WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈

Chapter 3: The Third-Rate Martial Artist Gathering Elixirs

──────

“So, you are saying you will not attend Busaeng Hall?”

This incident had thrown the Taeul Sect into chaos.

Gye Yeonseok, Gye Cheolyeong’s father and the head of the Gyerong Merchant Group, had caused a scene over his son’s injury. During the investigation, Gye Yeonseung’s negligent teaching methods had come to light.

Gye Yeonseung was dismissed from Busaeng Hall and barred from entering the Taeul Sect ever again.

Gye Yeonseok lamented the loss of the guardian who had protected Gye Cheolyeong, though he had only himself to blame for creating the situation.

“The former Busaeng Hall Lord has already acknowledged that I completed the course. There is no need for me to attend anymore.”

Father put on his fiercest expression with that rugged face of his.

It might have frightened others, but it still made my chest tighten.

I quickly looked away before tears could well up.

“I still cannot believe it. How did you defeat Gye Yeonseung? Did you perhaps use some trick?”

“Ah, Hall Lord Gye said that too, and his arm was broken. Would you like your arm broken as well, Father?”

“What?”

“Anyway, I am free until the other disciples complete Busaeng Hall.”

“Of all the heads you could have cracked, why did it have to be Gye Cheolyeong’s?”

My father, Jin Taesan, was the Outer Hall Lord, responsible for the Taeul Sect’s external affairs.

Since the Gyerong Merchant Group was the Taeul Sect’s greatest supporter, this incident could not have pleased him.

“The merchant group head admitted his fault in the end. That should be enough.”

“You brat! Do you think Gye Yeonseok will let this end with words alone? If the Taeul Sect suddenly has to cut meals down to two a day, do you think the other disciples will leave you alone?”

“Say it properly. Why is that my fault? It is the fault of an incompetent Outer Hall Lord.”

“You little...!”

“I shall be going now.”

“Where do you think you are going? If you will not attend Busaeng Hall, then help with Outer Hall work.”

“I have many personal matters to attend to.”

“What matters?”

“I am at the age when hair is beginning to grow on my face. Please respect my privacy.”

“What?”

Jin Taesan’s beard began to tremble as though he had heard the most ridiculous thing imaginable.

Still, I could hardly tell him honestly that I needed to prepare to protect the Taeul Sect from the return of the Demonic Cult.

Before long, Father’s hand moved toward the club propped in the corner, and I immediately sprang away.

“Then I shall be off...”

“You brat! Stop right there!”

#

“Are you that rootless bastard, Jin Sowoon?”

After escaping my fearsome father, I found an old pig with sagging cheeks blocking my path.

“Who are you?”

“You do not... know me?”

Of course I knew him.

Ill-fitting silk robes. A gold belt studded with jade. A crudely oversized gold ring.

There was only one person in the Taeul Sect who dressed so tastelessly.

Gye Yeonseok, Gye Cheolyeong’s father, who stormed through the Taeul Sect day after day with his trouser legs flapping behind him.

“What business do you have with me?”

“You brat! Watch your tongue! This is Gye Yeonseok, head of the Gyerong Merchant Group!”

A man who appeared to be an escort warrior glared at me, the whites of his eyes flashing.

“Yes, I heard you. He is the head of the Gyerong Merchant Group. That is why I asked what business he had with me.”

Gye Yeonseok snorted as though he found the situation absurd.

“Because of you, our Cheolyeong is bedridden with his injuries. Did you think you could harm the heir of the Gyerong Merchant Group and simply walk away?”

A little blood had been drawn, but he had only been struck on the head once. This was an outrageous exaggeration.

If that was the standard, what about all the Taeul Sect disciples who had been beaten countless times by Gye Cheolyeong under the pretense of sparring?

“Did we not agree to let it go?”

“That is a matter between the sect leader and me. The matter between you and me remains unresolved.”

Should shamelessness this extreme be considered a martial art?

“And if I refuse to let it go?”

At my words, the escort warrior placed a hand on their sword as though they might draw it at any moment.

“If you were afraid of being hit, why learn martial arts instead of commerce?”

“Y-you dare speak while your elder is...!”

As Gye Yeonseok shifted his eyes while thinking, I drove my words into his ear.

“If Senior Brother Gye is selected for the Martial Arts Academy, do you intend to follow him there and demand responsibility from the descendants of the Nine Sects One Gang and the Five Great Clans as well?”

Both Gye Yeonseok and the escort warrior looked slightly startled.

Had they not considered that far?

Or had they simply assumed the Nine Sects One Gang and the Five Great Clans would not haze him?

“Since you cannot answer, I assume you lack the courage. Yet you have come to the Taeul Sect to make such unreasonable demands. It seems you consider the Taeul Sect an easy target.”

“Y-you little...!”

Gye Yeonseok’s voice was so loud that hall lords from every hall, along with the sect leader from Daehyeon Hall, began to emerge.

“More than ten junior disciples have been beaten by Senior Brother Gye and left unable to rise for days. If you wish to blame someone, blame Senior Brother Gye first for doing that to them.”

“You dare...”

Gye Yeonseok, who had done nothing but repeat “You dare...” and “This brat...,” suddenly smiled smugly.

“If the Taeul Sect loses its support because of you, will you take responsibility?”

That had always been the problem.

