CHAPTER 119
119 — A Spiritual Beast?

After several days of testing, Kalesian’s words proved to be only half right.
He had said that time was frozen or stopped, but that wasn’t the case. To be precise, time was flowing incredibly slowly.
‘It wasn’t like this before we came here.’
Until the day before they had set foot in this ‘territory of the snowy mountain,’ it hadn’t been this extreme. The days had been getting longer and the nights shorter, but it was all within the realm of common sense.
But here, upon entering the Lord’s land, everything had changed overnight. An endless day had begun, one where night would not come no matter how long they waited.
‘But if we leave this area, it returns to normal.’
Over the past few days, they had moved away from the mountain to verify this.
The campsite where they had last stayed before entering the Lord’s land. When he and Kalesian retreated there, time was still flowing normally.
The sun moved properly, and though the night was short, it still arrived as it should.
“I was worried we might have been trapped, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“I agree.”
They had wondered if they were being forcibly confined in the Lord’s territory, but that wasn’t it either. It meant they could escape and leave whenever they wanted.
After running various tests, they tried explaining it to Johann, but he couldn’t understand.
“What? The day is long? What are you talking about?”
“It’s already been over ten hours since you started working again.”
“What nonsense is that? It feels like it’s barely been ten minutes.”
His sense of time was clearly distorted. Even stranger was the fact that he felt no curiosity whatsoever at Jinwoo’s claims.
His attitude toward the topic was like stone; he seemed to feel no sense of wrongness at all.
It was as if that emotion was not permitted to him.
“Haaah, it’s great to be working under such a magnificent Lord, but to think I have to endure this for another 10,000 years…”
“10,000 years?”
“Yes. He said he would grant me freedom after that much time has passed.”
Jinwoo recalled the moment he had sent Johann falling into the abyss. Back then, Belkarim, the God of the Ice Valley, had said something similar.
I can work him for at least 10,000 years…
‘10,000 years is already an eternity, and it’s not even in a normal place, but here?’
It was a fraudulent contract so absurd it was baffling. A punishment of 10,000 years in a space where time flowed hundreds of times slower. Didn’t that mean he would effectively spend millions of years in labor?
In any case, Johann felt nothing strange about any of it. Or perhaps, he couldn’t feel it?
He was facing millions of years of digging dirt, yet he seemed to regard it as just a few years of prison time.
He was even proud of his work, acting like a model prisoner.
…There was no need to force the truth upon him. If he was satisfied with it, so be it.
‘Besides, I don’t even know how to wake him up.’
He didn’t know the method, nor did he have a reason to pursue it.
If the man had been his family or a relative, he would have considered it seriously, but he was an assassin who had tried to kill him. Why would he rack his brain for that bastard’s sake?
More important was their own next move.
‘Kalesian seems to want to experiment with a few things.’
Kalesian had come to the Spirit Realm to experience it in the first place. As such, he held a great deal of curiosity about this peculiar domain imbued with a Lord’s Authority.
Moreover, he could conduct time-consuming research here without any burden. No matter how long a dragon’s lifespan was, there was plenty of research that was difficult to achieve even in ten thousand years.
“No dragon in the Dragon Star Realm can manipulate the flow of time. This place is a mystery for that reason alone.”
He had clearly expressed his desire to remain here.
Jinwoo had reasons to oppose it and reasons to agree. The former was that his goal was to find the World Tree, and this was a Lord’s territory, so danger could strike at any time.
On the other hand, the latter was…
‘I also have a few things I want to try.’
Jinwoo also saw a great advantage in this space.
The first thing that came to mind when he confirmed that time was slow was that he could use it.
He hadn’t come up with some grand plan. He simply thought it was the perfect place for training.
Didn’t everyone have similar fantasies as a child? If there was a place where time didn’t flow, or flowed slowly, you could easily finish your studies or homework and come back out…

“Even if we leave this place, there’s no telling what dangers we’ll face. If we run into another bastard like Silbaern, that would be dangerous in its own right, would it not?”
“That’s true, but it will be easier to find a Blue Portal if we move around as much as possible rather than staying in one place.”
“Hrmm… You have a point.”
In any case, time flowed hundreds of times slower here. Staying for a while wouldn’t be a burden time-wise.
It would just make it harder to find a Blue Portal.
“Then let’s do this.”
“What is it?”
In the end, they reached a compromise. It was fine to stay for a while, but as soon as they achieved some results, they would leave immediately. However, if even the slightest hint of danger appeared, they would flee at once.
Having reached an agreement, the two decided to rest for a while and take some time for themselves.
It was necessary time for Jinwoo as well as for Kalesian. He had learned things from his battle with Silbaern and had come to realize facts he hadn’t known before.
And so, the two decided to impose on Johann’s cabin for the time being.
“Dammit, why my house of all places?”
Johann made his displeasure obvious, but he couldn’t object. From his perspective, Jinwoo was the man who had killed him just yesterday, chased him all the way here in a single day, and tried to kill him again.
Moreover, he had somehow brought a living dragon with him, so there was no way to refuse.
He had even lost the dragon soul, his last resort, to Jinwoo.
Thus began their long, yet short, strange cohabitation on the snowy mountain.

