Chapter 42
.CHAPTER_TITLE: The Ultimate Art
At last, I was going to learn the latter eighteen forms of the Thousand Steel Saber Technique. Once I mastered them, the saber art would be complete.
The first eighteen forms were already fierce and devastating. With those alone, I had survived countless moments when I should have died. I had even beaten down opponents stronger than me through sheer stubbornness.
The latter eighteen forms were said to be impossible to learn without an internal energy cultivation method. Just thinking about how extraordinary they must be made my heart race.
No matter how famous Jeok Chu-yeong was in the evil paths, I figured this might still be within reach. I was so eager, so keyed up, that I barely slept the night before.
The next morning, before the sun had even risen, Do Goeng-il came looking for me.
“Have you eaten breakfast?”
“I have. Are you ready?”
“Of course.”
In the middle of the courtyard, Do Goeng-il drew his sword.
Without even taking a stance, he slowly raised the blade and sliced the air with a smooth, effortless motion.
I held my breath and widened my eyes, trying not to miss a single detail of the sword’s movement, the line of his upper body and lower body, his footwork, even the smallest gesture of his hand.
When a saber art was performed with a sword, it always looked a little awkward, and the power never came out quite right. But if it was someone as skilled as Do Goeng-il, I figured there had to be something different about it.
There was, in fact, a clear difference. The longer I watched, the more I found myself tilting my head in confusion.
Was this really a saber art?
Unlike the fierce, combative first eighteen forms, the latter eighteen looked almost like a sword dance.
It had gone completely beyond the usual bounds of cutting and thrusting. And yet it wasn’t swordsmanship either.
He was swinging a sword, but the sword itself seemed to vanish. It wasn’t cutting anything, nor was it thrusting. I couldn’t even spot anything that looked like a conventional form.
It was like wind flowing from fingertip to toe, like clouds drifting through the sky.
At the end of that movement I still couldn’t understand, Do Goeng-il’s sword drew through the early autumn air and slid back into its scabbard.
“Did you watch carefully?”
“I watched, yes, but… this is a saber art? It’s nothing like the first eighteen forms. Isn’t it just sword dance?”
As if he had expected that, Do Goeng-il stepped aside and waved me forward.
“Show me yourself.”
So I did as he said. It wasn’t a particularly difficult stance, but the moment I began, he pointed out an error.
“Your blade is too high. Straighten your upper body more. Widen the distance between your feet...”
He corrected my posture with meticulous care, but even then I couldn’t make sense of what I was doing.
“They call it the latter eighteen forms, but where are these eighteen techniques supposed to be?”
“Go ask those fools of the Saber Sect. They got the first eighteen forms from here, so I suppose they figured there ought to be eighteen here as well and named it accordingly. Men who use sabers are usually as simple-minded as butchers.”
I ignored the slander from a scheming swordsman who clearly knew nothing about the boldness of saber arts and kept drilling the movements.
I spent time on the latter eighteen forms, paid close attention to my posture, and repeated them again and again. Nothing about them stirred me. There was no feeling, no response at all.
If I moved like this in real combat, I’d be cut down by some third-rate wanderer.
When I looked at him with a suspicious expression, Do Goeng-il finally spoke.
“Unleash it while circulating your internal energy method.”
I slowly drew up my internal energy. After confirming the steady flow of energy moving through the circuit and out to my limbs, I performed the latter eighteen forms again.
This time, it felt different. Each time I extended my arm, stepped out, or shifted my body, my internal energy moved smoothly in step with it.
Guiding internal energy through a form was something I’d repeated countless times over the past month. It wasn’t anything new, but the latter eighteen forms were completely different. The internal energy wasn’t increasing the speed or power of the forms.
It was the opposite. The forms were guiding the path by which the internal energy flowed.
Everything I had learned until now, whether using a saber or a fist, had been aimed at one thing only: bringing an opponent down, or killing him.
It had always been a chain of blood-soaked struggle, a narrowing road between life and death.
The latter eighteen forms were not like that. What came to the tip of the blade was not an unknown enemy whose flesh had to be torn and whose breath had to be cut off.
They were merely a channel through which internal energy, born from the natural qi, could stay and flow. Internal energy was like water: it could be held anywhere, and it was bound to nowhere.
The forms, too, resembled internal energy. They shed shape and flowed freely along with it.
If I had to put it into words...
