CHAPTER: Chapter 7
------------------------------------------
Chapter 7.
“Then each of you will choose two manuals from the library.”
The moment Instructor Ga Cheonak gave the order, the children rushed as one into the foundation library beyond the great stone gate.
It was utter bedlam, no different from a marketplace in chaos.
“The manual for the Soul-Seizing Sword Art is mine!”
“Out of my way! The Primordial Demon Art belongs to me!”
“Hand over the Seven-Kill Saber Art!”
From atop the platform, Ga Cheonak watched the uproar with emotionless eyes.
“Tch.”
He spoke in a low voice.
“Do not make a commotion.”
In that instant, the children’s movements faltered.
“There is no need to hurry. I have prepared enough copies of the foundational arts you covet for all of you to examine them.”
His voice, laden with internal energy, carried a pressure that seemed to weigh directly upon their souls.
“Any brat who continues to make a disturbance will be expelled.”
Only then did a semblance of order descend upon the cadets flooding into the library.
But Uncheon had not been swept up in the commotion from the beginning.
‘The level of the Demonic Cult’s foundational martial manuals can only be so high. There is no need to swarm toward them like moths to a flame.’
In his previous life, Uncheon had stood at the vanguard of Gonryun and cut down hundreds, thousands of Demonic Cultists with the keenest sword.
Because of that, the martial arts commonly used by the Demonic Cult were already familiar to his eyes.
To learn their foundational arts now would be nothing more than a waste of time.
‘More than that... I am curious about the other martial arts in this library.’
Fragments of past battles flashed through Uncheon’s mind.
Rather than a troop using foundational arts he had seen too many times to count, a single master who had honed a unique martial art to its utmost was far harder to deal with.
In particular, an opponent who had mastered an unfamiliar and uncanny footwork art was especially troublesome.
‘Yes. What I need now is precisely such a footwork art. Something that can become real strength while concealing Gonryun’s martial arts....’
His objective became clear.
Uncheon passed by the central shelves where the weapon arts and internal energy manuals were kept, then headed toward the most secluded shelves, the ones no one else approached.
There, alongside the section labeled ‘Footwork,’ stood the ‘External Arts’ manuals that the children shunned most, all of them buried beneath dust.
‘So much dust. As expected... when told to choose only two martial arts, few would choose footwork and external arts.’
Unlike weapon techniques, whose progress could be displayed quickly, mastery of footwork was not something that revealed itself in a day or two.
Moreover, external arts were generally regarded as inferior to superior internal energy manuals.
Perhaps no one had looked through these shelves in a very long time, for they were thick with dust.
As Uncheon leisurely scanned the shelves alone, his steps suddenly stopped.
‘...What is this feeling?’
Amid the demonic manuals steeped in blood, madness, and the aura of slaughter, there were a few books that gave off a distinctly alien presence.
They were not as intense as the demonic arts, yet they were clear and deep.
Like pebbles shining alone in muddy water.
To one who had once been a Daoist of Gonryun, it was a presence far too familiar, a mysterious and refined aura.
It was Mystic Qi.
As though bewitched, Uncheon reached out and drew out a dust-covered manual.
[Heaven-and-Earth Dynamic Art]
‘Heaven and Earth... a Dynamic Art?’
The heavens and the earth.
A name that contained the very principles of the world.
The path a martial art pursued was always revealed in its name.
From its aura and its name alone, he could already grasp its general nature.
It was a manual far too alien to belong in the Demonic Cult’s library.
‘...It feels like a martial art rooted in the Daoist path.’
The moment curiosity led Uncheon to open the manual, his eyes narrowed.
There was no name of its creator, nor any grandiose preface.
Yet the very calligraphy within was enough to tell him that this manual was no ordinary thing.
‘As I thought, it is certainly a Daoist martial art... Did those Demonic Cult bastards plunder this manual from somewhere?’
Every stroke held an abstruse principle within it.
‘...Anyone unfamiliar with Daoist scriptures and disciplines would never notice it. There is no way those Demonic Cult bastards could evaluate it properly.’
The opening formulae consisted of movements so basic they might be mistaken for mere health exercises.
But Uncheon understood.
Within those simple motions lay profound principles—straightening what was twisted, opening what was blocked, and restoring order to the body, that little cosmos.
‘This is... not a martial art that stores internal energy within the dantian. It is an art that makes the entire body into a great vessel and recasts it anew from the very foundation!’
For someone suffering from the Severed Meridian Affliction, no martial art could have been more perfect than this.
While others blindly sowed seeds into a field first, he would be tilling barren land.
Yet if he devoted enough time to turning it into fertile soil, then the harvest to come would surely be worth anticipating.
‘The Heaven-and-Earth Dynamic Art... a martial art that receives the energies of heaven and earth and cultivates a barren body into fertile ground....’
