WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
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◈ Murim in my Hometown ◈
Chapter 34: Shifting Forms and Positions
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No one in this world liked martial artists, but physicians hated them most of all.
Even if they treated them well, martial artists often skipped out on payment. If the treatment was unsatisfactory, they might resort to violence or extortion, and if the physician was unlucky, murder.
So plenty of physicians refused to accept martial artists as patients even for a fortune.
Physicians, whose work was saving lives, and martial artists, whose work was taking them, were fundamentally incompatible.
Martial artists had their side of the story too.
More than half the physicians I had met so far had been quacks.
When you were dying from a sword wound or illness and they kept trying to force suspicious medicine down your throat, you had no choice but to converse with your fists instead of your mouth.
An old physician inspired trust right away.
Old Physician Sang had graying hair and the face of a man past his prime. His build was ordinary, but his sharply focused eyes made him seem like a stubborn, one-track-minded sort.
I imagined Hua Tuo, who had supposedly tried to split Cao Cao's head open with an axe, might have looked like this.
As soon as I took out the wooden box and showed him its contents, he immediately recognized what it was.
“Snow Ginseng.”
“You know Snow Ginseng?”
“Very well. I spent ten years as an army physician in the northern army. The northern tribes would occasionally bring herbs to trade for rice or iron. When wounds festered and caused a fever, boiling Snow Ginseng into a decoction had astonishing effects.”
“I would like it medicinally prepared. Can you do that?”
Old Physician Sang checked the saber at my waist and seemed to understand. He did not ask what I needed it for.
“We will need medicinal ingredients to neutralize the Snow Ginseng's yin energy.”
“Can it be done?”
“Of course. We will cut the Snow Ginseng into small pieces, dry it thoroughly in the shade, combine it with appropriate ingredients possessing yang energy, grind it into powder, reduce it with licorice-infused water, and form pills.”
“How long will it take?”
“Come back in five days. Including the ingredients, it will cost two taels of silver.”
I paid one tael of silver in advance and returned home.
Five days later, the Tianshan Snow Ginseng returned to my hands as ten pills.
Do Hoengil examined the prepared pills with a satisfied expression.
“The physician is not without skill.”
“Are we starting right away?”
“This will be your final true qi guidance. There will never be another, so do your utmost to memorize the pathway.”
“Can it be done just once? We should try a few more times to fully master the Internal Energy Method...”
“True qi guidance consumes the practitioner's internal energy. Any sect would only do it once or twice, and only for direct disciples or blood relatives.”
“Can't you recover your internal energy by circulating energy and regulating the breath?”
“You cannot.”
Do Hoengil firmly shook his head.
“The amount of inner qi accumulated through circulating energy and regulating the breath is insignificant. If that were enough for qi accumulation, why would internal energy be needed to do it at all?”
I did not understand.
“Then why do people circulate energy and regulate the breath?”
“To make the pathways that channel internal energy through one's forms familiar to the body. Each sect has a different Internal Energy Method because each is optimized for its own unique martial arts.”
“If qi accumulation cannot be done through circulating energy and regulating the breath, how are you supposed to replenish the internal energy you spend?”
“You find spirit herbs, prepare them medicinally, and consume them. If you are desperate, buy some suspicious spirit elixir and swallow it.”
“Like this Snow Ginseng?”
“Precisely.”
My mind went blank.
I had paid a hundred taels of silver for a single medium-grade Tianshan Snow Ginseng. Even then, I had only bought it so cheaply because I knew the seller urgently needed cash and lowballed them so hard their head must have been ringing.
Ban Hoyang had been so furious that he hired ten bandits to kill me and take it.
Yet if I wanted to use internal energy, I had to keep buying and consuming expensive spirit herbs like this.
“Internal energy... is a complete fucking money pit.”
I finally understood why, among the countless martial artists scattered across the vast Central Plains, masters who used internal energy were so rare.
