That old man is incredibly strong.

He’s still so powerful that I can’t even see his level.

It’s safe to say he’s at least on par with the Bird King or the Snake Queen.

But unlike them, he doesn’t rely on any special abilities or size advantages.

In other words, if it came down to pure martial arts, old man Compy might actually be superior.

If someone like that were offering to teach me a martial technique, I’d welcome it with open arms.

But there was something bothering me.

This old man seemed to be in a hurry.

Earlier, he looked like he was going to kill me, and now he’s trying to pass down a martial art?

It felt like something was missing in the middle, as if there wasn’t enough time.

He seemed pressed for time.

Maybe he was excited after discovering a rare gem like the gomodo-rania.

Perhaps he thought, "I don’t like this guy, but I can’t let someone else get him!"

Or maybe he had just run into my wife during his little trip.

A head of a family reluctantly passing down their secret martial art because of their daughter’s insistence.

...Though the chances of that were slim.

If he had run into Sssisska, he wouldn’t have let me live.

There was no point in assuming all sorts of scenarios in this place.

How could I possibly guess what was going on in this old man’s mind?

Unless he believed in Gehg, which seemed unlikely.

So, there was no point trying to figure out his intentions right now.

There had to be a reason.

If he was teaching me quickly, all the better.

That just meant I’d have more time to get used to the new martial technique.

Whirr…

The fire energy continued to flare inside me.

It wasn’t unbearable, just mildly irritating.

To control it, I adopted the same posture as the old man.

It was a typical breathing exercise stance.

But I didn’t close my eyes.

I wanted to watch how the old man acted.

Oooooo...

Compy sat cross-legged, perfectly still.

But "still" didn’t mean he wasn’t doing anything.

I could sense it instinctively.

The old man’s internal energy was circulating.

His black and white scales slowly began to glow.

Just by circulating his internal energy, such a transformation occurred.

I stared wide-eyed at the sight.

It was the most wuxia-like scene I had ever witnessed since coming to this world.

It rivaled what I saw when Baek Yeon-Yeong demonstrated her Nine Yin Bone Claw.

Back then, I had been ignorant, but now I understood at least a little of what Compy was doing.

I could faintly sense the flow of internal energy.

It started from his lower dantian and circulated through his entire body.

It didn’t stop there; the energy even seeped into his heart area.

Thump.

Thump.

The old man’s internal energy moved in rhythm with his heartbeat, slowly and steadily.

Not only had he opened his lower dantian, but his middle dantian as well.

Although he wasn’t human, it was fair to say he had surpassed the pinnacle long ago.

The energy gathered in his middle dantian once again circulated throughout his body.

Old man Compy’s name was Hunhwi.

Like his name, which meant "mixed light and darkness," his scales glowed with both black and white light.

At that moment, the old man was no different from a perfect being, with yin and yang in perfect harmony.

Like a penguin or a panda.

As if he could read my thoughts, old man Compy’s eyes slowly opened.

“Kek.”

Judging by the proud look on his face as he stared at me, it seemed he hadn’t actually read my mind.

Regardless of his appearance, what the old man had just shown me was nothing short of amazing.

Honestly, I was moved.

Baek Yeon-Yeong had never shown me her breathing exercises or taught me a martial technique.

The Snake Queen hadn’t either.

...Not that I would’ve understood, given her lower half was a snake anyway.

I hadn’t even expected anything from Tang.

In short, this was the first time I’d witnessed proper breathing exercises in this martial world.

Apart from my own attempts.

“Kekek.”

Old man Compy pointed a finger at me.

It seemed he was signaling me to try and imitate what he had just shown.

So, he was telling me to replicate his technique just by seeing him sit cross-legged once?

That’s pretty shameless, don’t you think?

At the very least, he should tell me what the inscription means so I can at least pretend to follow along.

In a normal situation, that is.

Compy knew I had no trouble mimicking Miniaturization.

That was thanks to the reverse scale on my chest.

[Using "Reverse Scale lv1."]

Just like the Death Ray of the Roc, I wouldn’t have been able to use it if I didn’t understand it.

At least I had to see and learn it, like I had with the death rays of Snake Queen and Sssisska.

[Temporarily acquiring "Little Dragon Martial Technique."]

Since I had seen it up close, I could understand the movement easily.

Thus, I temporarily acquired the Little Dragon Martial Technique.

Was it time to end training and steal those elixirs now?

No, of course not.

While I could now use the Little Dragon Martial Technique anytime...

...as long as I used the reverse scale.

A martial technique should become second nature, like breathing.

How could I use the reverse scale and the martial technique without mastering them?

Copying it would be worse than not learning at all.

Using the reverse scale to copy the Little Dragon Martial Technique was pointless.

So why did I copy this technique?

The reason was simple.

Ignore the inscriptions and the profound meaning—just crash through with brute force.

For how long?

Until I make this technique entirely my own.

I closed my eyes.

The fire energy was still there, unsettled.

There was a reason old man Compy had touched the area around my reverse scale.

He was giving me the task of controlling this fire energy.

Once I fully mastered the Little Dragon Martial Technique, I would be able to subdue the fire energy.

He had raised the fire energy inside me and then thrown me a solution.

It reminded me of how beasts push their young off cliffs to force them to fly.

But that wasn’t enough.

