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◈ Murim in my Hometown ◈

Chapter 31: Cheongsan Sect

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“Take slow, deep breaths and focus on feeling the form of your internal energy. Do not force yourself to move.”

Following Do Hoengil's instructions, I closed my eyes and observed within.

It was only the size of a millet grain, but the unfamiliar, mysterious sensation I was experiencing for the first time in my life made my heart race.

The path toward becoming an absolute master, something I had only heard about, seemed to stretch out before me. My body trembled with exhilaration.

Whatever happened five years from now, this was undoubtedly a Fortuitous Encounter that would never come again.

Each time I inhaled and exhaled, cool internal energy flowed through my meridians and spread into my limbs, regardless of my will. I focused my entire mind on feeling and memorizing its path.

How much time had passed?

The internal energy was drawn away to one side, and Do Hoengil removed his hand from my back.

When the energy vanished, the small, faint internal power settled in my dantian melted away like grains of snow.

Nothing remained. I was left utterly bereft.

Do Hoengil rose from his seat.

“That is enough for today.”

I thought he would leave right away, but he sat on the edge of the porch and took a bamboo tube from his bundle.

Judging by the way he sipped from it, it seemed to be liquor.

I hurried inside and brought out dried meat, pancakes, and two cups for snacks. Without a word, Do Hoengil poured liquor into both cups.

We sat a little distance apart and drank quietly beneath the moonlight.

“Ah... Is this Bamboo Leaf Green?”

“You know your liquor?”

“I don't know good liquor, but I know expensive liquor.”

It was a fine summer night, with soft moonlight and the elegant sound of bamboo swaying in the wind.

With quality Bamboo Leaf Green added to the mood, it was the perfect time for a private conversation.

“Where exactly is the Cheongsan Sect located?”

“It began with a group of refugees who hid deep in the mountains of Gansu to escape disaster when those Mongol bastards invaded the Central Plains.”

There was nothing especially unusual about that. Most of the Nine Great Sects were located deep in the mountains as well.

“They cleared fields by burning the land and lived by hunting. To protect themselves from bandits and wild beasts, they learned self-defense techniques. Some among them were descendants of fallen martial families, and those techniques gradually developed into martial arts.”

“I've never heard the sect's name before.”

I expected him to take offense, but Do Hoengil calmly agreed.

“That would be natural. Even after those Mongol bastards were driven back north, they remained in the mountains. No matter what the country's name became, the common people continued to be exploited. There was no reason to come out.”

“Are the Sword Branch and Saber Branch truly part of the same sect?”

“They are siblings split from the same root.”

“Why do fellow disciples fight life-and-death duels?”

“It is tradition.”

It was common for members of martial families and sects to spar among themselves.

Fighting even one more match was more helpful for improving than swinging a sword at empty air for a hundred days.

They usually used wooden swords, though they occasionally sparred with real blades. But they never killed each other. The purpose of sparring was training, not murder.

If someone used killing moves to kill or seriously injure a fellow disciple, they would be imprisoned or expelled from the sect with their tendons and veins severed. That was how a normal sect worked.

There were exceptions if one looked at abnormal places.

Groups of inhuman outlaws who gathered orphans together and made them kill one another until only one remained, like poisonous insects thrown into a large jar and left to devour each other.

“Is the Cheongsan Sect... something like the Assassins’ League?”

Do Hoengil glared at me with angry eyes.

“The Cheongsan Sect is an orthodox and prestigious sect with more than a hundred years of history. How dare you compare us to such lowly assassin scum?”

“Besides you, sir, are there any other successors of the Sword Branch?”

“No.”

“What about your fellow disciples?”

“They are dead.”

“Don't tell me it was because of the life-and-death duels?”

“...The Sword Branch and Saber Branch hold a life-and-death sparring match once every five years. It has been held ten times over the past fifty years. Quite a few died, and those who survived gained insights and became stronger.”

“Then why are you the only one left?”

There seemed to be a private story behind it, but Do Hoengil did not want to speak of it and gave a vague answer instead.

“Everyone dies. Martial artists have even shorter lives. Even in its prime, our sect never had more than a hundred disciples. Deep mountains and secluded valleys are harsh places. It is difficult to survive when there are too many mouths doing nothing but swing blades all day. There is no reason to have many. Talent accounts for eighty percent of martial arts. One need only select the truly gifted and focus on them.”

“With martial ability like that, you could formally establish a sect.”

