Let's Learn About the Martial Arts Realms of the Galaxy Age
— A martial artist's whisper.
The martial realms of the Galaxy Age are as follows.
Hwa-gyeong(Harmony Realm) — Attain harmony.
Hyeon-gyeong(Profound Realm) — Reach the profound.
Saeng-sa-gyeong(Life and Death Realm) — Comprehend life and death (the flesh).
Ja-yeon-gyeong(Nature Realm) — Become one with nature.
Ji-chul-gyeong(Earth-leaving Realm) — Leave the earth (the planet).
Cha-seong-gyeong(Star-borrowing Realm) — Borrow the stars.
Seong-a-gyeong(Star-self Realm) — Become a star yourself.
Hwa-gyeong is the weakest stage; Seong-a-gyeong is the strongest. Stages below Hwa-gyeong have no formal name. If you had to call them something, people say "middle schooler" or "elementary schooler." Back in the old Terra days there were ranks like First-rate, Peak, and Transcendent Peak before Hwa-gyeong, but those have all been dropped now.
Beyond the strongest stage of Seong-a-gyeong lies one extra-canonical stage called Seung-cheon-gyeong — the Ascension Realm. It is less a rank than a conclusion, however, and so it is not really treated as a stage at all. Why a conclusion? Because Seung-cheon-gyeong literally refers to those who have left the material dimension entirely, ascended as gods, and departed.
In all of human history, only three people have ever reached the Ascension Realm: humanity's father, the Martial God Namgung Hwe; his wife, disciple, and the greatest swordswoman of all time, the Death Star Baek Soso; and the Great Master AI of the Shaolin Temple. (There is a minority view that the Great Master AI was more a religious figure than a martial artist, and so his ascension should not count as a martial one.)
None of the three still exists in this galaxy. They left for the far side of things, seeking still loftier truths of the martial path. Some say they crossed one plane of existence higher and vanished; others say they went beyond the galaxy itself. The truth is unknown.
At any rate, setting aside the martial artist's final ending form of Seung-cheon-gyeong, Seong-a-gyeong is the highest stage. Seong-a-gyeong is the realm at which one may be discussed as the strongest in the galaxy. The current strongest martial artist in the world, Starlord, is said to be pressing toward the peak of Seong-a-gyeong.
Let us now look at each stage in detail.
Also called the Harmony Stage. The realm in which the body and internal energy come into harmony. The ordinary adult stage. People enter it around high school age. From this stage on, the "child" label is peeled off and one is treated as an adult. Cosmic radiation immunity is completed at this realm, so one can freely leave the cities.
A strong ordinary person, or a mid-to-upper-tier mercenary. Reaching the peak of Hyeon-gyeong (and "peak" means the highest mastery of a given realm) is the entry level of a true skilled fighter. At that point one can more or less make a living by fighting. Given that learning martial arts is mandatory cultural literacy for ordinary people in the galactic martial world, many simply arrive here with age. Lifespan increases further.
The stage at which one is called a skilled fighter. One-versus-many fights become viable against anyone below Saeng-sa-gyeong. Civil service employment opens up. Money tends to accumulate steadily and safely. Most people use that income as capital for climbing to higher realms. At this stage one gains complete understanding of one's own body. Muscle and joint movement become extremely efficient, and overall reflexes are amplified. Understanding how to circulate internal energy through the body is also included under "understanding of the flesh." At the peak, one gains understanding of other people's bodies as well — becoming more sensitive to the internal energy flowing through others and able to feel ambient qi unconsciously.
The stage at which one is called a master. Large techniques can leave craters in the ground. Capable of single-handedly terrorizing a city — though of course the civil servants who defend cities are masters themselves, and will not simply roll over. At this stage one gains understanding of interaction with nature, meaning the surrounding environment. Natural qi can be drawn into the dantian and absorbed, greatly increasing both storage and recovery of internal energy. Residual internal energy from techniques used nearby can also be absorbed and reused. At the peak, one can form an external dantian, condensing qi in the space immediately around the body.
