Ho Cheon-an's Greatest Crisis in Life -1
"I understand you require an elixir of the Seven Luminaries attributes. The Jeomchang Sect does not typically manufacture elixirs of such extreme elemental bias... but if you wish for an elixir of dual attributes, that can be prepared. The refinement of the elixir pill should take roughly a month, so why not spend that time bathing in the vital energy of Mount Sunam?"
"I'm grateful for your kindness."
This was exactly why I never bothered learning skills outside of gambling. With gambling, you could grind your technique up in no time so long as you threw enough money at it. Everything else demanded you grind sweat, time, and cash into dust.
Someone might scoff that a whole month for a single elixir was ridiculous... but a month to produce one elixir was, in truth, lightning-fast — beans roasted over a flash of thunder.
They had almost certainly been lucky enough to already hold every ingredient required, and as a courtesy to me, they had thrown every alchemist in the medicine hall into the effort.
Mastering any craft meant pouring your entire life outside of martial arts into that single skill. That was the only honest way to look at it.
So the unspoken limit on how long I can stay at the Jeomchang Sect is one month. I could linger longer if I wanted, but Hyeok Gi-rin was a vital asset even within her own sect. Dedicating a full month to overseeing my and Black Cat's training was already a massive investment on Jeomchang's part. Accepting their elixir on top of that and then asking to stay even longer would be pushing it.
And so our stay at the Jeomchang Sect was set. Three days passed.
"Haaah... haaah...!"
I was training mixed in among the teenage disciples of the Jeomchang Sect. At the moment, we were circling the training grounds on all fours.
Not ordinary all-fours, either — a full Dragoon crawl. The Jeomchang Sect called it the Turtle Walk. The teenage disciples had clearly done this a thousand times; they were racing around the grounds at a pace most people would call a solid run, while I scrambled desperately after their heels.
Hyeok Gi-rin had told me my endurance and flexibility were lacking.
I'd wondered what she meant by that. Experiencing it with my own body made everything crystal clear.
In raw physical stats, these Jeomchang teenagers and I were roughly equal. I could estimate their capabilities well enough. The disciples training alongside me were between fifteen and twenty, every last one of them First-rate.
And yet the gap in speed between us right now was staggering.
This Turtle Walk hammered muscle groups I never used in daily life. Strength as a stat was ultimately just the average of every muscle in the body. In ordinary drills — running, push-ups, jumping, horse stance — I kept pace with the other disciples just fine. But the moment a specialized exercise like this came up, I got left in the dust without mercy.
I finally dragged myself into last place under everyone's stares, clinging to the rear of the pack — and the next command rang out at once.
The leader of these teenage disciples. A kid named Chang-min. They said that once he became a full Taoist, he was a lock for the next generation of the Ten Outstanding Disciples.
"All right — Straight Steps!"
"Straight Steps!"
What the hell were Straight Steps? A full side split, legs locked in a perfect line. From that position, you hoisted your entire body up using nothing but leg strength, then split the other way, over and over.
"Aaaargh!"
It was also the exercise I hated most. Damn it, even in a wuxia world, how was splitting your legs and then lifting your whole body with pure leg power supposed to make any sense?
Though, come to think of it, I'd seen that kind of scene in movies more than a few times.
"Ah-ah, Nangin-nim, no hands on the ground."
"Aaaagh!"
I'd barely managed ten splits when the other disciples finished a full lap of the training grounds and stood around staring blankly at me and Chang-min.
"All right. Move to the Sword Hall for sword training."
Chang-min watched the disciples thunder off in a pack and let out a sigh.
"Nangin-nim. I know it's hard, but you have to perform each movement precisely for it to do any good."
By the time I finished one lap of the grounds, the sensation in my groin had more or less vanished. Until yesterday, Straight Steps had been a mid-session exercise. Because of me, it had been shoved all the way to the end.
"Uuuugh~ Give me half a ke to rest, then we'll go."
"As you wish."
The sheer physical exhaustion was bad enough, but the twisting agony in my groin and hips defied description. This was the kind of pain willpower couldn't touch. Rest was the only answer.
At dawn we reviewed martial arts across the board. Mornings were spent refining sword forms while simultaneously grinding the mastery of their subtleties. After the midday meal, roughly one shichen of the afternoon went to evasion drills. Then we climbed back up to the main mountain for physical training — or physical torture — alongside the other Jeomchang disciples. After the evening meal came energy circulation, rest, and sleep. That was a day.
"Let's go."
"Yes."
Chang-min followed behind me, the corner of his mouth twitching. He wasn't smiling at me, though...
"Ah, Senior. Did your training go well today as well?"
"Mm."
"You must have had quite a time looking after our inadequate senior again today, Young Hero."
"Not at all. Yeo Il-ye's benefactor is a benefactor to all of Jeomchang."
Chang-min dropped his voice into something solemn and offered a formal clasped-fist salute.
I couldn't exactly blame him. No — I could understand him at a full two hundred percent. Chang-min was eighteen this year. Peak hot-blooded age, stuck deep in the mountains grinding martial arts to death — and then a beauty like Black Cat shows up?
Losing your mind was only natural.
If I'd met a woman like Black Cat at eighteen, I was confident I would have put on twice the airs Chang-min was managing now.
"Heh heh. Take good care of him, Senior. And you hurry inside too."
I smacked the back of Chang-min's head to snap him out of his trance as he stared, slack-jawed, at Black Cat's retreating figure heading into the lodgings. Then I flung myself onto the long bench inside.
"Aigoo, I'm dying.... How's the training going?"
"Hero Hyeok Gi-rin isn't the Great Senior Disciple for nothing. I'm improving so fast."
"Good to hear."
