Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Generally, the atmosphere of those who have failed tends to be similar.

In a way, it’s natural. If they had succeeded, it would be one thing, but there’s no reason to be happy despite failing. At best, they encourage each other and prepare for the next opportunity, and it’s also common to bury one’s face in self-reproach for not succeeding.

But from that perspective, the current Muryeongwando’s expressions were far from those of people who failed.

“Baechang.”

Seomun Cheok, who had been sitting in a chair staring at the spear shaft resting on his lap, quietly muttered and fell into thought. Memories from just moments ago flashed through his mind.

‘I was superior in strength, speed, and everything else. That’s certain.’

It’s natural. Even though neither side used internal energy, the opponent was someone who hadn’t even learned martial arts for half a year yet.

Common sense dictates that he should have won just by using Baechang alone. Just as the saying “three seconds is like an enemy” exists for a reason, until training began, Seomun Cheok had been confident he would pass that training without difficulty. However.

Even that result wasn’t as expected.

“She read my forms…… I did?”

He can understand the first strike. It was a simple attack, and he was thinking there might be some trick.

Even a three-year-old who just entered martial arts knows that you shouldn’t give distance to a spear wielder. So that response wasn’t strange. But what about the next response?

‘That wasn’t the skill of that fellow Wangpal.’

That movement was clearly inducing his response. If that girl hadn’t read his forms and lowered her body, that fellow Wangpal wouldn’t have been able to properly deflect his attack due to their movement paths. And what that means is one thing.

The girl had seen through all of his responses.

“Hoo.”

After being deeply lost in thought and letting out a small breath, Seomun Cheok stood up and looked around at the Muryeongwando sitting nearby. Like himself just moments ago, they were all deeply immersed in thought, reviewing the sparring session.

“Is that the world geniuses see?”

If you ask whether those two are geniuses, probably not. He could likely subdue both of them without difficulty if he mixed in just one or two techniques besides Baechang.

However, they filled in their insufficient martial arts with just intuition and prediction. Isn’t it an environment where they can imitate geniuses even though they’re not geniuses?

So they must achieve victory against these fake geniuses. In other words, this is a numbers game.

Which is faster—the opponent predicting their forms, or them devising new forms?

“I should think while swinging for now.”

“……Me too.”

“Bindo as well. I can’t be helplessly defeated tomorrow too.”

There’s no time to sit around like this. By now, those Uicheonmun disciples must also be reviewing this sparring session and devising countermeasures to new forms.

One by one, the Muryeongwando who had organized their thoughts gripped their beloved weapons, got up to train, and headed toward the Second Training Ground. And then.

When everyone had headed to the Second Training Ground holding their beloved weapons.

“……What’s this?”

The attention of all the Muryeongwando turned toward the First Training Ground, and at the same time.

Energy waves burst forth.

Kwaaaaaaaaa-!!!!!

Kwaaaang-!!!

“Hmm.”

While deflecting the incoming blood-red sword energy, I calmed the slightly trembling blade and swept away the remaining force. Like ripples created by a stone falling into water, the blade gradually settled down.

“Huff, huffff…….”

“I roughly understand your level.”

Looking at the panting Seonwoo Gang, I lowered my sword loosely and stroked my chin with my other hand. Having exchanged sword strikes once, I learned something.

‘Better than I thought…….’

Outstanding?

It’s not a level that can be described so simply. Suppose we divide all people into the dull-witted and ordinary, the talented and the gifted.

In this classification, most of the Muryeongwando remain around talented and gifted. That’s about where those who have properly honed their martial arts with decent martial talent and a good environment reach—around the Muryeon Hall level. Seohwa and Wangpal would probably be around gifted, excluding physical issues.

Then what about this fellow?

‘It’s hard to capture everything with the word gifted.’

Those who know how to respond without panicking even to forms they’re seeing for the first time are called masters. Then conversely, what should we call those who find the correct answer against forms they’re seeing for the first time?

Each strike, each strike is new. Knowing it doesn’t work, he immediately strikes with sword strikes in a different way. There’s a word to describe such people.

Genius.

“I see what the problem is.”

Looking at Seonwoo Gang sitting blankly in exhaustion, I chuckled. Because there was a definite realization.

Seonwoo Gang is a genius. However, the reason such a Seonwoo Gang is struggling in the Muryeon Hall is probably largely due to temperamental differences.

“Orthodox Path martial arts must be difficult. Isn’t that right?”

“……That’s right.”

“It has to be.”

That’s his temperament. If Orthodox Path martial arts pursue righteousness and propriety, then Unorthodox Path martial arts are bound to pursue substance and supremacy.

Orthodox Path martial arts are probably in a category that’s difficult for Seonwoo Gang to understand. His talent says so, the knowledge he’s learned says so, and the years he’s lived say so.

Finishing my observations, I shook my head from side to side. Anyway, what’s important right now isn’t where Seonwoo Gang’s talent lies.

What’s immediately important is how to raise Seonwoo Gang’s skills.

“There are two methods.”

“……Two methods, you say.”

“Right. Two. The first is to extract the characteristics while maintaining your current method. If you do that, remnants of the original will remain, but there won’t be anyone who can identify it accurately.”

Hyeolgeommun’s martial arts are bewitching but not evil. Just as there are bewitching martial arts like Plum Blossom Sword in the Orthodox martial world, the probability of being suspected as Evil Path is low.

Of course, it’s not an easy method by conventional standards. No matter how much you make it into something close to an inferior version, it’s not easy to tear apart intact martial arts and turn them into different martial arts.

‘If I were alone it would be one thing, but I’m here too.’

I already have experience modifying martial arts once. If it’s making it into proper martial arts it would be difficult, but creating inferior martial arts to use temporarily would only take about a month.

