The Meaning of Life
Ah...
It is beautiful.
Too dazzling to behold.
I stared at Kim Young-hoon in silence.
He was shining.
“Truly... magnificent.”
Had it been my usual self, I would have smiled brightly at him.
Or bowed in respect.
Yet here I stood, murmuring only in a small voice.
He was like light itself.
But the old grief had not vanished from my heart.
Compared to him, I felt pitifully small.
“Truly... congratulations.”
He smiled faintly at me.
And then Kim Young-hoon collapsed where he stood.
Thud.
“Ah...”
That was it.
He had reached the realm after months of no proper sleep or food, swinging his blade like a madman.
I rushed over and laid him down, treating his wounds at once.
Looking at the sleeping man, I forced a bitter smile.
Was this envy?
No... not quite.
It was the bitterness of lacking talent, the faint emptiness, the sense of being unworthy.
He bloomed with new talent every day, advancing further, while I needed literally hundreds of times more time to reach the same heights.
Seeing his light, my own shadow inside grew darker.
I felt hope fading away even more.
“Can I enter Foundation Establishment within the remaining time?”
Honestly, I still wasn’t sure.
Balance was perfecting, breaths shortening, but I still hadn’t reached it.
Moreover, the delicate ratio adjustment required to grasp Wol-do-ip-cheon was becoming harder with every attempt.
“...Cultivation methods, martial arts...”
It felt as if heaven itself was forcibly refusing me.
If there were any influence in fate, why did mine bind me so tightly that I could never advance to the next realm?
“Can I truly cross the wall of the next realm within this lifetime...?”
I calmed my restless heart and spent days reviving Kim Young-hoon.
A few days later, Kim Young-hoon sat up from the ground.
“Kim Hyung, are you feeling better?”
The moment he rose, he looked at me for a long moment.
“Kim Hyung?”
I asked, and only then did Kim Young-hoon look at me with the faintest smile and nod.
“Any uncomfortable spots?”
He shook his head.
“...Can’t you speak?”
He shook his head again and gave me a meaningful smile.
“What is this...?”
Kim Young-hoon rose from his seat, grasped the Dao, and stepped outside.
He gazed at the sky for a moment, then climbed to a high rock nearby, propped his chin with one hand, and watched me.
He looked as though he were observing me.
I read his intent through his consciousness.
It was filled with interest, curiosity, and anticipation.
“Anticipation... could it be?”
His intuition told him I would reach a similar realm to his own.
Perhaps he was waiting to see if I could attain the same heights as him.
“...Kim Hyung, I... don’t have the talent you think I do.”
Yet Kim Young-hoon simply watched without moving.
“...”
I watched him for a moment, sighed, went inside, adjusted the cultivation methods, and trained the martial arts.
From that day onward, Kim Young-hoon’s wanderings never ceased.
Since the day he reached Wol-do-ip-cheon and woke up again, he no longer spoke.
It was not aphasia.
He would occasionally go to buy necessities and open his mouth to speak then, but even then he avoided direct conversation with me.
He said not a single word to me, simply watching me with eyes full of curiosity and expectation.
When I seemed burdened, he would retreat to distant peaks.
But I knew he was always watching me, even from afar.
“...This is burdensome.”
It was as if he were wondering when I would reach the next realm.
No, the feeling was exactly that.
Occasionally I would go to him for martial arts guidance or to observe Wol-do-ip-cheon, but he would avoid speaking to me and stopped giving any advice whatsoever.
It was as though he was reluctant even to reveal any intention.
“What on earth...!”
I was on the verge of going mad with frustration, but I had no choice but to accept his position and continue cultivating on my own, adjusting the Wol-do-ip-cheon ratio.
Time flowed on.
No matter how much passed, Kim Young-hoon stayed near me, patient, maintaining the strange posture of a spectator.
“I’m going to lose my mind.”
He showed no intention, was not insane, and had no aphasia.
Yet he gave me neither guidance nor advice nor even conversation.
Only transparent eyes watching.
As if certain that I would definitely reach the same realm as him one day.
* * *
How many years had passed? How many times?
“Failed again.”
I had repeated failure after failure, observing the changes of the five elements again and again.
Through it all, I had grasped more than seventy percent of the changes.
Yet I still had not reached Foundation Establishment.
If I could grasp the remaining thirty percent, I would be able to rise there.
But now the time was almost up.
“One month, two, three months left...”
My lifespan was at its end.
I looked up at the sky with dull eyes.
Neither martial arts nor cultivation methods would take me further.
I was as good as dust.
Yet Kim Young-hoon still watched me from far away with eyes full of anticipation.
Thump, thump...
I walked up to Kim Young-hoon and spoke.
“...I told you before. My lifespan is almost over. As a cultivator, I know it better than anyone.”
“...”