Half the disciples of this generation, like me, had been born and raised in the Taeul Sect.

The other half came from families that were not well-off even in their own villages.

Most had entered the sect to lessen the burden on their families.

Just as children who grow up in hardship mature early, they understood better than anyone that resisting Gye Cheolyeong would bring harm upon others.

That was why Gye Cheolyeong and Gye Yeonseok could throw their weight around the Taeul Sect without restraint.

“Responsibility?”

“Many other One Hundred Eight Peaks sects want Cheolyeong. He can move to one of them whenever he wishes. Will you take responsibility when that happens?”

Gye Cheolyeong’s entry into a sect meant a massive sponsorship.

And the Taeul Sect was not the only one among the One Hundred Eight Peaks struggling with its finances.

The fact that many places wanted Cheolyeong was a weakness that forced everyone living in the Taeul Sect to swallow their dissatisfaction.

That was why we had never once given him the hazing everyone else endured.

“Please do so.”

“What?”

“Responsibility? I will take it. Go ahead.”

My father had been approaching from afar. After hearing what the other hall lords were saying, his face drained of color, and he was about to rush over.

“Less than a year remains until the special admission examination. Do you truly think Senior Brother Gye will be treated as well elsewhere as he is at the Taeul Sect? What sect would welcome an outsider like Senior Brother Gye just to receive a single year of support?”

“You... How do you know that...?”

Father, who had been about to run toward us, stopped short.

“The Taeul Sect’s disciples are neither fools nor idiots. We simply learned the virtue of a gentleman and chose not to associate with the lowly.”

Gye Yeonseok trembled with rage and ground his teeth.

“I will make the Taeul Sect suffer greatly. Because of what you have done, the Taeul Sect’s disciples will one day have to cut their meals and wear nothing but worn-out clothes.”

It was an unmistakable threat.

I leaned close and whispered into his ear.

“Do you think I will let that happen?”

Seeing Father about to charge over at last, I swiftly turned and left the Taeul Sect.

I had a mountain of things to do.

#

In my previous life, the Taeul Sect’s funding visibly declined after Gye Cheolyeong entered the Martial Arts Academy through special admission.

Though he was a lay disciple, the support dried up within a few years as though he intended to sever all ties, and the Taeul Sect’s disciples had to cut their meals.

“If that is going to happen anyway, someone other than Gye Cheolyeong should go.”

Considering that the Taeul Sect would inevitably be drawn into the Orthodox-Demonic War, someone from the Taeul Sect needed to enter the Martial Arts Academy. If they entered as a low-ranking martial artist, they would only be used as a meat shield and discarded.

“The problem is that the Taeul Sect’s martial arts are...”

Trash... No, full of waste.

According to Jegal Cheongi, the only worthwhile martial arts in the Taeul Sect were the Lesser Heaven Sword Art and the Taeul Mind Method.

None of the sect’s countless martial arts were compatible with the Taeul Mind Method, the sect’s foundation.

Since its roots and branches were different, it was no surprise that not a single master capable of shaking the martial world had emerged throughout its centuries of history.

I had all the supreme martial arts of the Nine Sects One Gang and the Five Great Clans stored in my mind, but...

“If I learned those, not even a dog would remain alive in the Taeul Sect before the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult returned.”

In the end, the only way for me to grow stronger now was to overwhelm others with internal energy.

“The current of the Yangtze River wears away a rocky island.”

But with the Taeul Mind Method, I would need to train for roughly two hundred years to gather internal energy equal to one gapja.

Which meant I had to consume every elixir I could find, but elixirs were not called elixirs because they were common.

“Heh heh. Still, there is a way.”

I immediately began searching the library I had created inside my mind.

While my fellow disciples died helplessly at the hands of the Demonic Cult, I remained in the Martial Alliance, memorizing miscellaneous reports and documents that served no purpose other than taking up space.

But when the final defensive line collapsed beneath the Demonic Cult’s overwhelming numbers and time ran out, I had to memorize even the materials in the Mantong Office and the Profound Mystery Pavilion.

Those classified documents were more complex and far more numerous than ordinary miscellaneous records.

Rather than trying to understand and absorb them, I created a vast library in my mind solely to store them.

From the deepest part of that mental library, I found a single book.

The Martial World Elixir Compendium.

A classified document containing the discovery locations, emergence periods, and routes of every elixir that appeared in the martial world from ancient times through twenty years in the future.

It was classified, but by that time it merely recorded elixirs that had already been discovered.

I had overloaded my mind trying to memorize something so useless, spending entire days with blood pouring from my nose.

My reward for all that hardship was being murdered to silence me.

“It still pisses me off whenever I think about it. That Taechung Divine Sword bastard...”

The idol of my childhood.

An existence in the realm beyond the heavens, without an equal among those of his age.

The savior of the White Path, who swiftly brought order to the fractured Martial Alliance after the Orthodox-Demonic War began.

The hero who preserved the Martial Alliance until the end, when it had nearly vanished from the martial world.

Yet to preserve the Martial Alliance, the Taechung Divine Sword sacrificed everyone except a chosen few.

The Martial Alliance rebuilt in the Northern Sea was ultimately founded upon their blood and corpses.

“I will never trust you or the Martial Alliance again.”

Grinding my teeth, I set off for the location of the first elixir, the Ten-Thousand-Year He Shou Wu.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried