The Weight of Being Left Behind
Yang Jeong had a dilemma. It was nothing grandiose. Or was it? He could not be sure. It might actually be quite a significant anguish after all. At first he wondered if Namgung Woo was suffering from seasickness, but the man showed no other symptoms—only a darkened complexion—so Yang Jeong struck up a conversation. As if he had been waiting for exactly that moment, Yang Jeong poured out the heart demon he had been carrying to Namgung Woo.
“I’m truly afraid the entry standard for our Changcheon Squad will be the Peak Realm….”
His twin brother Yang Kvae had already stepped into the Peak Realm. Paeng Ha-ryeong, younger than himself, stood at the late stage of the Peak Realm and far surpassed him in skill. When it had been only the three of them, he could simply ignore Yang Kvae’s teasing. But now that an outstanding new member had joined as a junior, the joke no longer sounded funny at all.
“If things continue like this, I’ll be the only one expelled, or….”
“What nonsense. Just reach the Peak Realm yourself by attaining the same level as the Five Dragons and Phoenix.”
“…That is what I want as well.”
This was properly stepping into heart-demon territory. Namgung Woo saw that Yang Jeong’s condition was far from good. Had it truly been that shocking to be overtaken the moment he believed he had pulled ahead by learning the Thirteen Lightning Sword Forms?
Only then did Namgung Woo realize he had been too preoccupied with his own training and the affairs of the Hebei Paeng Family, essentially neglecting the Yang brothers. Deciding it was time to act as a teacher again, he spoke.
“How is your training with the lightning sword proceeding?”
“From the sixth form onward it is difficult to manifest properly without sword Qi, so I remain stuck.”
It was not as demanding as the latter four forms that essentially required Gang Qi, yet from the sixth of the first nine forms the technique presupposed the use of sword Qi. Fortunately, unlike the final four forms, sword Qi was not an absolute necessity, but its presence or absence still made a considerable difference.
For example, the seventh form—Flying Strike Thunder—was a long-range attack that launched sword Qi or sword wind. Manifesting it with sword wind alone demanded internal-energy operation and a trained physique that went well beyond simply hurling flying sword Qi.
“And the Thunderbolt True Qi?”
“That feels blocked as well. I tried to raise the purity of my internal energy using the lightning energy you granted me through body tempering, but it has not gone well.”
Namgung Woo could clearly read the impatience radiating from Yang Jeong. Seeing his older brother enter the Peak Realm had left him anxious. The feeling of being left behind alone was something one could not truly understand without experiencing it.
Rather than forcing sword arts and heart methods upon him, Namgung Woo searched for another path.
“Then how about changing direction a little?”
Before arriving in this world, Namgung Woo had enjoyed gathering all kinds of miscellaneous knowledge. Among the psychological phenomena he remembered was the incubation effect—the same incubation as when animals hatch from eggs.
It was a mental phenomenon that improved creative thinking. When one reached a dead end where no solution appeared, the act of stepping away from the problem and then returning often revealed the missing clue.
A similar concept was the fly-on-the-wall effect.
Drawing on the advanced psychology of the future, Namgung Woo made his suggestion.
“Let’s train the eye technique.”
What Is the Eye Technique?
It is literally the method of seeing. Humans rely on vision for the greatest amount of information processing. It is more intuitive than any other sense. The brain, directly connected to the optic nerve, processes incoming visual data at astonishing speed and uses it as the foundation for situational analysis.
Smell, taste, and pain can be interpreted differently by each person even when the stimulus is identical, because the information itself is ambiguous and shaped by personal experience. One person may find a scent horribly fishy while another finds it appetizing. One may call a sound the wind, while another insists it is the noise of a weapon being swung. Pain that one person attributes to heat another may attribute to cold.
Visual information, however, is different. It is supremely intuitive. Barring hallucinations, everyone who sees the same thing reaches the same conclusion. There may be differences in how detailed the observation is, but contradictory interpretations are extremely rare. For that reason, even martial artists who open the six senses and perceive the world through qi still cannot omit vision; it remains the single most important sense.
“But there are limits to strengthening vision through qi alone. The realm of high-level experts is the domain of superhuman speed. Even with enhanced dynamic visual acuity, perfectly tracking their movements remains difficult.”
Honestly, even Namgung Woo—who possessed a Transformation Realm body—found certain exchanges impossible to follow unless he opened his Blue Serene All-Seeing Eyes. Prime examples were Mangcheonhu, Gwak Dan, and Paeng Hu-sang. If the standard were broadened slightly, perhaps even Han Gye-ran would qualify.
All the examples were either black-gate demon beasts or peerless experts comparable to natural disasters, which only highlighted how fraudulent such bodies were. Conversely, they also proved that a body without special powers would ultimately reach its limit.
“That is why the eye technique is necessary. It goes beyond simply strengthening vision. It is the study of how, what, and how well one can see. The battles of true experts begin with this very method of seeing.”
Namgung Woo had only come to understand this truth during the closed-door battle on Mount Wanse. Still, since he had learned it through a desperate, life-or-death fight, he could speak with confidence.
“But Gaga, proper eye techniques are usually secret profound arts. Only the Nine Great Schools possess genuine ones, don’t they? Even among the Seven Great Families, only the Sichuan Tang Family and the Jegal Family are renowned for their excellent eye techniques.”
The Hebei Paeng Family did possess a family-transmitted eye technique called the Mixed Void Observation Method. However, its role was purely supplementary. It merely granted additional effects centered on the abilities of the Heaven and Earth Concealing Void Divine Art. Unless the eye technique itself stood on the level of a divine art, it was extremely difficult to surpass the intuition born from an advanced martial artist’s direct senses and accumulated experience—especially against a profound art like the Heaven and Earth Concealing Void Divine Art that granted foresight.
