CLS-Chapter 176

Chapter 176

Where did it all go wrong?

Eonhyo was contemplating the root of this situation.

Should he have stopped Hwangbo Jung-geol, or should he not have applied for the new class?

But no matter how many times he thought about it, the conclusion was the same.

If he could go back to the past, he would have run away without looking back the moment he encountered Wei Yan-ho.

Considering his friendship with the Plum Blossom Sword Ghost had been the greatest mistake of his life.

That’s why he was suffering like this now.

Swooooosh!

The sound of wind being cut came through the air. Just from the sound, one might think someone somewhere had shot a strong arrow, but absurdly, what was making that sound was a stone the size of a child’s fist.

It was ridiculous that such a sound came from a stone. But Eonhyo couldn’t laugh. Because the target of that stone, which was making a sound like a master archer had shot an arrow with tremendous internal energy, was precisely Eonhyo’s face.

“Aaaahhhhh!”

Eonhyo screamed desperately as he twisted his body. If he took that head-on, even if he went home, his mother wouldn’t be able to recognize his face.

He’d either become very handsome or very ugly. The probability of the latter was about ten thousand times higher!

The stone, loaded with energy, barely grazed past Eonhyo’s face. Due to the wind pressure, the skin on his face trembled.

CRASH!

The outer wall of the training ground exploded as if it had been hit by a cannonball.

“Heh heh heh…”

Eonhyo laughed.

He had no choice but to laugh.

How could he not laugh when someone was throwing stones with enough power to blast through outer walls made of stacked solid bricks at people’s faces?

If that had hit him…

No, there was no need to think about it. There were already people getting hit.

“Gyaaahhh!”

A person got hit by a stone and soared into the sky like a frog hit by a slingshot thrown with full force.

‘Was that student’s name Jeong Jineon?’

That didn’t matter now.

The Jeong Jineon who came back after seeing those distant skies would probably be a different person from before.

Eonhyo looked again at the carnage unfolding in the training ground.

“Ahhhhh!”

“P-please spare me! Please save me!”

“Which crazy bastard suggested taking classes! Which crazy bastard!”

It was fortunate that Hwangbo Jung-geol had already been knocked unconscious after taking two stones. If his consciousness had remained, he would have been knocked out by the other students’ fists rather than stones.

Eonhyo’s gaze turned to the platform.

Wei Yan-ho was lying diagonally on a bed, chewing on a piece of candy with one hand while tossing and catching a stone with the other, gauging the distance.

Munch munch.

Seeing him eat everything in the midst of all this strangely made anger surge up from within.

“Ahhh! Right now!”

Bang!

And the moment he saw the stone that instantly left Wei Yan-ho’s hand smash a student into the outer wall, Eonhyo’s anger rapidly subsided. So much so that he thought, ‘A person can become this calm.’

His anger management disorder was being forcibly cured.

“Hmm…”

Wei Yan-ho said with a dissatisfied expression.

“Everyone’s backing away so far that I have to put a lot of force into it. It would be more comfortable for everyone if you came closer, right?”

It would be more realistic to tell them to stick their heads into the barrel of a lit cannon. Or to stick their heads into a tiger’s mouth.

Who would come close when this person was throwing deadly stones and telling them to come closer?

As if everyone agreed with Eonhyo’s thoughts, they were all pressed against the outer walls of the training ground, not thinking of advancing even a little. They were brave enough just for not fleeing outside the training ground.

The number of students had already been reduced by half.

Of the remaining half, half were sprawled on the floor, and the other half had been launched somewhere.

When Wei Yan-ho reached out his hand again, Musan, who had been watching from the side, immediately placed a stone in his hand.

“W-wait a moment!”

Eonhyo shouted desperately.

“Yes?”

Wei Yan-ho accepted Eonhyo’s protest and stopped his rising hand. If he had continued, that stone would have sent someone else flying far into the sky, and just thinking about it made his body tremble.

“What kind of training is this?”

“Dodging stones.”

“…That’s not what I’m asking about. What good does this do?”

“It helps.”

Wei Yan-ho said as if scolding Eonhyo for not understanding.

“O-of course it would help. But I think there are plenty of superior, more effective, and safer training methods than this. Is there a particular reason we have to do this kind of training?”

“This is all I know.”

“…”

Eonhyo stared at Wei Yan-ho with a stupid expression, at a loss for words.

“That’s why I told you to self-study.”

That was true.

But the guy who couldn’t stand it and desperately begged to be taught was now sprawled on the floor in a spread-eagle position, foaming at the mouth.

“But you’re the one who wanted to take classes. I may be lazy, but I at least know that when work needs to be done, it should be done properly.”

Wei Yan-ho knew at least the fact that if you wanted to take that money without paying any price, you’d be a thief.

“Oh, and… this is really effective.”

“I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“If the only training method you learned was this, does that mean you also did the same training, Instructor?”

“That’s right.”

“H-how long did you do this?”

Wei Yan-ho’s face became serious. Come to think of it, it wasn’t easy to divide that ‘how long’ precisely.

“I think I only remember getting beaten to death for about two years…”

Eonhyo’s face went pale.

Was the person who had been hitting people with stones like this for two years wrong, or was the person who got hit and was still alive and well wrong?

‘Well and alive?’

He suddenly felt like he had figured out why something was wrong with Wei Yan-ho’s head.

