TL/ED – Miso
Shin Ja-eon, Sect Master of the Severing Sword Sect, had seven direct disciples in all, and of those, four were still alive.
He held one firm conviction. Handed down from his own master.
'The year after reaching the stage of Exhaled Smoke and Cloud is the most important year of all!'
A teaching sharp as frost.
The training done in that period, he had been told, decided whether or not the road to First-rate was ever paved.
And indeed, Shin Ja-eon himself had come to be called First-rate through exactly that kind of training.
Not the sort who declared himself First-rate in some small provincial town.
The genuine article, the kind anyone would acknowledge as First-rate even out in the great cities.
Shin Ja-eon believed in the method he had learned with iron faith.So, my disciples.
Once you reach Exhaled Smoke and Cloud, cast yourselves aside for one year.
Devote yourselves to training and nothing else.
Never let the breath stop, all day long.
Every time you sit, you must circulate your qi.
Take up sword forms at every opportunity, tempering and settling every part of the body, until the whole of it comes as naturally as breathing.
Sleep no more than two hours a day, train without rest, and hold to it unchanged for a full year.
The first disciple, Seong Bu-myeong, the Great Severing Sword, was the first to inherit that teaching.
Shin Ja-eon had taught Seong Bu-myeong slowly and painstakingly from the age of eleven, and brought him to the Fire stage at fifteen.
The moment he reached the Fire stage, he fed him an elixir and, through qi guidance, laid the foundation of Body Refinement for him as well. It was dangerous, but doing it right after reaching the Fire stage was the safer time for it.
Of course, with truly rotten luck, master and disciple both could end up crippled, but with good luck it might end with nothing worse than internal injuries even then. A challenge well worth taking.
And so, at seventeen, Seong Bu-myeong finally reached Exhaled Smoke and Cloud. For a year, Shin Ja-eon drove him through brutal training. Seong Bu-myeong, the Great Severing Sword, endured it, and laid the foundation that would carry him toward First-rate.
Though he was judged to be about half a move behind Kang Mu-hyeok, the Refined Arts Young master, eldest of the Three Young masters of Refined Arts, Shin Ja-eon, Sect Master of the Severing Sword Sect, was more than satisfied with that alone.
After all, the martial learning of Yi Yu-baek, the Refined Arts Sword, had come from a Peak-rate master who had wandered the whole world.
There were even rumors that it carried on the profound teachings of an orthodox lineage, so if anything he felt a certain pride at having come within half a move of such martial learning.
Shin Ja-eon nodded to himself.
So there truly was nothing wrong in his master's teaching.
He taught the second disciple the same way.
The second disciple, Ha In-so, the Middle Severing Sword, managed it too.
Though there were those who judged him nearly half a move short of Seon Je-hun, the Gale Young master, second of the Three Young masters of Refined Arts, and though Ha In-so was two years older than Seon Je-hun at that, Shin Ja-eon was satisfied all the same.
By now he was certain.
That there was no better method than this.
That the teaching of the Severing Sword Sect was a great teaching, one that could hold its own within half a move of the profound teachings of an orthodox lineage.
The third disciple, eight months after reaching Exhaled Smoke and Cloud, dozed off for an instant during his dawn qi circulation, and died screaming as his organs burned.
The fourth disciple, only four months after reaching Exhaled Smoke and Cloud, tempered his spine too far by mistake during sword form practice, and died with his back snapped in two. That one, too, happened because he had nodded off for a moment.
"......."
Shin Ja-eon was thrown into confusion.
'Is the method wrong? Or was the luck simply bad?'
After burying his disciples, he could not sleep for a long time.
When he lay down to sleep he heard the third disciple's screams, and the face of the fourth disciple rose before him, folded at the waist, weeping, looking up at him.
What drove him mad was,
that even then, he could not give up the way of the Severing Sword Sect.
'Just once more.......'
The method that he himself, and his first disciple, and his second disciple had all succeeded with.
The fifth disciple.
Gi Hyeon-seung, the Lesser Severing Sword, did it.
He endured the year and laid the foundation toward First-rate, and was judged an even match for Mo Cheong, the Clear Wind Young master, youngest of the Three Young masters of Refined Arts.
Though he was three years older than Mo Cheong. At any rate, he was not outmatched.
'See? It really was just bad luck.'
Shin Ja-eon was relieved.
He taught the sixth disciple.
Who was also his only son.
His son was not granted a quick death.
In the eleventh month after reaching Exhaled Smoke and Cloud, something went wrong while he was circulating his qi.
He could not hold down the surging heat, and his son's nose and cheeks cooked and fused into a sticky ruin.
