WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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Chapter 7: Read a Book a Hundred Times and Its Meaning Reveals Itself (6)

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Willow Serenity Art

It was Yi Yubaek's unique inner cultivation method.

The very foundation of Yi Yubaek as a martial artist.

It was powerful and quick to master, but just as difficult and dangerous.

It was only natural for Mo Cheong to be horrified.

"You can't, Master. It's far too dangerous!"

Yi Yubaek coldly shook his head.

"Mo Cheong. Be quiet. Sowol said he came here prepared to stake everything on this. He truly risked his life crossing the sea from Annam to get here, and he offered me his entire fortune to show his resolve. Should I not respond in kind?"

Hearing the two of them, Yeon Sowol forgot his earlier joy and felt uneasy.

'How dangerous could it be?'

It would be a problem if it was too dangerous. He was learning martial arts because he wanted to live as he pleased, not because he wanted to get hurt while learning them.

His thoughts grew tangled.

Yi Yubaek spoke to him.

"It may be dangerous, but it is a path that will fulfill your ambition far more quickly. As I said earlier, if you train with all your heart, you may reach the stage of maturity before a year has passed. If you keep that up, you will reach the next realm much faster as well. You may all but overcome the disadvantage of your age."

Yeon Sowol's eyes widened slightly.

Until now, he had only known of one way to overcome the disadvantage of his age: the Greater Rejuvenation Pill. Could simple training really have the same effect?

'Then if I add the Greater Rejuvenation Pill on top of that...!'

His heart began to pound.

Reaching the stage of maturity meant that, even if people called him third-rate, he could become a martial artist.

Then he could learn the Willow Leaf Steps.

Then he could take the Greater Rejuvenation Pill.

That would be the true beginning.

'Then I have to do this. No matter how dangerous it is...'

Mo Cheong cut in from beside him.

"No! Yeon Sowol! Something really bad could happen!"

"Mo Cheong. He is a man with ambition. Do not stand in his way."

Yi Yubaek's cool warning made Mo Cheong flinch and duck his head. Interrupting and butting into his master's words was a grave offense.

Still, Yi Yubaek did not rebuke him further.

He understood as well. Teaching the Willow Serenity Art first to someone beginning martial arts at eighteen was an absurd thing to propose.

'But I can see it, Yeon Sowol. Your will.'

Yi Yubaek looked at him.

Yeon Sowol suddenly felt uneasy.

"Come stand here."

"Yes."

Yeon Sowol tried not to tremble. He wanted to look calm and resolute.

'I can't show weakness. This is the Jianghu. Nobody here is on my side. I'm weak.'

There was nowhere to retreat.

He could not avoid this.

He could not hold himself back.

'Even if they want to throw me out, I won't give them an excuse. I'll definitely reach a realm here before I leave.'

Even if this truly became dangerous training,

'It's not like I'll die, right?'

Yeon Sowol believed Yi Yubaek, the great hero of Windflow Martial Academy, was at least the sort of person who would draw the line there.

After all, had he not even covered up a murder case for him?

Was he not a clean, fragrant sort of person?

Yeon Sowol steadied his nerves and hardened his resolve.

The two stood close together, facing one another.

Yi Yubaek spoke.

"The Willow Serenity Art is a moving exercise. You move your body to kindle the inner fire and stimulate essence and qi."

He reached out and gripped Yeon Sowol's shoulder.

"Urgh!"

His grip was hard enough to crush it.

He twisted.

He pulled.

"Ugh!"

That was the beginning. Yi Yubaek's rough hands seized, twisted, pulled, and tore at different parts of Yeon Sowol's body, forcing him into one posture after another.

"Argh!"

Yi Yubaek's hands were hot as fire.

No. Fire was simply the closest word for it. It was a kind of heat Yeon Sowol had never felt in his life. An eerie pain that did not seem to belong to this world. It resembled the heat of the tiny earthworms that had writhed where he had been struck.

Yi Yubaek kept twisting, pressing, and pulling Yeon Sowol's body.

Bloodshot veins stood out in Yi Yubaek's eyes.

"A person's essence, qi, and spirit are said to be borrowed from heaven and earth. Originally, they are extremely pure and brimming with life. But after birth, they gradually cool, and turbid qi seeps into them until, in the end, they can no longer be used. When essence, qi, and spirit have completely cooled, grown impure, and come to a stop, only then does a person die. Then what is an inner cultivation method, the art of cultivating internal energy?"

