After sending my junior brothers scattering in every direction, I climbed to the summit of Mount Judang.

Then I sharpened my vision and carefully committed every detail of the terrain to memory.

After taking in the shape of Mount Judang from one peak, I moved to another peak and viewed Mount Judang from a new angle.

I moved as quickly as I could, but by the time everything was finished, the sun was already high in the sky.

"My head feels like it's going to burst."

Clutching my throbbing head, I descended Mount Judang and returned to our lodging.

My junior brothers had arrived before I knew it.

"Eldest Senior Brother, we drew them."

Eunho stepped forward on their behalf and held out a thick stack of papers.

"You did well."

"Eldest Senior Brother. What scheme are you cooking up this time... no, what exactly are you planning to do with these?"

What was I going to do?

I looked at him and slowly curled the corners of my mouth into a grin.

"I'm thinking of selling an opportunity."

"An opportunity?"

"Yes. The opportunity Zhongnan is monopolizing."

They must be certain they alone can "monopolize" it.

I intended to slip right into that opening.

Having no way of knowing what was going on in my mind, Eunho wore an expression that said he did not understand.

I patted him on the shoulder.

"Just watch. You'll understand soon enough."

"No, not again..."

What was this? Was he going through a rebellious phase?

As he was about to move his lips, I gave a slight nod toward the side.

Iron rings and steel plates were neatly stacked in one corner.

Eunho clasped his hands politely.

"I have always believed in Eldest Senior Brother."

As expected, there was no way it was a rebellious phase. Of course not. Naturally.

With perfectly coordinated movements, he began turning over the maps they had drawn one by one.

I examined them in detail, not missing a single part.

As I had instructed, they had excluded people entirely and drawn the area near the entrance of Cheondong Cave and its surroundings in detail.

"Bring me the Beggars' Sect's map too."

Next came the time to compare them with the fake treasure map the Beggars' Sect had sold.

The map drawn by the Beggars' Sect showed only seventy percent of Cheondong Cave.

That did not matter.

What I needed was the terrain near the entrance.

I slowly closed my eyes.

Based on the information I had seen with my own eyes earlier, I created a reduced, realistic model of Mount Judang in my mind.

Then I intended to combine the Beggars' Sect's map and the maps my junior brothers had drawn to render Cheondong Cave realistically as well.

To turn a cave drawn in cross-section into a three-dimensional, realistic image, I needed the maps my junior brothers had drawn.

After opening my eyes again, I began comparing the maps Eunho flipped through from the beginning with the Beggars' Sect's map, assembling Cheondong Cave in three dimensions.

The more concrete Cheondong Cave's true form became, the tighter the back of my head pulled.

Now it was time to merge the two three-dimensional maps I had reconstructed, Mount Judang and Cheondong Cave, into one.

"Hmm..."

The shape of Mount Judang gradually blurred.

'It was here.'

Using the three-dimensional map of Mount Judang as the standard, I matched the rendered Cheondong Cave to the location of the entrance Zhongnan was blocking.

Once I finished adjusting the proportions, the entrance and the nearby terrain came clearly into view.

'Done!'

I rotated the rendered model map and examined it in even greater detail.

At that moment.

"E-Eldest Senior Brother!"

At Eunho's horrified voice, my eyes snapped open.

Before I knew it, his face had rushed right up in front of mine, and his expression was no ordinary thing.

Seeing him this close, he really was ugly...

"Blood... your nose is bleeding..."

Huh?

At Eunho's words, I touched my nose with a finger and found enough blood flowing down to fill a bowl.

"Ah."

The moment I became aware of it, my head spun and the world seemed to whirl around me.

It felt like when I had once been forced by order to cram the materials of the Mantong Bureau and Simhyeon Pavilion into my head.

Except.

'I did this to myself.'

Back then, I had done it under another's coercion, but now I was doing it of my own accord.

While I was lost in thought.

Saryeon shrieked in alarm, grabbed my nose with a cloth, and stopped the bleeding.

Hey, be a little gentler...

"What in the world are you doing?!"

Saryeon looked like she might burst into tears at any moment.

When it came to worrying, she was second to none.

SWISH.

I pulled Saryeon's hand away and said,

"What am I doing?"

Then I blocked my nose myself and grinned.

"Screwing over Zhongnan."

The brats gathered in a cluster before me and looked at me with frowns, as if they were looking at a madman.

Huh, how dare they look at their heaven-like Eldest Senior Brother with such irreverent eyes.

Impudent little things.

