Deconstructing the Sword
Even after the masked man in black had vanished completely into the darkness, Ouyang Qiangang lay sprawled on the ground without so much as a twitch.
Around the annex hung nothing but the chill, breathless stillness of dawn.
External threat eliminated. Initiating physical restoration protocol now, Doctor.
Akasha's voice echoed through his mind—calm as always, yet threaded with a weariness she could not quite hide.
The major channels of your Twelve Primary Meridians, along with the Mute acupoint, were sealed by the finger wind and must all be reopened. However, the defense and energy absorption from moments ago consumed nearly all of our accumulated internal energy, so the restoration will take some time. Please hold on just a little longer, Doctor.
Scarcely had her words faded when he felt tens of thousands of minuscule presences begin to stir throughout his body all at once. The nanobots.
They streamed along his blood vessels and meridians, converging on every point where the masked man's finger wind had slammed the channels shut. They concentrated first on the Mute acupoint, the very first to have been sealed—then, like the hands of a surgeon performing the most delicate of procedures, kneaded the clotted energy apart with microscopic vibrations, stimulating the blocked channel and coaxing the qi back into flow.
Half a quarter-hour more crawled by before the acupoint finally gave way, and his pent-up breath burst out in a ragged gasp.
"Khh… keh-hak!"
Ouyang Qiangang sucked fresh air deep into his lungs, coughing violently. He could breathe again—but the paralysis and agony still shackled him from head to toe. The work of Akasha and the nanobots had only just begun.
Mute acupoint reopened. Proceeding to release the seals on the twelve major acupoints.
The nanobots spread out to the twelve major acupoints scattered across his body and set about disassembling, one by one, the stubbornly clotted residues of yin-cold stagnant qi. The process was anything but smooth. Each time another channel opened, the twisted energies lurched back toward their rightful places, and violent pain came crashing through his entire body.
Ouyang Qiangang gritted his teeth and endured. Only after two more quarter-hours had passed did the last channel binding his body finally come undone.
He staggered upright, made his way to the small pond in the courtyard, and washed his blood-smeared face in the cold water. The face reflected on the surface was a wretched sight—yet the pair of eyes rising above it were colder and fiercer than anything he had ever worn before.
Glaring with smoldering fury toward the direction in which the masked man had vanished, he murmured in a low voice.
"This debt I will repay in full, Yin Wind Ghost Demon."
He had been certain from the moment their palm forces collided—the masked man in black was the very one who had hunted down Sacred Hand Hua Tuo. Today's humiliation and torment had been carved deep into his marrow.
Returning to the annex to unknot his torture-wracked body, Ouyang Qiangang at once began circulating the Transcendent Formless Divine Art. Having absorbed the yin-cold stagnant qi carried in the Yin Wind Ghost Demon's finger wind and palm force, his internal energy had grown by several months' worth, and his breathing cultivation now flowed more smoothly than ever before.
Mmm…….
Through this ordeal, Ouyang Qiangang had come to grasp one of the Transcendent Formless Divine Art's true possibilities.
Drawing the essential qi of heaven and earth into the body and accumulating it was, by tradition, the orthodox path of internal cultivation. But the energy a martial artist built up was always steeped in his own peculiar temperament, and so the accepted wisdom of the murim held that the moment one forcibly absorbed another's energy and tried to fuse it with one's own, the discordant forces would clash and plunge the practitioner into qi deviation. It was the same reason the flower-plucking lechers who learned the arts of Seizing Yang to Reinforce Yin or Seizing Yin to Reinforce Yang—draining the internal energy of others—so often came to miserable ends.
The Transcendent Formless Divine Art was different. With Akasha's assistance, it could strain out of the absorbed energy every trace of its former owner's temperament and impure miasma. More than that, it could purify the energy into something pristine and make it wholly his own. It could even select between Pure Yin True Qi and Pure Yang True Qi and wield either at will—though now that his body had grown accustomed to the frigid qi of the Nine Yin Severed Meridians, Pure Yin True Qi felt the more comfortable and natural of the two.
The constitution cursed with Heaven's Punishment had, by a bitter irony, become a smelting furnace optimized for refining the qi of others. The trouble was that neither Ouyang Qiangang nor Akasha had begun to imagine just how momentous a discovery this truly was.
