Yeokcheon Magong Is Clearly Demonic Heterodoxy
"Those who use Yeokcheon Magong fall largely into two types… either lawless vagrants with nothing left to lose… or people who crossed over from 'that side'… Well, they're basically the same thing, really."
"…Good heavens. Something like that actually happened?"
Having heard every vivid beat of Gong Ryun's duel story, Un-rang could only marvel.
A few days after the life-or-death clash with the robber, Gong Ryun and Un-rang were, for the first time in a while, sharing an evening meal.
"I'm telling you, it did. Every kind of scum you can imagine was there. By comparison, the Unorthodox Faction looked like a host of celestial maidens."
"Heavens… To think all that unfolded while I was gone…"
If only he hadn't gone off to pachinko that day, he could have fought at Gong Ryun's side. Un-rang felt a flicker of genuine remorse.
Then again, it hadn't been an entirely bad turn of events. Gong Ryun had earned his first real combat experience as a martial artist, and that was something he would have needed sooner or later.
Un-rang was sorry he hadn't been there—but Gong Ryun had won splendidly all the same, and that was truly admirable. This, too, must be the will of the Tathagata. Ah—Buddha, did You see this coming and send me to the pachinko parlor on purpose? Heh heh. So that was it. Pachinko really wasn't such a bad thing after all.
"Hmm… It was certainly a little dangerous, but this is an extremely fine experience. From what you've told me, that robber's realm was roughly equal to yours, or just a shade above. Exactly the right kind of opponent for a duel. Real combat is something you have to face at least once."
"Heh heh. Well, yes. When your sparring partner practically rolls up to your doorstep, you might as well call it good fortune and think positively, no?"
"That's our Gong Ryun. A truly splendid heart, worthy of a martial artist. And to win your first duel so brilliantly—I am genuinely proud of you."
"Hmph! Once I get my hands on someone, almost anyone goes down in a single hit! It only dragged on because the coward used lightfoot techniques to keep slipping away!"
"Ah… That is a concept known as evasion. A word that probably does not even exist inside the skull of a man as thoroughly red-blooded as Gong Ryun."
"Who ducks and weaves like a coward?! You stand tall and fight fair!!"
"Which is exactly why I keep telling you to learn some lightfoot technique. Heh heh heh."
"Hahahahaha!"
Gong Ryun threw his head back in a roaring laugh, then knocked back his liquor in great gulps.
"By the way—that robber. He wasn't pretty, was he?"
"What have you been listening to this whole time? I told you he was a muscle-bound middle-aged man."
"Heavens… How truly unfortunate."
"Unfortunate how?"
Un-rang shook his head slowly and heaved a sigh.
"By sacred custom and romantic ideal, one's first real duel is supposed to be handed down by a charming older beauty of the opposite sex…"
"?????"
"And your first duel experience was with a muscle uncle…"
"What kind of insane nonsense is that?"
"A most regrettable affair…"
"Wh… What are you even…"
Un-rang let out a long, dramatic sigh.
Had a first duel really been that meaningful? Gong Ryun's head was starting to hurt. This blasted martial-artist sensibility of his…
"Come on, Un-rang. Think about it—wasn't it a pretty good first duel? Beating down a criminal who used Yeokcheon Magong in your very first fight? Isn't that what righteous chivalry looks like?"
"And what of it… He was still an uncle…"
Un-rang looked thoroughly crestfallen. This bald monk was expressing real, sincere regret.
"I'm going to lose my mind."
"Being happy that your first opponent used Yeokcheon Magong is a sensibility at least a few centuries out of date…"
"…Fine. All right. That reminds me—what exactly is Yeokcheon Magong? I always thought it was something the Demonic Sect used."
Gong Ryun hastily steered the conversation elsewhere.
"Ah… Back in the Terra era, Yeokcheon Magong was indeed a martial art of the Demonic Sect. It was developed by the Heavenly Demon of that age."
"Oh, really? So it was a Demonic Sect art."
"Several thousand years ago, yes. But by the time the age of space exploration opened, even the Demonic Sect had abandoned Yeokcheon Magong."
"Why?"
"Because it had simply become too impractical. Yeokcheon Magong burns life itself—that is, lifespan—to generate internal energy and forge a powerful body. But as the ages passed and martial arts advanced, one no longer needed to burn lifespan to obtain vast stores of internal energy. Qi circulation, breathing methods, and even elixir refinement techniques all progressed. And the function of obtaining a powerful body ceased to be a unique advantage once the protective hard qi of Honwongong became universal to everyone."
That was the truth of it.
Learning Yeokcheon Magong did not mean you automatically won. The side effects were enormous, and it still offered no guarantee of victory. That robber had used Yeokcheon Magong for all it was worth and still couldn't pierce Gong Ryun's Honwongong—and still lost.
