"Hmm, the clan's history...... records of dead bastards, no need to know those, and mechanisms and formations I hardly......."
Having entered the Myriad Books Pavilion, Jaegal Mun-hyeon glanced only at the classification labels marked on the shelves and swept quickly past.
To others every one of them would be a book of precious value, but his interest lay in exactly one thing.
"Ah! Here it is."
The furthest corner of the first-floor stacks.
A place thick with dust, with not even a lamp set out, since people's steps reached only as far as the shelf before it.
Jaegal Mun-hyeon smiled at the bookcase, markedly smaller than the others and holding only a few volumes.
The Martial Tome Shelf.
"So-hye."
"Yes, Young Master."
"Bring a lamp over here."
"Pardon? You mean to read there, with a desk available?"
"Mm."
At Jaegal Mun-hyeon's answer So-hye came pattering over, hung the lamp to light the area brightly, and then started in alarm.
"Oh! Young Master, there is far too much dust!"
"There is, yes."
"Oh dear, this will not do. Step aside, please."
"Hm?"
"If the dust should harm your chest, I am the one who gets scolded."
"S-So-hye. There is no need to go that far......."
"It is a very important matter to me. I am the one who looks after your health, Young Master. Do you mean to get me scolded by my lady for nothing?"
So-hye pushed Jaegal Mun-hyeon aside after all and set about cleaning away the dust.
There were people whose task it was to keep the library.......
And he had never once seen his loving mother scold So-hye.
She simply did not like him sitting in a filthy spot and used his mother as an excuse.
Because she knew that was the way to keep him from being stubborn.
'Honestly, this girl is relentless too.'
Stepping back, Jaegal Mun-hyeon let out a short laugh.
He had never seen anyone who was not family look after him like this.
"But do they not even clean the Myriad Books Pavilion? Precious books, they say, and they left them until the dust piled up like this."
"Indeed."
"What kind of book is it, anyway?"
So-hye tilted her head, curious.
She could not read.
Which was fortunate.
Even if Father or Mother asked, all she could say was that he had read a book.
And if they asked him?
He need only recite the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind, the Analects, the Mencius and the rest in order.
It was not that he had not known them until now. He simply had not done it.
Above all, if Father, who wished him to excel in scholarship, learned that he was practicing martial arts, he might not permit him into the Myriad Books Pavilion.
"Are you done cleaning?"
"Ah, yes! You may sit now."
"Mm. Thank you."
"It is nothing."
At Jaegal Mun-hyeon's words So-hye grinned and stepped back.
The thanks seemed to have pleased her.
It was hardly the first or second time.
Come to think of it, in the past he had hardly ever said thank you to anyone.
He had never particularly received help, nor expected it.
But now it came easily.
Remembering vividly from the very moment of his birth, he knew how much help his parents, and So-hye, had given him.
Perhaps his parents in his past life had been the same?
They must have borne him and raised him.......
He did not know by what road he had come to the Demonic Cult, but since he had been alive until then, perhaps he had received a great deal of help.
It would have been good to remember it as he did now.
'I have gone and turned sentimental.'
That too was one of the changes his new life had brought.
The thing called emotion.
In his former life there had been nothing much to call emotion.
Was the Demonic Cult not a place where everyone was as good as an enemy?
Survival. In childhood he thought of nothing else, and after that only of beating the strong and growing stronger, so there was not even a gap in which to feel.
'Somehow it feels like learning life over again.'
Feeling another's emotion on his own account was not so bad.
It felt like drawing a little closer to someone in heart.
In seven short years of life he was learning a great many things he had never known.
"Phew."
Leaving idle thoughts behind, Jaegal Mun-hyeon drew out a book and opened it.
The Lesser Heavenly Star Art.
It was a martial arts manual shelved together with its sister works, the Lesser Heavenly Star Palm and the Lesser Heavenly Star Sword Method.
"Basic martial arts or not, they named these far too carelessly."
With a short laugh, Jaegal Mun-hyeon turned the cover.
Beginner's level or not, this was something.
