Then what exactly had everything I’d done up to now been?
What else—just pointless nonsense.
I’d been stupid.
I’d created an enemy that didn’t even exist and felt like I’d been digging holes in empty air all by myself.
“True Martial Sect really has nothing to worry about?”
“Yes. If any sect wants to become enemies with Heavenly Martial Castle, they’d have to act like lunatics and rush in.”
Something inside me deflated.
As the tension unwound, it felt like all my strength drained at once.
During that time I had checked the dates.
Hoping I’d grow faster.
But I had mistaken it for the Era of Ten Warlords instead of the Era of Crimson Dominion.
I thought it was Year Twelve of the Era of Ten Warlords, but it was actually Year Twelve of the Era of Crimson Dominion.
Not confirming the era name had been the biggest mistake.
Pisik—.
A laugh slipped out.
Whatever the case, didn’t this mean True Martial Sect had absolutely no problems?
Then... could I live a bit more comfortably now?
Yes.
Until I became an adult, I’d live according to my age.
The successor would be my younger brother anyway.
Since I had no burden of inheriting the clan, I could simply enjoy life leisurely.
While receiving my parents’ love.
After confirming I had neither gone back in time nor reincarnated, I let go of my worries about True Martial Sect.
Then I devoured every kind of book, searching for something that could replace the internal qi I didn’t have.
Honestly, lacking internal qi made many things inconvenient.
When making elixirs, and when forging weapons just for fun.
You need internal qi to control the strength of fire, but I couldn’t, so nothing proper ever came out.
Before, the Four Heavenly Demon Lords would take turns infusing internal qi, so it didn’t matter.
Now Taecheon helped me, but I couldn’t call him every day to ask.
And if Taecheon was with me, I couldn’t craft proper items anyway.
I didn’t want to show the talents I possessed.
If I did, they’d obviously try to make me the successor.
Until my younger brother firmly took the position of successor, I would hide everything as much as possible.
Because I wanted to live freely, tied to nothing.
So I read every book I could find to solve these inconveniences, but found nothing.
I even read ancient classics.
No matter how many old books I read, nothing could substitute martial arts.
I even went beyond the classics of the Central Plains and touched books from other countries.
Then one day—
A book happened to fall into my hands.
A classic from a country called Pasa.
A book written in an unknown language strongly sparked my curiosity.
I had a feeling—this book might contain what I wanted.
So I learned the language of Pasa.
Once I learned it, I understood what the book was.
A magic tome.
A book containing methods of an art called magic.
Disappointing.
Magic still required a dantian.
But since I’d gone through the trouble of learning the language, I decided to read it anyway.
And it turned out different.
The arts of Pasa didn’t require a dantian.
My interest returned, but I didn’t like the name of the art.
Magic.
Did that mean a demonic art?
Maybe because I remembered once being called demon spawn, I couldn’t readily accept it.
Would learning this make me truly a demon?
But I was curious.
What kind of art was it?
In the end, I decided to learn it and examined it thoroughly.
To use magic, one needed a prerequisite:
convert the formulas used when creating formations with energy into rings and surround them around the heart—these were called Scripture Rings.
The more rings, the stronger their cooperation and amplification, allowing the energy stored in the heart to burst out more powerfully.
Increasing the number of rings was called Opening of Scripture Rings, and the level was classified by how many rings encircled the heart.
The maximum humans could reach was nine Scripture Rings.
There was also a tenth, but it said only Demonic Dragons or Variant Dragons could achieve that.
Variant Dragons were mythic beings—huge lizardlike bodies, enormous wings, and fire-breathing.
Different from the dragons we know.
They were called Variant Dragons because they were the dragons of this world.
It also said humans created magic by imitating what dragons used.
In any case, increasing Scripture Rings resembled rising cultivation realms in martial arts.
The more rings, the higher the realm.
Carving formation formulas into the heart’s energy...
It was refreshing.
Not easy.
It was my first time encountering such a method, and I had no idea how to begin.
Magic was said to open an infinite world.
By combining the four elements that made up the world, one could create or unfold anything.
Reading this, it sounded like gaining omnipotent power.
The use of four elements instead of the Five Phases was also refreshing.
Wait—if instead of four elements I used the Five Phases... wouldn’t even better magic appear?
If I created entirely new magic, it wouldn’t be a demonic art anymore.
Because I would create it in my own way.
Suddenly, motivation surged.
To do that, I had to understand magic perfectly.
I gathered every book related to the magic of Pasa.
Magic worked like this:
When the rings revolving around the heart gathered the energy of nature, that energy traveled to the mouth, produced sound, and when spoken, it deployed.
