Chapter 60
Seventy ri to the east.
For an ordinary person, it would take a full day to walk that distance.
But for a martial artist with exceptional movement skills, it was a journey of barely two hours.
And for someone like me — half that time was more than enough to reach my destination.
“Is this… the end of the world?”
After traveling east for half an hour, the snow-covered mountain that Baekho had mentioned came into view.
But behind it stood a pure white wall — as if beyond it, nothing else existed.
It was wider than I expected, though I had never imagined the world to be infinite.
It was roughly as I’d guessed, so I wasn’t all that surprised.
Instead, something else caught my interest.
“So Baekho was living in quite a nice place.”
He had described it as small, but the snowy mountain’s beauty was nothing short of breathtaking.
And just as he’d said, there was a lake before it — so beautiful that even I found myself momentarily lost in admiration.
It took me longer than expected to notice the thatched cottage enclosed by a small wooden fence near the lake.
“So that’s Baekho’s home.”
When I finally spotted it, I couldn’t help but be a little shocked.
I hadn’t expected him to literally live in a house built like a human’s.
I’d imagined a cave or a den of some sort.
“But he said I’d understand once I arrived. From the outside, there’s nothing special.”
I stepped closer to take a better look.
The first thing that stood out was how old the house was.
“He really must have lived here for a long time.”
It looked like no one had maintained it for ages — walls crumbling, parts of the roof caved in.
There were everyday tools and furniture inside, but no signs they’d been used recently. Just layers of dust.
That aside, there was one thing I was more concerned about.
“So where’s this ‘gift’ he mentioned?”
He said I’d understand what the gift was once I arrived, but there was nothing outside.
Even after thoroughly scanning the area, I found nothing unusual.
That left only one place to check — inside the house.
In truth, it had already caught my eye earlier — Baekho’s tracks were visible in the thick layer of dust near the entrance.
“No wonder his health was bad, living like this.”
Of course, age played the biggest role, but the environment surely didn’t help either.
There’s a reason patients seek clean air and fresh water to recover.
I sighed and stepped up to the door, reluctantly preparing to remove my shoes before entering.
Creeeak—
Honestly, I expected the interior to be far worse — messy bedding, trash everywhere, like a pigsty.
But to my surprise, it was rather neat.
Relatively speaking, of course.
“Nothing. It’s completely empty.”
There wasn’t a single piece of furniture left inside.
Only dust and cobwebs.
Compared to the outside, the inside almost looked… acceptable.
But still—
“If there’s nothing here either, then where’s the gift supposed to be?”
I didn’t even need to step in fully; I could see from the doorway that the room was empty.
Still, I searched every corner, hoping to find something, but eventually gave up.
Naturally, my eyes drifted toward the snowy mountain again.
If anything were hidden, that seemed the most likely place.
But—
“If that were the case, Baekho would’ve said the gift was in the mountain.”
He had no reason to lie.
Unless this was a test.
And from the way he’d spoken, that seemed far more likely.
“So he wants to test me, huh?”
I chuckled softly.
He called me his master, yet—
“What kind of subordinate tests his own master?”
Still, I didn’t feel annoyed.
Baekho wasn’t the type to deceive for amusement.
If he was testing me, there was a purpose behind it.
So I decided to play along.
“He did say it’d be something worth expecting… Seems it’s not an ordinary gift.”
I shut the door again and turned around, heading to the back of the house.
If nothing was inside, maybe something was hidden behind it.
But there, too, nothing special stood out.
There was only a well.
For a moment, I wondered if there might be a hidden passage beneath it — but it was filled with clear water.
There could be something at the bottom, but I decided that would be the last place I checked.
After all, who hides a gift in a well?
Then again…
“Don’t tell me there’s a Thousand-Year Carp living in there?”
The thought struck me suddenly because of the nearby lake.
The lake wasn’t just beautiful — it radiated an unusual, mystical energy.
So it wouldn’t be impossible for Baekho to have caught a Thousand-Year Carp from the lake and stored it in the well.
After all, such a creature could survive underwater indefinitely.
“If that’s true, it’d be incredible.”
If the carp truly was the gift, Baekho’s words about it being “worth expecting” would make perfect sense.
