First-Rate Expert Ho Cheon-an Makes His Entrance -1
“They’re watching us from a good distance.”
Poison Doctor, me, Yeo Il-ye, Black Cat, and Magi—five of us in total—left Hyeongwi Mountain. Our destination was the inn where Yeo Il-ye had stayed for a while.
Only after we settled our luggage at that inn did I finally taste freedom.
Poison Doctor borrowed the inn’s shed and dove straight into renovations, with Magi naturally drafted as his errand boy for the whole project. Yeo Il-ye left to keep an eye on the bandits’ movements.
Everyone focused on their own tasks. Having received a clean bill of health from Poison Doctor, I too began preparing for energy circulation.
I was in the courtyard, limbering up and settling into position to start circulating when she spoke.
“Senior.”
“What. What is it. If it’s not urgent, can it wait a bit?”
“It’s important. We finally have a moment alone.”
Black Cat was holding a thick sheaf of papers.
“Senior, you asked me before to look into your bloodline, remember? While you were at the Tang Family Estate, I made that investigation my priority.”
My focus, which had been locked on Qi Reinforcement, snapped back. So that was what she’d been doing instead of following me to the Tang Family Estate—digging into the origins I’d requested right at the start.
“I looked into all sorts of things about you… and in the end, the last traces of you are around Mount Yeonghui in Qinghai. There’s nothing—no trail at all—from before you turned fifteen, the age you claim to have lost your memories.”
“Hmm…”
“It’s more reasonable to assume you spent those fifteen years in some hidden realm than to believe you lived fifteen years without leaving a single mark. So I started examining the extraordinary people who passed near Mount Yeonghui from fifteen to twenty years ago.”
Black Cat fluttered the documents at me.
“The information I received today is a list of people who passed near Mount Yeonghui over the last twenty years. Not just anyone—only those capable of discovering or creating a hidden realm on the mountain. It took time to organize systematically. This is the material I requested when I joined up with you, and it only just arrived.”
“Uh… that’s a lot.”
The papers she handed me listed hundreds of names. A few were masters I recognized, but most were complete unknowns.
Murim Cheonha always starts with a fifteen-year-old protagonist. That meant the people on this list were figures from twenty years before the game’s starting point. Unless they were ultra-peak experts who casually lived another twenty or thirty years, they were hard to know.
“Most of it is dummy information meant to hide the real data. People who actually passed through but had no value are marked too.”
Black Cat pulled a brush from her robes and began striking out names without hesitation.
“If you had a mother, she would have been gone for at least a year, right? She would have given birth. And someone would have needed to care for the child, so there would be people who frequently left their posts or whose whereabouts were unknown for years.”
“Or people who circled Mount Yeonghui for no clear reason. Or whose trails simply ended near the mountain. Filter for those, and…”
From hundreds of names, roughly twenty candidates remained. I scanned the faces of those names and the brief notes beside them, then had no choice but to ask Black Cat.
“This… is this right?”
“Even if you ask me, I can’t know more than this. Honestly, I think there’s a higher chance someone outside this shortlist is involved. And a high chance my reasoning is wrong.”
She continued explaining.
“Let me be clear first. There is truly not a single trace of your life before age fifteen. That’s why I had to investigate like this. If your own trail can’t be found, then at least the trail of someone connected to you should remain—that’s normal.”
“So… you concluded I was raised in a hidden realm?”
“Yes. If you were born somewhere no one knows and spent your entire childhood there, fifteen blank years make sense. A child still needs a guardian to grow, so this document is the investigation to find that guardian.”
She pointed at the papers in my hand.
“Information gathering alone can’t turn up anything beyond what’s in those documents. To investigate your origins further… either wait for some record of your life before fifteen to surface, or go search Mount Yeonghui yourself for a hidden realm.”
“Hmm.”
I understood what Black Cat was saying. Even after commissioning an investigation into my origins, the situation had twisted into needing to find a hidden realm just to get answers about myself.
How many sects and families had vanished after being swept into hidden realms? This had long since exceeded the scope of a simple request.
“Well. Getting this far is already something. Good work.”
“Mmm. Sorry, Senior. I’m not sure this even counts as completing the commission…”
“No. Honestly, this level of investigation feels like enough.”