Even a Fortuitous Encounter like finding a secret manual left behind by an old master in a cliffside cave or discovering a spirit herb deep in the mountains was nowhere near enough.
First, you needed the talent to feel internal energy in your dantian.
You also needed an internal-energy master to teach you the qi-circulation pathway through true qi guidance.
And you needed vast funds to keep buying expensive spirit herbs to replenish the internal energy you spent.
How many martial artists possessed all those conditions?
An ordinary small or midsized sect could easily go bankrupt trying to raise even one internal-energy master.
There were penniless people who wore out their feet wandering famous mountains in search of Fortuitous Encounters, and lucky bastards born to wealthy families who received regular Marrow Cleansing and true qi guidance from childhood.
Even if they held the same sword, they had begun from completely different starting lines.
“Do you understand now why the Nine Sects and Five Great Families have so many masters?”
“...So is learning internal energy actually worth the money?”
Instead of telling me what I wanted to hear, Do Hoengil only went on about grim things that sounded like either warnings or curses.
“Once internal energy accumulates in your body, you must guard against qi deviation until the day you die. If your qi and blood become slightly disrupted, it may end with an internal injury. If you are unlucky, your blood vessels will burst and kill you, your inner qi will flow backward into your head and drive you mad, or you will become half-paralyzed.”
It sounded as terrifying as learning demonic arts.
“...I heard that learning to use internal energy opens the path to becoming an absolute master. Was I wrong?”
“See for yourself.”
Do Hoengil pushed the wooden box containing the pills toward me.
“Eat them all at once.”
“All ten?”
“Every one of them. The first time you fill your dantian is the most important. You must store as much natural qi as possible in it and expand it, so you can hold that much again later.”
I put one pill in my mouth and bit down. The bitter taste unique to herbs mixed with the sweetness of licorice, making it unexpectedly edible.
I chewed it thoroughly with my molars, swallowed it, and picked up another.
After consuming all ten without leaving a single one behind, I drank tea, sat cross-legged, and closed my eyes.
About seven or eight minutes later, an unfamiliar energy stirred in my stomach.
“Something is rising.”
“I will begin the true qi guidance. Focus on your internal energy and store as much of the spirit herb's natural qi as possible in your dantian.”
Do Hoengil's inner qi flowed into me through my back. The grain-of-millet-sized internal energy I had felt before appeared in my dantian again.
Using his inner qi, Do Hoengil surrounded the Tianshan Snow Ginseng's natural qi, which was trying to scatter throughout my body, and drove it into my dantian.
A fog-like energy enveloped my dantian. The medicinal preparation had apparently gone well. Though it was an herb of extreme yin, I could barely feel any cold.
I tried to gather it as it was, but the natural qi only circled nearby and would not seep in.
As inner qi circulated along the qi-circulation pathway, the natural qi slowly settled into my blood vessels, like snow piled up throughout winter melting into a spring river.
The natural qi made a full circuit through my body along my blood vessels before finally flowing into my dantian as though a single drop had condensed there. The millet-sized internal energy doubled in an instant.
Like boiling weak cloudy rice wine to distill a potent clear liquor, the Snow Ginseng's natural qi transformed into internal energy and filled my dantian one drop at a time.
My entire body burned with overwhelming euphoria, as though I had become a bottle filled with the finest liquor called internal energy.
Once Do Hoengil confirmed that internal energy was accumulating, he slowly withdrew his inner qi.
From then on, I focused entirely on circulating energy and regulating the breath through my own strength and will.
I emerged from my trance at the fullness of my filled dantian. I gathered as much of the remaining natural qi scattering into my limbs as I could, then opened my eyes.
I could clearly feel a faint but abundant internal energy in the dantian below my navel.
I pressed my nose to my clothes and sniffed. They smelled exactly as they had before. There was no sign whatsoever of foul impurities being expelled.
Even when I tilted my head back and looked overhead, there was nothing there.