For a moment, I considered using the iron rings and steel plates piled beside us to set discipline straight.

'Well, whatever.'

Right now, just thinking about the Zhongnan bastards making faces like they had chewed shit over this made it impossible to hold back my laughter.

Keh-heh-heh.

#

Ho Gye-ak, the owner of the Xi'an Branch information broker inn in Shaanxi Province, could not help feeling regretful as he watched the martial artists passing by.

'Oh, my stomach... How much would it be if I sold to even one out of ten of them...?'

Because he was quick with numbers, Ho Gye-ak could estimate the sum just by glancing at the passing crowd, and he had to clutch his aching stomach at the amount automatically being calculated in his head.

"Here we go, in we go~ There we go, in we go! The beggar who came last year~~"

When he saw the Beggars' Sect disciples pass by, singing as if they knew his feelings and mocking him with laughter, he could not hide his resentment even more.

"Ahhh~ The silk merchant has no customers and will starve to death!"

"Kheeheeheehee!"

At the Beggars' Sect disciple's words, a vein finally bulged on Ho Gye-ak's forehead.

"How dare bastards who scam customers mock anyone!"

Still unable to calm his anger, he brought out the bowl of salt he often used and threw it three or four times, and only then did the beggar bastards finally flee in a hurry.

But even as they ran, their mouths did not rest.

"Hmph! We didn't scam them. They fell for it themselves!"

"Silk merchant, just work hard selling silk! Though I don't know if it'll sell. Kheehee."

Even after the beggar bastards had completely vanished, Ho Gye-ak kept fuming for a long while.

Even so, his anger did not subside.

'Damn it! I prepared for three whole years...!'

He had begun investigating Cheondong Cave three years before the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Milk appeared, and he had been confident he could sell more maps than the Beggars' Sect when the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Milk emerged this time.

He had marked every point where the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Milk had appeared before, and had even invited a spiritual elixir expert to separately mark the expected locations where the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Milk might appear this time.

Ho Gye-ak's philosophy was that anyone who sold information had to do at least that much.

But he had received orders from above not to sell maps of Cheondong Cave.

He had tried to persuade his superiors somehow, but failed.

'Damn it...'

At first, he could not understand the order.

He also knew very well that the Hao Sect had suffered hardship over selling maps of the Demonic Spirit Plateau.

But Cheondong Cave was different from the Demonic Spirit Plateau, and there was no unidentified natural array there either.

Yet once he heard why the sale of maps had been forbidden, all the strength drained from him.

He could not sell maps while knowing that Zhongnan would block the entrance to Cheondong Cave.

He could perhaps sell them off while saying he had not known, like the Beggars' Sect, but the Hao Sect's position was different from the Beggars' Sect's.

Even if people later realized they had been scammed, they would not easily be able to protest to the Beggars' Sect, but they could retaliate against the Hao Sect as much as they pleased.

Unlike beggars who had nothing to lose, they had things they needed to protect.

'We can't do that.'

For the sake of the other Hao Sect disciples engaged in their livelihoods, such a thing absolutely could not happen.

Even during the Demonic Spirit Plateau incident, how many Hao Sect disciples had suffered harm?

Even so.

"Tch..."

Because the calculations kept running in his head, Ho Gye-ak could no longer stand guard over the stall.

To make matters worse, when he saw the Beggars' Sect disciples who had fled begin creeping back again, rage boiled up inside him.

Just as he was thinking of closing early and roasting chestnuts for the night.

"I'b looking for special clodh."

At the strange voice from behind, his ears perked up.

Among the words, there was one thing he could clearly hear.

Special cloth!

Ho Gye-ak quickly turned and looked at the speaker.

The owner of that voice was...

"Huh? Young Master Jin?"

Jin Sowoon, the current Hao Sect's one and only "guest," academy representative, Black Flame Dragon, Black Maitreya, and Stronghold Master of the Black Dragon Stronghold.

"Yef. Id's be."

...was standing there in a strange state, with both nostrils plugged.

What was this now...

No, he had always known the man was no ordinary person, but this was far too bizarre...

"Ahem."

Ho Gye-ak swiftly came to his senses.

"What in the world happened to your nose...?"

"Inn owner, do you habe tibe?"

"Time?"

When Ho Gye-ak tilted his head, Jin Sowoon pressed his left nostril with one hand and blew his nose.

"Yes. If you have time."

Then the paper plugging his right nostril came popping out.

After that, Jin Sowoon pressed the other side of his nose and blew once more, and this time paper shot out of his left nostril.

