Chapter 2 Enlightenment

Chapter 2 Enlightenment

When Namgung-woo regained consciousness, he instinctively knew something had changed.

This was far from a vague, unfounded guess. The moment he tried to move his body, Namgung-woo felt the anomaly.

‘It’s heavy.’

No matter how much Chullok Murim was a Virtual Reality Game, the sensation of moving one’s body never perfectly matched reality. There were technical limitations.

Even the third-generation Virtual Reality Games, following the second-generation Chullok Murim, couldn’t completely resolve the disconnect from reality.

However, the feeling Namgung-woo now experienced as he twitched his fingers and wiggled his toes was identical to the vivid sensations of true reality.

‘Did the VR Capsule detect an abnormal reaction and send an emergency protocol?’

Sending human consciousness into virtual reality, no matter how much its safety was verified, still left a lingering unease about potential unforeseen accidents.

Because of this, the basic settings were configured to immediately cut off the connection and open the capsule, triggering a rescue alert, if any abnormal brainwave patterns were detected in the user.

It was the most rational answer Namgung-woo could think of at the moment, but the instant he opened his eyes, evidence contradicting it presented itself.

‘But… this ceiling looks too familiar.’

An antiquated wooden ceiling, utterly impossible to mistake for the design of a 22nd-century hospital or ambulance.

While a modern person would rarely see such a thing, it was all too familiar to Namgung-woo.

That architectural style was identical to the buildings he had grown tired of seeing in Chullok Murim.

“Was it a forced event?”

A casual murmur escaped his lips, and an unexpected reply came back.

“What are you talking about now?”

“Huh?”

“Are you finally coming to your senses?”

Namgung-woo’s half-closed eyes snapped open, and he turned towards the source of the voice.

A young person, perhaps barely twenty years old, with a hint of youthful innocence still lingering, was looking down at him.

Their gaze held more discomfort than goodwill or curiosity. Namgung-woo’s mind jolted awake as he saw his own blurry reflection in their large, clear eyes.

“Wait, this is…”

“Consider yourself lucky. It’s a good thing Dang-a found you and brought you here; if you’d been left in the market, you might have died on the streets. You should be grateful to your parents for giving you such a decent face.”

Their blunt words were quite sharp.

In truth, Song Chae-ji was not particularly pleased to see Namgung-woo. Song Chae-ji and Dang-a were already in a difficult situation themselves. Although they spoke that way, judging by Namgung-woo’s attire, he seemed to come from a well-off family, so he probably would have survived somehow.

However, in their anxiety, they had indeed been too harsh.

‘It’s not the time to be doing favors for others, but… sigh, my cultivation is shallow. I should apologize.’

Song Chae-ji chastised themselves inwardly for being too harsh on Namgung-woo.

However, what truly bothered Namgung-woo was not their dismissive tone, but the content of their words.

A decent face?

Impossible. Namgung-woo’s face was, objectively speaking, quite ordinary.

In a three-tier system (high, middle, low), he was squarely in the middle, and even within that, still in the middle.

If divided into nine grades, he’d be middle-middle; if further subdivided into twenty-seven, he might just barely scrape by as middle-middle-high.

Yet, a person barely twenty years old openly called him “decent-looking”? Unless they were being sarcastic, this was something Namgung-woo would never experience in reality.

However, if it was his appearance within Chullok Murim, it made sense. No matter how much Namgung-woo was an over-immersed hardcore user who used his real name as his in-game nickname, he hadn’t made his in-game face perfectly identical to his real one.

Everyone harbored a desire to be handsome, didn’t they? Namgung-woo had merely indulged that desire a little.

‘Then I’m still in Chullok Murim… but what is this sense of reality?’

External information told him he was still in Chullok Murim, yet the sensations he was experiencing insisted that this was reality.

As Namgung-woo struggled to make sense of this disconnect, the young girl hidden behind Song Chae-ji peeked out.

“Oh, Sister. Don’t scold them too much…”

“Hmm, Dang-a. Sister isn’t scolding them; I’m just giving advice so they’ll be careful in the future. And we don’t even know who this person is. It’s right to be wary. What if they’re a spy sent by those Black Bear Faction rascals…?”

Namgung-woo had no time to care what the two were chattering about.

He immediately turned his attention inward, observing his own body.

In Chullok Murim, Martial Arts were designed to be as realistic as possible, allowing players to examine their internal body and cultivate Internal Energy through mental meditation.

The daily meditation, despite the surrounding commotion, plunged Namgung-woo’s consciousness deep within.

He felt an incredibly potent energy slumbering in his Qihai Dantian, his Lower Dantian. It was a tyrannical True Qi, like a Thunderbolt capable of splitting the heavens and rending the earth.

Since such an energy couldn’t possibly reside within his body in reality, this should have confirmed he was in Chullok Murim. Yet, instead of relief, Namgung-woo was even more astonished.

‘What is this…?’

A sensation more real than reality itself.

