Chapter 25
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 25
Chapter Title: Another Dream
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The Ten Grandmasters of the World.
A title for the ten strongest individuals in the world.
And the idols of all martial artists.
I knew I'd meet one of them someday if I joined the Murim Alliance.
After all, the Alliance is where the strongest warriors in the Central Plains gather.
That was part of the reason I applied to the Alliance.
Besides, the Alliance is led by none other than the Heavenly Sword Emperor, who could be called the foremost of the Ten Grandmasters.
I figured that if I lived in the Alliance, I'd get to see the Alliance Leader's esteemed face eventually!
But I never imagined I'd meet one so soon.
And the Poison King, no less.
Even if he is the former one.
People often say.
If you ask who is the strongest among the Ten Grandmasters, they would pick one among the Heavenly Sword Emperor, the leader of the Murim Alliance; the Heavenly Demon, the leader of the Demonic Cult; the Blood Calamity Emperor, the Lord of the Heretic Federation; or the Ronin King, the head of the Ronin Association.
There are recent rumors that the Ronin King is now called the Fighting Emperor, but that has nothing to do with me.
Anyway, this is the important part!
If you ask who is the most mysterious among the Ten Grandmasters, nine out of ten would answer thus:
The Monstrous Doctor of Ten Thousand Poisons.
His other title was Divine Healer.
The one who can kill the most people in this world.
And at the same time, the one who has saved the most.
That very person was right before my eyes.
“I would like to entrust you with an escort mission.”
To think the bearded old man was the former Poison King.
Why would such an incredible figure approach me?
Jegal Biyeon asked a question.
“What are we transporting?”
“I cannot tell you that. This mission is a top-secret matter known only to the Alliance and the Tang Family.”
Jegal Biyeon stared intently at the Strategist, her father, waiting for an answer.
He was known for his cold-headedness. Even to his own flesh and blood, in official matters, his daughter was nothing more than a pawn on the board.
Realizing this early on, Jegal Biyeon was about to say she would forfeit the mission. She couldn't accept a potentially life-threatening assignment without even knowing its details.
As if sensing this, Dang Mandok grinned and spoke.
“Alright. Since you're the ones involved, I suppose I can tell you this much. Just know that you'll be transporting a very important treasure from the Tang Family.”
Hearing this, the group members voiced their own guesses.
“The Ten Poisons of the Tang Family?”
“The inner core of a spirit beast?”
“Money?”
However, Dang Mandok ignored their speculations and continued.
“You just need to transport it safely from Henan to Sichuan. It isn't a particularly difficult mission.”
Looking at the mission description alone, that was true.
All they had to do was transport it.
Afterward, Dang Mandok exchanged a few brief words with the Strategist and then disappeared.
The Strategist informed them of various details regarding the mission.
“Before you embark on the mission, any necessary supplies will be provided at the supply depot. External missions are a reflection of the Murim Alliance. I don't much care what you do within the Alliance. But if you bring harm to the Alliance on the outside, I will use everything in my power to ensure you face disadvantages. Conversely, if you succeed, you will be rewarded accordingly. Therefore, you have a duty to maintain yourselves in peak condition until the mission begins. The Alliance will grant you leave until the day after tomorrow. Don't get into any strange business; get plenty of rest. Now, gather here again at dawn on the day after tomorrow.”
As if he had said all he needed to, the Strategist disappeared somewhere.
It was clearly a grade-3 mission; having the Strategist deliver it himself gave it a different weight.
Jegal Biyeon left with a single phrase, "See you later," and vanished.
She truly is my senior.
To remain so composed despite it being a mission designated by the former Poison King and delivered by the Strategist himself... I should learn from that composure.
Suddenly left as a trio, Ha Yuseong's group didn't know what to do in this unfamiliar situation.
An unexpected period of free time.
“We have leave,” Namgung Yuya said.
“Mm. Anyone want to get something to eat?” Hae Myo asked.
And Ha Yuseong.
*-Come to the Murim Alliance's third warehouse.*
“I'll be going ahead.”
