Spiral Formula
Between the internal injuries and the wound on my thigh, the medicine hall had ordered me to rest for a full five days.
“Heh heh. Glad to see you’re looking better.”
“Yes. If nothing else comes up, I’ll be discharged today.”
“Good… Tomorrow we’ll face each other in class again. I’ll take my leave.”
Elder Un-jong, who had visited every single day, left with a noticeably lighter expression, as if a weight had finally lifted from his shoulders.
“I have brought fruit, as commanded.”
“Mm.”
I popped one of the fruits Heukmyo offered into my mouth. She kept her respectful posture and continued fanning me. Summer was already fading, but a cool breeze felt refreshing no matter the season.
“Should you require anything at all, you need only give the order.”
“Ahem. My throat is dry.”
“At once.”
Heukmyo launched into light-footwork and vanished like the wind. As it turned out, both she and Hyeok Gi-rin had been in on the illusion formation plan the whole time. That explained why they’d conveniently gone out right when everything happened.
The two of them seemed so shaken by my injuries that they were now treating me with almost excessive care. Hyeok Gi-rin had even tried smuggling meat into the medicine hall, insisting “a patient needs meat,” only to get caught and banned from entering.
While Heukmyo was gone, I quietly circulated my internal energy.
Kurrrrrrr.
Qi spun between the energy channels, lining up the blockages and carving out a path. It was a narrow, difficult path to maintain, yet it was unmistakably a route that let me move energy without the clumps interfering.
Proof that I, as a martial artist, had opened a road of my own.
Not the knowledge of a ten-year veteran gamer. Not the life experience of a modern man. This was the fruit of Ho Cheon-an’s own sweat and effort alone. Even if the situation inside the formation had been fake, I had taken the crystallization of everything I had pondered and built under extreme pressure and made it truly mine.
“Heh heh heh…”
Was this what people meant when they said their stomach felt full even though they hadn’t eaten? The vortex that aligned the clumps… I named this method of circulation the Spiral Formula.
“Senior! You’re circulating again, aren’t you!”
Heukmyo had reappeared with water at some point and scolded me, so I hastily released the circulation and said,
“Ahem. If you’ve brought water, hand it over already.”
“Honestly, Senior! The physician told you to stay completely still for five days, and you can’t even wait that long…!”
She grumbled, yet still offered the water with careful hands. I drained it in one go and answered,
“I’m fine now. I took the bandages off my leg yesterday. I’m completely recovered, okay?”
“Anyway! Absolute rest until the end of today!”
“Tch.”
To be honest, my body was itching so badly I could barely stand it. I wanted to run the Spiral Formula right that second and swing the Single Flash Blue Cloud Sword to my heart’s content.
My leg felt fully healed; even a short walk would have eased the restlessness. But except for trips to the latrine, Heukmyo refused to let me so much as step off the bed.
While we were locked in a silent staring contest, the physician entered.
“Hmm. The internal injuries have all healed… and moving the leg a little will actually help recovery.”
“Tch.”
Heukmyo clearly wanted to keep me pinned down longer, but she couldn’t argue with an expert’s opinion.
“Practicing sword forms should be fine, but for the next few days avoid running or using light-footwork.”
“I’m discharged, then?”
The physician nodded, and only then was I finally allowed to spring up from the bed.
The moment I returned to the Guest Hall after so long, Hyeok Gi-rin—who had been banished from the medicine hall—came scurrying over.
“Nangin Ho! I’m so sorry!”
“No, you can stop apologizing now. You too, Heukmyo.”
Even if the process had been a little messy, Elder Un-jong had pushed the plan through and the Jeomchang Sect had prepared the Thousand-Image Illusion Formation for me. The fact remained that I had awakened the Spiral Formula because of it.
By ordinary Murim standards, I now owed Jeomchang a debt. Then again, what I’d already given the sect was substantial enough that calling it a debt felt awkward… Still, there was no reason for the people of Jeomchang to keep apologizing forever.
Elder Un-jong had started the whole thing, so his daily visits made sense. But the other elders and Hyeok Gi-rin looking so guilty was just uncomfortable.
“I’m fully recovered. The injuries from the Thousand-Image Illusion Formation are gone; all that’s left is the progress I gained inside it.”
“…I understand.”
She nodded under my firm insistence, yet her expression still looked overcast, as if clouds refused to clear.
“If it still bothers you that much, would you mind watching my martial arts for a moment? I need to check how badly my body has rusted.”
“…! Gladly!”
The instant I asked for help, her face lit up so brightly it reminded me of a puppy, and a laugh slipped out of me.
We reached the training ground of the Guest Hall, and at last I drew my sword.
“Hoo.”
