Shifting Shapes and Swapping Positions
There was no one in this world who liked martial artists, but physicians hated them even more.
Even when they were treated well, martial artists often stiffed the doctor anyway. If the treatment didn’t satisfy them, they resorted to beatings and extortion, and if the timing was bad, they might even kill the physician on the spot.
So many doctors refused to take martial artists as patients, no matter how much silver they were offered.
After all, a doctor’s job was to save lives, while a martial artist’s job was to take them. From the start, the two were a poor match.
Martial artists had their own complaints, of course.
More than half the physicians I’d met so far had been quacks.
When you’d been stabbed, or were writhing in pain from some illness, and they kept trying to shove suspicious-looking medicine at you, there was no choice but to hold a conversation with your fists instead of your mouth.
If a doctor was old, at least that inspired some trust.
Doctor Sang, with his grizzled hair and weathered face, looked skilled enough. He had an ordinary build, but his eyes were sharp and focused, the kind of eyes that belonged to a stubborn man who never compromised.
I wondered if Hua Tuo, who once wanted to split open Cao Cao’s skull with an axe, had looked like this.
When I took out the wooden box and showed him the contents, he recognized it at once and proved he wasn’t a quack after all.
“That’s Heavenly Mountain Snow Ginseng.”
“You know it?”
“Of course. I spent ten years serving as a military doctor in the northern army. The tribespeople would often bring in medicinal herbs and trade them for rice or iron. When wounds festered and a fever set in, snow ginseng brewed into a decoction worked wonders.”
“I’d like it processed. Is that possible?”
Doctor Sang glanced at the short sword at my hip, clearly understanding enough to avoid asking what I planned to use it for.
“You’ll need medicinal ingredients to neutralize the ginseng’s yin energy.”
“Can you do it?”
“I can. Finely slice the ginseng, dry it thoroughly in the shade, then mix in the right medicinal herbs with a yang nature, grind everything into powder, and simmer it down in a licorice infusion to form pills.”
“How long will it take?”
“Come back in five days. Including the cost of the ingredients, it’ll be two nyang of silver.”
I paid one nyang up front and went home.
Five days later, the Heavenly Mountain Snow Ginseng had been turned into ten pills and returned to my hands.
Do Goeng-il seemed satisfied as he inspected the processed pills.
“The physician’s skill is not bad.”
“Are we starting right away?”
“This is the last time I will perform True Qi Guidance. There won’t be a second, so do your utmost to memorize the route.”
“Won’t one time be enough? If we do it a few more times, I could fully understand the internal energy method...”
“True Qi Guidance consumes the practitioner’s internal energy. In any sect, it is only ever done once or twice for a direct disciple, or a blood relative.”
“Can’t internal energy be recovered through breathing exercises?”
“No.”
Do Goeng-il shook his head firmly.
“The amount of inner force accumulated through breathing exercises is negligible. If breathing exercises alone were enough to build up your reservoir, then why would internal energy be necessary for breathing exercises in the first place?”
I still didn’t understand.
“Then why do breathing exercises at all?”
“To train your body to follow the route by which internal energy is sent through your techniques. That’s also why each sect has its own internal energy method: it’s optimized for that sect’s unique martial arts.”
“If breathing exercises don’t replenish stored energy, then how are you supposed to recover the internal energy you’ve spent?”
“You obtain a spiritual herb, process it, and then take it. If you’re desperate, you buy some suspicious-looking elixir.”
“Something like this snow ginseng?”
“Exactly.”
My mind went blank.
I’d paid a full hundred nyang of silver for a single root of mid-grade Heavenly Mountain Snow Ginseng. And that was after bargaining it down by pounding the seller so hard they were dizzy, because I’d known I desperately needed cash.
Pan Ho-yang had been so furious that he hired ten bandits to kill me and take it back.
And yet if I wanted to use internal energy, I’d have to keep finding and consuming expensive spiritual herbs like this.
“So internal energy is... basically a money pit.”
Now I understood why so few of the countless martial artists scattered across the vast Central Plains actually used internal energy.