He had passed half a day in breathing cultivation, kneading his body back into order, when Hwang Nodae returned from the watch he had been keeping on Hwa Clan Manor since leaving Bamboo Forest Manor.
"Young Master, I have discovered that a dozen or more unidentified martial artists are lodging in the annex of Hwa Clan Manor."
"And their identities?"
"I have not yet ascertained them. But judging by the aura they exude, every one of them is far from ordinary—by their bearing alone, they seemed to be masters of considerable martial attainment."
"Understood. Please keep watching, and find out exactly who they are."
Not long after Hwang Nodae withdrew, a servant dispatched by Heo Il-bi came in search of Ouyang Qiangang. When they met again in the study, Heo Il-bi's face had settled into a heavy gloom.
"Gang-ah, it seems what we feared has begun. Vicious rumors about Hwa Do-reung and Ryeong-ah are spreading through the streets of Nanchang."
He let the words hang for a moment, then went on in a bitter voice.
"And at the same time, the medicinal herbs we meant to purchase for the Dragon-Nourishing Pill… Hwa Clan Manor is buying up the entire supply, quite openly. By the merchants' account, they are drying the market's herb trade at its very root."
"How much stock do we have left?"
"Enough to hold out for ten days or so."
"That will be sufficient. Everything will be concluded within that time."
At Ouyang Qiangang's placid answer, Heo Il-bi shot him a puzzled look, but asked nothing more.
From that day on, Ouyang Qiangang sealed himself away once more, refining the Dragon-Nourishing Pill while driving his martial training forward at a punishing pace. He threw himself into mastering the three supreme arts gained from Sacred Hand Hua Tuo: the Heavenly Meteor Divine Art, the Flash-Dart Step, and the Dragon-Subduing Seizing Hand.
Within his mind unfolded the virtual reality space Akasha had designed, and inside it he honed the three arts over and over, as though spending decades—even centuries—within. Imagination flowed directly into the movement of his body, as Akasha took direct control of his neural pathways and musculoskeletal system to realize the most perfect and efficient stances and motions possible.
Unleashing the three arts in full required the exclusive internal cultivation method Hua Tuo had left behind, but Ouyang Qiangang never learned it, because its principles could be folded into the Transcendent Formless Divine Art in its place. When the "virtual training" was over—an ordeal that had felt like years yet in truth consumed less than a single quarter-hour—he could already wield the three arts with the fluency of a martial artist who had polished them for decades.
His internal energy, swollen by the recent chain of events that were all but fortuitous encounters (?), had climbed to the equivalent of five years of cultivation. Thanks to that, Akasha's command of his body had reached an astonishing level as well—without it, such a result would have been impossible.
You have no doubt realized it yourself, Doctor, but these days I can perfectly reproduce any martial art you have seen with your own eyes by directly assisting your body's movements. Of course, that does presuppose internal energy sufficient to support it.
To unfold a martial art perfectly, one needs its exclusive cultivation method. The old man's arts came with the Sacred Hand Secret Transmission, so I could melt its principles into the Transcendent Formless Divine Art. But that won't work for other martial arts, will it?
That is not so. Even without knowing an exclusive cultivation method, I can infer its principles to over 90 percent accuracy from the data of the Heavenly Mystery Blood Physician's Secret Book and the Life-and-Death Classic. We simply refine the Transcendent Formless Divine Art on that basis.
Whoa… that's past genius territory, isn't it…? I'm starting to feel like I'm turning into a monster.
Five days later, Dong Tae-gu, chief steward of Hwa Clan Manor and second in rank only to its lord, came calling at Bamboo Forest Manor. Facing Heo Il-bi, he delivered his message.
"My lord has instructed me to convey that the Young Master's folly—born of his infatuation with Lady Heo Cho-ryeong—will be answered in full: he himself will bear all responsibility for it."
With a thin, oily smile, he continued.
"He has further said that, serving both as betrothal gifts joining the Young Master and Lady Heo, and as an apology for the Young Master's discourtesy, he will present ten thousand silver taels."
Heo Il-bi refused him in a single word.
