Chapter 29. A Second-Rate Warrior Searching for a Legend
I calmly settled my mind and began drawing up the qi in my Dantian.
Then the distant cries of birds I normally could not hear, and the sound of wind crossing through leaves, sounded as clear as though they were beside me.
And the moment I opened my eyes wide.
The cliff, so tall that I had to stiffly raise my head to see its summit, looked small, as though it had been built from a sandcastle.
RUMBLE, RUMBLE.
Three hundred sixty-five acupoints resonated all at once, and in both arms, heavy qi began blazing like a lightning strike.
“Radiant Heaven Divine Palm!”
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!!
The Radiant Heaven Divine Palm that stretched out from my hand created a house-sized hole in the giant cliff.
“Phew.”
Feeling the hollow elasticity of my emptied Dantian, I sank down where I stood.
“If my achievement is not high, this will be useless in actual combat.”
I had learned a peerless palm art, but the amount of inner arts it consumed was too massive.
A full One cycles.
The destructive power was worth the inner arts it cost, but if I used something like this in actual combat, an opponent who avoided the palm art would surely cut off my neck in an instant.
Moreover, unlike arts that produced stronger destructive power the higher one’s achievement, the Radiant Heaven Divine Palm had stronger destructive power the lower one’s achievement.
So if I wanted to use the Radiant Heaven Divine Palm by distributing a moderate amount of inner arts, I had to raise my achievement in the Radiant Heaven Divine Palm, and to raise my achievement in the Radiant Heaven Divine Palm, I had to use the Radiant Heaven Divine Palm…….
As I continued that complicated line of thought, I felt pity for my own miserable circumstances.
“A sword art as weak as an ant’s piss, and a palm art as vast as the Yangtze River. What kind of warrior does that make me? I would be better off introducing myself as a gambler.”
Together with that self-deprecating grumble, I took out a wooden box from within my robes.
This was the reason I had come all the way to this stone mountain, located a fair distance away, instead of Mount Hwaun, where I usually went, to test the palm art.
“If everyone later learns that the Heavenly Mysteries Divine Physician’s pill was the prize for second place in the Special Admission Track exam, their minds will go blank.”
The second-place prize of the Special Admission Track exam was a pill called the Calm Heart Pill, made by the Murim Alliance’s Physicians Pavilion.
There might be people who found it strange that the third-place prize was the Righteous Path Sword made by the Murim Alliance Armory.
That was because people at present did not know the medicine’s true effect.
The Calm Heart Pill was a pill that the future Heavenly Mysteries Divine Physician had made with his own compounding method, and within this pill was no less than a miraculous effect that strengthened the Dantian.
The problem was that neither the person who made it nor the person who ate it knew this medicine’s effect.
Why? Because its hidden effect was that it guarded the Dantian from shattering once.
Since it was something that could only be discovered after falling into qi deviation like Gye Cheol-yeong or suffering internal injuries, there were few people in this time who knew of the Calm Heart Pill’s effect.
Of course, it was a secret even the Heavenly Mysteries Divine Physician, who had been in charge of compounding the medicine, did not know.
Moreover, while its effect was unknown, the cost of manufacturing it was far too high, so it would be made only this time and not in the following rounds.
“In the end, only the bastards who placed second in this Special Admission Track exam make out like bandits.”
I placed the Calm Heart Pill in my mouth and began Qi Circulation.
This medicine was especially effective for people like me, whose Dantian had grown rapidly due to spiritual medicines.
It exerted the effect of firmly wrapping around the softened Dantian.
When I began Qi Circulation, a small energy slowly began gathering in my emptied Dantian.
That handful of energy traveled through every corner of my body, gathering energy little by little, and the energy gathered that way began running powerfully while striking the Eight Extraordinary Meridians like a living creature.
The three hundred sixty-five acupoints resonated all at once, following the Twelve Meridians and passing through the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
The energy that had completed a full circuit through my entire body filled my Dantian by around twenty percent and returned to its place.
I would have had to perform Qi Circulation several more times in this state to fill my Dantian, but I stopped Qi Circulation at the sense of qi I felt nearby.
“If you came, you should have said you came.”
Before my eyes, Sa-ryeon, wearing her sword, was glaring at me with sharp eyes.
“Hoho, seeing how your eyes are full of rebellious intent when looking at your eldest senior brother, it seems you will only come to your senses after being beaten with a cudgel.”
