"Felt great, and then some insect out of nowhere...... hm?"
Hyeol-u, who had been grumbling, jolted with a shiver.
It had been so long that the recognition came slowly, but there was no mistaking it.
Three and a half inches below his navel, a qi center the size of a bean had taken root for all to see.
"Ha, haha, hahaha!"
He was elated.
In his previous life, his qi center had first formed when he was about ten years old.
That meant it had been twenty years since he last acquired a new qi center — now installed in a brand-new body.
All that remained was to nurture it diligently through training, growing it steadily like bean sprouts on a steamer.
"Young Master, aren't you going to sleep? The first watch drum already sounded......"
So-i, who had apparently dragged himself out of bed mid-sleep with his eyes still scrunched up, shouted up at Hyeol-u sitting on the boulder.
But Hyeol-u had no leisure to humor the boy's complaints.
Seated on the now-cooled stone, he needed to etch the hundred and eighty pressure points of the Lone Soul Single Sword into his mind.
"This old man rose each dawn and began his day by dousing himself with a bucket of ice-cold water."
The time Hyeol-u had awakened from his qi circulation happened to be the early Hour of the Rabbit — five in the morning.
A passage from the Absolute Invincible Namgung Changhae's "Travelogue" surfaced in his memory.
'Well, a cold water rub-down in the morning stimulates blood circulation and improves health — nothing unusual about that.'
Anyone with an interest in their health would know as much.
But for this flabby body, it was virgin territory.
Having climbed down from the boulder, Hyeol-u drew water from the well in the back yard with a pulley bucket.
Yet he stood there shivering, unable to muster the nerve to dump it on himself.
"Brrr...... this is way too cold."
Dousing ice-cold water over a fragile body that had never experienced a cold-water rub-down — his heart might simply stop.
"Yaaawn...... Young Master, what on earth are you doing?"
"What does it look like? I came out for a drink of water."
"At this ungodly hour......?"
If he admitted he had come out for a cold-water bath, So-i would never let him hear the end of it.
But by now, Hyeol-u's entire body was shivering uncontrollably.
"And why is the man who just wants a drink of water standing here with his shirt off?"
So-i had sidled up beside him at some point, grinning from ear to ear.
His instincts were spot-on, at least.
"Aha......! Hand that over."
"No."
"Come on, hurry!"
"No, just wait a......!"
So-i snatched the bucket from Hyeol-u's hands and dumped it over his head in one go.
"GAAAAHHH......!"
"Bwahahaha!"
While Hyeol-u hugged his fleshy chest with both arms and shuddered violently, So-i doubled over cackling.
***
"Kyahahaha!"
'Hm? That voice.'
A high-pitched laugh rang out from somewhere.
Hyeol-u quickly shook his head, wiped the water from his face, and snapped his gaze upward.
"Who was that just now?"
"Huh? What's the Young Lady doing here at this hour......?"
A young beauty of about fourteen or fifteen, tilting her head back and laughing.
It was Namgung Hye.
Unlike the casual clothes she had worn at yesterday's meal, today she was dressed in a blue martial arts uniform, a wooden sword in hand.
Her even, deliberate steps and her posture were remarkably stable.
In the slightly upturned edge of her gaze, there was even a warrior's self-assurance.
'Not bad form at all.'
The dismissiveness he had felt upon first seeing her vanished somewhere.
Instead, he was about to ask why she had come in full martial attire carrying two wooden swords, when—
Before he could open his mouth, she flung one of the wooden swords at him.
"Here, catch."
"......!"
'Oh? She wants to spar with me?'
He caught the wooden sword reflexively.
At that, Namgung Hye shouted in a clear voice.
"Let me tell you something — I despise people who run their mouths without having anything to back it up. If Father were still alive, the stunt you pulled in the dining hall would never have been tolerated. No — if the Namgung Clan were still at its full strength, would you even still be breathing right now?"
Hyeol-u felt a genuine sting in his chest.
The Namgung Clan was, after all, famous for its strict discipline as the head of the Five Great Clans of the martial world.
Of course, it was on the verge of ruin now.
But a slow anger began to simmer inside him.
'You dare lecture your older brother in banmal?'
"You're going to regret those words. How dare you...... wait, what?"
Hyeol-u had readied himself for an immediate contest.
