Communion (2)
Wooong—!
The spear shaft trembled, faintly, and the vibration climbed his shoulder until it ran the length of Bihyung's body.
It's crying.
An act one could call a spear-cry. The notion had turned up often enough in the game, and as Bihyung understood it, a weapon did this once you fed it more than a certain measure of energy. Not now. Neither his dao power nor his yokai power so much as stirred in his lower dantian. Without pouring in a shred of energy, Bihyung was making the spear cry.
He listened to the weapon's wail, and through it to the thing's own story. He had stepped into the realm of Communion.
Before he knew it his eyes were shut, and in one corner of that darkened sight a single spear rose—shaft, head, and the very tip of the blade. Forged of one solid piece. That black spear.
In the mindscape, Bihyung faced it alone.
"Come on. Let's talk straight."
Wooong.
"You want to go back to your real body over there too, don't you? Then do me a favor and cooperate."
Woooong—!
"What? Not yet? What kind of nonsense is that..."
Wooong—! Wooooong—!
The spear in his mindscape went into a fit.
He was offering to send the thing back into its own body. Why was it carrying on like this?
"No. Let's talk."
But anything more was pointless. As if it had stopped its ears and shut its eyes, the spear only went on trembling—wooong—and gave him no answer at all.
Bihyung let out a heavy sigh and drew the mindscape back in.
"...Fine. Then I'll just do it my way."
He had tried to settle it with words, and words had failed, so what else was there? Nothing for it but to bring out the second language of conversation: his fists.
"Even if you do end up going back, don't you dare resent me."
Wooong!!!
"What are you even saying."
Faced with a spear spitting sounds he couldn't parse—no, screaming, to put it exactly—Bihyung raised his hand.
The realm of Communion. Here, you come to understand a weapon's inner structure more clearly, and to recognize the will dwelling inside it.
One step beyond that, in the stage of Intimacy, you could enter the weapon's will itself. Intimacy, quite literally: something that happened only when the bond was judged close enough, and the weapon invited its master in.
"Who said I was going in?"
Bihyung had no intention of raising this spear's favor just now. He wanted one thing. To wear down its durability. And for that, it would help to turn the thing's will around first.
Back when the game dressed it up as "will," he'd thought they were making it sound far too grand.
In truth, now that he stood here, he could see there was no more accurate word. From the moment a weapon was made, and according to how much karma it shouldered afterward, the worth it carried changed. Modern things, used long and hard, lost their teeth and snapped. The outstanding things of this world were different. Most of them boasted origins of centuries, and the oldest, well past a thousand years.
Once, he had written all of that off as a game's setting and moved on. Now he thought he understood. That, too, would be a legacy handed down.
Weapons have stories of their own.
And that story would be the will the weapon was made of.
Divine artifact or not, you're a fragment. Let's see which of us wins.
And so Bihyung's fist began to hammer the spear's will.
Wooong!
Woooong—!!
The spear that had trembled only now and then shook as if in a seizure. Even with that shaft laid across his shoulder, Bihyung—sunk in a martial trance, his face not so much as flickering—made a rather tremendous sight.
"You see the top student? Didn't even show up to class yesterday, and his progress here is the best of anyone."
"Did you catch what the professor let slip? Said he'd gone past Communion and set a foot in Intimacy!"
"Whoa, that's insane... At this rate, isn't he going to hit Sinbyeong-hapi before first year is even over?"
While they murmured among themselves, Professor Shinhoo—the very man who had dropped the subject in their laps—was staring at Bihyung as if he couldn't believe his eyes.
Hah. Running completely wild in the realm of Intimacy.
The spear thrashing like a mad thing was almost pitiable.
I tell him to aim for Sinbyeong-hapi... what on earth is that brat doing?
The mournful spear-cry didn't sound like ordinary bonding. Not unless he was pounding the sharp edges flat with his fists.
And yet, strange as it is, the spear looks like the one trying to unite.
The spear was making friends and straining toward Sinbyeong-hapi, and the one who called himself its master was refusing to allow it.
...Sheesh. Tch. That isn't Sinbyeong-hapi. That's just body and weapon falling out.
Why was it that the moment he taught this kid anything, nothing ever went the way he meant? Even so, his eyes kept being drawn back. A prodigy was a prodigy.
He's pinning that spear down with nothing but will. What is he scheming?
Some time later, Bihyung let out a long breath and opened his eyes.
"Hoo."
"Cadet Bihyung."
A voice called him in that same instant. Summoned by his professor, Bihyung looked over with a puzzled face.
"Why did you call me?"
"You. What the hell did you do?"
"Sir?"
"That spear's scared stiff. Unity or no, it'll take an order like nobody's business."
"Uh..."
Bihyung knew perfectly well that wasn't praise. He scratched his head, awkward, and the professor sighed deep and beckoned.
"Come with me. We're having a talk."
Already his second sit-down. Having one of these at the very start of the semester was, honestly, legendary.
Anyway, Bihyung got to his feet and followed.
The stairs took them up to the roof. Through the glass behind them, the indoor training hall showed clear.
"All right, Cadet Bihyung. What's the problem, that you had to torment that spear like you were beating the dust out of it on a rainy day?"
Bihyung turned over how he ought to explain. Only for a moment. Then he honestly held his spear out to the professor.
