Heaven's Gift of Talent
The Jinhwa Gate surged into motion.
The entire Wulin tensed again, yet the Jinhwa Gate merely burned one minor estate in a small city and vanished.
The public buzzed with rumors about the Martial Sage’s latest whims, but those who truly knew the truth grew grave.
The Martial Sage had slain a cultivator!
From the highest echelons of the martial world to the Supreme Court, the Imperial Family themselves.
They were precisely the ones who understood the cultivators’ terror.
To them, the tale of a Martial Sage extinguishing a cultivator was like the heavens themselves turning upside down.
***
“Yeon Kingdom is engulfed in chaos.”
Of course, outwardly it remained calm.
The Martial Sage Yeonghun had only torched a single estate.
Yet those who knew the truth were visibly shaken.
“His path will slowly ignite deeper storms.”
“It matters not. The storm itself is irrelevant.”
The man who had actually slain the cultivator showed no agitation whatsoever.
“Those bizarre spells they cast can be dismantled even by Peak Martial Artists once you master them. But no matter how many we slaughter, they only deepen our understanding of the Wansuigungmurok. We must hunt more of them, hunt far stronger ones.”
“Fear not. There are still many more cultivators to find.”
I smiled, spreading out the map of Yeon Kingdom before me.
During my past life I had investigated every shadow where these cultivators lurked. The number exceeded anything Yeonghun-hyung could have hoped for.
“Next target locked in.”
***
Six months later.
The Jinhwa Gate swept across the land, slaughtering the bloodlines of every cultivator hiding in Yeon Kingdom one by one.
Most were ordinary Peak Martial Artists. Almost none reached the Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown.
As a result, even the elders never had to draw steel. Only the Peak experts of the Jinhwa Army fought.
‘But this isn’t enough.’
From what I knew, the cultivators we faced were still the lowest of the low even by cultivator standards—petty insects of the mortal world handling mundane affairs.
Flip that logic and the lowest cultivators matched the strength of Peak Martial Artists.
‘It’s time… we started meeting high-grade cultivators.’
My prediction was spot-on.
Three months after that, the Jinhwa Gate clashed with a cultivator of entirely different caliber.
***
“Rumors say some band of thugs, no sense of justice whatsoever, has been slaughtering the bloodlines of our cultivation families. Is that you?”
One day, on a mountain road while heading to eliminate a cultivator staying in Chango Castle.
A young man in blue robes stepped forward and flashed a mischievous grin.
Yet none of the Jinhwa Army dared look down on him.
The prickling killing intent and crushing pressure he exuded screamed that he was no ordinary cultivator.
“Using the intelligence we’ve gathered, we learned that your cultivation family was trying to annihilate us with the help of the martial world and the court. We are merely struggling to survive. If you are one of their scouts, deliver this message: cease your pursuit or we will stop slaughtering your cultivators!”
Yeonghun-hyung roared, his voice thundering like a mountain.
The young man’s expression twisted.
“Hah… hahaha…”
He suddenly burst into insane laughter.
“AHAHAHAHAHA! Hahahahaha! Hahahaha! Truly, truly… AHAHAHAHA!”
Thud. Thud.
Around the mountain path, a youth in blue robes and a beautiful woman in azure robes emerged.
All of them radiated the same aura as the young man.
“Hahahaha… How utterly amusing. You seem to have made a grave misunderstanding. Since you amused me, I shall grant one piece of basic knowledge about the cultivation world.”
The young man spread his left palm.
A single character—Refining Qi—floated above it.
“Among the cultivator realms, the lowest is called Qi Condensation in the cultivation world. The cultivators you have slaughtered so far…”
“Those were Qi Condensation cultivators?”
“No, no. Listen to me till the end. Qi Condensation is divided into fourteen layers. From first layer to fourteenth layer, with each number closer to the next realm. A fourteenth-layer cultivator is cherished even among cultivation families, while a first-layer one is considered a waste of the cultivation world. And…”
Chuckling.
The young man’s right palm opened.
A single stroke of the character One appeared.
“What you have been arrogantly slaughtering are first-layer Qi Condensation cultivators—far beneath even the lowest of our cultivation families. We are the ones who control them, the very bottom of the bottom.”
“…”
My head spun as if struck.
In my past life I never had the chance to learn such truths.
‘I knew the realms of Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment, and then…’
That within Qi Condensation lay yet more layers, that every single cultivator hiding in the martial world who had matched Peak strength was merely the dregs of the dregs!
“By the way, my friends and I have already reached the third layer of Qi Condensation. We are on an entirely different plane from the trash you’ve been fighting…”
“So there are fourteen layers. You only reached the third?”
Yeonghun-hyung cut him off with a contemptuous snort.
“Even at the bottom of the bottom, you stomp on first-layer trash like it’s nothing. At least the ones I faced met my resolve head-on. Is that all your spellcraft can do? Just open your mouth?”
