WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Editor: Abstract
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Episode 39: The Grandmaster's Title (3)
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For an instant, time and space came to a halt.
At the same time, the boundary around Mumu began to collapse. Light and darkness mingled and crossed in every direction.
The White-Browed Taoist, his eyebrows and beard white, clicked his tongue inwardly at the sight.
‘What I feared has happened.’
The other side of the boundary was trying to pull Mumu in.
No matter how he resisted, there was nothing he could do. It was the natural order itself.
‘I thought it would take at least another twenty years.’
His prediction had been wrong.
The Ki-Restraining Bracelets had been made by the Three Pure Ones and the Three Treasure Lords[1]. They had once been created for cultivation, based on the belief that meditation and physical discipline had to go hand in hand, but now they were used to restrain great strength.
Even the Ki-Restraining Bracelets, capable of suppressing a Spirit Beast, had shattered like this.
‘Is this a child born with the energies of Heaven, Earth, Sun, and Moon gathered within the womb?’
The odds were like lightning striking a single grain among the sands of the Ganges.
At the moment Heaven's will became distorted, Mumu had been born in that hidden instant. From the start, he had existed in a realm beyond humanity.
The White-Browed Taoist had believed that, as long as Mumu wore the Ki-Restraining Bracelets and neither learned Martial Arts nor pursued the principles of the Tao, he could at least live something close to an ordinary life.
Yet those restrictions had caused a backlash instead.
‘...This humble Taoist made a mistake.’
It seemed he had only hastened things.
The scene around him made that clear. The more the Ki-Restraining Bracelets had suppressed Mumu, the more explosively his strength had grown. Sensing it, the natural order was pulling him beyond the boundary.
It had judged that this was no longer a place for Mumu.
‘Would it be right to let him go?’
For a moment, the White-Browed Taoist hesitated.
Mumu had already surpassed the human realm. Perhaps it would be better for him to transcend it.
Then he saw Mumu resisting the natural order and put aside that thought.
-Pop! Clank!
The White-Browed Taoist hurriedly fastened a Ki-Restraining Bracelet around Mumu's left wrist as Mumu was about to be pulled beyond the boundary.
The moment it locked into place, the crossing light and darkness vanished. The crumbling boundary returned to normal.
Everything that had stopped began moving again.
"If I'd been even a little later, you would have undergone forced ascension."
“Huh?”
Mumu looked at the White-Browed Taoist in confusion.
‘It’s bright.’
The light Mumu saw was flawlessly clear, brilliantly bright, and warm.
It did not spread anywhere. It shone solely from the White-Browed Taoist himself.
“Who are you?”
“It has been a long time, my child.”
“A long time? Do you know me?”
“Of course I do.”
“Really? I’ve never seen you before, Grandfather.”
“Ha ha ha.”
The White-Browed Taoist let out a hearty laugh.
He had worried that Mumu might have been tainted by evil ki after such a fierce battle, but seeing that his innocence remained put him at ease.
‘Entrusting him to Scholar Yu was the right choice.’
Yu Yeop-kyung, the former Scholar, had not cultivated the Tao, but he was a man overflowing with upright spirit. That was why the White-Browed Taoist had entrusted Mumu to him.
His choice had not been wrong.
Ordinary people could not see it, but there was not a speck of turbid ki in the bright light that shone from Mumu.
‘At least that is a relief.’
That was why he had stopped Mumu from being carried away by the natural order.
The White-Browed Taoist smiled.
“You saw this old man when you were very young.”
“But I don’t remember.”
“You need not force yourself to remember. If things follow the natural order, our paths are bound to cross.”
“What does that mean?”
“You will come to understand it naturally.”
Mumu tilted his head at those words.
Then, apparently growing curious, he asked, “Oh, but Grandfather, how did you get the Ki-Restraining Bracelets?”
Mumu noticed the remaining three Ki-Restraining Bracelets in the White-Browed Taoist's hand.
One was completely cracked and ruined.