“After reaching Wol-do-ip-cheon, why have you not spoken? I don’t understand. At this point, don’t you have anything to tell me since you know I lack talent?”
He only gave a faint bitter smile.
“...Enough. I am soon to die. You won’t help me, nor advise me. I came only to say goodbye.”
If I failed to enter Foundation Establishment this time, I would truly die.
“I still don’t understand why Kim Hyung is performing the silent meditation. Honestly, I can’t grasp why you suddenly closed your mouth after reaching Wol-do-ip-cheon. It drives me mad. But... you are clearly a great sage who has opened a new realm. Therefore, I will respect you. Thank you for showing me this new sight.”
I bowed to Kim Young-hoon and slowly headed toward a place on Shattered Heaven Peak.
* * *
After receiving Seo Eun-hyun’s farewell, Kim Young-hoon sighed softly, watching the distant figure of Seo Eun-hyun recede.
“...Why don’t you understand, Eun-hyun-ah.”
Perhaps it was a difference in perspective.
Kim Young-hoon’s eyes showed him the truth.
“You are already complete. You have surpassed the level of having forged a weapon and are now holding one in your hand. All you need to do is swing it... why aren’t you swinging it...?”
Seo Eun-hyun had thought Kim Young-hoon was simply refusing to speak.
But that was not true.
Kim Young-hoon had been the most noisy toward Seo Eun-hyun until now.
He had constantly stimulated Seo Eun-hyun’s martial intent at the Wol-do-ip-cheon realm and nurtured it from the side.
The reason he had not spoken aloud was simple.
Speaking aloud would only blur the essence of the enlightenment.
He had been stimulating the realm of martial intent and gradually awakening Seo Eun-hyun, but Seo Eun-hyun showed no reaction at all.
“...The day to die is approaching.”
He bit his lip.
When he had reached Wol-do-ip-cheon, fallen unconscious, and woken to see Seo Eun-hyun...
Kim Young-hoon had been too shocked to say a word.
Seeing “that” at the Wol-do-ip-cheon realm was shocking, but Seo Eun-hyun’s “that” had already been completed.
And it was far higher and far more solid than Kim Young-hoon had imagined.
It was so complete that Seo Eun-hyun could simply swing it.
Ever since seeing it, Kim Young-hoon had been speaking to that “something” inside Seo Eun-hyun’s martial intent, stimulating and nurturing it without end.
He had given no guidance through speech, nor clashed weapons to teach him.
He feared that such guidance would blur the essence.
But now the day he was to die had arrived.
“Should I speak now?”
You are complete.
All you need to do is swing it.
If I speak directly, can you awaken it now?
Kim Young-hoon looked from afar at Seo Eun-hyun practicing cultivation.
Suddenly, Seo Eun-hyun’s “that” reflected Kim Young-hoon’s own figure.
“...It’s done.”
Kim Young-hoon decided to trust his intuition.
He would continue stimulating the martial intent from the side, just as before.
“Let’s believe in that guy.”
No, he had no choice but to believe.
Anyone would believe it after seeing that.
“If you’re struggling, it’s enough to show it once.”
Kim Young-hoon decided to trust his feelings and the inner world he had seen in Seo Eun-hyun.
* * *
Do you know the feeling of a field that no matter how much manure you give, no sprout ever appears?
I had repeatedly tilled the earth with failed manure, but no sprout had ever grown.
Boom, boom, boom!
I challenged Foundation Establishment again and again.
Stars shattered, five elements adjusted, and failure repeated.
Huuu...
The twenty breaths of recovery power had now shrunk to five breaths.
It was infinitely close to perfection.
Yet, just as it is impossible to find the end of a limit, there were still infinitely fine parts that needed adjustment.
No matter how I adjusted, it felt impossible to reach the end.
“What... exactly should I do...?”
The end was never in sight.
What on earth should I do...?
Crumble!
The star of spiritual energy exploded once again.
“Why does it explode every single time...?”
Honestly, if I had reached the peak of Wol-do-ip-cheon and adjusted the ratio to the extreme, shouldn’t that have been enough?
What more did they want from me here...!
“What... exactly...!”
The grief surged inside me, as if blood were about to burst forth.
“What more are they asking for...?”
And then...
“Hm?”
I twitched my eyelids and looked into the distance.
“...That’s...”
Kim Young-hoon rose from his seat and began performing the sword dance.
It was the sword dance.
It was the Danak Sword Art.
From the first second to the twenty-fourth, the movements swept across the void, and Kim Young-hoon sheathed his sword after finishing, then sat down again.
That was all.
“Was he trying to tell me something?”
What could he possibly have been telling me?
At that moment I was not even thinking about martial arts or cultivation methods.
But somehow the short dance of the Danak Sword Art he had shown refused to leave my mind.
“Why did he show me the Danak Sword Art?”
