WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Ceaseless
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Martial Arts Survival Guide ◈
Chapter 8: Like a Monster.
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Baek Hyun asked, glancing at Yu Un-ryeo. Yu Un-ryeo’s eyes widened, then blinked. After gazing steadily at Baek Hyun for a moment, Yu Un-ryeo gave a slight nod.
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I like your confidence!”
Sara spoke with a nasty smile. You’re one to talk. Thinking that, Baek Hyun rose onto his toes and hopped back a few steps. Unlike Baek Hyun, who let his arms hang loosely at his sides, Sara took a proper martial stance. A wavering protective force aura wrapped around her body.
Baek Hyun was deeply surprised by the sight. Sara had said she had been Yu Un-ryeo’s disciple for a year. Yet she could use a protective force aura freely, and its level was only slightly below that of the fifteen-year-old Ju Han-o.
“Scared?”
Sara asked smugly, seeing Baek Hyun’s surprised expression. Baek Hyun didn’t answer. Taking his silence as a yes, Sara felt a surge of superiority. Hot extreme yang energy gathered in her right hand, while cold extreme yin energy gathered in her left.
Sara kicked off the ground and rushed at him. She was far too fast for someone who had only studied martial arts for a year. But Baek Hyun could follow her movements. He was a little surprised, but her speed wasn’t enough to trouble him. The fifteen-year-old Ju Han-o he had fought for two years had been faster than Sara.
And this was the biggest difference.
Sara was weaker than the fifteen-year-old Ju Han-o.
The spar was one-sided, and it ended within twenty seconds. The result was only natural. Sara lay sprawled on the ground with the middle of her pretty face smashed in, while Baek Hyun looked down at her with an indifferent expression. Standing some distance away, Yu Un-ryeo shook her head as though she had expected this outcome.
“...Well... I’m not sure what to say...”
Baek Hyun muttered quietly as he looked down at Sara, who was groaning in pain. Her White Snow, Blazing Fire Heavenly Martial Art was difficult to deal with. She could freely control both extreme yin and extreme yang energy, and Baek Hyun had never faced that kind of martial art before.
But Sara’s actual mastery of martial arts was far too poor. Baek Hyun smacked his lips as he watched Sara get up, swearing.
“Why’d you pick a fight when you’re so weak?”
“I’m not weak!”
Sara shrieked. Objectively speaking, she wasn’t weak. It had only been a year since she began learning martial arts. At that point in his own training, Baek Hyun hadn’t even been able to properly form fist energy or an energy barrier, let alone a force aura.
‘No. Still, wasn’t I better at actually fighting back then?’
“Fight me again!”
Sara shouted. They fought five more times after that, and the result never changed. In fact, Baek Hyun grew used to her attacks, and in their fifth bout, five seconds was enough to knock her down. Sprawled in an ugly heap, Sara barely managed to lift her head and glare at Baek Hyun with eyes full of anger. Then she jerked her head around to look at her master, Yu Un-ryeo.
“You said I could become invincible in this age...!”
“Your attainment is still lacking, Sara.”
Yu Un-ryeo answered in a dejected voice. Seeing her one and only disciple beaten to a pulp seemed to have dampened her spirits.
“...What’s all this fuss?”
And then Ju Han-o returned. It hadn’t even been a few hours since he left with Yeo-hwi, saying he would deal with the evil spirits beyond the River of Three Crossings. In that time, he had finished off every rampaging evil spirit and come back. Ju Han-o entered through the open gate with a puzzled expression. Yu Un-ryeo turned toward him, looking pleased to see him.
“It has been a long time, Martial God Demon. Have you been well?”
“Snowfire Phoenix. What brings you here without word?”
“Well... my disciple insisted that she simply had to spar with yours.”
Ju Han-o blinked at Yu Un-ryeo’s answer. His gaze moved between Baek Hyun, who was standing, and Sara, who was still sprawled on the ground.
[Did you win?]
Ju Han-o’s voice transmission sounded inside Baek Hyun’s head.
[Can’t you tell by looking? We fought five times, and I won all five. The last time, it didn’t even take five seconds to knock her down.]
The corners of Ju Han-o’s mouth twitched slightly. With the Snowfire Phoenix there, he couldn’t openly show it, but he was pleased that Baek Hyun had so thoroughly defeated the Snowfire Phoenix’s disciple.
“...Hmm. I see. It makes no difference to me, so please don’t concern yourself.”
“Where have you been?”
“I promised to deal with the evil spirits beyond the River of Three Crossings in exchange for letting my disciple eat an immortal peach. I have just finished dealing with them.”
“Ah, I see.”
Yu Un-ryeo nodded.
“Then we shall be going.”
“Wait... Master, I’m not done...”
“Leave it at that, Sara. With your current attainment, you cannot possibly defeat him.”
Yu Un-ryeo shook her head. Sara chewed her lower lip and glared at Baek Hyun. She staggered to her feet, still glaring, and shouted.
“We’re doing this again next time!”
“Suit yourself.”
Baek Hyun snorted. Sara ground her teeth at his attitude, then left the garden with Yu Un-ryeo. After watching them go, Baek Hyun asked Ju Han-o a question.
“You’re back sooner than I expected.”
“It was not something that would take long.”
“Then you could’ve at least told me that before you left.”
“How was the Snowfire Phoenix’s disciple?”
Ju Han-o asked as he approached. Recalling his bouts with Sara, Baek Hyun told Ju Han-o what he had noticed. Ju Han-o listened quietly before speaking.
