“I-I’ll work hard! I won’t slack off!”
“I’ll be counting on that.”
After finishing the lesson, Baek Unjin immediately departed for the Taeheo Kingdom.
Since I had spent all my time with him at Cheongun Dao Sect ever since transmigrating into this world, being alone felt strangely awkward.
Standing in the center of the White Lotus Training Ground, I formed a hand seal and began practicing the Azure Flame Art.
Blue streams of energy appeared around me, slowly gathering together into a single mass.
When I stretched out my arm, the condensed sphere of power wobbled forward—
Pop!
“Agh!”
Why won't it work?!
This was exactly where I was stuck.
The sixth stage of the Azure Flame Art was the manifestation of spiritual power.
The seventh stage was freely controlling that manifested power.
“This part works just fine, though.”
Forming another hand seal, I summoned several blue spheres above my palm.
As I focused, the spheres divided into even more.
Twelve.
Twelve was my current limit.
The problem was that while I could create them, the moment I tried to control them, they became unstable, turned mushy, and exploded just like before.
According to Baek Unjin, my spiritual power was sufficient.
What I lacked was enlightenment.
And when I asked where exactly I was supposed to obtain that enlightenment, all I got in return was a mysterious smile and an even more mysterious explanation.
"Spiritual power is not qi—it is the manifestation of the Dao.
If I grasp spiritual power, it is not my strength, but merely a chain binding energy.
But if spiritual power grasps me, only then does it truly become a part of myself."
What does that even mean?!
For someone who had never hit a wall since beginning cultivation, the situation was unbearably frustrating.
“I can't do this anymore!”
After agonizing over it for ages and accomplishing absolutely nothing, I finally left the training grounds.
Without any destination in mind, I simply wandered wherever my feet carried me.
Eventually, I reached the outskirts of Byeogun Residence and spotted a laundry yard.
Someone's here.
It was already evening.
I had assumed nobody would be around.
Cheongwoo Immortal Sect was enormous, so there were ordinary mortals employed to handle various chores throughout the sect.
Most cultivators rarely interacted with them.
And after becoming Baek Unjin's disciple, I'd been so busy studying the Heavenly Fate Observation Scripture and cultivation techniques that I had hardly paid them any attention.
Is she doing all of that laundry by herself?
I approached the girl from behind.
“Excuse me.”
“Eek! Y-You startled me! Who are you?”
The girl turned around, startled from her work.
She looked about three or four years older than me.
“Are you washing all of that by yourself? There's no one helping?”
“Ah... well... haha.”
She scratched her cheek awkwardly.
After glancing around the laundry yard, I immediately understood why her answer sounded so strange.
After a brief moment of thought, I rolled up my sleeves and strode forward.
“My name is Yoo Yeonseo. What's yours, Unni?”
“Me? Myung Seolhwa.”
“I'll help you, Seolhwa Unni.”
“No, it's really fine—”
“You can't possibly finish all of this by yourself anyway. It'll be much faster if there are two of us!”
I dragged over a basket overflowing with laundry and dropped it beside me.
“...By the way, how exactly am I supposed to do this?”
“What a strange kid.”
I learned how to hand-wash clothes from Myung Seolhwa.
Scrub. Scrub. Scrub.
Oddly enough, doing mindless physical labor for the first time in ages helped clear my head.
“Finished!”
“Al-Already?”
“Yep! Anything else?”
Seeing me casually carrying a basket piled high with wet laundry, Seolhwa stared in disbelief.
“Y-You have incredible stamina.”
“This is easy!”
Ever since I started cultivating, my physical strength had improved dramatically.
I was probably stronger than most ordinary adults by now.
“Thank you. Thanks to you, I finished much earlier.”
“It was nothing! It helped me clear my mind too. Can I come help again tomorrow?”
“Huh? Sure. Do whatever you want.”
“Yay!”
Since I'd spent so much time alone, having someone to talk to felt surprisingly nice.
From that day on, my routine became simple.
Study in the morning.
Cultivate at the White Lotus Training Ground in the afternoon.
Then visit the laundry yard before evening and help Seolhwa.
One day, just as I was about to leave after finishing the laundry—
“Yeonseo, wait a moment. Take this.”