Above all, there was another reason he had to practice the Jaegal Clan's martial arts rather than demonic arts.
Ascension.
For now he would have to live as a martial artist of the Jaegal Clan, but someday he might climb the realms again and look beyond them.
For that day's sake alone, demonic arts were a poor choice.
Demonic arts were by nature focused solely on growing strong, and so showed very rapid attainment.
But because of that, a distinctive energy called demonic qi built up inside the body like sediment, and it acted as a great obstacle at the time of Ascension.
Thus, to achieve the Spirit Body, the state in which Ascension becomes possible, one had to pass through one more stage, and that was the Return to Purity.
Making the energy held by the spirit into its purest state.
"That took the longest."
When he trained in the Supreme Ultimate Cave, he had devoted the most time to that part.
Why tread the wrong road again?
This was a newly gained life.
Becoming as strong as in his past life would be perfectly possible with the Jaegal's martial arts. So he would fasten the first button with the Jaegal's orthodox-lineage arts.
"Let us see, hmm......."
Was it because it had truly been so long since he had seen a martial tome?
Knowing it was a beginner's book, he was still drawn into its contents at once.
Perhaps because of the experience piled up in his memory and the knowledge from probing martial learning, he understood every line as he read it, though no one explained it and there was no separate commentary (an explanatory text).
And the contents were quite interesting.
Little wonder, since reading another clan's martial tome had been an uncommon experience even in his past life. It was full of things a duel alone could not teach.
It happened at some moment while he was pouring his heart into contemplating the contents, character by character.
'Hm?'
Some well-aged old man was looking at him with a satisfied expression.
A blurred shape.
'True intent.......'
Such cases existed.
When one's concentration is maximized without one realizing it, and one enters no-self and draws near the thought held within a book, it appears as if one were drunk on a daze, as though to teach the author's thinking at the time of creation.
Had it been his first time, his eyes would have gone round with shock!
But not me.
I had already experienced it several times in my past life.
An illusion created by the one who seeks the meaning.
The old man was a phantom.
Everything asked and answered through the heart was, in the end, asking and answering oneself.
And yet it was rare for a true intent to appear in a form.
'The Lesser Heavenly Star Art....... This is better than I expected.'
Turning the pages and contemplating the lines, he held a conversation of the heart with him.
The old man spoke, and Jaegal Mun-hyeon listened closely.
And So-hye, holding her breath so as not to disturb him as she watched, was simply content.
In the quiet stacks only the sound of turning pages could be heard.
'He really is amazing. His concentration is enormous. Who on earth would take him for seven?'
Lately, whenever she gathered with maidservants from the other pavilions, there was much talk about Jaegal Mun-hyeon.
That he had been a shooting star that glittered for a moment, that the performer's blood had devoured the Jaegal blood.
'Damned creatures, with no idea how clever our Young Master is. Honestly, where is there a seven-year-old who states his thoughts that clearly and speaks that logically? And that is not all. What about his thoughtfulness? It is creatures who know nothing yapping away.'
Whatever anyone said, So-hye was simply proud of serving him.
Perhaps that was why she would seize by the hair any maidservant she caught muttering ill of Jaegal Mun-hyeon.
'Let them blather thoughtlessly one more time. I will pull every hair out of their heads.'
Firming that secret vow, So-hye waited for Jaegal Mun-hyeon to finish reading.
How much time had passed?
GURGLE.
Her belly was in an uproar.
Since the business of eating and living mattered more to her than anything in the world, she was relatively good at keeping to mealtimes.
Lunch would be due soon.
She glanced over, and Jaegal Mun-hyeon was still sunk in the book.
'He must be hungry.......'
She ought to tell him the time, but she did not want to disturb his concentration, so So-hye slipped quietly out of the stacks.
And when a good while longer had passed.
"Phew, I have finally read it all."
Jaegal Mun-hyeon, who had been so absorbed that he would not have noticed if someone died beside him, closed the book with a look of relief.
A star-point first takes light, the Silver River runs hidden.
The heavenly stars resonate, the bright sky a blazing star.
