Jinseong was thus immersed in the magic.
Like a gambler who hit the jackpot on his first bet.
Like a farmer who experienced a bountiful harvest for the first time and couldn’t forget the taste.
Or perhaps like a merchant who unexpectedly came into a large sum of money by chance.
Jinseong decided to become a warlock.
And this vow continued until the world erupted into war, and he led his near-dead body to burn himself alive.
Even if time turned back, walking the path of a warlock was a given.
‘Magic has many faces, but only one body. That is called obsession.’
Jinseong smiled and took out a PET bottle from the refrigerator.
Inside the bottle, red liquid reminiscent of rubies shimmered brilliantly, thick yet emitting its enchanting scent without any spillage. The color was like a dye made from melted gems, and the fragrance was purely life itself, indescribably sweet.
Blood.
The liquid that runs through veins and constitutes life, blood.
Blood was a catalyst used in many spells.
Symbols were important in magic, summoning, and sorcery. Thus, astrology attached symbols and names to stars and used those names, while magic also attached meanings to elements and drawings to perform miracles called magic circles. Sorcery also often used symbols extracted from materials to activate spells. And the purer the material, the more valuable it was, and the same amount could produce more powerful effects.
The blood he held was top grade as well.
It was 2+ grade blood certified by the Catalyst Cooperative. Considering that higher-grade blood was comparable to gold in weight, it could be said that it was the best he could obtain now.
However…
“This is useless.”
Jinseong put the pure blood, which also had the symbolic value of being a virgin’s blood, back into the refrigerator.
* * *
“I need trash.”
The purer the catalyst, the better.
Gems must be flawless.
Blood should be as pure as its owner.
Corpses should be freshly dead.
Treasures should be free of thoughts, and relics should have a history of being used for their intended purpose.
Thus, it could be said that the catalyst Jinseong desired was extremely unconventional.
What he wanted was trash.
Something that couldn’t be traded normally, something that couldn’t even be considered an object of trade.
In terms of food, it would be vegetable scraps discarded during preparation; in terms of wood, it would be sawdust produced during cutting.
“I can’t become a mercenary yet, so I’ll have to hunt for trash.”
Jinseong clasped his hands together and stood up.
Then he started searching around the room for clothes to wear.
The first thing he picked up was black pants.
Crunch.
Jinseong bit his ring finger to draw blood. Strangely, even though he just bit lightly, blood flowed continuously.
Using the ample blood from his finger, he began drawing a pattern on the back of the black pants, not quite a character, not quite a picture, but something resembling a child’s scrawl.
It resembled the seal script used by shamans when drawing talismans and even more closely the ancient oracle bone script used in ancient China.
A horizontal line at the top and bottom, with a single vertical line crossing between them.
And between the vertical line, a siot (ᄉ) shaped figure.
This character was called “mu” (巫) for shaman.
“To touch the ground, the legs must be firm, and it is not the hard bones but the flexible knees that move them, so history will be imprinted in every step.”
In ancient China, walking was considered important. Therefore, martial arts, a discipline to control and transcend the body, taught walking before weapon wielding, and those learning Taoist arts learned how to tread the ground before reading the heavens and writing talismans.
The obsession with walking is not fully understood, but according to the oldest records, it originated with King Yu, the founder of China’s first hereditary dynasty, the Xia Dynasty. He was the son of Gun and was granted the throne by the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. He was said to possess great supernatural abilities and enlightenment, using his steps to display divine powers, making him seem almost transcendent.
In contrast, in Korea, the focus was more on the elements that constituted walking. Those who sought transcendence through the body obsessed over breath and leg rhythm, while those who sought it through sorcery fixated on the means of movement. Summoners valued the function of pillars connecting the earth and sky, which became the foundation and purpose of modern Korean summoning techniques.
What Jinseong engraved on his pants was the function of a relay connecting the sky and the earth.
The character “mu” (巫) symbolizes a person connecting heaven and earth, making it the perfect symbol for a relay.
“ॐ-”
After engraving the pattern, Jinseong concentrated, and the pattern began to resonate, turning black and spreading like veins throughout the pants, eventually leaving only a small hole at the back of the knees before disappearing completely.
“I can prepare the rest on the way.”
With the pants completed, Jinseong put them on and opened the window.
Then, standing on the windowsill, he took a step into the air.
As his leg reached into the void, it began to sink into the sea of air, pulling his body down under its weight…
Screech.
At that moment, space folded.
Jinseong appeared on a small hill behind the mansion.
The distance from the mansion was 10 ri (4 km).
“ॐ-”
Moving more than 10 ri with a single step.
A high-level sorcery developed by Korean warlocks who viewed legs solely as a means of movement and researched to maximize the ‘meaning of movement.’
Many referred to this sorcery as the Art of Shrinking the Earth (축지법).
* * *
Arriving at the hill behind the mansion using the Art of Shrinking the Earth, Jinseong closed his eyes and spread his senses.
Thanks to the symbol engraved on his pants, energy from the earth flowed into his body through his legs, and although hidden by the bright sunlight, the stars in the sky were also connecting with him.
After standing there for a moment.
The stars whispered to him through starlight, and the earth through the rustling of weeds.
“It is here.”
Hearing the whisper, Jinseong reached out and grasped the air like lightning.
Shhhhh!
What emerged from his grasp was a snake.
The snake, with a yellow stripe on its black body, writhed in the air as if caught by an invisible hand, screaming.
“Black-and-Yellow Rat Snake. A bit disappointing that it’s not venomous.”
Hiss! Hiss!
The snake, whose neck was now gripped by Jinseong’s hand, hissed viciously. It tried to coil around Jinseong’s arm to tighten and squeeze, but Jinseong, who had trained his body alongside learning magic during his youth, had sturdy arms strong enough to withstand even a python, rendering the snake’s efforts useless.
He stared at the snake for a moment before twisting its neck off.
Crack.
Even after losing its head, the snake’s body continued to writhe and coil around Jinseong’s arm, but he uncoiled it with force and brought it to his mouth without peeling it.
Crunch. Crunch.
The taste wasn’t bad.
No, to be precise, it was excellent.
It felt like eating a cool sashimi made from a well-blended mix of chicken and fish.
Although many people in Korea despise eating snakes, in various parts of the world, there are countries where snakes are used as food, and some people even eat them raw, claiming they taste great.
In the 70s and 80s in Korea, due to the belief that eating snakes raw improved virility, many would catch snakes in the mountains and eat them as sashimi right away, often leading to cases of parasitic infections from snakes.
And that was exactly why Jinseong was now tearing into the snake raw.
“This isn’t it.”
After finishing the snake, Jinseong picked up the snake’s head lying on the ground, put it in his pocket, and closed his eyes again.
Hiss!
Next, he caught a brown snake exuding a spicy scent. This snake had the typical venomous snake smell that slightly stung the nose like acacia and had light brown stripes on a dark brown background, emanating an intimidating ferocity.
“Pit Viper.”
A venomous snake that’s said to kill you within seven steps if it bites you.
Also known as the Seven-Step Snake, this dreadful creature was notorious among novice martial artists training deep in the mountains in the past, and even in modern times, with widely available antidote magic artifacts, it still demanded caution.
Crack!
Jinseong twisted the snake’s neck and began to chew it raw, just like before.
Unlike the previous snake, this one had a spicy scent lingering in his nose like seasoning, and he thought it felt like dipping sashimi in wasabi as he devoured the snake, which easily weighed over a pound, right where he sat.
Then he picked up the snake’s head from the ground and murmured.
“Jackpot.”
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