If he wanted to give me enlightenment, shouldn’t he have shown the radiance of one who has reached Wol-do-ip-cheon to stimulate the upper dantian?
“No, a lower hand trying to understand the will of a higher one is futile... Then why was there a reason he showed me the Danak Sword Art...?”
Somehow, the sword style Kim Young-hoon had shown lingered in my mind for a long time.
I pondered for a moment and finally understood.
“Ah...”
What he had unfolded was not a simple Danak Sword Art.
It was **my** Danak Sword Art.
It copied my usual posture, movements, habits, the direction of my intent, the flow of qi, everything.
That was why I had found his demonstration of my sword style deeply impressive.
“Why did he show me my own Danak Sword Art?”
I thought about the problems in my sword style and recalled the one Kim Young-hoon had shown me.
“Is there a problem...?”
I was already an expert who had reached the peak of Deungbongjogeuk.
There was not the slightest flaw in the Danak Sword Art he showed—no joke, no gap, every flow perfect and stable.
“Is there some problem I am unaware of?”
Perhaps.
With the eyes of a genius who had reached Wol-do-ip-cheon, Kim Young-hun could see things I could not.
Let me think carefully.
Surely the reason he showed me that was...
“...”
“There is no problem.”
And in that consideration, I could read Kim Young-hun’s intention.
“To tell me there is no problem for me...?”
To encourage me?
“...You think I am perfect?”
I shook my head.
That was impossible.
He was a higher-stage expert than me, a martial arts genius of unmatched talent.
There was no way he could not see my gaps.
But...
“If even a higher-stage Kim Young-hun sees no problem, then really there is no problem?”
Perhaps my martial arts is already complete?
Buzz...
Complete.
The moment the thought occurred, it felt as though something inside my chest rang.
This feeling was exactly the same as when I had heard from Kim Young-hun that the Wol-do-ip-cheon realm is divided according to the meaning of life.
Something... was ringing in my chest.
Buzz...
Something was striking my heart.
I pondered the origin of this feeling.
And in that process, I recalled the strange tingle I had felt before.
When I observed the colors of my disciples’ consciousness and watched their lives...
When I cultivated with my master and confirmed his heart...
When I saw with my own eyes that Kim Young-hun had reached Wol-do-ip-cheon...
“This feeling is...”
It was the feeling I had when I sensed life up close.
“Aah!”
That was it.
The thing striking inside my chest was none other than **me**.
“Aah...”
Suddenly I felt tears welling up.
The reason my heart had reacted to the word “complete” and the word “life”...
Perhaps because all my past lives had been completed in themselves.
And only then did I hear a faint voice coming from the trembling of my chest.
I looked at Kim Young-hun watching me from afar.
He was not silent.
He was speaking to me without cease.
“Aaaa...”
It angers me.
It is unjust.
Why am I so foolish?
I learned the languages of every country, the language of the spirit beasts, and acquired several new senses... what good is that?
The words that pass from heart to heart, I cannot understand them!
Kim Young-hun was constantly speaking to me, stimulating my martial intent.
“You are already complete.”
“All you need to do is swing it.”
“...But I don’t have talent.”
I clenched my teeth and shed tears.
* * *
“Talent?”
Kim Young-hun sat on the peak of Shattered Heaven Peak and looked at Seo Eun-hyun crying on the opposite peak.
Heh...
You’ve come this far, and what does talent have to do with it?
Even if I am heaven-sent talent and you are heaven-rejected talent, those who stand here are not those who have or lack talent.
They are those who have found the meaning of life and those who are trying to find it.
I have found the meaning. What is yours? You have something I do not have. You clearly know your own life better than anyone else.
Through heart to heart, influenced by the power of Wol-do-ip-cheon, Kim Young-hun’s words were transmitted according to his will.
* * *
Boom!
Kim Young-hun’s will reached me.
Hearing his words, I felt a spark of clarity.
That was exactly the thought I had once before when I looked at him.
The Kim Young-hun who despaired before the cultivators had passed before my eyes.
Whether heaven sent him or abandoned him, we were the same—those who screamed beneath fate.
If those beneath fate are alike, then those who resist fate are not?
I received Kim Young-hun’s heart and could look at the heart I had been avoiding until now.
“...Was I unconsciously despairing?”
The ratio of Wol-do-ip-cheon was not the problem.
Once adjusted to a certain degree, it could be solved at any time.
I already had more than enough qualifications to challenge Foundation Establishment.
Yet I had not challenged it, using the excuse of the ratio... perhaps because I feared that even if my lifespan extended, nothing would change if I lacked talent.
Escaping the influence of fate was not only about strength but also about will.
Perhaps I had been accustomed to the influence of my own fate.
“...Thank you, Hyung Young-hoon.”
I accepted his heart and cast aside my hesitation.
“I see.”
