Baek Woo Jin realized over the past week that his routine was slowly and strangely getting tangled.
When he woke up in the morning, had a pleasant drink, and went for a walk, Jegal Yeon Ji would appear as if she had been waiting for him.
“Where on earth have you been hiding to appear like a ghost?!”
Baek Woo Jin grew surprised and shouted. The girl just fidgeted with her fingers.
“I… I was just on a walk…”
Since she insisted so, there was no way to question her further. If he pressured her anymore, she would surely start to whimper.
Baek Woo Jin’s reputation inside the academy was almost at rock bottom as it was.
He wandered the academy drunk every day and attended classes in such a state, so not only the students but also some instructors glared at him as if daring him to cross the line.
If he made a girl cry now, it would just add another infamous mark to his name and everyone’s worst opinions of him would be confirmed.
“W-Well, since we met, let me change your bandages…!”
She applied the ointment to his hand and changed the bandages.
Five long claws had pierced his shoulder and he had cut his arm with a sword, so he thought it would take at least two to three weeks for the injury to heal, but he was actually able to move his arm again within just a week.
Such fast healing must have been thanks to the golden ointment Jegal Yeon Ji applied to his arm.
“Is that golden ointment also made by the Jegal clan?”
“Yes.”
The Jegal clan was known for their experience in pharmaceuticals.
The place they naturally headed to together was the request office. Baek Woo Jin who still needed points for the semester had to go on another mission as soon as his wounds healed.
“Hmm… there are no requests that catch my eye.”
He would usually accept most requests, but the ones remaining now were truly hopeless.
After a light stroll through the request office, they headed to the dining hall.
Breakfast was always soup rice. There was nothing better to soothe a stomach troubled by a last night’s drinking.
Just when he was about to take a big spoonful to his mouth, a new person appeared.
“Woo Jin-ah!”
It was Shin Ye Hwa.
She kept coming alone without Baek Moo-hyeok.
“……”
Baek Woo Jin stared disapprovingly at her as she naturally took a seat next to him.
“Hey…”
He growled into her ear in a low voice.
“At least have breakfast with big brother…”
“I’ll handle it myself!”
This was probably meant for him to mind his own business.
So, he decided to let it go.
She’ll figure it out.
Anyway, he had tried to help his childhood friend but if she didn’t want to be spoon-fed, then so be it.
A gloomy beauty and a lively beauty. Regardless, having a meal with two beauties was quite something.
“Oh my, Miss Jegal. I see you again today?”
“Good morning….”
“You’re having soup rice! That’s a food that makes you gain a lot of weight.”
“It’s young master Baek’s favorite….”
He felt uncomfortable…
He didn’t know why, but the relationship between the two girls didn’t seem very good.
Amidst their ordinary words and tone of voice, there was a distinct sense of sharp daggers being exchanged.
After finishing the uncomfortable meal, he headed to one of his required courses. The history of the Moorim world.
The content was nothing more than a memoir written solely from the perspective of the orthodox faction. It was full of biased pride boasting that righteousness and chivalry always prevailed and in the end, they won everything. It was a kind of nationalistic fervor but for the orthodox faction.
“That’s it for today’s class.”
At the announcement of the end of the lecture by the old instructor with white hair, Baek Woo Jin stood up straight away.
Returning to the dining hall with the same two girls for lunch left him restless, but afterward, he would finally have some freedom.
This is because both of them left for the lecture hall to take other classes.
“I need to leave for a mission again soon, really.”
Either separate them or go alone.
After he made that vow to himself, he returned to the dormitory.
“Hehe.”
It had taken him five days to go from Sichuan to Hanzhong, and another week had passed since he returned to the academy.
Baek Woo Jin picked up the flask on the small table and smiled sinisterly.
He opened the flask and poured the pre-prepared liquor into a bowl. As the liquor flowed like a stream, the main character finally made its appearance.
Clink!
“Oh, oh….”
It changed.
The ominous dark red color of the demonic stone had faded to a very light shade.
“This actually works.”
Baek Woo Jin held the much lighter-colored demonic stone in his hand.
He still felt the demonic energy inside it. However, it was so weak that it would take decades for an ordinary person holding it to go crazy.
“The energy itself has weakened….”
Since the demonic stone was purified, the energy contained within it also seemed to have dissipated to some extent, but that wasn’t a significant loss.
If Baek Woo Jin could ferment it with liquor, the demonic stone would take on a new meaning for him.
“A walking elixir? Oh wow…!”
He salivated.
“Tsk.”
He wiped the drool with his sleeve, then untied the gourd from his waist, placed it on the table, and opened the stopper.
With a pop, a fragrant aroma of liquor wafted up.
“What will it taste like? I wonder.”
After smacking his lips, he carefully dropped the demonic stone into the gourd in his hand. Then, after sealing the gourd again, he started to shake it slowly while channeling his internal energy into it.
Each time he shook it, he heard the demonic stone clinking against the walls of the gourd.
After a long while, no matter how much he shook it, the familiar clinking sound of the stone could no longer be heard.
So he opened the stopper again while suppressing his pounding heart.
Sssss
An unusual smell reached the tip of his nose along with a sharp, hissing sound like when he opened the cap of a soda back on Earth.
“Wow, what is this?”
