King Shura

Chapter 35. The Little Monster

Chapter 35. The Little Monster

Humans can sometimes unleash unthinkable amounts of power. Like now.

Jo Gi Chun was running. He was running so fast, he even began to wonder where he was getting all this energy from. He ran as if his life depended on it, and eventually reached the Black Tooth Mountain.

Jo Gi Chun didn’t stop thinking even when he was gasping desperately for air in front of the formation. Soon, he began praying.

‘Please, don’t let me be too late……’

The formation in front of him was clearly somewhat off.

It was strange that a creature was living inside it, and what made it stranger was the fact that that creature happened to be a dragon. The formation was simply a bag of mysteries.

‘But……’

There were some clues that Jo Gi Chun managed to spot because of how strange the formation was. He began walking into the formation, whilst trying to calm his jumpy heart. There was no time to waste now.

The hypothesis he had thought of that could work. If it actually worked, he could manage to destroy the formation.

The only thing Jo Gi Chun didn’t want happen was seeing his disciple fight that monster. Jo Gi Chun grit his teeth, and walked into the formation.

* * *

The world is made of numbers. That was the truth.

The Moon Edge Flower Algorithm Magic.

He met Zhuge Liang through that book, and once he realized the profound truth of numbers, his life had changed. His relaxed life as a young boy had disappeared completely.

‘I wonder what would’ve happened if I didn’t come across that book?’

The present would be completely different from what was happening now. Cho Ryu Hyang quickly discarded his thoughts, and began breathing. He was using the Faultless view of the world. Right now, Cho Ryu Hyang was able to see the world in numbers. The world was covered in it.

‘Things will get important from here.’

Seizing Conversion Technique.

Cho Ryu Hyang stopped breathing. That was the only way to use this technique. And of course, that meant that he could not keep up using the technique for an extended amount of time.

Cho Ryu Hyang quickly extended his hand. He could touch the red-hot scale of the dragon, something that resembled hard, black steel. Cho Ryu Hyang’s hands simply passed through the scale, as if the scale was made of tofu.

Grit–

He could feel the imugi trembling from pain.

The imugi was probably feeling an unspeakable amount of pain right now. Cho Ryu Hyang tried to ignore the imugi, and focused. When he did so, he could see something inside the scale. It was the true form of the Reversed Scale on the imugi.

‘This is…….’

Cho Ryu Hyang’s eyes widened. The thing he was seeing right now wasn’t the Reversed Scale. It was a giant mess of numbers. That was what was making him so surprised.

‘Damn it.’

Cho Ryu Hyang bit his lip. He finally found out why the Reversed Scale was the ingredient for the Dragon Ball.

The numbers were too tangled. There was chaos to the likes of which he had never seen before. Just looking at it made Cho Ryu Hyang feel annoyed.

He couldn’t figure out the heads or tails out of this mess. But he had to somehow untangle it.

‘There definitely is a pattern here.’

The numbers were all tangled up, but it did follow a certain pattern. Right now, Cho Ryu Hyang had to figure out what that pattern was. Only when he would use the pattern would he be able to create a Dragon Ball.

‘But…….’

Cho Ryu Hyang’s face turned red. He was already running out of air. After all, his body was untrained, and unconditioned. He would naturally have not much time to hold his breath. That fact bothered him quite a bit.

‘I’ll take a step back for now.’

Cho Ryu Hyang hesitantly pulled his hand out of the scale. He could feel the imugi trembling again. It looked like it was suffering a lot.

Cho Ryu Hyang tried to say something, but couldn’t. He just stood there and started to calculate as fast as he could.

‘Damn it! Damn it!’

The mess of numbers he saw earlier. He couldn’t find the answer from it immediately, so he decided to stuff all the numbers in his head for now

But even if Cho Ryu Hyang was extremely smart, he couldn’t memorise all those numbers in that short of a time. But he somehow managed to cram all that information in his head.

Because of that, it was hard for him to think of anything else other than math right now. Even a moment ago, he almost lost the numbers in his head by getting distracted. He managed to barely avoid that situation, but he still felt a bit cold thinking about it.

‘I’ll apologize later.’

Cho Ryu Hyang began to split the giant mass of numbers into smaller parts. At the same time, he began to drill the numbers into his head, so that he wouldn’t forget it later.

Finding the answer to the problem, and memorising the original format the numbers were in.

He had to do these two things at the same time.

Cho Ryu Hyang put his hands up in the air while gritting his teeth. And he began to write something down on the air, without any utensils. It was as if he was writing something on paper…….

He was writing the numbers in his head midair, at incredible speeds. The amazing thing was, his left hand and his right hand were writing two different things. One hand was doing calculations, while the other was memorising. Cho Ryu Hyang was easily managing to do something that others would be astounded at.

‘First of all…….’