“It’s the easiest method. It’s also a way to properly utilize your talent. If we modify the martial arts to the extent that it doesn’t drop your abilities too much, that’s what happens.”

“……I see.”

Nodding his head heavily as if understanding, Seonwoo Gang looked at his sword with eyes pondering something for a moment.

Sticky emotions rising and falling like wildfire in Seonwoo Gang’s eyes.

I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t even properly know Seonwoo Gang’s situation in the first place. What I know is just that he’s Hyeolgeommun’s Small Sect Leader and that he unusually infiltrated as a Murim Alliance spy. So realistically, this is as far as the advice I can give.

Yeah.

“Just know that the first method exists. The key is the second method.”

“……Pardon?”

If we’re talking realistically, that is.

“You don’t suit Unorthodox Path martial arts in the first place. That’s your nature.”

“What do you…….”

“I mean the killing sword fundamentally doesn’t suit you.”

Looking at it temperamentally, Seonwoo Gang seems like he was born to learn Unorthodox Path martial arts. In fact, most of Seonwoo Gang’s talent is concentrated in such things too.

Striking at others’ weak points. Finding gaps and thrusting the sword through those gaps.

Everything about Seonwoo Gang suits Unorthodox Path martial arts. Conversely, Seonwoo Gang’s talent doesn’t help much with ordinary Orthodox Path martial arts.

But that’s only in the realm of talent. Whether Seonwoo Gang as a person suits the Unorthodox Path well is a separate matter.

“When I was still a greenhorn, I heard an old story from my senior who was the previous Changcheon Corps Commander.”

“An old… story?”

“Right. A very old story.”

Recalling vague memories while wearing a small smile, Seonwoo Gang nodded with a dubious expression. An expression as if asking why he’s suddenly telling an old story.

“What comes to mind when you think of Wudang Sect?”

“Wudang Sect…… Flow and Taiji.”

“Right. Most of Wudang Sect’s martial arts include those two categories. You can see it in Hyeggeom or Taecheongggeom too. Everyone says Taiji is the essence of Wudang Sect martial arts.”

Anyone you grab walking through the marketplace would say so. Taiji. Wudang’s symbol. Who could dispute that form passed down for hundreds of years?

However, everyone’s talent is different. Not every Taoist could understand that logic, and the old Wudang Sect was the same.

“In the old Wudang Sect, there was someone who simply couldn’t understand those two categories.”

“No matter how much he understood the principle and tried to move, the man didn’t have such talent. His temperament was also like that. Unlike a Taoist, he was hot-tempered. For him, Wudang was ill-fitting clothes.”

He practiced asceticism for five years, practiced asceticism for ten years, but remained in place. When others understand and master something in three years, he couldn’t master it for over ten years, so he must have felt doubtful too.

“One day the man went to his master and asked with tears flowing. Am I someone who shouldn’t be in this Wudang? Wasn’t my place somewhere else?”

Who could rashly offer words of comfort?

These are the tears of a man who has run his entire life to prove himself. No matter who he confided in, they wouldn’t have been able to rashly answer that it wasn’t so.

Who could assert, surpassing over ten years of proof, that you are a necessary talent for Wudang?

“He doesn’t know what softness is. He still doesn’t know why Taiji returns. Even if he memorizes it without understanding the meaning, how could it resonate? How could he comprehend that category even if he practiced arduously for decades more?”

Though unspoken, the man, his martial brothers, and those junior martial uncles all knew the conclusion. As things were, the man wouldn’t be able to stand forth with Wudang’s sword. Sensing this, the man sought an answer.

……And the master, who was merely a Taoist rather than a martial artist, said this.

“──There’s no need to be soft.”

Everyone had been mistaken.

That Wudang’s martial arts are martial arts of softness.

That it should naturally be so.

“If you can’t be soft, supremacy is fine too. If your strength is too strong to hold a child’s hand, then instead put the child on your shoulders and give them a piggyback ride.”

“Wudang’s spirit is not limited to the categories of softness or Taiji.”

What Founding Ancestor Zhang Sanfeng emphasized was harmony. What the Taoists of Wudang wanted was mutual prosperity.

“Having heard those words, the man later spent another dozen years creating one martial art. It was the man’s own answer to what Wudang is.”

The most destructive and supremacist martial art in Wudang. However, it was his own answer created by a Taoist who wanted to achieve mutual prosperity somehow.

“That martial art is called Sipdangeum.”

Finishing my words, I quietly lowered my gaze and looked directly at Seonwoo Gang. Seonwoo Gang looking at me with an expression as if he’d heard a story he never expected.

“Everyone acknowledges Sipdangeum as Wudang’s martial art. Because Sipdangeum contains Wudang’s spirit.”

The true meaning of Unorthodox Path martial arts lies in killing and winning. Competing, confronting and fighting, and necessarily seizing victory.

“If the category doesn’t suit you, just tear it apart and modify it. But you can’t tear apart and modify even the true meaning.”

Escaping form and escaping shape means such a thing. It’s not simply a matter of technique, but something beyond that.

“Well then, it’s time to decide.”

What was the Seonwoo Gang I saw like?

Seonwoo Gang, who revealed his identity without hesitation when his comrades were in crisis, even knowing he would be killed if discovered.

Seonwoo Gang, who came to Uicheonmun on his own feet worrying about the aftermath that would fall on his comrades, even though he had plenty of opportunities to flee.

Was he Unorthodox Path?

Temporary Disciple Seonwoo Gang’s temperament is…….

“Which true meaning do you pursue?”

Wearing a small smile, I pushed aside the status window that appeared to the side of my vision.

Now, it’s time to choose.