一
“You passed the exam for Qingyun Academy? To think you got into that difficult place on your first try—truly impressive!”
“Thank you, sir. It is all thanks to you for looking after me so I could work at the bookstore.”
“Haha! Looking after you? Not at all. I worked you late every single day and could hardly pay you anything.”
Gwak Bung patted Gojin on the shoulder with a proud expression. No matter when he looked at him, he was upstanding and admirable. Gojin was truly a dragon risen from a shallow stream. Despite his impoverished circumstances, he had refused to bend and studied tirelessly, finally gaining admission to Qingyun Academy.
He had three younger siblings under his widowed mother, and the household was so poor that he had been forced to join the workforce from a young age.
Generally, when one’s circumstances are dire and desperate, it is natural to grow pessimistic about one’s lot and fall into the wrong path.
However, Gojin was different.
He worked by day and studied by night.
It was something an ordinary person could not even fathom.
Gojin was now just eighteen. He was so mature one could hardly believe his age.
Qingyun Academy was a place in the Central Plains where only the greatest talents could enter.
Thus, the entrance examination for Qingyun Academy was notorious for its difficulty.
Even students famous as child prodigies since youth could not solve the problems and dropped out in droves—that was the Qingyun Academy entrance exam.
It was a place only those selected through such rigorous culling could enter. Indeed, rumors circulated among the people that passing the exam to enter Qingyun Academy was even harder than passing the Imperial Examination.
However, once you entered Qingyun Academy, success was practically guaranteed. If you were a graduate of Qingyun Academy, everyone in the world acknowledged it.
The top laureates of the Imperial Examination were produced there every time, and Qingyun Academy graduates were also the most numerous among the high officials of the imperial court. Local village schools and academies fiercely competed to recruit Qingyun graduates as teachers, and even in merchant circles such as trading caravans and marketplaces, they would offer key positions to lure Qingyun graduates away.
Passing such a world-renowned Qingyun Academy by working during the day and studying at night was no ordinary feat.
Hualong County was a small village on the outskirts of Gansu Province. Gansu Province was already a border region of the Central Plains, and Hualong County was situated on the outskirts of even that remote place. Not a single person from Hualong County had ever passed the Imperial Examination, and Gojin was the first to enter Qingyun Academy.
Gojin held out a bundle of books toward Gwak Bung.
“I collected some books on my way here.”
“Well done. Come to think of it, there were quite a few due back today.”
Gwak Bung’s bookstore both sold and lent books. Three years ago, Gojin had first proposed the idea of lending books. The response was better than expected, and now it had become the mainstay of Gwak Bung’s bookstore.
Truthfully, it was hard to survive on book sales alone during such difficult times. With households so tight on money, who had the funds to buy books?
But borrowing them was a different story.
Moreover, while customers had to come to the store to choose books when borrowing, Gojin would go around collecting them one by one upon their return, as he had today. From the customers’ perspective, there was no cheaper or more convenient way to read.
Gwak Bung’s bookstore was the largest in Hualong County. It did not contain only difficult scholarly texts. It also had many folk tales and interesting collections of legends, so there were plenty of patrons.
“Sir, I’ll go upstairs to organize the books.”
Gojin picked up his bundle of books and went upstairs.
“I already tidied up roughly today, so take your time.”
Gwak Bung called out loudly after Gojin’s back. Once Gojin was completely out of sight, Gwak Bung let out a long sigh.
Gojin had worked at the bookstore since he was nine. Now that he was eighteen, it was his ninth year. Gojin was such an industrious and sincere child that he would find work to do before anyone had to ask. He was also bright, positive in all matters, and clever, and so Gwak Bung’s bookstore had seen its sales increase every year.
But now that Gojin was leaving for Qingyun Academy, Gwak Bung worried where he could find another clerk like him.
“Haha! This is clearly a joyous occasion, so why does a corner of my heart feel empty!”
So it was.
It was no wonder Gwak Bung let out a hollow laugh.
Gwak Bung’s bookstore had about three thousand volumes. The first floor mainly displayed scholarly texts, the second floor held books for children, and the very top third floor was a workshop where Gojin could translate.
A three-story bookstore was quite large for a small village like Hualong County. Among them, over a thousand volumes were folk tales, interesting myths, and legend collections.
Even while working, Gojin would read books and study whenever he had time. For a poor boy, the bookstore was the best place to study. But without Gwak Bung’s consideration, even that would have been impossible.
At any rate, over the years, Gojin had read all three thousand or so books in the store.
Recently, having no more books left to read, he had been purchasing books with the money he earned from working. Buying even a few volumes would cost him an entire month’s wages.
