The Woo Sword Vies for Supremacy
Baek Ho-yang and the boy were staying in an abandoned Guan Di shrine.
Left neglected for so long, the shrine was not merely run-down but outright eerie. The walls were half-crumbled, and gaping holes in the ceiling let wind and rain pour through unchecked.
Had both of them been in sound health, they would have left this place long ago. But unfortunately, neither Baek Ho-yang nor the boy was in good condition. So they decided to remain at the shrine for a few more days.
Baek Ho-yang gathered branches from nearby and built a fire.
The boy spoke with a contrite expression.
"I am sorry. That should be my task......"
"Never mind that. Now is not the time to move about—it is time to rest and recover. Later, you will not be able to rest even if you want to."
"Yes!"
"You must be hungry, so eat this."
Baek Ho-yang drew a small pill from inside his robe and offered it to the boy.
"What is it?"
"A fasting pill."
"A fasting pill?"
"It is made from a mixture of various grains and medicinal herbs. It has no flavor, but it should at least take the edge off your hunger."
"Thank you."
The boy carefully placed the fasting pill in his mouth.
The fasting pill, crafted according to the Quanzhen Sect's secret formulations, was remarkable in that it had absolutely no taste at all.
It would have been better if it were bitter or sour—but with no flavor whatsoever, chewing it felt like grinding sand between his teeth.
Even so, the boy ate the fasting pill without so much as a grimace, chewing it thoroughly.
His mouth was already bone-dry from the lack of water, and the utterly dry fasting pill made his throat seize up.
The boy glanced at Baek Ho-yang.
Baek Ho-yang had to be just as thirsty, yet he chewed and swallowed his fasting pill without the slightest displeasure on his face.
The sight of him eating in silence looked almost reverent.
'What on earth could that man's true identity be?'
The boy was a martial artist himself.
His family had frequent dealings with martial artists. Because of that, he had seen quite a number of them. But none of the martial artists the boy had ever seen were as enigmatic as Baek Ho-yang.
He wore a blood-stained, threadbare Daoist robe, yet an air of lofty, unapproachable dignity radiated from Baek Ho-yang's entire being.
No one who carried such an aura could possibly be ordinary.
The fasting pill he had taken was equally extraordinary.
The instant he finished swallowing the fasting pill, his hunger vanished as if by magic.
He had never heard of a fasting pill whose effects took hold so instantly.
Most fasting pills were difficult to digest, leaving only a bloated feeling without truly banishing hunger.
Just then, Baek Ho-yang spoke.
"Could you stomach it?"
"Yes! The hunger has passed."
"Good. Then let us talk about ourselves. We will be traveling together from now on, so we should know something about each other, should we not?"
"Then allow me to speak first."
"Go ahead."
"Have you heard of Woo Manor?"
"I am afraid not. I have not been in the martial world for long, so my knowledge is rather limited."
When Baek Ho-yang made an apologetic expression, the boy quickly shook his head.
"Not at all. Woo Manor is quite remote, so it would not be unusual for you not to have heard of it."
"So you hail from Woo Manor?"
"Yes! Great Hero Woo Jang-myeong, lord of Woo Manor, is my father. I am Woo Geom-san, the third son of Great Hero Woo Jang-myeong."
"Geom-san? A fine name."
"Thank you."
"I shall call you Geom-san from now on. And you may call me Master—no, Grandfather."
"Grandfather?"
"Why, does that displease you?"
"No. I like it very much."
Woo Geom-san answered hastily.
For some reason, "Grandfather" felt far warmer than the distant-sounding "Master."
Baek Ho-yang asked.
"If your family owns a manor, they must be no ordinary household. How did you come to encounter river pirates all alone?"
"There were circumstances I could not avoid."
"Can you tell me?"
"I will explain from the beginning. Our Woo Manor is a great household built upon shipping rights."
"What are shipping rights?"
"They are the rights to transport goods and people via the Yangtze River, the Yellow River, the Huai River, and the Grand Canal."
"Such rights exist in this world?"
Baek Ho-yang wore an expression of genuine surprise at this entirely unknown concept.
"You might not know of them if you have had no occasion to take interest. Long ago, when the damage caused by river pirates grew severe, the sects based along the great rivers united their strength and eradicated them. Having secured safe waterways, those sects claimed rights over the rivers passing through their respective territories. That was the beginning of shipping rights."
"Well! Such a right exists in this world—is that not sheer audacity? And the other sects simply stood by?"
"Of course they didn't just stand by. They protested, fought, and tried to seize those rights. But the sects that had claimed shipping rights defended what they asserted with force."
The concept of shipping rights had emerged a full hundred years ago.
The sects that first asserted shipping rights naturally faced countless challenges. But they beat back every one of them by force and established shipping rights as a recognized institution.
Even those who had initially opposed the idea gradually came to accept their rights as time passed.
And so a right that had never existed before—shipping rights—was born into the world.
The seven factions that held shipping rights were known as the Seven Great Water Gates. Originally split among dozens of groups, they had been consolidated into seven over the course of time.
Woo Manor was one of the Seven Great Water Gates that held shipping rights.
Though incompetent descendants had caused the family's influence to shrink considerably over the past century, they had held firm to their shipping rights and staged a comeback.
"The problem is that a faction appeared that coveted Woo Manor's shipping rights. They are a sect called the Distant Cloud Faction."
The Distant Cloud Faction was a sect based south of the Yangtze River.
Possessing its own merchant fleet, the Distant Cloud Faction had expanded at a frightening pace and eventually set its sights on shipping rights.