But on closer look, Namgung Hye was not laughing — she was crying.
"You're crying?"
"......"
"You come here with a wooden sword, talk big — and then show me tears? What am I supposed to do with that......?"
"So, does that make you feel wronged?"
"What?"
"If you feel wronged, then fight me."
"......Huh?"
Wiping away her tears in an instant, Namgung Hye suddenly issued a formal challenge and immediately assumed her stance.
"Scared? Can't do it? Then get on your knees and beg me. Swear you'll never do it again."
"Give me a break......"
Crocodile tears.
Contrary to Hyeol-u's own will, this body seemed to have a weak-hearted temperament — the moment he saw tears, every muscle in his body went slack.
But what he had said was not wrong.
Since the situation had already gotten this tangled, Hyeol-u decided it was better to see it through to the end and threw down a sharp retort.
"A little sister who'll say anything she pleases to her own older brother! The one running her mouth with nothing to back it up — that sounds more like you!"
"Wh-what?!"
Her eyes blazed with double fury as she shrieked.
"Hey! You know everyone in the world has been laughing at you because you couldn't even learn the basics of martial arts by the time you were nearly twenty? And because of you, the clan's very reputation has been tarnished! Add yesterday's rampage in the dining hall to the charges, and it's time you paid for your crimes!"
Namgung Hye had just given their impromptu duel a clear justification.
Hyeol-u was caught off guard, but a good idea quickly formed.
'Wait — this is the perfect opportunity to observe the Namgung Clan's martial arts firsthand.'
"Fine. Gladly."
"Prepare yourself!"
Just as she was about to launch her attack—
Hyeol-u suddenly raised a hand.
"Now what?"
"What do you think? I want to know the name of the martial art you're about to use. Tell me."
"Hmph! Listen well. It is the Iron Sword Thirty-Six Paths — the Namgung Clan's introductory martial art! For the likes of you, this will be more than enough."
Thirty-Six Paths.
Every movement of the human body ultimately resolves into thirty-six directions — and this art was built upon that principle.
She extended the hand gripping the wooden sword straight toward the sky.
An unusual starting stance for a sword art.
'What? Is she trying to channel the energy of the heavens into her sword?'
"Divide Heaven and Earth!"
In that instant, she crossed her legs and lashed the wooden sword outward.
Channeling inner arts through a wooden sword was difficult.
Yet she executed a technique so precise and powerful that it produced the illusion of the sky itself cracking apart.
Hyeol-u tilted his wooden sword at a diagonal angle, waited for the variations of Divide Heaven and Earth, and stepped one pace to the side.
Then he lightly struck the flat of Namgung Hye's wooden sword.
CLACK!
She flinched back, and her wooden sword shot skyward.
She launched herself into the air, whirling her wooden sword in a dizzying flurry.
"Azure Sky Falling Stars!"
SNAP, SNAP, SNAP—!
Like meteors streaking across a blue sky, multiple lines of the sword sliced through the air and rushed at him.
"Young Master! AAAH!"
So-i, standing several paces away, screamed in alarm as a thick curtain of sword strikes — as powerful as a woven net — engulfed Hyeol-u's face.
'Impressive. To produce sword techniques this intricate and powerful from a wooden sword with not a single drop of inner arts invested!'
Hyeol-u's excitement began to build.
The qi center that had locked up hard as a stone when Namgung Hye's tears caught him off guard—
Now softened, like an egg placed in hot water.
SLIP.
This time, Hyeol-u thrust himself into the net of sword strokes and extended his wooden sword in a straight line.
A devastatingly simple thrust to break through the technique.
"Hah!"
Startled, she sucked in a breath and shifted the momentum of her sword once more.
"Vault Shadow, Flying Clouds!"
Her wooden sword grazed Hyeol-u's at an angle, then ricocheted off like a released bowstring, blooming into a cloud of sword shadows.
"Whoa......!"
This time it was Hyeol-u who gasped.
Over a dozen sword shadows descended on him simultaneously from above, and for an instant he lost the ability to distinguish the real strike from the feints.
A truly intricate weave of feints and true strikes.
'What?! She's channeling inner arts through the wooden sword!'
He could tell in an instant.
The power was a world apart from Azure Sky Falling Stars.
Even channeling just a thread of true qi from the qi center to the fingertips gripping the wooden sword produced a difference this enormous.