It was free, and yet utterly elusive.
I slashed the saber through the sky and finished the latter eighteen forms as if in a trance.
Whoosh.
The scattered thoughts inside me gathered back into one again. It left a bitter, hard-to-name feeling in my chest.
“This is... what exactly is it?”
“Do you understand now? Why the latter eighteen forms cannot be learned without an internal energy cultivation method?”
Still standing there with a dazed face, I saw Do Goeng-il frown.
“You still don’t seem convinced. Then keep repeating it until you are. Supreme ultimate arts aren’t something you grasp with words. If you can’t understand it, then your body is the one that will suffer.”
The feeling wasn’t bad, so without another word I began the latter eighteen forms again.
Do Goeng-il watched for a while, then took off his shoes, climbed up onto the veranda, and lit the brazier.
He boiled water, brewed tea, and, without even looking at my training, simply admired the scenery of the mountain behind the house.
By the time the sun tilted toward the western ridge and the sunset began staining the blade red, I stopped.
It wasn’t a particularly violent set of forms, but I was exhausted. When I checked my dantian, I found I had used up about five-tenths of my internal energy.
I laid the long saber down and collapsed onto the veranda.
Only then did Do Goeng-il turn his head and study me with a steady gaze.
“Not bad for a first day. So, what is your impression now that you’ve learned all of the latter eighteen forms?”
I thought about it for a while, then shook my head honestly.
“I don’t know. It’s too different from the first eighteen forms.”
“Tch. Is the essence of a supreme art simply to teach you how to block and thrust? The latter eighteen forms condense the school’s martial principles within the framework of the saber. While you were learning the first eighteen forms, didn’t you ever feel as if you’d hit some wall and couldn’t move forward?”
I was jolted upright.
“How do you know that?”
“The first eighteen forms of the Thousand Steel Saber Technique are a crude, vulgar version of the latter eighteen forms. Not even disciples like you, much less so-called prodigies, could understand them no matter how they were taught, so they were lowered in rank to emphasize practical use. It is the martial principle hidden within the latter eighteen forms, forcibly clothed and fixed inside the shape of techniques. Like freezing water in a vessel.”
Do Goeng-il poured the tea from his cup onto the veranda. Holding up the now empty cup for me to see, he continued.
“The sword lineage is no different. After learning the Jade Spring Sword Technique, which turns martial principles into forms, one then moves on to the supreme art, Late Wisdom Myriad Swords.”
“Then are the latter eighteen forms and Late Wisdom Myriad Swords the peak of the Cheongsan Sect’s martial arts?”
Do Goeng-il shook his head.
“The school’s true ultimate art is Cheongsan Art. It is the essence created by the second sect leader. Both the saber lineage and the sword lineage are rooted there.”
“Did you learn Cheongsan Art too?”
“No.”
Even someone of his level couldn’t reach it?
“It was lost. It could not be preserved as a manual, and no one besides the second sect leader ever truly mastered it. Naturally, the line was cut off.”
Do Goeng-il fixed me with his dark, steady eyes.
“Now that you’ve been taught the latter eighteen forms, no one can deny that you are the successor of the saber lineage, can they?”
“I suppose not.”
“Speak properly.”
“Understood. I, Jeong Dae-cheon of Seochon, am the successor of the Cheongsan Sect’s saber lineage.”
Do Goeng-il gave a slight, satisfied nod.
“Now that you’re a disciple of the school, stop calling me ‘old man’ all the time.”
“Then what am I supposed to call you? Grand martial uncle? Great-grand martial uncle?”
“Just call me elder. I’ll tell you the direction of your training from here on.”
I quickly took off my shoes, climbed up onto the veranda, and sat facing him.
Do Goeng-il refilled the empty cup and looked at me with a grave expression.
“Use the martial principles of the latter eighteen forms as your teacher and train the first eighteen forms. Through insight, draw out the latent potential of the Thousand Steel Saber Technique hidden within the first eighteen forms.”
I had thought he was going to instruct me in earnest, but in the end he was telling me to figure it out myself.
I calmly went over the latter eighteen forms I had just practiced for more than three shichen without rest. I could clearly feel the martial principles of a supreme art, but I still couldn’t grasp anything solid. I was nowhere near the end of this road.
“That doesn’t sound easy...”