The strange heat grew hotter and hotter.

The thing that felt like writhing earthworms seeped into that heat until they finally became one.

A sensation he had never known spread across his entire body.

Sweat poured down.

It was not only Yeon Sowol.

Yi Yubaek, who continued gripping and moving him, was also drenched in sweat.

"An inner cultivation method is a technique for restoring hardened, corrupted essence, qi, and spirit to life again. More precisely, it kindles a fire and revives essence, qi, and spirit. Just as ore full of impurities is refined into pure silver or pure gold within scorching flames."

Burn away the impurities with hot fire and return essence, qi, and spirit to purity.

Add heat and restore their vitality.

"That is why the introductory stage of an inner cultivation method is called kindling the inner fire. It literally means gathering fire. Through breathing, you kindle a fire inside yourself and gather heat to begin warming your essence and qi. Now, learn the movements and follow the breathing as well. Inhale. Hold your breath. Exhale slowly, then inhale again. From this moment on, your body is an Elixir Furnace."

A furnace was a vessel used to stoke fire.

A brazier was a small stove fed with wind to boil a medicine pot.

A censer was used to burn incense, a blast furnace melted iron, and a reactor burned with nuclear power.

Among them, an Elixir Furnace was the furnace used to refine the elixir that turned one into an immortal.

Yeon Sowol desperately followed Yi Yubaek's instructions.

He memorized the movements Yi Yubaek guided him through and added the breathing to them. Each time he breathed correctly, the strange flame blooming inside his body grew a little larger.

"I did not beat you for no reason all this time. I hammered true qi deep into your stiffened body and created sparks in your essence and qi. And now I am personally enlarging those sparks within you by forcing open your channels and acupoints."

Sure enough, every time Yi Yubaek pulled Yeon Sowol's arm or pressed hard enough to pierce his thigh, he could feel weak sparks stirring to life throughout his body.

"Our immediate goal is the stage of maturity. The stage of maturity means tending the fire. It means controlling it. Once enough inner fire has risen within you through kindling the inner fire, from that point on you control those flames and begin burning away turbid qi in earnest. Like honing a sword or firing pottery. That is the stage of maturity. But that comes later. For now, let us first get a feel for kindling the inner fire."

For nearly two hours, Yi Yubaek held onto Yeon Sowol and forcibly moved him. He taught him the movements and breathing method while sending hot true qi into his body.

At last, Yi Yubaek stepped away from Yeon Sowol.

"Hoo. Hoo."

"Hah. Hah..."

Both of them were soaked through with sweat.

The pain Yeon Sowol felt from kindling fire in his ever-cooling essence and qi for the first time in his life was beyond words.

Forcing stimulation into such a body with true qi and using channel-driving, acupoint-opening techniques was no ordinary task either. Even for Yi Yubaek, Shinheung's greatest master, it was an extremely taxing art.

The two stood still for a long time, catching their breath.

Only after Yi Yubaek had composed himself again did he ask Yeon Sowol,

"How is it? Can you feel warmth inside you? Not body heat. Can you feel warmly flickering true qi within you?"

Yeon Sowol nodded.

"Yes. I can feel flames. Burning flames."

"Hm?"

Yi Yubaek tilted his head.

"Not warmth, but flames? Already? They should be extremely faint."

"They feel very clear. And burning hot."

"That cannot be."

Startled, Yi Yubaek grabbed Yeon Sowol's pulse gate.

"Where do you feel the flames?"

"Um... The biggest one is in my lower abdomen. The next is in my right thigh. There is a small one in my left calf. And another small one in my left shoulder."

"...!"

Yi Yubaek turned to Yeon Sowol with the expression of a man who had seen a ghost.

He had identified every one of them correctly. It was impossible for someone encountering an inner cultivation method for the first time that day.

"I knew your qi sense was sharp when I saw how well you avoided attacks. But to this extent!"

Yi Yubaek nodded in admiration.

"That is fortunate. Such sharp qi sense will be a great help. There is no turning back now."

Yeon Sowol tilted his head.

No turning back? From what?

"Training in an inner cultivation method always carries the risk of Cultivation Deviation. At the stage of kindling the inner fire, it is usually not so severe, but... given your age, there is no helping it."