When the previous grief had come, I had told him that since it was part of my life as a martial artist, cherishing it was fortunate and chased the grief away.
But it remained unresolved.
Now I understood the reason.
It was not cherishing.
I had been cherishing it all along.
It was not striving for the best.
I had always lived my life striving for the best in every past life.
Talent or not, I had always strived, and I had always cherished all that effort.
The depression I had unknowingly accumulated in this life had erupted, becoming grief and making me worry about talent.
“Whether I am dull or a genius, it doesn’t matter.”
What matters is how much I cherish life and trust my own life.
Crumble crumble crumble!
All the shadows inside my chest washed away at once.
All hesitation washed away, and I cleared my mind and challenged Foundation Establishment once more.
I had been standing stupidly in place, making excuses about the ratio.
“Forget the ratio.”
What need did I have to adjust the methods to me?
The methods should adjust to me.
Five spiritual energies swirling inside my lower dantian.
From among them, the subtly protruding parts.
I did not hesitate and released sword qi from my inner dantian, slicing them off.
Huuu...
And expelled them externally, scattering them away.
Although the law power decreased, the five elements harmonized and the sword qi sliced to perfectly adjust the ratio, and it fully recovered.
The ratio of the five elements became completely identical.
At the same time, I felt the Wol-do-ip-cheon realm merging completely.
Crumble crumble!
Boom!
Challenging Foundation Establishment.
The five fully integrated colors of spiritual energy formed the star of spiritual energy.
It shattered soon after, but within half a breath the spiritual energies recongealed and formed the star again.
Boom, boom, boom!
I focused so intensely I could not tell day from night.
And suddenly I felt my heart aching.
“Ha... again?”
My lifespan was ending.
If only there were just a little more time, Foundation Establishment would be right in front of me...
“...Kill me then.”
But I murmured while looking at the sky.
“Let me confirm whether I reach Foundation Establishment first or you bring the heavenly tribulation first!”
The five fully integrated spiritual energies rotated, creating countless changes inside them.
Those changes corresponded to the countless changes occurring in the star of spiritual energy and forcibly suppressed the changes happening there.
Foundation Establishment was right in front of me.
Thump, thump...!
I forcibly squeezed my heart with the law power and concentrated my consciousness even more.
I was as good as dust.
But do you know what that means?
The stars of the universe are born from clouds of dust.
Dust gathers, gathers again, and becomes the nebula that is the cradle of stars.
The five branches of spiritual energy shone, and the star that had been shattered many times inside the clouds raised its head once more.
“I’m going!”
Was it because I had focused without noticing the passage of time?
The star sky had already turned to dawn.
And again, the dark clouds had already covered the sky.
Heavenly lightning falling or me reaching Foundation Establishment?!
A moment of crisis.
Woo-oong, wooo-rrong...
Blue light flashed between the dark clouds, and lightning power filled the sky.
Thump, thump, thump...
“Heaven...”
Thump, thump!
“I will definitely escape from fate!”
Paaaat!
The sky turned blue.
And the next instant...
From afar, I could hear the heart Kim Young-hun was sending me.
As if he were speaking right in front of me.
“Eun-hyun-ah, swing it. It’s already in your hand.”
“Ah.”
Only at the very end of my lifespan could I finally understand those words.
Kim Young-hun had wanted to return to his family like a flash of lightning, reaching the radiance of one who surpasses space and light.
That was the meaning of Kim Young-hun’s life.
What was the meaning of my life?
“I wanted to break free from the framework of fate.”
How many times had I struggled miserably beneath fate?
Like Kim Young-hun who flies toward the sky like a swallow, I wanted to fly beyond that sky, break free from fate, and find freedom.
Kim Young-hun had melted his will to return into nothingness and incorporated speed into his martial arts.
I had melted my will to escape from fate into nothingness and incorporated the infinite freedom into my martial arts.
In the blink of an eye...
I found the optimally optimized form of my consciousness.
The sword.
The sword that wanted to break free from fate gradually left the framework of the sword and became completely formless, losing the shape of the sword and spreading transparently as consciousness.
Swaaaak!
The sword gang that had left my body merged with my consciousness and materialized my intent.
Kwa-rung!
A stream of blue lightning fell toward me, and I precisely found the point where lightning would strike in the lightning avoidance technique.
And, gripping the colorless void right in front of me, I swung it straight toward the sky.
“Wol-do-ip-cheon.”
The formless sword advanced slicing through the heavenly lightning and cleaved the thick clouds beyond in one stroke.
“Mu-hyeong-geom.”
The sky split vertically, and dawn light rushed through the gap.
Cooong, koo-gong, koo-koo-gong!
The lower dantian is said to be the field of the heart.
In the field of my heart that had cast away all hesitation, countless sprouts that I had sown with manure began to sprout.
It was long.
But finally... it has reached!