The Day He First Received Martial Arts from Seong Seorin
The day Seong Seorin first passed a martial art on to him.
Hanwa was nothing but a wasteland of dull gray, and yet Sunwoo’s heart was pounding.
Facing the boy whose eyes shone with anticipation, Seong Seorin—now his master—grinned and said,
She said it with such absolute confidence that even Sunwoo—who had repeated so many lifetimes he could no longer trust himself—found hope rising in his chest.
And the very first thing she taught him was this.
Cheonma Shingong.
The martial art she called Do-jin-gong was, true to its name, a martial art for advancing along the path.
The greatest martial art of all ages—one that could carry its practitioner anywhere at all, so long as their will did not break.
Donggong.
A form of training that built internal energy through movement.
Ordinarily, when people thought of an internal energy cultivation method, they imagined sitting cross-legged and breathing in endless repetition.
But what Seong Seorin spoke of was different: a moving art that tempered the body through physical motion while breathing at the same time, thus accumulating internal energy as well.
Sunwoo had known the concept, at least in theory, and that was enough to make him realize just how worthy of the name “divine art” this training method was.
Donggong was something ordinary martial arts did not even dare attempt.
Even among the advanced arts of famous martial schools—martial arts so renowned their names had spread even to Earth—only a handful could be trained through movement at all.
And even those were inefficient.
“Oh?”
Then something occurred to him, and Sunwoo faltered.
“What is it?”
“Um, Master.”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t I… in a soul state right now?”
Sunwoo asked, and Seong Seorin, understanding his meaning from that alone, let out a faint chuckle.
“Indeed. Thou wonderest how a soul may train the body.”
“Yes.”
“Simply put, it is because the soul of thine that stands here now is in the state of a True Body.”
“A True Body?”
“Yes.”
True Body.
As the words themselves implied, Seong Seorin said it meant a true physical body.
Though he was a soul, here in Hanwa he could feel sensations, move, eat, and drink. In this place, the soul was at once a spirit body and a true body.
That was why he could undergo training no different from that of someone with flesh and blood.
“However… yes. Thou didst say thou must return.”
“Yes.”
Sunwoo had to Restart.
He had only just learned this, but there was no time limit on pressing Y.
Thanks to that, he had been able to receive martial arts instruction from a master—no, from the Cheonma herself—but he could not postpone it forever.
Eventually, Sunwoo would have to go back.
And when he did, any training done to his body would be reset.
“Will that be all right?”
Seong Seorin pointed to that very issue, and Sunwoo answered with a small smile.
“Yes.”
“I’m used to that. And… I don’t mind walking the same road again.”
Faster.
And more skillfully.
Sunwoo did not dislike that feeling at all.
“Hahahaha! Good. Yes, exactly. That is what I like so much about thee.”
Seong Seorin laughed loudly, then resumed teaching with open satisfaction on her face.
“Now then. First, the gugyeol.”
Gugyeol.
One of the elements that made up a martial art.
If one had to compare it to a computer, it was the operating system.
You could have a monitor, a mouse, a keyboard, and even the main unit itself—but without the proper operating system, none of it would function.
In the same way, the gugyeol, which contained the meaning and structure of the martial art, was crucial.
…And because it was so important, it was difficult and painfully long.
“Yes, Master.”
And so Sunwoo truly did listen as Seong Seorin recited the gugyeol hundreds of times, and only after several hours had passed did he barely manage to commit it to memory.
Even then it was unstable; he stumbled over parts and got them wrong. By the next day, he felt like he would forget most of it.
“It is fine. Thou art doing well.”
Even so, Seong Seorin praised him with unwavering positivity, which only made Sunwoo feel as if he were sitting on a bed of thorns.
If only there were something written down. If I could just look at it and memorize it on my own, this would be so much easier.
But she had said that the meaning could not be conveyed properly through written characters alone. It had to be recited directly.
And so, mentally, he was already exhausted.
Once he had at least memorized the gugyeol as accurately as he could for the moment, they moved on.
Next came breathing.
The breathing pattern of an internal energy cultivation method.
Put simply, it meant taking short breaths in and letting long breaths out.
Not just long—he had to exhale with the sensation of emptying everything inside him completely.
Naturally, it felt awkward and uncomfortable.
Suddenly?
The thought flashed through his mind, but instead of asking, Sunwoo immediately obeyed.
He took his position, lowered himself once in proper form, then pushed back up.
Ssss—
“Your breathing must not waver.”
“Yes!”
Just from answering, his breathing fell into even greater disarray, and he had to steady it again.
Because of that, he had barely done a few before he was already reaching his limit.
And as that limit approached, resistance brought back countless memories of frustration.
A body he had believed was healthy because he could walk on his own and breathe freely.
But in truth, it had only been better than in his previous life. It was still weak by nature, and it did not permit him to resist his limits.
Creak—
The moment he pushed himself even a little too far, he could feel his body straining with painful clarity.
Crack—
Out of stubbornness. Out of sheer spite. Whenever he ignored that warning and tried to advance past his limit, something always went wrong.
