The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything - Chapter 322

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈

Chapter 322: The Black Forest (2)

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“I’ll take... this one.”

I looked at the thin martial uniform Seong Moran had picked out.

“Cloth that thin will be pierced by venomous insects’ fangs in no time.”

“...”

Seong Moran’s trembling hand soon moved to the stiff, thick martial uniform beside it.

It would not be much use in cold weather since it had no padding, but it should protect against the fangs of insects and venomous creatures.

“I-I’ll take ten of these... No, twenty.”

I frowned.

“Are you ordering uniforms for a group?”

“No... But we have to endure for a whole month. One per day...”

“You can only bring one small pack into Mukrim to begin with. That’s what this training is for.”

Seong Moran, who had looked ready to burst into tears, suddenly glared at me.

“But are you really sure?! Are you really sure we’re going to Mukrim?!”

“Can’t you tell?”

I pointed at the Academy students in the cloth shop.

Most of them, especially the disciples of the Nine Sects One Gang, were choosing clothes made from the same thick material Seong Moran had picked out.

“...Ah.”

Seong Moran staggered as though dizzy.

“This can’t be happening... Why... Why...?”

She could flee from the cold reality before her all she wanted, but what had been decided would not change.

“Th-there’s no chance... it could change?”

She clung to a sliver of hope, but there was little chance of that.

‘Even if they’d planned to go somewhere else, they would’ve chosen Mukrim in the end.’

Unlike the Fire Desert or Ice Sea, where we only had to endure for a month, Mukrim offered chances to earn extra points.

The lecturers had kicked up a fuss and worked themselves to the bone throughout the last semester, but in the end, only the middle ranks had changed. The very top and bottom remained mostly the same.

I was one example. Having originally held the top student score, I lost first place by a narrow margin in the first-semester evaluation and fell to second overall.

The one who had taken first in my place was...

“Benefactor Jin, would thick shoes like these be better as well?”

...That filthy bald head.

“Why are you asking me? Go ask the lecturers who favor Monk Ilgak.”

“...B-Benefactor Jin. Didn’t I tell you it wasn’t my wish?”

With things as they were, there could be no better place than Mukrim for the Great Journey, the only chance to overturn the evaluations at the very end.

It was also the perfect place for the lecturers to secretly help Academy students.

‘Still, it’s strange. Considering they even replaced the lecturers, they haven’t been that blatant.’

They had used their influence in the Education Hall to replace every lecturer and instructor.

Yet despite that, perhaps the discrimination had not been as severe as expected.

Of course, I had threatened them, but wasn’t it strange for the Nine Sects One Gang to bow their heads over something like that?

‘...Not that I would’ve stayed quiet either.’

If they had been too blatant, I’d been prepared to make an example of someone.

From their perspective, even if I made a move, I would not be much of a threat.

Still, it would at least reduce the number of individual lecturers who dared step forward and try to put me and the Taeul Sect in our place.

Thanks to that, the delegation members’ grades had not fallen too far.

The Taeul Sect disciples were the same.

The special training had probably helped as well.

The kids were clearly improving day by day.

‘But what the hell has Eunho been doing?’

If I had to name the biggest changes since last semester, Dongryong had suddenly shot up in height, while Eunho had become a complete homebody.

More precisely, he almost never left the dormitory.

He attended Academy classes and the special training sessions I set without fail, but he shut himself in his dorm room the rest of the time.

Apparently, he borrowed piles of books from the Ten Thousand Books Repository and read all day...

He wasn’t taking the metropolitan examination or provincial examination, so why had he suddenly become like this?

If he had been this way since childhood, I could’ve understood, but that wasn’t the case. Hmm...

‘Damn it. Why couldn’t he have been like this from the start? Then he could’ve helped with the Outer Hall work.’

At any rate, even if the final Great Journey changed the rankings dramatically, the Taeul Sect disciples would not be relegated to a branch office.

That was not all. There were many advantages instead.

For one thing, I could build up a resistance to natural poisons in Mukrim.

‘It’s practically a natural poison storehouse.’

Poisons and concealed weapons were the two things one had to be most careful of in the martial world.

Defense against concealed weapons could be trained, but there was no real way to train against poison.

Unless one carried every antidote around, the only option was to build resistance. The best way was to slowly practice neutralizing weak poisons first.

It sounded expensive just to think about.

That was why only the Tang Clan of Sichuan or the Myriad Poison Sect could do such training. It was not something ordinary martial artists could experience.

Yet in Mukrim...

It was free.

A smile slipped onto my face.

‘Well, my life is on the line, but it’s all within a manageable level.’

Seong Moran was looking at me strangely from beside me, so I hurriedly fixed my expression.

The second advantage was the possibility of obtaining elixir pellets.

Because Mukrim had heat throughout the year and the flow of a massive spirit vein, even ordinary lifeforms had a high chance of becoming spirit creatures.

That was why the lecturers had chosen this place for a last-minute reversal.

Unlike the Fire Desert or Ice Sea, killing monsters or spirit creatures in Mukrim could earn extra points.

Compared to all those advantages, the hot, humid climate and countless insects were hardly important drawbacks.

Jang Woojae was picking shoes with a serious expression, so I approached him.

“The ones on the right are better. They’re stiff, but if you break them in beforehand, they’ll protect your ankles perfectly.”

“Huh? Representative.”

“And there’s something I wanted to ask...”

“Yes, please ask.”

I took the Wind Bell from my robe, showed it to Jang Woojae, and asked, “This keeps bugs away too, right?”

“...Not all of them, but it does keep away smaller ones.”

“Really? That’s excellent!”

