A Master's Grace Is as Vast as Heaven
"He is my first master. My beloved. My companion. My savior. My eternal partner."
"I simply cannot understand why the master–disciple relationship is treated as such a sensitive matter," Un-rang said.
"Because that is what orthodox martial arts are," Brigit replied.
"What on earth is orthodox martial arts, then? What's the precise definition?"
"If you still don't know that, you've a long road ahead of you, Gong Ryun. The very act of asking is already un-orthodox."
"I'm losing my mind."
"Gong Ryun!!! That isn't the point and you know it! Stop dodging the question! Is your master pretty or not?!"
"Mm… well…"
Gong Ryun's attempt to change the subject had failed. In the end he called Medilla's face up in his mind.
She was a little shabby, her hair always a tangled mess, and she never made the slightest effort to dress herself up. She wandered around in the same worn-out gray dress that looked as if it had been lived in for years. Even so, once you looked past all that, the original face underneath was the cute, pretty sort—almost like a pretty young girl.
"Well… she is pretty."
"Kwahaha! Is that so! Oh man!! That's great! You did the Nine Bows formal ceremony, right?"
"I did."
"Then she's officially, no-take-backs your first master! Welcome to the true path of the martial arts!"
Brigit was congratulating him with genuine warmth.
In the galaxy's martial world, the bond between master and disciple was special. A first master was even more so. They were regarded as the benefactor who had opened the road of martial arts itself. (Schoolteachers did not count. Only a master who accepted the Nine Bows and taught one-on-one was recognized—not someone lecturing a whole classroom at once.)
The master–disciple relationship was rather like an acquired parent–child bond. If a master fell into danger, a disciple who went rampaging after vengeance was granted a certain leniency; that had been the long tradition of the martial world.
But as the ages passed and the general level of education rose, people began collecting martial masters the way one collects spare change. You could study at the neighborhood training hall, learn from a senior at school, pick things up from a coworker. Precisely because of that, the importance of a first master had only grown.
You might have many masters over a lifetime, but you only ever had one first master—something that called up nostalgia and beginner's heart, something that made the chest feel warm.
That was why no one laid a finger on the first masters of famous experts. Social Diamond Body, in other words.
There was a famous case. The unremarkable master of a half-collapsed training hall took in a poor child who wanted to learn martial arts, more out of charity than ambition. That child grew up, became a great expert, and eventually rose to the rank of a Star. From that moment on, the child's master was Diamond Body.
Even the vicious cartels of pleasure-killers who murdered people for sport would hesitate and mutter, "Ah… maybe not that one," and leave the master completely alone. Kidnap them as a hostage? Try that and the entire planet the kidnappers lived on could be reduced to a sea of fire and no one would say a word of complaint. No one attempted anything so insane.
A first master was a precious benefactor. It was a cliché that appeared across countless historical records of the martial world, and it reached its absolute peak when the Martial God Namgung Hwe and his wife Baek So-so became each other's first master and disciple. After all, the Martial God was the single most orthodox-martial-arts existence in the entire galaxy.
That was why Brigit was pure-heartedly celebrating the fact that Gong Ryun finally had a first master.
A master was a benefactor, not a romantic interest—nothing to be jealous over. Really. Of course, master–disciple pairs were forever being turned into the subjects of every cheap romance fantasy imaginable, but that was just otaku delusion; it did not actually happen in real life. The relationship ran so deep that it made excellent story material, and after a few thousand years of that, certain… questionable genres had naturally developed around it.
Yandere female disciples returning after surpassing their first masters by an absurd margin, or the heart-pounding after-school clubroom master–disciple life with a senior from student days—such deep-otaku fantasy content flooded creative works. In reality, the vast majority of cases were simply wholesome, affectionate master–disciple relationships. Truly. Asking whether the first master was pretty had been nothing more than genuine curiosity. Really.
Brigit drained her wine in one long pull.
Then she decided to think about something other than improper thoughts.
She changed the subject.
"Hmm. Right, Gong Ryun. What's your master's cultivation realm?"
She had no real intention of changing the subject. Just a little more questioning.
"I never asked, so I don't know."
"You don't know that? Don't people usually ask things like that once they're master and disciple? How old is your master?"
"Don't know that either. Never asked."
"Heeh. Not interested at all, are you?"
Brigit still trusted Gong Ryun. He was a block of wood who knew nothing about women.
"Hey, you idiot. Master–disciple affection is important. Ask a few ordinary questions once in a while."
She said it without meaning a word of it.
…The truth was simply that Gong Ryun was the type who rarely asked anyone personal questions.
Gong Ryun was short on common knowledge. He could not tell whether a question he was about to ask someone would be socially rude.