It was a martial art before martial arts themselves, and it carried the scent of a lost ancient classic.
Uncheon immediately decided that the Heaven-and-Earth Dynamic Art would be his first martial art.
Then, as he continued looking through the shelves, Uncheon naturally found himself drawn to another book that gave off a similar aura.
As though entranced, he drew out a second manual.
[Limitless Step]
‘Limitless....’
Heaven and Earth, and Limitless.
They harmonized so perfectly that it felt as though they had always been a pair.
The instant he opened the manual, he could tell at a glance that this footwork art was of a considerable level.
‘It is neither swift nor endlessly changing....’
And yet it was, in the truest sense, a footwork art of Limitless movement, one that continued without end.
‘It is a footwork art that seems to contain the sea.’
Just as one could not tell where the sea began or where it ended, every movement in this art flowed like water, to the point that its beginning and ending were difficult to distinguish.
And yet, strangely enough, it gave no sense of trickery at all.
‘The harmony of yin and yang... it touches upon the teachings of the Taiji. To think such a profound martial manual would remain in the Demonic Cult’s martial library....’
It was not inferior even to the martial arts of Gonryun.
He did not hesitate.
‘A fortuitous encounter has fallen into my hands... One day, I must learn the origins of these two manuals.’
Cradling the two dust-covered manuals in his arms, Uncheon headed for the exit of the library.
A brief, peculiar silence passed among the Head Instructors as they confirmed the two manuals he had brought out.
“...The Heaven-and-Earth Dynamic Art? The Limitless Step? Did our foundational library even have martial arts like these?”
“I have never heard of them.”
Even though the instructor himself had plainly said that the proper choice was one internal energy manual and one weapon art, Uncheon had, of all things, chosen manuals from the least popular shelves—the external arts shelf and the footwork shelf.
As they recorded the manuals he handed over, the Head Instructors in charge of the library furrowed their brows, unable to understand him.
“Well, the price of one’s choice is one’s own to bear.”
From a library overflowing with foundational arts from the prestigious houses and sects of the Demonic Cult, Uncheon had deliberately chosen the most inconspicuous manuals imaginable.
Naturally, he stood out.
“Heh heh, that fool has no eye for quality. It seems he picked up some trash from somewhere!”
“To think he did not even choose an internal energy manual. Just what one would expect from an ignorant bumpkin.”
Muk Hajin’s group, who had looked upon Uncheon with disdain from the very beginning, openly burst into ridicule.
Yayul Hui stared at Uncheon with a face full of puzzlement, while Yuha, leaning against a pillar, watched him with shining eyes as though he found the whole thing interesting.
‘...It is true that superior internal energy manuals yield greater efficiency.’
And yet, whatever anyone else might say, for Uncheon as he was now, this was the correct choice.
‘But... with my present body, I could not cultivate a superior internal energy manual in any case.’
Moreover, if it was superior internal energy manuals one spoke of, Uncheon already had more than enough of them in his head.
‘What matters is restoring the body and refining the vessel.’
Uncheon paid no mind to such low-grade provocation.
He merely ignored the ridicule and quietly tucked the manuals away.
“Those who have finished choosing their martial arts will now select their weapons.”
Instructor Ga Cheonak then led the children to the training armory.
Inside were all kinds of wooden practice weapons, neatly arranged in order.
Most of the children picked out their weapons without hesitation.
All they had to do was choose the weapon that matched the martial art they had selected.
Muk Hajin chose a pair of gauntlets.
Yayul Hui selected a slim wooden saber.
At last, when it became Uncheon’s turn, everyone’s attention focused on him.
They were all curious to see what choice he would make, since he had not even selected a weapon art manual.
‘I cannot reveal Gonryun’s swordsmanship here. In that case....’
Uncheon paid no heed to their stares and chose a single wooden saber.
‘If I use the Life-Taking Saber, even the Demonic Cult bastards will not easily recognize it.’
It was a Gonryun martial art of immense power, but its killing intent was so dense that sect regulations forbade anyone below the Life-and-Death Threshold from using it.
‘Though it is a martial art of Gonryun, there have often been those who mistook it for a Demonic Cult art....’
For disguising himself in the heart of the Demonic Cult, there could be no better martial art.
Ga Cheonak looked at the wooden saber in Uncheon’s hand and asked, “Will you choose the wooden saber?”
But instead of answering as everyone expected, Uncheon asked Instructor Ga Cheonak a question of his own.
“May I choose one more weapon?”
At those words, laughter burst out among the children once again.
Ga Cheonak asked in an emotionless voice, “Do you intend to use twin sabers?”
“I simply do not yet know which weapon best suits my hand, so I wish to compare two of them.”