I opened my eyes.

This fire energy was incomplete.

I could feel it weakening over time.

I needed something stronger, something overwhelming.

“Gehg.”

I raised my finger and pointed at my chest.

Compy stared at me, then nodded, a satisfied expression on his face.

He understood my intention.

Compy approached me, and I closed my eyes again.

Tock.

The moment the old man’s thin hand touched my reverse scale...

Fwoosh.

BOOM!

A tremendous surge of fire energy erupted from within.

The internal energy burst from deep within my dantian.

Thump.

Thump.

My heart pounded rapidly.

The stories about the reverse scale were no exaggeration.

I wanted nothing more than to destroy whoever had touched my reverse scale.

The intensity of the situation made it hard to think about anything else.

This was more like it.

Sssssss…

I took a deep breath.

As I exhaled, I felt like fire would spew out of my body.

I had to use the mystery of the Little Dragon Martial Technique to calm the fire energy.

To me, "Little Dragon" meant "Water Dragon."

I recalled running through the swamps using Soaring Dragon Step in my Green Basilisk form.

If I could continue visualizing water, I could neutralize the fire energy and master the Little Dragon Martial Technique.

Yeah.

Just a bit more, and I could…

But from deep within my chest, another emotion stirred.

It wasn’t a pure emotion.

If anything, it was closer to greed.

A foolish, reckless greed.

Was learning the Little Dragon Martial Technique like this really the best option?

Gaining martial arts through the power of the reverse scale sounded great.

It would drastically shorten the learning process, and the strength would be almost the same.

But could I approach a martial technique the same way as any other skill?

I could keep using it repeatedly and eventually learn it, sure.

But I’d still never understand the inscriptions or the meaning behind the technique.

Fwoooosh!

The fire energy intensified.

I stopped practicing the Little Dragon Martial Technique for a moment.

The technique I needed to focus on wasn’t Compy’s Little Dragon Martial Technique.

It was my Baekran Martial Technique.

The Baekran Martial Technique was like a blank sheet of paper.

It was literally a white canvas.

I didn’t know its inscriptions, its mysteries, or even if it could be called a true martial technique.

It might just be a skill thrown at me by the status window.

A tool for using internal energy.

I had never thought of it as anything more or less than that.

I had never truly delved into the Baekran Martial Technique.

Looking back, maybe it should have been my first priority.

Fwoooosh.

The fire energy surged even higher.

This was getting dangerous.

Normally, touching the reverse scale wouldn’t put me at risk.

But right now, Hwari’s fire energy was resonating with my anger.

The heat was spreading through my body, hot enough to melt me from the inside out.

Using the Little Dragon Martial Technique to suppress the fire energy would make me safe again.

But I couldn’t do that.

Now was the time to create my own martial technique.

Honestly, my growth rate had been astounding.

But I couldn’t afford to be complacent.

Though internal energy was part of my strength, I had mainly relied on external techniques.

Training only in external techniques would eventually get me nowhere.

Even in the spar with Compy, if it hadn’t been for the Snake Queen’s mark, I wouldn’t have even scratched him.

“Gehg.”

I let out a low growl.

Tang So-Young once told me something.

That my cry wasn’t “geheg” but “gae-gaek.”

And that gae-gaek meant "to grasp something high."

She said it suited the gomodo.

The canvas of Baekran was ready.

Now I just needed to carve the inscriptions to control this fire energy.

Gae-gaek.

It was the cry of the gecko lizard, and it had become gae-gaek.

At first, it seemed like a joke.

But under the name of gae-gaek, my connections grew.

Some people I had known all along, and some I had never met before.

Gae-gaek had become their faith.

It could no longer be dismissed as a mere joke.

Gae-gaek (愾喀).

The lowest creature looks up and cries out—that is gae-gaek.

Gae-gaek (塏揢).

The lowest creature reaches for the highest place—that is gae-gaek.

Gae-gaek (開客).

The lowest creature opens the door for others—that is gae-gaek.

The internal energy that started in my lower dantian circulated throughout my body.

A force opposite to the fire energy—the cold energy of Sulsam—rushed to meet it.

Fwoooosh.

Crack!

Fire and cold clashed violently within me.

I instinctively realized that if I made even the slightest mistake, my body would explode.

But I wasn’t worried.

Gae-gaek.

Thump.

My heart pounded wildly.

Not from tension, or because of the fire energy.

It was the cores and elixirs I had consumed over time, all responding at once.

It felt as though they were shouting, "We’ve been stuffed into the wrong place!" and "We need to break through!"

Thump.

The internal energy that had been circulating through my body gathered at a single point.

My heart.

My middle dantian.

The moment the path to my middle dantian opened, internal energy began accumulating there at an incredible speed.

Thump.

The raging fire energy and cold energy naturally lost their strength.

The fire energy flowed to my middle dantian.

The cold energy returned to my lower dantian.

The chaotic internal energy in my body gradually found its place.

The amount and quality of the internal energy and elixirs I had consumed was far from insufficient.

It was simply too vast for my dantian to contain, and my martial technique was too weak to handle such power, so I had only been able to use a portion of it.

But now, that limit had been lifted.

["Baekran Martial Technique" has evolved into "Gae-gaek Martial Technique."]

That’s right.

I had stepped onto the path of mastery.