The Necklace of Success Placed in the Master's Hand -1
A second strike that surges like crashing waves. This motion—best described as a spinning upward slash followed by a spinning downward slash—held the advantage of allowing the principles to be freely mixed.
I could unfold the upward slash with the principle of Strength, crushing an opponent’s defense through pure force, then drive into the opening with the principle of Speed. Or I could sow confusion with the principle of Change on the rising cut and smash them flat with a Strength-infused downward blow.
“Your comprehension itself is not bad for the time you’ve spent training. Keep refining it that way for now.”
Today’s temporary master was Master Jeongmu. Whenever I switched principles he pointed out the snags in my internal energy flow and showed me how to convert it so the transition would feel natural.
Of course my crude senses still produced a mess of a result, yet the master simply nodded, satisfied that I had grasped the principles at all.
“In time those pieces will fall into place on their own. You only have a month of instruction, so ignore whatever the years will eventually fix and fill in the rest instead.”
“Yes, sir.”
A month is short. The amount one can learn in that span is limited; clinging to what refuses to come is a waste of precious time. The masters seemed to feel the same way I did—that a single month was vanishingly brief.
“By the way, how did the candy-procurement matter go?”
“I sent the disciples out. They should be back by evening.”
The thought that handing out sweets to the children every single day might be a bit much crossed my mind, but we were in a period of change; a little excess could be forgiven. Even if we claimed to care for the children, Jeomchang was still a Daoist sect—there were clear gaps in their daily lives. I could think of the candy as compensation… and both the children and the masters still needed time to adjust.
For a whole month the kids are going to live in festival mode.
In the afternoon I studied under Master Yeongyul. One look at the way his lips jutted out told me he had been forced out here by the concentrated pressure of the other masters and was none too happy about spending golden practice time teaching me instead of preparing for the evening prayer-meeting selection.
“Come now, Master. If you hogged the chance yesterday you ought to leave a little for the others.”
“Hogged? What nonsense! I volunteered! Tch… instead of settling things with skill they resort to dirty tricks…! And these are supposed to be masters of great Jeomchang…”
He grumbled only with his mouth; the actual martial instruction was thorough.
“I’ll be off to practice on my own, then. See you later.”
“Yes.”
Master Yeongyul vanished in a blink, unfolding the body technique of Bow-Body Bullet Shadow until he was nothing more than a speck. I shook my head and headed down for a meal.
When I reached Chaeseondang, Heukmyo and Hyeok Gi-rin were already eating, so I joined them. Heukmyo looked as though she had advanced another step again today.
“Do the two of you have a little time after the meal?”
“I’m free. What about you, Miss Heukmyo?”
“If Senior calls, of course.”
“Then I’d like a bit of help.”
“Today we have invited outside examiners.”
“What…?”
Hyeok Gi-rin stared at me with a stunned expression.
“Hmm. So the help you wanted was…”
“Right. Help me evaluate the masters’ techniques.”
“Well, fine. I’ve seen Senior’s techniques plenty of times anyway.”
Heukmyo nodded calmly. Hyeok Gi-rin, by contrast, had gone pale.
“Evaluating the masters?! Such irreverence…!”
“Haha, it’s all right. These are techniques we’ll show the children eventually, so don’t feel burdened.”
“Exactly. The masters themselves say it’s fine, so why worry? You’ll see everything in an hour anyway.”
I half-forced the protesting Hyeok Gi-rin into a seat and finally settled into the judges’ row. Eleven masters fixed us with eyes full of resolve and zeal.
“Before today’s selection I will announce the schedule going forward. On every day a prayer meeting is held, techniques will be presented at this same hour so we may choose the performer who will host that evening’s gathering. Three judges will select the master who delivers the finest performance.”
“Immediately after the selection the next assignment will be announced, and instruction for that assignment begins at dawn the following day. I will try to distribute performance opportunities evenly among the masters, but ‘try’ is the key word. If a technique falls too far short, there may be no opportunity at all.”
