"I am an inner arts beggar......!"
A month had passed since Jeong I-shin shouted that in the clearing.
Tang Mu-jeong went over the Ultimate Heavenly Thunder Art from beginning to end together with Jeong I-shin, inspecting its stability.
In the end he failed to determine the identity of the ring formed of lightning, but thanks to the effort he was able to finish his analysis of the Ultimate Heavenly Thunder Art.
"'Ultimate' means the last or the end of some process, and 'heavenly thunder' refers to the lightning heaven casts down...... so the Ultimate Heavenly Thunder Art is, exactly as the meaning its name holds, a road toward reaching lightning."
Tang Mu-jeong could not conceal his admiration as he watched the golden lightning qi leap up in Jeong I-shin's grip.
"For a mind art created in order to refine lightning, it is a name beyond reproach. Splendid. A divine art must never be treated lightly, beginning with its name."
"O-of course."
Jeong I-shin, who had simply blurted out whatever flashed through his head, learned the meaning of his own mind art that way.
Afterward Tang Mu-jeong summoned the other three old men, gathered them, and said this.
"I have no intention of behaving as shabbily as the Sword Ghost and Yeo Hwi."
"......Hm?"
"Mu-jeong, what do you......"
"I have completed a divine art that will refine lightning. A great deal of the agreed term still remains, but I shall end my time here. This too is for his sake."
The three old men traded glances.
'He completed a divine art?'
'......A divine art that takes lightning as true qi?'
'Impossible. How many days has it been?'
No creation of a martial art was ever accomplished this abruptly.
That was true even of the less-than-third-rate martial arts of the marketplace, so for a study that took lightning as true qi, discussing it was laughable.
It was a claim with no reason to be believed. Had the speaker been anyone but Tang Mu-jeong.
"......Is it true?"
At the voice that still could not hide its disbelief, Tang Mu-jeong unfastened his hairpin and set it down.
Amazement colored the faces of the three wavering old men in an instant.
And soon their voices rose, just as quickly.
The first to speak was Yeo Hwi.
"Ahem! If that is your intent, it must be respected. I shall take firm responsibility for the coming two years."
"What do you mean? Shouldn't we discuss the schedule all over again?"
"Amitabha. Benefactor Namgung speaks truly."
A scene without a shred of dignity unfolded.
I go first, no, you go first......
"Tsk."
Tang Mu-jeong, who had already passed on everything he could pass on, spoke as though it were pathetic.
"Act your age. If you want a disciple that badly, you should have taken one outside. To carry on like this only now, when we live day to day. Tsk!"
The words of a man with no lingering attachments were sharp.
"Ahem!"
"And what about you, Mu-jeong...... n-never mind!"
There was plenty to argue back, of course, but no one wished to provoke Tang Mu-jeong and be pushed to the back of the line.
With even Yeo Hwi, who had always mediated the discussion, joining the fray, opinions would not converge.
In the end Tang Mu-jeong offered a compromise.
"Teach him all together."
He poured out the words before any rebuttal could come.
"The situation is different from before. The boy's framework is already laid. Whatever you build on top of it, he will not be shaken."
"You're not wrong. Sparkles is a monster on his body alone."
"That I-shin's attainment in the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture runs a course apart is true. It is hard even to compare with this humble monk's. Most likely the lightning within and the environment of the Bottomless Abyss without have tempered the child together."
Yeo Hwi, who had been listening quietly, nodded at last.
"Mu-jeong, you said it when you cut ahead of me. That there is no time. ......I agree as well."
At Yeo Hwi's words the unruly mood of a moment before subsided entirely.
Tang Mu-jeong took in the face of each of them one by one.
The power that had deceived and held back the years was not what it had been. He could feel it from their faces alone.
"Yes. There is no time."
Tang Mu-jeong took up the thread calmly. Everyone agreed with the sentiment.
They had fallen into the Bottomless Abyss with their qi centers shattered from the very start.
They had merely dreamed a brief dream, intoxicated by the light called Jeong I-shin that they met in their last years.
A dream. Yes, it had been a dream. A future in which they all left the Bottomless Abyss together would not come.
Namgung Baek smiled brightly and said,
"The process turned out strange, but in the end things will proceed just as Mu-jeong designed at the start, won't they? I don't know whether to call it impressive or lucky."
"Either is fine. So long as we can send him up."
"......Heh! You've changed a lot, Mu-jeong."
"Not as much as you, Sword Ghost."
***
A year passed.
In that time the dwelling ran busily without a single day's rest.
Not one of the four old men sat idle. Not even Namgung Baek, who had always been lying down except during sparring!
The busiest of all, of course, was Jeong I-shin.
"Now then, let us begin."
"......I am an inner arts beggar."
Whatever Tang Mu-jeong had said to them, Jeong I-shin had to make his inner arts beggar declaration before every lesson.
Over the past year he had shouted it three or four times a day, easily.
This remained the case after he turned eighteen as well.
He could not tell what trick of fate it was, but Jeong I-shin had ended up living the life of an exam candidate in the Bottomless Abyss, transcending time and space.
First period: hand arts. Instructor: Gongheon.
