CLS-Chapter 455

Chapter 455:

“I don’t know.”

“……Huh?”

Wei Jeong-han looked at Wei Yan-ho with a slightly dazed expression.

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

Wei Yan-ho’s answer was, as usual, calm.

“Not ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ but you don’t know?”

“Yes, I don’t know.”

Wei Yan-ho lightly shook the secret manual and placed it on the table.

“I didn’t discover anything particularly remarkable, so I should say no… but there are some ambiguous aspects to it.”

“Speak more clearly. Ambiguous? In what way?”

“There are many parts I can’t interpret. And I can’t figure out how ki moves when learning the divine arts written here. I think I’d have to learn it with my body to understand it. Should I learn it?”

“Absolutely not!”

Wei Jeong-han waved his hand violently. If this secret manual was the cause of all these incidents, the moment Wei Yan-ho learned it, he would end up like all those who had suffered seizures.

‘That would be hell.’

He had no confidence in stopping Wei Yan-ho if he lost his reason and went berserk. Of course, he wasn’t entirely sane normally, but an unhinged Wei Yan-ho was terrifying just to imagine.

He’d probably beat up his own father without a second thought.

“You absolutely must not learn it!”

“……You’re worried about me, right?”

“Of, of course.”

Wei Yan-ho puffed his cheeks at the subtle fatherly love he sensed.

“But why does it feel so unsettling?”

Wei Jeong-han ignored Wei Yan-ho’s words and changed the subject.

“What exactly do you mean when you say you can’t figure it out?”

“Exactly what I said.”

Wei Yan-ho elaborated as if this explanation wasn’t sufficient.

“When I first saw this, I thought it was fake. A convincingly made fake.”

“You definitely said that.”

“But now my thoughts have changed somewhat.”

“How?”

“Instead of a convincing fake, it might be a useless genuine item.”

Wei Jeong-han tilted his head.

What on earth did that mean?

“Speak more clearly.”

“Ugh.“

Wei Yan-ho let out a deep sigh. This was difficult to explain.

“So, it’s true that this is a rather useless secret manual.”

“Wait!”

Tang Yong-min raised his hand high.

“Yes. Permission to speak granted.”

“Useless! Are you saying this secret manual is useless right now?”

“Yes.”

Looking at Wei Yan-ho answering as if it were obvious, Tang Yong-min’s eyes widened.

“No! You sold it!”

“There seems to be a misunderstanding. I sold it as a secret manual called the Sword Emperor’s Treasure, not as a secret manual containing something remarkable.”

“……”

Tang Yong-min asked incredulously.

“So you’re saying you knew this secret manual was completely useless but still sold it for that huge sum?”

“If someone’s willing to pay that money for it, it would be stranger not to sell it.”

“You fraud!”

“Hehe, thanks for the compliment.”

Tang Yong-min let out a “Hah” sigh.

This guy would sell the Yangtze River water if he could.

“Continue.”

As Tang Yong-min started calculating the money wasted on this incident, Wei Jeong-han urged Wei Yan-ho on.

“It’s definitely completely useless… No, I’m not even sure about that. Anyway, it probably won’t be much help. But this doesn’t seem to be fake.”

“You mean it’s real?”

“What does real mean?”

“Huh?”

Wei Jeong-han frowned.

What kind of philosophical questioning was this at such a critical moment?

“If you ask whether this secret manual contains the true divine techniques left behind by the past Sword Emperor, I’d say no. But… it’s definitely a secret manual created by someone of the Sword Emperor’s caliber.”

“Sword Emperor caliber? Not the Sword Emperor himself?”

“That’s also somewhat ambiguous, but it’s probably not him. That gentleman said that transmitting martial arts through secret manuals was like a blind man touching a giraffe’s tail.”

“Really?”

Wei Yan-ho quietly nodded.

And no matter how much he thought about it, there was no reason for Baek Mu-han to create such a strange secret manual. Hadn’t Baek Mu-han embedded his will into his own Inner Core to leave behind everything of himself?

So there was no reason to leave behind an incomplete secret manual. Unless it was for playing a prank.

“But the problem is that the insights shown in this book are extraordinary. I feel dizzy, but I don’t understand what it’s saying. It’s not the level of some crude swindler’s prank. It’s probably right that my level is too low to understand this.”

“……I have no idea. Then who on earth created this?”

“That’s what I don’t know.”

“Isn’t it the Demonic Cult?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No? If not the Demonic Cult, then where else could such a thing be created?”

“It’s hard to explain why, but it’s probably not the Demonic Cult.”

“Hmm……”

Wei Jeong-han looked at Wei Yan-ho with suspicious eyes. But Wei Yan-ho was also at a loss for an answer.

‘How can I say I sense Master’s traces here?’

That would really complicate things.

Of course, there was no way Baek Mu-han created this. That was in the realm of certainty. But it was also true that he could sense Baek Mu-han’s unique insights in this secret manual.

The highest possibility?

‘There are those who inherited Master’s martial arts.’

And there was only one candidate for that.

‘The Ten Thousand Swords White Family.’

The Ten Thousand Swords White Family that Master used to sing about so much. Only they could have created such a secret manual.

Since coming out into the martial world, he realized that Master’s martial arts were on a different trajectory from the general martial arts of the martial world. The dimension of interpretation and application was different.

