Episode 398. He Is No Longer a Dragon Alone.
The Hwasan First Sword had prepared the finest meal at the finest manor in Hwasan.
Win a single duel and get fed, drink tea, and borrow the dueling grounds. A man who eats without paying even when he has money—that is the Four Great Evils.
Anyway, this is why being strong is the best.
While we drank tea, Sambok's expression was rather dark. When I kept looking at him, Sambok opened his mouth.
"Gwanju."
"What."
"Then I shall return shortly and make my report."
"Alright."
"Ah, should I stay for a few days? The scenery is nice as well."
"No."
"Yes. Shall I leave immediately?"
"You must. If those under the Cult Leader are the sort I think they are, they might be calculating the round-trip time in quarter-hour units based on your carriage's speed and the distance to Hwasan. If they question why you're so late, you'll suddenly find yourself a criminal."
"That is true."
Sambok let out a sigh and looked at the Maehwajangju.
"I have something to say to the Manor Lord."
"Speak."
"Anyway, since you promised, I will report that the duel will be held here. I'm saying this just in case—if you make a wasted trip, I probably won't survive. I don't know when the Cult Leader will arrive, but a promise is a promise. Let us meet again later."
The Maehwajangju nodded and looked around at us.
"I shall keep my promise. However, there is something I would like to ask all of you..."
The Maehwajangju continued.
"May I watch? If all of you permit it and the Cult Leader permits it, I wish to observe. If that comes to pass, it matters not whether you guests stay here for ten years. To witness a fight between masters called the Three Disasters—how could greed not arise?"
Mathyeong answered.
"We do not mind, but we cannot know the Cult Leader's mind. We shall see once Sambok reports."
Sambok said.
"I shall convey the Manor Lord's opinion. By the way, you have considerable nerve, Manor Lord. Most would try to leave. Are you not afraid?"
The Maehwajangju stroked his chin.
"I have committed no offense against the Cult Leader, and since I do not often venture into the martial world, I have incurred no grudges. I wonder if there would be a problem. Even if I watch the duel, I intend not to speak of it."
Mathyeong said something frightening.
"You may watch, but you could get caught up in stray attacks and die."
In response to Mathyeong's warning, the Maehwajangju replied as if chanting.
"I must watch nonetheless. When will such an opportunity come again?"
I laughed for no reason.
In fact, if I were the Manor Lord, I would have said I wanted to watch the duel too. This is the chronic disease of martial artists. It is hard to resist watching a fight.
Sambok stood up.
"Then... before I go, I have one more question. What is your plan for training? I ask simply out of curiosity."
I told Sambok my plan.
"I'll climb Hwasan occasionally to circulate qi and breathe. Then come down and train. The rest is free time. Is there anything special? Nothing special. Training is the same. It's just repetition. By the way, it would be nice if Hwasan had a waterfall."
"Why a waterfall?"
"If it strikes the crown of your head, your head clears up. It's good for overcoming qi deviation."
Sambok answered with a smile.
"I learned something. Then I shall take my leave."
"Go."
Sambok had barely managed to eat a single meal before leaving Maehwajang. This was farewell.
I spoke to those who had been drinking tea with me.
"I'll get up and go to Hwasan too."
Saekma answered.
"Suddenly?"
"I should pay my respects to the mountain. Exchange breath with it. I should go up with an empty mind."
Mathyeong asked.
"Are you planning to come down today?"
"If I like it, I'll sleep on the mountain for a night before coming down."
Since training is something each person does on their own, I did not ask how Mathyeong and Saekma would train. They could climb Hwasan and train like me, or simply remain at Maehwajang.
Since time spent alone is important at times like this, I got up as if following Sambok who had just left, and headed toward Hwasan.
I climbed Hwasan with my hands clasped behind my back.
Having no intention to use qinggong, I walked while observing the mountain as carefully as possible. At first it was flat, but the slope grew steeper, and soon no other travelers could be seen.
The way to climb a mountain is simple.
You just go higher.
Moreover, since I had learned martial arts, cliffs were no problem. Occasionally I would survey where the summit was, note a higher spot, and move toward it.
I intended to climb the highest place in Hwasan.
There were rough, high cliffs everywhere, as if someone had cut up Manjangae into long strips and pasted them about, so I had no choice but to use the Jeunjong.
It could not compare to Manjangae, but it was quite a difficult mountain.
