The Immortal Masters Learn Magic Tricks - 1
"Yesterday that old man Sagong Hyeon called us all together and started talking about the Way of the Dao. He told us how the children's behavior had changed, too."
"Ah… is that so."
"It is. Every sect cares about such things to some degree, of course… but our Jeomchang can fairly be called a sect with a particularly strong interest in education."
That much I could readily concede.
In Murim Cheonha, the way most organized sects raise their disciples is more or less the same.
First they gather the children into groups and teach them the common martial arts. Those who stand out are promoted to a higher group. In that fashion they select the gifted ones and attach each of them to someone as a personal disciple.
In other words, they run group instruction until a promising seedling appears, then hand that child off to one of the candidates for mastership. There are cases where someone takes a disciple of their own accord and teaches them personally, of course.
Interpreted in modern terms, it simply meant: figure out how to educate your own disciple individually.
The sect provides the basic training, but teaching a disciple the advanced curriculum falls entirely under the master's responsibility and competence.
So in this world of Murim Cheonha, the proper way to educate the pillars who will one day lead a sect is to entrust them to an excellent master for private tutoring.
Jeomchang's method of raising disciples, by contrast, is academy-style. Multiple masters teach multiple disciples.
It isn't that each martial art has a dedicated instructor… more like many masters, many disciples.
Which system of education is superior is not for me to judge, but it was certain that Jeomchang took far more interest in education than other sects.
Put uncharitably, other sects simply dumped the teaching methods for disciples onto the individual masters. Between "each master should figure out disciple-rearing on their own" and "let the entire sect deliberate on how to raise the disciples," it was obvious which side cared more about education.
"It's only been a few days, and yet the results have been this dramatic, so all of us are quite interested in what's inside that head of yours."
A chill ran down my spine. My head… what? The way the Immortal Masters were looking at me was anything but ordinary, and I shuddered.
"Your actions have given us a great deal of inspiration. First of all, we came to realize just how dull a childhood we had been giving the children."
"Hoo… a bunch of old men trying to raise kids — it isn't easy! We just thought if you let the little ones loose they'd run around and play just fine on their own…"
"Every evening I'd go out to meet my father on the road, hoping he might bring home a piece of taffy… how could I have forgotten that…"
"Heh heh. Indeed. My father used to bring home fried chicken."
I cut off the elders' sudden trip down memory lane with a pointed cough. Get swept into that current and you'd lose an hour at minimum.
"Ahem… forgive us. Let us return to the main subject. The truth is… we old Daoists simply cannot get our heads around what you did! The idea of handing out sweets to fire up the children's motivation, and then yesterday you secured Sagong Hyeon's cooperation on the spot?"
"If we can't understand it, we ought to copy it at least. We wish to imitate the very actions you took just now as a means of handling the children. Providing them with something to watch, distinguishing reward and punishment to give out prizes, and leading them to repent of their own accord — those sorts of things."
"Mm…"
I scratched the back of my neck. What did I know about educating children? A few scraps of random knowledge picked up here and there, and a couple of general-education lectures — that was the limit of my academic credentials. I knew how to raise martial artists; raising kids was another matter entirely.
"Well, ah… I can teach you my sleight of hand, but as for the child-rearing methods you Immortal Masters are hoping for, I honestly have no confidence. It's not as if I've raised children myself. I just caught their interest and handed out some snacks."
"Heh heh. Of course. You are not a teacher, after all. The educational side of things we can work out gradually through conversation. That said — you have no objection to handing over your sleight of hand? Frankly, your level was so high it left us rather flustered. We thought you were merely fooling children's eyes…"
I understood Immortal Master Yeongyul's bewilderment. He had assumed it was a cheap trick for dazzling kids, only to open it up and find a god-tier technique capable of completely deceiving even a master of the Transformation Realm. It must have blown far past the budget he had mentally allocated.
"If what you need is a technique light enough to use on children, I can teach it at that level. I can also transmit my entire repertoire — provided you pay a proper price."
"Paying for the whole of your technique is not something we can decide on the spot… Very well. We shall adjust the finer points as we go. My proposal is this: you teach us the arts that delight children and the methods for handling them, and we teach you martial arts in return."
In other words, instead of Hyeok Gi-rin, masters of the Transformation Realm would be teaching me.
"During the workday, one of us will look over your martial arts. After the evening meal, you will teach us your techniques, or instruct us in how to handle the children."
Hmm… how to put this.
Bluntly speaking, I had been learning from the adorable Hyeok Gi-rin — cross-dressed though she was — and now I was suddenly supposed to learn from a bunch of old men…
Ah, of course. As teachers, the Immortal Masters' ability scores far outstripped Hyeok Gi-rin's. I would be learning from vastly superior instructors… so why did it feel emotionally like a loss? This was a gain, right?
A sense of grievance welled up in one corner of my heart, but I accepted the proposal.
"I'll do it."
It wasn't simply because my teacher was changing… I was also factoring in Black Cat, who was hovering in the distance, eavesdropping on whatever we were discussing.
If I stepped out, Black Cat could receive intensive training from Hyeok Gi-rin. Strictly speaking, the efficient allocation would have Black Cat learning from the Transformation Realm Immortal Masters while first-rate-nobody me learned from Hyeok Gi-rin… but learning from Hyeok Gi-rin, who had a measure of resistance to Black Cat's Great Yin Constitution, was the safer choice.
Even a few hours of afternoon instruction from Hyeok Gi-rin had Black Cat growing by the day. I had grumbled about talent and whatnot, but the truth was that Black Cat changing day by day was only natural — unlike me.
Black Cat had spent a lifetime stacking her tower. Mine was a year's worth at best. One year of stacking between the ages of fifteen and sixteen. Everything after that had been years invested solely in breaking past the second-rate ceiling, and in learning gambling techniques.
Unlike Black Cat, whose tower — warped by the limits of self-study — was being rapidly reshaped and shooting upward, I was still busy just making bricks.
Considering not only my own growth but Black Cat's as well, this was the right call.
"If I am to learn from the Immortal Masters, then Hero Hyeok Gi-rin will take full charge of my companion's training — is that correct?"
"Ho ho. Hyeok Gi-rin overseeing your training is Jeomchang's way of repaying you. Do not worry yourself."
And so, less than a week into my life at Jeomchang, we entered a new phase.
The very next morning, lessons began at once.
"Hmm… did you spend a long stretch of your childhood bedridden?"
"I don't remember my early years, but I don't think so…"
This body of Ho Cheon-an's was neither particularly good nor particularly bad. The finger tendons… well, every child breaks a finger at least once, and a stunted body is a common trait when nutrition is lacking.
Setting aside the minor traits, the ability scores were simply average. A long sickly childhood would have attached negative traits, so I had to assume his early years had been ordinary enough.
"You are a Sichuan nangin, so asking about real combat experience is meaningless… how many times have you stood at the brink of life and death?"
"…Hard to say. Quite a few."
In the years I had lived as the fifteen-year-old Ho Cheon-an, life-or-death crises had come around more often than once a month. Even after becoming a Sichuan nangin I had faced death several times, but the life before that — the wild years — had been truly fierce.
"Hmm… to be frank, your level of qi control is extremely poor. Qi is the myriad things of heaven and earth; any person who has lived should communicate with it unconsciously. Setting aside your constitution, your internal energy circulation is at best the level of a ten-year-old child."
In a certain sense that diagnosis was so precise it sent a chill down my spine. I had possessed the body of the fifteen-year-old Ho Cheon-an… and if the organ that controlled qi was the soul, then I had first encountered qi a mere eight years ago.
"Mm… but I pride myself on a fairly sharp ability to sense qi."
"That is a somewhat different matter. Hmm… well, what does the cause matter? The solution is what counts."
"Oh — there's a solution?"
"You need to get older."
I looked at Immortal Master Yeongheo before I could stop myself. He chuckled as if he had expected exactly that reaction, and explained.
"If simply aging increased one's control over qi, then those who enter the martial path late in life should show some measure of achievement — but is that how reality works? There is a limit to how much qi control can grow naturally. You too… by your mid-thirties or so, you will probably have control on par with others."
"For heaven's sake…"
"Of course we will supplement it through training, so wipe that long face off. Impatience and haste are the enemies that gnaw away a martial artist's resolve. Do not grow restless over a lack of achievement — set your heart at ease."
How was I supposed to take this? What does a person expect when studying under a top-tier instructor? Don't they hope for some special secret method that ordinary teachers simply cannot offer? I had hoped the same. I had thought a Transformation Realm master would have something extraordinary — and the conclusion was "time is the best medicine."
Still, the diagnosis of my condition had been accurate, so I would have to trust it and follow along.
A day that felt both substantial and somehow empty drew to a close, and I headed to Chaeseondang for the evening meal.
"Ah! Senior!"
At Chaeseondang I ran into Black Cat. After a full day of Hyeok Gi-rin's intensive instruction, Black Cat's qi pathways felt subtly different again. The Shadow Image Qi Gong seemed more refined, clinging closer to the skin.
"Looks like things are going well."
"Well. The teacher's excellent. Right, Master?"
"Ho ho. It is thanks to Miss Black Cat absorbing everything so well."
The two of them seemed to have spent the whole day in cozy harmony; their camaraderie looked even stronger. I had made no progress, but if Black Cat had, that was enough.
"Ah — by the way, will you be holding the prayer gathering again today?"
"Mm. We'll hold one, more or less."
Not me, though.
One of the Immortal Masters currently practicing magic tricks with a feverish intensity would handle it.
Whichever one was best at it.