WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Ceaseless
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◈ Martial Arts Survival Guide ◈
Chapter 9: You Should Have Given It to Me Sooner
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“What kind of place was the world you lived in?”
Sara lifted her head from where she lay facedown on the ground and asked. Sitting a short distance away, Baek Hyun widened his eyes at the sudden question.
“That came out of nowhere.”
“I’ve known you for a pretty long time, but all I know is your name, your age, and that you were born an Innate Martial Genius and called here to become the Martial God Demon’s disciple.”
Sara pushed herself up as she spoke. She wiped the blood covering her nose away with the back of her hand and looked at Baek Hyun.
“Isn’t that enough?”
“You’re so cold. Not a trace of warmth in you. We’ve known each other for over ten years now.”
More than twenty years had already passed since Baek Hyun came to the Peach Blossom Realm. Ever since their first meeting, Sara had visited about once a week to challenge him to a spar. She had never beaten him. That didn’t mean Sara wasn’t improving. Baek Hyun’s progress was simply ahead of hers.
“That’s true.”
Muttering those words, Baek Hyun looked up at the gray sky of the Peach Blossom Realm. Twenty years. He had originally been twenty-one, so he had spent almost as much time here as he had in the outside world.
Even so, he didn’t really feel that so much time had passed. His days hardly changed, but they were fulfilling. Life at the orphanage, going to school, working part-time jobs, wondering how on earth he would make a living... Now he could barely remember that life of worrying about the future.
“It sounds like a fun place.”
When he told her about the home he hadn’t thought of in so long, Sara offered her opinion, her mouth hanging open. Her eyes had sparkled throughout his story. The sight made Baek Hyun curious, so he asked about her home.
“It was a wasteland.”
Sara answered with an indifferent expression.
“There was nothing there. It wasn’t peaceful like your world, either. Fighting and war every day. I was sick of it. I never want to go back.”
“You’re not going back?”
“I don’t want to. What about you? Do you want to go home?”
For a moment, Baek Hyun couldn’t answer.
Going home.
When he first entered the Peach Blossom Realm, when he sat before Ju Han-o without knowing what was going on and was told to become his disciple... Back then, he had wanted to forget the whole thing and return to his own world. But what about now?
The Peach Blossom Realm was a boring place. Its only residents were Ju Han-o, Baek Hyun, the Snowfire Phoenix Yu Un-ryeo, and Sara. There was Yeo-hwi, of course, but as an imugi, she probably couldn’t be called a resident of the Peach Blossom Realm. No. To begin with, this place had no real “residents.” It was only somewhere people on the verge of ascension to immortality stayed for a while because of their lingering attachments.
Baek Hyun’s Heaven-Shattering Divine Transformation Art had reached the fourth stage. Once he reached the fifth, Ju Han-o would fulfill his lingering wish and ascend to immortality. When that happened... Baek Hyun felt conflicted as he pictured the near future.
His desire to go home hadn’t disappeared completely. He wanted to see Min-sik, his friend from their orphanage days. He also wanted to eat food and drink alcohol he couldn’t have in the Peach Blossom Realm. When he thought about it that way, there were plenty of things he wanted to do.
What about martial arts?
What about the Heaven-Shattering Divine Transformation Art?
He would go home. Back to twenty-first-century Korea. Would he practice martial arts there? Where could he use the martial arts he had worked so hard to learn? What could he do with his strong body? He wouldn’t have to worry about making a living. If he became a professional fighter, he would soon be a world champion. If he picked any sport and became an athlete, he would quickly make the national team and sweep up gold medals.
‘How boring.’
Baek Hyun thought with a faint laugh. He had spent every day fighting to gain experience. He had fought his master’s past selves and people from his master’s memories. Could he leave those days behind, return to his peaceful home... and adjust to that kind of life? He could still practice martial arts alone, of course. Through meditation or something.
‘That really sounds boring.’
“Then where will you go if you don’t go home?”
“I just decided.”
Sara spoke with an indifferent expression.
“I’ll go with you.”
Baek Hyun’s eyes widened.
“...What kind of bullshit is that?”
“It’s not bullshit.”
“Why would you come with me?”
“I told you. I don’t want to go back to my world. And now I’m interested in yours.”
“You’re going to follow me just for that?”
“...And I’ve fought you so many times, but I’ve never beaten you. I have to win at least once.”
Sara’s voice grew quieter until she was almost mumbling. She kept stealing glances at Baek Hyun’s face, then suddenly sprang to her feet. After glaring at him, she spun around.
“I’m going back.”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“You insufferable jerk. All you ever do is beat me up...! Why do you always hit me in the face?”
The reason was simple. Hitting her in the face made her easier to knock down.
“You piece of shit!”
With that, Sara used her lightness arts to leap from the garden to the wall. Baek Hyun stared blankly after her retreating figure, then gave a hollow laugh.
“What was that about?”
He had thought about home for the first time in ages, but it hadn’t left him feeling particularly good. To shake off the uneasy feeling, he sat cross-legged and circulated the Heaven-Shattering Divine Transformation Art. A faint black glow wrapped around his body.
The fifteen years he had spent in the Peach Blossom Realm flashed through his mind. So much had happened. He had fought so many battles that he could no longer use a lack of experience as an excuse. Nor was he short on internal energy. Between the internal energy from the immortal peach he had eaten ten years ago and the energy he had accumulated since then, he had an enormous amount. As his mastery of the Heaven-Shattering Divine Transformation Art rose, his dantian grew larger, and his internal energy increased with it.