Jinwoo was climbing the entrance of the snowy mountain. It was some distance from Johann’s house, but a trip like this was nothing. It was about a single sprint away.
The reason he had come all the way to the mountain was that there was nothing near Johann’s house.
There were no animals, no fruit-bearing trees, and no mushrooms. It was a space of only dirt and rock, aside from a few sparse weeds.
So he came to the mountain, where the vegetation was richer. There was something he wanted to find out.
“As expected of a mountain, there’s much more to eat.”
Even a snow-covered mountain wasn’t just snow and ice.
There were mushrooms with tenacious life force and small fruits similar to wild berries. The landscape was filled with flora and fauna that thrived in the cold environment.
He gathered everything that looked edible. He tried the berry-like fruits, plucked mushrooms, brushed off the dirt, and popped them in his mouth. He hunted a rabbit with white fur that was passing by and roasted it.
This wasn’t just to fill his stomach. Although he did feel full, Jinwoo’s purpose was something else.
‘It’s not as distinct as a spiritual elixir, but there’s still a slight reaction.’
He was trying to figure out the identity of the bottomless emptiness he had felt when he recently consumed an elixir.
The Spirit Realm was a land full of mana, and the various plants and animals living there also possessed a considerable amount of it. While not all of them could be called elixirs, they were at a level that could replenish some mana.
Among them were some that could easily be called low-grade elixirs. A mushroom that had grown for at least twenty years, or the honey from a single flower blooming on a centuries-old tree.
As he ate them, he tried to feel that sense of emptiness again. And he contemplated, trying to discover its true nature.
‘It’s a bit like hunger.’
When he ate the precious elixir in Kalesian’s lair, and when he cut down Silbaern and absorbed its soul.
He had felt the same sensation then. A feeling like pouring water into a bottomless jar.
‘What on earth is it?’
He didn’t know its identity.
If he had to guess, he wondered if it was related to Erosion. Could the nature of Erosion, which infinitely devoured all things, be intercepting and stealing the power of the elixirs entering his body?
‘My mana is steadily increasing, at least.’
To say it was simply being stolen by Erosion wasn’t quite right, as the effects of the elixirs were definitely manifesting.
It might be a different problem altogether…
“Hm?”
Just then, he felt a gaze fixed on him.
Though he was meditating, he had not let down his guard. His senses clearly detected something watching him.
He turned to see a single wolf. It was quite large, its fur a mix of white and ash gray. Its eyes, like blue jewels, were staring at him.
“Hoh, a spiritual beast.”
“Kalesian.”
Kalesian, who had flown over at some point, spoke. He, too, had a deep curiosity about the snowy mountain and had been exploring it whenever he had time, just like Jinwoo.
“In such an alien space, it’s not surprising to find spiritual herbs or spiritual beasts. The Spirit Realm is already rich with mana, after all.”
As Kalesian said, this land was a strange space where time flowed slowly.
Because of its influence, there were many spiritual herbs that held considerable mana despite being young sprouts.
It was no different for the beasts; many of them were clever enough to be called spiritual beasts, even if they looked ordinary at first glance.
“Oh, it’s gone.”
As if noticing their observation, the wolf turned its head sharply and vanished.
It disappeared like the wind with just a couple of steps, proving it was no ordinary wolf.
“It seems to be several hundred years old. Shall we give chase? It would make for an excellent research subject, would it not?”
Jinwoo shook his head at Kalesian, whose eyes were gleaming.
“Do as you please. I have my own things to do.”
He understood his curiosity, but for Jinwoo now, introspection came first. This was not the time to be concerned with others’ affairs.
“Is that so? Very well.”
Watching Kalesian fly away with a grin, Jinwoo sank back into meditation.

How many days and nights passed like that? It was pointless to count anyway. Even if they spent several more months in this space, not even a full day would have passed outside.
During that time, Jinwoo gathered and ate all the unfamiliar plants and fruits on the snowy mountain. The same went for the wild animals and the fish in the streams.
But no matter how much he ate, that emptiness was never filled. Was it something that couldn’t be identified simply by eating and meditating?
Kalesian was still showing curiosity about everything. If he met the wolf he had seen before, he would chase after it, and if he saw anything else unusual, he would fly over to investigate.
Seeing him chase after a butterfly he’d never seen before, he sometimes looked like a child, belying his age. Though the body of a hatchling was indeed that of a child.
In the flow of time, Jinwoo encountered the wolf several more times. A handsome, beautiful wolf with eyes like jewels.
The creature, which always fled when Kalesian appeared, seemed curious about Jinwoo, circling near him on several occasions.
In a way, it was an endearing sight, like a well-behaved pet.
But Jinwoo felt no delight in it. Instead, he was filled with vigilance.
“Instead of hiding and watching, why don’t you come out?”
The thicket where it was hiding didn't stir.
“Belkarim.”
Rustle—
The bushes shifted slightly.
Hiding inside was a being with a Black Flame, similar to the Sky God or Rondar, to the other Lords.