I thought the first peak I climbed was the highest, but upon ascending and looking around, I saw other peaks. Each time, I went back down and conquered the higher peak again.
It was a structure where you had to reach a certain realm before another realm became visible.
Thus, climbing was similar to the process of learning martial arts.
To arrive at a higher place, I thought that perhaps rather than simply climbing up, one had to repeatedly descend and ascend.
It meant that only by accepting the twists and turns could one stand upon the true peak.
The reason it is hard to reach the peak is that you cannot instantly grasp where the peak is.
I climbed a peak close to the summit, then repeatedly went back down, and scaled an unusually lofty peak using the Jeunjong.
Before I knew it, relying on moonlight while climbing, when I arrived at the peak, I realized there was no place higher than this peak.
Hwasan had many changes due to its twists and turns, and was resolute with its many cliffs.
Rather than learning swordsmanship from Hwasan, Hwasan itself felt like a swordsman. Contending against that swordsman, one's skill would inevitably grow.
At the place closest to the stars that seemed ready to pour down, I sat in meditation.
Whenever moonlight breaking through the clouds appeared, one face of the mountain was visible, but in fact, there was nothing special.
However, the air was extremely cold, and the wind blew fiercely, so it was not a quiet place.
In short, it was a cold, lonely place.
When you reach the peak, it inevitably becomes like this.
To become good at something, the time spent alone for it must increase. It cannot be helped. This is why sect leaders or heads of organizations often undergo closed-door training.
If there are many subordinates, there are many who cause trouble.
Among the servants, there is one called Chilbok, who beat an elderly servant, or a maid named Yeohong and a disciple who eloped after falling in love. If you let your mind be taken away by such worldly affairs that happen from time to time, no time remains for training.
That was why one entered closed-door cultivation.
Just as the Cult Leader of my previous life had done.
To become stronger, one had to throw oneself into solitude, and only by surviving there without going mad could one safely return with one’s mind intact.
I watched the dark Mount Hua beneath the pouring stars, then soon closed my eyes and began circulating my qi and regulating my breathing.
I deliberately started with the Moon Shadow Heartless Art.
When I practiced the Moon Shadow Heartless Art on the summit of Mount Hua, where it was cold even if I sat still, I could no longer tell whether this was Mount Hua or a snowy mountain. Since it would only get colder as the night deepened, there was nothing I could do. Only when my lower abdomen grew colder and colder, until the meal I had eaten at the Plum Blossom Manor was about to come out as diarrhea, did my qi circulation and breathing finally end.
I had been solemnly circulating my qi and regulating my breathing, fully striking the mood of a Daoist sage.
But since I could not brazenly unleash diarrhea on the summit of Mount Hua, I began the qi circulation and breathing of the Golden Turtle Carefree Art.
I felt it anew.
Once the aura of diarrhea receded, my heart also grew warm.
A person’s belly must be warm.
I learned this while practicing martial arts: certain types of diarrhea are caused by inner demons.
This is called inner-demon-type diarrhea.
It means one can soil oneself due to anxiety and tension arising from one’s mental state. It also means that a person who does not suffer inner-demon-type diarrhea has a sturdier mind than one who does. When I realized that one’s stool also becomes firm only when one’s heart is firm, I suddenly worried that perhaps I was in a state of qi deviation.
Time passed, during which I could not tell whether I was circulating qi or researching diarrhea.
After finishing the qi circulation and breathing of the Golden Turtle Carefree Art, I briefly opened my eyes.
Everything around me was so pitch-black that I could not tell whether my eyes were open, closed, or whether I was dreaming.
I wondered why it had grown so dark, and then rain poured down from dark clouds that had gathered before I knew it.
In that case, even if I had soiled myself, it would have been washed away by the rain.
A person’s worries are useless like this.
Diarrhea is nothing.
Since my body was already wet, I prayed for a torrential downpour, and a torrential downpour truly came crashing down.
Thanks to that, I was drenched to the bone.
If I practiced the Hundred Battles Ten Stages Art while being rained on, would lightning strike me dead?
The worries of a man of the martial world are endless, and each time, he repeats his desire to grow stronger. On the summit of a mountain where lightning was truly striking, I continued the qi circulation and breathing of the Hundred Battles Ten Stages Art.
This lightning bastard…….
Let’s see whether you win or I do.
