Young Man, Draw Manga
Sanwol locked himself away in his room for days on end, never once stepping outside. Every ounce of his focus was poured into working on his comic. Yet, drawing manga proved far less accommodating than his ambitions had promised. It wasn't that his skills were lacking, nor that he had taken the craft lightly; the real problem was that he was no longer living in modern society, but in the archaic ancient lands of the Central Plains. There were no inking pens for fine linework, nor even simple graphite pencils for drafting. His sole tools were sheets of rough paper, a horsehair brush, and a stick of ink.
Time slipped swiftly away. Sanwol resolved to first acclimate himself to the grain of the paper and the temperament of his instruments—much like a traditional artist adjusting to a digital tablet, taming the medium before attempting a masterpiece. That process alone devoured an entire month. He couldn't help it; after all, he was wrestling with brush and ink. Not only were they leagues more unforgiving than modern pens, but a single slip meant scrapping the entire sheet and starting over from scratch. Erasers? An undo button? Such miraculous conveniences were still centuries away from invention.
Thankfully, transmigration seemed to have granted his hands some latent dexterity. With relentless, dogged practice, his control steadily sharpened—or more accurately, his muscle memory revived, given that in his past life, Sanwol had been a fairly popular comic artist. Even so, the spectacle of a Peak Realm martial master clutching a brush instead of a sword, glaring down at paper instead of a sworn enemy, and splattering his own flesh with black ink instead of blood was bizarre beyond belief to any onlooker in the Central Plains. Whether one called him delightfully unhinged or completely twisted, he certainly wasn't seen as sane. Not that Sanwol cared in the slightest about what others thought.
Having tamed the brush and ink over that initial month, he dove into the grueling trial and error of drafting his manuscript. He structured a narrative built on the classic clichés of shonen manga, defining the protagonist's core motivation before sketching out the introduction and plot arcs. In ancient parlance, the term for cliché was yeonpan—a fixed plate, describing the well-worn tropes and boilerplate conventions of storytelling. Yet clichés didn't earn their staying power by accident. They worked. There was an irresistible comfort in that familiar flavor no matter how many times it was consumed, which was why readers perpetually returned to trope-laden narratives. And when a work came along that shattered or subverted those entrenched tropes, the audience went wild for that, too.
Here and now, however, there was no need to twist or break the mold. The Central Plains had no concept of narrative tropes, let alone the medium of comics. What modern readers might dismiss as a simplistic, trope-riddled cliché fest would strike the people of this era as an earth-shattering cultural revelation. Unlike modern people whose dopamine thresholds had been fried by endless sensory overload, the minds of the Central Plains were as pristine and impressionable as newborn children.
Countless classics weren't hailed as masterpieces for nothing. They earned that venerated status because they were the very first to introduce the narrative beats and dramatic devices that would shape storytelling for generations, revolutionizing the art form. They were the headwaters, the foundational origins of every trope that followed—in martial arts terms, the Grandmasters of narrative. If modern audiences still revered them, there was no need to wonder how the ancients would react upon encountering such storytelling for the very first time. They would drool in utter awe, bewitched by how gripping and deliciously potent the tale was. Comics hit harder than plain prose; visual illustrations conveyed drama and action far more vividly than bare text ever could. Of course, every blessing had its curse: drawing a comic demanded exponentially more physical labor than writing a novel.
It had already been three months since the day he abandoned his meal at the inn and rushed back home. Sanwol had drawn until the faint fragrance of ink seeped not only into every corner of his house, but into the fabric of his clothes and the pores of his skin.
"It's done...!"
A masterpiece destined to shake the Central Plains to its core. The first boy's comic in history had traversed centuries of time to finally emerge into the light.
Having completed the very first volume of his boy's comic, Sanwol ran headfirst into an unforeseen hurdle: printing. He had no viable means to reproduce hundreds of copies so that a wide audience could read it. A comic was vastly different from a novel. While novels could be printed using existing movable type, graphic illustrations could never be stamped out with mere character blocks. Carving every single panel into woodblocks or casting metal plates for every page was an impossible endeavor. He racked his brain again and again, but came up empty. In the end, Sanwol let out a defeated sigh and abandoned the dream of mass distribution. He told himself he would just enjoy it alone or pass it around among a few acquaintances.
"If only I'd gotten something useful instead of Secret Manual Duplication."
Sanwol had never been thrilled with his transmigration perk. Not only did Secret Manual Duplication offer zero assistance in actually learning martial arts, but the limitations inherent to its activation were far too severe.
"What kind of idiot would just casually leave a secret manual lying out in the open?"
The sole condition for duplicating a manual was deceptively simple yet infuriatingly strict: he had to hold the physical manual in his own hands. But valuable martial manuals were not stray dogs wandering the streets. While crude, Third-rate arts like the Three Talents Heart Method or the Three Talents Sword Technique might be easy to find, any master possessing a renowned, supreme technique guarded the manual like their own life. A simple, straightforward status window would have been a hundred times more useful. Brooding over the chicken-rib of an ability foisted upon him, Sanwol glared up at the ceiling, silently cursing the heavens that had dumped him here. A mortal's glare couldn't change the heavens, of course, but he needed some outlet for his frustration. Picking up the finished comic book, he harbored a faint, desperate wish: If only this worked on regular books instead of just martial manuals...