“If you were going to beat me with a cudgel, why did you run away all the way here?”
“Ahem. Who said I ran away?”
“Why did you come to Mount Seokju instead of Mount Hwaun, where you squat around every day?”
“Ahem. You brat. Watch your words. Even so, I am the eldest senior brother……”
“Enough! Why did you do it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why did you forfeit the martial duel?”
In the third exam, Sa-ryeon ultimately took first place.
Though my score was slightly lacking, I, who had advanced to the finals, took second place.
Dong-ryong, whose bracket had been fortunate, took third place.
Dong-ryong, who had received the Righteous Path Sword that did not suit him at all, had a dumbfounded expression, and Sa-ryeon, who had become first, was the same.
“Forfeit? I strictly lost.”
“You call that a loss? Dropping your sword after just a few moves with no strength in it?”
“Did you not see it too? It was because I exhausted all my inner arts fighting a decisive battle against Senior Brother Gye with all my might.”
“Are you seriously saying that right now?”
“Bracket luck is also skill. In the end, Sa-ryeon, you……”
“Aaaah! Stop! Stop it! Enough. I’m going to go tell them that I won’t go to the Murim Academy. So Senior Brother can go or not go, do whatever you want.”
If I thought back even to my previous life, my role was only to stop Gye Cheol-yeong.
I had merely returned to Sa-ryeon what should originally have belonged to her.
Nothing more and nothing less.
Moreover, according to my plan, if I wanted to protect Taeul Sect’s disciples in the Great Righteous-Demonic War, at least three to five people had to enter the Murim Academy.
But this was, in truth, almost nonsensical, because even the upper sects of the One Hundred Eight Peaks could only barely put five talents into the Murim Academy if they used their full strength.
If Sa-ryeon was not going to take the Murim Academy Regular Exam, then sending even one person ahead now was more important than anything.
“Hong Sa-ryeon. Stop there.”
At my low voice, Sa-ryeon’s shoulders flinched.
“The results of the exam have already been decided. Changing them at will is not something even the Sect Leader can do. So if you do not go, no one from Taeul Sect will be able to go.”
“But…….”
“Stop acting like a child!”
I understood Sa-ryeon’s feelings, but as someone who knew the future, I had no choice but to make Sa-ryeon understand in this way.
At my shout, Sa-ryeon startled violently, then soon lowered her head and fidgeted with her fingers.
“What happens after the disciples who complete Busaeng Hall complete Swift Blossom Hall?”
“……?”
“Do they not all go to the Murim Alliance to perform mandatory service?”
“……Yes.”
Sa-ryeon suddenly began using polite speech, which she normally did not use.
“What do you think the disciples who go to the Murim Alliance like that will do there?”
“……”
There was no way Sa-ryeon would know of a future she had not yet experienced.
Occasionally, people talked about matters from the hall masters’ generation, but they only told fragments of hardship.
Because they too had no particularly good memories of the Murim Alliance, they did not like talking about it.
“I know the junior disciples have expectations about life in the Murim Alliance. But dreams and reality will be thoroughly different.”
“What does that……”
“Taeul Sect will be worked like slaves in the Murim Alliance.”
“What?”
“The Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Clans. No, there is no need to go that far. The upper sects of the One Hundred Eight Peaks treat lower sects as less than human. What do you think we can do before them?”
This was something all the hall masters, including the Sect Leader, knew.
That was why, in my previous life, the adults of the sect had appointed Gye Cheol-yeong, who possessed the weapons called money and the Murim Academy, as eldest senior brother.
And now, I had erased all of that previous life.
“No one will help us. We must help ourselves.”
“……”
“To do that, we need diplomas from the Murim Academy. And only by entering as officers can we hold the position of deputy captain, commanding ten people. Can you endure those who look down on Taeul Sect as a low-grade warrior?”
In the end, the Murim Alliance also had a system of command from superior to subordinate.
If there was no one above to pull us up, we would inevitably become the weakest.
“Then! All the more reason Senior Brother should have gone!”
Though Sa-ryeon was afraid of this situation, she clenched her fists and endured as she spoke.
“I will go too.”
“What?”
“Through the Regular Exam. I will go to the Murim Academy.”
“Senior Brother…….”
“So go first and wait for me.”
“……Are you in your right mind?”