The White-Browed Taoist lifted them as he answered, “You dropped them, so I brought them with me.”
“Ah...”
“I thought they would endure another twenty years, but in the end, they could not withstand your strength.”
“Huh?”
Mumu's eyes widened.
From the way the White-Browed Taoist spoke, he seemed to know a great deal about the Ki-Restraining Bracelets.
“How do you know that, Grandfather?”
“Why would I not? This old man was the one who put them on you.”
“Huh? You did?”
Mumu had always believed his birth parents had put the Ki-Restraining Bracelets on him.
This was the first time he had learned that the White-Browed Taoist had done it.
“Why did you put these on me? My father said I had been wearing them since I was a baby, so... then could it be...”
“No. It is not what you are thinking.”
“Ah... I thought you might be my biological father or paternal grandfather.”
“Ha ha ha. That is not the case.”
The White-Browed Taoist shook his head with a hearty laugh.
It seemed Mumu had grown up wondering about his birth parents.
The pull of blood ties could not be helped.
Then Mumu asked again, “But Grandfather, why did you put these on me?”
“Did you not experience it just now?”
“Huh?”
What did he mean, just now?
Seeing Mumu's confusion, the White-Browed Taoist said, “Did you not feel the world stop, light and darkness cross, and the natural order guide you away?”
“The natural order?”
“Yes. The natural order.”
“You mean that force trying to pull me away?”
The White-Browed Taoist nodded.
“Yes. That is the natural order.”
“What is the natural order?”
At Mumu's question, the White-Browed Taoist let out a quiet breath.
“The natural order is, in the end, causality.”
“Causality?”
“Yes. It may be difficult to understand, but causality, karma, the natural order, and fate are like links in a chain.”
Mumu looked even more confused. It was hard for him to understand what that meant.
The White-Browed Taoist reached out, and a branch lying on the ground flew into his hand.
-Tack!
Holding the branch, he drew a circle in the dirt.
Then he said, “Everything born into this world has its own proper course, life, and natural order. Yet this ring is not one alone. There are countless rings.”
“Countless?”
“Yes.”
-Scritch, scritch!
The White-Browed Taoist drew ellipses.
As the ellipses overlapped, they gradually took the form of a sphere.
“The natural order takes the shape of countless cycles and turns without end. Yet ordinarily, one never leaves a single ring.”
“Um...”
“Our lives remain within this boundary plane. We cycle within this ring and submit to it. That is the natural order, and that is fate. But as you can see, the natural order has many planes.”
“That’s too difficult.”
“You need not understand all of it. Put simply, that is usually how it is, but on rare occasions... no, there are cases where someone leaves the ring of the natural order.”
Such beings had escaped Heaven's will.
Mumu had been born outside that ring from the beginning.
That was why Heaven had tried to take him away.
“...Are you saying I’ve left this ring?”
“Correct. That is right. Ordinarily, once someone gains the eyes to see this ring through long cultivation, the natural order naturally guides them into another ring. The Buddhist and Taoist paths call it transcendence or ascension.”
“Ascension?”
“It is the ascension to immortality people often speak of. Those who pass beyond the boundary in that manner are also called immortals, transcendent beings, or those who have transcended.”
Mumu tilted his head at the White-Browed Taoist's explanation.
“Then... I nearly ascended to immortality?”
“Put simply, yes.”
“Is ascending to immortality a bad thing?”
“If you cross beyond the boundary, you will never be able to return here. That is because you will have already left this ring.”
“Huh? Then why am I still here?”
“The Ki-Restraining Bracelets were suppressing your strength so that you could not leave that ring.”
“These?”
Mumu raised his left arm.
-Sssssizzle!
“...Ah.”
The Ki-Restraining Bracelet on his wrist had turned red-hot, and its adjustment screw kept rattling uneasily.
‘One will not be enough.’
The White-Browed Taoist clicked his tongue, then raised the remaining Ki-Restraining Bracelets.
-Hummmmm!
He stacked the bracelets together.