Yi Yubaek suddenly drew a blade. He swung it and carved words into the floor.

They were precautions Yeon Sowol had to follow.

"Keep this in mind and follow it thoroughly. First. From now on, you will breathe only with the breathing method I taught you. You must never stop for longer than a quarter hour. Keep the breathing method going at all times, whether you are awake or asleep."

Even while sleeping? Yeon Sowol was puzzled. How could he use a breathing method while asleep?

"If you cannot maintain the breathing method, do not fall asleep."

"..."

Yeon Sowol was horrified.

"You must keep doing so until you reach the stage of maturity. Warmth is now circulating through your body, which is full of turbid qi. What do you think will happen if that warmed energy does not remain connected to the outside?"

Yeon Sowol thought of ordinary common sense. Something warm, damp, and sealed off from the outside?

"I think it would rot. It would grow mold."

"Correct. If you do not continue the breathing method, your essence and qi will rot and decay. You will vomit black blood and die."

"..."

Yeon Sowol asked himself, 'Pardon?'

"Second. You must follow the breathing method absolutely. In particular, during the parts where I told you not to breathe out, you must not even open your mouth. If you open it even by accident, all the kindled inner fire you worked so hard to gather will come pouring out, your insides will turn cold at once, and you will fall gravely ill."

"..."

Cold sweat ran down Yeon Sowol's back. Wait a second.

"Third. You must continue practicing the Willow Serenity Art at all times. Feel the kindled inner fire and use the movements to spread that fire evenly throughout your body. You will have to wake up from time to time during the night and move as well. Otherwise, some parts will turn cool while others grow hot, and your qi-blood will twist out of alignment. In the end, you will be unable to use your body. You may simply die on the spot."

"..."

"Lastly. Until you reach the stage of maturity. No, just never spit for the rest of your life. Your essence is being warmed right now. The saliva gathering in your mouth may be your essence qi, so if you spit it out carelessly, your essence qi will quickly decline."

Yeon Sowol's eyes shook.

'I'll die or be crippled...? If I breathe wrong once, that will happen?'

He rejected it.

No. Surely not. That could not be true.

There had to be some kind of safety measure.

Common sense said so.

He calmly asked,

"What should I do if I make a mistake, even just once?"

"You must not make a mistake."

"..."

Yeon Sowol calmly asked again,

"It sounds even more dangerous than I expected. Do you have any advice for doing this safely?"

"Hm? Did I not just tell you everything?"

"..."

Yeon Sowol hoped all of this was only an exaggeration meant to frighten him.

"...Then are there truly cases like the ones you mentioned? People dying. Becoming unable to use their bodies. If there are such cases, I ask so I may remember them and remain vigilant."

"Not usually at the stage of kindling the inner fire. But the deeper inner cultivation training goes, the more it becomes a battle against Cultivation Deviation. Since you are older, you face that risk from kindling the inner fire itself."

"Then people truly die and lose the use of their bodies..."

Yi Yubaek gazed into the distance with a wistful look.

"I have three direct disciples. They are called the Windflow Three Young Lords. But originally, they should have been the Windflow Four Young Lords."

"..."

"Still, I am one of the fortunate ones. The direct disciples of the Severing Sword Sect were originally meant to be the Seven Absolute Swords."

"How many Absolute Swords are there now...?"

"Four Absolute Swords, I believe."

"..."

"Seeking transcendence while wearing a human body is such a perilous endeavor."

Yeon Sowol quietly closed his eyes.

Why? How had it come to this?

He had only worked hard.

Suddenly, Elder Jo Manseok's voice echoed in his ears.

'Never trust a person of the Jianghu.'

But.

'It is too late to turn back now. Nobody will listen even if I complain.'

Crazy world.

This was exactly the kind of fate Yeon Sowol had sworn to avoid by becoming strong. Someday. Without fail.

He pressed down the emotions surging up inside him and replied,

"Yes. I understand."

Mo Cheong was stunned by his calmness.

'He is not afraid even after hearing all that? How can he be like this?'

Yi Yubaek smiled with satisfaction, as though he had expected it.

"Do you understand now, Mo Cheong? When a person has ambition, even Mount Tai can be moved. What is there to fear?"

Yeon Sowol glared at Yi Yubaek.

Yi Yubaek liked the look in his eyes.

"Good! What fine spirit!"

"..."

Footnotes:

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