Five days of rest had left my body brimming with vitality. Still, just to be safe, I checked my reactions. I carefully shifted weight onto the injured leg, loosened up a little, then immediately ran the Spiral Formula and drew up my internal energy.
I began with the first form—Single Flash Triple Sword.
The principles of Strength, Speed, and Change linked together naturally as the form unfolded.
“Oh…!”
“Whoa.”
I let Heukmyo’s and Hyeok Gi-rin’s gasps pass through one ear and focused on the next form.
The moment Single Flash Triple Sword ended, I flowed straight into the second form—Blue Cloud Surge. Maintaining the Spiral Formula’s current while linking the forms and converting principles at the same time made my hands and feet feel clumsy, but I forced it through anyway.
If I ever wanted to swing a sword in real combat, this much was the bare minimum.
The still-unfamiliar Spiral Formula creaked a little, yet compared to before it was a massive leap forward. From Blue Cloud Surge I continued into the third form—Cloud-Severing Cut—and felt genuine emotion at the unbroken flow.
Five days ago, simply connecting one motion to the next had been a crisis. Now the forms carried exactly the principles I intended and unfolded exactly as I willed them. That alone was moving.
I pushed straight through the fourth form—Waning Moon Blood Reflection—and into the fifth—Whirling Cloud Shadow Erasure—in a single breath.
At times the unfamiliar Spiral Formula wavered, shaking both form and principle, yet the longer the sword forms continued, the more stable the current became.
Kurrrrung.
Listening to that now-familiar inner rumble, I unleashed the final eleventh form—Hundred Transformations.
Shiiik!
“Mm…”
I let out a sigh of regret. So Hundred Transformations was still beyond me? Inside the illusion formation I had changed principles three times while clashing with Changmin’s sword… Had that only been possible because it was an illusion, a scene painted inside my own head? Or had standing on the edge of life and death simply awakened every scrap of latent ability I possessed?
There was no way to know.
All that remained was the simple fact that the present me still could not reach Hundred Transformations.
“You advanced… all at once.”
Hyeok Gi-rin and Heukmyo looked stunned by the sudden leap in my martial arts. Honestly, I was stunned too. I had used the Spiral Formula inside the formation, but in real time it had lasted only an instant. I had swung the sword fewer than five times; the total number of principle shifts hadn’t even reached ten.
So when I first picked up the sword today, I had told myself that cleanly completing even a single form would count as success. Yet once the excitement took hold and I kept going, I had chained ten forms in a row.
“At this level, you can say you’ve fully stepped into the First-rate realm.”
“Thank goodness! Truly, thank goodness…”
Hyeok Gi-rin pressed a hand to her chest in relief.
“I was so worried we had only hurt you… but you’ve achieved so much.”
Hyeok Gi-rin and Heukmyo… well. The two of them had only seen me injured, so they must have been carrying the guilt that their wrong choice had gotten me hurt for nothing.
Now that they had witnessed with their own eyes that I had gained far more than I had lost, the apology in their hearts finally seemed to ease.
The perpetual crease between Hyeok Gi-rin’s brows since the illusion formation incident smoothed out. Heukmyo’s posture, too, looked as if a fair amount of conscience had been lightened.
At last we could live a little more comfortably.
“Let’s go.”
“Where to?”
“Where else? The elders’ residences.”
Strike while the iron is hot—I marched straight into the elders’ quarters and demonstrated my martial arts again.
“I saw it from behind that day, but… I never imagined you’d advanced this far!”
“Excellent, truly excellent.”
Smiles returned even to the faces of the elders who had been carefully watching my mood during their sickbed visits. Elder Un-jong, who looked as if he had suffered no small amount of mental torment, was the same.
“Well? You’ve all seen it, haven’t you? How far I’ve come.”
The elders nodded.
“My body is fully healed, and only the results remain, so everything ended well. Let’s leave it as something to be proud of and shake off the guilt. Let’s go back to living comfortably like before.”
“Heh heh heh heh…”
Elder Un-jong burst into hearty laughter.
“Thank you.”
“I’m grateful as well. I fully understand you did it out of concern for me. Let’s stop exchanging thanks already. How long are we going to live this awkwardly? We’re people who’ll be seeing each other’s faces for months yet.”
“You’re right… We’ll still be facing one another for months, and we can’t keep doing this every time we exchange something.”
“Exactly. So clear your schedules for the afternoon. We’ve skipped lectures for five whole days—shouldn’t we make up for it quickly?”
“Ugh, just when life was starting to feel livable again.”
“Tch. Old men going out of their way to suffer.”
I snorted at the familiar grumbling of the elders. Yes—this kind of banter was what made talking with them enjoyable.
With the new circulation method, the Spiral Formula, and with every last scrap of guilt over my injuries swept away, my life at the Jeomchang Sect returned to its proper orbit along with the afternoon lectures.