A Simple Shell Game -1
"Hoo."
I finished circulating my energy the same as always and gathered my qi. Even though I'd burned through the spiritual medicines to incinerate the clumps in my blood vessels, the residual energy left behind was still a considerable amount—and that leftover force still hadn't been fully absorbed into my body.
Even so, I wrapped up my energy circulation earlier than usual and sat down at the desk.
I'd made the mistake of unconsciously leaking enlightenment and pushing Master Un-jong into the Profound Realm, so I needed to get my thoughts in order. Resolving to watch my mouth going forward was one thing—but I also went back through the Jeomchang Sect people's enlightenments one by one in my mind.
First, the eleven Masters I met most often. No—I'd already released one of them, so ten Masters. Honestly, I couldn't remember all ten of their enlightenments.
At its core, the enlightenment quiz mostly boiled down to asking, in quiz form, for the enlightenment you yourself needed.
In other words, questions about characters you could recruit as companions came up the most often.
In that sense, the mid-ranking figures of the Nine Great Sects were the ones furthest from companion recruitment. Even if you joined a Nine Great Sect, the only people worth recruiting as companions were junior and senior brothers of a similar generation. Recruiting the officer corps of a Nine Great Sect just meant high recruitment costs and a hierarchy that made them nearly impossible to put to proper use.
Still, I wrung my brain dry, recalled as much of the flavor of each enlightenment as I could, sorted it all out in my head, and went to find the Masters.
I had morning training to attend, after all.
Within the Jeomchang Sect, the story being circulated was that Master Un-jong had achieved enlightenment on his own.
Fortunately, most of the Masters had attained their breakthroughs after the disciples had already gone home, so it seemed none of the disciples had witnessed me delivering my little speech.
A far more plausible narrative than "a Nangin guest muttered some nonsense and someone achieved enlightenment" was "while striving for the sect and for the children, enlightenment suddenly came"—and the disciples of the Jeomchang Sect would take that rumor at face value.
After finishing dawn training, I headed for the Masters' quarters to receive my lessons, only to find all eleven of them clutching their heads and buried in some kind of paperwork.
"What are you doing, Masters?"
Master Yeong-yul lit up and welcomed me.
"Oh, good! Perfect timing! When you were explaining the third contest—do you remember what you said?"
"Pardon?"
"Back then, something about the harmony of martial arts and technique, and so on. It seemed to carry a Profound air about it, so we've been going back over it!"
"How on earth do you remember that?"
The theme of the third contest is beanbag throwing.
First, a demonstration of my own beanbag throw.
Did you see? Beanbag throwing is the harmony of martial arts and hand technique—
...So that was what they were doing. They'd been transcribing every single word I'd ever said into written form.
"Oh... this formula... something about it resonates. 'The moment the circle drawn by the wrist and the straight line of the fingers intersect, a blind spot in vision opens...' Ohhh...!"
Master Jeong-mu's eyes flew wide and his body trembled, and every other Master's head snapped around to stare at him.
Master Jeong-mu, cut the act. That is not your enlightenment.
After shuddering for a good long while, Master Jeong-mu finally spoke.
"...Or is it not?"
"You little—!"
"I thought it was real!"
The Masters, who had been swallowing hard and holding their breath on the off chance it was genuine, hurled inkstones at Master Jeong-mu in a fury.
"Masters, it really was a coincidence. You were all standing right there watching—why are you acting like this?"
"Sure, sure, a coincidence."
"Right, a coincidence. Coincidences can happen twice."
"Tsk."
I glared at them, and only then did they seem to realize they'd crossed a line, breaking into awkward coughs.
"Ahem. This is just, well... how should I put it. Since you said you'd start theory lessons today, we were just practicing our note-taking for the first time in ages! That was all."
"Aigoo, aigoo. Getting old, my memory isn't what it used to be. If I don't do a little dementia prevention like this, I can barely keep my wits about me..."
"Ugh. Please stop talking."
I was about to call them out properly when I spotted Master Un-jong mixed in among them and lost my words. Master Un-jong met my eyes, then quickly looked away and cleared his throat.
"Even you, Master Un-jong?"
"Ahem. I simply came to learn techniques from you. I need to learn techniques too, don't I!"
"Tch."
I pressed a hand to my forehead at the sight of Master Un-jong's notebook, hastily closed but still covered in dense writing. The man had already gained one enlightenment—did he really need to get greedy for more?
"Ugh. Anyway, focus! From today on, it's theory class."
Enlightenment was enlightenment, but just as my own martial training had to continue, the Masters' sleight-of-hand lessons had to keep going as well.
"Mm!"
"Indeed. Your techniques may well hold clues to enlightenment too!"
Well, their hunger to learn was certainly genuine.
"Shall we start with optical illusions, then?"
The class itself wasn't difficult. I'd already explained the same material once at the Tang Family, after all.
The Masters, who'd apparently expected nothing more than a light technical rundown, began to groan.
