Fabre in Sacheon's Tang-Chapter 208: Growth (4)

"That is..."

"Ah, Sister Seol, hold on a moment. Let’s stop the children first."

Just before Sister Seol could explain how to train the mind, I decided to halt the children's training first.

It was strange that they were jumping off high places just because they wanted to become stronger.

Hyang, nestled in my arms, twitched her antennae, not understanding why she was being held so tightly.

I asked her gently,

"But Hyang, why are you jumping from high places?"

She answered firmly, without hesitation.

"To become stronger."

• Churur.

"What? To become stronger?"

• Chururut!

• Kiiik!

• Krrr.

Hyang, Hongdan, even Cheongwol.

All of them, in unison, answered that they were throwing themselves off heights to toughen their backs.

'So it's because Cheongwol saved them, and it left a big impression... Hyang must have wanted to become like Cheongwol, too.

They must have all wanted to be as tough as Cheongwol.'

It seemed Cheongwol’s rescue had left a deep impression on Hyang.

Of course, if Hyang saw Cheongwol in the middle of the night, she would look like a shining angel.

A giant glowing figure had suddenly appeared, turning monsters into shredded meat and saving her—of course, it must have seemed like something out of a dream.

It made perfect sense that Hyang now went around calling Cheongwol her big sister.

But still...

This kind of training wouldn't help Hyang at all.

Jumping off things wouldn't make a centipede or an earwig’s exoskeleton tougher.

It's not like repetitive impacts would build muscle like they do in humans.

Their bodies were entirely determined by genetics, inherited from their parents.

"But Hyang, won’t you just get hurt like this?"

• Churut!?

"Huh? Cheongwol? She said this would make you stronger?"

• Churut!

I looked at Cheongwol after hearing Hyang’s completely innocent response.

Even Cheongwol was nodding along.

At first, Hyang must have come to her, nagging to be taught how to get stronger, and Cheongwol, annoyed, must have just given her a random task to make her leave.

But looking at her now, it seemed like Cheongwol had genuinely meant it.

Either she was a warrior with a brain full of muscles, or she was just a little bit dumb.

Since she had sincerely taught Hyang this, I had to be careful with my words to avoid hurting either of them.

'I'll have to explain this carefully so neither of them gets hurt.'

If I said the wrong thing, it wouldn’t just leave a bad impression on Cheongwol—it could also break the trust between her and Hyang.

"If you grow a little more like Big Sister Cheongwol, then maybe. But right now, you’re still small, and you could get hurt doing this.

If Hyang gets hurt, it’ll hurt Daddy’s heart even more than if I got hurt myself..."

• Tsu, tsurut?

"Right, Cheongwol? Our Hyang hasn't even shed her ‘yellow’ baby shell yet, has she?"

I gently coaxed her, and Cheongwol tapped her own forehead with her pincer.

She sent a feeling like she had completely forgotten something important.

• Krrrr!

Well, of course.

A yellow shell was the biggest sign of a youngling among scorpions and centipedes.

Even though Hyang had already molted twice, developing blue spots on her body,

Cheongwol still saw her as a baby.

Baby centipedes typically molt twice before they take on the same size and color as their parents.

From then on, they just keep growing bigger with each molt.

But Hyang hadn’t reached that stage yet, still stuck in her juvenile form.

• Krr, krrr.

Cheongwol looked at me as if trying to explain something—probably something about the number of molts needed before she could teach Hyang how to become strong.

Then, Hyang’s legs drooped in disappointment.

Anyone could tell she was crestfallen.

She must have been training so hard since dawn, only to find out it was pointless.

Her reaction was so adorable that I hugged her tightly again and reassured her.

"Hyang, Daddy will find a way for you to become strong. So don’t be too sad, okay?"

• Churut? 『Really?』

"Of course."

With that, I stopped Hyang and Hongdan’s training and took them back to the medical hall.

Then, I asked Sister Seol about training the mind.

Hyang was so eager to grow stronger, so I wanted to show her that Daddy could do it too.

"Sister Seol, can you tell me what I asked about earlier?"

"Of course. You’re my little brother, after all."

She nodded at my request.

Holding the tea that Hwa-eun had poured for her, she looked at me and asked,

"Do you remember when Father first taught me the Beast Heart Art? He said I shouldn’t take in too many beasts at once."

"Yes, of course. He warned that their consciousness could overpower my mind.

He said I needed to be careful since they are spirit beasts."

Just as she said, that was the warning I received when I first learned the Beast Heart Art.

If I registered too many beasts at once, I could lose control of my own mind to theirs.

Since all of my children were spirit beasts, I had to be even more careful.

"That’s right. You ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) remember well, little brother."

I nodded, recalling the lesson, and Sister Seol smiled, pleased that I hadn’t forgotten.

"So, the more beasts you take in, the more you need to train your mind to stay stable.

When the chaotic thoughts of the beasts flood in, you have to be able to hold your own.

It’s not really a special kind of training.

Just meditating under a waterfall or training yourself to stay calm even in chaotic situations."

'Ah, so it's like mental fortitude training.'

Meditating under a waterfall—I had seen monks do it in TV programs in my past life.

But I was curious about what she meant by "training to stay calm in chaotic situations."

"I understand meditation under a waterfall, but what do you mean by training to maintain a strong mind?"

