Her Talent Defied Common Sense
“Try it on your own from here.”
Lee Seol-ah nodded.
She kept breathing according to the mnemonic for the breathing-and-swallowing method. At first carefully, then with a little more ease. Her shoulders lowered, and the tension in the nape of her neck gradually loosened.
Lee Kang watched her quietly.
Circulating qi while resting the breath looked safer than it was.
It only seemed like sitting still and breathing, but if the current twisted for even a moment, qi could surge to the wrong place. If it got bad enough, it could lead to qi deviation. Especially for someone sensing qi for the first time, it was easy to get carried away by the novelty and force it too hard.
Even with Transcendence-level talent, I can’t afford to relax.
Lee Kang lowered his stance, ready to reach out at any moment. But Seol-ah was far steadier than his worry had predicted.
No, “steady” wasn’t even enough to describe it.
What the hell.
Lee Kang’s pupils widened.
Seol-ah’s breathing was changing visibly. What had started shallow and irregular suddenly deepened, and qi began to circulate through her body along with each breath.
Minor Heaven Circulation. And then, almost immediately, Great Heaven Circulation.
For an ordinary person, this was a stage that might take days just to understand in concept, and months to actually grasp in practice. But Seol-ah was moving through it with absurd ease.
It was like watching a video play at dozens of times its normal speed.
With every inhale, qi flowed; with every exhale, the murky energy accumulated inside her body leaked away little by little.
“Hoo……”
A soft breath spilled from Seol-ah’s lips.
It carried the faintest trace of turbid energy. It felt like the waste built up in a body starved for too long, kept tense for too long, and wounded for too long, was finally being purged.
Watching her, Lee Kang felt something strange.
He was happy. Of course he was happy.
If Seol-ah grew stronger quickly, that meant the Black Moon Sect grew stronger too.
And yet, for some reason, he also felt a little sad.
No matter how hard I try, I’ll never be like that.
Lee Kang knew it. He was working hard. Harder than anyone, moving with desperate urgency, clawing his way through every day just to survive. But the difference in talent was real.
Seol-ah had sensed qi as soon as he showed her the path. She had breathed a few times and understood the difference in mental methods.
And now she was already feeling her way through the flow of Great Heaven Circulation on her own.
What had taken Lee Kang more than a month to barely grasp, Seol-ah was tracking in only a handful of breaths, then carrying out several times faster.
Damn it.
But there wasn’t time to nurse that feeling for long.
I need to get some spiritual medicine, or pills that can raise aptitude or talent. Somehow.
People on the Modern Murim Gallery occasionally posted stories like that. Someone who found a fated encounter in a hidden realm, someone who swallowed an unknown elixir and had their aptitude rise, someone whose inner strength increased dramatically after taking a single pill.
Most of it was probably bragging, but surely not all of it was false. Lee Kang made up his mind in silence.
Someday, I’ll get my hands on it.
A way to speed up his training.
Whether it meant improving his insight, changing his talent, or increasing his inner strength, he would have to find something.
The gap in martial training speed was too large.
At this rate, one day Seol-ah would leap clean over him. No, not one day. She might do it much sooner than that. The thought was both gratifying and dangerous.
Several dozen minutes passed.
Seol-ah’s breathing became increasingly stable. Her complexion improved a little as well. Her body was still thin, but at the very least, she no longer looked like she might collapse at any second, as she had yesterday.
Lee Kang judged there was no need to keep watching.
No problem.
He settled himself opposite her.
“I’m going to continue my own training. Don’t push yourself, and if anything feels off, stop immediately and tell me.”
Seol-ah, still with her eyes closed, gave a small nod. Lee Kang folded his legs and sat down as well.
Lee Kang slowly let his breathing settle.
Then, an hour later, it happened.
“Kyaaaah!”
All at once, a scream rang out from outside. A moment later came the sound of something shattering, followed by shouted curses.
“Get him!”
“That bastard!”
Crash!
Glass breaking. Someone falling over. It was a brawl.
Seol-ah’s eyes flew open.
She instinctively lowered her body. Her head turned toward the window. Tension sharpened her white eyes. Her hand groped automatically at her side, but there was no sword there.
Then Seol-ah looked to Lee Kang. He still had his eyes closed, his breathing undisturbed. Naturally, his qi circulation had not broken either.
As if the screams and shouts outside meant nothing at all, he continued breathing without a trace of hurry.
To be honest, Lee Kang heard it too.
But the thread at the crack of the door had not been broken. The dust below the window had not shifted. The footsteps were distant, and the fight seemed to be happening in an alley toward the Haeo Market.
Since the noise wasn’t coming here, there was no reason to react.