But sweat and effort never betray.
Gojin never felt regret or hesitation about buying books.
Gansu Province was a place where various cultures met. To the north was Mongolia, to the west were the Border Barbarians, and beyond that lay the gateway to the Western Regions.
Due to its geographical position, diverse cultures coexisted in Gansu Province, and Gojin had grown up among them since childhood. Moreover, if one had money, acquiring books or Buddhist scriptures from the Western Regions was not so difficult.
Gojin had even followed merchant caravans to the Western Regions, saying he wished to learn the language. He also helped Western Region merchants who came to Gansu Province, learning their language and script in the process.
After a few years, Gojin became fluent and proficient in the language and script of the Western Regions. These days, he helped conduct trade by interpreting between Western Region and Central Plains merchants.
Through them, he acquired Buddhist scriptures and rare Western Region books. That was precisely how Gojin studied.
Buddhism had entered through Dunhuang from Tibet. Most Buddhist scriptures that reached the Central Plains were translations.
Gojin was not satisfied with translations and insisted on original texts. His belief was that one who had not read the originals was not a true scholar.
Though he had learned the spoken and written language from Western Region merchants, reading was not easy at first. After all, written and spoken language were clearly different.
But he did not give up halfway, and through continuous reading practice, he was eventually able to read fluently.
“As expected, the gap between translations and originals is vast!”
Whenever Gojin discovered things in the originals that were absent in translations, his joy was indescribable. And so he pressed on, studying by his own strength.
Gwak Bung bought books from the Western Regions and had Gojin translate them. Then he sold them throughout the Central Plains. Even in the Central Plains, Western Region books were quite rare, and the moment they were put on the market, they sold at high prices.
This too was a business Gojin had proposed to Gwak Bung. Originally, translation was work for scholars, not for bookstores. In a way, it was overstepping one’s bounds.
At first, Gwak Bung hesitated half in doubt, but decided to try it once, thinking he might take a loss.
However, the response was better than expected, and inquiries flooded in from everywhere.
From then on, Gwak Bung gained confidence in the translation business and began investing heavily. Now, rather than sales, lending and translation—these two had become the rising mainstays of his bookstore.
Gojin liked that he could read Western Region books for free and even get paid for translating them. He was always grateful to Gwak Bung for boldly entrusting the translations to him at such a young age. Without his help, Gojin would never have been able to read so many Western Region books with such peace of mind.
People were more than proud each time the young Gojin translated a difficult Western Region book—they were astounded.
“They say a promising tree is known from its shoot….”
“I could tell from when this young one followed the caravans to the Western Regions.”
“Seeing a child interpret between Western Region and Central Plains merchants—nothing short of brilliant and admirable.”
The people knew better than anyone that Gojin’s admission to Qingyun Academy through self-study was not mere luck. They were living witnesses who had watched him work by day and study by night since childhood.
Passion for learning and a positive mindset. And an innate, genius-like sense had wrought the miracle.
二
“Hmm… This Eight Arrays Celestial Chart is truly abstruse.”
Strange diagrams and mathematical formulas were scattered messily across sheets of paper before Gojin. No matter how many times he calculated and recalculated, he simply could not arrive at the correct answer.
Gojin tilted his head in confusion.
“Strange, so strange! The formula I solved should be correct, so what went wrong?”
The Eight Arrays Celestial Chart was made of bound sheepskin parchment. At a glance, it was an ancient text over a thousand years old. A few months ago, Gwak Bung had purchased it from a graverobber who had looted it from an unnamed tomb in the Mongolian region, thinking he could earn quite a bit from translating it.
However, the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart was not a scholarly text but a formation manual. Formations had a very long history, but ever since the ancient Zhuge Liang had used them, they had never once appeared in the world. Therefore, the prevailing theory was that the formation contents in the *Records of the Three Kingdoms* were fabrications.
In the end, it meant the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart would not earn any money even if translated. Gwak Bung had grumbled that he had been fooled by the parchment and wasted his money.
Gojin had no more books to read at Gwak Bung’s bookstore, and his curiosity was piqued, so he began reading the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart. It was written in oracle bone script, so ordinary people absolutely could not read it.
“Hm?”
Gojin’s eyes sparkled.
On the first page of the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart, the following passage existed:
“I have recorded within this the secrets to wielding the harmony of heaven and earth. However, fearing it may fall into the hands of evildoers, I have sealed the secrets of the formation. Let the capable one unravel this seal.”
The Celestial Mechanism Sage.
Could there ever be such an arrogant person again?
Saying he could wield heavenly harmony and that he had placed a seal—every word was incomparably arrogant.