"Today let us contend with the second technique alone."
"With just the Thunderclap Wave?"
"Yes."
Before he could even answer that he understood, the front of his martial arts uniform fluttered with wind pressure.
Gongheon had already rushed inside Jeong I-shin's guard and thrust out a palm.
Jeong I-shin calmly struck the wrist to twist its trajectory, and thought,
'What on earth was the Monk thinking, trying to make seventy-two techniques?'
The gestures of Gongheon's hands, changing moment by moment as they pressed him, were all familiar to his eye.
It was not simply because he had seen them often.
A great many of the principles contained in Gongheon's gestures were contained in Jeong I-shin's own palm techniques.
He struck back against the palm flying toward his flank.
CLANG—!
Gongheon's eyes shone as he exclaimed.
"Good!"
The Thunder-Severing Myriad Transformation Hand.
The martial art Gongheon had created for Jeong I-shin, encompassing all of his own studies.
Hand arts that sever lightning and transform it into ten million forms, he had said.
'Did he really mean to make ten million techniques?'
BANG! BAAANG!
Pulling his right foot back to evade a straight punch aimed at his flank, he pushed off his toes and let slide the palm that sought to strike his chest.
Jeong I-shin continued his thoughts while evading Gongheon's offensive.
'How am I supposed to memorize seventy-two of them?'
To Jeong I-shin, who did not know Shaolin's Seventy-Two Signature Arts, it was a deeply bewildering number.
Fortunately, Gongheon, having faced the Heavenly Thunder Qi Jeong I-shin had refined, compressed the seventy-two techniques into five.
He had recognized that, given the circumstances, this was both the best and the limit.
RUMBLE!
At the sparring of familiar routines, the Heavenly Thunder Qi growled as though it would burst out.
Jeong I-shin calmed his qi center and recalled Gongheon's words.
'With your present inner arts, unfolding all five techniques would be a strain. Let us simply leave the possibility open so that you may add as many as you wish in the future.'
Sure enough.
Even now, a year later, the true qi held in Jeong I-shin's qi center was not so plentiful.
The old men said it was now an amount of true qi somewhere around first-rate.
And the true qi that had just leapt out in response to the Thunderclap Wave's routine was exactly three-tenths of it.
Which meant that if he committed to unleashing the Thunderclap Wave, three swings of his hand would empty his inner arts.
'......So the inner arts beggar declaration was right after all.'
Conceding defeat to the Bottomless Abyss' greatest intellect, he reached out.
"Hup!"
Gongheon hurriedly crossed both arms to guard his chest. And Jeong I-shin's palm touched them lightly.
THOOM—
Ripples ran across the yellow kasaya.
Gongheon was pushed back two paces, then made a single-palm salute toward Jeong I-shin.
"Amitabha. ......Splendid."
"Thank you for today as well, Monk."
"You have made the principle of the Thunderclap Wave wholly your own. To transmit force like this without inner arts...... a little stronger and my heart might have burst! Haha!"
"Ugh, what a grisly thing to say......"
Much was different from a year ago.
Jeong I-shin, who had once struggled even to trade a single exchange, let alone win, was now at a level where he held the advantage in most sparring matches. Even while entertaining all manner of stray thoughts, at that.
Part of that was because Jeong I-shin had grown dramatically stronger upon encountering martial learning in earnest.
'He's...... he's grown far too weak.'
But another part of it was that his opponent had weakened rapidly.
One side grew stronger and the other weaker, so the gap closed very quickly.
Nor was this a story limited to Gongheon.
If anything, Gongheon, who had honed the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture, was in relatively better shape.
Tang Mu-jeong had found even moving about difficult since half a year ago.
'......'
A feeling hard to put into words sprouted in him.
***
Second period: footwork arts. Instructor: Yeo Hwi.
Originally the second period had been Namgung Baek's time, but for certain reasons he had swapped order with Yeo Hwi.
KRAKOOM!
The roar that burst from the tip of Jeong I-shin's foot was that reason.
"......This is maddening."
Yeo Hwi, seeing the faint radiance left at the tip of Jeong I-shin's foot along with the roar, clutched his head.
The single step Jeong I-shin had just driven out was unmistakably, in some respects, superior to the Unhindered Step he himself unfolded.
It was faster and it went farther.
The problem, however, was.
"This is not the Unhindered Step."
The three old men named two of Yeo Hwi's studies as murim's finest footwork arts.
For the body method, the Dark Shadow Body; for the step method, the Unhindered Step.
Of the two, the Dark Shadow Body was a kind of concealment art whose purpose was to hide oneself between heaven and earth.
On the day he first saw Jeong I-shin's Heavenly Thunder Qi, Yeo Hwi had thought,
'It would be faster to make a new one.'
How was one supposed to take that flashing, riotous lightning qi as the true qi of a body method whose entire point was concealing oneself?
"Oh, I've got it!"
"......Hm?"
But most astonishingly, Jeong I-shin accomplished that work alone.
He had explained at length in words that were hard to follow, but since his own understanding was not the important part, Yeo Hwi had simply marveled.
The trouble broke out with the Unhindered Step instead.
