Chapter 16
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: The Old Man and the Young Man
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Junior.
Just seeing the word made his heart flutter. At the same time, he felt a pressure he had never known before.
Because of the two words that naturally followed.
Senior.
The moment he opened his eyes, Ha Yuseong looked down at his hands. He saw small, delicate skin, still taut and smooth. He realized once again that yesterday’s events had not been a dream.
“I’ve really become a senior.”
I have to set a good example from now on.
He tidied his bedding and immediately went outside, heading for the mountains.
It was still dawn, before the sun had even risen.
***
To grow old meant many things.
It was proof of having survived countless trials, time and time again. Thus, in the martial world, being old was synonymous with being strong.
Here, there was one such old man.
In his youth, he had lived more fiercely than anyone, and based on that life, he had built a reputation, honor, and power as solid as an impregnable fortress.
He had never expected to face such a fate in his later years.
He was bored.
Is this how boring it gets when you're old?
He was so bored he almost wished he had a troublemaking child to clean up after, but the old man had been too successful in raising his children. No, to be more precise, his child had grown up so well on his own that he never asked for his father's help!
The old man awoke and opened his eyes.
Another boring day, same as yesterday, greeted him.
Hoping someone might come looking for him, he stared endlessly at the door.
As expected, there was no sign of anyone.
The old man opened the door and stepped out.
Passersby saw him and hastily bowed their heads before disappearing somewhere.
From their reactions, he vaguely sensed that they found him intimidating.
The old man considered saying a word to them but decided against it. Now that he was retired, he didn't want to be a bother.
Looking up at the clear sky, the same as yesterday, the old man counted silently.
‘One. Two. Three.’
The very moment he finished counting to three, he sensed a presence. The old man raised his head. He saw his son, now a grown man.
“Father. I trust you are well today.”
He was a son to be proud of, no matter where he went.
“Yes.”
The old man looked at his son with proud eyes and answered calmly.
“Gun-ak.”
“Yes, Father. Please give me your command.”
Dang Gun-ak replied respectfully.
The old man let out a small fraction of the frustration pent up in his heart.
“Is there anything I can help you with?”
Dang Gun-ak smiled gently and replied.
“No, Father. You need only spend another peaceful day. You have worked harder for the Tang Family than anyone else all your life.”
“I-I have, haven't I?”
“Yes, you have.”
A son who couldn't understand his own father's heart.
He had grown up without causing any trouble, and he was the same now that he was an adult.
How nice it would be if he were lacking in some way, if he would ask his father for help, if he would whine a little.
Damn it! What a dull, heartless boy!
He felt a strong urge to complain to his departed wife about how indifferent their son was to his father.
‘My dear wife. Are you having fun in the heavens? I'm bored to death down here.’
He could only resent his own body, which, thanks to his damnably high martial skill, refused to die.
“Well then, I shall get back to my duties.”
The old man.
The former head of the Tang Family of Sichuan, the former Poison King, and the current retired old man, Dang Mandok, spoke into the empty space with a lonely voice.
“Time for a walk.”
Won't a Demonic Cult elder show up somewhere?
I want to melt one with a handful of my poison.
***
Before heading to the Murim Alliance for work, Ha Yuseong climbed the mountain to become a senior he could be proud of.
The dawn air was incredibly refreshing.
“As expected, morning training is the best.”
There were two main reasons Ha Yuseong had climbed the mountain as soon as he woke up.
The first, as he just mentioned, was his desire to be a respectable senior. The second was that he had a small realization from yesterday's events.
One might wonder what a third-rate fighter could possibly realize, but it was, without a doubt, the first true epiphany of Ha Yuseong's life.
That small realization was the reason he couldn't sleep and had started moving before dawn, and it was the reason his heart was pounding now.
“That spot looks good.”
He found a flat rock perfect for training. Settling on top of it, Ha Yuseong immediately put his tiny realization into practice.
First, he gently extended his fist.
It was the Three Talents Fist Art he had practiced his entire life.
That was it.
Utterly unremarkable.
A third-rate fist art that no one in the martial world would give a second glance.
But the Three Talents Fist Art he was performing now held a slightly different meaning for Ha Yuseong.
To be precise, it was a matter of mindset.
The fake Plum Blossom Master had split a single technique into twenty-four parts, creating an entirely new sword art. Yesterday's duel had proven that this was not just someone's delusion.
While Ha Yuseong had merely coveted what he didn't have, the fake Plum Blossom Master had honed what he did have and forged it into something new.
Why couldn't he have been like that in the past?
The reason was clear. The grass was always greener on the other side.
He had grumbled about how unfair the world was, yet he had never thought to change himself first.
He had resented the world, thinking that if he had been born into a good family with a good bloodline and learned a top-tier martial art, he could have been a second-rate, first-rate, or even a peak-level martial artist, not some third-rate nobody.
But what had been third-rate was not his martial skill, but his weak heart.
The Three Talents Fist Art.
Three simple movements of punching.
From today, Ha Yuseong decided to imbue them with something more.
For now.
The very first step was.
“Weight.”
At that moment, the simple act of punching remained incomplete.
Then, as if he understood something, Ha Yuseong entered the forest. A moment later, he emerged carrying thick vines and a stone the size of his torso.