"So it chews through your life as much as it wants, and the results can still fall short of other martial arts?"
"Precisely. Of course Yeokcheon Magong evolved with the times as well, but its limitations remained glaringly clear. Only one advantage survived."
"And that is?"
"You can obtain explosive power easily, in a very short time. All you have to do is offer up your life. In other words, people who have learned nothing, who have no capital with which to rise again, but who want power by any means—those are the ones who favored it. People driven to the end of their rope. It degenerated into a martial art used only by those who had gone off the deep end with nothing left to lose: the very emblem of the outlaw. The way people look at a severe drug addict, more or less."
How terrifying would it be if a severe drug addict came at you with a knife, demanding money for his next hit?
The drugs might have wasted his body to a stick, so that you felt you could overpower him easily—but you must never pick a fight with an addict. That man will actually stab you. He has no tomorrow. He does not care if he dies. As long as he gets his fix, nothing else matters. He will ignore whatever beating he takes and keep stabbing, trying to kill you. People with nothing left to lose have always been the most frightening of all.
Those who use Yeokcheon Magong are exactly that sort. People avoid them out of fear. People who have lost their minds. When someone comes charging in while burning his own life, what is there he won't do?
"Huh… So even the Demonic Sect cut ties with it…"
"They are the sort who cast aside the Martial God's grace."
"Hm? Why is the Martial God coming into this?"
"Yeokcheon Magong is a martial art that does not follow the principles of Honwongong. That is why it is so unstable and so wicked."
"Ah… So that's why."
Honwongong.
The very first martial art every human in the galaxy learns upon being born.
The most fundamental, most original of arts.
And the martial art the Martial God created with his own hands.
"A martial art that ignores the principles of Honwongong is like building a bridge while casually rounding pi—π, 3.141592…—down to a flat 3. It is a martial art whose future is already sealed: collapse, sooner or later, is guaranteed."
"Well, Honwongong is important, true."
"At last Gong Ryun understands the importance of Honwongong. I still remember the day you asked whether Honwongong wasn't just a budget mass-distribution art. The shock of it. Back then, as a green newcomer, you were just like Loro. How the old days come flooding back."
"Heh heh. I was like that once, yes."
Gong Ryun cast his mind back for a moment.
It had been back when he was first adjusting to the galactic martial world. He and Un-rang had been eating together, and the talk had turned to Honwongong.
At the time, Gong Ryun had asked this:
"Uh… Isn't Honwongong just a basic mass-distribution martial art?"
"……?? What did you just say?"
"Isn't it just a free welfare art? You know… the bare-minimum basic provision. Like how a lonely elderly person gets a basic living stipend."
"Wh— What!!!!!!! What kind of talk is that!!! Have you believed that all this time? I cannot believe what I am hearing!!!!!!"
Faced with that question, Un-rang had gone ashen.
"If you had said that in front of Orthodox people, you would have been beaten half to death!!!!!"
"What, that bad? Even the slaves all learn Honwongong, so I figured it was because it's a cheap mass-distribution art or something."
Gong Ryun and the people of the Slave Planet had spent their entire lives learning only Honwongong.
You had to teach slaves martial arts if you wanted them to do heavy labor, and he had simply assumed they taught Honwongong because it was a free basic-welfare art that cost nothing.
"I will rebuke youuuuuu!!!!! A cheap art, you say!!! What outrageous blasphemy!!! Listen carefully!!! Honwongong is the martial art the Martial God created with his own hands—for every human being!!!"
"That's what I'm saying. Isn't it just a collection of arts made easy for anyone to learn?"
"The opposite!!! It is a martial art that takes techniques once so difficult, yet so indispensable to human life, and makes them absurdly easy to learn! Protective hard qi, breathing methods, qi circulation, respiratory absorption, strength reinforcement, mind methods—all of them!!! It is the ultimate synthesis of techniques that toughen the body, raise human survival, and gather the purest internal energy in the dantian!!! In the past, people spent decades of training just to barely obtain these things!! But Honwongong masters them all before adolescence is even over! A martial art bordering on the miraculous!!!"
"Uh… Really?"
"Fool! And do you think that is all?! Honwongong is the origin of every modern martial art!! Its mind method is optimized for learning other martial arts!!! A martial art for the sake of learning martial arts!! That is Honwongong! Every modern martial art takes the principles of Honwongong as its foundational base!"
In mathematical terms, Honwongong was the four arithmetic operations and the fundamental constants. The basic principles of math—1 + 1 = 2, 2 × 3 = 6—along with the set of base constants such as π = 3.14… and sin 30° = 1/2. Every mathematical formula begins with that as its foundation.
