Chapter 134. The Toll Is One-Tenth?

Since I could not train in ultimate techniques at the Black Cat Gang, I focused on qi circulation and breathing. Having swept up and cleaned out the nearby black path factions, I expected there would be nothing much for a while. Of course, people’s affairs were unknowable, so it was only an expectation.

In any case, just as the Sword Demon had said…….

For a while, I entered a period of self-restraint, seclusion, and closed-door training.

As I had expected, the Moon Shadow Heartless Art rose from the realm of the Waning Moon to the realm of the Crescent Moon. It was probably not the full effect of the Heavenly Jade, but because of the Moon Cinnabar Flower. However, from the realm of the Crescent Moon onward, I could no longer devote myself entirely to ice arts.

Because I felt the balance of my body being disturbed.

Something inside me felt cold.

Because that was exactly the state I had imagined the Cult Leader to be in at Manjang Cliff.

Wasn’t he trying to balance yin and yang before consuming the Heavenly Jade…….

A state resembling those words.

So one day I trained the Golden Turtle Wandering Art, and the next day the Moon Shadow Heartless Art.

But this nonsense also had its limits.

How should I put it? Even though I was only circulating qi and regulating my breathing, my limbs kept feeling thinner. The joints in my waist, knees, and so on stiffened rigidly, and my mental strength and stamina were rapidly consumed as well.

In other words, if I had clung to only one method of qi circulation and breathing, I likely would not have become this exhausted. But training yin and yang at the same time felt as though it placed twice the pressure and tension on my body.

To summarize, I was overworked.

In the end, I trained the Moon Shadow Heartless Art, the Golden Turtle Wandering Art, and external arts one day each.

I called this the “three-day resolve” training method and named it the Three-Day Resolve Art.

Only then did my training begin to gain momentum.

When I trained the Golden Turtle Wandering Art, my body was wrapped in scorching heat all day.

When I trained the Moon Shadow Heartless Art, I was chilled as if trapped in eternal snow.

My conclusion was that the depletion of mental strength and stamina accumulated over two days could only be recovered by training external arts.

In truth, training is something one does to become stronger.

But because I felt I would fall into qi deviation and die at this rate, I trained my body relentlessly.

So I deliberately mixed in with my subordinates to train external arts, constantly exchanging nonsense and idle chatter along the way.

Even amid all this, whenever I trained external arts, the Lust Demon, the Sword Demon, the Cult Leader, the Alliance Leader, the Mad Monk, the Fist King, the villains once listed as public enemies of the martial world, and the masters of Kuaedang would invariably come to mind in no particular order.

There were many other masters in my previous life whom I had failed to properly overwhelm.

Since external arts had to be continued while enduring physical pain, I constantly recalled the strong figures from my previous life, letting the time of pain pass and enduring it.

Especially because later I could face the Lust Demon again in a state where I did not use internal energy, I approached my external arts training with an even more vicious mindset.

In the end, training is…….

Most efficient when repeated while thinking about beating someone up.

Every day, I mixed in with my subordinates and trained external arts. Once muscle gradually began to cling to my body, I hung from the plum tree and started doing monkey pull-ups with one arm.

Monkey pull-ups simply meant raising and lowering my body with one arm…….

I repeated this until my muscles felt numb, then changed arms.

As I kept repeating this madness in front of my subordinates, from some day onward, the subordinates who had sidled over began hanging from trees and doing pull-ups with both arms.

One day, I suddenly looked around and saw that all the men were hanging from trees or walls.

“What a bunch of idiots…… good grief, you monkey bastards.”

One subordinate burst into laughter and fell from the tree.

The saying that even monkeys fall from trees was meant for moments like this.

I laughed along with him, and the strength left my arms, so I dropped to the ground.

When someone does something, those around them are bound to follow. This seems to be human instinct.

I glared at the man who had burst out laughing and said,

“From now on, anyone who laughs during training can expect to skip dinner.”

“Yes, sir.”

After wiping the laughter from my face, I repeated the monkey pull-ups mercilessly. When I trained mercilessly, this time my subordinates caught up to that mercilessness to some extent.

I was not the only one becoming stronger; we became stronger as a group.

After repeating the three-day resolve roughly thirty times…….

The weather had grown fairly chilly.

My level of internal energy remained unchanged at the Fighting Rooster realm of the Golden Turtle Wandering Art and the Crescent Moon realm of the Moon Shadow Heartless Art.

But my physical condition was rapidly catching up to my days as the Mad Demon in my previous life. Muscle had attached itself to me, excess fat had fallen away, and I had changed to the point where I could deal meaningful blows with external arts alone.