'Gotcha!'
Namgung Hye's tightly set lips loosened for a moment.
Just as the image of him flailing and getting knocked down by her wooden sword was about to materialize—
"Aah!"
Her anticipation turned to bewilderment.
CLANG—!
Hyeol-u's wooden sword had caught hers from below, bracing and deflecting it outward.
"H-how......?"
He had clearly been lost, unable to find the real strike among the feints.
Then he had suddenly launched a devastating counterattack.
Having narrowly avoided losing her grip on the wooden sword, she bit her lip hard enough to hurt.
She had thought a single blow would end it.
There had been rumors that the gate guards had been humiliated by Namgung Seong, but those were third-rate warriors at best.
From what she had heard, it sounded like they had been mocking and taunting the Third Young Master and simply gotten careless.
'No...... that's not it!'
But she felt with bone-deep certainty that her assessment had been wrong.
Striking an opponent's pressure points with bare hands and feet, without a weapon, to paralyze their body — that was far harder than it sounded.
Humans were unpredictable organisms.
There was no telling when or how they would move, and pressure points varied slightly in location from person to person.
For those reasons, targeting pressure points required the ability to read an opponent's anatomy at a glance and relentless training in pressure point strikes.
If that were true—
The only conclusion was that Namgung Seong had been hiding his abilities all along.
And true to form, Namgung Seong thought fast and acted faster.
After heaving ragged breaths for a while, Namgung Hye crouched low and charged.
This time her wooden sword pointed toward the ground, concealing her angle of attack.
"Flying Tiger Stealing Heart!"
Like a tiger bursting from behind a tree with a roar, it was an exceptionally swift and sharp technique.
'This time for sure!'
A triumphant smile crept onto Namgung Hye's lips.
"Urk......!"
The composure Hyeol-u had maintained until now crumbled in an instant.
It was momentarily unclear whether Flying Tiger Stealing Heart aimed with the wooden sword, with a kick, or with the unarmed hand.
But he knew the appropriate countermeasure.
Then, in one swift motion—
THUD, THUD-THUD!
Hyeol-u stomped the ground two or three times in rapid succession.
FLINCH.
Namgung Hye's body wavered as she had been driving upward from below, trying to stab the wooden sword into Namgung Seong's chest.
And that alone was enough.
Her main line of attack had been thrown off course.
"KYAAH!"
As she spun her body and grazed past him—
Hyeol-u angled his wooden sword at a peculiar slant and jabbed at her midsection.
CLACK, CLANG—!
"Hah!"
But Hyeol-u let out an empty gasp.
Even as her form wobbled chaotically, her wooden sword had flickered like a serpent's tongue, blocking his attack.
"Four Directions Seal!"
WHOOSH—!
"Flying Stream Cascade, Stacking Wild Wind!"
Shouts erupted in rapid succession as her wooden sword gouged at his surroundings like a waterfall, then waves of violent wind pressed in, layer upon layer.
WHOOOONG—!
Forced steadily backward, Hyeol-u was finally driven all the way to the boulder in the front yard.
"Endless Iron Sword!"
He heard her shout with fierce intensity.
'The final form.'
He knew it instinctively.
And then the hallucination struck — as though a dozen iron swords were whirling ceaselessly, slashing at his entire body.
Cornered, no way forward or back.
No matter which way he moved, he could not escape the influence of the technique's vast sword formation.
But Hyeol-u's eyes found the gap.
The level of the technique was considerable, but her inner power was cutting out in the middle.
In other words, Endless Iron Sword was Namgung Hye overextending herself.
THWACK—!
The dull crack of wooden swords colliding, and one soared high into the sky.
"W-whoa......! Young Master!"
So-i, staring skyward with eyes as wide as saucers, cheered and sprinted toward Hyeol-u.
Namgung Hye had collapsed to the ground, clutching the wrist that had held the sword, trembling.
"Ngh! H-how......?"
She had prided herself on being at the front of the pack among her peers.
'That's impossible. From the third form onward, I even used inner arts......'
Looking back, it seemed Namgung Seong had not used inner arts even once.
Then again, he would not have any.
She — possessing at least twenty years of inner arts — had been soundly defeated by an opponent with none.
"Ah......"
She stared blankly into the empty air, then slowly hung her head.
"Ngh!"
The tears burst forth.