“A protective force aura in a single year... That is a feature of the Yin-Yang Incarnation. That constitution holds both extreme yin and extreme yang energy from birth. Even without cultivating internal energy, those born with it possess great power within their bodies through their innate energy. She refined that into a force aura through the White Snow, Blazing Fire Heavenly Martial Art.”
“Why don’t I have anything like that?”
“...Hyun, you certainly are greedy. In terms of aptitude for martial arts, the Innate Martial Genius is far superior to the Yin-Yang Incarnation. Of course, even an Innate Martial Genius cannot hold both extreme yin and extreme yang energy at once.”
Muttering those words, Ju Han-o patted Baek Hyun’s shoulder.
“At any rate, well done. I wish I could have seen it myself. To think you defeated the Snowfire Phoenix’s disciple so easily. You were worth the immortal peach.”
Seeing Ju Han-o’s satisfied smile made Baek Hyun feel good as well.
But the confidence he gained from overwhelming Sara was shattered the very next day.
* * *
The thirty-year-old Ju Han-o stared at Baek Hyun with calm, still eyes.
“I am Ju Han-o, the Uncanny Star (怪星).”
“The Uncanny Star...?”
“At that age, I was not yet called the Martial God Demon.”
Ju Han-o, the Martial God Demon, answered from where he stood some distance away.
“Do not expect him to be like my fifteen-year-old self. At that age... It is rather awkward to say this about myself, but you could call it the first peak of my life.”
That was exactly right. At thirty, Ju Han-o had no distinguished martial lineage to speak of, yet he was sweeping through the martial world with arts he had created himself. He never avoided a fight that came his way, and he wandered the martial world seeking only the strong. He made no distinction between the orthodox and the unorthodox, acting according to his own sense of righteousness and chivalry.
In the end, at thirty, he had risen to become one of the twenty greatest martial artists in the world and earned the epithet Uncanny Star.
Defeat was inevitable.
Baek Hyun had gained a hundred years of internal energy by eating an immortal peach. He had reached the second stage of the Heaven-Shattering Divine Transformation Art, which Ju Han-o had created with all his insights after ultimately becoming the greatest martial artist in the world. Even so, Baek Hyun was weaker than the Uncanny Star. His first defeat came within three seconds. He fought without rest for days on end, suffering those inevitable defeats dozens, then hundreds of times in a row.
“Still not enough?”
It wasn’t his internal energy that was lacking. It was Baek Hyun himself. Ju Han-o muttered, and Baek Hyun admitted it as he lay sprawled on the ground. When he fought the ten-year-old Ju Han-o, he had devoted himself to it for a week. When he fought the fifteen-year-old Ju Han-o, two years of effort had allowed him to overcome that opponent.
But against Ju Han-o, the Uncanny Star, he could see no way forward. Fighting was fun, and learning martial arts was fun. But the Uncanny Star was a wall that the current Baek Hyun could never overcome.
He needed more experience.
The mysteries of the Peach Blossom Realm did more than reflect Ju Han-o’s past selves. People who existed in Ju Han-o’s memories appeared as Baek Hyun’s opponents. Baek Hyun fought many people. He fought masters from Wudang and masters from Shaolin. He also fought masters from the Demonic Cult. He fought unusual experts who had gone into seclusion long ago, and he fought assassins. He grew familiar with hidden weapons and poisons. He grew used to facing all kinds of weapons.
Poisons that melted and burned his body hurt terribly.
He did not grow used to the cold, sharp pain of blades cutting and stabbing him, rather than fists and feet beating and crushing him.
Sara and Yu Un-ryeo visited from time to time. Sara challenged Baek Hyun to a spar every time, and lost every time. Each time, she went home in frustration, then challenged him again a few days later.
Each day followed the same pattern, yet each was different. He fought as before, but what he felt was different. He won as before and lost as before. Even the same kind of victory left him feeling something different, and so did the same kind of defeat. He did not grow used to victory, nor did he grow used to defeat. Ju Han-o’s worries had been needless. Baek Hyun did not despair over his repeated losses.
A stubborn bastard. Ju Han-o had no choice but to admit that his earlier judgment of Baek Hyun had been hasty. Baek Hyun wasn’t a stubborn bastard. He was... how could he put it? It wasn’t something he particularly wanted to say about his disciple, but...
He was bizarre. Even Ju Han-o couldn’t understand him. An Innate Martial Genius was blessed by martial arts and born with an aptitude for them. But that did not mean they were also born with a fanatical hunger for martial arts. Yet Baek Hyun had that hunger. Had he been born with it? Or had he developed it later? Was he intoxicated by his own talent, which had bloomed so late... No, a talent he had only recognized late? Even Ju Han-o, who had walked the martial path all his life, could not help feeling admiration as he watched Baek Hyun practice without rest.
Baek Hyun was like a monster born for martial arts. He had no fierce competitive streak. He did not insist on winning every time. Nor did he despair over defeat. That did not mean he was indifferent to victory itself. He was happy when he won. He grew angry when he lost repeatedly. He did not grow used to pain, either. To him, pain was always pain.
Baek Hyun enjoyed all of it. He enjoyed martial arts themselves. Ju Han-o could not even begin to imagine what kind of monster his disciple would become in the distant future.
“How many years has it been?”
In the Peach Blossom Realm, where there was no night, it was difficult to keep track of time. Suddenly curious, Baek Hyun asked Ju Han-o.
“About ten years have passed.”
“Ten years since I came to the Peach Blossom Realm?”
Ju Han-o nodded at Baek Hyun’s question. Baek Hyun blinked in surprise.
“That took a long time.”
When he defeated Ju Han-o, the Uncanny Star, Baek Hyun’s Heaven-Shattering Divine Transformation Art reached the third stage.
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