“What was that just now……”
Snapping back to reality at Cheon-hwi’s low voice, Hyun-do opened his hands with a startled expression.
Even though he had long since stopped swinging his sword, the sensation he felt when executing the Liuhe Sword Art still lingered in his palms.
“The Liuhe Sword Art?”
He muttered softly in the form of a question, but in truth, he had unconsciously realized it.
That the sword art he had just displayed was the true Liuhe Sword Art.
*Swish—*
Turning his head, he looked at Cheon-hwi.
Cheon-hwi, looking back at him, was resting a wooden sword on his shoulder with a nonchalant expression.
A quite arrogant appearance, the exact opposite of his formerly polite demeanor.
Yet, it suited the current Cheon-hwi perfectly.
“Isn't that so?”
At Cheon-hwi’s confident voice that followed, Hyun-do couldn't say a word, the hand gripping his sword trembling slightly.
After a brief moment.
“Yes, you are right.”
Hyun-do admitted it surprisingly readily.
No, he had no choice but to admit it.
The Liuhe Sword Art he had executed following Cheon-hwi did not fall short at all compared to the other superior sword arts of the sect.
‘No, perhaps……’
Hyun-do swallowed hard and asked.
“How did you come up with the idea to wield the Liuhe Sword Art in this way?”
Cheon-hwi looked at him.
The sight of him roaring in anger just moments ago had completely vanished.
All that remained was a serious gaze.
Unexpected?
The corners of Cheon-hwi’s mouth subtly rose.
Usually, even if someone younger or weaker was right, it was not easy to admit it so obediently.
Especially when it was a fourteen-year-old child without any internal energy, like himself.
He thought only stiff-necked fools would be here since it was the Orthodox Faction.
He let out a quiet snicker.
He liked the look in Hyun-do’s eyes.
The eyes he used to see every day in the mirror in his past life.
‘The eyes of someone obsessed with martial arts.’
Cheon-hwi lifted the wooden sword resting on his shoulder and asked Hyun-do in return.
“Fourth Uncle, why did you tell me to take a different starting stance for each and every move?”
Hyun-do looked at Cheon-hwi, who asked a question instead of answering, and replied softly.
“The foundation of all martial arts is posture. If you cannot even take a proper posture, you cannot draw out correct power.”
Cheon-hwi’s brows furrowed.
He had expected it the moment he saw the martial arts manuals in the Wanjing Pavilion.
They entirely trusted the martial arts manuals.
Because of that, there had been no progress for three hundred years.
‘What rigid words.’
Of course, in a state of knowing nothing, simply mimicking shows quick achievement.
But if you blindly believe only what you are taught, you cannot demonstrate proper power.
‘If it seems strange, you must change it.’
He looked at Hyun-do with a disdainful expression.
But Cheon-hwi didn’t know.
That the Tianmo Divine Cult was different from the Orthodox Factions.
In the Tianmo Divine Cult, as long as results were produced, it didn’t matter whether you changed the martial arts or not.
However, in the Orthodox Factions, arbitrarily changing the sect’s martial arts was a crime of betraying the sect and destroying its lineage, a sin so heavy that one had to risk their life.
Moreover, Hyun-do was a man who took pride in the Huashan Sect; he only immersed himself in learning martial arts, and had never even considered that the martial arts he learned were strange.
Yet for such a Hyun-do to call a martial art passed down for generations strange, and change it as he pleased?
It was an impossible feat unless one day Hyun-do fell into Qi deviation and went mad.
Not knowing such things, Cheon-hwi gazed at Hyun-do and spoke.
“None of the martial arts I know have their stances executed separately without any connection to each other. But this Liuhe Sword Art moves as if the stances belong to completely different sword arts.”
“The ‘Liuhe’ in the Liuhe Sword Art refers to front and back, left and right, up and down—that is, the six directions—and it is a sword art that encompasses them all as one. Because of that, the stances are disconnected from each other and do not connect smoothly……”
Hyun-do paused for a moment, his gaze deepening heavily.
