Chapter 105
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 105
Chapter Title: Oldboy: Wuxia Edition, Minus the Coercion and 14 Years
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The stark difference in eye level between Uihyeon and me was one clear sign of the years that had passed.
When I was little, I had to crane my neck all the way back just to meet his gaze, but now simply tilting my chin up was enough.
“Closed-door training won’t be easy. There will be times you’ll have to battle crushing loneliness, moments when you long for the outside world, and days when you’ll want to set your sword aside.”
I nodded silently at his earnest advice. I was already prepared for all that. My only worry was having to get by on a single Fasting Pill a day.
“But to achieve the growth you seek, you’ll have to endure every one of those trials.”
“Yes.”
I offered a respectful clasped-hands bow to Uihyeon as he personally opened the door to the closed-door training chamber.
“Then this unworthy disciple will reflect on Master’s teachings and return after a year of secluded training.”
“Good. I’ll see you in a year.”
Uihyeon nodded with a gentle smile.
As I stepped inside, the massive door slid shut behind me.
It wouldn’t open again for a full year. So all I had to do was immerse myself in training without worrying about the passage of time.
The chamber was completely sealed on all sides, making it impossible to track the days. In one corner sat a jar brimming with enough Fasting Pills to last a good ten years.
I tossed the manuals I’d brought from the Mugyeong Pavilion—along with the secretly stashed Heaven-Severing Secret Sword manual—beside the jar and pulled out a Supreme Purity Pill.
It was my first time taking an elixir stone while fully conscious, and my heart raced. I sat in a proper lotus position and placed the pill in my mouth.
‘Oh… I’m screwed.’
Now my heart was pounding for an entirely different reason.
The Supreme Purity Pill’s energy surged wildly, just as unruly as the Jasodan’s had been, and I frantically circulated my qi to suppress it, struggling to guide it toward the meridians I needed to open.
When it tried to rush to the Baihui point on the crown of my head, I shoved all stray thoughts aside and poured every ounce of focus into blocking it. I desperately clung to the formula of the most advanced internal art I knew, projecting it into my mind.
The Crown Gate at the crown blocks the Ren and Du meridians.
The Ren and Du meridians run vertically through the body. Connecting them allows qi to circulate freely without deliberate meditation.
It also brings about complete physical transformation and entry into the Transformation Realm, the threshold of absolute mastery.
But at my current level, achieving that would be a disaster—no absolute master for me, just qi deviation, thrashing around alone in here until I dropped dead.
It wasn’t time to breach the Crown Gate yet.
I regretted my decision to bring the Supreme Purity Pill into secluded training, insisting I’d take it alone.
I hadn’t fallen into qi deviation after the Jasodan thanks to the true qi infused by the sect elders, not my own power. Today, they’d force-fed me humility once again.
I casually opened a few blocked acupoints, circulated my inner energy through my meridians once, then pushed it back into my dantian.
After safely absorbing eighty percent of the pill’s spiritual energy, I opened my eyes. The remaining twenty percent could be slowly integrated over the next year of training.
With that eighty percent, my inner energy had already surpassed one jia. No need to rush.
Realizing my body was a mess from the expelled impurities and waste, I sighed and headed to the well.
By the time I’d washed up and done my laundry, hunger hit me hard. I pulled out a Fasting Pill and popped it into my mouth. I’d thought I was used to them after choking them down since childhood under the “forget yourself for the sword” mantra, but after so long, it felt foreign again.
Not surprising—I hadn’t touched one since beating Namgung Seheon.
“Ha… I have to eat these for a whole year…”
They prevented toxin buildup, provided all essential nutrients, and even allowed for one meal a day, making them the martial world’s energy bar. But the problem? The taste.
What flavor could you expect from pine needles and nuts mashed together? Like chewing on a pinecone, maybe.
The fullness was undeniable, which only made it worse. With a bitter taste in my mouth, the first day of closed-door training came to an end.
* * *
This feels… familiar. Isn’t this just like being locked up and fed nothing but steamed buns?
The thought hit me mid-pushup, two fingers digging into the ground, as I chewed the utterly vile-tasting Fasting Pill.
This was voluntary confinement, so no real injustice here.
Plus, that other one lasted fifteen years, right? With only a year prepared for me, I couldn’t even compete.
My daily routine—sleep, wake, meditate to build inner energy, swing the sword, train stamina—was mind-numbingly dull.
Especially without any noticeable progress.
I could now perform the first nineteen forms of the 24 Plum Blossom Sword Techniques with my eyes closed, and I’d reached about the fourth star in the Heaven-Severing Secret Sword—not quite five, but close.
Without sword qi, neither art could break past five stars to grasp their essences.
The final form of the Heaven-Severing Secret Sword, Infinite Heaven-Cleave, sharply sliced the boulder.
In stark contrast to my unscratched blade, the rock bore a deep, jagged gash. I swept it with impassive eyes, then sheathed my sword.
Without pause, I assumed position and unleashed the most familiar first form of the 24 Plum Blossom Sword Techniques: Plum Blossoms by the Roadside.
