Unconsciously groping at his body and shouting, Seowoon drew strange glances from passersby who quickly steered clear of him.
Only then, perhaps embarrassed, Seowoon quickened his pace down the street, but soon came to a sudden halt.
He fiddled with a familiar ring on his index finger, and then, from his left hand, another ring appeared out of nowhere.
If anyone had been paying close attention, they might have mistaken Seowoon for a magician.
The moment he slipped the newly appeared ring onto his middle finger, his body felt instantly lighter.
"Ah!"
It was only then that the realization hit him—this wasn't a dream. Everything had really happened.
Just as he was about to savor that strange afterglow, tears began streaming endlessly from Seowoon's eyes.
The vital energy that had once filled his core and invigorated his entire body was now gone without a trace. The overwhelming sense of emptiness swallowed him whole.
He didn't care how strange he looked; the tears wouldn't stop no matter what.
"Oh my, I think he just got dumped."
"How pathetic. A grown man crying in the street… Tsk tsk."
Ignoring the whispers around him, Seowoon slumped to the ground, trying to soothe his crushed spirit. After a while, he finally forced himself to stand.
It won't take long. I'll fill my core again soon.
His steps quickened as he made his way home.
As soon as he stepped into his tiny 6-pyeong studio apartment, he perched on the bed and pulled out an item from his subspace.
The first thing to appear in his hand was the Manual of Fist Technique.
[Ding! Would you like to learn it?]
"Of course!"
Seowoon clenched his fist in excitement—his system was still intact, even after returning to the real world.
The moment he pressed the "O" button, the manual disintegrated into dust and scattered from his hand.
"Ah…"
As he recalled the Fist technique in his mind, the frustration within him began to ease.
It was a martial art he had once wielded with his own body. But now, as if someone had erased the knowledge from his mind, the emptiness it left behind was suffocating.
No one could truly understand unless they had experienced it themselves—but for someone who had, it was enough to drive them mad.
Letting out a sigh, Seowoon muttered as he thought of all the martial knowledge that had vanished during his walk home.
"Finally… I can breathe again."
It wasn't everything, but recovering even a portion of that lost knowledge helped ease the frustration.
Feeling a bit better, Seowoon pulled out the next item.
A gold necklace gleamed in his hand.
"Wonder how many don this is? I'm sure it's pure gold…"
Judging by its weight, it had to be well over 20 don.
That would fetch nearly 4 million won, but in the game it only cost him one coin.
A total bargain.
"Next time, I should look for gold bars."
For some reason, aside from enhancement items that could impact gameplay, most other items were absurdly cheap.
"This one too…"
Now a glass bottle filled with green liquid appeared in his hand.
Refined Troll Blood—a miraculous item that could give a terminally ill person a healthy year of life. And it cost only 2 coins.
He couldn't even imagine how much a wealthy, desperate person would pay for this.
Among all the items Seowoon had brought over, this might have been the most economically valuable—assuming he ever found a way to sell it.
"You never know with people."
Someone out there might be desperate enough to believe him. It never hurt to be prepared.
"I'll hold off on the elixirs until I achieve Minor Heavenly Cycle."
As soon as he finished speaking, Seowoon sat cross-legged in the middle of his small room.
He hadn't bought a cultivation manual—for he had already learned a technique from Jang Docheon.
Instead, he had only purchased Cheongun Pill.
He focused, silently reciting the inner incantations, trying to sense his energy. But not even an hour passed before he let out a sigh and opened his eyes.
"Sigh… Can't feel a damn thing."
Despite having once drawn in even the ambient life force from outside, he couldn't sense the slightest hint of energy now.
Grrrrr.
Right on cue, his stomach growled. With a sigh, Seowoon stood up and headed outside.
"I'll eat something first, then try again."
His thoughts grew more tangled as he walked toward a nearby diner.
I still remember handling powerful internal energy like it was second nature… So why can't I feel anything at all now?
"Welcome!"
Lost in thought, he snapped back to reality at the sharp voice of the restaurant owner and returned the greeting.
"Set meal, right?"
"Yes."
He had discovered this restaurant not long after moving, and despite its modest appearance, the food was good for the price, so he became a frequent customer.
There weren't many places where you could get fish, several side dishes, and stew for just 5,000 won.
Even with a full spread in front of him, he was so absorbed in trying to understand why he couldn't sense any energy that he hardly noticed the food going down.
After paying and stepping outside to head home, he absent mindedly stroked the ring of the subspace on his finger, trying to clear his cluttered mind. Suddenly, he shouted:
"That's right! I totally forgot I had that!"
He was so excited that people passing by gave him strange looks.
Feeling embarrassed under their stares, he lowered his head and broke into a run. His face, though flushed, was full of excitement.
Beep beep beep beep.
He punched in the passcode and dashed into his home, hurriedly pulling out a necklace from his subspace.
It was a carefully crafted necklace dyed in shades of blue and green.
As he held up the fairly well-known item—Cameron's Necklace—his eyes sparkled with determination.
"No way that guy would carry trash. And any item named after a person was always high-tier… If it boosts communication with nature…"
Muttering to himself while staring at the necklace, he suddenly looked resolved, put it around his neck, and sat down in a lotus position.
Just ten minutes later, a wide grin crept across his face as he sat with his eyes closed.
"I can feel it! The energy filling this room!"
Time slipped by as Seowoon immersed himself in attempting to cultivate energy, but eventually, he opened his eyes and cursed out loud.
"Damn it!"
Soaked in sweat, he realized just how difficult it was to focus on cultivation through breathing alone.
