The Namgung Clan was a truly peculiar place.
To them, respect applied only to the strong.
Why did they do that?
For the prestige of the clan itself.
An unqualified person going out into the rivers and lakes and diminishing the standing of the Namgung Clan.
They considered that far more disgraceful than being insulted within the clan itself.
That was why it had transformed into a place where only the strong were respected.
‘They’ll realize before long that it isn’t the answer. But for now, it’s actually better this way.’
Namgung Yeon opened his eyes and thought.
On the road ahead, there must be no one who got in his way.
For that, he needed the Namgung Clan’s family custom of unquestioningly looking up to the strong.
“Huuu......”
When he let out a deep breath, the pungent smell of impurities poured out.
The Heavenly Talent Spirit Pill.
Its effects were certainly outstanding.
‘It’ll take around three to five years until it’s absorbed.’
It took time for talent to bloom.
They called it a great vessel maturing late.
A great vessel took time to complete, in proportion to its size.
That was one of the truths that had never changed throughout his countless repeated lives.
However, Namgung Yeon could now reduce his mistakes in the process of shaping that vessel.
That was why he would be able to climb faster than others, and to a higher place.
He tried moving his body.
‘At this level......’
He could picture how far he could move.
He could picture how far he could unfold his martial arts.
He took out something else from the Infinite Storehouse.
It was a pill that would awaken five attributes.
[Five-Colored Draught Pill].
It was a secret martial art of the Namgung Clan, and a peerless divine art.
Furthermore, in order to reach the highest realm, there was one task he absolutely had to address.
That was awakening the dead organs.
It was a tedious but unavoidable process.
He intended to follow the prescribed path like a machine.
It was the optimized path he had found through repeated failures.
The beginning of it was rather dull.
“Is anyone there?”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“Let no one in for the time being.”
“......Yes.”
It was a short order, but its meaning was conveyed.
In a few days, hundreds of people surnamed Namgung would gather.
Or perhaps even those who shared the bloodline despite not bearing the Namgung Clan’s surname would come.
They would come to take a place for themselves, or to seize key positions within the clan.
Some would also challenge for the position of Young Clan Head, to rule this vast kingdom.
Namgung Yeon quietly closed his eyes.
<Please save me, please.......>
<You people are Namgung! You strutted around acting so great, so why can’t you do anything?! Why!>
The resentment of countless people rose in his mind.
The sight of the same people dying in different ways was drawn vividly before him.
He had thought he had killed his emotions so completely, so why had they only come back now, at the very end?
Namgung Yeon swallowed the Five-Colored Draught Pill and crossed his legs in a seated position once more.
Twitch-.
His internal organs, whose functions had died and which had barely moved, began to stir little by little.
‘This time, things won’t go the way you bastards want.’
This time, he would not be the only one to grow stronger.
Invaders, prepare yourselves.
Strengthening his resolve, Namgung Yeon slowly breathed.
Deeply, and very slowly.
***
When he opened his eyes, it was a pitch-dark night.
Perhaps no one had truly come, for his surroundings were utterly quiet.
Namgung Yeon smoothly rose from his seat.
Originally, this body had suffered from a severe case of severed meridians.
Severed meridians meant that the fine meridians throughout the body were not connected smoothly.
In other words, internal energy could not be circulated freely.
‘And I solved that with the Heavenly Talent Spirit Pill.’
How was it now?
He possessed fine meridians stronger than anyone else’s.
It had happened in only half a day.
Merely breathing caused the natural energy dissolved in the air to begin entering him.
In addition.
His feeble innate true energy began to swell.
It was truly an extremely slow Bone Cleansing and Marrow Transformation.
The change had already begun, and he would reach it far faster than in the previous round, when he had used nothing.
“Hmm...... Now I need a proper place to train.”
Should he request one from his mother and father?
Namgung Yeon slowly stepped outside his quarters.
Rattle.
The door opened, but surprisingly, no one reacted.
The maidservant waiting in front of the door merely lowered her head, showing no reaction at all.
To say it again, the Namgung Clan was a small kingdom governed by the logic of power.
And here, Namgung Yeon himself was the weakest.
‘This was how it was back then.’
It felt awkward each time he began a round, but also somewhat welcome.
The way their gazes changed had given him a sense of purpose for living day by day.
Had he not even done that, he might have gone strange long ago.
‘Can I save them this time?’
This time, he had to save them.
This was how he had endured the thirty rounds after his first regression.
Though all the results had been failures.
“I must go see the clan head.”
“I will guide you.”
His personal maidservant seemed briefly surprised, but soon asked nothing.
Namgung Yeon might not yet be respected, but he was not in a position where he could be ignored.
So long as his father was the clan head, he had to be given the necessary respect.
The maidservant’s steps made no sound.
To some, she might merely appear to be a woman who attended on him, but here in the Namgung Clan, she was someone with an excellent level of martial arts.
Then something astonishing happened.
‘Is he following properly?’
The maidservant suddenly felt a sense of wrongness.