My subordinates also trained diligently, but in any case, I was the most vicious.

Because I performed the greatest number of monkey pull-ups, finger pull-ups, and finger push-ups.

* * *

They say no news is good news…….

Just as I was thinking it was fortunate that there had been no word from the Blood Night Palace, Baek Eungji, the Southern Heaven Alliance, or the Southern Bright Society.

A sound rang out as the main gate was smashed apart…….

My subordinates rushed outside.

I also let go of the plum tree and went out to the outer courtyard. Someone was walking in with a limp while bound, and behind him, unfamiliar men I had never seen before were entering the Black Cat Gang with smiles on their faces.

As soon as the bound man saw me, he smiled brightly and said,

“Eldest Senior Brother…….”

“Who are you?”

His face was so badly split open here and there that I could not recognize him.

“It’s me, your junior brother Geum. Eldest Senior Brother.”

“Pig, why did you end up like this?”

When the fellow who approached from behind lightly struck Geum Hae on the shoulder, Geum Hae knelt on the ground. A gaunt fellow with a short saber at his waist stroked Geum Hae’s head and said,

“Who is the Hao Sect Leader?”

The men who had barged in carried themselves with such confidence that I answered like a frightened idiot.

“……That would be me.”

I looked around at the four of them with an incredulous expression.

‘Only four of them?’

The man who appeared to be the leader of the group spoke while fluttering his fan.

“You are young.”

The man looked around the Black Cat Gang and said,

“We are envoys of the Southern Peak Green Forest Alliance.”

If they were envoys of the Demonic Cult, that would refer to top masters, but in ordinary organizations, envoys were just fellows who delivered messages.

“No…….”

I was at a loss for words.

‘That son of a bitch, Alliance Leader Im…….’

As I carefully thought it over in confusion, it seemed Alliance Leader Im had not yet subjugated the Southern Peak Green Forest Alliance.

After regressing, it felt as though time was flowing strangely.

A Green Forest force that the Martial Alliance would eventually subjugate had suddenly come to visit. Since these were bastards who would be destroyed if left alone, I felt half flustered and half pleased.

There are times when emotions, too, are mixed half and half like yin and yang or taiji, and this was one of those times.

At any rate, when people speak of the Nanyue Green Forest Alliance, they mean a bunch of bandit bastards who encompass every Green Forest force amounting to a full third of the Hunan region, so their power is genuinely considerable. Sometimes, it isn’t because they have many experts that they are frightening, but because they have so many members that the righteous factions avoid them on their own; the Green Forest and the waterway strongholds are usually like that.

In vulgar terms, they were the kind of bastards the sects avoided because they had sheer numbers.

“Honestly, this is absurd.”

For now, I went over to Geumhae, took out the Flash Dagger, and cut him free. The thick rope split apart as if slicing through dumplings.

I grabbed Geumhae’s face with my left hand and asked.

“Junior brother.”

“Yes.”

Putting away the Flash Dagger, I said.

“You’ve lost some weight, haven’t you? They didn’t even feed you?”

Geumhae replied with a smile.

“No, they didn’t give me much.”

“Why did you get caught? Did they catch you because you were fat?”

“You know when I was transporting the Paegeom Society’s funds?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know, but apparently I just passed through a mountain road that the Nanyue Green Forest Alliance had cleared and managed, and a certain area where one was supposed to pay a toll. There was no obstruction when I passed through, but later they came looking for me…”

“Ah…”

In other words, while moving the funds, he had crossed the Nanyue Green Forest Alliance’s territory without permission. If so, this meant it was a scheme where they deliberately let people cross and then extorted money afterward. The Nanyue Green Forest Alliance would keep repeating this until they provoked Alliance Leader Im, and then they would collapse without even a single mutt left alive. The method had been so brutal that even the righteous path had talked about it for quite some time. I only heard about it secondhand, so I don’t know the details.

For now, I looked at the envoys.

“So how much?”

The man replied.

“Sect Leader, we said we would take only one-tenth, but the young master of the merchant group won’t cooperate. When we asked, he said it wasn’t the merchant group’s money but the Hao Sect’s money, so we had no choice but to come here. If he had told us from the start that it was the Hao Sect’s money, our handling of the matter wouldn’t have been delayed like this. I don’t know why he was so stubborn… He was a fellow asking to be beaten.”

Money causes this many problems.

The Paegeom Society’s assets must have been so vast that the problems grew large as well.

Because the thoughts of people of the martial world are far too often outside common sense.

In short, all I could think was that they were picking a fight because their guts were twisted with envy.

Geumhae said with a smile.