At my current stage, learning more than this felt like it would invite something unpleasant.
What had I been fretting over for the past three days? Naturally, I’d been tearing my hair out over which martial path to take after reaching First-rate. And whenever that overload hit, I’d spent a little time wondering about my bloodline.
Black Cat’s guess had merit. That the past me had been a being someone deliberately hid. Like those escaped experimental subjects that pop up in web novels… or one of the boys being raised as a secret weapon of the Demonic Cult.
The condition of my blood that Poison Doctor had described was nothing to take lightly.
It didn’t feel like a simple past of “this Ho Cheon-an was so-and-so’s son!” but something tangled and complicated waiting ahead. Digging carelessly into my past felt like it would instantly drag me into some massive current.
I was curious about this body’s history, but that curiosity could wait until after I grew stronger.
It was a scenario of unknown difficulty—better to equip everything possible before challenging it. Put bluntly, a Second-rate warrior couldn’t even run from most dangers, while a fully realized First-rate could at least use light-foot techniques properly.
“If that’s your will, Senior…”
Black Cat looked… how to put it. Sorry she hadn’t been more help, yet also curious about my bloodline, and a little disappointed that the curiosity would stay unresolved for now since we’d decided to put it on hold.
“Right! Then getting stronger as fast as possible is the answer! I’ll watch over you, so give it everything you’ve got.”
“Mm.”
Black Cat’s information was, in its way, excellent motivation. Right—in the end, the Murim spoke through strength. Force was essential to force through whatever you wanted.
If I was curious about my past, if I wanted to know what Mixed Blood really was, I needed to grow stronger.
And the first gate for that was ascending to First-rate.
Before Black Cat spoke, I’d been full of restless impatience. Now a proper tension had settled in, leaving me in the perfect state to focus.
Operating the Three Origins Heart Method, I gradually concentrated on handling Qi.
What exactly was Qi?
Honestly, I still didn’t know. Calling it an energy source or whatever was just words I’d forced out.
But what meaning was there in pondering its essence?
As long as I used it well, that was enough.
Contemplating essence and all that was useless. Fixating on other thoughts right before solving a problem—we decided to call that slacking off.
What I needed to fixate on was how to create the Qi Reinforcement phenomenon.
The definition of Qi Reinforcement ultimately came down to processing Qi.
So what I finally had to figure out was how to process Qi. I decided to start by simply moving it. Following the formulas of the Three Origins Heart Method, I observed the flow of Qi circulating along my meridians.
Let’s go a little deeper. How should “processing Qi” be defined? Strictly speaking, I was already processing it. The Three Origins Heart Method had the trait of converting natural Qi into internal energy through the barest minimum of processing. Qi naturally tended to scatter, yet it was firmly held inside my body—that already meant some processing had altered its natural properties.
Then couldn’t a Second-rate also trigger Qi Reinforcement? They could convert Qi into internal energy while operating an internal energy method, after all.
Somehow the approach felt wrong. Maybe my assumption that Qi Reinforcement equaled processing Qi was mistaken. If I divided realms by that assumption, there’d be no need to separate First-rate and Second-rate at all.
How many people in this Murim Cheonha had reached First-rate? I didn’t know exactly, but looking at Murim history there must have been as many as stars. And after all those people spent long years studying martial arts, one of the results was calling the threshold between First-rate and Second-rate “Qi Reinforcement.”
Qi Reinforcement (inflate).
Filling with Qi.
Filling… let’s narrow the scope first. The standard dividing Peak Realm and First-rate was Qi Projection—whether you could emit Qi outward or not. That Peak standard was so clear it was almost easy to understand: maintaining control of internal energy even while projecting it outside the body.
Both Second-rate and First-rate could emit internal energy. They just couldn’t control it.
In the end, First-rate was the realm of handling internal energy only inside the body.
Yes—I was starting to get a feel for it.
Second-rate, First-rate, Peak—all of them could emit Qi outward. But the reason Qi Projection divided Peak from First-rate was that First-rate couldn’t handle internal energy once it left the body, while Peak could.
Then could the reason Qi Reinforcement divided Second-rate from First-rate be interpreted the same way?
