The Realm of Training
"Hah! Hah! Hap!"
Far in the distance, a hazy dusk was blooming open. Beneath that crimson twilight, the students of Cheonsubaekryeonsa's Ha-mu-gwan stood in formation, swinging their swords.
Along the hundred-odd mountain peaks that ringed Cheonsubaekryeonsa, black shadows stretched long in the red of the setting sun. On one side of that scarlet dusk, the grounds thronged with Cheonsubaekryeonsa administrators and laborers hard at repairs.
"Wooden sword inventory comes to one hundred twenty-one this time — still short by twenty-two…"
"Facility repairs need to prioritize Hyeonseung Hall first."
Before the sun sank and evening settled in, the workers' tools rang faster and faster as they tried to finish even a little more of the day's work.
"How's dinner coming?"
"Almost ready, sir."
In the White Lotus Culinary Bureau, which handled the meals, white-clad servants hurried about under the head cook's direction.
"Barely one shichen left until training ends! Everyone move!"
The head cook glanced anxiously at the sky, then toward the bell hanging from the eaves beneath the dusk. Under that bell, an administrator with his hair cropped short was watching a sundial marked by an iron rod driven into the ground, ready to strike the hour.
The administrator shoved up the fluttering sleeves of his martial robes and seized the swaying rope in front of him.
With the end-of-day bell only moments away, the head cook barked at the kitchen maids.
"You there! What do you call that portion of rice?! That's not even a quarter of what we need — we'll run short for sure! Fire up another stove right now!"
"What? We used this amount all last week. If we make that much, there'll definitely be too much left over…!"
The green newcomer, barely arrived at the White Lotus Culinary Bureau, answered in a daze — and the head cook snapped.
"Don't talk nonsense! There aren't even sixty days left until the next promotion exam! Night and day, they're moving twice as hard as usual!"
Promotion exams came once every half year. Missing this chance meant that even if a student completed all three of the formal trials required to earn the right to sit the exam, they would still be stuck in Ha-mu-gwan for more than half a year of empty waiting. With the deadline closing in, the trainees of Ha-mu-gwan were razor-sharp, desperate to get even one more trial approved and passed.
Chu-mu-gwan…! If I can just make it into Chu-mu-gwan…!
Just one more step. That's all I need!
Of Cheonsubaekryeonsa's four seasonal halls — spring, summer, autumn, and winter — the final gate, Dong-mu-gwan, was so exclusive that those who reached it earned the separate title of Blue Cherry Blossom Dragon. For most disciples entering Cheonsubaekryeonsa, the realistic ideal, the final goal they could actually aim for, was Chu-mu-gwan among the four. In the orthodox jianghu, a Chu-mu-gwan graduate might not command the same reverence as a Dong-mu-gwan one, but no one ever looked down on them either.
Every half year, each martial hall split starkly between those left behind and those who rose. That cycle had repeated for six years, and with less than two months remaining before each promotion exam, the tension climbed to a fever pitch.
Bang!
Right in the middle of everyone's focused training, the birch door of a study at the edge of the grounds flew open as if it might shatter.
"Hey! Did you hear?!"
The one who kicked the door in was Dang Sa-mun of the Sichuan Tang Clan — small of stature, lean and quick.
"Of course I heard. And if you're going to show up late, maybe try coming in a little quieter?"
At the cold snap from the black-haired woman whose hair fell to her waist, Dang Sa-mun flinched.
"Ah — Sa Ha-yun… S-sorry."
"Hmph."
Sa Ha-yun, the beauty of the Jeomchang Sect, wrapped in blue silk martial robes that clung to her slender frame, kept her arms folded and didn't so much as glance at Dang Sa-mun as he apologized to the floor.
Dang Sa-mun hovered awkwardly, watching her face for cues.
Besides him, three other disciples were already gathered in the study.
"It's stifling in here. Open the window wide, Dang Sa-mun."
A massive man in brown martial robes, thick-necked and huge, pointed with the great staff in his hand toward a window on one side of the room.
Dang Sa-mun rose hesitantly.