“It isn’t. But it is the fastest and surest path. If you keep looking for an easier road just because the latter eighteen forms are difficult, you’ll end up forcing things in the name of convenience, like trying to cram sword thrusts into a saber art.”
I was still young, so maybe if I trained for the rest of my life, I would eventually reach that realm. But I didn’t have that much time.
Within this year, I would infiltrate the Black Night Gang headquarters and clash with Jeok Chu-yeong.
Even if I defeated Jeok Chu-yeong and achieved my goal, five years later I would have to fight the monstrous supreme expert standing right in front of me.
“Is the life-and-death duel with you still on?”
I asked in case he had changed his mind. Do Goeng-il didn’t hesitate for even a moment.
“Yes.”
“Why do you keep having these life-and-death duels anyway?”
Do Goeng-il fell silent for a moment, then nodded as if the question made sense.
“Since you’re now a proper successor of the saber lineage, you have the right to know... The life-and-death duel held every five years was originally a desperate measure to keep disciples from killing one another.”
“What are you talking about? You said before it was a tradition.”
“It began differently.”
Do Goeng-il idly turned the empty cup in his hand.
“As the hatred between the saber lineage and the sword lineage deepened, even open ambushes in broad daylight began to happen. They became mortal enemies in the truest sense. In the end, the sect leaders and lineage heads agreed that once every five years, only one person would settle the feud through a life-and-death duel.”
No matter how I looked at it, the Cheongsan Sect was not a normal faction.
“What in the world happened inside the Cheongsan Sect to make disciples of the same school start killing each other?”
He really did seem to be accepting me as one of his own now. In a calm voice, he told me the school’s hidden history without holding back.
“When the world outside was plunged into chaos by war, Cheongsan was strangely peaceful. The outside was dangerous, so everyone crouched in a safe nest and lived in hiding. But once a new kingdom rose outside, Cheongsan shook hard...”
The officials were untrustworthy, and the martial world was full of hidden malice. So there was the remaining faction, which believed they should stay on the mountain.
And then there was the descent faction, which argued they should go down the mountain, establish themselves properly, and make a name for the school.
The two sides split and opposed each other fiercely.
Coincidentally, most of those who advocated descending the mountain were saber users.
Afraid that the existence of the Cheongsan Sect would bring trouble if it became known to the outside world, the sect leader issued a ban on descending the mountain.
The descent faction broke the order, secretly went down the mountain, and collided with the sword disciples.
Several people died in the process, and the saber artists who escaped the mountain dragged outside forces into Cheongsan exactly as the sect leader had feared.
They did it under the banner of avenging their slain schoolmates and freeing the disciples of the oppressed Cheongsan Sect.
Revenge fed revenge, and in the end it devoured the disciples whole. To turn the wheel of hatred, all it took was the handful who died at the beginning.
“How did you end up joining such a vicious school, elder?”
“My master took me in.”
“You were an orphan?”
“Both of my parents were alive. They were slash-and-burn farmers.”
Do Goeng-il turned his head toward the yard. Staring into the darkness beyond the wall, he went on.
“My master was... one of the most eccentric and ruthless people in the sword lineage. I heard he had originally been gentle and timid, but after losing all of his sworn brothers to the saber lineage, he was consumed by hatred and turned half mad.”
Do Goeng-il narrowed his eyes as if looking far into the distance.
“He entered closed-door cultivation swearing revenge, only to realize how lacking his own talent was. Once he understood that reaching perfection in Late Wisdom Myriad Swords was impossible, he roamed all over the Central Plains from that day on, searching for prodigies. That was when he found me in the slash-and-burn village.”
It was common enough for masters to travel the jianghu, discover talented children, and take them as disciples.
Do Goeng-il had been the same, though with one very major difference.
“He said I had good bones and martial talent. It was clearly praise, but his eyes were so eerie that it felt more like standing face-to-face with a wolf. He said the same thing to my parents, and told them he would take me away and raise me as a martial artist. My parents politely refused. They were afraid of a man with a sword at his waist and the stink of blood on him, and they were trembling, but they still would not give up their only child.”
And yet Do Goeng-il still ended up as a disciple of the sword lineage.
“Your master must have been persuasive.”
“He wasn’t very good with words. His hands, though, were fast.”
He didn’t ask twice. He drew his sword and cut down my parents.
Soaked in my parents’ blood, I stood there frozen, blank with shock. Then he held out his hand to me and said:
‘Do you want revenge? I’ll help you.’