Do Hoengil looked at me with cold eyes.

“From street rabble to the rising junior talents of great sects, all of them are desperate to become masters. Yet none of them are genuine enough to throw away their entire lives for it. They merely wish to place the masses beneath their feet and swagger about. Martial arts are only a means. What they truly want is success, wealth, and glory.”

Wasn't that how life worked? Wealth and glory were sweet and comfortable. Even if one went mad over martial arts, would they become anything other than a killer?

“The Cheongsan Sect's martial artists are different. They are born with martial bones, wielding sword and saber their entire lives to see the end of martial arts, driven by an endless desire to grow stronger. That is why, when choosing disciples, we value not only martial talent but also the competitive spirit that disregards life and death.”

The end of martial arts...

It sounded like something from another world. As I silently raised my cup, Won Seogang suddenly came to mind.

The things Won Seogang had said when reading an artificial sword path within my saber techniques.

The reason someone had forced a sword path into them, even at the risk of undermining the saber art's underlying principles.

I had guessed that it was not a case of saber sects and sword sects exchanging knowledge and developing together. Rather, it was a desperate, resentment-filled expedient wrung out as they strained to defeat one another somehow.

“Are the Sword Branch and Saber Branch bitter enemies?”

As though I had struck a nerve, Do Hoengil paused. He shot me an annoyed look as if I had spoiled the liquor, then emptied his cup.

“It is not a story I can tell someone only halfway there. If you wish to know the secrets of the sect, learn internal energy and saber techniques, then become the Saber Branch's official successor.”

He had changed the subject, but it was as I had thought.

If they had killed one another in life-and-death duels for so many years, resentment was inevitable no matter how closely they shared their roots.

That was far easier to understand than lofty goals about seeing the end of martial arts.

Life-and-death duels in the isolated depths of the mountains, divided into factions and killing one another for decades. How was that any different from the Assassins’ League gathering orphans and making them kill until only one survived?

“What will happen to the Sword Branch when you die, sir?”

“It will die out.”

Do Hoengil remained calm even though his sect would end with his generation.

“What about disciples?”

“I have never taken one.”

“Is there a reason you never accepted a disciple?”

A brilliant light flashed in Do Hoengil's eyes.

It carried a vivid madness, as though the sword in his heart, honed over countless years, had revealed its edge.

“Revenge.”

I did not understand what he meant, but the atmosphere had grown so grim that I did not ask further.

“What if I die in the life-and-death duel five years from now?”

“Then the Saber Branch will die out.”

“Isn't there someone named Mun Hwi in Hangzhou? The one-armed saber master.”

“He is dead.”

“...Did you kill him?”

Do Hoengil drained his cup before speaking.

“Mun Hwi was a genius who mastered the Heavenly Steel Saber Method to its peak and cut off my senior brother's head. Ten years later, he lost an arm to me and fled. I thought he would hide away and grind his teeth in determination, but he had become a wreck who could not live without liquor. It would have been better if he had created a one-armed saber art, but losing one arm completely broke his will.”

I recalled the one-armed saber master I had met in Hangzhou.

He had always been drunk. Whenever things displeased him, he threw punches first. Whether at an inn or in an alley, wherever he passed often became a sea of blood.

I had been captivated by his martial ability and gathered the courage to ask him. He had readily passed on his saber art to me.

I learned the forms and sparred with him many times, but I had never won even once. I could not even brush the hem of his clothes.

Even now, I would have found it difficult to beat him. He had been that formidable despite having only one arm.

Yet this old man had cut off one of his arms when both had still been intact.

“He was a man who lived with his eyes fixed only on becoming stronger, so perhaps that is why. Liquor was not enough for him, so he wallowed in opium and wasted away like a living corpse. I eased his suffering. In any case, that man was your master. If you wish to avenge him, I will not stop you.”

“No, thanks.”

The grudges I had made for myself were already difficult enough to bear. There was no reason to take on someone else's as well.

“When will you teach me the Latter Eighteen Forms?”

“You have not even washed the rice, yet you are reaching for the spoon first.”

Do Hoengil put the bamboo liquor tube into his bundle and stood.

“I will return tomorrow at daybreak.”

After seeing him to the gate, I returned and watched the moon for a while before sitting cross-legged and closing my eyes.

I observed within and concentrated, but I could feel nothing in my dantian.

* * *

The following morning, I received true qi guidance once again.

