While the five newcomers were receiving their names, the Iron Dragon Corps members were devoting themselves to training on the training ground.
While being beaten.
Unless they were undergoing dangerous inner arts training, there was no mercy in the Instructors’ hands.
“Your balance is falling apart. I told you to use more inner arts. You think a hundred geun is some damned joke? You’ll never swing that thing normally.”
The Iron Dragon Corps consisted of people who had only recently received their weapons.
Those who had spent a long time in the Iron Dragon Corps could wield the absurdly large weapons with considerable skill, but the others could not.
“You swung wooden swords in the Non-Dragon Corps. The trick is exactly the same, you idiots.”
How could an iron sword weighing several times as much possibly be the same?
Every time they swung greatswords larger and heavier than their own bodies, it was difficult to tell whether they were swinging the swords or the swords were swinging them.
The sight was quite ridiculous.
“You five over there. What are you doing? Hurry up!”
An Instructor shouted.
He was a Golden Dragon Corps member.
When there was no battle, the Golden Dragon Corps members became Instructors, overseeing training from the Non-Dragon Corps through the Iron Dragon Corps and Silver Dragon Corps.
Some Silver Dragon Corps members also became Instructors, while the rest handled miscellaneous work around the Ascending Dragon Sect.
They performed practical duties such as guarding the grounds or maintaining facilities.
The Iron Dragon Corps were little more than laborers.
They played the role of servants who did whatever they were ordered to do.
In any case, the man currently overseeing the Iron Dragon Corps’s training was a Golden Dragon Corps member named Gwang Yeon.
As one of the men who held the front line, he was fairly skilled.
“You can’t lift these greatswords with brute strength alone. Even a strongman would have trouble.”
Simply lifting one was not impossible.
But this was a weapon.
It had a hilt.
The place one gripped was at the very end, while the enormous mass of iron extended forward from there.
Swinging something like that was impossible with ordinary physical strength.
“All of you have inner arts. Draw that energy out of your qi centers and use it.”
There was no way it could be that easy.
Accumulating inner arts within the qi center was possible through the Ascending Dragon Art, but drawing them out and releasing them was an entirely different matter.
Then again, they had already performed the act of releasing inner arts before.
“You bastards. Haven’t you done inner arts transmission? The principle is the same. Instead of transferring inner force into a body, think of it as transferring inner force into the sword.”
The theory was understandable.
Putting it into practice was another matter.
The human body contained paths of qi and blood and meridians through which inner arts flowed.
Those acted as signposts.
When transferring inner force into another person’s body, all one had to do was let it flow along those paths.
But a sword was not a living being.
It was a cold lump of iron with no pulse and no flow of qi and blood.
Infusing inner force into a sword blade that felt like an impenetrable wall of metal was an entirely different matter.
Nor had they practiced it by having someone directly transmit the method into their bodies from the very beginning, as they had with the Transmission Art.
Yet Gwang Yeon continued as though it were nothing.
“This is an application of the Settling Heart Art. You could send inner arts all the way to your fingertips and toes, right? If you couldn’t, you wouldn’t still be alive. Anyway, think of it as drawing out a little more of the energy you normally send to your fingertips and pushing it outside your body. It isn’t much different from the Transmission Art.”
Pour water into an empty bowl until it sloshed at the brim.
That was the Settling Heart Art, pushing the inner arts accumulated through the Red Heart Art all the way to the ends of the limbs.
He made it sound simple, but any martial artist from another sect would have recoiled in horror.
Their training proceeded in exactly the opposite order.
They first learned how to send inner force into objects.
Only after becoming experts could they infuse inner force into another person’s body.
After all, inner arts transmission could easily take a person’s life with the slightest mistake.
No one in the Ascending Dragon Sect knew that.
This was simply how they had learned, so this was how they passed it down.
That was precisely why so many children had died in the Non-Dragon Corps.
“The trick is to scoop out one extra ladle of inner arts compared with before and imagine the water overflowing. Then do exactly that. Your inner arts will naturally be released.”
In other words, imagine that his body was an empty bowl and pour even more water into it.
The water overflowed.
That was the release of inner arts.
“Hup.”
All five grabbed their hilts and tried to lift their weapons.
Thanks to years of training with heavy wooden swords, they at least managed to raise the weapons off the ground.
Barely.
THWACK.
“Ghk!”
“Agh!”
Naturally, kicks came flying.
All five were sent tumbling far across the training ground.