A summons from the former Poison King was impossible to resist.
***
Thump, thump.
My heart has been pounding relentlessly.
If joining the Murim Alliance had been a dream for Ha Yuseong, the Ten Grandmasters were like a first love.
No! It wouldn't just be Ha Yuseong. For every martial artist, the Ten Grandmasters were surely that kind of existence.
Beings in a sky one could not dare to reach.
One of them was right before his eyes.
“You've come.”
That's him, the former Poison King, rumored to be able to kill hundreds with a single gesture!
Could the rumors be true?
How would I know, having never seen a master of the Profound Realm before!
At first glance, he didn't look like a Poison King at all.
Ha Yuseong immediately cupped his fist in his palm and showed his respects.
“Apprentice warrior Ha Yuseong greets the former Poison King.”
“Let's dispense with such stiff formalities between us.”
Ha Yuseong's eyes widened.
The former Poison King was far more magnanimous than he had thought.
‘Between us...’
‘He said that!’
What kind of 'us' is that? The 'us' who met secretly in the mountains? Or the 'us' who intimately exchanged martial arts in the mountains?
“Come and sit. It seems our conversation may be a long one.”
“Could it be?”
Is it that kind of story? Ha Yuseong had heard such tales occasionally during his ronin days.
A former master happens to be passing by and sees a child.
-You! Your talent is outstanding!
-Me? I'm just a mudfish from a backwater village.
-Then a dragon has been born in this village!
-A dragon!
-No! A phoenix!
-A phoenix!
-Hah! Is it just a phoenix! It's a Black Tortoise!
-Turns out I'm one of the Four Mythical Beasts!
-That's right! What do you say! Become my disciple! I will place the world in your hands!
-I'd love that!
That kind of situation!
Is it that! Is it that!
“Are you asking me to become your disciple!”
I'm now the disciple of one of the Ten Grandmasters!
“That is not it.”
The fantasy that had soared to the heavens plummeted to the underworld in an instant.
Reality came crashing back.
Only then did he calm his excited heart and regain his composure. One of the good things about getting older was growing a thicker skin. Ha Yuseong sat down, feigning ignorance as if he felt no shame for his recent outburst.
“First, let me introduce myself. As you just heard, I am the former Poison King.”
Ha Yuseong introduced himself again, just as he had at the beginning.
“I am Ha Yuseong, an apprentice warrior of the Murim Alliance, belonging to the Crouching Dragon Unit!”
“Spirited.”
“Thank you for the compliment!”
“I'll ask you directly.”
A disciple, after all?
“Have you, by any chance, undergone Rebirth?”
“Gasp!”
“Just kidding.”
I-I thought I was found out. It doesn't seem like it would be a huge problem if he knew... or would it? Would I be subjected to physical experiments?
“Hmm. But you see, if that's not it, then the current state of your body makes no sense.”
The man before him could be said to know more about the human body than anyone else in the martial world.
After all, the Poison King's other title was Divine Healer.
Perhaps I can learn the reason for the Rebirth that even I don't understand.
Honestly, I've been curious all this time.
Why did I undergo Rebirth?
Is what happened to me truly Rebirth?
You know how it is.
They say when you undergo Rebirth, your internal energy skyrockets and you become younger.
I did get younger.
It's just that my internal energy stayed the same.
“In my personal opinion, you are going to die soon.”
“What?”
Ha Yuseong was dumbfounded by the completely unexpected answer.
Die? Me?
“The body naturally maintains a balance. Let's take walking as a simple example.”
“Yes.”
“Imagine you're walking and your body leans to the left. What do you do?”
“I'd shift my body to the right.”
“And in the opposite case?”
“I'd shift to the left.”
“Correct. If you lean forward, you'll lean back, and if you lean back, you'll bend forward. And this entire process happens completely independent of your consciousness.”
Come to think of it, I'd never thought about how I usually walk.
For a person, being born, rolling over, crawling, and walking are all perfectly natural actions, just like breathing.
Just as you breathe without learning how.