“...Did three radiant flowers perhaps bloom over my head, or did some five-colored aura resembling the five elements gather and then disappear?”
“Hmm. It seems you are seeing things. Ask a physician when you see one later. Perhaps the pills were mixed with opium.”
Do Hoengil answered casually and rose from his seat.
“Come outside and take up your saber.”
I took my saber and stood in the yard.
“Circulate your internal energy as weakly as possible along the qi-circulation pathway and perform the First Eighteen Forms. Do not draw out too much internal energy. Blood vessels were made for blood to flow through. If you force unfamiliar internal energy into them, you will immediately suffer an internal injury.”
I drew out the thinnest possible thread of internal energy from my dantian, circulated it along the qi-circulation pathway, and performed the saber forms.
My movements were definitely different from before.
My senses had sharpened. My body felt lighter. My movements had become a little faster and stronger...
My condition was at its peak, like after eating well and waking from a good sleep. But that was all.
After I finished the forms, slight disillusionment and confusion left my stance awkward.
Perhaps seeing my disappointment, Do Hoengil clicked his tongue and took a step forward.
Ssssss.
Do Hoengil's figure blurred before my eyes. It seemed to stretch out, leaving afterimages behind it, before vanishing from my sight.
I flinched and turned around to find Do Hoengil standing behind me with his hands behind his back as calmly as ever.
My mouth fell open in shock.
“Shifting Forms and Positions...”
Do Hoengil indifferently shook his head.
“How long have you had internal energy? Did you expect to fly through the sky like an immortal?”
“How did you...?”
“Not all internal energy is the same. As you cultivate it repeatedly, it becomes deeper and denser, allowing you to channel a greater amount of inner qi at once and do so more efficiently. Then you can perform tricks like this. I wasted five percent of my internal energy just showing you a little trick. Tch. You have cost me no small loss.”
“You used five percent of your internal energy for one use of Shifting Forms and Positions?”
“If I had held a sword and performed forms, perhaps seven percent would have vanished like melting snow. You could not perform it in your current state, but you would probably lose more than twenty percent.”
It did not matter whether I lost ten percent or fifty percent of my internal energy.
If I could use a technique like that when I had been driven into a corner and was about to die, it would be a lifesaving ultimate move.
Even losing all my internal energy would be cheap if it saved my life.
Seeing the burning enthusiasm in my eyes, Do Hoengil let out a dry laugh.
“This is not something that can be taught. It is merely a realm you may someday reach if you climb one step at a time, as though ascending Mount Tai on your own two feet.”
I swallowed dryly and spoke carefully.
“By any chance... can you use sword qi or sword aura too?”
Do Hoengil narrowed his eyes.
“I wondered where that little brat at the inn got such absurd dreams. Did they learn them from you? Such things do not exist. They only appear in martial arts novels from rental bookshops. If someone could bring down Mount Tai with one sword strike or split the sea with one palm strike, why would Shaolin Temple have burned and Wudang Sect sealed its gates when the Mongol bastards invaded the Central Plains?”
His mention of burning reminded me of something.
“Have you heard of the Explosive Heat Fist Demon?”
“The demon from Tianshan with a formidable fist?”
“One punch like that blew apart a person's head, and the heat set fires all around. Was that also the power of internal energy?”
“Demonic arts could plausibly do that. They draw out and burn the potential one would use over a lifetime. When did you see the Explosive Heat Fist Demon?”
“About nine years ago.”
“You will not see them again. They have likely turned to bare bones by now.”
Do Hoengil was certain that the Explosive Heat Fist Demon was dead.
“Those who use power beyond human limits must pay a corresponding price. Even if they are sucking the blood and marrow from living people to cling to life like a beast, they will have fallen into qi deviation and no longer be human.”
“So demonic arts can achieve that much?”
“Do you wish to devote yourself to Tianshan?”
Do Hoengil sneered harshly.