Unless you found some miraculous opportunity like a secret manual left behind by an old master in a cliff cave, or stumbled across a spiritual herb in some hidden mountain valley, you weren’t getting anywhere.
First, you needed the talent to sense internal energy in your dantian.
Then you needed a true expert who could guide your meridians with True Qi Guidance.
And on top of that, you needed enough money to keep buying pricey spiritual herbs to replenish what you spent.
How many martial artists in the world could possibly satisfy all those conditions?
Most small and medium-sized sects would go bankrupt trying to raise even one internal-energy expert.
The penniless strivers who wandered famous mountains in search of blind luck, and the lucky bastards born into good families who received regular marrow cleansing and True Qi Guidance from childhood.
Even if they held the same blade, they never started from the same line.
“Do you understand now why the great orthodox sects and the Five Great Clans have so many masters?”
“...So if you learn internal energy, it pays for itself?”
Do Goeng-il didn’t answer with the words I wanted to hear. Instead, he only spilled out harsh warnings that might as well have been curses.
“Once internal energy accumulates in your body, you must guard against deviation for the rest of your life. If your meridians twist only a little, you’ll suffer internal injuries. If you’re unlucky, your blood vessels will burst and you’ll die, or the energy will reverse into your head and drive you mad, or you’ll end up crippled.”
It sounded as vicious as practicing some demonic art.
“...I heard that once you can use internal energy, the path to becoming a peerless master opens up. Was I wrong?”
“See for yourself.”
Do Goeng-il held the wooden box containing the pills out toward me.
“Eat them all at once.”
“All ten?”
“Every last one. Your dantian is most important when first filling it with internal energy. You must pack it with as much natural energy as possible and expand its capacity, so that it can hold that much again in the future.”
I put one pill in my mouth and bit down. The bitter taste of herbs mixed with the sweetness of licorice, and surprisingly, it was easy enough to swallow.
I chewed hard with my molars and swallowed, then took another.
After I swallowed all ten without leaving a single one behind, I drank some tea, sat in a cross-legged posture, and closed my eyes.
After waiting about half a period, a force I’d never felt before began to stir in my stomach.
“A current is rising.”
“I’ll begin the True Qi Guidance. Focus on the internal energy and draw as much of the spiritual herb’s natural energy into your dantian as you can.”
Internal force flowed into me through my back. The tiny grain of internal energy I’d felt before surfaced again in my dantian.
Using his inner force, Do Goeng-il surrounded the natural energy of the Heavenly Mountain Snow Ginseng as it tried to scatter through my body and forced it into my dantian.
A dense, mist-like force wrapped around my dantian. So thoroughly had it been processed that, despite being a yin-attribute spiritual herb, I could barely feel any cold at all.
I wanted to gather it in immediately, but the natural energy only drifted around the area and would not sink in easily.
As the inner force circulated along the meridians, the natural energy slowly seeped into the blood vessels. It was like snow piled up through winter melting into the river of spring.
The natural energy, having completed a circuit through my body along the meridians, finally flowed into my dantian as though a single drop had formed there. The grain-sized internal energy grew twice as large in an instant.
Like brewing weak cloudy liquor into high-proof clear spirits, the ginseng’s natural energy transformed into internal energy and filled my dantian drop by drop.
My entire body flushed with a surge of joy, as if I had become a wine jar holding an exquisite vintage called internal energy.
Once Do Goeng-il confirmed that the internal energy had accumulated, he slowly withdrew his inner force.
From that point on, I had to immerse myself in breathing exercises entirely through my own strength and will.
I woke from my half-stupor with the full, satisfying feeling of my dantian filling up. Gathering the remaining natural energy that had nowhere else to go and was dispersing into my limbs, I opened my eyes.
Inside the dantian below my navel, a faint but definite internal energy could clearly be felt.
I bent down and sniffed my clothes. They smelled exactly the same as before. There wasn’t the slightest trace of expelled impurities.
I tipped my head back and looked upward, but there was nothing there.