He had to find the head of this messy array of numbers. Cho Ryu Hyang’s face as he kept trying out different methods quickly went through many different changes.

At first, his face was one of annoyance, as he was trying to surpass his limits by calculating and memorising something so complicated all at once. But his face began to get calmer as time passed. Unlike his brain, that was being pushed to the limit, Cho Ryu Hyang’s face began to get more and more peaceful.

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[He’s getting more and more focused.]

Zhuge Liang quietly muttered to himself.

The boy really was focused. Right now, Cho Ryu Hyang forgot about the existence of the imugi in front of him, and even forgot about that he was in a formation. The war going on in his mind right now didn’t allow him to remember such a thing.

Cho Ryu Hyang wouldn’t even notice a thing if a lighting strikes right in front of his nose. That was how focused he was.

[I never saw a human that resembles you so much.]

Zhuge Liang simply smirked when the imugi said this.

[Tian Nu, do not compare me to a monster like this.]

[A monster…….]

[Yes. This boy is truly a monster. Even I cannot believe what I am seeing right now.]

Cho Ryu Hyang didn’t slow down a bit, even while Zhuge Liang was talking.

Cho Ryu Hyang, when he neared the endpoint of his calculations, stopped writing in the air, and began to simply twitch his fingers. With a single twitch, he was solving countless equations he thought up of. He was reducing as much useless movements as possible.

The imugi and the old man kept watching the boy’s spectacle with excitement.

What made this boy truly fearsome was the boy’s focus. While the boy’s intelligence, and knowledge was could be considered as talent, those two qualities couldn’t even match up to the boy’s capability for focus.

As Cho Ryu Hyang got more focused, his calculations were getting faster. Something that was already so fast, was still getting even faster.

[Hoh?]

Zhuge Liang stared at Cho Ryu Hyang whilst fiddling with his fan.

The boy was skipping multiple steps when calculating. He added new knowledge to the knowledge he had previously, and using that newfound knowledge, created even more knowledge to absorb. And with this, Cho Ryu Hyang was able to utterly annihilate the equations that were coming at him.

This was quite an experience, even for Zhuge Liang.

‘I can see it.’

Cho Ryu Hyang could see the answer to the whole thing lying far away. That moment, every process in his body except for breathing paused. He was devoting all his energy into solving the thing.

Even though his eyes were wide open, the visual information he was taking in wasn’t even being registered by his brain.

Cho Ryu Hyang was simply staring forward with a daze.

He could then begin to see something unique from the set of numbers in his mind. He could see numbers that were somewhat different from others. Numbers that didn’t follow the pattern.

‘I found it!’

Cho Ryu Hyang managed to find the answer, and he wasn’t about to let it go. He managed to chase down the thing that was trying desperately to escape his grasp. He finally had the answer in his hands.

That was when Cho Ryu Hyang returned to his senses. Once he found the answer, he could begin to see his surroundings again.

That was when he noticed that something was off. The imugi was looking at the entrance.

‘What’s going on?’

How much time had passed? What happened?

His brain began to process everything that he had ignored while calculating, and Cho Ryu Hyang was bombarded with information of what had happened.

‘A vibration? Yes, there was a slight vibration.’

That’s right. There was a tiny vibration in the ground while he had been calculating. When he followed the imugi’s gaze after realizing the fact, his eyes widened.

‘Teacher?’

It was his teacher.

Jo Gi Chun was standing at the entrance with a tired face.

‘How did he get here?’

Even Cho Ryu Hyang was able to get through the formation, so it was of course possible that Jo Gi Chun would be able to enter.

While he didn’t possess Cho Ryu Hyang’s sight, Jo Gi Chun still was a master of formations. He probably got through the formation without much difficulty.

But this wasn’t a place where his teacher should be. Cho Ryu Hyang felt that this was going to get dangerous, so he blocked the imugi from approaching his teacher.

“Teacher!”

The imugi, who was about to swallow Jo Gi Chun whole, paused when he heard Cho Ryu Hyang’s cry.

[You know this man?]

“He is my teacher.”

[Teacher…….]

Come to think of it, there was such a relationship in the human race. Was it something along the lines of “someone who resembles a parent”? The imugi stared at Jo Gi Chun for a while, then slid back to where it was previously.

Slide–

The black scales moved across like a beautiful wave.

Jo Gi Chun made a confused face when he saw the imugi’s attitude.

But when he remembered something significant, his became astounded.

“You chose him? This boy?”

The imugi stared at Jo Gi Chun, and nodded.

[I chose him.]

Jo Gi Chun was stupefied. He recovered after a bit, and laughed loudly. He pulled out something from his sleeves.

“Then there was no need to bring this all the way here.”