After a brief pause, he stared at Cheon-hwi with sharp eyes and opened his mouth.
“You changed that. As if they were connected as one.”
Cheon-hwi’s eyes, who had been listening, sparkled.
‘He has an upright conviction.’
He liked him more and more.
His way of thinking and perspective on martial arts were rigid, but he had tenacity.
And passion for the martial arts as well.
“The six directions…… That is also true. However, I thought of the ‘Liuhe’ contained within the Liuhe Sword Art differently.”
“What do you mean?”
Hyun-do’s gaze turned serious.
*Swish—*
Cheon-hwi raised his wooden sword.
“If it were simply a method to teach swinging the sword in six directions, there would have been many. You wouldn’t need to think complicatedly; you just need to repeat swinging the sword like this.”
The wooden sword moved in six directions.
That was the original Liuhe Sword Art.
“But why go out of their way to create the Liuhe Sword Art? It’s an unnecessary effort to say that it was created merely to teach the stances of swinging in six directions.”
At Cheon-hwi’s words, Hyun-do frowned, pondered for a moment, and then spoke.
“It must be because it is a foundational sword art. Since ancient times, it has been said that to properly execute a sword art, one must realize Shili Yizhi (Unity of Principle and Practice). Even if one knows the theory and principles, if they do not know how to swing the sword, or conversely, if they know how to swing the sword but do not know the principles and theory, then even if they are learning a superior sword art, they cannot execute it properly.”
Hyun-do’s voice lowered further.
“The Liuhe Sword Art is a foundational sword art to solve that problem; it is a sword art that makes one realize how to swing the sword, in preparation for when one realizes the principles or theories contained in the superior sword arts.”
“Then are you saying there are no principles contained within the Liuhe Sword Art?”
“That is……”
Hyun-do’s face crumpled.
Principles in the Liuhe Sword Art?
He had never thought about it at all.
Well, that was because the Liuhe Sword Art was a foundational art learned before learning the superior sword arts.
By the time one realized the principles and theories and could execute sword arts properly, it was time to focus solely on the superior sword arts, not the Liuhe Sword Art.
Cheon-hwi spat out words toward Hyun-do, who had a rather complicated expression on his face.
“The Liuhe Sword Art I saw has principles. Who in the world would call simply swinging a sword without any principles a sword art?”
Hyun-do’s head, which had been going back and forth with Cheon-hwi, grew complicated.
“I executed it thinking from the start that the Liuhe Sword Art was complete. But when I tried it, I was so focused on the starting stances that the connection between the stances wasn’t smooth. So the first thing I thought about was how to connect them, and in the process, I came up with one method.”
Hyun-do opened his mouth with a flushed face.
“What method?”
Cheon-hwi grinned.
“Didn’t I tell you earlier?”
“What……”
“I said I thought of ‘Liuhe’ differently.”
Instantly, Cheon-hwi’s wooden sword changed.
The wooden sword, which had been moving stiffly and disjointedly, swayed like soft reeds, and before he knew it, the six sword stances merged into one.
“By merging all six stances into one like this.”
“……!”
Hyun-do’s eyes grew as wide as lanterns.
Liuhe had a dual meaning.
Six, yet one.
One, yet six.
And it was both directions and stances.
After merging them into one and dividing them again, the connections could not help but be natural.
‘Such principles existed in Liuhe!’
He stared at Cheon-hwi with astounded eyes.
It was a sword art that over hundreds of thousands of people had learned throughout hundreds of years of history.
Yet no one had ever thought of the meaning of Liuhe differently, like Cheon-hwi.
Of course, that might have been because most of them moved on to the superior sword arts.
But still.
‘To realize the meaning of Liuhe that no one had known all this time……’
His whole body trembled.
A mere fourteen-year-old.
And Cheon-hwi, who had entered the path of martial arts less than three days ago, had done it.
No, not only had he realized it, but he had even executed it properly.
Admiration poured out involuntarily.
“Magnificent.”
Hyun-do, who had been exclaiming in admiration, shoved his face forward with shining eyes.
