The Shaman Desires Transcendence

After a day of shock and fear, time passed.

As soon as she saw the ritual, Lee Serin, who had gone to sleep, naturally had nightmares. In the nightmare, various animals with only their heads appeared, flying in groups through the sky, and Lee Serin saw Jinseong, who had taken a commanding position, stepping on a bridge made of heads like the Milky Way lovers meeting on the Ojakgyo Bridge.

‘Isn’t this some kind of prophetic dream?’

[It’s a ridiculous dream.]

Lee Serin, who was convinced that her dream had a significant connection to symbology and must have some meaning, searched the internet and the mansion’s library to prove to the demon that she was right, while the demon, on the other hand, tried to guess based on the magic and knowledge it had accumulated over the years.

However, their efforts were in vain.

Even after two days since witnessing the shocking ritual, Lee Serin and the demon could only guess that the ritual was to create ‘some kind of object,’ but they couldn’t even speculate on what kind of magic it was or its mechanism.

Therefore, Lee Serin had nothing to say to Lee Ahrin, who had come to her, saying, ‘It’s strange that a non-blood-related housemate who wasn’t biologically programmed to be an enemy is acting this way.’ She could only guess that the ritual wasn’t harmful, recalling Jinseong’s efforts to treat them well.

“Lee Ahrin, even though oppa has become a little strange, still…”

“Oh~ so it’s not harmful? I know that~”

Lee Ahrin said, flapping the chest of her yellow pajamas.

“Oh, it’s hot~”

“If it’s hot, why are you wearing that…”

“Oh~ it’s not because of the clothes, you know. I don’t know.”

Lee Ahrin stopped flapping and sighed lightly. Her slightly flushed face was not due to the heat but for some other reason.

“I’m saying that oppa of yours isn’t doing something strange to his body, isn’t he?”

“Pfft.”

Lee Serin involuntarily laughed at Lee Ahrin’s embarrassed appearance, but when Lee Ahrin glared at her with a serious face, she quickly hardened her expression and said,

“It’ll be, okay. Probably…”

[Indeed. As long as the form of the species remains intact, it shouldn’t be dangerous. However, if you’re worried, it would be good to regularly check that man’s health.]

Lee Ahrin, observing her twin’s ominous face saying it was fine, laughed.

“Well, he’s always been doing weird things. As long as he’s healthy, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

*

“Healthy.”

Jinseong murmured as he sat cross-legged inside the room.

‘My body at this moment is very healthy.’

Even though he had performed a small-scale ritual, he felt a small sense of wonder that his body was intact.

Before his regression, it was common to cough up blood after rituals, and in severe cases, pieces of torn intestines would mix with the cough. His flesh would rot and decay while still alive, and mold would cover his body.

‘Even though I performed the ritual, it’s satisfying that I only have a slight cold for three days.’

A ritual always required a price to be paid, whether it was small or large. However, the problem was that this price was unpredictable.

Rituals were usually performed on a large scale by multiple shamans. A shamanic ritual could bring tremendous benefits, but it also had a nightmarish level of difficulty and risks that were too great to bear alone. However, even when the same ritual was performed, the price paid for it varied.

Some people suddenly had their gallbladder filled with stones, while others merely ended up with a lot of age spots. Based on this alone, one could say it was applied differently to each person. Yet, the unpredictable ‘price of the ritual’ meant that the same person could sometimes cough up blood and be rushed to the hospital, while other times it ended with just a stye in the eye.

There was clearly some rule, but there was no way to know what it was. Therefore, shamans referred to this price of shamanic rituals as ‘the will of heaven’ or ‘the choice of chaos.’

‘But there is certainly a way to reduce the risk.’

However, just because the price varied, it didn’t mean there was no way to mitigate it. Offering something as a sacrifice to disperse calamities and block misfortunes was overwhelmingly effective in shamanism.

Offerings. Sacrifices.

Power-hungry people and shamans, who couldn’t forget the sweet benefits of large-scale shamanic rituals, continuously sought ways to reduce the risk and found those two elements.

Offering a substitute to bear the calamity to lighten the price and offering a treasure to lighten the price again. It was impossible not to pay a price, but they found a way to lighten it.

Turning death into serious injury. Turning serious injury into minor injury.

Therefore, today, when shamans have to perform large-scale shamanic rituals, they inevitably use expensive offerings and sacrifices to minimize the risk. Additionally, they are careful to avoid contamination, maintaining their body clean through purification rituals, etc. Naturally, the cost of these processes was astronomical…

But it was better than shamans dying one by one every time they performed a ritual.

‘But no one knows why that method reduces the risk.’

As is often the case with shamanism, there was no answer to ‘why does it reduce the risk?’ However, numerous shamans knew through history that such methods reduced the risk of rituals, and it had become a manual and bible for shamanic rituals.

‘But I know. I know that this shamanic ritual calculates the price in a peculiar way….’

This knowledge was the result of Jinseong’s obsession, endlessly pursuing shamanism with a body like a living corpse.

‘Roulette.’

Even amid World War III, Jinseong, wandering as a mercenary, could encounter numerous shamanic rituals. He excavated them from ruins, found them in the remains of fallen powers, and sometimes received them as rewards for mercenary missions. He asked groups with a positive relationship with him to participate in shamanic rituals and, conversely, used threats or force to snatch shamanic rituals from those he had a bad relationship with.

One day, as Jinseong lived his life by pouring the money he earned from mercenary activities into the shamanic rituals he had obtained.

Jinseong realized something.

『It’s random.』

Shamanic rituals had developed in a high-risk, high-return manner. Rituals that prayed for the abundance of a single field expanded to entire villages, and from a village to a nation. Rituals used to wish for a sip of water in a drought evolved into rituals to bring rain. As human domains expanded and the scope of society widened, shamanism also broadened its range, eventually encompassing the largest unit humans could perceive, the ‘nation.’

Naturally, the old shamanic rituals that granted small benefits to a small range were forgotten, and rituals that granted large benefits to a large range became mainstream and survived.

However, Jinseong, who was obsessed with shamanism, collected such rituals haphazardly despite people around him saying they were ‘inefficient,’ ‘useless compared to the effort,’ and ‘obsolete.’ He also prepared the materials entirely with his own money and conducted the rituals alone without the help of other shamans.

But as Jinseong continuously performed these forgotten old rituals, he discovered something peculiar.

『The price paid for completely forgotten old rituals is the same.』

He felt the incongruity when he used a healing ritual. As a mercenary, he often got injured, and some of these injuries, while not directly life-threatening, indirectly had significant impacts. For example, injuries to the stomach or intestines, severe impacts to the eyes, or blood clots in the brain. These kinds of injuries might seem fine temporarily but would lead to hospital visits or prolonged breaks from mercenary work due to aftereffects, so he often took the risk of performing healing rituals to treat them. It was far better to take a brief risk than to live with a ticking time bomb.

Fortunately, among the rituals he had collected, many were related to healing, and many were for treating internal injuries. Methods of shaking and damaging the internals were convenient for assassination, and to counter such methods, shamanism also developed ways to heal internal injuries and detoxify poisons.

Of course, the effects of each ritual varied slightly, and Jinseong used different shamanic rituals according to the situation. One day, on the third use of the healing ritual called Seonggwang Eunsangje (Starlight Grace Ritual) for treating internal organs, Jinseong noticed something strange.

『Isn’t the price the same as last time?』