When I patted Jang Woojae’s shoulder, he stared at the Wind Bell around my neck with oddly sorrowful eyes.

A week later, the Academic Affairs Department revealed the Great Journey’s destination.

Mukrim

As expected, nothing had changed.

“Aaaah! This can’t be happening!!!!”

Seong Moran broke down in tears.

Mukrim

An enormous jungle at the edge of Yunnan Province, a place humans could not enter.

The jungle filled a basin more than twenty times the size of an ordinary city. It was home to countless insects and animals beyond human imagination, and just as many venomous insects and poisonous creatures that threatened human life.

Thanks to the heat that lasted year-round, the creatures living in Mukrim were free from the deadly threat of cold and lived far beyond their normal lifespans. In that process, influenced by the spirit vein, they sometimes transformed into spirit creatures.

Martial artists would even roast and eat cow dung if it were a spirit creature, but Mukrim was not somewhere one could enter carelessly.

For one thing, the enormous spirit vein affected not only the jungle’s lifeforms, but its terrain, natural features, and even people.

Every tool used to determine direction became useless, while the terrain formed natural formations that caused intruders to wander the same place over and over.

The exits from the basin were limited as well, so once someone lost their way, their chances of returning alive became extremely low.

Spirit creatures appeared often, but far more creatures had grown monstrous in the untamed environment. Actual elixir pellets were rarely found.

Even experienced hunters and herb gatherers often entered carelessly and never returned.

Too many martial artists who entered to grow stronger had severed their ties with the secular world, so the Martial Alliance designated the place forbidden ground and cut it off from the rest of the world.

“Haah... I already feel like I’m going to die from the heat.”

After passing through Kunming in Yunnan Province and arriving at Jinghong, the Academy students were all struggling to adapt to the changing temperature.

The sunlight scorched our skin, and the suffocating humidity made breathing difficult.

“Miss Seong, I think you should lower your sleeves again. There are venomous insects around here too.”

Seong Moran frowned at the burly man with his upper body bare.

“That’s not something you should be saying, Hero Yang.”

The one who let out a hearty laugh was Yang Japyeong of the Namgwon Sect.

“Our Namgwon Sect normally trains external martial arts as well. To travel through the jungle, internal energy alone is not enough, no matter how powerful it may be.”

“Really? Do people from the Namgwon Sect come to Mukrim often?”

Seong Moran asked curiously, and Yang Japyeong nodded.

“We need to check it regularly. Otherwise, we never know when monsters might emerge from Mukrim.”

The Namgwon Sect was the sect entrusted by the Martial Alliance with managing Mukrim.

It was one of the One Hundred Eight Peaks and among the five strongest forces in Yunnan Province.

The Namgwon Sect had been assigned to guide this Great Journey.

“Still, please don’t worry too much. The scenery is not something people can easily see, and those who come here often wish to visit again.”

“Ugh... No matter how beautiful it is, I don’t think I’d ever want to come back.”

“Haha. Trust me. Most of the people who wish to return are young ladies.”

“...Really?”

At the mention that it was popular with women, Seong Moran perked up.

Yang Japyeong turned away from her and looked over our group with curiosity.

“Still, Academy students rarely take the lead like this. The lecturers must favor you greatly.”

We could only smile bitterly at his words.

In truth, we were at the front because we were in the opposite position.

“Once we climb the mountain, the heat will ease a little. Please endure a bit longer.”

“We have to climb a mountain too?”

“Mukrim is so vast that it is not well known, but it is clearly shaped like a basin. The people of the Myriad Poison Sect say it has become a giant natural poison vessel.”

At the mention of insects and poison, Seong Moran’s complexion turned pale again.

Even so, she did not stop walking.

As all of us were martial artists, our group climbed the mountain at a speed ordinary people could not imagine.

After reaching the summit and beginning our descent, I started to understand what Yang Japyeong had meant.

“Wow... What kind of view is this...?”

Clouds floated over an enormous jungle that stretched endlessly into the distance.

Light shone through the clouds onto Mukrim, making the scenery look like a painting.

Yang Japyeong shrugged.

“This is nothing. The true beauty lies below.”

As the advance group, we were the first to descend the mountain and enter Mukrim.

Our duty was to find a suitable place to camp until the main group arrived, clear the surrounding area, and make sure there was no danger.

“There should be a site used by previous Academy cohorts. If we clear away some weeds and trees, it should not be difficult to stay there for a night.”

Just as Yang Japyeong said, when we reached the edge of Mukrim, we found an area that had been somewhat leveled.

“Was this place used before?”

It was an area where the undergrowth was clearly thinner than in the rest of the jungle.

“It was used by the cohort three classes before yours, so it has been about twelve years.”

“...Then the trees have grown far too large.”

As Seong Moran said, the scattered trees did look unusually thick.

“Considering Mukrim’s nature, it is not that strange. There is no winter here, and no human hands reach this place.”

Yang Japyeong added seriously, “It is beautiful, but it is just as dangerous. You must never act based on the common sense that applies in the martial world.”

“...I-I see.”

Seong Moran’s face turned pale once more at his warning.

“Most snakes here are venomous. They are also excellent at hiding themselves, so you must always watch your surroundings carefully.”

Seong Moran nodded vigorously several times, and Yang Japyeong smiled in satisfaction.

Then...

Slither.

Something wriggled down from the tree Yang Japyeong was leaning against and shot toward his neck like lightning.

Whoosh.

I fired the Flying Dragon Claw.

“Gasp!”

“Aaaah!”

Seong Moran and Yang Japyeong both fell to the ground in shock.