Number 48 slowly closed his eyes.
Pitch-black darkness settled over the pupils that had held the faint moonlight.
The number of beads flowing out from his qi center gradually increased.
One, then another….
Eight in all.
Cutting, thrusting, striking downward, blocking.
Basic swordsmanship composed of six forms in total.
People called it the Six Harmonies.
Others said it was all the same anyway and called it the Three Talents Sword Art.
Perhaps there was something profound hidden within it, because people even sold it for money in the marketplace.
Of course, it was often cursed as a scam, reduced to kindling, and thrown into cooking fires.
The Ascending Dragon Sect’s swordsmanship was like that.
Swordsmanship so wretched that it might as well have been used as kindling.
They said one could scale Mount Tai in a single bound.
Skim across the vast Yangtze River and glide over the surface of the water.
And upon reaching the pinnacle, one could even fly through the sky.
This was called movement arts.
The Ascending Dragon Sect had no movement arts.
With strength in one’s grip, a large boulder could be crushed apart.
A resilient body that would not shed a single drop of blood even when stabbed with a blade.
At the pinnacle, they said one’s body remained warm even amid raging flames.
This was called external arts.
The Ascending Dragon Sect had no external arts.
Intricate techniques formed by weaving together many movements.
External arts that made those movements possible.
Movement arts to lighten the body, and footwork to measure the distance between oneself and an enemy.
The basic elements other martial arts were supposed to possess.
The Ascending Dragon Sect had none of them.
Thirty years ago.
Before Hegemon Fortress rose to power, the Ascending Dragon Sect had been the hegemon of this region.
It was a sect that fought fiercely with the neighboring Moyong Family over territory.
Thirty years later.
The Ascending Dragon Sect was still the hegemon of this region.
Although it had become subordinate to Hegemon Fortress, it remained the sect capable of constructing the strongest defensive wall among all the forces here.
It had no swordsmanship.
No movement arts.
No external arts.
And yet there was one reason it could still be called the hegemon of this region.
Inner arts.
Overwhelming inner arts.
They existed on a level that other sects could scarcely compare with.
Number 48 simply had not been conscious of it.
Hadn’t the single punch he threw by chance the previous day made Moyong Jeong-cheon’s sword ring with a sharp clang?
Moyong Jeong-cheon was one of the finest orthodox martial artists of his generation.
The fact that Number 48 had managed to startle him was enough to show how profound his inner arts were.
Even though he was only a child.
With nothing more than one crude punch.
What made that possible was the Ascending Dragon Heart Art.
‘Damn it. I’ve trained so much, and I can still only make eight.’
Eight beads flowed out from Number 48’s qi center.
That was the beginning of the Ascending Dragon Heart Art.
His martial talent was not particularly outstanding.
If anything, he was a year or two behind the others his age.
Even so, he had surpassed them and entered the Iron Dragon Hall.
Simply because….
He was strong.
He had taken a gamble.
While everyone else slept.
Energy swirled within his body.
It was an extraordinarily dangerous act.
Had an Instructor discovered him, it would not have ended with a mere beating.
The soles of feet above the cliff flickered before his eyes.
Compared with his own filthy bare feet, those soles clad in leather shoes had been objects of pure awe.
That was what had driven him to accept the risk.
The Ascending Dragon Sect had little else to boast of compared with other sects, but its overwhelming inner arts were something anyone would covet.
The other sects in this region knew that too.
Yet only the Ascending Dragon Sect practiced them.
Because even if someone gave them the cultivation method for free, no one else would want to learn it.
The issue was not difficulty of attainment.
The Ascending Dragon Heart Art was a martial art so perilous that one’s life itself was at stake.
The Red Heart Art.
And the Settling Heart Art.
The two came together to form the Ascending Dragon Heart Art.
The method was simple.
Use the Red Heart Art to grow energy and accumulate it in the qi center.
Then use the Settling Heart Art to settle the blazing energy within the qi center.
The problem was the Red Heart Art.
Because it was explosive.
And dangerous.
Number 48 concentrated.
His awareness of the outside world abruptly cut off, and every nerve focused upon his qi center.
His qi center was packed full.
How much had he suffered to fill it this far?
Simply forming a qi center had been an ordeal.
The children of the Non-Dragon Corps had formed theirs while enduring brutal beatings.
“Focus your energy. Mind your breathing.”
As he concentrated on his qi center, he could almost hear an Instructor’s voice.
The goal was a tiny qi center.
Even one the size of a grain of millet would do.
It would become the driving force that carried energy through the flow of qi and blood.
