WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

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◈ The Martial Alliance Rulebook Archives ◈

Chapter 35: Between Second-rate and Peak (3)

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The Eccentric Physician's eyes lit up at my reflexive curse.

"You. Do you know about this martial art?"

Anyone who had read even a little martial-arts fiction would know the name. The Star-Absorbing Great Method.

"It takes another person's internal energy and makes it your own, doesn't it?"

"Then you know it's a precious martial art that's difficult to find anywhere else?"

"What good is it being precious if learning it gets you killed?"

Both in Black and White Martial Heroes Chronicle and in the many martial-arts works that inspired it, the Star-Absorbing Great Method was a terrifying martial art. Yet it had one flaw that was exceptionally difficult to overcome.

The internal energies absorbed from different people, or the target's internal energy and one's own, would clash.

If I learned it with my acupoints already wrecked, wouldn't it be a trap martial art that would immediately issue me a one-way ticket to the underworld?

The Eccentric Physician cut into my grumbling that increasing my internal energy with this would be like tossing my already shattered acupoints into a millstone and grinding them to paste.

"Um, well."

"Does the Records Office have a divine art that controls the clash of different kinds of qi? Something like the Muscle-Tendon and Marrow-Cleansing Sutra left behind by Bodhidharma?"

"Hm? Why bring that up? Shaolin would never take the Yijin Sutra outside. Even if the imperial court requested it..."

The Eccentric Physician suddenly fell silent. Had memories of his time working for the government come back to him?

"At any rate, no peerless cultivation method like that exists officially."

"...So one exists unofficially?"

"Mm, it does. It's of the demonic arts variety, though. If you learned it, the Director or the Martial Alliance Leader would come cut you down, then turn you into a research specimen for Anomalies."

I squeezed my eyes shut. As expected, there was no room for carelessness in this merciless martial world.

"You mentioned the clash between different kinds of qi."

"If there isn't a divine art to smooth that over, isn't it a side effect tailor-made to kill someone?"

"That's true. But with your constitution, I think you might be able to bear it."

"What?"

The Eccentric Physician calmly pointed from my wrist to acupoints throughout my body.

"As you said, when different kinds of qi clash, the acupoints should burst. Even more so for a body like yours, which has already been ruined once."

The variable here was my constitution. Wasn't the fact that a person could treat Anomalies as nourishing food already far beyond common sense?

"If we classified the energy possessed by Anomalies in detail, there would be no end to it. Yet they all share one trait. They carry an energy that defies the heavenly mandate. Calling it Demonic Qi would be fitting."

"Oh, maybe that's why it suits my name so well."

"They say names contain destiny. It might truly be so."

I'd only said it as a joke, but his agreement was unexpectedly serious.

"For matters of divination, Jade Scale... No, if you want to look directly into the Heavenly Order, it would be better to ask the Director. Ask when you get the chance to meet them."

The Director.

I had already belonged to the Anomaly Records Office for several months. Besides Peng Juhyeok, Jade Scale, and the White-Robed Miracle Physician, I had become acquainted with the Records Officers who came and went.

Still, I had never met the Director of the Records Office. A powerful figure who could even defuse pressure from Shaolin. Just who were they...?

As I sank into thought, the Eccentric Physician cleared his throat to draw my attention back.

"Anyway, your body can roughly digest Demonic Qi, which inherently defies the heavenly mandate. If you use the Star-Absorbing Great Method on Anomalies rather than people, you'll only absorb Demonic Qi. Wouldn't that make sudden death unlikely?"

"What if I use it on a person?"

"You haven't absorbed any internal energy other than Demonic Qi so far. I'm curious what would happen, but that would mean experimenting with your life. Try it when you've grown tired of living."

Mm. I should never try that.

"Has anyone used the Star-Absorbing Great Method against Anomalies before?"

"Techniques that seize another person's internal energy, like the Star-Absorbing Great Method, are methods of the unorthodox sects or the Demonic Path. Soul-Severing Mountain Villa gathering the Essence, Qi, and Spirit of its victims bit by bit would be something similar."

Unless there was a case of an Anomaly using it against a person, I would have to search the Anomaly Destruction Hall's archive to find records of a person using a qi-harvesting technique of this kind against Anomalies.

I clicked my tongue and tilted my head uncertainly. It was good to gain a life-saving trump card for the moment I directly faced an Anomaly, but...

"Isn't this too unorthodox?"

"Hm?"

"A person who uses the Star-Absorbing Great Method and tears apart Anomalies to eat them. This is a little..."

"Ah, when you put it that way, you sound completely like a demonic practitioner. Even the Black Lotus Society couldn't officially accept you. You'd be a strange hero they'd only let in through the back door!"

"Is it right for a venerable member of the orthodox sects to call a junior that?"

"It's fine. The Black Lotus Society calls me the Eccentric Physician, after all. The Eccentric Physician's junior, a strange hero. A whole lineage using the word strange will be formed."

The Eccentric Physician chuckled, then waved a hand and told me to leave since the examination was more or less over. I shook my head.

"Hm? Does something hurt? If I put an acupuncture needle into your Baihui acupoint once, all pain will cease."

"It's not that. The Life-and-Death Gambler told me something strange."

I brought up the Life-and-Death Gambler's assessment that although I lacked internal energy, my skill at executing techniques had already reached the Peak realm. It was a little embarrassing to praise myself, but it was more important to understand my own abilities accurately, wasn't it?

If my advancement in realm was officially recognized, my salary would rise too.