Even following the proper breathing technique was uncomfortable. Trying to guide the sensed energy into his lower abdomen was another battle altogether.
If he focused too much on the energy, his breathing would falter, and the energy he had barely held onto would escape with each exhale.
Just when he felt he was getting the hang of it, distracting thoughts would invade, and the scarce energy would rebel like someone choking on water, leaving him no progress.
"I didn't think it would be this different from learning through the system…"
It was a predictable outcome, but that only made him angrier.
It felt like having his powers stolen—an indescribable sense of loss unless you experienced it yourself.
"Phew. If everyone could do it overnight, they'd all be masters."
Had it not been for Cameron's Necklace, he might've spent months or even years just trying to sense energy.
"Haa… If I'd known, I should've brought the Inner Core Heart Manual. I underestimated martial arts too much."
He regretted not bringing at least a secret manual, which could've helped him learn like he had with system-based martial arts. But it was too late now.
Slap!
He slapped both cheeks hard with his hands and shook his head before sitting back down in a lotus position.
"Other masters must have gone through this same process before they could start cultivating."
In truth, Seowoon's martial arts aptitude wasn't bad.
In fact, it was quite gifted.
Sensing energy varied by individual, but anyone could eventually do it with effort.
Seowoon drastically reduced that time thanks to Cameron's Necklace. But even so, very few could begin cultivating the moment they sensed energy.
No matter how well you controlled your breathing, atmospheric energy wouldn't just willingly enter a human's lower abdomen.
Capturing that freely floating energy and making it your own required ongoing effort.
But Seowoon was already managing a rough form of cultivation as soon as he sensed energy.
It wasn't perfect, but he was gradually accumulating energy in his lower abdomen—a sign of impressive talent.
Although from another world, Jang Do-cheon had likely passed on his true martial arts because he recognized Seowoon's potential.
As Seowoon calmed his mind, reciting the mental chant and focusing on his breathing, his concentration sharpened noticeably.
All stray thoughts vanished, and he could focus solely on the chant and his breath. Instead of forcibly grabbing the free-flowing energy, he began to gently guide it with his breath—just like in the other world.
With a tingling pain, the energy pathways to his lower abdomen began to open, and the clogged meridians across his body started to circulate the gathered energy, albeit faintly.
Baekmu Juyun-gong was a technique focused on solidity.
It balanced the five elements to fortify the blood vessels and meridians and build a solid foundation in the body for accumulating the energy of nature.
This pursuit of fundamentals was common to all cultivation techniques, but doing so thoroughly had elevated Baekmu Juyun-gong to the level of a divine technique.
Had Seowoon learned a different method, the impurities clogging his meridians would have made cultivation impossible.
But it was Baekmu Juyun-gong's stabilizing power that let him slowly force energy into the blocked pathways, eventually enabling him to achieve microcosmic orbit.
As he continued focusing on his breathing in an attempt to complete the microcosmic orbit without system assistance, the light of day and darkness of night passed through the room more than three times.
Eventually, Seowoon opened his eyes and let out a long breath as he released the lotus position.
"This isn't easy."
Even after gathering energy into his danjeon (energy center) and circulating it through jucheon, it was ultimately too much to expect that he could break through all his blocked meridians.
No matter how miraculous the technique, completing the small celestial circuit with just the breath-gathered energy—without even a trace of inner strength—was an impossible task, especially with the stubborn murkiness clogging Seowoon's meridians.
– Ka-tok!
"Hm?"
Lost in thought while gazing down at the spatial ring, he turned toward the sound from his phone and saw a familiar nickname.
– Hyung! It's been three days without a word. Not logging in? You must be studying hard.
It was a KakaoTalk message from a younger friend he'd met while gaming.
"Three days?"
But what caught Seowoon's attention was that specific phrase—three days.
He picked up his phone to check the date and, sure enough, three days had flown by in the blink of an eye.
"Gasp…"
He'd read in martial arts novels that things like this could happen, but he had never imagined that he'd actually meditate for three days straight without realizing it.
As soon as he grasped that time had passed, hunger gnawed at him, and even his back started to ache.
"First things first… I need to eat something and get some sleep."
Seowoon bought a convenience store lunch box, ate a simple meal, and immediately laid down to sleep.
"Haaaah!"
He let out a long yawn, stretched, and checked his phone. Only nine hours had passed.
Tilting his head in confusion, he sprang up from bed.
"For staying up three nights straight, I feel way too refreshed."
Feeling no fatigue at all, he ate another convenience store lunch he had stored earlier, then pulled out a wooden box from the subspace.
"Whew."
After thinking long and hard, he realized the road to completing the small celestial circuit would be a long one.
Among his blocked meridians, many seemed nearly impossible to clear, and until he completed the small celestial circuit, he couldn't form a perfect danjeon.
"Still, this technique was passed down by that man… I should at least be able to absorb this much elixir…"
Even as he said that, Seowoon hesitated to open the box and consume the Cheongunhwan (Azure Cloud Pill).
As a martial arts novel enthusiast, he knew better than anyone how dangerous it could be to misuse elixirs.
Even so, he couldn't suppress the impatience burning within him.
The sensation of powerful energy surging through his body, completely filling his danjeon, and reinforcing him—it wasn't something easily forgotten.
Even now, just recalling that moment made the emptiness from his lost inner power come rushing back.
Given that, it was no wonder he was itching to rebuild his danjeon and restore his inner strength as quickly as possible.
"Whew."
With a deep breath, Seowoon finally picked up the Cheongunhwan from inside the box.
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