Uncheon answered offhandedly.
Yet at that response, Ga Cheonak’s brow twitched ever so slightly.
‘A warrior’s main weapon is a lifelong confidant. It is only natural to choose it with care. Those fools who mock this boy—have any of them truly chosen their confidant properly?’
The other children regarded Uncheon’s words as a foolish excuse, but Ga Cheonak thought nothing of the sort.
‘Of course not.’
There were countless martial artists who spent their entire lives cultivating the very first weapon they had ever held.
Most merely mistook familiarity for aptitude, and thus died without ever allowing their true talent to bloom.
‘I, too, passed through several weapons. In the end, I cast them aside and chose the fist. Only by going through such a process can one have no regret and no hesitation.’
Ga Cheonak reached a conclusion entirely different from Uncheon’s true intention.
And yet it was far more favorable.
‘...Could it be that he deliberately chose footwork and a dynamic art first, arts that can be cultivated regardless of weapon? He is a deep one.’
Ga Cheonak readily nodded.
“Very well. I permit it.”
Once permission was granted, Uncheon took an additional wooden sword.
At the sight, Muk Hajin’s group openly clicked their tongues.
“Heh heh, the idiot does not even know which weapon fits his own hand.”
“One sword and one saber? What an eyesore. He will waste himself on foolish nonsense and come to nothing.”
Ignoring the ridicule poured upon his back, Uncheon silently strapped the wooden sword and wooden saber to his waist and headed toward the stone chamber assigned to him.
The moment the cold stone door closed, every sound from outside was cut off.
“Huu....”
At last, in a space of his own, Uncheon let out a short breath.
“Now I can finally cultivate martial arts properly.”
In truth, Uncheon had been desperate to test the two manuals that carried the aura of Mystic Qi at once, and the effort of suppressing that urge had left him with no attention to spare for the reactions of the other cadets.
Especially in the case of a dynamic art, one had to move the body to cultivate it, so it was not the sort of thing to display before others.
Uncheon immediately sat down cross-legged and quietly looked down at the two manuals he had obtained that day.
‘The Heaven-and-Earth Dynamic Art, and the Limitless Step... I have reaped an unexpected harvest from the Demonic Cult’s foundation library.’
Without even opening the manual, Uncheon recalled the first formula of the Heaven-and-Earth Dynamic Art.
He had read it only once in the library,
yet its contents had already been perfectly engraved in his mind.
‘These two martial arts are by no means the sort of things that should be lying around in a foundation library.’
He could easily have memorized more manuals before leaving the library, but nothing besides those two had so much as drawn his interest.
‘I do not know how effective the Heaven-and-Earth Dynamic Art will be against an innate Severed Meridian Affliction... but I cannot simply sit idle.’
HUMMM....
‘This is not an art of sitting still and accumulating qi. It receives the energies of heaven and earth into the body through movement!’
Within the narrow stone chamber, his body began to move—slowly, yet with incomparable precision and harmony.
The motions were simple, yet solemn, as though he were supporting the heavens and treading upon the earth.
With them, the minute qi channels spread throughout his body trembled faintly, as though waking from sleep.
Within the qi and blood that had been dying shut under the grip of the Severed Meridian Affliction, he felt the slightest change.
Small beyond measure, yet undeniable.
It felt as though cracks were forming in parched earth, opening new waterways where none had existed before.
‘It works...! With this, I may truly be able to strengthen this body!’
Suppressing his elation, Uncheon immersed himself in the Heaven-and-Earth Dynamic Art.
So deeply that he forgot even the passage of time.
︙
How much time had passed while he remained shut away in that stone chamber?
BANG BANG—!
A loud clamor rang into the ears of the fully absorbed Uncheon.
From beyond the firmly sealed stone door came a harsh voice.
“You beggar wretch in there! Open the stone door at once!”
Uncheon furrowed his brow.
The disruption to the flow of his training was unpleasant enough, but the voice itself brimmed with naked malice.
He slowly rose and opened the stone door.
Before it stood three or four boys from Muk Hajin’s group, their arms crossed over their chests.
“When were you finally planning to come out!”
“Were you holed up in there cultivating the Dao or something?”
In an irritated voice, Uncheon replied.
From the sound of it, they had been waiting for quite a while for him to emerge of his own accord.
“What is it you want?”
“When a slippery loach like you goes around muddying the waters, should you not be taught a lesson?”
“Because of you, our brother Muk Hajin has been in a very foul mood.”
“We will carve it into your bones that above the rules of the Hidden Demon Cave stands the Sagal Muk Family. Heh heh heh.”
Uncheon merely swept his gaze over them once from head to toe, as though looking at insects, and answered in a bored voice.
“Hah... with the likes of you?”
0 Comments