Sa-ryeon wore a look of disbelief, as though she were looking at someone claiming they had seen a dragon.
“No, so let’s just go and talk to them. Who knows? They might change it.”
“That’s right. The person who took first place is acknowledging it. Would they not understand?”
Sa-ryeon was persistent.
She tried to persuade me.
“Huh? Are you going to keep doing this? Then I won’t go to the Murim Academy! I really won’t go! When I say I won’t go, I mean I won’t go!”
She also threatened me.
“Senior Brother, the truth is, I have an incurable disease…….”
“So as the wish of your dying junior sister…….”
She also begged me.
“No! They will not change it! Go back! They will not change it!”
I refused firmly.
As we bickered like that and tried to enter Taeul Sect.
Gye Yeon-seok was coming out of Taeul Sect.
Bloodshot, hollow eyes.
Hair caked together as though it had not been washed for days.
Perhaps he had not even washed, for his entire body reeked of alcohol, and the once-fine silk clothes he wore were full of wrinkles.
In the middle of coming out, Gye Yeon-seok discovered me, and his eyes grew as large as lanterns. Then he glared at me with eyes full of venom.
“It is because of you. All because of you.”
I burst out in a laugh of disbelief.
“You used a prohibited medicine, so who are you blaming? Did I push you to use such a medicine?”
“……Ghk.”
“Moreover, I heard they said they would not simply let this matter pass?”
On his way back, Lee Ja-gon had reportedly stopped by his house to examine Gye Cheol-yeong’s condition.
The Gyeryong Merchant Guild desperately tried to block him so that the use of the prohibited medicine would not be discovered, but they were no match for the Murim Alliance’s Appraisal Envoy and Appraisal Warriors.
In that way, it was confirmed that he had taken the prohibited medicine, the Blood-Explosion Pill, and because of this matter, the Gyeryong Merchant Guild suffered both material damages and disgrace.
“Do you think I will simply take this?”
“Why do you keep blaming someone else over your own wrongdoing? Do you truly want to properly distinguish right and wrong?”
At that moment, Sa-ryeon pulled at my sleeve.
“Let’s go inside, Senior Brother.”
Sa-ryeon had also heard the news that Gye Cheol-yeong’s Dantian had ultimately shattered.
His only son’s Dantian had fallen into a state where it could never be used again, so Sa-ryeon also knew well that Gye Yeon-seok had become ready to go to extremes.
“That is why you should have used your heart kindly from the start. If you had, things would not have come this far.”
I left those words behind and went inside.
Gye Yeon-seok remained in that place like a stone statue, sending me a gaze full of resentment.
Inside Taeul Sect, the grounds were noisy.
The children, who had completed Busaeng Hall and finished all the Appraisal Envoys’ exams, were playing noisily in groups of three and five as though they had gained freedom.
“Still, this is too much, is it not? Why are none of the hall masters visible?”
Strangely, there were no adults in the grounds at all.
At that moment, Dong-ryong approached me.
“Eldest Senior Brother. They say you should enter the Great Mysterious Hall now.”
“What is it about?”
“I do not know. It seems an urgent hall masters’ meeting has been opened.”
A hall masters’ meeting was a solemn meeting attended by those at the level of hall masters who led the sect, the Sect Leader, and some elders.
It was strange enough that a meeting normally held regularly had been opened urgently, but to tell me to attend that hall masters’ meeting?
I set aside my doubts and headed toward the Great Mysterious Hall.
“Disciple Jin So-un. I have entered.”
When I offered a clasped hands greeting, Sect Leader Hong skipped the greetings with a small wave of his hand.
I quietly went and sat at the empty seat at the very end of the long table, then looked around.
They said it was a meeting, but only a quiet silence hung there, and no one was easily bringing up the subject.
Moreover, strange papers were piled up high before Sect Leader Hong.
“This matter makes no sense at all. To ask us to return the sponsorship money they have paid until now.”
“Indeed. What sect in the world returns the sponsorship money they have received?”
“This is because they think our Taeul Sect is easy to bully. Was Gye Cheol-yeong’s qi deviation not something they brought upon themselves in the first place?”
Listening to the hall masters and elders speak while spitting, it seemed Gye Yeon-seok had used what happened to his son as a pretext to demand that the sponsorship money he had paid until now be returned.
‘Truly, he does all sorts of things.’
