The Red Starlight
At about the time some three-headed monster was rolling down a mountain, I made up my mind.
"All right. I’ve decided."
Geom Mujin, who had taken a room nearby, said, "Kid, how would you like to learn martial arts?"
"?"
Quietly off in a corner, the child who’d been playing with the Great Swordmaster Somersault toy swiveled a hook over her head.
The look on her face made it clear she was wondering what the hell this was about all of a sudden, right after a good meal.
It wasn’t sudden at all.
I’d been thinking about it the whole way from Jiangxi Province to Hubei.
Whether I’d brought the kid along willingly or not, if I was going to drag him around like this, I had to do my part as his guardian.
If he’d been an ordinary orphan, I might’ve tried to find him a pair of kindly old grandparents with money to spare and hearts soft enough to treat a black-haired child like their own, then arranged an adoption.
But people who’d regard a black-haired child as their own in this primitive land of Central Plains barbarians?
That was about as real as a unicorn, or the most gorgeous childhood friend in the entire capital, or a griffin. In other words: not happening.
Thud—
"....No."
Just then, the child who’d come up to my feet grabbed the hem of my trousers tightly.
Looks like he’d sensed something in my expression.
His pupils trembled wildly with the fear that I might be thinking of abandoning him.
"No, no. I wasn’t thinking anything like that."
Feeling an unjustified stab of guilt, I patted the child on the head.
Hey, hey! Abandon him?
I’d only idly wondered if maybe I should entrust the kid to a financially and emotionally overflowing household for a little while. Juuust for a bit.
I’m not some monster pet owner who says, "I’ll be back soon," and then vanishes for twenty years.
Besides, considering the special circumstances of little Blackie, it’s impossible anyway.
Leaving that nonsense aside, my decision to teach him martial arts was serious.
Unless I’m planning to retreat into some remote mountain valley and live out my entire life in seclusion, it’s better to teach him.
Right now he was acting like a puppy, but he was still a Goema.
For some reason he was able to retain a human body and rationality, but that didn’t change the fact that he was a Goema.
So far there’d been no real problems, to be fair.
He did have a suspiciously intense fondness for drinking blood, but unlike when he’d been controlled by the sword, he wasn’t going around sucking people dry at random.
Was that because he’d been cowed by me, or because I’d substituted blood soup for the real thing? Who knew.
But that uncertainty was the problem.
And uncertainty meant there was always a chance.
If he only went half as wild as he had back in Jiangxi, chaos would break out.
And once that happened, the kid’s end would go without saying.
If he was lucky, he’d be killed. If not, he’d be captured and dissected.
In that sense, I’d decided to teach him martial arts.
What did that have to do with this?
It had plenty to do with it.
People usually think the purpose of martial arts is to hone combat technique. Wrong.
We get distracted by sword qi, sword force, and all the flashy stuff like air-walking and samādhi flame, but martial arts were originally for tempering the mind.
"All martial arts under heaven come from Shaolin."
Just as the saying went—every martial art in the world came from Shaolin—the beginning of martial arts was Shaolin.
The great man who was respected second only to Buddha, the ultimate holy geezer of Buddhism, was Bodhidharma. One day, he looked at his disciples, all of them in miserable shape from ascetic training.
They had cut off meat, gone vegan, and spent every day meditating and chanting sutras. Of course their health was in the toilet.
Taking pity on his disciples, who were suffering from malnutrition and lack of exercise, Bodhidharma reached one conclusion.
If their bodies hurt because they’d cut out meat, then they needed to absorb something that could stand in for meat.
That mysterious element they could take in without committing the Buddhist taboo of killing.
It was none other than natural qi, present everywhere in the world.
With that, he could replenish the strength his disciples lacked.
So Bodhidharma created a new method of training.
This new method formed a vessel in the body capable of containing natural qi—the dantian—and cultivated it to make the body strong and resilient.
Because the practice demanded as much patience as ascetic training, it was perfect for refining the mind as well.
From then on, for Buddhist disciples, physical training was added to mental training.
- Huhh, is this really the Saha World?
- Taaehhh... Oh, Buddha...
Surprisingly, when it first appeared, a great many monks didn’t care for Bodhidharma’s training method.
They were already suffering their asses off, and now this training got added on top?
Since Bodhidharma ranked as a near-top holy figure just beneath Buddha, they couldn’t exactly complain out loud, so the monks just muttered Namo Amitabha and trained anyway.
