Oh, So You're Just Gifting Me a Martial Art Now?
"...You've actually lost your mind... Are you okay?"
"You can see for yourself."
"Ugh..."
"...Sounds like you were worried."
"Of course I was worried?! You said you'd be my sasuk!"
My clothes were soaked through with blood, but Cheon Seolhyeon didn't seem to care in the least. She burrowed into my chest and hugged me with all her strength.
"I looked out the window... and suddenly some Transcendent master leapt out and vanished into the distance... Do you know how worried I was?"
"..."
"...I don't want... to lose family ever again."
"It's that serious?"
We weren't even officially sasuk and sajé yet. Most likely she'd lost her family in the past... and that experience had left a mark far deeper than she let on.
I gave a faint smile and patted Cheon Seolhyeon's small back.
"I'm not going anywhere, so stop worrying."
"...Really?"
"Yeah."
Time to copy her martial art.
That fight had made me realize just how important collecting martial arts was. By any means necessary, I had to get stronger—because strength was the only thing that could protect me and the people around me.
So really, this is all for your sake, Seolhyeon. Don't take it too hard.
I pulled Cheon Seolhyeon tighter against my chest.
"Mmph..."
"Haah... Seolhyeon."
Back when we first met, she'd definitely said something like—how dare I ask who she was, or some such nonsense. Her family clearly wasn't ordinary. What kind of supreme cultivation art was this girl hiding so jealously, refusing to show even a glimpse of it? A flicker of expectation rose in me—maybe something rivaling the Taegeuk Wisdom Sword would pop out.
Her small, snow-white hand patted at my chest.
"Baek Sihyeon... can't breathe, can't..."
"...Shall we get going? We need to buy new clothes too."
"...Yeah, okay."
And so, swapping our dirtied clothes for fresh ones, we set our feet toward the summit of Mount Wudang.
Well then, shall we?
With Cheon Seolhyeon in my arms, I stepped onto the Taegeuk glowing beneath my feet and soared into the air.
"Kyaaak?!"
KWAAAHNG—!
"Wh-what is that?"
"Good heavens..."
Letting the murmurs of the crowd below slip past one ear, I crossed from the foot of Mount Wudang to the front of the Wudang Sect's main hall. Twenty paces of the Heavenly Thunder Taegeuk Step was more than enough.
I sat down on a boulder before the long stairway leading up to the sect's gate and caught my breath.
"Whew, that was rough."
"...I wasn't heavy, was I?"
"A little heavy."
"Hey..!"
Cheon Seolhyeon's fist rapped against my arm. It didn't hurt—more like being smacked by the fluffy punch of a cat I'd raised back in modern times.
When I reached over with my other hand and stroked her head, her hand froze mid-swing. The sight so resembled that old cat of mine that laughter bubbled up unbidden.
"Pfft..."
"Why are you laughing..."
"Nothing. Shall we head up?"
"...Yeah."
The Wudang Sect's main hall was perched at a staggering height. Even second-rate martial artists would need a full day just to climb up and down. And with Mount Wudang's terrain being so treacherous besides, ordinary people could never reach the grounds at all—which was why the number of people who had arrived here was vanishingly small. Only a handful were even now climbing the stairway toward the sect, and those martial artists soon disappeared into the hazy mist that veiled the main hall.
I looked at Cheon Seolhyeon.
"Don't go failing to climb up like an idiot."
"What do you take me for..."
"Good."
Kicking off the ground, I leapt. Becoming a single bolt of lightning, I hurled myself into the mist shrouding the Wudang Sect's gate. Since we'd been told we'd fail if we entered hand in hand, I felt no hesitation about going in alone.
The next instant, I was standing in a place blanketed on all sides by fog.
The Wudang Sect's publicly held entrance exam consisted of three trials.
The test of patience and perseverance.
The test of trust.
And the test of martial prowess.
The first two trials took place within the mist that wrapped around the sect's grounds, while the trial of martial prowess was held inside the hall itself. Anyone who failed to pass would be immediately expelled from Mount Wudang and forbidden to set foot on it again until the exam ended.
That was the information on the exam I'd gathered.
"...So this is it."
I stared at the hazy fog surrounding me and at the stairway stretching endlessly upward. Its far end rose so high that I couldn't even make it out.
"Hmmm..."
I climbed without hesitation. Sometimes unfurling the Heavenly Thunder Taegeuk Step, sometimes just sprinting myself half to death. But no matter what I tried, the end of the stairs never appeared.
"So this is that... a formation, is it?"
A formation. A technique that used natural or man-made objects to move the qi of nature itself, manifesting a special phenomenon across a specific area. Whether formations counted as a type of martial art, or whether my ability's scope was simply that broad, I couldn't say—but the formation's components, effects, methods of deployment, and ways of escaping were being hammered directly into my head.
"'Set the pillars of Yin-Yang and the Five Elements at each cardinal direction, and circulate the heaven-and-earth spiritual qi between them to complete the Taegeuk'...?"