"Ah… okay."
"Read the room and move on your own. Don't make people spell everything out."
"S-sorry."
Dang Sa-mun pushed open the window framed in bamboo and paper. A blazing sunset unfurled before their eyes. The cool wind peculiar to evening swept in. The hems of everyone's martial robes and the sashes at their waists stirred. Each of them wore the dress of their own sect, but around every waist was the shared golden sash that marked Ha-mu-gwan.
Sa Ha-yun spoke haughtily toward Dang Sa-mun.
"The story you were about to tell — it's about Number Eighty-Four too, isn't it?"
Dang Sa-mun jumped.
"Y-yeah. I thought it was just a rumor, but it wasn't a rumor at all! Does this even make sense? Almost a full year has gone by — we're basically family in Ha-mu-gwan by now — and they're bringing in someone new?! Has anything like this ever happened in Cheonsubaekryeonsa's history?"
Han Jung-mae adjusted his grip on his staff, brow furrowed.
"No. I even asked my senior brothers by messenger hawk. None of them had ever heard of a case like this."
Cheonsubaekryeonsa had only four halls, but the gulf between each one ran as deep as the divide between the orthodox path and the unorthodox powers beyond it. The gap between Chun-mu-gwan — the lowest tier granted to anyone who somehow scraped into Cheonsubaekryeonsa before the entrance exam even existed — and the next step, Ha-mu-gwan, was the deepest and widest of all. Once you spent more than half a year as a Chun-mu-gwan graduate, spending the full six years there became all but certain, and neither the trials nor the promotion exams were remotely easy. That was where the saying came from: a true Cheonsubaekryeonsa graduate only starts at Ha-mu-gwan.
People did occasionally climb from Ha-mu-gwan to Chu-mu-gwan. But promotions from Chun-mu-gwan to Ha-mu-gwan, or from Chu-mu-gwan to Dong-mu-gwan, were almost unheard of — which meant Ha-mu-gwan tended to run the full six years with the same original roster.
Sa Ha-yun asked,
"This is irritating… So what are we going to do about it, Gang Mu-jeong?"
"What do you mean, what are we going to do."
The man in the same antique blue silk as Sa Ha-yun — sharp-eyed like a snake, Jeomchang's Gang Mu-jeong — set the tip of his heavy sword on the floor and spun it lazily.
"No idea where the bastard crawled out of, but I looked into him. Real low-quality goods, junior sister. Heh heh."
"Don't casually call me junior sister. Master already declared we're the same generation over a lousy three days' difference in enrollment, and every time you go 'junior sister, junior sister' like we're close, it makes my skin crawl. And what do you mean, low quality?"
"Still sharp-tongued as ever."
"Shut up. So?"
At Sa Ha-yun's words, Gang Mu-jeong's smile turned ugly as he went on.
"Number Eighty-Four. Supposedly the fourth son of the Moyong Family. And the kid's a bastard. Impressive, right?"
Silence settled over the room.
Gang Mu-jeong flicked his tongue like a snake.
"Mixed with common blood from god knows where. And I don't need to tell you about that powder-keg household of the Moyongs, do I?"
Han Jung-mae scratched his thick neck and said evenly,
"Oh, I know. The first and the third… In completely different ways, both of them are total mad wolves. My senior brother warned us not to even think about building connections there. Especially… of the two…"
Dang Sa-mun jumped in quickly.
"The first? You mean Moyong Jinryong? I saw him once — he just stood there without saying a word, and you could still feel that chill. Real dignity—"
"Obviously he means the third. Moyong Ryu."
At Sa Ha-yun's correction, Han Jung-mae nodded.
Sa Ha-yun's face twisted with distaste.
"A house of garbage butchers. Those animals call themselves a great family? Even calling them wolves is an insult to wolves. And now the fourth is coming too — and that one goes a step further, a bastard with filthy mixed blood? The Cheonsubaekryeonsa disciplinary committee is already in an uproar over rumors that the eldest was pulling strings… Good god. Cheonsubaekryeonsa is finished."