But a few years later, once the true value of the method was revealed, their reaction changed 180 degrees.
- Shaolin is the besttttt!
- From now on, insulting Bodhidharma is the same as insulting me.
- B-Bodhidharma...
Once their back pain, stiff shoulders, and general aches vanished, the monks rejoiced as if they’d just driven off Mara himself.
With stronger bodies, they could devote themselves to ascetic practice even more earnestly.
And so it goes. Delicious.
Later, Bodhidharma would distill his insights into this method and call it the Yijinjing.
And after that, Shaolin’s prototype training method spread outward, giving rise to countless variations. That was the martial arts of today.
It had evolved from a bare-handed training method into something refined toward martial development.
But even so, the essence never went anywhere, so it still cultivated the mind.
The fact that someone with an unstable mind would fall into qi deviation if they forced themselves to use martial arts proved that much.
The body he’d been twisted into as a Goema I couldn’t really fix, but the mind—that I could help with.
To build a mind strong enough not to be swept away by Goema impulses.
Besides, if I’m not going to keep him tucked under my arm for the rest of my life, this is the right move.
Since I had no idea when or where he might be torn away from me, I needed to install a safety latch like this, even if only barely.
"......"
But contrary to my thoughts, the child’s reaction was lukewarm at best.
He didn’t seem all that interested.
No matter how you sliced it, he was one of the Seven Martial Stars’ own Great Swordmasters.
And yet here he was, being taught martial arts, and this was the reaction?
Every martial artist in the world... no, maybe only half of them... maybe less?
Anyway, maybe not a huge number, but certainly not a small one, would be crying blood right now.
"What’s wrong? Do you not want to learn?"
I crouched down and met his eyes at the same level.
What I’d just said was from my perspective only.
When you teach someone, the teacher matters, sure—but the student matters just as much.
If he didn’t want to learn, that was that.
How am I supposed to persuade him, anyway?
Martial arts weren’t something you could just force on someone...
"If I learn...."
"Huh?"
While I was dithering, the child worked his small lips.
"If I learn that... can I make red starlight too...?"
"Starlight?"
Tilting my head for a moment, I circulated my inner energy.
"Do you mean this?"
Woom—
A small streak of sword qi bloomed in my palm.
That crimson light looked like a star hanging in the night sky.
"Waaah..."
The child’s mouth fell open like a ping-pong ball as he stared at the sword qi.
Back when he’d been controlled by the pitch-black sword, there had been things he couldn’t forget.
The warmth of Geom Mujin’s hand as it held his.
And the sword that had split the darkness, along with that red starlight.
That light, different from the red of blood, had seized the child’s heart.
"Whoops! Don’t touch it. It’s dangerous."
As the child unconsciously reached toward the sword qi, Geom Mujin hurriedly scattered it.
One wrong move and a finger could fly off.
"....."
With the qi gone, the child glared at Geom Mujin with an unmistakably displeased expression.
Hey now. Just because you look at it like that doesn’t mean I’m letting you touch something dangerous.
"...Teach me. How to make stars."
It was the first time since meeting him that the child had voiced a firm demand of his own.
"How to make sword qi? That won’t be easy, you know. You’ve got to swing a sword and work really, really hard."
Noticing the determination in his eyes, I asked in a teasing tone.
Did he think sword qi was some kind of shark or something?
"I can do it."
The child answered quietly, but with real resolve.
"Really, truly really?"
"Really re... really... reallly."
At the child’s tongue-tied reply, Geom Mujin snorted a laugh.
Well, that was good. Glad to hear it.
"All right, then. Let’s give it a shot."
It had been, what, twenty years since I fell into this fake-ass martial world?
And now I had something that was practically a disciple.
Honestly, though, I’d planned to teach him mostly inner methods. I hadn’t really intended to teach him swordsmanship.
Looks like I might have to get serious about this after all.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
As the sun dipped low toward the horizon, Geom Mujin and the child went out for a nighttime hike.
A night hike in a primitive world, huh.
Utterly insane behavior, but when I did it, it was just post-meal exercise.
"This should be fine."
After checking the mountain’s qi, I found a suitable cave.
This place would be less likely to suffer outside interference.
If something did show up? I’d cut it off immediately.
Rustle— rustle—
"Hm? Why aren’t you coming in? What are you doing?"