The smell was strong.
Could this really be the smell of liquor?
He was half-doubtful, so he poured a bit of the liquor into the teacup on the table.
The transparent liquor that was tinged with a light red color filled the teacup.
“Ah, whatever.”
He brought the teacup to his lips and drank it in one gulp.
The moment the lightly reddish liquor flowed down his throat, Baek Woo Jin’s eyes widened.
A sharp tingling sensation filled his mouth!
As he naturally channeled the drinking wine cultivation technique, the liquor’s energy began to flow through his meridians and coursed through his entire body.
He felt a belated burning sensation of heat in the bloodstream through which the energy flowed. A tingling sensation similar to the one he felt in his mouth spread throughout his body.
“Oooh”
If someone asked whether it was painful, the answer would be no.
“But what is this strange feeling?”
At first, it was undoubtedly painful. No, it was more like the stinging sensation of a burn covering his entire body.
The important part came next.
Through the stinging and tingling pain, a refreshing coolness surged up like a geyser.
Wow…
He had drunk a lot of liquor in his life.
In the first fantasy world he crossed over to, he had even conquered the Red Dragon’s Mustache which was a liquor so strong that even the most seasoned dwarven drinkers would slur their words after one sip.
However, this kind of liquor was definitely a first. He was confident that no matter which world or dimension he searched, he would never find a similar drink.
From that moment on, he started chugging the gourd.
With his tingling mouth fitting perfectly around the gourd’s neck, he began to drink for dear life. But before long, that taste vanished completely as the gourd ran dry.
“Ah, it’s finished.”
The treasure gourd would refill only after he drank an entire bottle’s worth of liquor. The taste of ordinary baijiu (distilled liquor) meant that the demonic stone’s liquor had run out.
When Baek Woo Jin smacked his lips and patted his belly, his face gradually stiffened.
“…Did I drink too much?”
His entire body started to turn red and heat began to rise.
This was the beginning of the side effects from the uncontrolled movements of the new internal energy that flowed into his body. It was deviating from the controlled drinking wine cultivation technique. Because this time, he didn’t drink an ordinary medicinal liquor mixed with herbs.
“Oh, if I don’t handle this right, I’m screwed.”
Baek Woo Jin immediately realized the gravity of the situation, sat down in a lotus position, and began to actively channel the drinking wine cultivation technique.
As to be expected from the potent liquor of the demonic stone, the energy he gained from it was violently coursing through his veins.
He forcibly gathered the chaotic energies and slowly guided them into the prescribed pathways.
The heat invading his head gradually receded.
Like people queuing up to enter a popular restaurant, the internal energy lined up and began to stack neatly in his dantian. Only then could he take a step back from the brink of crisis.
“Phew…!”
After consolidating all the energy in his dantian, Baek Woo Jin finally opened his tightly sealed mouth and took in a deep breath.
“I really almost got into big trouble.”
Now, he could breathe a sigh of relief, but moments ago, it had indeed been a dire situation.
If he hadn’t been able to control the considerable amount of internal energy trying to move on its own, the energy would have become entangled, causing him to either die from a qi deviation or at least lose all his internal energy and become partially paralyzed.
“Was I too excited…?”
They say once you start drinking, the alcohol calls for more. The problem was getting emotionally carried away with the peculiar pleasure that divine wine brought.
If not for his experience in handling energy since his time in the other world, he would have faced irreversible consequences.
“Let’s reflect, reflect.”
After slapping his cheeks a couple of times, he vowed not to repeat the same mistake and then gauged the now calm internal energy within his dantian.
“Roughly… 40 years’ worth, I suppose.”
When Baek Woo Jin first possessed this body, the amount of internal energy he had was barely about thirty years’ worth, or half a cycle.
To reach a high state of enlightenment, the amount of internal energy needed as a foundation was crucial.
The internal energy required for a first-rank martial artist to reach the peak master lever was sixty years, or one full cycle.
Most children of prestigious clans quickly accumulate internal energy from a young age through the use of herbal medicine and spiritual herbs, along with basic physical training.
This early education was important. But even though he had the powerful background of the Shaanxi Baek clan, why was Baek Woo Jin’s internal energy so low?
The reason lay in Baek Woo Jin’s growth rate.
From a young age, he was praised as a martial prodigy who would follow in the footsteps of his older brother Baek Moo Hyeok, but as his growth slowed down to the point where he was compared to a dunce, their father and the head of the family Baek Young Hak poured all the family’s prepared elixirs into his brother Baek Moo Hyeok.
With the family’s support concentrated on him, Baek Moo Hyeok became one of the top three masters among the third-years, while Baek Woo Jin who received only the crumbs left over from his brother remained a second-rank martial artist until now.
“What I’ve gathered so far…”
After the original Baek Woo Jin died, with the help of the Drunken Immortal and by consistently drinking medicinal wine, he managed to accumulate roughly ten years’ worth of internal energy.
“I think I obtained about half of that from the demonic stone.”
The demonic stone of the demon that reached the peak master level by absorbing the blood of animals.
By using only half of it, he gained five years’ worth of internal energy, so if he had fully melted one, he would have gained ten years.
“Oh, this is something.”
A deep smile spread across Baek Woo Jin’s lips.
The demons were in for a rough time.
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