“Hm? What's this?”
“Honey rice cakes. Thank you for helping me all this time.”
Seolhwa handed me a bundle wrapped in a clean white cloth.
When I unfolded it, I found round glutinous rice cakes coated in honey.
“Wow! Can I try one?”
“Of course.”
Before she even finished speaking, I popped one into my mouth.
The chewy rice cake combined with the sweet honey filling.
It was delicious.
“It's so good! Thank you, Unni!”
“Compared to everything you've helped me with, it's nothing. I'll bring more next time.”
“Really?!”
I couldn't even remember the last time I'd eaten a snack like this.
The next day, after training, I returned to the laundry yard as usual.
Then I froze.
“This is...”
The amount of laundry had more than doubled.
I knew it had been increasing little by little, but...
This was ridiculous.
No single person could possibly finish this alone.
I'd been pretending not to notice for Seolhwa's sake.
But this was too much.
“Unni, they're bullying you, aren't they?”
“...”
“Who's doing this? I'll teach them a lesson!”
Seolhwa quickly grabbed my arm as I rolled up my sleeves.
“Calm down. Let's deal with this first—”
“You're seriously planning to wash all of this?!”
“...It has to be finished by tomorrow.”
Should I call her kind?
Or simply too gentle?
Even if we worked all night, there's no way we'd finish this.
No matter how I looked at it, this was deliberate harassment.
“Hmmm.”
“It's okay. I'll figure something out somehow.”
“But... Ah! What about this?”
I suddenly dumped all the laundry into a giant pile.
Then I slowly stretched out my hand.
Maybe I can use spiritual power.
Concentrating carefully, I gathered my energy.
An enormous pile of laundry rose into the air.
“Oh! It worked!”
But only for a moment.
“KYAAAH!”
The instant my concentration wavered, the floating clothes began flying everywhere.
The garments shot around wildly, completely out of control.
My biggest weakness right now was my inability to make fine adjustments to spiritual power.
“Y-Yeonseo!”
“Wait! I'll fix it somehow!”
The laundry flew through the air like possessed ghosts.
Ah, whatever!
I formed a simplified hand seal of the Azure Flame Art and focused with all my might.
Concentrate!
The clothes that had been soaring skyward suddenly stopped.
Hovering directly above mine and Seolhwa's heads.
Water dripped endlessly from the soaked laundry.
Within seconds, we looked like drowned rats caught in a rainstorm.
“Huff... Huff... This wasn't exactly what I intended... but it worked!”
Once I succeeded once, the rest wasn't difficult.
The laundry began moving freely through the air according to my will.
As a result, a workload that would've taken all night was finished in less than half an hour.
“What was that just now...?”
Seolhwa stared at me with wide eyes.
“Yeonseo... are you... perhaps a cultivator?”
“Ah, yes! Hehe.”
“Seriously?”
“Yep.”
“You look so young. That's amazing.”
She suddenly nodded.
“No wonder you're so strong.”
“Ah, I only became a cultivator recently.”
Although ordinary mortals worked throughout Cheongwoo Immortal Sect, most remained in the outer sect and rarely encountered cultivators.
And even when they did, cultivators generally avoided speaking with them.
“Now that the laundry problem is solved...”
“What else is left?”
“Obviously!”
There was no way I could keep allowing Seolhwa to be bullied like this.
“Hmph. Just how does she keep finishing all that laundry every time?”
“This time there's no way she managed it.”
The next morning, the servant girls who had been tormenting Seolhwa arrived at the laundry yard, laughing amongst themselves.
The clothes they had dumped there the previous day were neatly hung up and drying in the breeze.
“W-What?”
“She washed all of this?”
“No way. The last time too... Someone must've helped her.”
As they whispered amongst themselves, I stepped out from between the rows of fluttering clothes.
“That's right. I helped her.”
“Y-You? Who are you?”
“What is this little brat doing here? Hey, this isn't a place children can just wander into.”
I pointed at them.
“You're the ones who've been bullying Seolhwa Unni, right?”
“Where did this kid even come from?”
I dramatically thrust a finger toward them.
“In the name of justice, I shall not forgive you!”