“G-Guh…”
The young man’s face twisted in fury.
“Fine. Since you insist, I’ll show you what third-layer Qi Condensation truly means!”
Whoosh—whoosh!
Two cultivators poured out qi pressure from their bodies.
Yet Yeonghun-hyung merely clicked his tongue and turned away.
“Annoying pests. Jinhwa Army! Prepare the formation!”
At once, the Jinhwa Army’s Peak experts activated a formation born from the Wansuigungmurok, encircling the three.
Flash!
Light from the stars burst forth as the three began their spells.
‘Fast!’
I realized these three were not like the cultivators I had faced before.
‘Without chanting incantations, they cast spells of this caliber!’
Normally, cultivators always chanted before unleashing their arts.
Yet these three wielded power far beyond anything I had ever encountered without a single chant.
‘But…’
Yes, they were strong.
Still, some inexplicable instinct told me we would not lose.
Why?
“Form the array!”
“Open the Wansuigungmurok!”
The Wansuigungmurok was invincible.
Every technique derived from it was likewise invincible.
“Charge!”
The strongest technique.
***
The battle lasted only one hour.
Thanks to the formation, we barely managed to slaughter the three cultivators.
“Stronger cultivators will appear from now on. They will reach the third layer of Qi Condensation—the weak ones among the weak.”
“Even so, the elders don’t need to fight. If someone reached Three Flowers, they could handle that much.”
“Still…”
“The elders have learned the Wansuigungmurok too. Even if monsters appear stronger than them, no problem.”
Yeonghun-hyung waved away my worries with absolute certainty.
“Every time I see cultivators fight, I feel it clearly. The Wansuigungmurok was created to kill them. No matter how strong they become, it will always have perfect counterplay against them!”
The Wansuigungmurok.
A superb martial art indeed.
But I remembered my past life.
The Yeonghun-hyung of that era had never thought to defeat cultivators with it.
He had only ever said he would protect himself if he met one.
I felt a strange premonition about his overconfident words now.
He warned me to remain on guard.
***
Gradually, the cultivators we encountered grew stronger.
At first, they were mere third-layer Qi Condensation youths in blue robes blocking our path.
As we carved through them quickly, a fourth-layer cultivator appeared.
He single-handedly held off three hundred Jinhwa Army soldiers in formation until an elder who had reached Three Flowers finally slew him.
Next came a sixth-layer cultivator.
He dueled an elder at Three Flowers to a standstill until the elder slipped inside his guard and finished him.
“Had I not mastered the Wansuigungmurok, I would have been outmatched even by cultivators below me.”
The Three Flowers elder proved his point with those words right after the duel.
Then, half a month later, we met a seventh-layer cultivator.
Five Peak elders who had reached Three Flowers and mastered the Wansuigungmurok were required to fight him.
We barely managed to slay the seventh-layer cultivator, yet the elders’ faces were grim.
“Reporting to the Lord Commander. The seventh layer. We needed our full strength to defeat even the middle ones among them. If stronger ones appear…”
“Will we be able to handle them?”
Yeonghun-hyung showed no flicker of worry.
“Use the Wansuigungmurok to its absolute limit. It was made to kill cultivators. A technique that pierces their blind spots! Have faith!”
Time passed.
After slaying the seventh-layer cultivator, no fourth-layer or higher cultivators bothered us for a while.
We settled near the fortress city of Cheonbyeok and rebuilt the Jinhwa Gate headquarters.
Then we seized the entire city and formally established our sect once more.
Occasionally first- or second-layer Qi Condensation cultivators attacked the headquarters, but that was all.
Most cultivators were simply captured and killed by our Peak experts.
Quiet descended across Yeon Kingdom like the calm before a storm, lasting several years.
***
Boom. Boom!
I swung the Danak Sword Art and finally felt I had reached the realm I had pursued all along.
Beyond mere freedom of movement, I had room to experiment with other things.
Within that freedom, I forged my inner energy with the ultimate resolve.
It felt as if sword and hand had become one.
Whoosh!
Crack!
The sword sliced the air with lethal sharpness.
Invisible, transparent qi.
A shimmer of light clung to the blade.
Sword Qi.
“Ha… haha… Hahahahaha!”
I swung the Danak Sword Art, slicing through a boulder the size of a battle-standard.
Crack!
The boulder split clean in two, like tofu.
“Finally… late-stage first-rank!”
Sword Qi was not simply strengthening a blade with inner energy.
It was tempering the sword technique itself to its limit, releasing the inner energy to amplify its unique properties to the extreme.
That was sword qi.
In the Danak Sword Art, the cutting property was the strongest, so the sword qi it produced was the most powerful.
With practice, countless hidden traits within the Danak Sword Art could be unleashed as sword qi.
“Ten years. From early first-rank to here… it took ten years…”
It had been thirty years since I began this life.