“Exactly when did you realize the meaning of Liuhe? When you executed the first stance? Or when you swung the sword? If not that, then when transitioning to the second stance……”
Cheon-hwi’s eyebrows furrowed.
It was already a fierce visage, and having it right in front of his nose was burdensome. Seeing that change in expression belatedly, Hyun-do cleared his throat and muttered.
“Ahem, I got a bit excited for a moment.”
Soon, he wore a pleasant smile.
‘A true genius, a genius!’
It overturned the evaluation that his sword art just a moment ago was unpolished.
Cheon-hwi’s sword art was so outstanding that he wanted to punch the head of his past self who had made such an evaluation a little while ago.
“When did you figure out the meaning of Liuhe?”
“From the very beginning.”
“……!”
Hyun-do’s eyes widened.
‘He realized it from the beginning?’
Just as he was feeling stunned as if hit in the back of the head by a rock, Cheon-hwi opened his mouth.
“It felt quite unnatural when transitioning to the very next stance.”
Cheon-hwi’s voice struck his ears.
“Fourth Uncle, since you’ve kept executing the Liuhe Sword Art just as you first learned it, you probably didn’t notice the unnatural parts, but I don’t know if it’s because it was my first time today, I noticed right away.”
“You mean you were dyed by familiarity.”
“The correct answer is sometimes surprisingly close by, so it can be missed.”
“Surprisingly close……!”
*Rumble!*
Lightning struck Hyun-do’s head.
The days without time to look to the side.
He should have looked to the side and back at least once, but he had just blindly rushed forward.
Because of that, his field of vision narrowed.
To the point where he couldn’t even properly see what was right next to him.
‘Blinded by impatience.’
*Swish—*
Carefully setting down the sword in his hand, Hyun-do plopped down right where he stood.
‘I thought that to reach the Tianwu Realm, the Taiyi Miligong had to reach Great Completion. But must it reach Great Completion to attain it? Perhaps I have already reached the realm, but was so focused on that itself that I couldn’t bring myself to realize it……’
Cheon-hwi frowned as he watched Hyun-do, who had suddenly assumed a lotus position.
An unusual energy radiated in all directions from Hyun-do, who had fallen into a complete state of trance and was circulating his Qi.
“……I just made him look good.”
Cheon-hwi muttered, stroking his chin.
The chin that would have been full of beard in his past life was only smooth now.
Then he soon narrowed his eyes and turned his head.
“Judging by his condition, it looks like it’ll take some time for him to finish. Should I practice the sword arts I saw in the Wanjing Pavilion until he wakes up?”
Since it had come to this, Cheon-hwi, who decided to wait until he woke up and serve as his Dharma protector, gripped the wooden sword in his hand again.
*Crack—*
Along with that, he recalled the sword arts representing the Huashan Sect and the sword arts that had been lost in the past, recorded only in the Huashan Annals.
*Swish— Swish—*
The wooden sword moved following him.
Two hours later.
*Flash!*
The light in Hyun-do’s eyes shone brightly as he opened them. The light radiating brilliantly due to his internal energy that couldn’t be fully reined in gradually grew dim.
Soon, his blurred focus returned, and his eyes went back to normal.
“Finally……”
Hyun-do clenched his fists tightly.
He had stepped into the realm he had been trying to reach for two years but couldn’t.
At that moment, Cheon-hwi came into his view.
Cheon-hwi, holding the wooden sword with his small hands, wore a bored expression.
“How much time has passed?”
“About two hours.”
Cheon-hwi answered in an annoyed tone.
That was understandable since Hyun-do’s trance had lasted longer than expected.
Despite Cheon-hwi’s reaction, Hyun-do stood up with a smile.
“Hahaha. It’s all thanks to you.”
Cheon-hwi held a soft smile on his lips and looked at him approaching.
Him smiling with that face was a bit much.
Hyun-do’s intentions seemed good, but what was visible was different.
Raised by the corners of his mouth, his scar twitched, and his wrinkles deepened.
It was like the smile of murderous intent the Ghost-Faced Demon made before committing murder.