Each new ring required more complex formulas, and the pressure on the heart increased proportionally.
Because of this strain, it said practitioners of magic didn’t live long.
Also, increasing rings was dangerous.
If a formula was off and the energy rampaged, the heart could burst and kill the practitioner.
Another warning: once one learned magic, they could never return to how they were before.
To deploy magic properly, one needed the intelligence to solve formulas instantly—but those with such intelligence usually had weak bodies.
With already weak bodies and additional strain on the heart, they inevitably died young.
If they didn’t want to die early, they had to create a fourth ring and continuously deploy healing magic on the heart.
Even then, the overload remained, so their lifespan still shortened.
Those who couldn’t create a fourth ring were written to die within ten years.
But the conveniences gained from magic were countless.
Especially healing magic—an absurd cheat.
I fell completely into magic.
I had an invincible body and overwhelming strength, but the lack of internal qi made life inconvenient—magic could solve that.
Even if magic strained the heart, I didn’t think it would affect me much.
I began learning magic seriously.
Not with the four elements, but with the Five Phases of the Central Plains.
Naturally, the risk increased.
Because I had to embed far more complex formulas.
If the formulas were even slightly off or miscalculated, my heart would explode.
In fact, when I made the second ring after the first, the formula was wrong and a shock hit.
It was strong enough that my body jerked and my clothes blew apart entirely.
If it had been anyone else, they would have exploded and died, but I didn’t.
I suffered no damage. Not even pain.
Thanks to that, I became certain.
I was completely unaffected by the side effects of magic.
After that, I grew bold.
Even if the formulas were wrong, I took no damage—so I kept trying again and again.
Normally, one would be extremely cautious, checking complex formulas two or three times before engraving them onto the heart. I didn’t do that.
I engraved everything.
The result?
I succeeded in creating new magic using the Five Phases.
The new magic could be deployed like arcane arts by reciting incantations.
Once I got used to it, the rings around my heart began increasing rapidly.
I had many trial-and-error resets, often rebuilding the rings from the start, but eventually all the errors were corrected, refined, and the rings were reborn stronger and more solid.
Now, seven rings were roaring fiercely in my heart.
I could increase them further, but that wasn’t the priority—what mattered was creating incantations I could deploy with the rings’ power.
Five-Phases Incantation Art.
That was the name I gave to the magic I created.
Explaining it to others would be annoying, so I decided to just combine magic and arcane arts and call it magical arts.
They would interpret it as arcane arts anyway.
To practice the Five-Phases Incantation Art, I went to a quiet place.
“Let’s start with the basic spells in the magic tome.”
I converted basic spells into my own versions under the Five-Phases Incantation Art.
One of the one-ring spells: Fireball Art.
“Flame, as commanded—birth of the burning shot.”
When I murmured the incantation, a head-sized sphere of flame formed in midair.
I flicked my hand, and the fireball flew toward its target and exploded.
Boom—.
Whoosh—.
A smile spread on my face.
Now I could deploy something like martial arts without internal qi.
Though its power was weak.
But weak by my standards.
A massive tree was engulfed in flames and burning fiercely.
Looking at the burning tree, I recited another incantation.
“Water, as bound—flow forth and break.”
Moisture condensed above my head, and soon a shifting mass of water floated in the air.
I gestured again, and the water flew toward the burning tree and extinguished it instantly.
Shaa—.
Ssshhh—.
It was fun.
I could create anything.
My heart pounded.
What should I create next?
I was sinking deeper and deeper into the world of magic.
Three years passed while I lived completely immersed in magic, and I turned eleven.
During that time, I modified and created a great many incantations of the Five-Phases Incantation Art.
Not only could I deploy them, I could use them to form formations and engrave formulas into weapons and elixirs.
I could even engrave formulas onto people to track them.
I no longer needed smell to track anyone.
Thanks to this art—now firmly called the Five-Phases Incantation Art—my life became truly convenient.
I could now fly through the sky and control the intensity of fire.
I could infuse a sword with the Five-Phases Incantation Art’s energy and unfold splendid swordsmanship.
Its power wasn’t especially strong, but I could even infuse energy into my fists and strike like real martial arts.
Of course, the Five-Phases Incantation Art itself wasn’t strong.
I deployed it just for fun.
Still, unlike before—when everything ended with one punch—I was glad I could now create enjoyable battles.
Today was the first day I would use the Five-Phases Incantation Art in real combat.
After barely shaking off Taecheon, I headed toward a notorious bandit stronghold.
I was now eleven years old, and still looked like a child.

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