At her reaction, Dang Sa-mun of the Sichuan Tang Clan looked blankly confused.
"Huh? That third one, Moyong Ryu — he's in Chu-mu-gwan so I haven't really met him, but when we brushed past each other before he seemed like he had a sharp tongue and was kind of fun… Are you sure you don't mean the first?"
Han Jung-mae stared at him.
"…You don't know about Pa-geom-ji? When he took ten black-path thugs who hadn't even cultivated half a jiazi of internal energy and stabbed every last one of those excommunicated Shaolin remnants to death? I know the whole affair is treated as taboo even to mention, but you can't possibly not have heard of that incident."
Dang Sa-mun tilted his head.
"Wasn't that just a wild rumor?"
Seeing Han Jung-mae's expression, Dang Sa-mun hastily added,
"That Shaolin bunch was a group of at least first-rate up through peak-level fighters. Saying ten black-path thugs with less than half a jiazi of internal energy killed them just doesn't make any—"
Han Jung-mae heaved a long, pitying sigh.
"Damn it. Forget I said anything."
Sa Ha-yun piled on the scorn.
"That's exactly why — because he literally 'stopped at nothing,' which is why it's still treated as a shame of the jianghu and forbidden even to bring up. You idiot. You're not some minor sect nobody. Your clan holds a pair of Guardians, a man and a woman. Why do you only ever pick the stupid things to say? That big bear of an axe-wielder in the same training group as you — the one who used to be with Zhongnan, Ho Seo-a, was it? Number Eighty-Three. He's nothing like you."
Dang Sa-mun's face went scarlet.
"…It's just that even in my own clan I'm kind of on the fringe… so I'm nothing like Ho Seo-a, who was born a martial prodigy and expected to succeed from childhood… Sorry."
He scratched the back of his head with an embarrassed look.
Sa Ha-yun looked down at Gang Mu-jeong sitting beside her.
"So what are you going to do? Are we just going to sit on our hands?"
"Of course not. For the honor of Ha-mu-gwan alone, we can't just let some filthy half-breed waltz in however he likes. I've already made my move."
Gang Mu-jeong rose with the red sunset at his back.
"I don't know what slick words he used to charm the upper brass and Instructor Lee Jasuo into letting him in more than a year late, but."
He looked out at the sunset and smacked his lips.
"In the end, we just need to make sure he can't take it and crawls out on his own, right?"
"Exactly. The thought of spending the rest of my life as a fellow Ha-mu-gwan alumnus with someone like that is disgusting enough on its own. Our senior brothers would never stop mocking us."
Han Jung-mae rolled his thick neck and muttered,
"So, Gang Mu-jeong — what did you do? You said you already made a move."
"Luckily, our Jeomchang Sect put some effort in and slipped a few of our own people among Cheonsubaekryeonsa's servants. I attached one of them who's confident in his lightness skill to that bastard. First I want to know where he's lodging tonight, and starting tomorrow when he reports in, I'll have the man shadow his daily routine and dig up some weaknesses. You know how it is. Before formal enrollment, calling in women or living it up is practically a specialty of those rich family young masters."
At that, Sa Ha-yun's brows knotted in pure disgust.
"Come to think of it."
Gang Mu-jeong gazed out the window at the steadily dying sky.
"He should be here any mom—"
Bang!
"Young master!"
Gang Mu-jeong pointed at the martial artist in servant's clothes who came bursting through the door, drenched in sweat.
"See? What did I tell you?"
"As expected of the man who'll be Jeomchang's next pillar. Not a single gap in how he handles things. At this rate he might even become the next Guardian of Jeomchang — the sword pointed at the jianghu."
Han Jung-mae sounded impressed. Gang Mu-jeong shrugged and spoke to the gasping servant.
"Good work. So what's that lowborn Number Eighty-Four up to? Calling in courtesans for one last banquet with the instructor? The last report said he was chatting intimately with Instructor Lee Jasuo."
"Ah — well… th-that is… young master."
The servant flailed his hands and feet in flustered denial at Gang Mu-jeong's words. At that reaction, Gang Mu-jeong slowly straightened in his chair.