The inner core of a Thousand-Year Carp was one of the greatest treasures known to the martial world.
For martial artists of the Yang attribute, consuming it could provide decades of internal energy — while even ordinary people could gain a century of life from just a small fragment.
Some even claimed that the First Emperor of Qin’s legendary “elixir of immortality” was in fact the carp’s inner core.
“Even the proud Mount Hua Sect once dispatched countless disciples to obtain one when it appeared in the world.”
If Baekho were gifting me such a treasure…
I wouldn’t hesitate to offer him the Imoogi’s inner core in return.
With enough time, Baekho could surely refine the energy within it for himself.
And since I’d already given him half a yeouiju (dragon orb), it would be a fair exchange.
But of course, all that hinged on whether there really was a Thousand-Year Carp in the well.
So after brief thought, I made up my mind.
Better to check than sit here wondering.
Of course, I wasn’t about to dive in.
I had a simpler way — divine energy.
“If it’s a spiritual creature, it can’t help but react to divine power.”
Unless it deliberately suppressed its presence, of course.
But that was fine — I could deal with that, too.
Like this.
Crackle!
I summoned a surge of divine energy, directing it straight into the well — like a bolt of lightning.
I’d seen once, when lightning struck a river, fish floated to the surface in droves.
If there really was something living in the well, it would surely react.
The energy faded. The water settled.
And… nothing.
Just stillness.
A complete miss.
“Well, that makes this test more difficult.”
Back to square one.
And I wasn’t in the mood for another tedious search.
“Fine. I’ll just expand the search.”
If something special existed here, divine power would find it.
I didn’t need to cover an entire mountain like back at Mount Hua — just the area within the fence.
So I spread my energy outward.
At first, only around the house — but then, on second thought, I extended it farther, over the entire lake and up to the middle of the snowy mountain behind the house.
And that’s when I sensed it.
“There it is.”
A spirit.
Whether or not it was the Thousand-Year Carp, I couldn’t say — but the energy of a divine creature definitely pulsed from the lake.
I should’ve been excited, but suspicion came first.
What kind of world is this, where even divine beasts live freely?
Baekho had said a sage helped him create this world.
But to contain living spirits, and on such a massive scale — was that really possible?
If it was…
Then I’ll have to ask him to teach me how to make one myself.
Still, that spirit probably wasn’t the gift.
It was too deep within the lake — nearly unreachable.
So I focused elsewhere.
After a bit more concentration, I discovered something else.
Something very peculiar.
“So I didn’t need to look far at all… The house itself is the key.”
From the outside, it was just a shabby thatched hut.
But that very hut was what supported this entire world.
In other words—
“This world was created and sustained through this house.”
I had thought I was inside some kind of grand formation or illusion.
But I was wrong.
This wasn’t an illusion.
It was a real, self-contained world — sustained by the house before me.
It was hard to believe.
That such a humble little hut could hold the power to create and maintain an entire realm.
“So the ‘help from an immortal’ Baekho mentioned must have been… this house.”
Which meant this hut was no ordinary dwelling.
It was likely a treasure from the Immortal Realm.
That, at least, explained everything.
Immortal treasures were unlike anything in this world.
And for Baekho to possess one — that was astonishing in itself.
But then—
“Wait… don’t tell me the gift is…”
…this house?
At first, I dismissed the idea as absurd.
Who gifts someone their own home?
But after using divine power again and finding nothing else resembling a gift, I had no choice but to accept it.
“Of all things… a house?”
And not even a normal one.
A house whose value couldn’t be compared to any other — not even an emperor’s palace could match it.
“If I offered this to an emperor in exchange for his palace, he’d probably agree without hesitation.”
I wasn’t exaggerating.
Beyond its function, the world surrounding it was a paradise — a true Peach Blossom Spring.
It was so magnificent that I felt both awe and unease accepting it.
It was too grand a gift.
Still—
“…Maybe I should just close my eyes and accept it.”
Why not?
But before I could make up my mind, that decision became unnecessary.
Because at that very moment—
Like many divine artifacts with their own consciousness—
The house itself spoke to me.
“Who said you could make me yours?”