It wasn’t a matter of high or low level, but a difference in interpretation and direction. The martial world takes for granted that water flows from top to bottom, but Master would insist that if you just push it up, it can flow from bottom to top too.

He couldn’t be certain, but in some way, this secret manual definitely bore the touch of the Ten Thousand Swords White Family.

‘Well, just because Master died doesn’t mean that flourishing place would immediately collapse.’

Master had affection for the Ten Thousand Swords White Family. No, more precisely, he had a love-hate relationship with them. He was proud of being born into the Ten Thousand Swords White Family, but he hated them for ostracizing him.

Nevertheless, Master hoped that his martial arts would eventually be passed on to them.

Such a Baek Mu-han wouldn’t have given nothing to the Ten Thousand Swords White Family while he was alive. He would have tried to pass on at least part of his martial arts. And wasn’t Baek Mu-han’s martial arts also developed based on the Ten Thousand Swords White Family’s martial arts? It wouldn’t be strange if there were mutually connected parts.

The problem was……

“Why did they create this?”

“Huh?”

“Whether the secret manual is real or fake, there’s one thing that’s certain. That place called the Sword Emperor’s tomb is fake.”

“Fake?”

“Yes. The Sword Emperor’s tomb wasn’t there.”

Because the place Wei Yan-ho had entered was Baek Mu-han’s tomb, there couldn’t be another tomb. Given Baek Mu-han’s nature, he wouldn’t have tried to create such a bothersome thing as a tomb himself, and if the Ten Thousand Swords White Family had created such a thing, they wouldn’t have proceeded so secretly.

It was the tomb of the greatest person of all time, so they would have made it luxurious and magnificent to establish its majesty in the surrounding area.

So that tomb was definitely fake. But the secret manual found inside wasn’t fake.

“There are two possibilities. Someone created this secret manual, and whoever obtained it created the tomb. Or… someone created both the secret manual and the tomb.”

“Why?”

“Because it needed to look plausible.”

The faces of Jang-il and Wei Jeong-han hardened.

“The conclusion was strange in some ways.”

At Jang-il’s words, Wei Jeong-han turned to look at him.

“Thanks to this fellow obtaining the secret manual and disposing of it that way, the bloodshed at Goesan ended inconclusively. But what would have happened if the variable called Wei Yan-ho hadn’t appeared there? Those who rushed to obtain the Sword Emperor’s secret manual would have created hell, disregarding life and death.”

“Hmm.“

“And in the end, some tremendous master would have gotten the secret manual. That’s exactly what those who released the secret manual into the world wanted. Except for the fact that the bloodshed was resolved faster than expected, their purpose was achieved.”

Their misfortune was that the one who got it happened to be Wei Yan-ho.

A martial artist who stakes his life on a secret manual doesn’t try to share his secret manual with others. Not even with family. He would have tried to pass it on to descendants only after mastering everything himself.

But Wei Yan-ho skimmed through the secret manual and sold it off. And to the entire neighborhood at that.

The plan probably went awry from there.

“Yan-ho.”

Wei Jeong-han asked in a stern voice.

“Let me ask you one thing. Do you think this secret manual could be the cause of all these incidents?”

“Hmm……”

Wei Yan-ho seemed to ponder, then nodded.

“Yes. It’s possible.”

“It’s possible?”

“Yes. There are many parts in the secret manual that I can’t understand at all. Parts that can’t be known without physical mastery. If that’s the case, then these parts were intentionally made this way by whoever created the secret manual. By someone who reached an unimaginably high realm.”

“Are you saying he spread this secret manual to throw the martial world into chaos?”

“No.”

Wei Yan-ho said firmly.

“That’s not it, absolutely not.”

“……Why? According to what you said, whoever created this secret manual would have known that this secret manual would produce such results, wouldn’t they?”

“No. That’s not it. Whoever created this secret manual wouldn’t have tried to cause chaos in the martial world.”

“Why?”

“I told you. Whoever created this is tremendously strong. If about ten people who created this secret manual gathered, they could fight even Master.”

“……Isn’t that weak?”

“For reference……”

Wei Yan-ho said with a fed-up expression.

“If Master were alive, even if all the masters of the entire martial world rushed at him together, they might not be able to defeat Master alone. Even a hundred of me couldn’t defeat him.”

“……”

Wei Jeong-han was stunned.

A hundred Wei Yan-hos.

That would be enough to fight even the Demonic Cult. No matter how much Wei Yan-ho was defeated in his fight with the Mad Soul Demon Emperor, the Mad Soul Demon Emperor was one of the top masters even within the Demonic Cult. There couldn’t be a hundred such people.

‘You mean he could play around with the Demonic Cult all by himself?’

Could a human do such a thing?

But since Wei Yan-ho spoke with such conviction, he couldn’t believe it……

“So that person has no need for chaos. If he stepped forward and waved his hand once, several times more chaos would break out. If he put his mind to it, unifying the martial world would be less than post-meal exercise.”

“Uh, hmm……”

It was a chaotic proliferation of unimaginably powerful masters. Wei Jeong-han had no idea how to interpret this situation.

“To summarize, whoever created this secret manual is tremendously strong. Strong enough to organize the martial world in an instant if he put his mind to it. If this secret manual was created long ago, he might already be dead. But if whoever created this secret manual is still alive……”

Wei Yan-ho, unusually for him, gulped and opened his mouth.

“Something like the Demonic Cult wouldn’t be a problem.”

It was a declaration heavier than any other words.