"Hup!"
In a world without so much as an alarm, he woke with an accuracy inside a one-minute margin of error.
In truth, since there was no clock, he had no way of knowing whether it was accurate.
But he had spent a year like this, so he figured it was roughly right.
A year had passed since that shocking first meeting with the Blood-Armored Centipede.
There was still no way to know this body's age, so Jeong I-shin's own age had simply become the body's age.
'Sixteen years old!'
Third year of middle school.
An age that had not even entered high school yet.
But in this place?
'Something in the vicinity of a martial artist, made to spar with a peerless swordsman every morning.'
Sparring with Namgung Baek.
That was the whole record of the past year.
In fact, even that had become an unremarkable part of daily life about half a year in.
Swinging a sword, chopping wood, gathering food.
Astonishingly, a fruit that people could eat grew in the northern forest.
Its taste and appearance resembled a peach, and a single one covered a whole day's worth of calories — an insane health food.
The old men said something about grain-avoidance pills, but it was not easy to understand.
His body grew stronger by the day, while his head showed no sign of getting any sharper.
'They definitely said the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture affects the mind too.'
It left him a little disappointed, but whenever he dug stubbornly into his memories of the modern world — his past life, should he call it? — the temple bell would always ring.
GONG—
Like this.
—The mind crosses the line easily. Once it crosses, the whole body follows across.
—So set the mind first. When the mind stands, the coarse dares not cross.
"Yes, yes, Settled Spirit, Subdued Agitation, you brat."
Naturally, he had a complaint.
"Then why were you so quiet when I was looking at that disgusting centipede?"
It was an unsolved riddle.
The blow to his spirit had been far greater with the centipede.
His record of observing the spirit beasts of the Bottomless Abyss had produced no particular gains either.
He often ran into the flying squirrel when he went to cut wood, but the creature was severely aloof.
It would come whooshing over and land on his shoulder, then flee the instant he tried to pet it.
Namgung Baek shed tears saying that even that much made him envious, but Jeong I-shin only found the whole thing sour.
"Whew."
He set the stray thoughts aside and stepped out of his hut.
Ah, the biggest change was something else entirely.
Namely, that Jeong I-shin now had a hut of his own!
With the sturdy body the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture had built, he had hauled log after log and finally finished it.
There had been help from the people around him, of course, but that did not dim the joy of acquiring his own home at sixteen.
"Did you sleep well, Monk?"
"I did. And you?"
"Yes!"
Gongheon greeted Jeong I-shin with a loving smile.
He drilled his body in the clearing without missing a single day.
It was only after watching him keep such a viciously regular schedule that Jeong I-shin had understood he was a real monk.
He was effectively a living clock tower.
"Say...... I-shin."
"Yes, Monk."
Gongheon, who had at some point started calling Jeong I-shin by an affectionate short form, glanced quickly toward the dim eastern edge of the clearing and said quietly,
"How about today?"
The words were abrupt, but even this was a question more than half a year old.
Did even this have to be regular?
Jeong I-shin shook his head firmly.
"Come on, Elder Namgung said absolutely not."
"But!"
"No, no! No combat sparring!"
"Amitabha!"
BAAANG! BAAANG!
Gongheon turned away with a deliberately wounded face and began driving his fists into the air.
This too was one of the things that had changed a year ago when he began learning the sword from Namgung Baek.
Originally he had honed the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture through sparring with Gongheon — or rather, had it honed into him — but Namgung Baek had forbidden it.
They said an amicable agreement had been reached, but Jeong I-shin had no way of knowing.
What was certain was that at least one party was deeply dissatisfied with that decision.
BAAANG! BAAAANG!
Jeong I-shin warmed up with the sound behind him — a sound that should absolutely never come out of empty air — as his background music.
'......Still, from the third stage onward I could train on my own.'
When he had learned that his attainment in the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture would rise without his having to be beaten, he had for the first time resented Gongheon a little...... a very little.
'What surges up always has its reason. Not because it is weak......'
He closed his eyes and stood straight, holding in his mouth the verse formula he could now recite in his sleep.
The Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture was said to be a divine art left behind by the famous Great Master Bodhidharma.
The Sinew-Transforming Scripture, which tempered muscle and bone, and the Marrow-Cleansing Scripture, which tempered the spirit — a study that wove the two together.
The former was outer arts and therefore belonged to the moving arts; the latter was inner arts and therefore belonged to the still arts.
It meant it did not matter how he performed his qi circulation and breath regulation. A truly fortunate thing for Jeong I-shin, who had not even a basic grounding in martial arts.
After the lightning came to circle his heart, inner arts had begun to accumulate in Jeong I-shin's qi center, if only in a truly negligible amount.
It was the true qi left over after the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture had tempered his whole body and kept watch on the lightning.
The quantity was as small as a rat's tail, of course, but it was every bit as unfamiliar and marvelous for that.
"Whew."