“Will we keep doing only true qi guidance? What about the Internal Energy Method?”

Do Hoengil drank some cold tea, caught his breath, and spoke.

“The path through which internal energy spread from the dantian into the four limbs is the Internal Energy Method. Explaining it in writing would only make it complicated and obscure. Incantations are merely spells for clearing away distracting thoughts. As long as you remember the path, you can circulate energy and regulate the breath.”

“I tried it on my own, but it didn't work.”

“That is because your dantian is empty.”

“I clearly felt internal power, even if it was only the size of a millet grain.”

“When I withdrew my energy, it all disappeared, didn't it?”

“...It did.”

I nodded reluctantly, and Do Hoengil stared intently at my lower abdomen.

“Strictly speaking, that was not your internal power. Your aptitude for internal energy cultivation reacted to my internal energy. Every sect separates jade from stone in that manner before teaching internal cultivation. Those without aptitude can never learn internal energy, no matter how hard they try.”

“Then what about circulating energy and regulating the breath?”

“You need to accumulate a certain amount of internal power before you can do it by your own strength. It cannot be done through true qi guidance. Consuming concentrated natural energy is the surest method with the fewest side effects.”

I thought I understood what he meant.

“You mean spirit medicines?”

“If you want to keep your body whole, avoid spirit medicines. Most spirit medicines sold on the market are fake. Even the people who make them do not know what they mixed into them.”

“Not cheap junk like that. There are legitimate ones, such as Shaolin's Great Reversion Pill and Wudang Sect's Supreme Clarity Pill...”

They were all peerless spirit medicines renowned throughout the martial world, but Do Hoengil only sneered.

“Do you know that Daoist priests offered Qin Shi Huang spirit medicines for immortality?”

“Is there anyone who doesn't know that story?”

“Did Qin Shi Huang, who consumed countless spirit medicines combining the Daoist arts of longevity and elixir-making, achieve immortality? Is he still alive? He died before reaching fifty.”

Having never taken spirit medicine myself, I had nothing to say in response.

“Mercury was the problem. Even now, Daoists regard that poison as the foundation of elixirs. Buddhists are no different. Rather than swallowing the pills those quacks make, you would be better off putting cold food powder in your mouth.”

“Then where am I supposed to get internal energy?”

“The best way is to obtain genuine spirit herbs, put them through medicinal preparation, and consume them.”

“Medicinal preparation? Can you do that too?”

“You should leave it to a physician. Medicinal preparation is the foundation of medicine. Unless they are an exceptionally bad quack, they should be able to do it without difficulty.”

Do Hoengil got to his feet.

“Today is the last day of true qi guidance. We have confirmed your aptitude for internal energy, so now it is time to fill your dantian. Circulating energy and regulating the breath comes after that. Once you obtain spirit herbs, come to Pungcheon Inn.”

“Do you happen to have any spirit herbs?”

“No.”

After Do Hoengil left, I lay down on the porch and sank into thought.

I knew nothing about which spirit herbs existed, which ones were genuine, or which were fake. Getting ripped off was one thing, but I had no idea where to go.

Where could I obtain spirit herbs?

I racked my brain, then suddenly sprang to my feet. There was one place worth asking.

* * *

“...Spirit herbs?”

Geuk Hwan cocked their head and looked me over closely.

“Have you made some progress lately?”

“An opportunity came my way.”

Geuk Hwan did not seem to have noticed anything in particular. I had felt internal energy with Do Hoengil's help, but it was still so slight that I could not even circulate it and regulate my breathing.

Geuk Hwan was probably only making a guess.

A martial artist who swung a blade would not seek spirit herbs to live free of illness and grow old. The only possible reason was internal-energy cultivation.

“Would it be difficult?”

“There are no places that openly sell spirit herbs or spirit medicines. Martial artists would be desperate to raid them. Our branch does not deal in the physical goods either. However, we know places where they can be obtained.”

As expected of the Hao clan. It had been a good decision to make connections with them.

“Where should I go?”

“You should visit the Black Market.”

“The Black Market? There is one in Seochon?”

“There is a Black Market about one day's carriage ride away. It is small, but it deals in spirit herbs as well. I will report to the Pavilion Master and write you a letter of introduction.”

“Please do.”

Geuk Hwan went inside and returned with a letter of introduction before even a quarter of an hour had passed.

After hearing the Black Market's location and how to use it, I tucked the letter into my robe and returned home.

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