“Walking is an act unique to humans, and it is also a highly advanced skill performed unconsciously. That is why, when you walk, your body naturally maintains its balance without you even thinking about it. However. Your body right now... your exterior is extremely developed, but your interior seems no different from that of a man in his fifties.”
“This is where the problem arises. As I said, the human body seeks balance, whether you are conscious of it or not. But from what I can see, you are aging rapidly. It's as if your body is trying to undo a forced distortion of time. It's not precise, but in my estimation, three years at the latest, one year at the earliest.”
Gulp.
Ha Yuseong swallowed without realizing it.
“Your body will revert to that of a fifty-year-old. You might even die from the rapid aging.”
An extreme imbalance between the inside and the outside.
An existence that should not be.
That was Ha Yuseong.
And that was my thought process looking at Ha Yuseong as a martial artist.
“However, as a Divine Healer, my opinion is slightly different.”
Dang Mandok, the Divine Healer, saw the existence known as Ha Yuseong differently.
The human body maintains balance. In other words, if you think about Ha Yuseong's current state in reverse...
“There is a limit to how strong a human body can become.”
Martial arts have realms of mastery.
“Reaching the third rate is easy. The second rate is a bit harder, but manageable. The first rate is where it truly becomes difficult. From the Peak realm, effort alone is not enough. You need talent. For the Transcendent Peak, you need luck on top of talent. And the Profound Realm is a supreme state, achievable only when everything surrounding you—luck, talent, effort—aligns perfectly.”
The Profound Realm.
The dream of every martial artist.
And the end for every martial artist.
“The higher the realm, the more effort and experience it takes to reach the next stage. I call that a threshold.”
The power required to achieve something.
“And once you reach the Profound Realm, this threshold becomes impossibly high.”
Dang Mandok is a master of the Profound Realm.
It has been nearly thirty years since he reached it. And he still has not been able to move beyond it.
About twenty years after reaching the Profound Realm, he came to realize one thing.
Why they call the Profound Realm the end.
Why they call it the tomb of martial artists.
“If you were to describe the realms of martial arts as a staircase, let's say there are 100 steps from the Transcendent Peak to the Profound Realm. And from the Profound Realm to the next, there would be even more steps.”
He could have been satisfied with the Profound Realm.
Just reaching it was a great achievement. It wasn't for nothing that masters of the Profound Realm were called the Ten Grandmasters of the World.
“Do you know? The height of a single step in the Profound Realm... is greater than all the steps from the third rate to the Profound Realm combined.”
A clearly existing limit.
A physical limitation of being human that cannot be overcome with talent, effort, or luck.
Dang Mandok despaired. And so, he gave up.
A human being, at most, can live for a hundred years.
He was already over eighty. The time he had left was twenty years, give or take.
Moreover, his body had already begun to age, and from the age of seventy, he was no longer in a state to train.
In other words, humans had a limit of seventy years, at best.
But Dang Mandok saw the opposite possibility in Ha Yuseong.
A body developed to the level of the Profound Realm.
In contrast, his internal organs were old and worn.
This disharmony was creating a miracle.
Upon reaching the Profound Realm, one's body achieves a state of near-perfect internal and external balance.
Therefore, strengthening any one part is nearly impossible.
It was the same reason why it's so difficult to move from perfection to greater perfection.
But the existence known as Ha Yuseong was different.
If his internal organs were developed even a little, his physical body would grow along with them.
That body, which had already reached the Profound Realm!
Does the boy before me even realize what a miracle this is?
Something that would take someone else more than ten years, for this boy, it could take a mere year, no, not even a month!
Of course, it was not an easy task.
In some ways, it was extremely difficult.
For that boy's body to advance, it had to overcome the threshold of immense disharmony.
But it was easier than developing a perfect body that had already reached the Profound Realm.
That is why he was now looking at it.
A dream he once had but had given up on.
The next step beyond the Profound Realm.
“I know very well that I should not be making such a request. Every person has their own dreams, and no one can force their life upon another. Still, I ask you. For the sake of my dream, would you be willing to dedicate your life.”