It was truly bewildering beyond words...

"Let's do some map business."

"..."

Huh.

That was even more bewildering.

For a moment, Ho Gye-ak began to wonder which he should obey first: his superiors' orders, or the request of a "guest."

#

"Young Master Jin, well, um... what map are you referring to?"

"What other map would there be? The Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Milk, of course."

"..."

No, he knew that much.

So why was he bringing that up all of a sudden...

Ho Gye-ak carefully opened his mouth.

"Um... Young Master Jin, I apologize, but I think that will be difficult."

"Why?"

"Hmm... how should I explain this?"

After pondering for a moment, Ho Gye-ak brought out the map he had made.

"If it is a map of Cheondong Cave, I have already made one. But permission to sell it has not come down from above."

Jin Sowoon examined the map closely.

"This is an astonishingly precise map. Did you make this yourself, inn owner?"

"Yes. I prepared it from quite some time ago."

"Was it woodblock printed?"

"Pardon?"

At the sudden question, Ho Gye-ak tilted his head.

Still not taking his eyes off the map, Jin Sowoon added,

"I did not think a map this precise would have been drawn one by one by hand."

"Well... yes. I know someone..."

"Then that's fine."

Hm?

What was fine?

Ho Gye-ak spoke with a low hum.

"My superiors ordered me not to sell the map because Zhongnan blocked the entrance. That is why, though I wanted to sell it badly... I have not been able to."

Phew.

Just thinking about it made him choke up again...

"Ah, there is no need to worry."

Huh?

"Our customers will not complain."

"Our customers...?"

When Ho Gye-ak looked at him with puzzled eyes, Jin Sowoon spread a large sheet of paper over his map.

"We will be selling this map."

"Yes...?"

Ho Gye-ak's gaze moved between the paper and Jin Sowoon, staring at a picture that looked closer to a landscape painting than a map.

"Um... are you saying this is a map?"

A map, by nature, needed to contain location information and be drawn on a flat surface using commonly used symbols.

'This is too unfamiliar.'

The map Jin Sowoon spoke of was neither flat nor marked with symbols.

However.

"Look closely."

At Jin Sowoon's voice, which brimmed with confidence, Ho Gye-ak carefully examined the map and identified familiar things within the drawing.

"T-This is...!"

This was a place he could not forget even if he tried, for Ho Gye-ak had spent the past three years going up and down it endlessly.

"It is Mount Judang..."

"Correct."

"And you are saying you will sell this?"

Aside from the fact that one could obtain the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Milk there, Mount Judang was not a particularly famous mountain.

Even landscape paintings of the Five Great Mountains, the roughest mountains under heaven, or Mount Song, the Mount Tai and North Star of Murim, would not receive much praise unless they were painted by a famous artist.

And yet he was saying he would sell off a painting like this, drawn with clumsy skill.

No matter how extraordinary a person he was, being the Hao Sect's guest, academy representative, Black Flame Dragon, Black Maitreya, and even the Stronghold Master of the Black Dragon Stronghold...

"Hm, this is a little..."

Despite Ho Gye-ak's flustered expression, Jin Sowoon remained confident, and Ho Gye-ak even began to suspect that Jin Sowoon might be trying to scam him.

"Um, Young Master Jin... do you perhaps need money?"

At Ho Gye-ak's words, Jin Sowoon pointed to one spot as if he understood.

"Look here. ... And here."

Ho Gye-ak's gaze diligently followed the movement of Jin Sowoon's finger.

The places Jin Sowoon pointed to were the entrances to Cheondong Cave...

But.

"And here."

Where Jin Sowoon's finger led him.

"Hm...?"

There was one more cave drawn where none originally existed.

"This place..."

"We will be selling this information."

"W-Wait a moment, Young Master Jin."

Ho Gye-ak looked at the picture again.

But even after examining it once more, nothing had changed much.

Even if he could no longer sell the map, it had been a full three years.

Mount Judang was the place he had gone in and out of as if it were his own home for three years to draw that map.

"Young Master, I have climbed up and down Mount Judang hundreds of times over the past three years, but there is no such third entrance to Cheondong Cave..."

"Of course there isn't. It will appear soon."

"What?"

Did I just hear that right...?

What followed was even more absurd.

"The entrance will appear before the sun rises during the Hour of the Rabbit the day after tomorrow."

"What in the..."

Soon, an exceedingly mischievous yet confident smile rose on Jin Sowoon's face.

"Because I plan to make this entrance."

"... Make it?"