“Sigh. Stuck in here training all day every day for nearly a year, and I still can’t breach the wall to peak mastery?”
The form was executed with flawless precision, not a hair’s breadth off—yet not even sword qi bloomed, let alone plum blossoms. I glared at my sword, then flopped down with a lament.
Even a Millennial Cold Iron Sword couldn’t force a realm breakthrough.
What good was inner energy over one jia if I was still a first-rate empty shell, not even touching the entry to peak?
The limit for ordinary people was peak mastery, and I hadn’t even broken that.
What was my level now?
Top dog among late-generation disciples, maybe—but out in the jianghu, I’d get smacked around by real experts and slaughtered in no time!
To reach peak, you needed to manipulate objects with qi from afar, even weakly, and wield sword qi. My remote manipulation barely lifted a pebble before dropping it, and my sword qi made me question if it even existed in this world.
Come to think of it, even Namgung Seheon’s genius sister, hailed as a prodigy, hit peak in her early thirties.
Uiseong had bloomed plum blossoms just past thirty as well.
I recalled these facts to calm my impatience and take it easy…
‘Then what does that make Elder Muyeong, who bloomed plum blossoms with sword qi after just one day mastering the 24 Plum Blossom Sword Techniques?’
The overwhelming tale of genius I suddenly remembered turned my resolve to mush. Was this what they meant by standards dropping with each generation?
I didn’t know how much time was left, but I’d boasted I’d leap a whole realm, so I had to make it happen somehow.
“Alright. If I can’t manifest sword qi by tomorrow, I’ll dive into the Jade Maiden Pool.”
No sooner had the resolute words left my mouth than—creeeak—the door swung open.
Before me stood the face I’d missed most in my solitary days. Tears welled up unbidden at this long-awaited reunion after enduring loneliness and isolation.
“Maaaster!”
“Yeon, you’ve worked hard this past year. Your closed-door training ends today.”
“…Has a whole year passed already?”
My shock sucked the tears right back in. Right—Uihyeon opening the door meant a year had flown by. Time sure flies.
“But what was that about diving somewhere?”
“Nothing, Master. Just… been a while, so I wanna go swimming in the Jade Maiden Pool.”
“The Jade Maiden Pool isn’t deep enough for swimming. I’ve told you time and again not to say such things—it gives this master a heart attack.”
Uihyeon lightly rapped my head. Peeking from behind him was Uiseong.
“Oh, squirt. Thought you’d be bawling to get out after six months, but you held up pretty well.”
Uiseong grinned and ruffled my hair with affectionate roughness. Normally I’d dodge, but after so long without touch, I let it happen and snorted.
“Am I a kid? Can’t handle that much?”
“You bet. You’ll always be a kid to us.”
I hid the Heaven-Severing Secret Sword manual in my clothes so it wouldn’t show, gathered the rest of the manuals, and headed out. Uihyeon snatched my sword, Uiseong grabbed the 24 Plum Blossom Sword Techniques manual. I carried only the lightest bundle of clothes.
Flanked by Uihyeon and Uiseong, I stepped out through the wide-open training chamber door.
And so, after a full year, I emerged from closed-door training and breathed fresh air again. That made me nineteen now, right?
“Everyone looks… the same after a year.”
My fellow disciples had all passed their growth spurts, so none had undergone dramatic changes in the blank year.
But it was a shock that everyone but me now had a two in the tens place of their age.
“Senior Brother, did you break through to the peak realm?”
I scratched my cheek at Biwon’s question. After all my big talk about surpassing the peak wall, I was still stuck at first-rate.
Of all days, my “I’ll make it happen” vow landed exactly on the one-year mark.
“Nah, I came out of seclusion having learned humility. The more I think about it, the more becoming a peak master at nineteen sounds like hubris.”
“Even present Mount Hua’s Greatest Sword bloomed sword qi at nineteen. And the previous—”
“Shut it.”
I stuffed a Fasting Pill into Biwon’s mouth to block his words.
Back at the quarters, a pile of letters awaited. One from Baek Geon, one from Paeng Haran, and the most from Namgung Seheon.
I thanked Bireung for sorting them neatly and tore into Namgung Seheon’s first.
At the start, it was all trivial daily life: his nephew being born, disarming an opponent in three exchanges today, holding his nephew for the first time, and so on.
Then suddenly, the paper quality changed, and so did the content.
Unlike the earlier letters on fine paper with neat script, these were on rough, cheap stock, scribbled in haste.
[Hey, lunatic—they’re censoring my letters. Why? Did this even get through? Reply via express pigeon. Oh right, you’re in closed-door training, can’t reply… Why’d you have to go into seclusion right now, you idiot? –Namgung Seheon]
[Engagement’s off. Sis says I should’ve just married her quietly. -Namgung Seheon]
[Don’t believe any rumors or later letters, got it? -Namgung Seheon]
I frantically tore open the last one. There, unmistakably in Namgung Seheon’s handwriting:
[Wanna run away to Mount Hua? Will you take me in? -Namgung Seheon]
The paper was high-quality.