"What. Did he go out drinking somewhere else? Or did he leave the grounds entirely to hit a brothel? Tell me everything you saw. It's fine. I'll keep it secret."
At that, Han Jung-mae threw his head back and laughed.
"Hahaha — that's going too far, Gang Mu-jeong. Tigers prowl the moment the sun goes down around here. You're saying he headed out while the dusk was already rising?"
Gang Mu-jeong twitched an eyebrow at him.
"It's just a manner of spea—"
"Th-that's correct, sir."
Everyone stared at the servant.
"What?"
Only then did Gang Mu-jeong realize the servant standing before him was a mess of dirt, grass, and broken twigs.
The man said,
"The last I saw him, Number Eighty-Four parted ways with Instructor Lee Jasuo and headed in a straight line past the boundary of Cheonsubaekryeonsa's Ha-mu-gwan, northwest. I watched from there, but the sun was going down and he showed no sign of turning back, so I returned first."
"What's to the northwest?"
At Gang Mu-jeong's question, Dang Sa-mun answered.
"That would be the area where they held the Chun-mu-gwan entrance exam — the half-a-jiazi internal energy trial. Why would he go there… And more than anything, it's the shortest route from here, yes, but."
Sa Ha-yun spoke as if dazed.
"The middle stretch is nothing but knife-edged rock faces so sharp even mountain goats can't cross. Almost completely vertical."
Gang Mu-jeong frowned.
"He wouldn't be crossing that. So what the hell is that lowborn bastard scheming. What was the last thing you saw him do."
"He was climbing, sir."
The room fell silent.
Gang Mu-jeong snapped back in a vicious voice.
"What kind of insane garbage is that. Does that even sound possible? There's such a thing as what a person can and cannot do, and that—"
The servant spoke through sweat-soaked breath.
"With a sound like thunder, in just three footfalls, he was already gone into the clouds far above. I saw it clearly with my own eyes."
Against the dying red of the sunset, the four Ha-mu-gwan students kept their silence.
Sa Ha-yun spoke in a bone-dry voice.
"Even using internal energy, he'd burn out in no time. That bastard… what the hell is he."
KWAANG!!
With a massive roar, all five fingers drove clean into the cliff face.
"Hah! Hah!"
Fingers still buried in the rock, I dangled from the cliff. The bare muscles of my back burned as if they might split open.
Chiiik! Chiiiiik!
The cold raindrops hammering my body hissed into steam and vanished.
KWAANG! KWAANG! KWAANG!
Three times in a row I drove my fingers into the rock, locking myself in place again. Both legs hung in empty air.
"Hoo."
I looked down.
The ground was gone.
I looked up.
Nothing but cloud.
All I could see was the cliff face two handspans in front of me.
The ground below had been bone-dry. But the higher I climbed, the more the rain-swollen clouds closed in — past sleet, into something close to a downpour that battered my whole body.
WHIIIIING!!
A monstrous gale slammed into me. Far off, through gaps in the rainclouds, I could feel the last of the red sunset dying out.
The weather's gone completely mad. Was it like this back then too?
Mumyeong said.
"Probably wasn't great back then either— wh-whoa!"
Still hanging from the cliff, I locked my whipping body in place again. I shouted into the downpour.
"At least I'm not thirsty! That's something!"
I opened my mouth. The instant I did, it filled with rainwater.
You've barely climbed halfway. Any chance you'll change your mind even now?
"Change my mind about what, Mumyeong! The rain's so loud I can't even hear you!"
I counted to ten, caught my breath, and started climbing again. Far below me, the trail of holes punched by both hands stretched away into nothing.
Mumyeong called out again.
I mean climbing with internal energy! Even if you insist on calling this training and choosing to suffer—
"Who needs internal energy for a difficulty this low— whoa!"
I fixed myself to the rock again as the gale nearly tore me free.
"This much…! This much is—!"
In the gathering dark I flared red light from my eyes and shouted,
"To me, this isn't even a life-or-death duel — it's merely the realm of training!"