Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

Early morning, about two days later.

I was listlessly rolling around on the bed.

“Since my wives aren’t coming to see me either, nights are really boring.”

Once you reach the Life-and-Death Realm, it’s enough sleep if you only sleep for an hour or two a week, but I’d raised my realm from being an ordinary person in too short a time, so I still hadn’t adapted to reduced sleep yet.

I had to close my eyes for a few hours a day to feel refreshed.

People think sleep is just resting because the body is tired, but that’s only because they don’t know what sleep actually means.

After I reached the Life-and-Death Realm, I could feel the movement of qi much better, and that’s how I learned it—sleep is the time when an ordinary person reaccumulates the energy they used during the day.

Even ordinary people, while breathing, unconsciously take in the energy of heaven and earth and all things, and they build it up in their bodies.

It’s a truly minuscule amount.

The efficiency is bad, and the individual differences are huge.

Because they don’t have anything like an inner-energy cultivation method, the efficiency and amount they can build up are poor.

And the amount they do build up gets slowly consumed during the day as they move around.

The amount they took in all night gets little by little consumed as they move around during the day.

And when all that energy gets used up, that’s when you start getting sleepy.

That’s why when you learn martial arts, your sleep gradually decreases, and when you reach around the Life-and-Death Realm, sleep becomes unnecessary except for briefly resting your brain because of mental fatigue.

But maybe I was starting to adapt—my sleep time started decreasing, and now, if I closed my eyes for one sijin every two days—so about two hours—I couldn’t fall asleep anymore.

On top of that, Ji-ryeon said she’d only come after she fully digested everything she’d learned from the sex masters, Gun Hye-rin said she’d had some kind of realization and hadn’t come because she was applying it, and Hwa-eun said her body still wasn’t dried out enough.

For those reasons, I was spending boring nights.

When they came every day in turns, my heart felt worn out, but then after living alone for about three days, I got bored.

‘Should I try to seduce Hwa-eun tonight? And check the mantis habit while I’m at it? They say all living things go into heat when their life is on the line, and since she’s a mantis wife, I’m weirdly getting worked up. It feels like she’s got this thrilling, on-the-edge charm.’

Just as I decided it wouldn’t do and that I should try to seduce Hwa-eun tonight—

Cho’s urgent voice rang out.

—Tsrut! 『Dad, Cheongwol unnie started molting!』

It was Cho’s urgent voice shouting through a private chat.

Since there were still people in the group chat who were in the middle of raising their realms, she’d used a private chat.

‘Really!? Got it. I’m coming right away!’

Hearing that Cheongwol had started molting, I thought about who could watch my body.

‘Gun Hye... Ah, she said she was in the middle of some realization, right? Hwa-eun said her body still wasn’t dried out enough, so it’s kind of hard to bring her out, and Ji-ryeon’s in sex-master mode, and Cho’s over there...

Ah, Sister Seol is at the entrance, isn’t she?’

I remembered that Sister Seol was waiting at the entrance to guard Zihwa, and for a moment I wondered if it would be okay.

Because of what happened last time, after all.

‘Hm. It should be fine, right? She said she’d stay still until that one moves, too.’

I decided I’d hurry inside and ask Sister Seol to go outside and keep an eye on my body.

It should be safe, but you can never be too careful—checking safety twice, three times still isn’t enough.

The moment I focused and quickly stepped into Dokmul-hyang, I saw Sister Seol sitting cross-legged in front of Zihwa.

It looked like she’d been dozing off while sitting cross-legged.

When I appeared, Sister Seol opened her eyes, and the instant our eyes met, she flinched.

“So, So-ryong...”

“Sister Seol, you’ve worked hard.”

“Mm.”

“Hey, I heard Cheongwol is waking up, so I’m going to go check. Could you go outside and protect my body for me?”

“Ah, th-that’s right. O-okay.”

“Then I’m counting on you.”

Maybe because it was still awkward, Sister Seol was stuttering like crazy.

I left those words and was about to go, when Sister Seol shouted.

“So, So-ryong!”

“Yes?”

“Y-you have to let me out.”

“Ah, right.”

Now that I thought about it, Sister Seol wasn’t registered, so she couldn’t go out and come back in by herself.