The shattered bracelet and the other two fused into one. The merged Ki-Restraining Bracelets gave off a five-colored light as the White-Browed Taoist approached Mumu and pressed them against the red-hot bracelet on his left arm.
At that moment, the red-hot Ki-Restraining Bracelet completely fused with them.
“Huh?”
Its form changed.
The Ki-Restraining Bracelet, which had looked like an iron ring, turned gold.
-Creak! Crack!
The muscles all over Mumu's body, which had swollen so much they looked almost menacing, subsided and returned to the form they had taken when he wore all four Ki-Restraining Bracelets.
“Huh? This...”
Then...
“It’s... gotten heavier.”
Mumu felt his entire body become heavier than before.
It felt far heavier than when he had turned the adjustment screw to level eight. It seemed to be suppressing his strength even more.
On a hunch, Mumu looked at the Ki-Restraining Bracelet on his left wrist.
The adjustment screw on the golden bracelet had changed from level eight to level ten.
“...So there was a reason it got heavier.”
The White-Browed Taoist spoke as Mumu smacked his lips.
“This is the Ki-Restraining Bracelets' original form.”
“This?”
“Yes. Unless they take this form, they will no longer be able to contain your strength.”
“Ah...”
“There is not much time, so I will tell you only this.”
“Huh? What do you mean there isn’t much time?”
The White-Browed Taoist gave a bitter smile before speaking again.
“Do not remove the Ki-Restraining Bracelets if you can help it. Your strength has already surpassed causality. If you remove them as you did just now and fail to control yourself, the natural order will once again try to push you beyond the boundary.”
“...If I go there, I can never come back?”
“As long as you cannot control yourself, that will be so.”
Mumu seemed anxious at the warning.
“Um. Is there a way for me to control myself?”
The White-Browed Taoist looked at him.
The Ki-Restraining Bracelets in their complete form had far greater binding power, but even he could not say how long they would endure.
In the end, it was only a matter of time before Mumu faced the natural order again.
‘Control himself...’
Mumu had been born with the energies of Heaven, Earth, Sun, and Moon. His body had already surpassed causality.
Rather than cultivating Essence, which handled ki through Martial Arts, he needed to cultivate Spirit, the mind.
After considering it for a moment, the White-Browed Taoist spoke.
“Then would you follow this old man, enter the Taoist order, and cultivate the Taoist path?”
“What does entering the Taoist order mean?”
“It means becoming a Taoist.”
“...Don’t Taoists live in the mountains?”
“Ha ha ha. They do.”
“That’s a little...”
Mumu had spent over seventeen years living in the mountains with Yu Yeop-kyung.
He did not want to become a Taoist and live cut off from all human ties.
The White-Browed Taoist nodded as if he had expected that response.
‘Then this may be better.’
The White-Browed Taoist took something from his robes.
It looked like a lucky pouch.
When he opened it, remarkably, something large tumbled out from inside.
“Huh?”
The White-Browed Taoist smiled at Mumu's surprise.
The lucky pouch was an artifact. Though it looked small, it could hold many things within it.
With a light gesture from the White-Browed Taoist, the broken black stone slab that had come from the pouch flipped over.
Verse-like writing was inscribed on it.
‘Huh?’
A strange light appeared in Mumu's eyes.
For some reason, the black stone slab looked very familiar.
As Mumu stood there in confusion, the White-Browed Taoist pointed to the verse on the slab.
“This is part of the enlightenment left behind long ago by an immortal who attained transcendence through Martial Arts.”
“Part of that enlightenment?”
“This is the latter half. It contains insight into Spirit, the mind-cultivating aspect of Delicate Energy Spirit.”
“Cultivating the mind?”
“Though the first half has been damaged and lost, what you need is the cultivation of Spirit, which will allow you to control yourself. It should help you greatly.”
[1] The Three Pure Ones and the Three Treasure Lords: Taoist divine beings credited here with creating the Ki-Restraining Bracelets.
Footnotes:
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