“You idiots. You trained the Settling Heart Art that much and still can’t release your inner arts? Is scooping up one extra ladle and overflowing the bowl really that difficult?”
Gwang Yeon said that, but….
It was difficult.
Accumulating energy, controlling it, and releasing it were entirely different matters.
Other sects called it crossing a wall and advancing to the next stage.
And what was required to do that?
Enlightenment.
Accomplishing it without any special verses or profound principles—in other words, without enlightenment—was impossible unless one was an extraordinary genius.
But the Ascending Dragon Sect could do it.
“You bastards. Let’s see if we can kill you once today.”
They simply had to get beaten.
It was their own unique method, something their bodies had learned since their days in the Non-Dragon Corps.
“I’ll make you realize that you can do it.”
The Ascending Dragon Sect’s enlightenment.
Violence.
After about three days, all of them became capable of lifting their weapons.
They could even swing them to a certain degree.
“Good. Remember the blue light being released from your swords right now. That is the unique color of our Ascending Dragon Sect.”
Gwang Yeon smiled with satisfaction.
It was the first smile they had seen from him in a long time.
In contrast, Ja Cheon-gwang and the others looked terrible.
Their eyes were bruised dark blue, and their lips were swollen.
Apparently, Gwang Yeon had beaten them thoroughly.
‘He beat us that badly, and he can still smile that brightly.’
Ja Cheon-gwang quietly glared at Gwang Yeon.
Only while Gwang Yeon’s back was turned.
It was the only revenge he could manage right now.
A bluish glow radiated from Ja Cheon-gwang’s greatsword as well.
It was sword energy.
An advanced technique that could be wielded only by those who had grasped the principles of the sword.
In other sects, someone Ja Cheon-gwang’s age would at most be capable of producing a faint haze.
Even that was considered the level of the finest talents among the younger generation.
The fact that a mere sixteen-year-old could emit sword energy like this showed just how profound his inner arts were.
The Ascending Dragon Sect truly deserved its reputation as the sect of inner arts.
But praise for their inner arts ended there.
What came next was the problem.
“Now that you can lift your swords, you’ll begin training in swordsmanship today. You all practiced it in the Non-Dragon Corps, right? You should know every form already. The only difference is that you used wooden swords then, and now you’re using iron swords. If you can’t do it…, prepare yourselves.”
Of course they knew every form.
The problem was that the iron swords were absurdly heavy.
No.
Calling them forms was generous.
The Ascending Dragon Sect’s swordsmanship—or saber art—ultimately amounted to the same thing.
Even the names were assigned however they pleased.
Ascending Dragon Sword Art.
Ascending Dragon Saber Art.
If one carried a greatsword, it was the “Ascending Dragon Sword Art.”
If one carried a great saber, it was the “Ascending Dragon Saber Art.”
The corps members simply called it whichever name matched the weapon they happened to carry.
Whether sword art or saber art, the forms were identical, so no one cared much about the name.
Swordsmanship and saber arts were supposed to possess entirely different principles and techniques.
How could they possibly be called the same martial art?
Anyone from another sect would have called it fraudulent nonsense.
Put simply, it was a martial art with no proper foundation.
Perhaps the founder of the Ascending Dragon Sect had poured all his ability into inner arts and paid little attention to swordsmanship.
That was likely because of the nature of their weapon handling.
There was nothing special about the Ascending Dragon Sect’s blade work.
It was not greatly different from the Six Harmonies found in marketplaces.
In other words, it was little different from the basic training taught to children in other sects.
Downward strikes.
Upward strikes.
Cuts.
Thrusts.
There were no variations in the forms.
Powerful inner arts and massive weapons.
These were not the sort of weapons that allowed intricate swordsmanship in the first place.
So each strike had no choice but to focus entirely on destructive force.
That was why such simple forms inevitably became the martial arts of the Ascending Dragon Sect.
“First Form.”
At Gwang Yeon’s shout, every Iron Dragon Corps member raised his greatsword high.
“Linear Hammer Strike.”
WHOOOM.
The greatswords cut vertically through the air.
It was identical in form to the downward strike of the Six Harmonies.
The Ascending Dragon Sect called this a proper form.
It truly was a martial art without foundations.
“Hmm.”
Gwang Yeon’s brow furrowed slightly.
He did not like what he saw.
This was what the corps members had practiced ever since their days in the Non-Dragon Corps.
Naturally, their fundamentals were solid.
Ordinary martial artists practiced such basics for a year or two before moving on.