Clack–

A sound of stones hitting each other. Jo Gi Chun had brought quite a bit of jewels from the Heavenly Demon Church. The imugi’s eyes brightened when it saw the jewels.

[You figured it out?]

Jo Gi Chun faintly smiled, and nodded.

“Indeed. I also figured out how to destroy it.”

Thankfully, the little hypothesis Jo Gi Chun had come up with about the formation had been correct.

The imugi stared at Jo Gi Chun without a word for a moment. Soon, it nodded slowly.

[You are quite worthy.]

The secret of the formation. The imugi didn’t think anyone would be able to realize it in such a short time.

This human was amazing, wasn’t he? The imugi kept thinking for a bit, then quickly inhaled.

The imugi’s action seemed somewhat dangerous for some reason. When Cho Ryu Hyang looked at the imugi with a confused look, the imugi exhaled the air inside towards Jo GI Chun.

“Teacher!”

Cho Ryu Hyang’s shout echoed throughout the cave. The imugi spoke while the boy was running towards his teacher.

[Don’t be afraid. I simply gave back what I took from him.]

Cho Ryu Hyang remembered something when he heard those words, and opened his mouth with a hint of excitement.

“Can you move your arm?”

Jo Gi Chun, who had been thinking the same thing, carefully lifted his right arm, and nodded.

“I can move it, it seems.”

“That’s good. That’s really good, teacher.”

Jo Gi Chun spoke when Cho Ryu Hyang made a relieved smile.

“I’m the one who’s really relieved here. I feel relieved knowing that you are safe.”

“Teacher…….”

Jo Gi Chun tried to say something else, but dropped down onto the floor, as he had been too anxious just a moment ago.

“This is really relieving. I thought you were in terrible danger…….”

Cho Ryu Hyang didn’t need to hear any more. His teacher was worried about him.

Cho Ryu Hyang began to scratch the back of his head from guilt. Wasn’t he feeling the same thing a moment ago? He felt terrible when he thought that the imugi did something to his teacher.

“I’m safe, so don’t worry, teacher.”

“Yeah.”

Jo Gi Chun stood up.

His disciple was safe. That was all he needed to know.

Cho Ryu Hyang suddenly felt his curiosity rise, and smiled. He asked something to his teacher, as he couldn’t just hold it in.

“Did you figure out how to destroy the formation?”

Cho Ryu Hyang only came here to destroy the formation by altering the formation’s nucleus by using the Seizing Conversion Technique. He didn’t know the actual destruction method of the formation. Jo Gi Chun simply smiled, and responded.

“It seems this formation is a little special in that it never existed in this world before.”

Cho Ryu Hyang’s eyes glinted. His teacher knew about all the formations created in the world. When his teacher talked about a formation that never existed, he naturally got curious.

“Just what kind of……”

Jo Gi Chun organized his thoughts, looked at the imugi, and talked.

“Look carefully. Can you see that the cave and the outside has a definite border between them?”

A border? Cho Ryu Hyang stared at the cave entrance, and nodded.

Indeed. The outside and the cave had a definite border between them.

“Don’t you realize something from that?”

Cho Ryu Hyang fell to deep thought when Jo Gi Chun said that. His teacher gave him a question, which meant that he could solve this on his own. What was the answer?

‘The border is definite?’

In a formation, a border was very important. It was what divided a border from the outside world. But then, why is there a such a clear border inside the formation itself?

Cho Ryu Hyang shouted in surprise when he thought that much.

“Ah!”

“Do you know the answer?”

Cho Ryu Hyang nodded, then quickly asked something.

“May I confirm it?”

“It would be good if you do.”

Cho Ryu Hyang walked all the way to the cave entrance unsteadily.

‘Is such a thing possible?’

If what he realized was possible, it would really be amazing. After looking at the entrance for a long time, Cho Ryu Hyang walked out and back. He then proceeded to simply freeze.

“You realize it now?”

“Yes. This formation…… it really deserves to be called the best under the heavens.”

Cho Ryu Hyang truly thought that. He looked at the imugi and spoke with a low voice.

“A formation that covers another formation……. in other words, a formation in a formation…… this is amazing.”

Making a single formation as intricate as this takes an incredible amount of work.

There were two of those here. Making them seperately wouldn’t be much of a problem, even for Cho Ryu Hyang.

But the problem was, one would have to put a formation inside another formation. The variables one would have to consider would increase indefinitely. Making something like this was outside the realm of man, which meant that this formation was created by that imugi.

[Should I keep waiting?]

Cho Ryu Hyang came to his senses. Didn’t he have something to do? Cho Ryu Hyang desperately hid his face of reverence and respect, and began to steady his breath in front of the imugi.

‘I have to finish this in one go.’

He couldn’t let the imugi go through that much pain again. Cho Ryu Hyang prepared himself to finish everything in one go, and grit his teeth.