"Uh... Haven't you felt your realm rise yourself?"

"After my fight with the Shadow, I hadn't pushed my martial arts to their limit. When I faced Maitreya this time and raised my internal energy, it was the first time I'd gone all out since Soul-Severing Mountain Villa."

"What about training?"

"I do it whenever I have spare time every day, but..."

My voice trailed off. The Eccentric Physician immediately understood what I meant.

"Right. The more you raised your internal energy, the more it consumed your lifespan. I understand. Then let's go to the training grounds."

"What?"

"To know someone's martial realm for certain, shouldn't we exchange a few moves ourselves?"

* * *

The place the Eccentric Physician led me to was unexpectedly not the Medical Hall's training grounds.

"That place is for patients. It wasn't designed for properly using martial arts. It was made so people could at least stretch and keep their bodies from stiffening up."

Instead, we arrived at the rear garden of the Ceremonial Affairs Department.

"Why is no one here?"

"They're all busy working. Only after the sun has fully set do they come out with dying expressions and weakly move their bodies around."

He trudged forward and stopped at one end of the training grounds. Then, with a politeness I had never seen from him before, he clasped his fist in his palm.

"White-Robed Miracle Physician, Gongson Hu. In this spar, I will use only the Martial Alliance's common martial arts."

"I'm Yeok Cheonmyeong. I've learned little, so I only know common martial arts. I'll use only those as well."

The special physician remained motionless in his opening stance. He was yielding the first move.

I entrusted my body to the flow of Drifting Cloud Step. At the same time, I activated my eye technique.

Having good eyes in a fight was no different from being able to immediately discern what was real and what was feint in an opponent's movements.

"Then, here I come."

* * *

The special physician admired Yeok Cheonmyeong's swift footwork. Though there were no restrictions on the use of internal energy, Yeok Cheonmyeong could not help but feel mental resistance to drawing out his internal energy with his acupoints ruined.

Even so, the movement was more than fast enough.

If repeated training had taught Yeok Cheonmyeong the optimal amount of internal energy to preserve his acupoints, it meant he possessed that much insight. That would be good.

Or perhaps Yeok Cheonmyeong was going all out without concern for the possibility of death. Even if it revealed a somewhat reckless disposition, the boldness to stake one's life in battle was a quality of a martial artist.

As its name suggested, Drifting Cloud Step pursued movements like flowing clouds. The path of clouds drifting with the wind was difficult to follow with the eyes.

Yeok Cheonmyeong's figure, which had rushed in from the front, flashed and vanished. The special physician lightly stepped forward with his left foot.

The special physician's left leg collided with Yeok Cheonmyeong's right foot. He had blocked the attack with his body, but suffered no meaningful impact.

Yeok Cheonmyeong's low sweeping kick was stopped before it could gain enough momentum.

Moreover, because the attack had been received with the calf rather than the shin, the burden on the muscles and bones was reduced. The flesh of the calf absorbed the shock that would have reached the bone.

The point struck was not vital, and the attack's path had been broken. The offensive could not be fatal.

Yet Yeok Cheonmyeong continued attacking from that position. Naturally, he did not foolishly add onto an attack that had already been blocked.

He used the right foot that had lost its momentum as a pivot. Bending his right knee and twisting his waist, he transferred the momentum of the attack directly into his left arm.

The blocked kick had become a punch before anyone realized it.

The special physician's lips curved up as he saw the left fist rise toward his jaw.

This extreme shift in center of gravity. It was undoubtedly a movement containing the essence of Crouching Tiger Fist.

Could he use a fist art, avoided by ordinary martial artists despite being a common martial art because its forms were too straightforward and its martial principles too extreme, in such a combination?

"So this is why the Life-and-Death Gambler judged his martial prowess to be at the Peak realm!"

He changed his center of gravity through shifting his weight and used a powerful, fierce momentum to unsettle his opponent. He overcame the superhuman difficulty of movements beyond ordinary motion with internal energy.

At the very moment the right foot, blocked by the defense, was about to lose balance, the special physician saw him release internal energy to stabilize his stance. There was no hesitation in his decisions.

Even as the special physician analyzed Yeok Cheonmyeong, the fist carrying the force of Crouching Tiger Fist did not stop. Then the special physician moved.

His white sleeve fluttered as his right hand extended. It gently touched the wrist of the fist aimed at his jaw, then pushed it aside and disrupted Yeok Cheonmyeong's posture. With his attack's path thrown off, Yeok Cheonmyeong's left side swayed as it failed to overcome the attack's momentum.

Yeok Cheonmyeong did not resist the fall. In tandem with his left arm dropping toward the ground, he threw his body down. His upper and lower body reversed, and using both arms as supports, he spun his leg in a kick. A blow that shot toward the face like a cannonball.

The special physician had already stepped back one step, his hands clasped behind his back.

The attack brushed past the tip of his nose.

When his target vanished, Yeok Cheonmyeong pushed off with the arms holding him in a handstand and launched himself into the air. It widened the distance while correcting his posture. He then took the stance of another common Martial Alliance martial art.

It carried a gentler air than Crouching Tiger Fist. Rather than large attacks one by one, this time it was a finely linked sequence of techniques...

"Ghk."

The special physician's analysis could not continue.

Yeok Cheonmyeong, preparing his next offensive, suddenly clutched his abdomen and collapsed.

"No, wait! Hey!"

The White-Robed Miracle Physician rushed over in alarm.

Footnotes:

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