He tied the stone to the vine, then tied the other end to his wrist. When he raised his arm, the dangling stone followed. Feeling the satisfying heft, a smile touched Ha Yuseong's lips.
“It's heavy.”
Yes. It was heavy.
Ha Yuseong began to throw punches again.
He was very satisfied with the weight he now felt in his arm, so different from before. Moreover, the swaying stone made it much harder to maintain his balance.
“Let's just do ten thousand punches and then head to work.”
***
“Hah!”
“Tah!”
“One! Two! Three! Four!”
Dang Mandok had come to the mountain pavilion to pass the time with another nap. He had long since learned that killing time in the family estate would only make his juniors uncomfortable.
Who would have known?
That the former Poison King would be hiding in a mountain like this, just to pass the time.
His pathetic situation made him laugh in spite of himself.
It was then that curiosity sparked in the eyes of the idly passing Poison King.
A loud noise had been grating on his ears from one direction for a while now.
“Ho ho. Who dares disturb this retired old man's nap?”
Dang Mandok could have blocked the external sounds with his energy, but he deliberately rose from his seat.
It absolutely wasn't because he was bored.
It was merely out of a desire to offer some light advice, as a master of the previous generation, to the young man training so boisterously in the morning!
What a magnanimous act for a grandmaster of the martial world.
A grin spread.
Feeling a sense of purpose for the first time in a while, Dang Mandok headed toward the source of the sound.
Not far away, Dang Mandok discovered a young man throwing punches at the empty air in what he considered his second-favorite napping spot.
But what he was doing was a little strange.
“Is he insane?”
Why has he tied rocks to his arms?
If he were an ordinary person, he would have thought, ‘Ah, a madman doing something crazy,’ and walked away.
But Dang Mandok was a martial artist.
And not just any martial artist. He was one of the former Ten Grandmasters of the World.
To Dang Mandok's eyes, it was clear.
He could see what that young man was trying to do.
“Hah.”
Life sparked in Dang Mandok's eyes, which had been as dull as a dried-up fish's.
“The young pup is reconstructing a technique?”
This wasn't merely patching techniques together.
It was the creation of a new martial art.
And its beginning was the reconstruction of a technique.
Naturally, this was not something just anyone could do. It required a foundation of perfect understanding of the technique, built over at least several decades.
And this was something Dang Mandok himself had only realized in his later years, specifically after he had reached the Transcendent Realm.
The young man before him certainly did not look like someone who had reached the Transcendent Realm. Yet his movements contained that very complexity.
Dang Mandok stroked his chin and muttered.
“Is he trying to imbue his fist with weight?”
He thought the concept was quite good.
Imbuing a punch with weight.
“And that's why he's doing that bizarre exercise.”
It was then.
“Hoh!”
An exclamation of admiration escaped Dang Mandok's lips.
The young man stopped punching mid-motion.
Then, he added another stone to the vine.
The young man's punches slowed, as if they were heavier than before.
His arms trembled violently, and his body swayed. Sweat poured down like rain, soaking the ground.
Then, a fist was slowly pushed out into the air.
A single punch was completed.
It was clumsy beyond belief.
But the movements were repeated.
Soon, one punch flowed smoothly into the next.
At that moment, Dang Mandok's eyes widened.
“He broke through his threshold? In such a short time?”
What was a threshold?
It was the minimum amount of experience required to reach a certain state.
Trembling breaths.
Burning muscles.
The young man had clearly reached his physical limit.
In that state, to push past his limit, he added another stone.
It was a reckless act.
A folly that only youth could afford.
Thus, Dang Mandok had thought he would manage it only once or twice at most.
A third punch followed.
A fourth punch followed.
After that, countless more punches followed.
The body has its limits.
Dang Mandok knew this better than anyone, having surpassed countless physical thresholds himself.
There was a great rule necessary for the body to surpass its threshold.
First, an immense amount of experience is needed to reach the limit, and then an immense amount of time is needed for the body to adapt to that limit.
Only when sufficient experience and time have accumulated can the body break through its limit.
Of course, entering that process itself is not difficult.
You just have to step into that realm, endure, and wait for the result.
What surprised Dang Mandok was how quickly that young man was reaching the result.
If Dang Mandok himself were to undergo the same process.
“A month, at least.”
Dang Mandok was a master of the Transcendent Realm, a rare sight even in the martial world. Naturally, his talent was far from ordinary.
Even someone like him concluded it would take a month.
The eyes of Dang Mandok, watching the young man, Ha Yuseong, were now sparkling.
Thump, thump!
His heart, which hadn't beaten like this in ten years, was racing again.
A smirk.
It was the same, yet.
A different kind of smile from this morning formed on Dang Mandok's lips.
“Found something interesting!”
Ten years into retirement.
Dang Mandok, who had been on the verge of dying from boredom, was slowly regaining his vitality.
Dang Mandok could see it. The limit that was fast approaching the young man!
‘Maybe I'll go see that old monk after all this time.’
Because that young man was missing the most important thing.
After Dang Mandok left.
Ha Yuseong, in the middle of punching, saw the rising sun and let out a sigh of disappointment.
“Oh, dear.”
He hadn't managed to complete the ten thousand punches he had initially set out to do.
“To think I only managed a thousand punches.”
Truly, the world of martial arts was vast and profound.
He decided to end his dawn training here, albeit with some regret.
It was almost time to head to the Murim Alliance for work.