However, Hyun-do, completely unaware of what he looked like right now, let out a low voice that was much softer than usual.
“Thank you.”
Hyun-do offered his sincere gratitude, but Cheon-hwi couldn’t care less and remained nonchalant.
It was a discourteous attitude, but Hyun-do, who was already completely infatuated, perceived it as him feeling burdened.
After looking warmly at Cheon-hwi for a moment, Hyun-do soon threw his head back and burst into loud laughter toward the sky.
“Hahahaha! To send such a treasure as you, Tianzun has not abandoned our sect yet.”
Hyun-do couldn’t hide his joy.
But that was only for a moment.
“This is no time for this. I must inform the Sect Leader Senior Brother of this joyous news right away!”
Shouting as if he had just remembered something he’d forgotten, Hyun-do looked at Cheon-hwi.
Then, smiling with his eyes, he said.
“I’ll put in a good word for you with my Senior Brother!”
“Excuse me?”
Cheon-hwi put on a dumbfounded expression.
But before he could say anything, Hyun-do suddenly kicked off the ground and vanished in an instant.
Looking ahead where only dust remained, Cheon-hwi muttered with a face that said he couldn’t understand.
“What is he talking about?”
* * *
Zixia Pavilion.
In the residence where the Sect Leaders of the Huashan Sect had stayed for generations, the current Sect Leader, Hyun-sang, was lightly sipping tea, from which white steam was gently rising.
‘How our sect will be viewed in the Central Plains for the next four years depends on this Wuyue Gathering.’
Because it was the Wuyue Gathering held for the first time in twenty years, he paid special attention to it.
He persuaded Pavilion Master Zailing to spend a large sum of money to expand the Meixiang Hall, and even repaired and decorated various places.
All preparations were complete.
The only regret was that most of the Plum Blossom Sword Guards were absent.
After the worst blood disaster eight years ago, the Huashan Sect’s position within the Murim Alliance had been gradually narrowing.
Because of that, other sects were watching for a chance to take their sect’s place, and they had no choice but to send the Plum Blossom Sword Guards, who were essentially their sect’s elite, and his junior brother Hyun-jin to the Murim Alliance.
To show that the Huashan Sect was still going strong.
Therefore, no matter how important the Wuyue Gathering was, they couldn’t be called back to the sect.
‘No, it might rather be an opportunity. If our sect shows its prowess at the Wuyue Gathering even without the Plum Blossom Sword Guards……’
Just as he was lost in thought.
*Bang!*
The door of the Zixia Pavilion suddenly opened, and the yellow-tinted sunset seeped in.
“Senior Brother!”
Following that, Hyun-do appeared amidst the sunset. Hyun-sang stared at Hyun-do, who stood politely before him, and opened his mouth.
“What is the meaning of this all of a sudden……!”
In the middle of speaking, he was horrified.
Hyun-do was right in front of him.
Yet he couldn’t feel his presence.
The meaning of that was one thing.
“F-Fanpu Guizhen?!”
Hyun-do smiled gently.
Seeing his meaningful smile, Hyun-sang urgently opened his mouth and asked.
“Have you crossed the wall?”
At the question, Hyun-do nodded.
“Finally……”
Overcome with emotion, Hyun-sang stood up.
“This is no time for this. I must let everyone know that you have crossed the wall.”
As if proving they were brothers of the same sect, Hyun-sang blurted out the exact same words as Hyun-do. Just as he was about to run out of the Zixia Pavilion to spread the good news.
“Senior Brother.”
Hyun-do blocked his way.
“There is something even more important than that.”
“What do you mean? You have just reached the Tianwu Realm, how can there be anything more important than that?”
“No. There is.”
Hyun-sang hardened his face at Hyun-do’s resolute eyes speaking firmly, and asked.
“What is……”
“Cheon-hwi is a genius!”
“……What?”
Just as Hyun-sang was momentarily speechless at Hyun-do’s words, which interrupted him.
“And not just a normal genius, but the best in the world—no. The greatest genius of all time!”
Hyun-do’s shout shook the Zixia Pavilion.