When he stood still and focused on his own breathing, his surroundings would soon stain black.
His settled mind led him inward.
The first time Jeong I-shin looked inside his own body, he understood why the human body was called a microcosm.
How could a world this vast be contained inside a person?
That such a wondrous contemplation was possible was, in a small way, one of the points where a martial artist beat a third-year middle school student.
GONG—
Along with the temple bell, a light budded that illuminated that vast universe.
The qi that entered Jeong I-shin's body with his inhalation soon became grand true qi as it followed the circulation route of the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture.
Only after it had tended his whole body and glared for a long while at the lightning circling his heart.
Did an energy that did not amount to even a handful reach his qi center.
And when a single drop of true qi fell into the qi center with a soft plink.
"Morning exercise, done!"
The pitch-black wooden sword at his waist greeted him.
***
"Morning, Sparkles."
"Good morning, Elder Namgung."
"Mm."
CLACK!
Namgung Baek's answer and the clash of wooden swords came at the same instant.
Jeong I-shin, who had parried the thrust precisely, grinned.
"Heh heh. A surprise thrust after three whole months. To use again the very thing that did not work back then — I must say I'm disappointed."
"......Sparkles, you can't memorize a single martial verse formula, but your head is sharp in all the strangest places."
"Thank you for the compliment. Though coming from an elder who managed a surprise attack with three months' worth of no improvement whatsoever, it doesn't quite land."
CHIIILL—
For an instant a cold force settled over the clearing.
Sparring with Namgung Baek was different again from sparring with Gongheon.
There was no such leisurely courtesy as a call to begin.
WHOOSH—!
Two swords moved at once.
Namgung Baek extended his sword with his left hand. It was only natural, since he had nothing but a left hand.
The left-handed sword.
It was not a grain most of jianghu was accustomed to. Against an ordinary opponent, he would certainly have taken the advantage in the first exchange.
"Hup!"
But Jeong I-shin received the sword with perfect naturalness. Like a man who had met that trajectory countless times, he set blade against blade and slid the force aside.
KRRK!
The edges of the wooden swords locked and ground briefly against each other.
At that position an ordinary swordsman's wrist would have bent and his arm twisted. When a left-handed sword eats into the inside of your space, your response is bound to come a beat late.
Yet Jeong I-shin was neither late nor flustered.
The only swordsman Jeong I-shin had ever faced was Namgung Baek to begin with!
"Heh heh."
"You......! Stop smiling like that, it's creepy!"
Namgung Baek withdrew his sword, stepped back, and clicked his tongue.
The left-handed sword and the right-handed sword applied force in wholly different ways, and Jeong I-shin's body ignored all of it.
It meant he could swing enormous sword force at any moment, from any posture whatsoever.
"The Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture has turned Sparkles into a monster."
Namgung Baek's reaction was one of exasperation.
As he said, Jeong I-shin's attainment in the Scripture was steadily deepening.
Upon the foundation laid at the third stage, he had begun to build a new body.
It was said that in raw physical ability alone he was now at a level one could call first-rate.
In other words, in sparring undertaken without inner arts, he held an enormous advantage.
And Jeong I-shin's record in such matches was.
A clean, total defeat.
CRACK!
"Aaargh!"
Jeong I-shin clutched his head and rolled on the ground.
Even if he could match the force, even if he could somehow keep up with the speed.
There was a class to Namgung Baek's swordsmanship that such things could not come close to touching.
"Foul!"
"Hehe, all right. What's the excuse this time?"
"How does a sword swung from the front hit the back of my head?"
"Shall I show you?"
"......"
Jeong I-shin shut his mouth tight.
The very first time, when he had called foul because he could not see Namgung Baek's thrust, what had become of him?
His whole body except his face had turned black and blue.
And when he had called foul after watching all of his attacks slide off the flat of the sword...... he had sprained his wrist.
The wrist that stayed fine while chopping wood with the edge of his hand had gone bad.
"Hehe. Sparkles has a bad head, so carving it into the body is fastest. I finally understand why Gongheon did what he did. Now, I'll teach you everything. Hurry up and get up."
"N-no! I'm not curious at all!"
"Here I come!"
***
Once sparring with Namgung Baek was finished as well, he helped the four old men with this task and that.
Sometimes he went to the Thunder Tree Forest to chop wood, sometimes north to pick fruit.
He generally helped with any work inside the dwelling without picking and choosing, and whenever he went outside he was always accompanied by whoever held the perimeter duty for that week.
And this week's perimeter duty belonged to Tang Mu-jeong.
"Let us go."
"Yes! We'll be back!"
He had lived a full year now in an environment where, like it or not, they all had to rub up against one another.
That was more than enough time for Jeong I-shin to grasp the temperaments of the four old men.
They were old men of truly strong personality.
And if there was one trait that defined Tang Mu-jeong.
"Heh heh, would you like a peach?"
"I will not eat it. And I do not know how many times I must tell you that is not a peach."