“Mm… reasonable enough.”
“True. Losing the chance to teach you martial arts in the morning or afternoon was a heavy blow.”
The masters analyzed my intentions with sharp gazes, every nerve tuned to the selection trends. A healthy tension.
Heukmyo jabbed me in the side.
“Senior, what have you done this time?”
I ignored the question and continued.
“We will now select the performer who will host today’s prayer meeting.”
The masters swallowed dryly under the taut atmosphere.
“Today’s theme, as announced last night, is Making the Candy Disappear Inside a Bowl.”
The psychological tricks and sleight of hand of yabawi already rank among the difficult arts. Unlike golpae, the contents become visible every time the cups move; the motions are violent, and the whole thing takes place in open view, so exposure is far higher.
Yet yabawi can still deceive people because the opportunities are many. Fail to hide it? Just keep spinning. The moment you succeed, you stop.
In that sense, making candy vanish inside a single bowl is a true high-level technique. Where yabawi can manufacture countless chances, here the candy must appear to vanish in one clean opportunity with only a single cup.
The pure difficulty of the hand technique is extreme, but even that is not enough. You need psychological blind spots, calculation of dead angles… simply copying the motions will never produce the effect.
However.
Unlike me, whose body suffers because my martial arts are trash, every one of these masters stands in the Transformation Realm.
Which means…
“Have you prepared that table?”
“Of course.”
They could simply solve it with martial arts.
“Then… shall we begin with Master Yeongyul?”
“Very well.”
“Start from yesterday’s joined-palms gesture and show the linked sequence.”
“Understood.”
While Master Yeongheo regulated breath and body, Hyeok Gi-rin whispered,
“Um… what exactly am I supposed to judge?”
“How seamless it looks. Think of it as pointing out flaws. If you were completely fooled, then judge how well the performance was staged—how splendidly the technique was displayed. Just assign scores in your mind.”
“…”
Hyeok Gi-rin heaved a sigh that seemed to sink into the earth. Heukmyo would figure it out on her own.
“I begin!”
Master Yeongyul joined his palms and made the candy appear, then placed it in the bowl and inverted it.
“Hmph!”
Chzzzt—!
Here was the difference between him and me.
“Oh.”
Heukmyo let out a soft exclamation of admiration.
Special effects!
Coating the bowl with qi force instantly raised the mystical quality of the magic. Heat haze shimmered and tiny grains popped—right at the boundary between qi force and sword energy. At the masters’ level they could coat the bowl cleanly, yet for visual impact this scattering, crackling energy looked far more impressive.
When the master lifted the bowl, the candy was gone.
“Hmm… what was that?”
“Oh…!”
Hyeok Gi-rin clapped with an admiring sigh; Heukmyo tilted her head. Having watched my techniques more than anyone, she had instantly sensed something off.
“How should I put it… there was no hand movement at all.”
“That’s because the master is performing the technique differently from me. Just judge how seamless it looked.”
What becomes possible once you reach the Transformation Realm? You can unfold Empty Air Object Manipulation. The absurd act of moving objects without touching them becomes reality.
Apply that to magic?
While the bowl is covering the table, lift the loose plank, drop the candy into the drawer beneath, and close it without a trace?
That is vanishing magic. Running qi force for special effects added flair, but it also served to mask the flow of energy used for Empty Air Object Manipulation beneath a fierce surge of qi.
So this was less a contest of sleight of hand and more a contest of mastery over Empty Air Object Manipulation—how cleanly you could reseal the plank, whether candy or wood made any sound inside the cup, and so on.
“Ahh.”
I explained the trick to Heukmyo and Hyeok Gi-rin. Heukmyo nodded calmly; Hyeok Gi-rin wore the expression of a child whose innocence had just been shattered.