A considerable master. Footsteps make no sound even without light-body techniques. On planets that are not major metropolitan worlds, one can be discussed as a planetary representative. This is the stage of leaving the earth — and "earth" here means the planet. Life-support equipment is no longer required in outer space. One can fight freely in zero gravity. At the peak, one can momentarily draw on the power of a "star."
The realm of "stars." One can become the representative of one or more planetary systems. Planet-destroying firepower becomes possible. One borrows and uses the energy of stars. At the peak, one enters the conversation of the hundred greatest masters in the galaxy.
"Anyway, Gong Ryun — why are you still stuck at Hwa-gyeong?" Brigit asked.
"I have no idea myself," Gong Ryun said, rubbing his chin. "Maybe because I don't have much internal energy?"
"From what I can see, Gong Ryun's combat level is already around Hyeon-gyeong," Un-rang began to explain. "Fundamentals and combat sense are Hyeon-gyeong level, no question. This is that thing — you're up against a wall. The peak of each stage is always hard to break through, is it not?"
"It will open all at once given the right catalyst. Gong Ryun is a talent freak who climbed to Hwa-gyeong on Hon-won-gong alone — as if anything after that would be hard. He's been learning all kinds of martial arts lately and stacking real combat experience by the day, so he could gain enlightenment and step into Hyeon-gyeong at any moment. If I may draw a comparison, he is like a slot machine that has not hit three sevens a hundred times in a row. It would not be strange at all for it to pay out any second now."
"Uh, Un-rang. That comparison is kind of weird?"
"A trick of the mood, I am sure."
"Un-rang, how did you end up reaching Hyeon-gyeong?"
"I was deep in meditation, and enlightenment arrived all of a sudden."
"Mysterious. What about you, Brigit? You're Hyeon-gyeong too."
"Yeah. I lay down to sleep, and then suddenly."
"What the hell."
"This stuff's different for every single person. One guy gets his enlightenment during closed-door training, another gets it mid-meal. It's all over the place."
"Even if you told me about that enlightenment you gained, Brigit, I still couldn't gain it myself, right?"
"Obviously. Enlightenment isn't something language can express. It's an extremely personal realization about your own life and this world. So the method of getting it and the content of it are different for every person. It can't be perfectly put into one or two sentences to begin with. You just get a feeling."
"Difficult."
"Heh heh. Gong Ryun. For reference, if I had to put my own enlightenment into words, it was it is all right to let things flow. In the days when I had left the temple for a mercenary's life, endlessly agonizing, fretting, and suffering over a wandering existence I had no certainty about — that was the enlightenment that ended the suffering and let me look at myself as I truly was. But even if I tell Gong Ryun this, he will not obtain a realization of the same depth as mine. Our lives lived, the values we hold dear, our greatest worries and pains, the way we think — all of it is different."
"Is that so… The world of the realms is a strange place…"
Each realm has a sub-stage called the peak. It means one has fully matured in that stage — and at the same time, it is the state of being stuck just short of the next stage. Moving from one stage to the next is as hard as breaking through a wall. The stage of struggling against that wall without getting past it is precisely what we call the peak.
Peak is short for the extreme limit. In mathematics there is something called an asymptote, is there not? A line that seems about to touch a value, and yet never quite reaches it — like 1/x, which can never touch zero no matter how infinitely large x becomes. That is the feeling of the peak.
What lets one break through that wall is enlightenment. Through realization, one takes in another handful of truth. The power of martial arts has always come from comprehending the truths of the universe.
Including the peaks, the realms look like this.
Hwa-gyeong Peak:No special name
Hyeon-gyeong Peak:U-hwa (Emergence) — Break the shell.
Saeng-sa-gyeong Peak:Deung-seon (Immortal Ascent) — Rise as an immortal.
Ja-yeon-gyeong Peak:Gae-cheon (Heaven-Opening) — Open the sky.