“Do you know how many demonic cultists are ground down to create one demonic master? At least several hundred, perhaps several thousand. Even then, most do not last ten years. If demonic arts were so easy and powerful, the Demonic Cult would have conquered the martial world long ago.”
Do Hoengil was not merely a master of high martial prowess. His internal energy was deep, and his knowledge broad enough that I had to prick up my ears and listen.
That Do Hoengil now gave me serious advice with a stern expression.
“Keep the fact that you possess internal energy an absolute secret. No one must know. Never use it in front of others. Even when you circulate energy and regulate the breath, do so somewhere safe and hidden.”
“Is there really a need to go that far...?”
Perhaps frustrated that I could not understand, Do Hoengil's expression and voice grew cold.
“Have you ever seen a martial artist who uses internal energy besides me?”
“No. Not once.”
“Do you truly think that is a coincidence? Internal-energy masters are rare, yes, but you have never even caught sight of one? Think back on whom the trap at that Black Inn was meant to catch.”
The Black Inn's trap, where pulling an iron lever split the inn floor open and dropped victims more than fifteen meters underground.
It had been powerful enough to take down ten bandits in an instant.
They would not have gone through such trouble to kidnap ordinary people who knew no martial arts.
It was a trap meant to capture martial masters, beasts in human form, and sell them as living martial arts manuals.
How much would an internal-energy master be worth at the Black Market?
Their price would truly be whatever someone was willing to pay.
Even I had been tempted by the words Internal Energy Method and accepted the insane condition of a life-and-death duel five years later.
If word spread that I could use internal energy, there would be no shortage of people and factions targeting me.
Those who came begging on their knees or offering treasured swords and vast wealth for a deal would only be troublesome, not dangerous.
But if places like Black Inns began drooling over me...
They might capture me with drugs, poison, beautiful women, or traps, cut off my legs to make me crippled, and force me to spend the rest of my life as a slave who ate spirit herbs and gave true qi guidance.
The thought alone sent chills down my spine and turned my insides cold.
“This is the martial world. Even disciples of the Nine Sects and children of the Five Great Families, whose martial prowess is exceptional and whose backing is powerful enough to make them fear nothing, sometimes vanish without a trace. A lone martial artist like you goes without saying. If you carelessly reveal your internal energy, you will bring endless disaster upon yourself.”
Though I understood well enough, Do Hoengil kept up his severe warnings, perhaps because he still was not reassured.
“If you reveal your claws too often, their tips wear down and they will not be sharp when you truly need them. Do not rely on internal energy. Diligently train your saber art instead. Remember this. Internal energy must be your hidden trump card and lifesaving ultimate move. The moment you become intoxicated with its power and strut about, that will become your grave.”
Listening to him, I thought it was similar to how Tang Clan members used poison.
The Tang Clan's methods were infamous for their brutality because once they poisoned someone, they killed every witness to protect their secret.
If anyone learned that I used internal energy, perhaps I too would have to live that way, killing everyone to eliminate the evidence.
“Starting tomorrow, I will be away from this village for some time. At the earliest, I will return in a month. At the latest, before this year ends.”
“Is something happening?”
“I need to acquire spirit herbs. After spending internal energy on someone who is not even my disciple, I feel as though half my remaining lifespan has been cut away.”
I felt slightly guilty, but at the same time, I had the strange feeling that I had moved a little farther from the life-and-death duel five years away.
Without showing it, I asked about what came next.
“Then when can I learn the Latter Eighteen Forms?”
“First practice channeling internal energy through the First Eighteen Forms. When I return, I will judge based on your progress.”
After seeing Do Hoengil off, I bolted the door.
I stood alone in the empty yard and looked up at the darkening sky. The Shifting Forms and Positions I had just seen was burned into my mind with overwhelming intensity.
Do Hoengil had compared it to climbing Mount Tai, but perhaps it was even farther and higher than that. It was enough to make it my life's goal.
I drew my saber and slowly raised my internal energy.
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