This was merely the stage of forming a qi center.
There was nothing dangerous about it.
THUD, THWACK….
Then naturally, there was no problem with beating them.
The Instructors’ kicks struck the tender bodies of the young children again and again.
From the very first stage of learning martial arts, the children were conditioned through violence.
“Turn your back to me. Remember the flow. Just do exactly this.”
The Instructors placed their hands on the children’s backs and sent their own inner arts flowing through the paths of qi and blood.
The Transmission Art.
A defining specialty of the Ascending Dragon Sect.
A cultivation method that poured one’s own inner arts into another person.
Because they could do this freely, there was no need for any further explanation.
Nor could they have given one.
The Instructors themselves did not understand what any of it meant.
Difficult terminology.
The profound principles those words represented.
None of it was necessary.
Their own inner arts would flow through the children and find the path for them.
And if they still did not understand?
They could simply be beaten.
That was how the Instructors themselves had learned.
Out of ten children, one would form a qi center.
Two at most.
The children who failed?
Who knew?
No one ever saw them afterward.
Nor did anyone have the leisure to think about it.
Only after the qi center had formed and the child became capable of drawing energy out from it did true cultivation begin.
“Remember my energy well. If you can’t…, you’ll get beaten.”
To young children, it was terrifying.
An adult’s large fist was like an iron hammer.
They had been beaten ever since forming their qi centers, but it was still impossible to grow accustomed to it.
The Instructors placed their hands against the backs of children barely bigger than their palms and poured inner arts into them.
The inner arts ceaselessly circulated through the children’s narrow pathways of qi and blood.
“You ignorant bastard. You can’t even complete one full circulation? I showed you the path. You don’t remember it with your head. Feel it with your body. Feel the qi.”
Then came another beating.
They did not know the names of the paths.
They simply beat the children.
Once the Instructor’s inner arts had circled through a child’s flow of qi and blood hundreds of times, some of them gradually began to remember the path.
“This place. What you’re feeling right now is your qi center. All energy begins here and returns here. If it takes the wrong path, you’ll suffer qi deviation.”
“Qi deviation?”
“It just means… you die.”
They had not understood back then.
How terrifying qi deviation truly was.
At that age, the concept of “death” itself had yet to properly take root in their minds.
Eight beads had been drawn out from his qi center.
Clear and luminous.
Crystallized true qi.
They were not literal beads, of course.
But that was what the Ascending Dragon Sect called those concentrations of energy.
‘No matter how much I try, I can’t reach ten.’
Number 48 felt pathetic.
“M-Me? T-T-Twelve.”
Number 87’s bright, smiling face came to mind.
Even Eight-Seven could make twelve, yet Number 48 could only make eight.
Number 48 was probably the Iron Dragon Corps member capable of forming the fewest beads.
Considering that ten to twelve was ordinary, Number 48’s martial talent was considerably lacking.
That was why he could not keep up unless he secretly did this every night.
And thanks to that, he had managed to rise as far as the Iron Dragon Corps.
“Remember. Drop the beads through your asshole. Then pull them up your back. From the top of your head, down your face, your chest, and your belly. Then move them back to your asshole.”
How could illiterate Instructors possibly know the precise names of acupoints?
They merely taught exactly what their own seniors had taught them.
When they said “asshole,” they meant the Meeting of Yin Acupoint.
Moving the bead up the back meant passing through the Tail Gate, Gate of Life, Spinal Center, Body Pillar, Great Vertebra, and Jade Pillow before reaching the Hundred Convergences.
The very crown of the head.
The Hundred Convergences Acupoint.
This was the Governing Vessel.
Once a bead reached the Hundred Convergences, it traveled again through the Hall of Impression, Celestial Chimney, Chest Center, Spirit Gate, Origin Pass, and Curved Bone before returning to the “asshole.”
In other words, back to the Meeting of Yin Acupoint.
This was the Conception Vessel.
Because the children received the Transmission Art backed by immense inner arts, the Governing Vessel and Conception Vessel had been forcibly connected from an early age.
This was known as opening the Conception and Governing Vessels.
Any ordinary martial artist who witnessed it would have stared in awe.
Children barely five or six years old had already opened the Conception and Governing Vessels?
Countless martial artists trained their entire lives without ever reaching that point.
It was possible only because Instructors with tremendous inner arts used the Transmission Art to forcibly open the pathways in a relatively stable manner.
Without intending to, the children had effectively undergone Body Reforging and Marrow Cleansing.
Of course, none of them knew how extraordinary that was.
They merely regarded it as ordinary training.