"Then what is it?"
"That is not for you to know."
It was that he was extraordinarily prickly toward Jeong I-shin!
Gongheon treated him almost as a grandson, and Namgung Baek treated him like a friend.
Yeo Hwi felt as though he kept a strange distance, but on the surface at least he was endlessly gentle.
Which meant that in the whole Bottomless Abyss, Tang Mu-jeong was the only one who found Jeong I-shin disagreeable.
And Jeong I-shin's approach to such an old man was resolute.
"Then tell me next time."
"Why would I? No."
"Understood, thank you."
"I said no!"
"Yes, sir! Let's get going, old sir. This much peach should be enough, right?"
"You......! It is not a peach!"
You're the first person to treat me like this...... was not true, actually.
It is no easy thing to spit in a smiling man's face!
Besides, Tang Mu-jeong was not like this only toward him.
The old man grumbled at everyone with perfect fairness, so it did not particularly sting.
"Why is this northern forest called the White Silk Web Forest? It isn't white and there's no silk. That's a terrible name. Did Elder Namgung come up with it?"
"I named it."
"Now that I look again, it does seem a bit white."
Watching Jeong I-shin smile brightly, Tang Mu-jeong clicked his tongue.
He straightened the dark green cloth covering his left eye, then pointed toward the depths of the forest.
That place was as though a pitch-black wall had been erected, with not an inch of what lay beyond it visible.
At a glance it looked as if space itself had been severed clean through.
"The real White Silk Web Forest is past that point. This is not yet the creature's territory."
"Ah! Is that so? I've come here any number of times, so why did nobody tell me?"
"Because there is no need to cross over, and because you must not."
"Could there maybe be something inside tastier than peaches?"
"It is not a pea...... ha!"
Tang Mu-jeong's face crumpled.
If he had finished picking the fruit, he could simply sit in a corner and rest.
Jeong I-shin almost never did.
As if he had contracted some disease that killed him if he were alone, he trailed after Tang Mu-jeong chattering the whole while.
'It is not that I am lonel...... no. He is so loud I could die.'
Tang Mu-jeong clicked his tongue inwardly and thought.
Since he was so loud, it would be better to give him the answer and shut his mouth.
"There was one who thought the same as you."
"Gasp! Elder Namgung has crossed over there before?"
"Yes, the Sword Ghost crossed...... hm?"
What was this?
Tang Mu-jeong tilted his head and asked,
"Did you hear it from the Sword Ghost?"
"No?"
"Then how did you know?"
"There isn't really anyone else it could be besides Elder Namgung?"
"......"
There was no room to argue.
He was thinking that the flippant brat had a decent eye when Jeong I-shin began tilting his head over and over.
"Still, about the depths of the northern forest...... I feel like I might have heard something, or maybe not?"
At words that sounded like mockery Tang Mu-jeong scowled, but Jeong I-shin was sincere.
'I think I heard it on the way back from meeting the Blood-Armored Centipede the first time?'
Yes, he was fairly certain he had heard it.
Taking the dwelling as the center, spirit beasts lived in all four directions.
To the south, the Heavenly Thunder Flying Squirrel; to the west, the Blood-Armored Centipede.
To the east, a snake called the Ink-Scaled Iron-Armored Python, and to the north......
"Hurgh!"
Gooseflesh rose over him and Jeong I-shin hurriedly waved his hands.
"D-don't tell me! I remembered."
He even remembered why he had erased it from his memory.
He had dry-heaved from nothing more than hearing its appearance described.
He was stroking his chest when Tang Mu-jeong let out a snort of laughter.
"They say there is no coward like you in all the world, and it seems it was true. How can an inheritor of the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture have a spirit this feeble?"
"Ugh...... what am I supposed to do about physical revulsion?"
"Pff! Should the chance ever come in the future, do not set foot anywhere near the Tang Clan. If you saw the inside of the Tang Clan estate you would not be able to eat for a month."
Tang Mu-jeong said it wearing a wide smile.
Seeing it, Jeong I-shin smiled along awkwardly.
The content of the conversation was awful, but it was the first time he had seen Tang Mu-jeong smile so brightly, so it did not feel bad.
'Does he like disgusting bugs? Isn't he smiling a bit too much? At this rate the corners of his mouth are going to tear......'
Tang Mu-jeong smiled. He kept smiling.
The corners of his mouth, climbing without any sign of stopping, tore open in a long line upward. ......They really did tear straight open, all the way to his ears.
'......!'
Jeong I-shin froze without even managing a scream. Naturally, it was not Tang Mu-jeong's real face.
KRIK! KRRRIK!
Behind Tang Mu-jeong.
There was an enormous spider with faces identical to Tang Mu-jeong's hung in clusters all over its body.
"Urk......!"
A monster with human faces set like dots into a pitch-black bulk.
It was the appearance of the ruler of the northern forest, the White Silk Web Forest — the Human-Faced Spider.