“You’re right. I have never learned any eye-technique martial art such as the Paeng Family’s Mixed Void Observation Method. To be honest, I rely entirely on my constitution. But the eye technique I speak of is far more basic than those grandiose arts.”
“If it is basic, then…?”
“To possess a wider field of vision. There are moments when you must focus all your attention on a single point, but simply expanding your field of view makes it far easier to detect ambushes or hidden intentions.”
In any case, the deck was not an appropriate environment for proper sword or blade training. Sparring was out of the question, and even swinging a weapon freely by oneself was difficult. Circulating only internal-energy methods all day, however, quickly became boring; concentration would drop and efficiency would suffer. This was the perfect opportunity to train the eye technique instead.
The primary goal was to induce Yang Jeong’s incubation effect, of course.
With that inner motive lightly woven in, Namgung Woo revealed the true objective of the training.
“If you advance one more step from there, you may even be able to view yourself through the eyes of a third party.”
Even for Namgung Woo this remained in the realm of hope. He expected that combining meditation with the eye technique might cultivate a more objective gaze toward oneself and one’s surroundings. The fly-on-the-wall effect he had compared to the incubation effect was precisely this.
By literally becoming the fly stuck to the wall and observing oneself from an outsider’s perspective, one could overcome failure and frustration to achieve genuine progress. In truth, the meditation spoken of in martial arts was not so different, but Namgung Woo’s plan was to add the incubation effect in order to induce the fly-on-the-wall effect more easily and quickly.
“Then shall we begin by identifying your blind spots?”
Namgung Woo smiled softly. It was the moment when the sailing life—which had been enjoyable only for the first few days before descending into endless boredom—regained its vitality.
“Actually, I was looking forward to it a little.”
“Uh, what do you mean, sir?”
“You know how it is. When you first step into the gangho, you expect to meet bandits or pirates, right? But the so-called bandits are basically just highway toll collectors, and we haven’t seen so much as a whisker of any pirates. It’s a bit disappointing.”
The moment the words left his mouth, all three heads snapped around. Their eyes darted rapidly, trying to catch the faint shimmering currents in the air. They had spotted the visualized energy paths Namgung Woo had sent to strike their blind spots and dodged them.
“Captain, what pirates on a canal? With the Ming imperial navy’s cannons around, they’d be turned into fish food before they could even become water ghosts—ugh!”
“I’m speaking figuratively. Figuratively.”
“Most likely, once we disembark it will become the kind of gangho debut you mentioned, Captain. The Gangnam region is…”
Yang Jeong cut himself off and twisted his body urgently. Because the three of them were dodging so well, Namgung Woo had increased the speed of his energy paths.
“Because the Black Sect dominates Gangnam? Still, there are quite a few Orthodox sects as well, aren’t there? I heard the Mt. Mao Sect—one of the Nine Great Schools—is located just south of Nanjing.”
This time Paeng Ha-ryeong answered. Unlike the Yang brothers, who looked as if speaking itself was difficult, she appeared relatively relaxed. Her martial prowess was far higher than theirs, so Namgung Woo had been sending the energy paths with considerable sincerity, yet she still handled them comfortably. Moreover, after her blocked meridians had been cleared, her achievement in the Mixed Void Observation Method had risen sharply; she was seeing through and evading every single path he launched.
“Gaga, that is not simply a problem of the Black Sect—the Four Seasons Boat Race! Because of that… it will be like this.”
Even for Paeng Ha-ryeong, speaking while dodging proved challenging; her words came out in abrupt bursts.
“It means there will be interferers.”
“That’s right! As expected of Gaga!”
Around that point, Namgung Woo stopped the barrage of energy paths aimed at their blind spots.
While catching his breath, Yang Jeong continued what he had been saying.
“Huu… I’ve only heard rumors, but originally the Four Seasons Boat Race draws far more late-stage geniuses than the leading experts of the various sects.”
“It’s embarrassing, that’s why. Imagine it. You’ve made a decent name for yourself, but you don’t get chosen by Guya Manor. So you apply for the Four Seasons Boat Race, thinking you’re at least as good as the others—only to watch someone you considered your equal get selected instead. Pride and face get completely crushed.”
“The two seniors understand it well. Usually the Four Seasons Boat Race at Guya Manor revolves around late-stage geniuses. Exceptions are not rare, but the protagonists everyone imagines are still them, right?”
The Gangnam region lay far from Beijing, where governmental interference was weak. Black Dao factions that rarely moved unless their own interests were threatened held sway over the Gangnam Murim. Layered atop that were the countless martial artists flocking from the Nine Provinces in pursuit of the grand event known as the Four Seasons Boat Race.
At the intersection of all these factors, schemes took root. The sinister plot to eliminate the late-stage geniuses heading for Guya Manor.
Was it merely to settle personal grudges? To defeat famous young geniuses and thereby spread their own fame? Such individuals certainly existed—and they were not few.
Yet the true threat was not those solitary actors but a single organization. A group formed by those who moved according to even more primal emotions that transcended ordinary enmity.
“The Bokmanghoe. An organization designated as a public enemy of the Murim for preying on late-stage geniuses.”
A gathering of those who wished to pluck the tender sprouts. Hence, Bokmanghoe.
The Four Seasons Boat Race was not a peaceful event that merely carried the metallic scent of weapons. The thick, bloody stench that would soon rise from those traveling to Guya Manor and those seeking to erase them seemed to brush across Namgung Woo’s nose.