The territory they had their eyes on was precisely the region where Woo Manor was located.
Woo Manor sat at the junction where the Yangtze River and the Grand Canal crossed—a prime piece of territory.
If the Distant Cloud Faction could obtain Woo Manor's shipping rights, their power would multiply several times over in an instant.
The Distant Cloud Faction approached Woo Manor with designs on their shipping rights.
"The Distant Cloud Faction's leader proposed to unite our families through blood by marrying his third son, Woon Tae-ho, to my younger sister."
"A conventional approach."
"Yes! The problem is that Woon Tae-ho is a piece of garbage worse than a dog and a notorious womanizer, and my younger sister So-ha is only thirteen years old."
The age gap between the two alone was double.
Under normal circumstances, such a marriage should never have been permitted.
Yet for some reason, Woo Jang-myeong did not give a definitive answer, and because of this, Woon Tae-ho clung to the idea and continued to press for the marriage.
Woo Jang-myeong's ambiguous stance put Woo Manor in a deeply difficult position.
Unable to stand by any longer, Woo Geom-san stepped forward.
He formally challenged Woon Tae-ho to a duel over his unwanted advances toward his sister.
They say a tiger father sires no dog sons, but Woon Tae-ho was a man of no account aside from his good looks and was no match for Woo Geom-san.
Woon Tae-ho, who had looked down on Woo Geom-san for his youth, had his face beaten to a pulp. Utterly humiliated, he fled back to the Distant Cloud Faction.
"The problem was the aftermath. If I stayed at Woo Manor, they would obviously keep using me as a pretext to stir up trouble. So I left Woo Manor."
"What! You left of your own accord?"
"More accurately, I ran away in the dead of night. I just never expected to run into river pirates along the way."
"It seems no faction holds shipping rights over this area. Seeing how the river pirates run rampant here."
"How could a mere seven factions manage every river and canal? It is only natural that their reach does not extend to remote places like this."
"I see."
Baek Ho-yang nodded.
Woo Geom-san's story was so fascinating that he found himself enjoying every word.
The concept of shipping rights and the factions called the Seven Great Water Gates were all things he was hearing for the first time.
To think the world had been changing this rapidly while he had buried himself away in the mountains—it made him feel like a frog at the bottom of a well.
Then a thought struck him.
"Could the river pirates you encountered have been......?"
"Yes! They seemed to be men hired by the Distant Cloud Faction. Judging by how viciously they treated me in particular......"
"You sound quite certain."
"Yes!"
Woo Geom-san answered without a trace of hesitation.
Ordinary river pirates would never have specifically targeted his right hand and qi center to destroy them.
Not unless someone had put them up to it.
Woo Geom-san believed the ones behind it were the Distant Cloud Faction.
"Do you have no thought of returning to Woo Manor now?"
"If I go back, they will keep using my presence as leverage to escalate things."
"Hmm......"
"For now, my absence is better for Woo Manor."
The answer was astonishingly composed for a fifteen-year-old boy.
Baek Ho-yang asked carefully.
"If you do not go now, there is no telling when you will be able to return. Even so, will you come with me?"
"I would only regret it if I went back now."
"Your resolve is firm."
"Yes!"
Woo Geom-san answered briefly.
From the moment he left Woo Manor on his own two feet, he had no intention of going back.
He knew that his very existence was not a help to Woo Manor, but only a burden.
He was not without perception.
He understood better than anyone just how great a burden his actions—taken to protect his sister—had placed upon Woo Manor.
From the moment he stood up and fought Woon Tae-ho, who had dared push a political marriage on his sister, there was nowhere left for him to return.
Baek Ho-yang said.
"If that is your resolve, then you may come with me."
"Where are we going?"
"It is difficult to explain in words. You will understand naturally once we arrive."
"Understood."
"For now, let us stay here a few more days and tend to your wounds. We have a long road ahead, so recovering your health and strength comes first."
"Yes!"
Woo Geom-san's face was already showing clear signs of fatigue.
Explaining so much while still unrecovered had drained every last drop of his energy.
Baek Ho-yang had him lie down.
"Lie near the fire and sleep."
"I am fine. I can still hold on."
"I appreciate the sentiment, but now is the time to rest. I am not going anywhere—I will be right here beside you, so close your eyes for a while."
"Then I will just shut my eyes for a moment."
Woo Geom-san closed his eyes intending to rest only briefly. But before he knew it, he had sunk into a deep sleep.
Baek Ho-yang quietly gazed at the face of the deeply sleeping Woo Geom-san.
It was an ordinary-looking face.
Had he not looked directly into the boy's eyes and spoken with him, he would never have recognized that Woo Geom-san possessed a Vessel of the Dao.
"I have taken him in, but I wonder whether I can raise this child properly."
Raising disciples, too, was something best done by those with experience.
The Nine Great Sects had flourished precisely because they excelled at nurturing their disciples.
Over centuries, they had researched and refined methods for efficiently educating their students.
The systems they built were so effective that even disciples of lesser talent could be molded into capable martial artists.
Occasionally, a martial artist who astonished the world would emerge and revitalize the sect.
Generation after generation, their systems had grown more robust, and their expertise in raising disciples had deepened further.
The Quanzhen Sect, by contrast, had never developed such a system, and so it had declined with each passing generation.
To teach the disciple he had found with such difficulty, Baek Ho-yang had much to ponder.
He was a remarkable martial artist, but teaching someone was something he had never done.
A novice master had many things to worry about.
Gazing at the sleeping face of Woo Geom-san, Baek Ho-yang fell into deep deliberation.