Gojin did not believe the claim that one could command heavenly harmony. There was no method in the world to artificially wield such harmony.
However, Gojin was endlessly curious just how confident the author must have been to openly dare someone to break the seal.
In any case, there were no more books to read at Gwak Bung’s bookstore, and he had started simply to see what kind of tremendous ability was required to have placed the seal.
“Wh-what is this…?”
Before long, Gojin broke into a cold sweat with a bewildered expression.
The Eight Arrays Celestial Chart consisted of diagrams of unparalleled difficulty and dizzying numerical systems. Had it not contained the theories of the *Book of Changes*, he would have thought someone was playing a prank.
“So in the end, this so-called seal was nothing more than countless numerical systems! Deriving what equations establish them is the key to unlocking the seal. And geometry, the *Book of Changes*, astronomy, and geography must each be applied according to the situation….”
Gojin clicked his tongue at the vast scholarly content of the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart. This was absolutely not a prank born of idleness. One simply could not play a prank in this manner. As the Celestial Mechanism Sage said, the seal was like no other.
Only now did Gojin seem to understand why the Celestial Mechanism Sage had arrogantly dared someone to undo the seal.
Within the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart were advanced studies such as geometry, mathematics, astronomy, geography, and the *Book of Changes*—without knowing these, one could neither understand nor interpret its contents.
There was no field of study in all the world that so comprehensively included every discipline. Even if formations existed only in imagination, reading it once did not seem like it would hurt.
And so he began; already half a year had passed.
Things famously known as difficult, he could usually understand upon one reading, but the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart showed little progress.
The Eight Arrays Celestial Chart followed a trajectory entirely different from ordinary studies.
Formations were a method of artificially distorting space to command the harmony of heaven and earth. To establish a formation, one had to determine exact values and use the *Book of Changes* as the framework to fix directional positions.
However, these values also changed each time according to celestial geography, making it nearly impossible to determine the values and fix the directions. In other words, one had to know the positions and angles of the sun and moon to derive the exact values of the formation.
“As expected… was the so-called formation merely absurd and preposterous?”
Gojin felt he understood why formations had disappeared after Zhuge Liang. Who could possibly use something so difficult and abstruse? An ordinary person would feel dizzy just looking at the book.
In fact, this was not the first time the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart had appeared in the world. Over the past thousand years, many people had obtained the Chart and tried to break its seal. However, only Zhuge Liang had ever succeeded in breaking it.
But even Zhuge Liang had been unable to perfectly solve the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart and had only gained fragmentary enlightenment. Nevertheless, people trembled in fear at the power of formations.
One who obtains the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart and breaks its seal shall rule the world.
This was a legend passed down in the Jianghu for over a thousand years.
Because of the tremendous power Zhuge Liang had displayed once, countless people did not hesitate to kill and be killed to obtain the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart.
However, the esoteric and difficult contents were something no human could solve. People obtained the Chart after bitter effort, but ultimately could not unravel the secret sealed by the Celestial Mechanism Sage. Their hard-won efforts turned to bubbles in an instant.
Hundreds of years passed like that, and the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart was forgotten. Formations, too, vanished from people’s memories.
Formations fell out of practical use in the martial world, and after wandering the world for hundreds of years, the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart came into Gojin’s hands. Without knowing just how tremendous an item it was, he read it simply thinking he was learning a new field of study.
“Hmm… How must I calculate to get thirty-six and seventy-two, and how must I calculate to get one hundred eight and one hundred forty-four?”
The problem giving Gojin the most trouble right now was precisely the numerical system.
There were innumerable numerical systems within the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart, and if these could not be solved, the secret sealed by the Celestial Mechanism Sage would never be unlocked. Therefore, he absolutely had to prove what equations could establish these numerical systems.
Gojin had calculated countless times to derive equations yielding thirty-six and seventy-two, and one hundred eight and one hundred forty-four, but he could not produce the equations found in the book.
In the end, after much agonizing, Gojin changed his approach.
He applied mathematical concepts from the Western Regions to the formation studies of the Central Plains. Originally, geometry and mathematics were more advanced in the Western Regions than in the Central Plains.
Gojin had learned mathematics from Western Region merchants since childhood and studied geometry from books. Thus, he was more confident in geometry and mathematics than anyone.
At first, he thought applying Western Region mathematics and geometry might work. And it did bring considerable results. However, it was insufficient to break the seal of the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart.
The past half-year.
It was a length of time by which an ordinary person would have given up several times over.