In the dark night sky a single star wakes and mingles among the countless stars of the Silver River, but in time it reveals itself and resonates, and so becomes at last a star that lights the heavens.
The Lesser Heavenly Star Art.
It was martial learning modeled on the birth and growth of a star, meaning that though small for now, one should become a being that shines greatly someday.
Though it held no higher martial principles, it was a foundational art holding an ancestor's wisdom, able to bear easily whatever was stacked upon it.
'Tsk, tsk. To leave such fine martial learning abandoned in the dust of the Myriad Books Pavilion.......'
He thought he knew the reason.
It must have been slow.
They must have grown impatient.
Rather than build the foundation and then move on to the next stage, they must have wanted to learn something better from the start.
It would have looked more efficient.
But it is a fine-looking wild apricot.
For now the attainment of whatever replaced it would look better, but on reaching a certain realm the weak foundation would fail to hold up the tower raised so high.
That was precisely why the Jaegal's martial arts had been weak.
Because they could not wait.
Because they did not know that a flower bud filled to bursting would one day open wide.
'Pitiful bastards, they had a treasure before their eyes and did not recognize it. It is because they are too clever. Greedy to trade up for something better, they went bloodshot over the profit in front of them, and so could not see its true form.'
Seeing it abandoned like this, its creator would come back from the grave and beat the ground in regret.
You damned bastards, I wrung my brain dry to make this and you treat it like this? he would say.
He was a seven-year-old clicking his tongue in frustration.
But could he leave it at that?
He had already seen its true form.
Of course he would change it.
"You will have to thank me. The Lesser Heavenly Star Art you created may now be remembered as an ultimate martial art. By me, Jaegal Mun-hyeon."
Jaegal Mun-hyeon murmured as if to himself and closed the book, and someone in the void smiled as though in answer.
"Um, Young Master."
Was it because he had been concentrating so hard?
So-hye, who had waited beside him all that while for a free moment, spoke up on seeing him close the book, and it startled him.
"Have you finished?"
"Yes."
"Oh my, I waited ever so long."
So-hye looked ready to cry.
"You were concentrating so hard I could not even speak to you......."
"Ah......."
She was holding a small tray covered with a wrapping cloth.
She must have slipped out quietly while he read, so as not to disturb him, and brought food.
"They said other food was not allowed, so I only brought rice cake and tea, but while I waited the cake went hard and the tea went cold."
At her frown he felt needlessly sorry.
From the faint gurgling he could hear, it meant she had gone hungry too, not only him.
"You should have eaten first."
"How could I eat alone while you go hungry, Young Master?"
"You just eat, that is all."
"Absolutely not! Eating alone and leaving you out is unthinkable."
At her firm declaration Jaegal Mun-hyeon let out a sigh.
A truly useless conviction.
But inwardly that conviction pleased him.
Perhaps because of the fact that someone was thinking of him.
"Let us eat."
"We cannot."
"Hm?"
"I told you the rice cake went hard. It is stiff."
"What does that matter? It only has to fill a belly."
"It will ruin your teeth."
Absurd.
Most of them might be milk teeth, but in spirit he was a seven-year-old who could chew and swallow stone.
"And besides, the day has already closed in."
"Already?"
"However hard were you concentrating? You did not even notice the time passing."
"Ah, well......."
At So-hye's reproach Jaegal Mun-hyeon wore a sheepish look.
The Martial Tome Shelf stood in such a corner that no sunlight reached it, and relying on lamplight he had not even noticed the day darkening.
Realizing the true intent of the Lesser Heavenly Star Art seemed to have excited him considerably.
"You have had a hard time for nothing because of me."
"Do not say such things. If anything I worry more about you. You are taller than your peers, but skipping meals in the middle of your growing years......."
"......."
"Let us go. I will set out a delicious supper for you."
"All right."
Grinning, Jaegal Mun-hyeon left the Myriad Books Pavilion with So-hye.
The first day.
Devouring a single martial tome was enough.
Though it was a beginner's book, and one left abandoned at that, for Jaegal Mun-hyeon, who had gained its true form, it was a moment that could fairly be called a miraculous encounter.