Wait. Duplication... was possible?
"What the hell? Why does it work?"
Sanwol's pupils trembled. To determine whether an item could be duplicated, the user had to verify it themselves. It wasn't the sort of ability where a status window popped up to declare whether an object was compatible. He had to focus his mind and latch onto a vague, instinctual sensation that signaled whether the duplication would hold. Yet because the name etched into his consciousness upon transmigration was Secret Manual Duplication, he had naturally assumed it applied solely to martial arts manuals. A stinging sensation of utter bafflement washed over him, as if the universe had just smacked him in the back of the head. But right now, such minor grievances didn't matter in the slightest.
Duplicate.
With trembling fingers, Sanwol gripped the first volume of his comic in his left hand and invoked the power. As the mental command echoed through his thoughts, a second comic book gradually coalesced within his empty right hand. Secret Manual Duplication had triggered without a hitch. Unable to suppress the twitching grin spreading across his face, Sanwol flipped through the newly formed copy. His verdict was instantaneous: the duplicate mirrored the original with flawless precision. Not just the contents, but every single delicate sweep and speck of the brush was identical. In that singular moment, the greatest bottleneck to publishing manga in the Central Plains vanished into thin air.
"No time to just sit around."
Sanwol immediately began duplicating additional copies. Once he had ten identical volumes, he packed them all up, tucked his coin pouch safely into his robes, and headed out into the streets. He combed through the city from end to end—hitting every bustling spot imaginable, from local taverns and bookshops to the open-air stages of street performers. He didn't miss a single place where crowds gathered.
He went to such lengths because comics were an entirely foreign concept here. No matter how much one insisted an unfamiliar novelty was entertaining, ordinary folk rarely paid heed. But what if whispers of it cropped up all across the city, continually tumbling from the lips of people from all walks of life? Even those who shrugged it off once or twice would eventually have their curiosity piqued.
"Storyteller Jang. I've drawn a book called a comic today. I'll give you a copy for free, so how about spreading the word that it's a thrilling read?"
"Ahem, humph. Fancy paying a fee for such a simple request. I'll read it over and do my best, young master."
Clearing his throat as he accepted the book alongside a handful of copper coins, Storyteller Jang saw Sanwol off with an eager nod.
"Bookseller Kang. This is a new book I drew. Could you display about five copies in a prominent spot and promote them a bit for me?"
"Books are written, so why do you keep saying you 'drew' it? Well, whatever. Consider it settled as payback for chasing off those thugs the other day."
At Bookseller Kang's popular shop, where foot traffic was always brisk, Sanwol handed over five volumes. Since he had previously beaten down some hoodlums who were trying to shake the shopkeeper down for protection money, the matter was settled without costing him a single copper.
"Waiter, I have a favor to ask. Think you can handle it?"
"Aiya, you're one of our most valued regulars, sir! What wouldn't I do for you?"
"Here are four copies of a book I drew myself called a comic. Please introduce them to the guests staying at the inn or anyone ordering a meal."
"Oh my, you shouldn't have! But with my silver tongue, sir, you can rest assured you'll be hearing good news in no time."
Sanwol frequented this inn regularly and always splurged here to celebrate the anniversary of his transmigration. When he pressed a generous handful of coins into the waiter's palm just as he had with Storyteller Jang, the young man bowed almost in half, receiving the four volumes with reverent care.
One copy went to Storyteller Jang, five to Bookseller Kang, and the remaining four to the inn's waiter. Now, all that remained was to wait for word to spread. Knowing it would take at least several weeks for any real reaction to manifest, Sanwol resolved to return to his day job for a while. Having gone months without income while locked away drawing comics, his once-hefty purse had long since grown pitifully lean. Did I spend a bit too much on promotional fees? With a wry grimace, Sanwol buckled on his sword, making sure not to forget his coin pouch to collect his upcoming wages.
Though he had neglected his training while working on his comic, Sanwol was still a genuine Peak Realm expert capable of unfurling blazing tendrils of Sword Qi at will. In the escort agency trade, where most guards hovered between Third-rate and First-rate, the prestige of a Peak Realm master was practically untouchable. Far from being a lowly hireling, he held all the leverage, freely handpicking whichever lucrative escorts suited his fancy.
"Aiya! Having Young Hero Dokgo ride alongside us is worth ten thousand soldiers!"
"Just make sure my compensation is paid in full, and let's get moving. Isn't it in everyone's best interest for the merchant caravan to make haste?"
"Spoken like a true master! Hear that, men? The escort warriors are assembled, so let us depart at once!"
And so, Dokgo Sanwol departed on an escort mission with the merchant caravan to earn his living expenses—utterly oblivious to the colossal shockwave his newly released comic was about to unleash upon the world.