“You remember, right? This is called one full circulation. Now we go backward.”
…Huh?
Backward?
From this point onward, even the Instructors had no choice but to become intensely cautious.
Circulating from the Governing Vessel into the Conception Vessel followed the natural flow.
Starting from the Conception Vessel and circulating into the Governing Vessel meant reversing that flow.
The slightest mistake would lead directly to qi deviation.
“That’s insanity.”
“They must be desperate to die.”
“No, how can anyone even circulate energy that way in the first place?”
Anyone unfamiliar with it would have recoiled in horror.
Three out of ten children succeeded in reversing the flow.
The rest….
Became cold corpses.
“Make the beads. The harder you concentrate, the more you can make.”
Number 48 moved the eight beads clustered around his qi center.
One by one, they dropped and traveled along the flow of qi and blood into the Meeting of Yin Acupoint.
“Hup.”
A faint pain arose.
Whenever several beads descended together, he felt them lightly collide at the Meeting of Yin Acupoint.
It was a familiar pain, but he had never quite become accustomed to it.
His sphincter tightened involuntarily.
‘All right, let’s start. You first.’
One bead surged upward along his spine without hesitation.
The Governing Vessel.
Its destination was the Hundred Convergences Acupoint at the crown of his head, beyond the spine.
The natural direction.
‘You go too.’
Another bead flowed upward along the front.
The Conception Vessel.
Its destination was likewise the Hundred Convergences Acupoint at the crown, after passing through the abdomen and chest.
The reverse direction.
The bead in the Governing Vessel reached the Gate of Life.
The bead in the Conception Vessel reached the Spirit Gate.
‘The rest of you too.’
Number 48 sent the six beads remaining at the Meeting of Yin Acupoint forward one after another.
Four beads climbed through the Governing Vessel.
Another four climbed through the Conception Vessel.
There were no obstructions anymore.
The beads gradually accelerated toward the Hundred Convergences Acupoint.
And at the summit of one enormous pathway.
The Conception and Governing Vessels.
At the Hundred Convergences Acupoint.
Two beads collided.
BOOM.
It felt as though thunder had struck inside his skull.
“Hey, you bastard. Stay conscious!”
An Instructor’s voice.
Through Number 48’s barely opened eyes, he saw the Instructor carefully gripping a child’s head.
If anyone disturbed the child carelessly in this state, something irreversible could happen.
Whenever a child began performing the Red Heart Art, the Instructors became extraordinarily tense.
This was not something that could be solved with a beating.
At the very end of the acupoint pathways lay the Hundred Convergences Acupoint.
“Hundred” and “Convergences.”
A place where all myriad energies were said to gather.
It was different from the qi center.
The qi center was a field where what had been cultivated was gathered.
A place where energy was cultivated and accumulated.
The Hundred Convergences Acupoint was where energy reached its highest point before spreading throughout the body, as well as a passage through which one communed with the outside world.
When energy that began in the qi center traveled through the entire body and finally reached the Hundred Convergences Acupoint, only then could a human experience a spiritual awakening that transcended the physical body.
If the qi center determined the quantity of inner arts, then the Hundred Convergences Acupoint determined their quality.
“Can you hear me? If you can, send the energy downward. Now.”
There was a reason the Instructors shouted like that at the children.
The two beads had collided inside the Hundred Convergences Acupoint.
The colliding beads had to widen the pathways as they carved open a route, then return to their destination, the qi center.
But in many cases, the colliding energies tangled together and lost their way.
In severe cases, they even fought each other for territory.
“Damn it. I can’t even hit him at a time like this.”
This was one of the most dangerous moments.
Even touching the child could trigger qi deviation.
From this point onward, everything depended entirely on the child’s own ability.
“Ah… he’s fucked.”
The face of the child before the Instructor twisted grotesquely.
Soon, crimson fluid began pouring from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
His body began contorting unnaturally as well.
“Ughhhhh… Cough, cough, nghk….”
The child’s tongue curled backward and blocked his airway.
His body instinctively struggled to force it back out, but it was useless.
THUD.
The child collapsed limply.
Three out of ten children ended this way.
They failed to cross the barrier of the Hundred Convergences Acupoint and fell into qi deviation.
There was no chance of survival.
“Hey. Take him away and throw him out.”
One Instructor brought over a straw mat and rolled the corpse inside it.
The foot protruding from the mat was bending at a bizarre angle.
“Qi deviation…. You vicious bastard. He’s already dead, and you’re still twisting the body of the deceased?”
It was not merely vicious.
It was cruel.