Unlike in Chullok Murim, where he could only visually perceive his growth, Namgung-woo was now experiencing the presence of his Lower Dantian’s Internal Energy with all five senses, and even a sixth.

It was a power like a coiled Thunder Dragon.

Naturally.

The Lower Dantian Cultivation Method Namgung-woo had practiced was the Heavenly Thunder Emperor’s Divine Art.

It was modeled after the most tyrannical power of the Thunderbolt in all Under Heaven.

This was a sensation that could not possibly be replicated by a mere game.

He realized it instinctively.

This was the moment Namgung-woo became aware that he was in reality.

Suddenly, an unprecedented torrent of information surged into Namgung-woo’s brain like a rapid current.

It was a form of knowledge. Formal, clear bundles of information, far removed from emotion-laden memories.

“Ugh…!”

The sensation, like downloading files onto a computer, brought both a sense of alienness and pain. Namgung-woo clutched his head, letting out a short groan stained with agony.

The information didn’t stop.

How to breathe, how to walk, how to move his hands, how to control Internal Energy…

It was a feast of knowledge, making him consciously aware of the precise forms every action he had previously taken for granted now had to follow.

Human movement, despite its intricacy, is fundamentally unconscious. If asked to explain how one grasps an object with their hand, most people can only answer “just like that.”

In contrast, a robot requires an incredibly complex process to execute each individual action. Considering the extensive research and trial and error involved in programming a robot to walk, one can appreciate the difficulty of digitizing every human action.

The changes occurring in Namgung-woo’s mind were precisely like this. It was a process of assigning specific forms to actions he had always taken for granted. There was no other way to describe it.

“Aargh… Aaah…!”

However, even the terror of the bizarre sensation, as if his brain was being turned inside out, was bearable compared to the intense pain in his eyes.

If the knowledge being etched into his brain felt like a branding iron searing his skin, Namgung-woo’s eyes felt as if someone was forcibly plucking them out and carving them while the nerves were still alive.

The headache and eye pain were so extreme that Namgung-woo hadn’t noticed, but every pain receptor throughout his body was also sending signals of agony to his brain.

Could this be what Complex Regional Pain Syndrome felt like?

With the pain of his perfectly fine eyes being mutilated, Namgung-woo could no longer suppress his screams.

At Namgung-woo’s sudden outburst, Song Chae-ji flustered and helped him up.

“H-hey! Are you alright?”

“Sister… what do we do…?”

“A physician, we need to call a physician. Dang-a, I’ll go quickly…”

Tap.

Namgung-woo’s hand grabbed Song Chae-ji’s arm as they were about to leave him and go outside.

As Song Chae-ji pondered what this meant in such a bewildering situation, Namgung-woo’s lips parted.

“You don’t need to.”

“A-are you really okay? Your sweat…”

Song Chae-ji examined Namgung-woo’s face with concern.

Cold sweat beaded on his face, dripping down. Anyone could see he was not in a normal state.

But Namgung-woo, having regained some composure, shook his head.

“I am truly fine. Could you, just for a moment, leave me alone?”

For a fleeting instant, the thought crossed Song Chae-ji’s mind: was he feigning illness to avoid having to pay them back? But the thought quickly vanished.

Song Chae-ji was a genuine Jianghu Martial Artist who had cultivated Martial Arts. For a man who showed no signs of cultivating Martial Arts to deceive Song Chae-ji’s eyes would mean he was a master of acting, worthy of being called Foremost Under Heaven.

‘That can’t be it.’

Song Chae-ji accepted this and gently removed Namgung-woo’s hand.

“Alright. Get some rest. Come out when you’re feeling better. So-dang-a, let’s go.”

“Mmm… Sister.”

Even as they were led out by Song Chae-ji’s hand, the young girl kept looking back, seemingly worried about Namgung-woo.

Soon, a thud sounded as the door closed.

After that, Namgung-woo endured the pain alone. Fortunately, as he had told Song Chae-ji, the pain gradually subsided with time.

At this rate, the pain would surely disappear completely in a moment.

“Hoo… hoooo…”

Instinctively, Namgung-woo took a deep breath, following the method of breathing etched into his mind.

His body was the first to react, and then the coiled Thunder Dragon stirred, slowly beginning to circulate within him.

Time passed like that.

The pain wasn’t prolonged; Namgung-woo’s consciousness had briefly returned even while Song Chae-ji and the young girl were momentarily flustered.

As the searing pain in his head subsided, a clarity of mind he had never experienced before settled in. It was so lucid that his earlier worry about lasting after-effects from the intense pain seemed laughable.

Finally, with the disappearance of the eye pain that had far surpassed the headache, Namgung-woo completely regained his composure.

And the world he cautiously opened his eyelids to was…

It had transformed into a separate world, unlike anything Namgung-woo had ever seen.

“What in the world…”

His Field of Vision was filled with a brilliant halo of light.

That was the world Namgung-woo would now see.