Ji-chul-gyeong Peak:Gak-seong (Star Awakening) — Awaken the star.
Cha-seong-gyeong Peak:Seong-jwa (Constellation) — Monopolize the stars.
Seong-a-gyeong Peak:No special name
There is no particular name for the peak of Hwa-gyeong. That stage is everywhere you look. There is no name for the peak of Seong-a-gyeong either. According to a remark of the Martial God himself, once one reaches the peak of Seong-a-gyeong one learns how to achieve the next stage — Ascension — and, unless one has some special attachment to this world, one simply plunges into Ascension and vanishes at once.
In the old days of galactic pioneering, the Martial God could have ascended to a higher stage whenever he wished. He refused, and remained in the present world for a very long time. He had two attachments.
One was that humanity was not yet ready to stand on its own. The galaxy was vast, and humans were still weak. Like a parent who has left a child by the water's edge, he chose to watch over humanity a little longer.
The other was that he was waiting for his wife and disciple, Baek Soso. She was a genius second only to the Martial God, and she succeeded in following Namgung Hwe all the way to the peak of Seong-a-gyeong.
And so, when humanity had grown enough to stand on its own, and when Baek Soso was ready as well — the Martial God finally decided to take the next step of the martial path. He took his wife's hand, and they ascended together.
It was the heart of a parent proudly setting grown children free to live on their own.
Yes. A parent. Of all the words one might use for the Martial God, "parent" is the most correct. Like a parent waiting for a child to take its first steps — sometimes holding the hand, sometimes simply watching from behind and waiting. Never pushing the child too hard, yet clearing the dangerous things out of the way in advance.
He was a prophet of the martial path, a patron of civilization, and a guardian of humanity. And since the child had finally grown, it was a joy to the Martial God. Yet for a child to truly grow large, it must stand alone — and so humanity stepped free of the Martial God's embrace and began to take its first independent strides.
Well. And the moment the Martial God vanished, every manner of war and disaster broke out as if on cue, and the level of civilization stalled for a good long while. The imperial schism, the Great AI Rebellion, the explosive rise of the Demonic Cult, large and small righteous-demonic wars, the Jupiter Escape Incident, the Communist Resurgence, the Heuk-ik-jok Wars, the space locusts, and so on…
Those trials are all part of growing up, too. Humanity is in its adolescence right now. Full storm-and-stress mode.
"For reference," Un-rang added, "the Martial God reached Ja-yeon-gyeong on the very first day he decided to learn martial arts."
"……??? In that era…?"
"Kahaha! Gong Ryun! Don't even try to measure the Martial God! He's not a god for nothing!"
"What kind of person was he… Come to think of it, there should be one of those in this shop somewhere."
Gong Ryun turned his head, searching for a portrait of the Martial God. Most shops keep one. For good fortune, apparently.
"There it is."
On a fine hanging scroll fixed to a well-visible pillar, a full-body portrait of the Martial God was painted. Bright brown hair, short-cropped, with bangs cut in a straight line. A smile in which playfulness and benevolence lived side by side. And a boy. Yes — a boy. A child's form.
The speed of his rapid rejuvenation had so utterly outstripped the growth of his body that he looked like that. He had been gaining enlightenment and undergoing bone-remolding rebirth and rapid rejuvenation at all hours of the day. Later he found a way to control bone-remolding and rapid rejuvenation, but by then he was already used to that body, so he simply lived with it.
Modern Hon-won-gong includes a function that spreads the effects of bone-remolding rebirth and rapid rejuvenation across many smaller installments over a long time. So even if a student reaches Hwa-gyeong, the body's growth rate does not slow. It is a function the Martial God Namgung Hwe put in so that his descendants would not have to live as little kids.
"…Un-rang. About the Martial God's wife, though… how tall did you say she was?"
"One hundred eighty-five centimeters. For the standards of that era, she was extraordinarily tall."
"…That's completely."
"Gong Ryun. That remark is taboo regardless of faction."
"…Understood."
Gong Ryun held his tongue.