“…I really thought the masters had perfected the technique in a single day…”
“Ahem. Ahem…”
Master Yeongyul cleared his throat, looking sheepish. I snorted a laugh. Come to think of it, Hyeok Gi-rin had been sitting among the children as an audience member; I had failed to consider that. Perhaps the pure-hearted Hyeok Gi-rin still carried a child’s heart in some corner of himself.
From now on maybe just the two of us should judge so Hyeok Gi-rin can enjoy the shows.
“If the staging is meant to look like supernatural power, adding a shout to bury the sound wouldn’t be bad either.”
“Oh, that works.”
Unlike the shocked Hyeok Gi-rin, Heukmyo offered a sharp critique. As the person who knew my magic best, she was bound to notice more.
“Cha-hap!”
“Haaap!”
One by one the eleven masters completed their demonstrations. Some failed to reseal the plank perfectly; some let their internal energy flow show too clearly; others became so absorbed in energy control that they were slow to read the audience’s reactions.
Heukmyo, Hyeok Gi-rin, and I withdrew a short distance for deliberation.
“Heukmyo, put up a qi barrier.”
“Yes.”
The moment the barrier rose I could see the masters seething with frustration—but they had done the same when evaluating me.
Anonymity mattered in a selection like this. Leftover feelings only made everyone tired.
“First, we have to remember that this technique will have to be performed several times tonight.”
Last time I had arranged for the candy to appear only for children who told the truth… I wasn’t sure whether such a child would appear again. The children had already learned thoroughly that speaking honestly and reflecting was not such a terrible thing.
So tonight’s prayer meeting would focus on whether the children who had promised to improve had truly corrected their behavior… and since bad habits don’t vanish in a day or two, the vanishing technique might need to be used quite a few times.
“Handling Empty Air Object Manipulation with such precision while maintaining qi force… even the masters can’t do it indefinitely.”
“Hero Hyeok Gi-rin, please focus on that point. The masters’ internal energy reserves will differ as well.”
“Understood.”
We finished our evaluation by combining qi-control mastery, audience command, and internal energy capacity.
When the three of us returned to the judges’ seats, the masters watched us with tense eyes.
I laced my fingers in front of me and set the mood.
“As a judging panel this was an extremely difficult decision. Most of the masters’ techniques had already reached the passing line. First, we thank you for your efforts.”
“…So who is it?”
At the impatient master’s prodding I announced the result at once.
“The performer who will lead the stage of today’s prayer meeting is…”
The wicked urge to say “Revealing in sixty seconds!” flashed through my head, but uttering such a thing in front of these tightly wound masters might have gotten my skull cracked regardless of rank.
“Yes! Yes!”
Master Ungyeong celebrated with an uppercut ceremony, immortal beard fluttering. Watching him rejoice made even me feel warm.
The remaining ten masters, by contrast, were instantly shrouded in dark clouds.
“It’s all right, Masters!”
When I called out, their irritated gazes gathered on me. There was no killing intent, yet the negative stares of ten Transformation Realm experts made my body lock up; I drew up internal energy, shook it off, and continued.
“Masters. How did today’s technique feel?”
“Mmm… far more dazzling than yesterday’s, at least.”
“Haha. Closer to martial arts than technique, though.”
“Well, how can everything in the world be neatly divided? If something can be substituted, substitution is efficient. Setting that topic aside… when we perform this technique tonight the children will like it even more, won’t they?”
Master Ungyeong jumped in, still riding high.
“Wahahaha! From today the children may all come looking only for me! Wahahaha!”
“You call yourself a master and laugh so frivolously!”
“You are supposed to be a model for the children… tch!”
Even while being scolded, Master Ungyeong kept grinning; the others glared daggers.
“The next assignment is even more spectacular.”
Only then did every gaze lock onto me.
“Do not be too disappointed if your turn comes late. What the masters ultimately want is the children’s favor! Then simply reclaim it with a more dazzling technique.”
A precaution to keep the later masters from losing all motivation.
“Mm! True. A technique more splendid than today’s will leave its own impression on the children’s minds!”
Receiving the rekindled gazes of the masters, I announced the next technique.