But the word “give up” did not exist in Gojin’s dictionary. If a doubt arose, he would gnaw at it and dive in until it was resolved. Such a person would never stop at an obstacle of this level.
Still, the past half-year was not entirely meaningless. The time spent studying geometry and mathematics to solve the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart was priceless.
“Ah-ham!”
Gojin stretched wide.
Before he knew it, the surroundings had grown dark. He thought he had only glanced at the Chart for a moment, but in the blink of an eye, two full shichen had flown by.
Gojin began tidying up the mess around him. If not for his mother and younger siblings waiting at home, he would have wrestled with the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart all night.
三
Just as Gojin finished cleaning and was about to head home, an elderly man with fearsome eyes entered the bookstore, having appeared from nowhere.
Gojin regarded him as a customer. It was already past the second watch, time to close the door, but he hid this and asked kindly.
“Sir, is there a book you are looking for?”
The old man glared at Gojin with a gloomy expression and asked.
“Are you the owner of this place?”
A jolt!
Gojin felt his hair stand on end.
The old man’s voice was as grating and unpleasant as a crow cawing, and his gaze was incomparably piercing, as if looking into Gojin’s very lungs.
However, Gojin quickly composed his expression.
Nothing was more foolish than showing a guarded look before a customer.
“No, sir! I am a clerk who works here.”
“Is that so?”
The old man did not withdraw his gaze from Gojin and asked again.
“Might a wounded girl have come this way?”
“There has been no such customer.”
“That cannot be. Traces of that girl clearly led here. Are you lying to me?”
The old man suddenly grabbed Gojin by the collar and glared fiercely.
“Khk! Khk! B-but how can I lie and say something happened when it did not?”
Gojin could barely breathe.
‘Hmm, this brat doesn’t seem to be lying…?’
But he did not fully trust Gojin’s words.
It was not in his nature to trust others, and the traces of the woman he was tracking clearly led here.
He released Gojin’s collar and threw him to the floor.
Thud!
“Ugh!”
Gojin grabbed his backside and grimaced.
“Heh heh, you brat. Wait right here. If that girl appears in this place, I will bury you alongside her. I swear this upon the name of the Phantom Demon.”
The Phantom Demon, Cheok Gwang.
He was a leader of the Heretic Cult.
The Heretic Cult was a sect regarded as heretical in the martial world for its illusions and sorcery.
However, the Heretic Cult’s illusion arts were called the best in the martial world. No matter how great an expert, it was not easy to handle once caught in their illusions.
Illusion arts distorted light to create optical illusions. Even high-level masters were no exception. The human eye recognized things through the refraction of light. Naturally, if light was distorted, objects before one’s eyes would be perceived as nonexistent. That was the basic principle of illusion arts.
‘The Young Cult Leader’s illusion arts are also not to be underestimated. She must be hiding somewhere in this place. Since it has been confirmed that girl possesses the Divine Bow, I must seize it no matter what.’
Cheok Gwang left Gojin alone and began searching the third floor. In any case, Gwak Bung’s bookstore was surrounded. It was not a place where a mere clerk could run away even if he wanted to.
Gwak Bung’s bookstore had three floors. Each floor had bookshelves filled with books. It was difficult to distinguish where among the numerous bookshelves the Young Cult Leader was hiding. There was no place more suitable for deploying illusion arts than this.
‘Damn, it will take quite some time to examine the bookshelves one by one.’
He devised a scheme.
“Young Cult Leader, if you show yourself obediently even now, I shall spare your life. I will even save that brat there. I swear this upon the name of the Phantom Demon.”
Cheok Gwang was certain the Young Cult Leader was inside the bookstore.
He spoke with his mouth while scanning every corner of the bookstore with sharp eyes.
“Hmph, the Young Cult Leader is truly heartless. Do you mean to say this brat can die?”
Despite saying this much, there was no reaction.
The Young Cult Leader was not originally a heartless person. Rather, she was sentimental and not the type to watch an innocent person die.
Moreover, her arts were at a level not to be underestimated. Even if the Young Cult Leader’s illusions were superb, it was hard to completely deceive Cheok Gwang’s eyes and ears.
‘Does this mean she is not on the third floor?’
He slowly descended to the floor below.
Once Cheok Gwang disappeared, Gojin let out a long breath he had been holding. He realized that Cheok Gwang was the type to kill a man without batting an eye and still have plenty left to spare.
‘Given that man’s temperament, whether the Young Cult Leader is here or not, he will kill me.’
Was there not a saying about murdering and silencing witnesses?
Gojin had no experience in the martial world, but having joined the workforce since childhood, he was quicker than others at reading situations.
‘How could a woman be here… hmm?’