As Ho Gye-ak looked at that smile, his mouth fell open and he flapped his lips soundlessly.

#

Ho Gye-ak took Jin Sowoon's map and headed straight to the print shop.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

He harried the print shop owner, who had come out with a club thinking it was a drunk causing trouble, and made him produce a woodblock.

Then he dragged in all of the Hao Sect's people and began making maps.

Just before dawn, Ho Gye-ak, who had first made one hundred maps, immediately began selling them.

"They are already angry because of the Beggars' Sect's map. Will they really try to buy this?"

At the Hao Sect disciple's question, Ho Gye-ak declared,

"They are people who came all the way to Xi'an in search of the Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Milk. Now that things have come to this, they will buy it even if only with the thought that they might as well be fooled once more, so do not worry."

"But didn't our superiors tell us not to sell maps?"

It was a point Ho Gye-ak had also worried about, but he did not concern himself with it much.

The higher-ups had told him not to sell maps of the inside of Cheondong Cave; was selling a map of Mount Judang as a whole, which was outside it, not within the branch's authority?

Moreover, the informant was none other than Jin Sowoon, their "guest."

Even if things went a little wrong, if he said he had helped with his plan, the higher-ups would not make a great issue of it.

"Then the price...?"

The price... the price.

Ho Gye-ak drew in a deep breath.

"Ten silver coins!"

It was far too small an amount for a map classified as a treasure map, but Ho Gye-ak settled on ten coins as the final price.

People commonly think others like free information, but that is the exact opposite.

People trust information in proportion to the price they paid.

"If anyone is suspicious or asks for a discount, then act as if you have no choice and hand it over that way."

"Pardon?"

In any case, the map was nothing more than a tool to gather people.

If all of this came to pass according to Jin Sowoon's plan, he could land a blow not only on Zhongnan but on the Beggars' Sect as well.

Moreover, if it helped Jin Sowoon, their "guest," nothing could be better.

Just thinking about it made him laugh...

No, no.

He must not resemble that man too much. Ahem.

"In any case, carry it out."

The Hao Sect disciples found Ho Gye-ak's orders incomprehensible from beginning to end, but they were not slow to act.

By the time the morning sun neared noon.

Jin Sowoon's map began spreading by word of mouth throughout all of Xi'an.

"Can this be trusted?"

"It makes no sense. I already went there, and there was no entrance."

"Look at the time written here! It says the entrance opens tomorrow during the Hour of the Rabbit."

"Ha, my friend, no matter if it is a place with a spiritual elixir, would a cave entrance open and close according to the time?"

Many people did not trust the map, and some said they had been scammed.

There were even those who claimed the Hao Sect, after the Beggars' Sect, was looking down on martial artists and were ready to storm the Hao Sect immediately.

But all those actions were pushed aside for a while.

Because they had the expectation that perhaps, during the Hour of the Rabbit, the cave might truly open.

Before long, the "new entrance" of Cheondong Cave had become packed with people.

"Huh? You?"

"A-Ahem...!"

"You told me not to believe such absurd nonsense!"

"What are you talking about? I merely climbed Mount Judang for a walk."

"At this hour?"

Embarrassing encounters began taking place all over Mount Judang, and people spoke less and gradually headed toward the place marked on the map.

And as the Hour of the Rabbit drew near.

"Hm?"

"What is that?"

"Did you feel it too?"

Those with keen senses began looking around one by one.

Soon, the vibration grew strong enough for even those without sharp senses to feel it.

At that moment.

RUMBLE...

A vibration rang out as if the world were shaking and the sky were collapsing.

Rocks in the mountain shook loose and began to fall, and birds sleeping in the trees were startled awake and rose all at once.

"An earthquake?"

"W-What is this...!"

And at that instant.

BOOOOOOM!

With a tremendous explosion, a great light burst forth.

Startled by the immense radiance that seemed to brighten the dark night sky, people turned their heads.

"What was that? Did lightning strike?"

"The light seemed a little different for that, didn't it?"

Their confusion lasted only a moment.

"Wait! That light! It's where the map said!"

At someone's words, everyone exchanged glances.

"!"

"!!"

And without anyone needing to go first, they unfolded their movement techniques and began climbing the mountain.

Those who reached the destination in the blink of an eye.

"Haah...!"

Could see a cave opening a great maw before their eyes.

"I-It's the entrance!"

"The entrance to Cheondong Cave really opened!"

"Move! The Five-Spirit Immortal Flower Milk is mine!"

At someone's shout, countless martial artists launched themselves into the cave without anyone needing to be first.