For example, asking someone to their face, "At what age did you reach the Profound Realm?" looked harmless enough at a glance, but in the galaxy's martial world it was an extraordinary breach of etiquette.
Ordinary people of middling talent often reached the Profound Realm simply by studying martial arts as a form of cultivation until their age caught up. Those with extreme lack of talent sometimes never reached it in their entire lives. On the other hand, there were prodigies who arrived with a flash in their twenties.
Because the speed at which one reached the Profound Realm had become an unspoken proof of martial talent, asking a martial artist—who already held martial arts so dear—how old they had been when they reached it could, depending on the situation, be deeply offensive. It could poke a complex about having no talent. Even if it did not, the other party might wonder, "Is this kid testing my level?"
Among close friends the question was fine, and even outside of friendship the context could make it acceptable. Something like, "Wow, big sis, your achievements just keep climbing with every passing day. Exactly how old were you when you hit the Profound Realm? Hahaha!" seemed to skate by on the edge of okay.
Gong Ryun was not remotely well-versed in these cultural nuances. A man who had spent his whole life in fields and factories did not pick them up overnight.
But there was a workaround: if you could not distinguish rude remarks from polite ones, you simply never asked questions at all. A silent mouth was a hundred times safer than a blabbing one.
For that reason, Gong Ryun tended not to ask personal questions of any kind.
"Hooh. Gong Ryun. That works out rather well," Un-rang began. "Even so, a master–disciple bond is no ordinary connection. You ought at least to consider receiving a heart method from your master and—ugh!"
Un-rang cut himself off mid-sentence, as if he had heard a voice Gong Ryun could not. At that exact moment Brigit was glaring at Un-rang with a vein standing out on her forehead, but Gong Ryun did not see it.
Gong Ryun nodded along as if it were a fine idea.
"Ah. That does sound like a good thought. I'll ask."
"…Kwahaha! Gong Ryun! Never mind that—how about learning a Shaolin heart method from Un-rang instead? You've already got a first master, so now you can learn from Un-rang, right? This kind of thing you only do with people you can trust!"
"Mmm… still, wouldn't master be better?"
"Heh heh heh. Well, that is fine too. A first master is trustworthy and there is no problem… ugh! Mm… truthfully, placing too great a burden on one's master is also a form of disloyalty. Moreover, men and women are to be kept separate, so asking a female master to teach you a heart method might be rather too great an imposition."
"Mmm… I'll at least ask first."
He deliberately said nothing about the fact that Medilla had already shared internal energy with him. Some instinct told him that speaking of it would be a bad idea. Even a broken clock is right once a day—Gong Ryun's intuition had, for once, done the correct thing.
"Hooooeeeet!! You want this one to teach you a heart method!!!!!"
Medilla's voice rang through the sewers.
"Your demands grow bolder by the day, first disciple of this body!! At this rate this one cannot even imagine what you will ask for next!!"
The day after the Profound Realm celebration party ended, Gong Ryun had come straight to Medilla to ask. Of course, before bringing up the heart method, he had not forgotten to mention that he had reached the Profound Realm.
The moment she heard that, Medilla had cried, "Uooooong!! Is it true!!! First disciple of this one!!!!!" and flown at him like a flying squirrel, perched on his shoulders as if riding piggyback, and spent a long while furiously ruffling his head with both hands.
Medilla had been extremely proud. Watching a disciple grow was such a joy! A disciple who absorbed everything like a sponge was the dream of every master alive!
But now he wanted a heart method on top of that!
Her answer to that request would of course be oka—
"It is not allowed!!"
"Ah."
Medilla refused.
In truth she wanted to teach him so badly it ached… but for her disciple's sake, this was unavoidable.
A heart method changed the nature of the internal energy within the body.
Brigit's Earth-Heart Method, for example, carried the nature of earth and produced coarse internal energy; it also made that energy vibrate easily, which made shockwave-type martial arts far simpler to learn.
But heart methods could go further and alter the nature of the flesh itself.
The Mount Hua Sect's Purple Sunset Heart Method, once mastered, made the body give off the fragrance of plum blossoms.
Another example was the Reverse-Heaven Demonic Art, whose side effects turned the skin red and made the body hard as stone—a thoroughly malignant effect.
The heart method Medilla practiced also affected the body. Compared to the Reverse-Heaven Demonic Art it was a truly trivial effect, but still.
"The heart method of this body, the Nine Yin Heart Method… stimulates female hormones. Especially when a man practices it, the secretion becomes explosive…"
"Good heavens."
"It pairs extremely well with claw techniques—a truly representative heart method—but… this one… cannot possibly find the courage to recommend it to her disciple…"
Gong Ryun was stunned.
Could that be the reason claw techniques had the reputation they did…?