish so greedily, the day will come when the lake runs dry. Then everyone will die. Surely you know this?”

“Yes! I understand well.”

Majil feared Neung Je-gang most when he spoke in that calm voice. Because when he exploded, no one knew what he would do.

After the Demon Doctor’s death, the prisoners, under the guise of revenge, had pounced on his corpse like it was nothing but meat.

That provoked Neung Je-gang’s wrath. From that day, the prison came under his control, and he ruled harsher than the Demon Doctor.

The best way to control the many weak was through food. Neung Je-gang replaced free fishing with rations. Naturally, rebellion followed.

But rebels were struck at their blood points and starved for a whole day.

Sometimes, when Neung Je-gang was meditating or sleeping, some secretly caught fish, believing that if unnoticed, it was no crime.

Majil had been unlucky to be caught again this time. Other prisoners would be punished with starvation, but since Majil had been imprisoned directly by Neung Je-gang’s hand, he only disciplined him with drills like this.

It was humiliating, but the prisoners took it as an opportunity. Majil eventually became the one assigned to steal fish, while Neung Je-gang knowingly looked the other way, occasionally catching him to impose discipline.

This strange standoff brought vitality to the prison. Majil, hardened by drills, could now smile through most punishments, though he still whined a little for show.

The prisoners busied themselves watching Neung Je-gang’s every move, seeking chances to catch fish, while Neung Je-gang found some relief from boredom by punishing Majil.

“Majil!”

“Yes, Boss!”

At some point, the prisoners had begun calling him Boss. To Neung Je-gang, it was a familiar sound, reminding him of Cheong Yeon and Gwak Ung, who once used the same.

“Go share the fish. Eat the leftover one yourself.”

“What about you, Boss?”

“I have no appetite.”

“Yes, sir.”

Majil happily ran off with the fish.

When he was gone, Neung Je-gang gazed uneasily at the underground lake.

The lake looked unchanged. But unseen things could change nonetheless.

“How much longer can it last?”

The fish were no longer as plentiful.

Once, having thrived in the underground for millennia, they had been abundant. But decades of unchecked hunting had nearly wiped them out.

What had begun as half a joke and half a threat in rationing had become a desperate reality.

“I must regulate this somehow.”

Neung Je-gang muttered as he returned to his dwelling.

Climbing onto a stone platform, he sat cross-legged and began his breathing exercises. In the Forbidden Demon Prison, with nothing else to do, he cultivated whether in life or death.