It was a process of shattering the common sense they'd held so firmly, so some labor pains were inevitable. Even if they wanted to reject the theory, they'd already mastered the techniques and only then moved into the theory—so they had no choice but to accept it, bitter as it was.
"Haha. Shall we leave it here for today?"
"Urgh. I'd rather you just assign homework."
Had using the Tang Family people as my baseline been a mistake? Their reaction was completely different. Where the Tang Family folk had looked impressed every time I explained theory, the Masters only seemed to pile up more questions.
Honestly, you didn't need to fully understand the principles to perform magic. And since the Masters would only be using hand techniques as a means of approaching the children, I wasn't sure an advanced course was even necessary.
I'd try it for a few days, and if it didn't work out, I'd just switch over to teaching practical applications.
That was when Master Un-jong spoke up.
"Come to think of it—those techniques you showed on the first day. Could you demonstrate them once more?"
"Hm? It's not difficult, but..."
"I've grown a little curious. Now that my realm has risen, I wonder whether I might see through your tricks."
"Oh?"
At Master Un-jong's not-quite-a-challenge, I smiled as well. Honestly, I'd been curious myself.
Tang Gwang-ryeol, the Family Head of the Tang—the absolute peak of Transformation Realm masters. I had claimed victory over him in gambling.
But I hadn't felt any thrill or sense of accomplishment from that fact.
Because in the game of Murim Cheonha, among the characters you could gamble against, there had been several who had reached the Transformation Realm. I knew full well that even a Transformation Realm master could be beaten if their gambling skill was low enough.
But whether I could bluff my way past the Profound Realm through gambling—that was completely uncharted territory.
Because in the game of Murim Cheonha, among the characters you could gamble against, not a single one had reached the Profound Realm.
"Shall we have a light match, then?"
"Gladly."
"Ho, this just got interesting."
It was a topic that clearly sparked the Masters' interest, and they moved with such enthusiasm that a playing surface took shape in no time.
In an instant the desk was cleared, cups appeared, and a broken inkstone shard was polished smooth into a bead.
I pushed the eagerly watching Masters out of my awareness and focused every nerve solely on Master Un-jong. Facing a Profound Realm master demanded nothing less than my best.
"I'll begin."
Shasasasak!!
A shell game unfolded with concentration and technique both poured in without reserve. The moment the cups stopped, voices drifted in from the sidelines—"Did you see that?" "I couldn't follow it."—but I focused entirely on Master Un-jong's reaction alone.
Master Un-jong stroked his chin for a moment, deliberating, then chose a cup.
"Hmm. I believe it's the third cup."
Without a word, I lifted the third cup. Inside sat the bead we'd fashioned from the polished inkstone shard, standing in for a die.
"How did you know?"
Master Un-jong spoke calmly.
"First, let me make clear that I failed to grasp your technique. Just as you explained in your lecture earlier, my eyes were deceived... but separately from that, I could read your intent. It felt as though, at the end, you were trying to stage a binary choice between the first and second cups."
So this is the Profound Realm. Reading a person's intent itself.
"Since you were trying to stage a binary choice between the first and second cups, I figured the actual bead would be under the third."
In a shell game, the first round always has the highest win rate for the operator. In a real gambling den you have to draw people in, so you don't deploy every technique from the very first move—but still. On the first round of a shell game, the one running the table has the advantage. You just keep rolling until you're certain you've deployed every trick you know and thoroughly deceived them.
And that was exactly what I'd done—only to be seen through in a single pass.
"Heh. Though I'm not sure whether this even counts as seeing through it. If I hadn't heard your theory lecture today, I suspect I never would have read that intent."
I shook my head.
"In gambling, only the result remains. Would you care to go a few more rounds?"
In gambling, luck is also skill. And that thing called luck is, in part, a catch-all for a mass of unprovable, nonspecific factors. Say a certain gambler habitually steers the die toward cup number one a little more often—if an opponent who saw nothing still picks number one and wins the money, is that luck, or strategy?
The results of five quickly played rounds ended in my victory, at least. The problem was... that Master Un-jong had read every single one of my intentions. The two rounds I lost in a row came simply from emptying my head and shuffling the cups with no intent at all—and the Master, unable to read anything, simply having bad luck with his picks.
"I've learned much."
"Not at all. I should be the one saying I witnessed a fine talent. Heh... I thought reaching the Profound Realm meant I'd grasped the whole world, but the world is truly... vast."
No matter how curious I was, asking a Master to sit down for serious gambling would have been far too rude. A light wager like this could be overlooked, but dragging a Daoist master to a table with real stakes, full rules, and every gambling technique in play—that crossed a line.
So all I could do was make a prediction.
If I were to gamble formally against Master Un-jong, I'd cautiously estimate something like a six-to-four result in my favor. That is, with psychology, fortune, sleight of hand, and performance—every element brought fully to bear.
If the Master spent a month or two learning techniques from me, it would probably narrow to something like fifty-five to forty-five.
As expected of the Profound Realm, I suppose.