At that, Sister Seol’s gentle expression suddenly changed.

Her eyes turned sharp and cold, as if she was recalling something from the past.

"This is a really tough training method. Are you sure you can handle it?"

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I swallowed hard.

Something about this felt seriously intense.

But I couldn’t back down now—not when Hyang was giving it her all to protect me.

A father is stronger than a man!

A father is the strongest being in the world!

Sister Seol nodded, then moved closer and sat right next to me.

"Alright. Let’s test if you can do it first."

"Huh? Test it?"

"Yes."

I blinked, confused by what she meant.

Then, suddenly, Sister Seol leaned in even closer.

Her lips brushed against my ear as she whispered in a cold, chilling voice.

[Be abandoned.]

[!]

At my sister’s sudden harsh words, my eyes widened in shock, and even she flinched.

She checked my expression, then, looking flustered, apologized with a very guilty face.

“W-was that too harsh, even for training? I-I’m sorry, So-ryong. I didn’t mean it. It was just... just training.”

She seemed to be asking if calling me abandoned had been too much, but that wasn’t why I was surprised.

‘No, that’s not it. That wasn’t an insult—it was a compliment!’

A bug, she said.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

That meant a creature that could leap several times its own body length and lift several times its own weight—just like a superhero.

It meant a perfect organism with a beautiful shell and an incredibly strong body.

I was only shocked because it was such unexpected praise.

‘So Sister really does love me sincerely, huh? But wait, then... is this training just about enduring compliments that make you want to curl up and cringe?’

If this was all it took for training, could it even be called training?

***

With my sister and Hwa-eun's help, I did begin mental training, but there was a serious problem.

Do people even understand what kind of place the internet is?

It’s like a jungle where only true beasts survive.

And I had been thrown into that jungle and forced to fend for myself.

The insults and harsh words my sister and Hwa-eun knew were far too tame to shake the mental fortitude of someone like me, who had once been a fearless warrior in countless online battles.

"So-ryong... y-you fool! Sniff... H-how could you say something so cruel to your own sister? I feel like I’ve become a terrible person..."

She hadn’t even said anything serious, yet her own mental state was crumbling.

Back in my past life, online fights always started with insults about the other person’s parents—that was just standard.

This wasn’t mental training at all.

Even worse, my sister somehow convinced Brother Gyu-seong to join in and insult me too.

And the best he could come up with was:

"You bastard with two fathers!"

‘Why are you just stating facts? How is this supposed to be training?’

All he did was remind me that I had both a biological father and an adoptive father.

In the end, I couldn’t even go near the waterfall in case my mental wounds got worse, so I mostly spent my time meditating.

The biggest problem with mental training was that there was no visible way to confirm progress.

With internal energy, you could measure it increasing. With martial arts, your attacks became stronger. But mental training? There was no way to gauge improvement.

"Sister, how exactly do we know if this mental training is working?"

After nearly ten days of sitting under a tree meditating, I finally asked.

My sister smiled.

She picked up a creature she had brought along—something she apparently wanted to play with—and walked over to me.

She lifted it up, showing it to me, and explained.

"You can check it like this. Beasts connected through Beast-Mind Technique can be infused with energy directly like this. When that happens, the energy temporarily boosts them, making them faster and stronger, just like how a person uses internal energy.

By observing how long they maintain the boost and how much stronger they become, you can measure how much your mind has grown."

"Wait, that was a thing?"

My expression must have asked why she hadn’t told me about this before.

Smiling, my sister answered.

"I didn’t tell you because this is an enchanted beast, and it already holds a great amount of energy. We had no idea what would happen if we infused it with the Beast-Mind Technique’s energy.

It could have been dangerous, so how could I tell you to try it?"

She hadn’t deliberately withheld it—it was just that there were no enchanted beasts in Beast Palace to test it on, so she hadn’t been able to explain it before.

"But now that I can test it myself, I can finally tell you."

She smiled at me, as if saying, You wouldn’t want me experimenting on my own brother, would you?

'Gaaaah! Sister!'

Just as I was once again overwhelmed by her sibling love, she pressed the Beast-Mind Technique’s energy into the creature she was holding.

Suddenly, it shuddered and leaped from her arms.

Then something unexpected happened—long strands of fur shot up from its back like fingers.

Shrrkk!

"What... is this!?"

Its fur had become sharp and elongated like a porcupine’s quills.

My sister’s eyes went wide in shock as she turned to me.

She had only expected it to become faster and stronger, but this—this was something close to evolution.

She quickly snapped out of her shock and gave a command.

Since the effect wouldn't last long, she wanted to test it immediately.

"Grasshound Chain Formation!"

It seemed like she was using a technique similar to Wolf Army’s famous attack formation, but with a "Bark Bark" twist.

The creature curled its body and launched itself at the log she pointed to, spinning like a wheel.

Shrrk!

With a chilling slicing sound, the log was cleanly cut on a diagonal and fell to the ground.

Then, as the creature landed, the mane it had grown vanished.

My sister, astonished, cried out.

"S-So enchanted beasts don’t just grow stronger—they physically transform too!?"

Chirrrp!

At that moment, I heard Cho’s voice from above—she had come to watch my training.

The moment our eyes met, a thought struck me.

'Just how incredible will my daughter look when she transforms?'