Just as he was worrying about what to do.
Suddenly, the floor beneath the desk where he had been studying seemed to heave, and a woman in black clothes appeared. Her body was covered in blood.
‘Th-there really was a woman here?’
Gojin was so shocked he was at a loss for words.
‘A person came out of the floor. H-how can such a thing…’
Strictly speaking, she had not come out from inside the floor but had blocked light to create an optical illusion. However, to Gojin’s eyes, it looked as if she had popped right out of the floor.
The woman was a peerless beauty of dazzling appearance, appearing to be in her mid-twenties. She was none other than Nam Okjin, the Young Cult Leader of the Heretic Cult whom Cheok Gwang was searching for.
She had hidden in the bookstore a quarter-shichen ago. Gojin had been cleaning the bookstore at that moment. Her injuries were too severe to continue fleeing. In her desperation, the place she had hidden was Gwak Bung’s bookstore.
However, her internal injuries were so grave that she lost consciousness without realizing it. In that instant, her illusion art was dispelled and her figure was revealed. It was truly a difference of a hair’s breadth. Had she lost consciousness a little sooner, she would likely have been discovered by Cheok Gwang.
Gojin held his finger before her nose. Faint, but he felt breath.
‘To be so injured and yet still alive…’
Gojin was greatly astonished.
Her injuries were so grave that an ordinary person would have died several times over. He was relieved she had not died, but the current situation was not so relaxed.
‘The situation is not good.’
Though Gojin was young, his situational judgment was faster than anyone’s. If the Phantom Demon came up to the third floor and saw this, he too could not avoid death.
It was a moment of certain doom, like a mouse trapped in a jar with nowhere to go.
He was conflicted, not knowing what to do. Though he had passed the exam for Qingyun Academy and traveled to the Western Regions with merchant caravans, he had never once experienced such a situation.
At that moment, the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart suddenly came to mind. If it was true that Zhuge Liang had deployed the Eight Arrays Formation, then formations truly existed.
But Gojin soon shook his head.
It was preposterous. He was not reading the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart because he firmly believed in the existence of formations. It was simply because it contained extensive knowledge and he wished to unravel the secret sealed by the Celestial Mechanism Sage.
But now he was surrounded on all sides. Truly, there was nowhere to run, and if he stayed still, he would obviously die by the Phantom Demon’s hand. Since staying still meant death anyway, he resolved to give it a try.
Gojin immediately took a brush and began drawing diagrams on the floor, calculating their values.
‘Now is the second watch… so the heavenly number is twenty-two. And if I choose Kun for the earthly position, the earthly number is twenty-six.’
Gojin stopped calculating and tore at his hair.
According to the Eight Arrays Celestial Chart, the number thirty-six should have appeared, but his calculation was wrong again.
‘I’m going mad! Just how must I calculate to get thirty-six?’
His heart was urgent, but the correct calculation would not come.
If he set the directional positions according to his calculations, the margin of error would inevitably grow. If only he had plenty of time, he would have recalculated.
But now he did not even have a quarter-shichen to spare. No matter how generously he estimated, the time it would take Cheok Gwang to look around this floor and the first floor and return to the third floor would not exceed a quarter-shichen.
With a sharp tap, Gojin set down his brush and decided to push forward with what he had calculated.
He pulled two books from the shelf and placed them at the positions of One White and Two Black. The positions of One White and Two Black were among the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams. Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams—that is, to deploy a formation, one had to determine the positions of the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams according to the time, place, and surrounding terrain.
‘Will this really work?’
Even as he was deploying the formation himself, Gojin doubted its power.
It was only natural. He was merely placing a few books on the floor. The idea that this could bewilder human eyes seemed laughable even to him.
‘If I’m crazy, I’m truly crazy. This is madness no matter how you look at it…’
The more he thought about it, the more he sighed.
Had his life not been hanging by a thread, Gojin would never have attempted something like a formation. After that, he performed several more calculations to derive values. Some were correct, and some were wrong.
With this, all preparations were finished. He had done everything he could; all that remained was to wait for the result.
Gojin muttered with a prayerful heart.
“I didn’t have time so I deployed it partially, but I did my best. I have no choice but to leave the result to fate…”
Despite his words, his face was clearly tense.
How could it not be?
He did not even believe in the power of formations, and there had been errors in his calculations. Even if formations truly existed as the rumors claimed, it seemed difficult for any power to manifest under these circumstances.
Thud, thud!
Just then, the sound of Cheok Gwang coming up reached his ears.
Gulp!
Gojin swallowed dryly with a nervous expression. So tense was he that sweat trickled down his spine.