Seol-ah glanced around nervously again. Window, door, floor, and then back to Lee Kang.
She watched him for a while. When Lee Kang still didn’t move, the tension in Seol-ah’s shoulders gradually drained away.
The screams continued from far off.
But inside the room, it was quiet. And strangely, that calm seemed to spread to Seol-ah as well.
Slowly, she sat back down. Then she closed her eyes again across from Lee Kang.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Slower than before. But steadier. At that moment, translucent text appeared before Lee Kang’s eyes.
Lee Seol-ah’s affection level has increased.
Why?
Even with his eyes closed, Lee Kang was puzzled.
What exactly had he done just now?
Nothing. He hadn’t fed her, hadn’t handed her a martial manual, hadn’t said anything encouraging. He had only kept up his qi circulation.
And yet her affection level had risen.
No idea.
Lee Kang decided not to think too hard about it. If it went up, that was good.
Seol-ah, by contrast, was sensing something different.
The moment she heard the screams outside, her body reacted first. Run. Find a place to hide. Grab a weapon. Those thoughts rose like instinct.
But Lee Kang didn’t move. It wasn’t because he was fearless.
It wasn’t because he couldn’t hear the noise, either. He knew, and still he did not move. That strangely reassured Seol-ah.
It was the first time that someone’s silence hadn’t felt unsettling.
The first time that someone remaining still hadn’t felt like abandonment.
Something very faint and warm began to spread through her chest.
Seol-ah didn’t know what the feeling was.
So she simply drew in another breath.
Time passed again.
An hour.
Two hours.
Three hours.
The commotion outside had gradually died down. Inside the room, only the sound of the two of them breathing remained. Even, steady breaths and slow silence. Once in a while, an old building would creak somewhere, but that was all.
Seol-ah slowly opened her eyes.
She hesitated for a moment, then spoke very softly.
“Um……”
At her voice, Lee Kang slowly opened his eyes too.
“What is it?”
His tone was as low as ever, but inwardly he was feeling rather pleased.
Just moments ago, as he continued his qi circulation, the flow of Black Moon Resting Heart Art had become noticeably smoother. He couldn’t say exactly why. Perhaps it was because of the insight he had gained from the conversation he’d had with Seol-ah yesterday, or maybe because seeing Seol-ah, who possessed Transcendence-level talent, practicing qi circulation right in front of him had given him a jolt of stimulus.
Maybe it was both.
The status window had already appeared a moment ago.
Black Moon Resting Heart Art: Beginner 795 / 1000
Lee Kang almost laughed to himself as he remembered the number.
I’m almost there.
With just a little more, he might reach a small accomplishment. If possible, he wanted to keep this momentum going and circulate qi a little longer without interruption.
But Seol-ah spoke first.
Had something happened? Had her qi flow gone wrong? Lee Kang looked at her with a little tension.
Seol-ah was looking down at her own hands. She slowly clenched and opened her fingers, then muttered under her breath as if she couldn’t believe it.
“The breathing method……”
“The breathing method?”
“I think it reached a small accomplishment.”
Lee Kang blinked several times.
“What?”
Seol-ah drew in a breath again, slowly, as if checking her own respiration. Then she let it out with careful precision. It was a far steadier breath than before. It was unmistakable that she was no longer just breathing, but actually following the flow of qi inside her body.
“The breathing method has reached a small accomplishment.”
“That’s impossible.”
Lee Kang said it almost reflexively.
It didn’t make sense.
It truly didn’t make sense.
Even if the breathing method was just a basic mental technique at the lowest grade, it was still a martial art. It wasn’t the sort of thing you could read a few lines about and then, after a few hours of breathing, suddenly push into small accomplishment. Even Lee Kang had struggled for a long time when he first learned a basic breathing method similar to it.
But Seol-ah had only sensed qi for the first time today. She had only just begun feeling around the current of Minor Heaven Circulation today.
And already, small accomplishment?
“It’s true.”
Seol-ah said it quietly.
When Lee Kang looked at her as if he still couldn’t believe her, she added a few more words.
“At first it was difficult. But when the loud noise came from outside earlier, I was looking at you, and I thought everything would be all right. After that, the breathing method became much easier. Exhaling, and feeling qi, too.”
Lee Kang looked at Seol-ah for a moment, then said in a low voice, “Tell me about that realization.”
Seol-ah hesitated briefly. Her white eyes rose to Lee Kang, then lowered again.
“When I remembered breathing with you, and sharing breath with you, and eating together, and fighting together… I felt happy, and warm. Once I felt that, it became easier to exhale. The breathing method got much easier too.”
Only after she finished speaking did Seol-ah seem to realize what she had said.
A faint flush rose over her pale face.
Seol-ah looked away.