“...By any chance, did three luminous blossoms bloom above my head, or did five-colored energy like the five elements appear and then vanish?”
“Hm. Sounds like you saw things. Ask a doctor about it later. Maybe those pills had opium mixed in.”
Do Goeng-il answered indifferently and rose to his feet.
“Come outside and pick up your blade.”
I took my short sword and stood in the yard.
“Use only the slightest amount of internal energy, following the circulation route, and perform the first eighteen forms. Do not stir your internal energy too greatly. The meridians are channels meant for blood to flow through. If you shove unfamiliar internal energy into them too forcefully, you’ll injure yourself at once.”
I drew out only the thinnest thread of internal energy from my dantian, circulated it along the route, and executed the forms with my short sword.
This time, my movements were definitely different.
Sharper senses. Lighter footwork. Movements that were a little faster, a little heavier with force...
My physical condition felt perfect, like I’d just eaten well and slept soundly. But that was all.
After completing the forms, I was left in an awkward stance, with a faint sense of disappointment and confusion.
Seeing my dejected expression, Do Goeng-il clicked his tongue and stepped forward.
Sssssss...
His figure blurred before my eyes. It stretched out, leaving a trail of afterimages, and then disappeared from view.
I startled and turned around. Do Goeng-il was standing there calmly with his hands clasped behind his back.
My mouth fell open in shock.
Shifting Shapes and Swapping Positions...
Do Goeng-il shook his head, unimpressed.
“How much internal energy have you had, and you expect to fly through the sky like an immortal already?”
“How on earth did you—”
“Not all internal energy is the same. As you cultivate it over and over, it becomes deeper and denser, allowing you to circulate more inner force at once and more efficiently. That’s how tricks like this are possible. Just showing you this little bit wasted five-tenths of my internal energy. Tsk. The losses are no small matter because of you.”
“You used five-tenths of your internal energy just for one Shifting Shapes and Swapping Positions?”
“If I’d held a sword and executed a proper form, it would have eaten up about seven-tenths, melting away like snow. At your current level, you couldn’t even manage it, but it would probably still cost more than two-tenths.”
Whether I lost one-tenth of my internal energy or half of it, I didn’t care.
If I were forced into a corner and about to die with no way out, being able to use a technique like that would be a true lifesaving move.
Even if I lost all my internal energy, it would still be cheap if it meant keeping my life.
When Do Goeng-il saw the fire in my eyes, he let out a dry laugh.
“This isn’t something I can teach you. It’s merely a realm you may one day reach if you keep climbing step by step, like ascending Mount Tai on your own two feet.”
I swallowed hard and asked cautiously, “Then... can you also use sword qi or sword force?”
Do Goeng-il’s eyes narrowed.
“So that brat at the inn picked up those ridiculous ideas from you, did he? Such things don’t exist. They’re only found in cheap martial-arts novels sold at used-book stalls. If one sword stroke could topple Mount Tai and one palm strike could split the sea, then why did the eunuchs invade the Central Plains and burn the Shaolin Temple, and why did the Wudang Sect shut its gates?”
Hearing him mention burning, something suddenly came to mind.
“Have you ever heard of the Explosive Heat Fist Demon?”
“You mean that demonic brute from Tianshan who made a living with his fists?”
“One blow from his fist caved in people’s skulls, and the heat from it set fire to everything around him. Was that also the power of internal energy?”
“Demonic arts could do that, certainly. They burn through the latent potential meant to last a lifetime. When did you last see the Explosive Heat Fist Demon?”
“About nine years ago.”
“Then you won’t be seeing him again. By now, he’s probably nothing but bones.”
Do Goeng-il spoke as if the man’s death were certain.
“If someone uses power beyond the limits of a human being, they pay the price for it. Even if they keep themselves alive like a beast by sucking blood and marrow, once they fall into deviation, they are no longer human.”
“So demonic arts can really achieve that much?”
“Do you want to become one with Tianshan?”
Do Goeng-il sneered with ruthless contempt.