He had wanted to build a better body through training, but instead he only ended up injuring it.
How many times had he been put in a cast because of that?
This was a problem that existed before willpower ever entered the picture.
The moment he got greedy and tried to do just a little more, his body broke without fail.
Creak—
So the instant his body began to strain, Sunwoo reflexively tried to stop.
“You do not need to stop.”
The words were calm, but they carried a power that sank into his very soul.
Sunwoo trusted those words and did not stop.
The thing he did best.
He did not stop advancing anyway.
Crkkt—
A sensation he could never forget spread through his body.
It was the feeling of his body beginning to break.
But at that very moment—
Shaaaaaa—
A single thin but vivid current began racing through him.
He could not see it, but he could feel it unmistakably—a brilliant force condensed from life itself.
Sunwoo knew at once that this was internal energy.
Ah…
That energy supported the body that had been about to collapse.
It seeped into his bones and muscles, propping up the body that should have broken and fallen apart.
And because that body did not collapse, it made possible one more push-up—one step beyond the limit he should never have been able to cross.
It allowed him to advance a single step past the boundary he had never been able to overcome.
Watching Sunwoo’s shoulders tremble with the sensation of surpassing his limit, Seong Seorin said,
A training art meant to temper oneself and overcome oneself.
Yeon-shin-geuk-gi-gong.
Sunwoo repeated the name and broke into a bright smile.
“I like that name.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. I’ve always longed for something like it.”
Stop. Take it easy.
How desperately he had yearned to defeat that voice within himself—the one that constantly urged him to give up, to rest, to choose comfort—and keep moving forward anyway.
But for Sunwoo, who had always been crushed by the wall of reality, this experience and this Yeon-shin-geuk-gi-gong were a joy beyond words.
Not because it was a divine art.
But because it was a martial art that allowed him to overcome himself and step beyond his limits.
That was why he loved it more than anything else.
At the sight of him, Seong Seorin laughed loudly again, utterly pleased.
Then Seong Seorin raised a hand and showed him something.
Oooooooo—!!
“……!”
Thud—
Sunwoo felt a shock so profound it was as if his heart had stopped.
Because of the tiny mote of energy resting on Seong Seorin’s palm—smaller than a grain of millet, impossibly small.
Yet that tiny spark felt like the instant before a star exploded.
That was the force that struck him speechless.
It was too wondrous, too vast, too terrifying for a mere human being to face.
“This is Heavenly Demon Qi.”
Seong Seorin called it Heavenly Demon Qi.
The unique internal energy of Do-jin-gong, the martial art the world knew as Cheonma Shingong.
“Th-that…”
Even that absurdly fierce and overwhelming power, contained in a mote smaller than a grain, was Heavenly Demon Qi.
Unable to form a proper response, Sunwoo could only stare. Seong Seorin looked at him with the same distant, mysterious air she had worn when they first met and said,
Yeon-shin-geuk-gi-gong was the training art meant to create a body capable of handling the absurdly mighty force known as Heavenly Demon Qi.
Originally, it was a training art meant to build a body that would never collapse, that would keep advancing so long as the practitioner’s will did not break.
But through that same process, it also led to a body capable of wielding Heavenly Demon Qi freely.
Having received a training art that allowed him to surpass the limits of his frail body, Sunwoo began that very day to exceed his limits every day, every moment.
Sssss—
Following the gugyeol of Yeon-shin-geuk-gi-gong, Sunwoo’s breathing was deep, slow, and unwavering.
Crrrk—!
But the weak body he tempered according to the posture of Yeon-shin-geuk-gi-gong was drenched in sweat as if rain were pouring off him, and within, it creaked under strain.
Right on the verge of breaking.
No—his body was screaming when it should already have broken.
And yet Sunwoo did not stop.
Sssss—
He did not let his breathing waver, and he did not stop.
Huff—!
Instead, he took one step further, surpassed his limit—
Shaaaaa—
And the brilliant life-force called internal energy surged vigorously through him, supporting the body that was about to collapse.
His bones and muscles became tougher, more supple, and stronger than they had been one step before.
And so, even in the midst of extreme pain, Sunwoo smiled instead.
He was happy to have gone one step farther beyond his limits.
It was only ever one step at a time, and because of that, the far distance beyond remained so remote he could not even promise himself he would ever reach it.
But that did not matter.
So long as his will did not break, this training promised that he would continue advancing beyond his limits.
Even pain, then, became joy.
“Excellent. Splendid, my disciple.”
“Thank you, Master.”
One round of training had ended, and he could have simply collapsed onto his back.
Instead, Sunwoo stood straight and kept breathing.
The sensation of advancing.
She had said he must experience it ceaselessly for the rest of his life—but seeing him actually keep to those words, Seong Seorin could not help but think there had never been a disciple more precious than this one.
And so, to give that disciple his next lesson, she said,
“What are they?”
“Eyes that can see, and skill made compliant.”
“The moment those two are complete, thou shalt have no cause to envy even the greatest prodigy in all history.”
The Cheonma gave her word.