Whether you could handle Qi in a condensed state or not.
The moment I realized that, all sorts of clues chained awake. Why hadn’t I thought of this sooner?
Poison Doctor had said, “There’s no space in the meridians to condense, so the Qi Reinforcement phenomenon doesn’t occur.” So First-rate… could be called the realm of possessing the ability to handle Qi in a condensed state.
The flow of the Three Origins Heart Method began to change. No—the method itself stayed the same, but the will with which I operated it shifted.
Until now I’d simply let the Three Origins Heart Method flow as it would. Like water filling a canal only partially and just letting it run. I started gradually controlling that flow. With the will to fill the canal of the meridians completely full.
I operated internal energy strongly according to the formulas of the Three Origins Heart Method, but whether it was the Greater or Lesser Heavenly Cycle, the result was no different. The method’s flow only sped up or slowed down; I never felt the meridians filling with Qi.
I felt helpless. The flow of Qi never broke. Maybe at some supreme realm I could sever that flow, but for me it felt impossible to just cut these water-like things and force them in.
With excessive mental drain and disappointment, I sighed and watched the internal energy of the Three Origins Heart Method circulate through my body. Internal energy that had increased by one stat from before. A value that hadn’t changed for a full seven years. Only a change of one, but I could feel it in its own way.
Suddenly the thought struck me that my internal energy might be too low… but no, that couldn’t be it. People with internal energy under ten still reached First-rate. Even those with five or six made it. Why couldn’t I?
But was it even possible to fill these meridians completely with a mere five points of internal energy?
Even with ten I saw no sign of it working. With five, no matter how thoroughly I shook out the blood vessels…
Shook out…?
No. That wasn’t it. Not shaking out…
As if possessed, I began operating the internal energy of the Three Origins Heart Method. The very idea had been wrong. How was I supposed to cut a flow of Qi that never broke?
Was this what they meant by “comprehending the principles of martial study”?
It was nothing more than a thought that flashed past in an instant, yet I was seized by certainty. Instinct was hammering the green light over and over.
The target was the right forearm. No—I set it more precisely. The Xia Bai point located on the upper arm of the right arm.
I began seizing the internal energy in front of the Xia Bai point. At the same time I forced the internal energy entering the Xia Bai point to push in!
A deliberately created bottleneck!
I made the Qi leaving the Xia Bai point as slow as possible and the Qi entering it as fast as possible. Internal energy gradually filled the Xia Bai point. Seventy percent… eighty… My mental strength had long since bottomed out from circulating too long, but I wrung out every last scrap of strength to hold and push the Qi.
And at last.
In an instant the Xia Bai point filled completely with Qi. Even then I didn’t stop. One hundred percent. No—the moment it surpassed one hundred and became one hundred ten, one hundred twenty.
The Qi packed into the Xia Bai point overflowed the meridians and soaked into the forearm!
A cool sensation of Qi flooding my right arm. Even without anyone explaining, I knew instinctively. Right now my right arm was under the direct influence of Qi and had, however faintly, transcended my own muscular strength!
An artificial supply that went beyond natural Qi provision!
Suddenly Poison Doctor’s words came back to me. He’d said meridians didn’t even exist in the first place.
Now I understood.
Meridians existed only inside my mental image. That was why, once they filled past one hundred percent, the Qi could soak into muscle and bone without any problem. Because they weren’t actual pipes. Because they were nothing more than virtual pathways I’d set up to handle Qi.
The moment you crossed that line without bursting, it naturally released throughout the entire body.
I let out a hollow laugh.
It was because of the internal energy of the Three Origins Heart Method, still flowing grandly while “protecting” meridians that didn’t even exist, the moment I released control. I felt like I finally understood why high-realm Murim people spouted such cloudy nonsense.
How the hell was I supposed to explain this contradictory flow of Qi? Even I would have no choice but to spit out something random.
I stopped circulating and opened my eyes. A long-absent system message greeted me.
Activated
Above all, the undeniable proof that I had ascended to First-rate floated right before my eyes.
“Uwaaaaaaah!!! I did iiiiiit!!!”
I rolled around on the ground, celebrating an achievement I hadn’t managed in seven years.