“Do you know how many demonic practitioners are ground to pieces to create a single demonic master? At the very least, hundreds. Usually thousands. And even then, most don’t survive ten years. If demonic arts were so easy and so powerful, the Demon Sect would have ruled the martial world long ago.”
Do Goeng-il wasn’t merely a master of force. His internal energy ran deep, and his knowledge was broad enough that it was worth pricking up my ears and listening carefully.
With a stern expression, he gave me a serious warning.
“Keep the fact that you possess internal energy absolutely secret. No one is to know. Never use it in front of other people. Even when you do breathing exercises, do them somewhere safe and secluded.”
“Is it really necessary to go that far...?”
Perhaps frustrated that I still didn’t understand, Do Goeng-il’s expression and voice turned cold.
“Have you ever seen another martial artist who uses internal energy besides me?”
“No. Never.”
“Do you think that’s a coincidence? Internal-energy experts are rare, yes, but you’ve never even seen one? Think back to the trap set up in the black market.”
The trap in the black market, where pulling a hidden lever caused the floorboards of the inn to split apart and drop you more than five zhang into the underground pit.
It had been powerful enough to wipe out ten bandits in an instant.
There was no way they would have gone to all that trouble just to snatch ordinary people who knew nothing of martial arts.
It was a trap meant to capture martial arts masters like wild beasts and sell them off as living manuals of martial arts.
I wondered how much an internal-energy expert would be worth in the black market.
The answer was probably: whatever price they chose to name.
Hadn’t I, myself, been tempted by the words “internal energy method” enough to accept a mad condition like a life-and-death duel five years later?
If word got out that I could use internal energy, there would be no shortage of people and factions hunting me.
As for those who would come kneeling, begging, or offering rare blades and vast fortunes to negotiate a deal—that would only be annoying, not dangerous.
But if someone like the black market got greedy...
They might capture me with medicine, poison, a beauty, or a trap, cut my legs off to make me a cripple, and turn me into a slave who spent the rest of his life taking spiritual herbs and doing breathing exercises for them.
The thought alone sent a chill down my spine and made my heart go cold.
“Even in the Jianghu, there are martial artists with all the skill and backing they could ever want—disciples of the great orthodox sects, sons of the Five Great Clans—who still vanish without a trace. Let alone someone like you, wandering the world alone. If you recklessly reveal your internal energy, you’ll only bring endless calamity upon yourself.”
Even though I understood perfectly well, Do Goeng-il kept on with his stern warning, as if he still didn’t trust me to take it seriously.
“Claws that are exposed too often grow dull at the tips, and when the time comes to use them, they’re no longer sharp. Don’t rely on internal energy. Train diligently in your saber technique. Remember this: internal energy must be a hidden trump card, a lifesaving move of last resort. The moment you become drunk on its power and start showing off, that will be your grave.”
Listening to him, I couldn’t help thinking that it was a lot like how the Tang Clan used poison.
The Tang Clan had a sinister reputation because once they poisoned someone, they killed every witness afterward to keep their secrets safe.
If anyone learned that I used internal energy, maybe I’d have to be silenced in exactly the same way.
“For a while starting tomorrow, I won’t be in this town. It could be as soon as a month, or at the latest before this year is out.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I need to find spiritual herbs. Using my internal energy on some bastard who isn’t even my disciple makes it feel like half my remaining lifespan has been shaved away.”
I felt a little guilty hearing that, but at the same time I also felt strangely relieved, as if the life-and-death duel five years from now had been pushed a little farther away.
I kept my expression neutral and asked about the future.
“Then when can I learn the last eighteen forms?”
“First, practice the first eighteen forms and learn to send internal energy through them. When I return, I’ll judge based on what you’ve achieved.”
After seeing Do Goeng-il off, I barred the door.
Standing alone in the empty yard, I looked up at the darkening sky. The Shifting Shapes and Swapping Positions I had just seen had burned itself into my mind with startling force.
Do Goeng-il had compared it to climbing Mount Tai, but perhaps it was even farther and higher than that. Which was exactly why it was worthy of being the goal of a lifetime.
I drew my short sword and slowly began to gather internal energy.
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