These people had practiced them for more than ten years.
Of course their fundamentals would be firm.
They possessed no other martial arts, so they had repeated the same movements hundreds of thousands—millions—of times.
‘Still not clean enough. Their balance is subtly off. Tch, useless bastards. The only thing that changed was wood becoming iron, and they can’t even do that properly?’
Yet even this level was extraordinary.
It only looked unimpressive because the Golden Dragon Corps members had such demanding standards.
Anyone else who saw them would have felt chills.
Their forms, polished through more than ten years of repeating the same movements, were in no way inferior to a single exchange from one of the murim’s supreme experts.
These were not fundamentals that should have belonged to martial artists barely around fifteen.
‘It doesn’t matter. More beatings will fix it. Time will solve the problem.’
He had been the same during his own days in the Iron Dragon Corps.
“Ninth Form.”
At Gwang Yeon’s command, the Iron Dragon Corps members drew their arms straight back.
The tips of their swords remained pointed forward.
“Flying Thrust.”
“Hah!”
Their arms shot forward.
The greatswords pierced through space.
The Ascending Dragon Sword Art’s only thrusting technique.
Once again, merely a fundamental movement.
The corps members’ sword tips pierced precisely toward a single point.
Not even an inch of deviation.
Had martial artists from the wider murim witnessed it, they would have exclaimed in admiration.
Again, it was the level of an expert.
Even if Gwang Yeon remained dissatisfied.
From the First Form through the Ninth Form.
Repeating the fundamentals was the entirety of the Iron Dragon Corps’s training.
Upon reaching the Silver Dragon Corps, they learned the latter half of the Ascending Dragon Sword Art.
That section contained the defensive forms that had made the Ascending Dragon Sect the strongest defensive sect.
Upon reaching the Golden Dragon Corps, they could finally learn a martial art that properly released sword energy through the air.
The Ascending Dragon Qi Art.
Only from that point onward could they truly be called proper martial artists.
Training that had begun in the morning finally ended when the sun stood high overhead.
DING, DING, DING, DING.
Their favorite sound.
The bell announcing mealtime.
The Iron Dragon Corps members, soaked in sweat, collapsed onto the ground.
“J-J-Ja Ch-Ch-Cheon-gwang. H-How d-do you f-feel?”
“About what?”
“N-No, I-I mean, y-you should c-call me b-by my n-name too.”
“I’m exhausted enough to die here, you Eight-Seven bastard.”
“Uh… B-Bong Gyu. B-B-Bong Gyu.”
No matter how exhausting the training was, Bong Gyu apparently loved having a name.
***
Three days earlier.
The day they had received their names.
After finishing their morning swordsmanship training, they had begun cultivating their heart arts in the afternoon.
‘What is this? Is this really the Red Heart Art?’
Ja Cheon-gwang was suddenly bewildered.
He was inside the Iron Dragon Hall.
They had vacated the training ground for the Silver Dragon Corps’s training and gone inside.
Inner arts training took place here.
“Ugh, the smell. You Iron Dragon Hall bastards never wash properly? Maybe I need to beat some sense into the Silver Dragon Corps.”
Mu Yang, the Golden Dragon Corps Instructor overseeing their heart art training, frowned.
He too had passed through the Iron Dragon Corps on his way to the Golden Dragon Corps.
He felt no nostalgia for the place.
It simply stank.
Several other Golden Dragon Corps Instructors had entered alongside Mu Yang.
There was little danger in swordsmanship training, but heart art cultivation was another matter.
Their cultivation was vastly more dangerous than the heart arts practiced by other sects.
That was why five Golden Dragon Corps members had accompanied the Iron Dragon Corps in preparation for any emergency.
“I know you want to reach the Silver Dragon Corps quickly, but never overdo it. Unless you want to get thrown down the cliff.”
“Yes.”
Below the cliff lay not only the Non-Dragon Hall, but also a pit where corpses were discarded.
It was a naturally formed pit.
The sight of its gaping mouth was enough to make one’s knees tremble.
Hundreds—perhaps thousands—of corpses slept within it.
There were no coffins.
Whether one belonged to the Non-Dragon Corps or the Golden Dragon Corps, death simply meant being thrown into that pit.
They might become food for wild animals.
Or perhaps they would crumble into dust and return to the earth.
No one had the leisure to concern themselves with a corpse once its owner was dead.
In any case, that was how the heart art training began.
And Ja Cheon-gwang sensed something unusual.