While cursing inwardly, I also thought that this might not be an easy matter.
Buddhist martial sects receive donations, and Daoist martial sects receive money by accepting donations, seal fees, and conducting ancestral rites.
Taeul Sect also belonged to the Daoist martial sects in a way, but since its religious color was not strong and it merely upheld the meaning, it had not performed ancestral rites or shamanic rites.
In the end, depending on the perspective, the money Gye Yeon-seok had paid as sponsorship could become borrowed money.
“Perhaps the Gyeryong Merchant Guild had prepared for a time like this from the beginning.”
As expected of the hall master of the Outer Hall, Father saw through the problem of the situation at once.
However, he had only seen through the problem; there was no solution.
“What must we do to compensate this entire amount?”
“Sect Leader!”
“You cannot! Sect Leader!”
“There is no precedent for this. What sect under heaven returns money that came in as sponsorship?”
There was no bold person who paid sponsorship money to the Nine Sects and One Gang or the martial sects of the Five Great Clans and then asked to have it returned.
It would be one thing if they had not given it in the first place, but giving it and then taking it back could look like an act of humiliating the other party, so it could worsen the situation even further.
Moreover, since people did not look kindly on acts that deceived the other party, it was not good for rumors either.
‘The Master of the Gyeryong Merchant Guild has been driven into a corner.’
Especially because the Gyeryong Merchant Guild was a merchant group, it was certain that they would take a great hit from this matter.
Yet he was forcing it through because the resentment he held must be that great.
“The merchant guild master said he would report this to the government office. Does anyone have a countermeasure for this?”
Saying that he would even drag in the government office was no different from Gye Yeon-seok saying he would no longer care about his own state.
Since the story would be announced in every direction, the merchant guild’s credibility would fall even further.
This was no different from Gye Yeon-seok using mutual destruction, something martial artists would use.
“Phew.”
“Ahem.”
“Good grief.”
When the government office was mentioned, everyone became as silent as mutes who had eaten honey.
Unlike the Gyeryong Merchant Guild, Taeul Sect had no ties with the authorities, so it would already suffer great damage simply from arguing over right and wrong.
Moreover, if the result came out telling them to return the sponsorship money, the result would become irreversible.
“Outer Hall Master. How much property do we have?”
“……If we sell all our family assets, we will barely match it.”
He was probably talking about the restaurants and inns that were among the few holes through which money came in.
Father paused for a moment, then continued speaking.
“It is a little difficult to say this in such a situation, but what do you think of receiving some help from Wang Estate?”
“Wang Estate?”
“Yes. Perhaps Wang Estate’s master predicted such a thing before. He said that if a problem arose in Taeul Sect, we should come to him at any time. If the situation was difficult, he said we did not have to pay the money back.”
“He said such a thing?”
“Huh.”
At Father’s words, color returned to the hall masters’ faces.
However, the Sect Leader tilted his head.
“No matter how favorable he feels toward our Taeul Sect, giving that much money without a price does not accord with reason, and it is even harder to understand that a merchant would do such a thing.”
“Yes…… that is…….”
Father hesitated briefly, then looked at me.
Why me all of a sudden?
“He asked for Jin So-un, the chief disciple.”
“Pardon?”
The hall masters’ gazes focused on me, and I let out a startled exclamation.
“What does that mean?”
“If he has an inclination for commerce, he would like to teach him merchant work…….”
Suddenly, I had become someone being sold in place of the sect’s debt.
“What does that mean? That cannot be. The chief disciple of Taeul Sect doing a merchant’s work!”
Hong Mun-gi firmly refused.
The hall masters let out disappointed sighs, knowing that it was not right, and especially Kang Chae-seok, the hall master of Swift Blossom Hall, was looking at me openly.
That man!
“Even if we must sell all the sect’s property, we cannot do such a thing.”
“…Yes. That is so.”
Father also looked at me with strange eyes, as though disappointed by something, then turned his head.
“Even so, borrowing money from Wang Estate is something worth considering. Since we do not have the capacity to repay all the sponsorship money right away, we should do so on the premise of repaying it over several years.”
“Hm.”
In the end, this too was no more than a stopgap measure.
All of them, including the hall masters, were merely swallowing cold tea.
“Ahem, how about hearing our chief disciple’s opinion?”
At that moment, Kang Chae-seok suddenly brought up my name.