Unable to breathe properly, the martial arts he had learned came to nothing, and he could not even swallow porridge.
Shin Ja-eon told him he had to live anyway, soothed him, and boiled porridge for him with his own hands every day and fed it to him.
Two weeks later, his son cut his throat with a knife and died.
He left no last words.
"......."
Now Shin Ja-eon could not follow the old way any longer.
And so the seventh disciple reached Exhaled Smoke and Cloud.
Jeon Tae-gwang.
Shin Ja-eon taught him slowly, safely.
Jeon Tae-gwang became the Weak Severing Sword, the one said to be conspicuously feeble among the Four Severing Swords.
'So you think I'm shit too?'
The Weak Severing Sword, the Resentful Dog, no, Jeon Tae-gwang, felt his stomach churn.
'My Fire stage? You're picking apart my Fire stage? A punk who hasn't even been at martial arts a year?'
What flashed through his head were the faces of his senior brothers.
'Tae-gwang. You've got it easy, you know. Back in our day.......'
'Tae-gwang. Let's not rush it. That pace of yours is a good thing.'
'Hm. Not bad. It's not as if you had to get by on less than two hours of sleep a day like we did. For that, well, it's fine.'
His head was burning.
There was a raw, bloody smell in his nose.
'Me too. Fuck! You think I, fuck, you think I couldn't have done it?'
His senior brothers made him sick.
And he resented his master, who had even set watch on him to stop him whenever he tried to train harder on his own.
And then what in the world was this pale, washed-out little bastard in front of him?
His Fire stage?
What about his Fire stage?
'A punk who's barely trained half a year!'
Jeon Tae-gwang could tell.
Just from watching the way Yeon So-wol set his feet on the ground.
'A worm who hasn't even learned footwork!'
Jeon Tae-gwang's fury pooled in his fingertips.
He sprang as if flying, reaching to seize Yeon So-wol.
Whoosh!
Yeon So-wol leapt clear of him and up into the air. Breathing out white smoke. A nutty, fragrant scent spread faintly around him.
Jeon Tae-gwang snorted.
'Oh? You learned a lightfoot technique? You think that's going to do it? You? Against me?'
Genius or no genius.
The years they had spent training in martial arts were on entirely different scales.
Jeon Tae-gwang had begun at ten, so the gap was ten years at the very least.
At least for now, it was only natural that Jeon Tae-gwang should overwhelm him.
That was how things were supposed to be.
'Run him down right now......!'
Grab him. Slam him into the dirt. Stomp on that head. Stomp on that head. Stomp. Stomp until......!
"......Huh?"
Jeon Tae-gwang, in the middle of throwing his head back to look up, found himself stopping dead without meaning to.
"......What the hell?"
Flap-flap-flap-flap-flap!
A white overrobe streamed out long across the empty air.
Its trail passed the pillar, passed the bracket sets stacked on top of the pillar, and brushed the roof tiles.
Tap.
Yeon So-wol came to rest lightly on the ridge at the very top of the roof.
He clasped his hands behind his back and looked down.
"......."
That was a height Jeon Tae-gwang could not have reached in a single leap. Not a chance.
"What the hell. That bastard. Why's he flying?"
At the Mad Dog's dazed muttering, the Resentful Dog, Jeon Tae-gwang,
"FUUUUCK!"
lost his mind completely.
"What is actually wrong with that Fire stage?"
He watched the Xinxing Three Dogs racing after him down below.
They were quick and nimble.
But,
"Isn't it far too simple?"
That the Fire stage was rough, he could understand.
According to what he had learned from Yi Yu-baek, when heating the Eight Extraordinary Meridians one had to delicately burn away only the impurities inside them for a good fragrance to come out.
If a man failed at that, and even the faintest trace of essence blood got mixed in and burned along with it, the smell turned acrid.
But he had also been told it was a difficult thing to begin with.
Yeon So-wol himself only managed it because his Qi sense was so unusually developed, and taking into account how excellent the teaching of the Hall of Refined Arts was, a senior of the Severing Sword Sect giving off sharp, pungent smoke was understandable enough.
But still.
The Fire stage itself was a little shocking.
"Isn't that heat control at the level of just running it round and round along the Twelve Primary Meridians and the Fifteen Collateral Branches? It's not as if he's boiling instant noodles."
The lightfoot technique was too simple.
It had power and speed, but he never became light enough, and fine adjustment of his weight seemed entirely beyond him.
'Well. Not that it makes him weak, exactly.'
In any case, with him shoving off the ground so powerfully as he ran, it was a speed Yeon So-wol could not easily shake. The only difference was that their positions were split between roof and street, above and below.
Judged purely on fighting and running, it might even be the easier, more efficient approach.