‘Only the Red Heart Art activated…. So how is the Settling Heart Art activating too?’
He had not intended it.
Normally, one first accumulated inner arts with the Red Heart Art, then controlled the boiling inner arts with the Settling Heart Art.
That was the proper order and the basic principle.
Yet the Settling Heart Art had suddenly intervened.
‘This is bad. I’ll suffer qi deviation at this rate. I need to stop the Settling Heart Art.’
He hurriedly tried to stop it.
It was useless.
Once activated, the Settling Heart Art had already blended with the Red Heart Art and fused together with it.
But….
‘It feels comfortable. Is this qi deviation?’
The children he had seen in the Non-Dragon Hall with their limbs twisted grotesquely.
The side effect of the Red Heart Art.
Had those children died this peacefully too?
‘No. That can’t be right.’
How could having one’s limbs twisted apart possibly be comfortable?
It was clearly impossible.
He inspected the Governing Vessel and Conception Vessel one by one.
Eight beads revolved fiercely, leaving an enormous amount of energy within his qi center.
The Red Heart Art.
And then.
The energy filling his qi center rapidly circulated throughout his body through the Eight Extraordinary Meridians and Twelve Principal Meridians.
The Settling Heart Art.
The two were operating together at the same time.
He had trained his inner arts for more than ten years, yet this had never happened before.
Nor had he ever heard an Instructor mention such a case.
The Red Heart Art was dangerous because once the qi center filled beyond capacity, the overflowing inner arts flowed backward through the paths of qi and blood and collided with the energy already there.
In other words, as long as the qi center did not overflow, the Red Heart Art was an excellent means of accumulating tremendous inner arts.
The human body simply could not endure it.
But if the inner arts were dispersed throughout the body before the qi center could overflow, the amount of inner arts he could accumulate would naturally increase at tremendous speed.
He could maintain the Red Heart Art for longer.
Naturally, that meant becoming correspondingly stronger.
“A dream?”
Ja Cheon-gwang suddenly shouted.
“What? You bastard?”
Mu Yang glared at him.
“Have you lost your mind? You’re shouting during heart art training? Do you want to die?”
“I’m sorry.”
He did not hit him.
Because heart art cultivation was so dangerous, even the Instructors restrained themselves from using violence during this time.
“You’re disturbing the others. What if someone develops an inner demon? Are you going to take responsibility? Huh?”
“I’m sorry.”
Ja Cheon-gwang quickly returned to a seated meditation posture and closed his eyes.
Mu Yang clicked his tongue several times at his hurried movement before turning away.
He had not been hit.
Thank goodness.
With his eyes closed, Ja Cheon-gwang retraced the memory of that dream.
The dream in which he had suffered qi deviation.
‘Maybe it wasn’t a dream after all. Back then, I definitely used the Red Heart Art and crossed the limit. I hurriedly activated the Settling Heart Art to control it. And then….’
The two cultivation methods had merged.
Just like now.
Had anyone ever tried activating the Red Heart Art and Settling Heart Art simultaneously?
Without question, no lunatic had ever attempted such a thing.
‘Maybe it really was qi deviation. Perhaps the Settling Heart Art kept running then and somehow held my body together.’
It was only a hypothesis, but there was no other way to explain it.
In any case.
‘My inner arts are increasing differently from before. I was progressing more slowly than everyone else because I can only make eight beads, but with this….’
The longer he could sustain the Red Heart Art, the faster he could accumulate inner arts.
No one else could compare.
An explosive increase in inner arts.
It felt as though he had been born anew.
With this.
If he had this….
He could become stronger.
Stronger than anyone….
It was a stroke of heavenly fortune.
The side effect of the cultivation method had returned as medicine.
A side effect of a side effect….
The corners of his mouth rose slightly without him realizing it.
“You’ve all finished the Settling Heart Art, right? Open your eyes.”
At Mu Yang’s words, the Iron Dragon Corps members all opened their eyes.
Some stretched their bodies.
Simply sitting in meditation for more than four hours was an ordeal in itself.
“J-Ja Ch-Cheon-gwang. Wh-Why are you s-smiling s-so s-scary?”
Bong Gyu spoke with a frightened expression.
“Huh?”
Apparently, he had raised the corners of his mouth a little too much.
“Wh-What are you d-doing? Y-You should c-call my n-name too.”
“Fine, I’m in a good mood. Bong Gyu, Bong Gyu, Bong Gyu, Bong Gyu. Happy now? Hehehehe….”