Three straight days of absolute hell, and I couldn't feel a single change in myself. Black Cat, on the other hand, was advancing by leaps every single day. The form of her Shadow Image Qi Gong was shifting almost overnight.
Well, Black Cat's talent was never going to be ordinary. In wuxia stories, anyone slapped with a "such-and-such Physique" label was basically guaranteed to be a freak of nature. And she'd reached the very edge of the Peak Realm entirely on her own...
Ah, comparing myself would only leave a bad taste in my mouth.
Besides, this body of Ho Cheon-an was destined to become the greatest master in all of Murim Cheonha someday. Think big.
"Senior. It's about time."
"Huuuuh... Let's go. Where's Hero Hyeok Gi-rin?"
"She said she had something to take care of today and headed up a little early."
We were finishing dinner when a swarm of children came rushing over.
"Nangin-nim! Nangin-nim! Are you doing the prayer again today?!"
"I woke up the earliest today and even folded my blanket!"
"Hmm."
Surrounded by the children's sparkling eyes, I hesitated. Hyeok Gi-rin wasn't even here. Was it all right to put on a magic show by myself?
Showing the kids magic wasn't the problem. The problem was the hard candy I was supposed to hand out. Strictly speaking, the candy stored in the carriage belonged to Hyeok Gi-rin.
Even if I shared it with the children, she would probably say I'd done well... but still.
"...Looks like there's no prayer today..."
"Aww... But I practiced my sword forms so hard..."
The kids drooped, staring at the ground, and a crushing wave of guilt hit me.
"We're doing it! After mealtime. Gather in front of the Guest Hall!"
"Yaaay!"
"Anyone who skimps on dinner just to save room for candy will get nothing from this Wanderer!"
"Hurry up and eat!"
"Destroy it!"
I sighed at the sight of the children launching into their meal like it was combat, then had no choice but to dig the candy out of the carriage.
"Hmm... Not much left."
Even at one piece per kid per day, maybe two more shows' worth?
I'll need to talk this over with Hyeok Gi-rin.
Anyway, I couldn't just hand the kids a piece of candy and call it done, so I started organizing the magic show in my head. Card tricks with golpae tiles didn't really need preparation. But they weren't intuitive enough for children.
Not that I had a better answer. My magic was nothing more than applied gambling technique. If it didn't involve golpae, dice, or yabawi shell games, I was no different from any ordinary street acrobat.
The past two days I'd gotten by with candy appearing from empty hands, but today it would have to be yabawi. Luckily the hard candies were round.
"Black Cat! Grab a table and set it up out front!"
"Got it."
I finished mapping out the act in my head and stepped out in front of the Guest Hall — only to find...
"Whoa, Nangin-nim's here!"
"Heh heh heh."
Standing among the children, right beside Hyeok Gi-rin, was some kind of True Person.
"Ah... Immortal Master, what brings you...?"
"Heh heh heh. This humble one is a Taoist by the name of Sagong Hyeon. In my insufficient way, I oversee the Hall of Lively Tao where these children reside."
"Ah..."
Alarm bells started screaming in my skull. The contents of the past two days' magic shows scrolled through my mind in a rush. Claims of mystical power connecting me to the Immortal Sage. Claims that the Immortal Sage himself was bestowing the candy...
If someone wanted to make an issue of it, they had all the material they needed.
"W-well, Immortal Master... Haha. You understand, don't you? Mentioning the Immortal Sage was just..."
Sagong Hyeon raised one eyebrow as if he'd just heard something completely unexpected.
"Immortal Master, Immortal Master! Nangin-nim has mystical powers that connect him to the Immortal Sage!"
"And then — poof! The candy the Immortal Sage gave him just appears right out of his hands!"
Kids. Read the room. At this rate, today's magic show is dead on arrival.
Completely contrary to my inner screaming, the children spilled every detail of my fraudulent act to Sagong Hyeon. Hyeok Gi-rin wore a bitter smile behind them, and my back was soaked through with cold sweat.
"Amitabha... There is a point on which the fellow Taoist is mistaken, so allow me to correct it first."
"I am all ears, Immortal Master!"
"Heh heh. Though Jeomchang is founded upon Taoism, we have no doctrine that forces anything upon our Taoists and disciples. The ideology of the Taoist school is fundamentally polytheistic, and cases of venerating people who are not gods are included within Taoism as well."
I blinked. Hyeok Gi-rin summarized for me.
"In short, even if the Nangin claims to possess mystical powers, the Jeomchang Sect will not interfere. Of course, if that claim of mystical power were used to delude the masses, that would be a different matter entirely."
"Amitabha..."
"I understand. Thank you for the explanation."
"Heh heh heh... This humble one did not come here to reproach the fellow Taoist. Suddenly the children have been behaving so admirably, you see. Going to bed early, rising early. Throwing themselves into training of their own accord... I wanted to know what caused such a sudden change in children who never listened no matter how much I scolded and persuaded them. That is why I am here."
Hmm. Seemed like there wasn't actually a problem. I may have been worrying far too much. If I'd truly done something out of line, Hyeok Gi-rin would have at least given me a heads-up.
"Well... I merely stimulated the children's curiosity. Immortal Master, I have no secret method worthy of your expectations or anything of the sort..."
"Heh heh. The fellow Taoist need not feel burdened. I, too, am merely a guest who came to witness the fellow Taoist's mystical powers."
Hearing the words "mystical powers" come from the mouth of a genuine, practicing Taoist master made my face burn on its own.
Was this... shame? I suddenly wanted to crawl into a hole.
So... today, in front of a truly virtuous Immortal Master, I had to perform for the children with a "Keheheh, behold the power of this one who communes with the Immortal Sage! This is the mystical power of Ho Cheon-an himself — ta-da! Kukukuruppingpong!"?
Oh, good heavens.