But,
"Done that way, doesn't the subtlety of the lightfoot technique fall a long way short?"
All he could do was run fast. He could not leap high as if flying, could not glide on the wind. Could not surrender his body to the wind and drift.
Only then did Yeon So-wol understand. The meaning of what Kang Mu-hyeok had said to him that morning.
'......I think there's some sort of misunderstanding here. Well. He'll see for himself.'
"So that's what it was. The teaching of our Refined Arts Sect really was profound. And it seems I learned it the unusually hard way, on top of that."
Once he had thought that far, his interest cooled.
The Resentful Dog.
'Right now, I'd lose.'
If they fought one on one without the power of the Star of Thousand Deaths.
But with a Fire stage like that, the gap would not last long.
'Once I start learning a fist and kick art or swordsmanship too.......'
Yeon So-wol spared a glance for the Xinxing Three Dogs, running after him and shouting all the while.
The sight of them tearing along and doing harm to the people in the street only made him frown.
"Let's pick up the pace."
FWOOOOSH!
Through the Twelve Primary Meridians and the Twelve Divergent Meridians, the Fifteen Collateral Branches, and on into the net-like collateral vessels.
Setting a different flame in each, he drew the Soaring Wind Drift up with all his strength.
The bones and flesh of his whole body tempered clear, hovering on the verge of turning into essence qi.
Tah!
Yeon So-wol flew. From one roof, over a second, and on to the one after that.
Flap-flap-flap-flap-flap!
At the Third Stage one may await the wind and fly.
At the Fifth Stage one stands in no peril.
Yeon So-wol felt the wind streaming over his body.
The sky was a place with nothing to lean on.
There was no cocking a hip and resting on one leg,
no lying flat,
only the oncoming wind,
only its caprice, changing moment to moment, to be answered with nothing but his own body.
Heavy here.
Light there.
Just as he had practiced fending off Kang Mu-hyeok's hands in midair.
The longer he could trade blows with the wind without giving ground, the longer he could stay in the sky.
All at once, snow began to fall.
It was the third month.
The toe of Yeon So-wol's shoe brushed a tiled roof dotted with fallen snowflakes and pushed off,
"This is good."
and a laugh forced its way out past his lips.
Tak!
He did not look back again.
He did not care in the slightest who might be chasing him along the street below.
What filled his eyes now was the bird's-eye view of Xinxing County, black tiled roofs rolling on and on, and the white snowflakes that had begun to fall over them.
He sank into the moment.
As though his heart were about to reach its utmost once more.
He soared up, light as a wisp.
The wind changed its scent.
From bland and thin to sharp and taut.
Snowflakes fluttered up into the sky and vanished beyond sight.
The world grew larger and smaller,
but the white sky never changed at all.
"......."
He lost his words.
Only within his heart,
this world was being defined anew.
For one who walked the earth, the world was all those streets and buildings and busy faces,
but for one who flew the sky, there were only footholds and sky, just those two.
Once a man had flown,
the world reflected in his heart would never again be what it was.
"......."
And so,
as Yeon So-wol drifted away like a wisp, the Resentful Dog chased after him with bloodshot eyes.
"Eh. Don't think this is happening."
The Laughing Dog quietly gave up.
"Hey. It's blown. We can't manage this on our own. I'll shake loose some silver and call the boys in."
The Mad Dog ground his teeth and disappeared into the back alleys.
The Resentful Dog, whether they vanished or not, ran with his eyes fixed on nothing but Yeon So-wol's receding back.
Where Yeon So-wol leapt over a building, he ran around it, stamped off walls to fling himself upward, and clung to the chase with grim tenacity.
"......Don't laugh. Stop laughing. Am I. Am I that funny? Huh? What. What did I ever do so wrong? Huh?!"
Eyes glistening, cheeks and eyes twisted out of shape, he ran after Yeon So-wol to the very end.
'He's relentless.'
Yeon So-wol, who had been running for a long while lost in the rapture of it, began to tire.
The flames were cooling.
The writhing of the Eight Extraordinary Meridians weakened, and the Fire stage that had been tempering his whole body grew shallower and shallower.
Tap! Taaak!
And yet the Resentful Dog was still chasing him.
Of course, given the inner energy he had built up, it was only natural that the Resentful Dog should overwhelm Yeon So-wol in endurance, but the way he kept finding his bearings and coming after him again even after being clearly shaken off was decidedly strange.
'......Those.'
Just then a certain sight caught Yeon So-wol's eye.
Ruffians running through the streets and throwing their weight around.
If they decided anyone was in their way, they shoved the person aside with all their strength, toppled stacked goods, and sprang up off the stalls of vendors doing business.