“Eldest senior brother, the toll is one-tenth, they say. So they’re telling me to pay one-tenth of the money I moved from the Paegeom Society. Hahaha…”

Geumhae seemed to have been beaten by the bandits so badly that he was half out of his mind.

I nodded.

“That is a lot. One-tenth…”

“A lot?”

The man looked at me and said.

“Wasn’t it money you took after striking down the Paegeom Society anyway? And yet you say it’s a lot? Sect Leader, if you are too greedy, you are bound to ruin matters. This matter has already been reported to our Alliance Leader as well. He granted permission that if you pay one-tenth this time, from now on, the Hao Sect may freely use the roads our Nanyue Alliance has cleared. And you still think it is expensive?”

For now, I ignored the man’s words and helped Geumhae stand.

“Get up.”

“Yes.”

After patting Geumhae on the shoulder, I sent him to Junior Brother Baegin. Geumhae moved while limping on one foot. Baegin, Cheongjin, and Baegyu came over to look after him.

Now the four men from the Nanyue Green Forest Alliance were looking at me.

The subordinates of the Black Rabbit Gang all kept their mouths shut and watched me as well.

I looked at the four Green Forest bandits and then let out a sigh.

“You could’ve just talked it out nicely. Why did you have to beat up my junior brother?”

So Gunpyeong approached with a tense expression and grabbed my arm.

“Gang Leader, please hold back just this once. Try talking first…”

“Why? I haven’t gotten angry yet.”

“Yes.”

When I stayed still, this time Junior Brother Baegin approached.

“Eldest senior brother, no matter what, since Junior Brother Geumhae’s life is still intact, wouldn’t it be better to try resolving it through conversation first rather than killing those four immediately…”

“Shut up for now.”

“Yes.”

As I glared at the four men from the Nanyue Green Forest Alliance…

Cha Seongtae cautiously approached.

“Sect Leader, would it not be proper to negotiate first?”

“Negotiate?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve never done it before. How do you do it?”

“Ah, I’ve never done it either.”

While So Gunpyeong, Baegin, and Cha Seongtae were trying to hold me back with tense faces, the expressions of the four men from the Nanyue Alliance gradually changed. They tilted their heads among themselves, then looked at one another’s faces. They had realized that this wasn’t the atmosphere they had expected.

“……”

I barely suppressed my anger and asked the men from the Nanyue Alliance.

“How many of you are there in all?”

One of them replied.

“Over a thousand.”

“More than the Hao Sect, then?”

“That goes without saying…”

Suddenly at a loss for words, I moved and struck the four men with the Crescent Moon Finger Art.

Tak!

One bastard was stiffened while swinging his fan.

Tak!

Another froze after half-drawing his sword.

Tak!

One stopped while throwing a punch at me.

Tak!

And one bastard stiffened in the very posture of trying to run away.

Because I struck them with a mix of acupoint sealing and the Crescent Moon Finger Art, their movements had stopped in strange positions. When I drew the Flash Dagger from my robe, So Gunpyeong, Baegin, and Cha Seongtae suddenly rushed at me.

“Wahaha, Gang Leader. Just a moment.”

“Ah, talk a little before you kill them.”

“Eldest senior brother, they’re all frozen anyway, so why kill them now? Hahaha.”

Baegin suddenly snatched the Flash Dagger from my hand, and So Gunpyeong clung to me as if hugging me.

Cha Seongtae grabbed my hand, shook it, and laughed.

“Hahaha…”

I pushed the three away and said.

“Ah, let go already. This…”

So Gunpyeong shouted at his subordinates.

“Stomp those bastards first!”

“Yes!”

In an instant, the subordinates of the Black Rabbit Gang swarmed in, slapped the stiffened bastards across the face, knocked them down, and began trampling them underfoot.

I watched the sight, then said to the three men blocking me.

“Ah, fine, so let go. I get it. Let’s watch for now.”

“Yes.”

I held out my hand to Baegin.

“Hand over my dagger.”

“Here it is.”

I took the Flash Dagger, then stood with my arms crossed, watching my men and the envoys of the Southern Peak Green Forest Alliance as I said,

“First, mess up their faces too, just like Junior Brother Geumhae’s.”

The men of the Black Cat Gang answered in unison.

“Understood.”

So Gunpyeong, Baegin, and Cha Seongtae stood side by side next to me with their arms crossed, watching my men beat the Green Forest bandits to a pulp.

My men were stomping on them with gusto.

It seemed they’d had quite a lot pent up from training so harshly all this time.

They were trampling them with admirable thoroughness.

Only then did I run a hand down my chest.

“Whew…… Now I can finally calm down a little.”