“W-will we also have to do this for two years?”

“Come on, how much of a master do you want to become?”

“…Then?”

“If you get hit for a month or two, you’ll improve a little, right? Later, even if you’re sleeping, if you feel something approaching, you’ll jump up three jang high. Once you reach that level, you won’t get beaten up everywhere you go.”

“…”

Eonhyo looked up at Wei Yan-ho with a somewhat miserable feeling.

So Wei Yan-ho had done this crazy thing for two years?

No wonder he became strong.

Unlike Wei Yan-ho, who was dealing with nearly a hundred students, Wei Yan-ho’s master had beaten only Wei Yan-ho for two years.

‘What an admirable person.’

It felt like some of his accumulated resentment was subsiding.

“Anyway, just a little more and we’ll be done. There’s not much time left.”

Wei Yan-ho glanced at the setting sun and picked up a stone again.

“Then be careful.”

Crack crack crack crack crack!

Your words and actions don’t match, you crazy bastard!

Eonhyo twisted his body desperately as he watched the flying stone.

“Good work.”

Wei Yan-ho waved his hand.

As the sun set over the western mountains, Wei Yan-ho sprang up from his seat. Lee Seol-hwa gathered up the candy Wei Yan-ho had left behind, and Musan collected the stones that had fallen to the floor using the Immovable Vajra Divine Technique.

If the elders of Shaolin had known that their sect’s martial arts were being used to pick up stones, they would have been furious like Asuras, but fortunately or unfortunately, there were currently no Shaolin-origin instructors at Dormant Dragon Hall.

“Classes will start on time again tomorrow.”

Wei Yan-ho left those words and walked out of the training ground with quick steps.

“…What is this mess?”

Eonhyo shuddered as he looked at the students sprawled and moaning on the floor.

Just one day.

In just one day, more than half the students had become half-dead. Eonhyo was just lucky he hadn’t gotten hit, but if he had been struck even once, he would have been no different from them.

‘I have to do this for two more months?’

“H-hyung-nim.”

“Yeah?”

Peng Do-hyeong limped toward Eonhyo. He had probably been hit in the leg.

“Gung-hyung and Choi-hyung say they’re quitting.”

“I-is that so?”

Eonhyo, who had just been thinking about whether he should quit, looked at Peng Do-hyeong with a start.

“Does this training have any meaning?”

“…I don’t know.”

Actually, looking at it objectively, it would be stranger if it didn’t help. The theory and sparring practiced in the martial hall carried no real risk of injury, so naturally, the sense of urgency faded.

But each of Wei Yan-ho’s stone throws instilled the same fear as real combat.

But each of Wei Yan-ho’s stone throws was enough to give the same fear as real combat.

So it would definitely help. It would help, but…

‘We might get crippled or die before that!’

He wanted to run away immediately, but doing so would be somehow unfair and hurt his pride.

“Do-hyeong.”

“Yes, hyung-nim.”

“Before we applied for classes, didn’t we vow that we would definitely become strong no matter what humiliation and hardship we faced?”

Confusion flowed across Eonhyo’s face.

“H-hyung-nim.”

“Wei Yan-ho said with his own mouth that he became strong through this method. So if we just follow this training, we too will become incomparably stronger than we are now.”

Though he wasn’t really confident about it.

“But hyung-nim, we’ll become cripples first.”

“Hmph!”

Eonhyo said as if breathing fire.

“In the martial world, being weak is more miserable than being a cripple. Even if I lose my arms and legs, I will become strong. Didn’t you see it too? What it means to be strong.”

Peng Do-hyeong also slowly nodded.

The sight of Wei Yan-ho, who had beaten the Twin Demons of the Ghost Path like swatting flies by himself—demons that even the Plum Blossom Sword Ghost and all of them together could only face with resolve to die—was vivid in his eyes.

Eonhyo declared:

“If I can become strong, I’ll do anything. If I quit this and other friends stay and become stronger than me, I’ll be tormented by nightmares for the rest of my life! And I know that the students of this martial hall won’t give up over this level of hardship.”

“You’re right, hyung-nim.”

“Let’s do it!”

“Yes!”

Eonhyo and Peng Do-hyeong’s eyes blazed with burning determination.

The next day.

“…”

Peng Do-hyeong looked at Eonhyo with a subtle gaze.

Eonhyo avoided Peng Do-hyeong’s eyes with a sour expression.

When the time came, Wei Yan-ho, who had climbed onto the platform, tilted his head and looked at Eonhyo before speaking.

“There are a lot of absences today. Are these five everyone?”

They’re not absent, you crazy bastard!

They all quit!

In the enormous main training ground, there were only five people standing. Though there had been nearly a hundred trainees yesterday, they had all quit and run away.

“The numbers aren’t large, but training must continue.”

Wei Yan-ho picked up a stone and grinned.

“You have guts. My master said that people with guts become strong. Or…”

Wait.

Did I just hear ‘die first’?

“Let’s begin.”

Wei Yan-ho started tossing and catching the stone with his hand.

“H-hyung-nim!”

When Peng Do-hyeong called out with an anxious voice, Eonhyo burst out laughing.

Gutsy comrades of Dormant Dragon Hall?

Wei Yan-ho’s thrown stone began flying toward Eonhyo at light speed.

“Damn it.”

Smaaash!