My body was now nineteen years old.
I had only reached late first-rank at almost sixty.
‘Twenty years remain to me.’
Could I become a Peak expert within that time?
To reach first-rank, I had gathered every scrap of public information and pushed myself with endless effort.
But from Peak onward, the world claimed only those with monstrous talent could reach it.
The Peak experts of the Jinhwa Army had reached their realm precisely because they possessed such talent from the start.
‘In this life… can I?’
I stared at my hands, already etched with fine lines, and sighed softly.
No need to decide whether it’s possible.
If all I could do was swing a sword, then I would swing it.
Just then I prepared to unleash the Danak Sword Art again.
Kwaaang!
An entire hall of the Jinhwa Gate headquarters exploded.
“This kind of explosion…”
A cultivator!
I looked up sharply. A cultivator riding a leaf-shaped artifact hovered above, gazing down at our headquarters with calm eyes.
“Jinhwa Gate Lord, the Martial Sage, come out and receive your punishment.”
The cultivator’s voice echoed across the entire headquarters.
Shiver. Shiver…
A chill ran down my spine.
‘Dangerous.’
This was on a completely different scale from the cultivators I had faced.
“Word reached our family that the Jinhwa Gate Lord has been captured and killed by the Martial Sage. I, a Foundation Establishment preceptor of the family, will deal with you.”
Yeonghun-hyung stepped beside me and whispered.
“Hide outside the Jinhwa Gate headquarters. Warn everyone.”
“Hyung?”
“Compared to the Foundation Establishment preceptors I’ve faced before, this one…”
“Hyung, you’re in danger too…?”
“HAHAHA, of course not.”
He chuckled.
“Anyone who reached Five Qi Consorting with the Origin could at least match him. And I have already reached Five Qi and continued training the Wansuigungmurok.”
A monstrous qi pressure erupted from him.
Glee shone in his eyes.
“I will not lose… Do not worry!”
Boom!
He kicked off the ground and walked through the air on Void Step, drawing his sword toward the hovering Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Crack!
A blinding flash and thunderous boom followed.
Following his advice, I evacuated the others and stepped outside the headquarters.
Above the buildings, countless lights and explosions erupted as the Foundation Establishment preceptor and Yeonghun-hyung’s figures clashed.
The preceptor rode his artifact, hovering in the air, and parried Yeonghun-hyung’s sword.
Yet when the preceptor drew a one-inch-long white sword and thrust it, Yeonghun-hyung began to retreat.
The preceptor pulled out strange artifacts one after another, his expression growing paler as he realized he was losing ground.
But in that instant.
Yeonghun-hyung vanished.
A moment later, the cultivator’s head tumbled to the ground.
“Are you all right, Hyung!”
The elders nearby rushed to the battlefield.
“Huff… huh…”
Yeonghun-hyung stood there, gasping, a man who had never once been out of breath against anyone before.
“Lord Commander!”
“Martial Sage!”
“Hyung!”
We rushed to his side.
“Look!”
He suddenly raised his sword.
“What are you looking at?”
“I’m looking at the sword!”
“The sword…? Ah…!”
His blade was missing all its teeth.
Until now he had never used a broken sword or broken blade.
He simply bought whatever old weapons he could find in nearby villages.
Thinking tools did not matter, he had wielded crude weapons all this time.
Yet this was the first time in his life that even against a martial artist or cultivator he had ever faced, his blade had broken.
“Ha… haha… Hahahahaha!”
Yeonghun-hyung laughed heartily.
“Until now I believed tools did not matter and used only crude weapons. But seeing those weird artifacts he was throwing around, I realized that a sword is only as strong as its wielder. If I had been a fraction weaker, I would have been cut down by that monster!”
“Ugh… so strong…”
The elders’ faces darkened.
Yet Yeonghun-hyung’s expression shone with joy.
“Yes, he was unbelievably strong. Anyone who didn’t reach Five Qi Consorting with the Origin would be unable to face him even with the Wansuigungmurok. The gap is simply too vast! Not only did he circulate his inner energy like breathing, but he also layered countless defensive spells on top… his teeth were knocked out by the sword…”
His eyes sparkled.
“I can win! When I perfect the Wansuigungmurok!”
“Even those monsters can be killed!!”
“Aaah…”
“Aaah!”
The elders’ faces lit up with hope.
“A mortal! A cultivator! I can defeat them!!”
Yeonghun-hyung gripped his broken sword and shouted at the top of his lungs.
I felt hope from him and my heart surged.
“I will drive out every cultivator hiding in Yeon Kingdom and turn the martial world into one belonging only to martial artists!”
Yeonghun-hyung raised his sword to the sky with bold conviction.
Everyone had no choice but to follow his will.
He had shown them hope.
***
Half a month later.
Fifty Foundation Establishment preceptors descended upon us.