"Again, step it again. Using as little true qi as you can. Quietly, if possible."
"Yes!"
KRAKOOM!
This thunderous noise and flash.
It was the reason Yeo Hwi's footwork arts lesson had moved from the nighttime third period to the second.
Watching the radiance left on the ground fade, Yeo Hwi squeezed his eyes shut.
It was loud. Far too loud.
It was a step at the exact opposite pole from the Unhindered Step, whose lifeblood was covert movement.
"......You cultivated my Dark Shadow Body into the Silent Thunder Body on your own in under half a year."
"Come on, not on my own. You helped me so much, Elder Yeo."
"I did not understand half of what you said."
"Ah, using the Heavenly Thunder Qi as bioelectric signals......"
"Yes, that."
Jeong I-shin's manner as he grinned and said that he did not really understand it himself either was, however one looked at it, a genius' modesty.
Yeo Hwi did not want to give up either, of course.
He too wished to leave his own martial arts to Jeong I-shin, as the three old men had.
But the time he had already sunk into the Unhindered Step was considerable.
Tang Mu-jeong had finally taken to his sickbed, and Gongheon and Namgung Baek were precarious. Yeo Hwi was no different.
Regrettably, the moment to give up was not far off.
"For now, let us think while moving."
"Yes!"
Leaving the dwelling, the two of them headed west.
Unlike other places, it was a region with no particular name, called simply the stone field.
It was the territory of the monster centipede, the Blood-Armored Centipede.
"I hear the venom glands in their jaws are needed."
"H-how many?"
"Forty should be ample."
"......Yes."
Jeong I-shin did not lose his smile over most things, but whenever he faced a spirit beast his expression turned poor.
And of them all, what Jeong I-shin loathed most was this centipede of the west.
THUD—
Jeong I-shin walked onto the stone field and stamped his foot.
It was a place with murky visibility to begin with, and as the dust that shot up in an instant mixed with the fog, the surroundings turned still hazier.
At the same moment a horrific sound came from below.
SKITTER SKITTER SKITTER—
SKITTER SKITTER—
A hellish resonance that one or two of them could never produce.
Jeong I-shin squeezed his eyes shut, but the Silent Thunder Body had already begun coursing through his whole body and his senses had grown excessively sharp.
Which is to say the centipedes' movements, conveyed through all five senses, were vivid enough to bring tears to his eyes.
"Ugh......!"
Jeong I-shin held down his churning stomach and gripped his wooden sword.
Eyes half-open, one exhalation, one inhalation.
And on the halfway point of the next exhalation, he cut upward with the wooden sword.
SLASH!
More than five things caught on the tip of his blade.
He pushed off hard with his toes without hesitating.
KRUMBLE!
Along with the roar, the scenery to left and right rushed away. His head gradually grew hot and the scenery held in his eyes became exceedingly distinct.
Five centipedes cut in two were dropping away in the distance; fifteen more were still leaping toward him.
They were all the size of Jeong I-shin's thigh.
"......Oh, shit!"
Jeong I-shin did not permit a single drop of bodily fluid to splash onto himself.
He evaded every bit of the fluid bursting out on all sides.
At that, Yeo Hwi could not conceal his admiration.
The stone field was in constant thunderous uproar, but Jeong I-shin's movement at the center of it, its uncanniness...... did not fall behind his own Unhindered Step in the slightest.
"Haa...... was he this good?"
Yeo Hwi realized that what Jeong I-shin had shown until now had not been all of it.
Jeong I-shin's Unhindered Step in earnest was different.
Loud and showy was not the whole of it.
KRAKOOM—!
Watching the light flash once more, Yeo Hwi's contemplation deepened.
Originally the mental image of the Unhindered Step is founded on the principle that between heaven and earth, nothing can obstruct.
It meant that nothing exists between heaven and earth that can stand in one's way.
And what Yeo Hwi had taken as his key principle while honing the Unhindered Step was.
'Flowing water does not contend.'
The Unhindered Step as Yeo Hwi had received it was thus.
It did not fight obstacles but simply let them slide past, and so nothing blocked it.
Among all the solid things of the world there must always exist some minute gap, and he had sought to tread through those gaps. To that he had added the Dark Shadow Body, unmatched among concealment arts.
So there could be no argument against the claim that the Dark Severance's footwork arts were the world's best.
'Ha, hahaha!'
And in this moment, watching Jeong I-shin cut through dozens of centipedes, Yeo Hwi realized.
KRAKOOM!
That endlessly noisy footfall.
RUMBLE!
Even that flashing radiance at the tip of his foot.
"That too is the Unhindered Step."
Between heaven and earth, nothing can obstruct.
That nothing could stand in his way was one and the same.
Only the key principle he had chosen was different.
"Blergh......! Get, get off! Aagh!"
Jeong I-shin, tearing and smashing his way through dozens of centipedes in order to avoid a single drop of fluid on his face.
At that sight a verse formula rose to mind of its own accord.
"One road, ever forward."
To press on down a single road in defiance.
If he broke everything and passed through anyway...... then nothing stood before him.
Was that too not unhindered?