"The truth is, I've found something out about this."
"About that spear?"
Looking interested, the professor took it.
"This is the spear you pulled in the weapon selection, isn't it. Already figured something out?"
"Yes. More precisely, that it isn't an ordinary spear."
"Keep talking."
The professor's eyes went serious as he ran them along the shaft, and even so his ears stayed open, taking in every word.
Slowly, leaving out only what concerned the divine artifact, Bihyung told him the truth of the spear.
"...And that's how it is."
"Hrm. Wear the durability all the way down and it shows its true form, that it? To think a thing like this got mixed in there."
The professor gave the spear a single swing.
Vwoom!
His primary weapon was a wooden rod, but a spear belonged to the same family, and the ink-black shaft in his hand put out a keener edge of force than it ever had in Bihyung's grip.
"Balance is good, and it's tough. Better than what most of the cadets are swinging. And this isn't even the real thing?"
"Yes. I'm certain."
"So that whole production was you trying to find its true form?"
A production, he called it. It had been an experiment—an idea Bihyung had scraped together in desperation.
"...Yes. That's right. I've come to have a reason I have to find it."
Only then did the professor look into his eyes. A gaze full of unshakable will. Pleased, he laughed brightly and laid the spear across his shoulder.
"Sure. Then I'll appraise it for you."
"An appraisal?"
"Huh? You forget? I told you back when they hauled you in front of the disciplinary committee."
Come back from the treasure vault, and show him the thing.
"And I'm a hell of an appraiser, is what."
Giggling, he spun the spear once in his grip until it pointed at the sky, then lifted his head and studied it as he spoke.
"...The material's black gold? Doesn't feel ordinary, though."
Black gold was an alloy of copper mixed with a small amount of gold. And yet, looking at the strength of the spear before his eyes, it didn't seem that way at all.
"Got it. Metal steeped in serious karma. If this isn't the real shape... whoa. The original form's gotta be something else, huh?"
Bihyung's eyes went wide. On nothing but scraps of information and an appraisal, the man had come within a breath of the answer—a divine artifact. It was not a thing just anyone could do.
He can tell that much from an appraisal alone? What is this guy, really?
Whether Bihyung was stunned or not, the professor carried the appraisal through.
"...The yin qi soaked into the metal is running strong. That's why the durability's filthy tough, and why it can't seem to get back to what it was. Tch. Whoever made it this way."
Shaking his head, he held the spear out to Bihyung again.
"Appraisal's done. And I've got a pretty good idea how to burn through that spear's durability."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Conclusion first: you need to pay attention in my class."
"The process of Sinbyeong-hapi?"
"Yeah. You don't have to pull it off today, but quit beating the hell out of the spear in Intimacy. That isn't the kind of thing whose durability wears down that way."
He shook his head as if he'd had enough, and went on.
"Yin qi is packed all through the metal's inner structure. Only once you work that out will the durability drop. Ordinarily, just handling the spear and using it often would've done the job."
"...Ah."
In that moment Bihyung remembered what Dueok had said.
Sitting still in meditation—he'd said that method didn't suit a yokai, hadn't he?
Yin qi, it seemed, was that sort of thing by nature. However great one's yokai power, yin qi itself did not change.
"If you keep at the method you picked... hmm. Forget the durability going down. The yin qi might just pack in tighter."
Dao power budded in the professor's grip, and he drew a picture on the empty air: a metal ingot, and inside it, crystals of ice.
"All right. That ingot's the spear's metal, and the ice is yin qi. You keep hitting the spear—what happens?"
The ice crystals drawn within the ingot tangled deeper inward, and in greater quantity, knotting into one another.
"Answer: the yin qi densifies. Meaning the durability doesn't drop. It goes up."
Even if he managed to wear some of it away, repeating the act would restore the spear's durability, and the overall figure would climb higher still.
"...If it were an ordinary weapon, that would be a good thing."
"Right. Except you said it isn't an ordinary weapon."
Giggling, the professor handed the spear back.
"So you challenge Sinbyeong-hapi. In Communion, in Intimacy, in the realm of the Mind Mirror. Don't split yourself off from the spear—keep provoking it. And while you're in there, raise yang qi."
For putting down yin qi, nothing had ever matched yang qi.
"But if yin qi is the problem, wouldn't it be enough just to pour yang qi in? Why do I have to challenge the realm of Sinbyeong-hapi..."
"You little—! I'm saying it 'cause it'll do you good. Nothing wrong with learning it ahead, and it's more efficient besides, brat."
He clicked his tongue and went on.
"The yin qi is stuck flat against the spear's structure. A normal infusion won't melt it off. Not unless your yang qi is good enough to turn that spear to molten metal on energy alone."
And that was beyond even high-rank exorcists.
"So you bind yourself and the weapon into one, raise yang qi, and melt the yin qi fused into the structure with that yang qi. Fastest road there is, and the orthodox one."
Along the way he would gain Sinbyeong-hapi besides. How was that not a good deal?
"If you got it, quit the theatrics and get back to Sinbyeong-hapi."
Bihyung stared blankly at his professor, then bent deep at the waist.
"Thank you."
Sloppy as the man's tone was, prickly as it got, there was no denying he was a truly fine teacher.