Naturally, since I had no right to speak in a hall masters’ meeting, I could not speak unless someone gave me the floor.
“So-un’s opinion?”
“Yes. Even if he looks like this, is he not the chief disciple? He might come up with some clever idea that we hall masters cannot think of, and also…… perhaps he may have always been interested in commerce.”
This man!
Is he trying to sell me off for sponsorship money right now?
When I glared at Kang Chae-seok, Kang Chae-seok let out a dry cough and turned his gaze away.
“Well, and if So-un inherits Wang Estate, is it not good for everyone?”
At Kang Chae-seok’s words, after he had clearly drunk so much sweet water that there was no telling where the end lay, not only I but everyone else looked dumbfounded.
“Why are you like this? If that child So-so and So-un get along well, then Wang Estate and Taeul Sect would not be strangers to each other, would they?”
Wang Geum-san of Wang Estate marrying off his only daughter, whom he treasured more than his own body, to a second-rate warrior of the third-rate sect Taeul Sect?
Just what was Kang Chae-seok thinking?
But what was funny was that one or two of the other hall masters began nodding.
“Enough. I will not speak of that matter any further. I have absolutely no intention of teaching So-un commerce.”
Hong Mun-gi ended the matter in the hall at once.
“You may also speak if there is something you want to say.”
Hong Mun-gi was looking at me with eyes full of expectation.
“What would this disciple know that I could speak of?”
At my words, the hall masters, including Hong Mun-gi, looked somewhat disappointed.
“But if any story is acceptable, I will try speaking.”
“Go ahead.”
“In truth, have I not wandered all over heaven and earth in every direction? While doing so, I once met a miner on a certain mountain.”
“A miner?”
“Yes. That miner said he wondered why no mine had opened in such a place.”
The Sect Leader and the hall masters all had expressions saying they did not understand.
“The miner said that Mount Seokju, located behind Mount Hwaun, is packed full of good-quality iron ore.”
“Iron ore?”
Iron was the most widely used mineral among ores.
In particular, for murim sects, iron was directly connected to weapons, so great sects always included mines among their assets.
Instead of the Sect Leader, Father asked the question.
“Is Mount Seokju not merely a stone mountain where even trees do not grow?”
Mount Seokju was an ownerless stone mountain.
Because its soil was barren and it was a useless mountain filled with weeds where trees did not grow, no one had thought of trying anything there.
The price was also absurdly cheap, but since there was nothing one could do by possessing a useless mountain, no one tried to buy it.
“According to that miner, if one digs into Mount Seokju just a little, one can soon mine iron. So how about Taeul Sect purchases Mount Seokju and borrows money from Wang Estate to develop the mine? If we do that, we will be able to gradually clear the debt to the Gyeryong Merchant Guild.”
Although I spoke, everyone seemed not to believe it much.
It was only natural, because they thought that if such a good mine had existed, someone would have taken it long ago, and if it was something even a miner could recognize, then it could even be a matter in which the government office stepped forward.
But I had no intention of letting this opportunity pass.
Two years later, an enormous downpour would fall over this area, and a tremendous landslide would occur on Mount Seokju.
At the same time, the soil of Mount Seokju would be washed away, and a large-scale iron ore mine would be discovered inside it.
The government office, which owned Mount Seokju, would become suddenly filthy rich from the newly appeared mine, and Father would spend a full year drunkenly rambling that he should have bought that mountain.
“There is no reason the miner you met would have lied. However, trusting only his words and investing in it carries too great a risk right now.”
The Sect Leader also seemed to think my words were absurd, but he did not bother finding fault with them.
I nodded and spoke.
“I thought you might think that way, so over the past few weeks, I dug around Mount Seokju a little.”
“Eh?”
“What?”
“What did you say?”
I rose from my seat and placed down a stone the size of a Korean melon from within my robes.
It was an iron ore with a deep black color and a faint silver sheen.
This was something I had picked up from a pit I had dug in the mountain this morning while training the Radiant Heaven Divine Palm.
“It has been some time since I discovered this, but I ask your understanding for telling you only now, as I had to receive confirmation from a blacksmith.”
Perhaps they expected my next words, for the mouths and eyes of the hall masters began to open wide.
“The blacksmith said it was iron ore of excellent quality.”
Even the refined Hong Mun-gi’s mouth and eyes opened as wide as a washbasin.