I even finished preparing to accept the lightning into my dantian the instant it struck my body, but no such thing happened. It is true that I was slightly startled each time it rumbled and crashed, but I am a man without fear.
Because being startled and being afraid are clearly different things.
When I opened my eyes again, dawn had already broken. With my own two eyes, I monitored the sight of night and day changing shifts, as they did without fail again today.
“……Thank you for your hard work today as well.”
I congratulated them on the shift change. It was now time to practice the Violet Haze Divine Art, but for some reason, I did not want to close my eyes.
Because if I closed my eyes, I would not be able to see this beautiful sight.
How beautiful was the sight of the sky’s color changing from moment to moment? Astonishingly, there was not a single instant when it stood still.
Where did the stars that had looked down upon the dark night disappear to? Since when had that unfailingly diligent light illuminated the morning of all creation?
Captivated by the beautiful sight, I forgot my training for a moment.
Instead of accumulating inner force, I breathed together with all creation as it awoke. Each time I exhaled, I expelled the turbid energy within my body, and I inhaled in full the breath Mount Hua exuded.
I inhaled deeply, then exhaled even longer than that.
I did not breathe in order to grow stronger; I breathed with my eyes open because I could not miss the changes of heaven and earth.
Because perhaps there might not be many days left when I could see this.
I stored it in my two eyes, filled my chest with it, and did not forget the scent and atmosphere of the air either.
I was neither greatly joyful nor greatly sorrowful, but my heart was more at ease than ever.
Strangely, whether before coming to Mount Hua or now, there was no fear. To begin with, unlike other mental arts, the Violet Haze Divine Art was a martial art that had found its own path. If I accepted the current of Cheonok along the path engraved into my body, that was in itself training in the Violet Haze Divine Art.
Watching the world under heaven, I practiced the Violet Haze Divine Art with my eyes open.
It should have been a matter of growing from the point I considered the first stage into the second stage, but without even such distinctions, I felt light forcing its way into my dantian.
I accepted that light comfortably.
Some inner forces are like building a tower: easy at first, but the higher one rises, the harder it becomes, as though one must place smaller and smaller stones.
But the Violet Haze Divine Art was not particularly the type of inner force one could call a tower.
With every breath I took, the light of the qi circulation that had traveled through my body and returned clearly illuminated my dantian.
Suddenly, I thought of the great sea…….
Then I reestablished the mysterious and difficult-to-understand Violet Haze Divine Art as a concept.
I arranged the stream-like power I had previously accepted so that it would be contained in a vessel like the great sea and positioned in the lower part of my dantian.
And in the upper part of my dantian, I placed the energy I had gathered while breathing and gazing upon the violet haze.
I organized as I breathed, and breathed as I organized.
I repeated this until the whole world beneath the sky grew bright.
Doing this made me somewhat familiar with the method of practicing the Violet Haze Divine Art. I tried to place the energy accumulated through ordinary qi circulation and breathing in the lower part of the dantian, and the energy accumulated through breath in the upper part.
Originally, water flows downward, and the gathering of energy through breath does not possess a nature that tries to descend.
These settled above and below, forming their own Taiji. In other words, I had transformed the turbid Cheonok, which had been close to chaos, into a Taiji made of sky and sea.
It would require time and practice, but I knew this was the natural order.
A power different from the heaven-defying Sun-Moon Radiant Heaven would emerge.
I had grown last time as well, but I knew I had grown this time too. Perhaps because my state of mind had changed, I was not particularly elated. I simply thought it was enjoyable to discover what I had not known, understand what had been difficult, and gradually deepen my understanding of martial learning.
If anything, my worries were human and emotional.
Will the Cult Leader spare me?
That was my first concern. My second concern was connected to the first, and this too was difficult to decide.
Will I truly be able to spare the Cult Leader?
I realized that making a decision about such worries was more difficult than training in martial arts. Only after having this concern did I realize anew that the Cult Leader must have been thinking similar thoughts to mine all this time.
Because he had the same concern, he must not have killed me immediately.
In that case, my conclusion is this.
From the beginning, the Cult Leader seemed to have been waiting for another dragon. And I also came to understand that the dragon born on the demonic path had been looking at the world without letting his heart be stolen by trivial things.
Now, the Cult Leader is no longer the only man like a dragon.
After countless trials and errors, as I transformed Cheonok into Taiji,
I too realized that I was a dragon like the Cult Leader.