What the hell is this nonsense. The knowledge was far too vast, and I had zero background in it, so it wasn't much practical help. But two things I could grasp with certainty: this was a formation that manipulated a person's mind to make them see illusions, and to leave it, one had to climb the stairs without pause. And anyone whose will broke along the way would be expelled from Mount Wudang.
Hence—the trial of patience and perseverance.
"Either way, if I just keep climbing, there's supposedly an end to it..."
I recalled the Soul-Capturing Art the woman had used during the Black Tiger Gang's ambush—a technique that interfered with the target's mind to scramble their senses. And now, I could use it too.
"...Could I use this on myself?"
Somehow, it felt possible. My mind was currently trapped in an illusion. So if I shook my own mind loose with the Soul-Capturing Art and broke free of the hallucination...
Then I could escape this place.
"Walking out the normal way would be boring, though."
With that thought, I shook my own consciousness with the Soul-Capturing Art. A tremendous resonance burst through my skull.
KUUUUNG—!
"Guh...!"
My head snapped forward on its own, and a trickle of blood ran from my mouth. And when I raised my head again...
like shards of shattered glass, the space before me was cracked and warped.
Without a moment's hesitation, I drove my sword into that fissure. The pierce that had felled a Transcendent—the thrust I had honed for an entire lifetime.
Immortal's Guiding Light
A thrust meant to carve open the road stretched out from the tip of my blade. My sword, wreathed in azure lightning-qi, plunged into the warped space.
CRASH—!
The space shattered outright, and I found myself back in reality.
"...Haha."
High above those stairs, the wide-open gates of Wudang came into view.
"Hooh..."
"To think there'd be a fellow Daoist who didn't merely pass the formation, but blew it apart entirely on his way up."
"It seems he's a fellow Daoist with a particular interest in formations, Sasuk."
Jindo and Jinmyeong, the First Disciples of the Wudang Sect, watched the figure walking slowly toward the gate. Everyone else, even now, was still circling in place inside the formation, lost.
"To receive the formation's acknowledgment, one must climb the stairs unceasing for at least four hours..."
"Has anything like this ever happened before, Sasuk Jindo?"
"I've heard of it happening just once, back when I was a newly entered Third Disciple. Though the Supreme Sect Leader crushed the man on the spot and expelled him."
"Then that one..."
"He broke the rules, so he'll hardly pass. No question of it."
The two First Disciples guarding the gate to the hall—and from behind them, a voice drifted out.
"Hmm..."
A dignified old man's voice. There was not a soul in the Wudang Sect who didn't know it. One of only two masters of the Harmony realm the sect possessed.
"We greet the Supreme Sect Leader."
"We greet the Supreme Sect Leader."
Both First Disciples bowed at the waist to ninety degrees. The Supreme Sect Leader of Wudang, the Taegeuk Sword Emperor Un Hyeon, stroked his white beard and gazed down the stairway. His eyes met Baek Sihyeon's in midair.
"...Heh, honestly. What a jester."
The Pine Pattern Ancient Sword slid slowly from its sheath at Un Hyeon's waist. He was recalling the night before—the moment he'd been struck down by Yeon Sohee's blade and tumbled off a cliff. A master of the Harmony realm wasn't hurt by so trivial a thing, but his pride as a Sect Leader had been ground into the dirt. Naturally, the disciple that woman had chosen was no longer worth a kind eye.
Un Hyeon loosed the Lion's Roar at Baek Sihyeon.
[YOU WRETCHED BOY!!!!]
"...Huh?"
Baek Sihyeon flinched and looked up the stairway. At the end of his gaze stood an old man who looked well past a hundred.
[You have violated Wudang's sacred law, and yet you dare set foot upon our mountain gate!]
"What are you talking about, elder?"
[You smashed the trial with your own two hands—so I shall personally assign you a new one.]
"...?"
From Baek Sihyeon's perspective, it was absurd. Some grandfather he'd never seen before had suddenly drawn his sword. And the old man's eyes brimmed with the iron will to fail Baek Sihyeon, no matter what.
Soon, a sword-qi of black and white light rippled along the old man's blade. Behind his back, a massive Taegeuk rose into the air, rotating as it began to amplify his power.
[Try to stop it, then—if you can stop the Yang-Yi Boundless Divine Art.]
The divine art that only the Sect Leader of Wudang could learn now unfolded in his hands. But the sword art that served as its vessel was the Three Calamities Sword Art—a master of the Harmony realm showing the bare minimum of courtesy to an opponent who was, after all, merely at the Peak realm.
The first form of the Three Calamities Sword Art—Mountain-Crushing Pressure—cradled the Taegeuk of the Yang-Yi Boundless Divine Art as it came plummeting down toward Baek Sihyeon's head.
"...I don't know what that is, but thanks for gifting me a free martial art all of a sudden?"
An entrance present, is it?
Weight gathered at the tip of Baek Sihyeon's sword—exactly the weight of the gratitude he now felt. The blazing black-and-white sword-qi, cradling the azure lightning that crackled up between them, swung toward the technique pouring down like a waterfall.
Sword-qi of three colors met the sword-qi of the Yang-Yi Boundless Divine Art, blade against blade.