Whenever they spotted Yeon So-wol, they pointed at him and whistled.
He was dumbfounded.
'Even the Black Path from the back alleys is hunting me now?'
Was this really worth going that far over?
'The Resentful Dog saw them and used them to track me? But. Shaking all of them off might be hard.......'
It did not look impossible if he put his mind to it, but the thought of how much more havoc those wretches would wreak in the streets in the meantime left him feeling faintly sick.
'I'll just dodge them for a while and slip back once things quiet down.'
As it happened, he spotted a four-story pavilion.
Quite an ornate one.
'A high-class inn? Bet the food's good, too.'
Yeon So-wol jumped high, out of the Black Path thugs' line of sight. He came down on the third-floor railing.
"......I'm exhausted. Worn out. Let's eat something and rest."
He slid the door open.
With a sigh, he stepped a few paces inside.
"Who are you?"
He jumped in shock.
"Ah."
Five beautiful women with wide, round eyes were watching Yeon So-wol warily.
The smell of face powder washed over him.
Attire that was gorgeous and somehow less than modest.
A boisterous din carrying from beyond the room.
Coy, simpering voices.
Yeon So-wol grasped the situation.
'Not an inn, a pleasure house!'
The kind of place where courtesans sold men liquor and other things besides!
'Which means. These ladies are courtesans too......!'
His face flushed hot.
"S-sorry to intrude!"
Yeon So-wol reached hurriedly for the door he had come in by, and,
Slip.
a blade came to rest just beneath his Adam's apple.
"......Huh?"
He could not see the person holding the knife.
He could not even see the hand holding it.
Every time he tried to turn his eyes, the cold blade bit into his skin. A warm drop of blood slid down his neck to his chest.
Yeon So-wol reflexively triggered the power of the Star of Thousand Deaths. But he could not sever so much as a thread.
The unseen enemy was not touching him.
Without contact, there was nothing to sever.
The stark limit of the Star of Thousand Deaths' power.
Never mind touch,
he could feel nothing at all. Nothing.
As if a knife were simply floating there of its own accord, aimed at his throat.
Just as cold sweat soaked his back,
"Eun-yeong! Stop! That's Young master Yeon! Great hero Yi Yu-baek's adopted son."
came a voice from behind him.
"Mm. Older sister Cho-ran."
Shhk.
The blade biting into his neck withdrew like something out of a dream.
Only then did he sense a presence. Until an instant ago he had heard nothing at all, not a footstep, not a rustle of cloth, not one sound.
Not even a scent.
A sixth beauty, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, walked over with light, dainty steps and an expressionless face, and sat down in a chair.
The courtesan called Cho-ran offered an apology to the rigidly frozen Yeon So-wol.
"We gave you a fright, didn't we, Young master? I'm sorry. I'm Cho-ran, and this is Eun-yeong. I took her in a few years ago and we've lived together since. She's a girl with a bit of a past, so she gets on edge sometimes. She doesn't do it out of any ill will, so please forgive her."
Forgiveness or not.
Yeon So-wol was so weak with relief at still being alive that his legs nearly gave out under him.
"Here, have some tea."
Cho-ran led Yeon So-wol to a chair and sat him down while the other courtesans bustled about preparing drinks.
They chattered about how handsome he was and how he really was the Elegant Young master after all, that Young hero, but not a word of it reached Yeon So-wol's ears.
Every nerve in him was busy taking the measure of the woman called Eun-yeong.
"Haa......."
She had surely used her inner energy some while ago, yet only now was she letting out white smoke.
The faint, spreading smell of charcoal.
'What kind of Fire stage is.......'
He could not make out the details, but it seemed certain, at least, that this courtesan's Fire stage ran deeper than the Resentful Dog's.
Yeon So-wol felt something alien about her that he could not explain.
As though she were unlike any martial artist he had met until now. Different from the very root.
As Yeon So-wol, unable to relax, only fiddled with the cup of tea in front of him,
Cho-ran asked,
"So, Young master Yeon. What brings you to the Azure Cloud Pavilion?"
'Azure Cloud Pavilion?'
Why did the name sound familiar?
He turned it over in his mind.
And belatedly, gooseflesh prickled up all over his body.
'The Azure Cloud Pavilion!'
Three.
Never cause a disturbance in the Azure Cloud Pavilion. If by some mistake you earn the grudge of a server or one of the courtesans, you must apologize without fail and make suitable amends.
If you fail to do so, then from the moment you step out of the pleasure house you must never be alone.
Be sure to keep to a group, do not sleep, and stay awake through the night with friends or family.
The moment the next day breaks, return to the Azure Cloud Pavilion, apologize, make amends, and settle the grudge.