She could not hear the sound of Young Master Namgung Yeon’s footsteps, which had always followed behind her.
Before she realized it, she stopped walking and looked back.
“......”
“Why?”
“Ah, it is nothing. I will continue guiding you.”
When she turned her head, she was rendered speechless for a moment.
Young Master Namgung Yeon was definitely standing behind her.
He had been following while maintaining a distance at which, if he stepped just one step closer, she would allow a fatal wound.
Goosebumps rose over her skin.
Had he been an enemy, her heart would have been pierced from behind, and she would have died.
That was how dangerous the gap between them was.
Naturally, her footsteps quickened.
“Walk slowly.”
“......Yes.”
Even that was stopped by Namgung Yeon.
In the end, she had no choice but to proceed to the Clan Head Hall while trembling helplessly with tension.
[Azure Dragon Hall] .
It was the place where the foremost figure of the Namgung Clan resided, and a lofty hall to which only the finest martial artists belonged.
The weakest person in the Namgung Clan, the one no one cared about, had come here.
Namgung Yeon, whose body had been so weak that he had rarely even risen.
He had come to spend the money of this vast kingdom.
***
“Clan Head, Young Master Namgung Yeon has arrived.”
“Yeon has?”
“Yes. He is waiting outside. What shall I do?”
“Tell him to enter.”
The clan head, Namgung Mu, was startled.
It was curiosity in the purest sense.
Why had that frail child......?
He was a child who had not once come out of the annex after they realized he suffered from severed meridians.
He was a child so reclusive that even the elders, and even his own siblings, had forgotten his face.
Only his mother, Namgung Soyeon, had shown him any concern.
As he pondered, a voice was heard.
“Clan Head, it is Yeon.”
“Enter.”
How long had it been since he had heard the child’s voice?
For an instant, Namgung Mu felt a strange emotion.
A father’s affection.
And his position as clan head.
His emotions began to waver between those two things.
He would know what manner of face to wear when receiving the child once he saw Yeon’s eyes.
The door opened, and a still-small child entered.
A small, slight child.
However, after seeing his son’s eyes, Namgung Mu spoke bluntly.
“Well, what is it?”
It was something that happened before he knew it.
Why?
Because the child’s gaze was so calm and firm that it was like looking at an accomplished martial artist.
Namgung Yeon looked at his father’s face.
‘He’s young.’
Throughout ever-changing history, his end had always been the same.
The words he spoke at the very end had always been the same as well.
He was a man who had simply lived for the sake of the Namgung Clan and the entire murim.
That was the current clan head of the Namgung Clan, Namgung Mu.
Namgung Yeon spoke while looking at him.
Now, it was time to spend the money he had been unable to spend until now.
“I need a private training ground, Clan Head.”
“......What?”
A training ground?
And a private training ground at that?
“I need a training ground outside the clan, not within it.”
“You appear out of nowhere and speak of nothing but grasping at clouds.”
“Isn’t the Young Clan Head Competition about to begin soon?”
Namgung Yeon knew every part of the schedule.
That was why he could calmly say that the Young Clan Head Competition was about to begin.
Namgung Mu’s eyebrow twitched once.
So even if the child had not left his bed for all those years, he had at least grasped what was happening in the household.
“Still, you have not lived with your ears entirely shut to the clan’s affairs. So, what is your reason?”
Why was he asking for a training ground outside the clan?
If the reason did not convince him, he intended to send him straight back to his quarters.
Namgung Yeon’s reason was simple.
“I intend to begin martial arts training soon, away from the elders’ eyes.”
“......”
Namgung Mu shut his mouth in pure surprise.
A child suffering from severed meridians was going to train in martial arts?
That was impossible.
He spoke in a voice that made him seem deliberately angry.
“Do you even know how absurd the words you are speaking are? If you are going to talk nonsense, return to your quarters at once. Your father is a busy man.”
Go back at once.
Namgung Mu’s words were cold and heavy.
It was an atmosphere in which an ordinary child would have shrunk back completely.
However, Namgung Yeon calmly opened his mouth.
He did not so much as blink beneath the pressure of none other than Namgung Mu, the man called the Martial God.
Namgung Mu was even more astonished.
“My severed meridians have healed. However, I would like only you to know this, Clan Head. At least until the Young Clan Head Competition begins.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
Could a condition like severed meridians be healed so easily?
Namgung Mu grasped the wrist Namgung Yeon smoothly extended.
He pushed true energy into him and checked his son’s condition.
In such a vast clan, people were wealth and power.
Only when there was even one powerful martial artist could the name Namgung be made known throughout the world.
If his son’s words were true......
‘It is true. All his energy meridians are connected. And how can they possibly be this sturdy?’
Could it be that the reason he had been lying in bed all this time was......
He asked with his eyes.
Namgung Yeon neither denied nor confirmed it.
He would judge it however he pleased.
“I need a training ground.”
“......”
He had proved it, so let’s spend some money.
Give me some pocket money, please.