‘While I’m at it, I’d like to achieve immunity to all poisons and diamond-like invulnerability, too.’
It was a small wish, but it was beyond his current abilities. Of course, Baek Hyun was extremely close to both states, but he couldn’t claim to have truly achieved either. Still, the more he practiced the Heaven-Shattering Divine Transformation Art, the closer his body would come to true immunity to all poisons and diamond-like invulnerability. One day, he would no longer be limited by his dantian or internal energy.
“Do you know martial arts?”
The question he had heard so long ago suddenly filled his mind. He hadn’t known. He hadn’t even been interested. He had thought such things would never have anything to do with him. He had never wanted to know about them. Naturally, he had never wanted to learn them, either. He had thought that would always be the case.
Everything had changed. The voice he heard that day. That meeting. The talent he had never recognized in himself. Innate Martial Genius. It was a talent he had simply been lucky enough to be born with. Through good luck, he had met Ju Han-o, been called here, and gained the chance to make that talent bloom.
He felt grateful for all of it. Do you know martial arts? Could he answer that question now? In truth, he still wasn’t sure. Martial arts remained difficult for Baek Hyun to understand. In his twenty years in the Peach Blossom Realm, he had never once considered for himself what martial arts truly were. He had never felt any need to find out.
But now, unlike before, he was interested. He felt they had something to do with him. He wanted to know. He wanted to learn. He wanted to keep doing so. Martial arts had become something he enjoyed. The one thing he was good at. Something he wanted to keep doing for his whole life, forever.
I don’t need an answer right away. As I keep walking the martial path, I can seek my own answers to what my path is and what martial arts truly are.
‘Ah.’
At that thought, all his worries suddenly felt meaningless. What did it matter whether he was in the Peach Blossom Realm or back home? What mattered wasn’t the place, but “me.” Where I am. What I do. That’s what matters. Whether I become a professional fighter or do manual labor, as long as I walk the martial path and pursue martial arts, that’s enough.
How boring.
That really sounds boring.
What a joke. I’d been too quick to judge without even trying. In the end, I would keep walking the martial path.
There were things he wanted to do. Things he sought. Goals. They were clear enough. To perfect the Heaven-Shattering Divine Transformation Art. To walk my own martial path. That was all he needed. Once he reached that answer, the fog in his mind seemed to clear.
Still seated cross-legged, Baek Hyun floated into the air. The faint black glow surrounding him deepened. He continued breathing as he hovered above the ground. Within the black light, his skin cracked and split. Crunching sounds came from inside his body. His mind, which had been at a standstill, advanced far ahead, and his body underwent a complete rebirth. The qi within him grew denser.
After years of stagnation, the Heaven-Shattering Divine Transformation Art had finally reached the fifth stage.
“Hyun.”
Baek Hyun opened his eyes.
His master, Ju Han-o, the Martial God Demon, was watching him with kind eyes. Baek Hyun looked at him with a bitter smile. For a while, master and disciple simply watched each other without speaking.
“You have gained enlightenment.”
“It wasn’t much of a revelation.”
“Did you not find your own answers to the things you had kept turning away from?”
Ju Han-o asked with a gentle smile. Baek Hyun laughed to hide his embarrassment.
“Anyone can change, but truly changing is difficult. So is facing a problem you have avoided out of needless fear and finding an answer.”
“...I’m not sure.”
Sitting quietly, Baek Hyun looked down at his body. Bodily rebirth. He could guess what had just happened to him.
“Enlightenment... I really didn’t think about anything that profound.”
“I do not know what you realized.”
Ju Han-o shook his head.
“Enlightenment always comes suddenly. It begins with a passing fragment of thought. Most of it lies in catching that thought and pursuing it without giving up. Whether it is profound or not does not matter. It was a question you needed to consider, Hyun. And your answer changed you.”
“Look.” Ju Han-o raised a hand and pointed at Baek Hyun.
“Have you not changed because of it? The ability to reflect on oneself and change must be one of the greatest blessings of a thinking being. Because your own mind sought to change, your body changed, and your qi changed. And the wall blocking your way crumbled.”
Ju Han-o felt genuine joy and pride in his disciple’s achievement. Baek Hyun gazed at his master, then smiled bitterly.
“...Your lingering attachment is gone now, Master.”
“I am happier about your achievement as my disciple than I am about that.”
Ju Han-o held out his hand. Baek Hyun took it and stood.
“What did you and Sara talk about?”
“We talked about our homes.”
“That was what troubled you.”
“I didn’t think it mattered much, but I guess it was pretty important.”
“You must leave this place in the end. It cannot be helped. So, have you reached an answer?”
“I’ll go back. There’s nowhere else for me to go.”
Ju Han-o nodded at Baek Hyun’s answer with a pleased smile.
“You’re not going to ascend right away, are you?”
“There is no need to hurry.”
With that, Ju Han-o headed into the mansion with Baek Hyun.
“Before we part, should master and disciple not share a drink? For the first and last time.”
Baek Hyun stopped in his tracks. Walking ahead of him, Ju Han-o turned back with a puzzled expression.
“What is it?”
“...I can’t believe this.”
Baek Hyun frowned and glared at Ju Han-o.
“If you had alcohol, you should’ve given me some ages ago!”
At his angry shout, Ju Han-o looked rather uncomfortable.
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