At that moment, the child was bowing to me.
"I heard that when you learn something from someone, you bow nine times."
In the Central Plains, when people formed a teacher-disciple relationship, they performed the ritual of nine bows regardless of field or discipline.
No, but where the hell had he heard that from?
"Whew... you don’t need to do that for me, so stop."
When Geom Mujin tried to stop him, the child halted the bowing.
Damn it. He stopped on the second one of all things.
Should I make him do one more?
"Why...?"
"I’m going to teach you, but we’re not going to be in a master-disciple relationship."
The child made a face as though he couldn’t understand.
He’s teaching me, but not as a master and disciple?
"I’m just... something like a teacher, I guess."
Over the past twenty years of wandering the martial world, I’d had masters before.
But every single one of those ends had been rotten.
Maybe that’s why I really didn’t like entering a formal master-disciple bond.
"Enough. Sit here. We’re starting now."
I had the child sit cross-legged on the ground, then took a seat behind him.
"You said the adults once had you learn an inner method, right? Do you remember what it was?"
"Holy Flame Demonic Art."
I’d asked just to be sure, but of course that was it.
Holy Flame Demonic Art.
They’d slapped the sacred flame that formed the basis of their religion onto it, but in reality it was nothing more than a basic demonic inner method.
Well, they wouldn’t have had any reason to teach an experimental subject a superior martial art.
Still, it’s a relief that it was only a basic inner method.
Unlike martial arts such as swordsmanship, saber arts, or boxing, an inner method couldn’t be replaced once you started learning it.
If your level was low enough, you could throw away everything you’d studied and start over, but if not, it was impossible.
The higher your realm rose, the more an inner method became one of the foundations that made up who you were.
In that sense, the kid was lucky.
His cultivation wasn’t high, and whatever demonic qi had remained was sucked clean out by the Pitch-Black Sword, leaving his dantian empty.
At this point, he was in a position to learn another inner method.
The only worrying part is that his starting point was demonic art, but the inner method I’m teaching him now should be fine.
I placed my hand on the child’s back.
"You remember what I told you, right? Close your eyes, and we begin immediately."
"...Mm. Closed."
When the child closed his eyes, I sent qi into him through my palm.
Wooooom—
The strand of true qi that entered his body set the qi within him moving.
"------"
As the true qi moved along specific acupoints, the child recited the mantra I’d taught him.
The true qi moved in time with his recitation, as though engraving the route of the mantra into his body.
And then, by the time the sun had fully set and night had taken over, I removed my hand from his back.
Yeah. That’s it.
It seemed he was slowly getting the feel of it, because the kid was beginning to circulate qi on his own without my help.
To catch on this fast... maybe he’s even more talented than I thought.
Beiming Mind Art.
The inner method the child was currently learning, and the prototype that would later become the Six Ultimate Sword Light Art.
Beiming Mind Art had been a hidden piece even in the original work, one that had never been discovered.
It was the dutiful son that had kept me alive while I wandered the martial world to this day.
Like a deep sea that accepts qi without limit, Beiming Mind Art would suit the child perfectly as well.
Once he began circulating his own energy, natural qi from the surroundings flowed into his body.
Good thing I brought him outside on purpose.
His vessel’s so big that he’s swallowing it all down like crazy.
The child’s vessel had grown so large that it was hard to believe he was truly starting on internal cultivation now.
Probably the Pitch-Black Sword had forcibly injected mountain qi into him and expanded it along with everything else.
Usually people widened it through long years of training, but for him, it was just skipped over.
The sword had removed his demonic qi and expanded his vessel too. What a generous bastard it was.
......
The Pitch-Black Sword hanging at Geom Mujin’s waist remained silent.
While standing guard until the child finished circulating his energy, he heard a cry in his head.
Kiii-eek—!
Sodam?
It was Sodam, who had been sent out to patrol the area.
With an excited air, Sodam sent back its meaning.
You found meat? And a whole mountain of it?
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Was there a dead bear nearby or something?
Seeing its master react so indifferently, Sodam shared its vision.
"Ah. Hey, I’m busy right now—"
Geom Mujin was about to complain about the sudden shared sight when he cried out in surprise.
"Huh?"
In the bushes, some person was sprawled out in the exact posture of a frog that had been stoned to death, and the face looked familiar.
My number one fan?
The fan, presumably, was in trouble.