Advanced formulas—calculus, geometry, the theory of relativity—were all built upon arithmetic and constants.
Nowhere in the universe was there a mathematical formula that said 1 + 1 equals 3. That 1 + 1 equals 2, and that the value of pi is 3.14…, was Q.E.D.—truth already proven, the law of the cosmos itself.
"Honwongong is the martial art that distilled the fundamental laws by which this universe turns into a single flow. That is why it became the foundation of all martial arts. Even after creating and distributing Honwongong, the Martial God spent the rest of his life gradually reinforcing it, updating new versions and releasing them. The cosmic laws he observed over a lifetime, given substance for the single purpose of letting every human being learn them—that is Honwongong. Do you think he is called the Martial God for nothing?"
"Hmm… I had no idea. Honestly, nobody really talks about this sort of thing."
"That is because it is basic common sense. Who bothers to go around proclaiming the greatness of arithmetic?"
"Now that you mention it, fair point. Anyway—so Honwongong isn't a budget art, but something truly great?"
"Indeed. Honwongong is called the Martial God's greatest invention. It changed the human species itself."
Originally, humans had been a race that died to things like bullets. They had been frail creatures whose bodies could be pierced by wooden spears or wounded by iron spikes.
They died of tetanus from rusty nails, died of diseases caught from rats, even died from eating the wrong thing.
Humanity of the past—of primitive Terra—had been that fragile a species.
But Honwongong changed everything.
It made humanity itself strong.
No longer did people die to iron pellets flying at four hundred meters per second. Human flesh was harder and tougher than steel. Firearm powder weapons had become children's toys—though of course a child who took a bullet in the eyeball would be in pain too long to open that eye, so there was still some danger.
Humans also no longer died easily of disease. The astonishingly pure internal energy gathered through Honwongong's breathing methods and mind methods circulated through every corner of the body, maximizing immunity. There was almost nothing humans could not eat now. Most poisons, bacteria, and viruses were fine as long as you cooked them thoroughly. Eat them raw and you got a stomachache, that was all.
"The Martial God's greatest martial art. Honwongong—the Mixed Origin Art. It mixes every principle into a single art, hence hon, mixed; and through that it reaches the deepest source, hence won, origin."
Un-rang had gone on preaching the importance of Honwongong for quite some time after that.
He had rambled on about how it was the martial art that allowed humanity to open the age of space, how it was the strongest proof of the Martial God's grace, and so on.
Now, with time passed, Gong Ryun had come to understand Un-rang's words to a fair degree.
Having encountered other martial arts, he had finally grasped just how uniquely outstanding Honwongong was.
How else could Gong Ryun—who had no talent whatsoever outside of his palms—still use Honwongong so well? His protective hard qi alone proved it. When he learned Honwongong, there had been no memorizing of formulas or anything of the sort. Just his mother explaining things gently and showing him the forms. That was all.
And yet from that came a constitution that would not die under a blazing sun, and a durability that would not kill him even if he got caught in factory machinery.
Once learned, it even grew stronger with age as one spontaneously awakened to its principles.
Gong Ryun took a sip of water and said:
"How did he even make it?"
"Do you feel the Martial God's descending love?"
"More the sense of something miraculous than of descending love, honestly."
"They do not call him a god for nothing."
"Hmm… So Yeokcheon Magong just throws all of that out the window?"
"Precisely. That is why it is a dangerous martial art. Even the Demonic Sect uses Honwongong, you know."
"The Demonic Sect uses it too…?"
The image of the Demonic Sect in his mind was starting to wobble.
Weren't these the people who went to war with the Orthodox Faction?
…Well, when it had been plainly proven that the value of pi was 3.14, you could not very well dig in your heels, pretend not to know, and build a bridge while insisting, "Pi is 3, end of story!" Once a cosmic truth had been revealed, you had to use it even if the one who revealed it was your enemy.
…
But then what exactly were the Demonic Sect people?
They got mentioned on the news and such, but never with any detailed explanation. For some reason Un-rang never liked talking about them either. He would only dodge the subject, saying you could live your whole life without knowing and be perfectly fine. Gong Ryun had considered searching the internet, but Un-rang had stopped him, saying that looking up something so disloyal would leave a search history and that was a bad idea.
If Un-rang said so, then so it was. Gong Ryun had simply put it out of his mind and lived on—but just as he was thinking he ought to ask about it properly this time, Un-rang, with uncanny timing, twisted the conversation again.
"Heh heh. Gong Ryun. Come to think of it—you used Parangjang for the first time in real combat, on the first try? Truly remarkable."
"Ah! That! Hahaha! I really do have talent for this kind of thing, and so on and so forth…"
With the talk of his palms finally on the table, Gong Ryun's mood soared, and he put off any questions about the Demonic Sect for another day.