"I refuse. On top of abducting Ryeong-ah, they muddle the market and even stoop to the vile trick of hoarding herbs—and now, of all things, they speak of marriage! Tell them to be ashamed of themselves."
That evening, after Dong Tae-gu had bowed and taken his leave, Hwang Nodae returned.
"Young Master. The martial artists lodged at Hwa Clan Manor are Hwa Do-reung's master—Jin Mun, the Coiled Dragon Saber Guest, Sect Leader of the Coiled Dragon Saber Sect of Hubei—and his disciples."
He added, brow furrowed.
"The Coiled Dragon Saber Guest Jin Mun is counted among the Ten Great Saber Guests of Hubei—a Peak master. In this old servant's humble judgment, his martial prowess stands a cut above Lord Heo's."
Ouyang Qiangang sank into thought for a moment, then went straight to Heo Il-bi. Told that Jin Mun himself was lending his aid to Hwa Clan Manor, Heo Il-bi was deeply shaken.
"Jin Mun, you say… So the master means to make a show of stepping forward for his own disciple's sake……"
"Uncle, I believe their true objective is a formal duel. The plan, I would guess, is to drive you into a situation where refusal is impossible, then set you upon the dueling stage and strike you down there."
Heo Il-bi fell silent. If Jin Mun took the stage in person, even he could not promise himself victory.
Ouyang Qiangang, who had been studying him in silence, asked without warning.
"Uncle—could you teach me the essential principles of Bamboo Forest Manor's secret sword art, the Bamboo Sword Twenty-Eight Forms, and of the Flying Swallow Sword Art that Lady Cho-ryeong has mastered?"
By the code of the murim, it was a request that could not be made. But Heo Il-bi, who knew full well the boy had no design of stealing away his secrets, did not take offense. Instead, curious what he was planning, he asked in return.
"And what would you do with them?"
"I believe that if I study the two sword arts, I can improve them in ways that will augment their power."
"What did you say?"
Disbelief spread across Heo Il-bi's face. It was a preposterous claim, wandering far beyond anything the murim held to be possible. Yet Ouyang Qiangang continued, perfectly composed.
"I know it is difficult to believe. But this is no idle boast—so please, give me the chance."
Heo Il-bi, who had witnessed the boy's singular genius many times since childhood, weighed it in silence before asking.
"Are you confident?"
"If I were not, I would not have raised the matter at all."
Heo Il-bi burst into a booming laugh.
"Hahaha, I feel as though I've been bewitched by a ghost. Very well. Come with me."
He led Ouyang Qiangang to the training hall. There he passed on the oral formulas of the two arts, then demonstrated the Bamboo Sword Twenty-Eight Forms and the Flying Swallow Sword Art at slow speed. Ouyang Qiangang watched his uncle's sword dance with held breath, trading words with Akasha all the while.
You're recording every one of these movements as data, right?
Yes. Three-dimensional motion analysis, muscle usage patterns, even the flow of internal energy—everything is being recorded. Both sword arts are built around variation between their forms.
Draft some improved forms while you're at it.
I am doing so already. The nineteenth form's rotational movement is excessively ornate, so the power does not properly settle into the blade. There is also a risk of losing your center of balance.
How much stronger would it get if we improved it?
The probability of it landing as a critical strike would rise by 33 percent.
Not bad.
The sixth form of the Flying Swallow Sword Art follows a trajectory that is unstable even by the laws of physics. However, adjusting the angle by a mere 2.7 degrees and converting it into a thrust would raise its destructive force and impact power by 27 percent.
When Heo Il-bi, his demonstration finished, moved to run through the forms a second time, Ouyang Qiangang stopped him.
"I have seen enough, Uncle."
That the boy had memorized every form and every formula from a single demonstration left Heo Il-bi unable to conceal his astonishment.
Ouyang Qiangang returned to his room, where he and Akasha spent the entire night on the Bamboo Sword Twenty-Eight Forms—researching to the point of dismantling the art and recombining it piece by piece. Akasha simulated the sword art's movements in 3D models, while Ouyang Qiangang, building on the martial theory he had accumulated, tore the technique apart from its very roots and rebuilt it.