Chapter 40: On the Realms
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 40: On the Realms
Time flew by, and before long, the registration day for the martial arts tournament arrived.
I hadn't gone up Mount Hua itself.
Chun-bong insisted it would be fine, but I had no intention of gambling with her life, no matter the odds. I never would—not now, not ever.
"Damn, there's a shitload of people here."
We were standing in the sprawling plaza of Hwaeum County, where the registration booths had been erected.
Seo-jun stared at the ant-like swarm of people with utter disgust. It wasn't a joke; his hands were literally trembling with a sudden urge to halve the population.
"You crazy bastard!"
Noticing his twitching fingers, Chun-bong freaked out and slapped his hand down.
She let out a heavy sigh that seemed to echo from the depths of her dantian and grabbed his hand firmly.
"Don't you dare let go of my hand."
"Oh my. How heart-fluttering."
"Cut the crap, please."
The Mount Hua Sect must have anticipated this level of congestion, as they had set up multiple registration booths across the plaza.
Seo-jun took his place at the end of a relatively short line, clicking his tongue as he surveyed the surroundings.
"All these people can't possibly be participants, right?"
"No. But if you gathered all the actual participants in one place, it’d probably look something like this."
"Seriously?"
How did that make any sense? Just how many days was this tournament going to last?
Right as Seo-jun grumbled, his eyes suddenly lit up.
During this tedious wait, a "guest" had kindly appeared to cause a scene and cure his boredom. Seo-jun immediately dashed over.
"Hey, you son of a bitch! Don't cut the line!"
"I have urgent business, so I shall stand in the front."
"Is that urgent business a heart-pounding date with the Grim Reaper?"
"Y-you brat! Do you have any idea who I am?!"
After giving the line-cutter a proper beating and chasing him off, Seo-jun felt his accumulated stress melt away.
"Ah, that felt good."
Seo-jun nodded in deep satisfaction. Just as Chun-bong let out another long sigh, he spotted someone else cutting in.
"Wait, that guy!"
Seo-jun rushed off again to deliver more justice.
After he beat up about a dozen line-cutters, their long queue had shortened considerably.
"Why are there so many people cutting in line?"
"This is actually on the lower side."
"This is?"
Seo-jun let out a hollow laugh.
Martial artists were really something else.
"Wait, it looks like there's some kind of test?"
A massive log sat next to the registration booth, and he could see martial artists swinging their weapons at it. It seemed that cleanly cutting through the wood was the qualifying test.
"Of course there is. If they accepted everyone, the tournament would take months."
"Fair point."
Another hour passed before it was finally Seo-jun's turn.
Or, to be precise, Chun-bong's turn.
"Huh? What? You're entering too?"
"Why? You got a problem with that?"
"No, just... I didn't think you would."
Chun-bong snorted at his remark and gave her name to the official sitting at the booth.
"Chun-bong."
"Alright. You pass if you cut that log over there."
The exhausted registrar pointed toward the log with a soulless, mechanical gesture.
Looking closer, Seo-jun noticed workers constantly clearing away the remains of the logs that had already been chopped. Hosting a martial arts tournament was no small undertaking.
While Seo-jun marveled at the sheer scale of the event, Chun-bong drew her sword.
Swish—
Her blade, which didn't have even a hint of Sword Qi gathered on it, swept through the log effortlessly.
"Eh?"
Seo-jun blinked, bewildered.
When Chun-bong lightly pushed the top half of the log, it slid off and hit the ground, revealing a perfectly smooth cross-section.
"Wait, you can do that without Sword Qi?"
"What are you talking about? You can do it too."
"Really?"
That log was thicker than a grown man's waist. Was it really possible to cut through that with just a regular sword strike?
While Seo-jun was lost in thought, Chun-bong received a wooden token from the registrar and tapped his waist.
"Hey, it's your turn."
"Oh, right."
After giving his name to the official, Seo-jun stood before a fresh log and rubbed his chin.
Let's not gamble for now.
Honestly, he didn't have a good feel for how to do it without qi.
He coated his blade in Sword Qi, sliced the log cleanly in two, and received his token.
"Next."
Leaving behind the registrar who continued processing people like a machine, Seo-jun exited the plaza. He toyed with the hilt of the sword at his waist, his expression serious.
"Chun-bong."
"Yeah."
"Let's stop somewhere for a bit before we head back to the inn."
Chun-bong smirked. "Want to try cutting a tree?"
"Yeah."
"I told you, it's no big deal. Anyone at the Peak Realm can do it."
"No, it really doesn't make sense."
Sure, in a world where people actively manipulated Qi, there was no reason they couldn't cut down a tree.
However, cutting a tree without projecting that Qi externally, and without any significant circulation of energy within the body, was an entirely different story.
In modern society, if you gave a kendo master a live blade and told them to cleanly sever a log that thick, could they do it?
According to Seo-jun's common sense, it was physically impossible.
"This spot should do."
They arrived at a secluded area on the outskirts of Hwaeum County. Seo-jun stood before a reasonably large tree.
There was no reason to hesitate.
Shring—
Seo-jun drew his sword and swung it in a wide horizontal arc.
Thwack!
The blade bit halfway through the trunk and lodged firmly in the wood.
"What the..."
Seo-jun blinked. It had actually cut deeper than he expected.
Chun-bong blinked in surprise as well.
"Seriously, what are you doing?"
At Seo-jun's level, it made zero sense that he couldn't cut through a measly tree.
Chun-bong was certain that if she were to engage in a life-and-death duel with him, she wouldn't be confident in her own victory. And yet, he couldn't cut a tree that she could slice through like butter?
The two of them stared at each other, tilting their heads in mutual confusion.
"Chun-bong."
"Yeah."
"You said 'Realms' are a standard for how well one can manipulate Qi, right?"
"I did. Hmm... maybe that's why?"
Chun-bong picked up a fallen branch. Come to think of it, she realized she had never explained the concept of Realms to him in detail.
"What do you think a Third-rate martial artist is?"
"A scrub?"
"I mean, you're not wrong, but..."
Chun-bong scratched her head and used the branch to write on the dirt.
Third-rate.
"Third-rate refers to people who have just entered the world of martial arts. They've formed a Dantian and accumulated internal energy, but they're at a stage where they don't know how to properly use it."
"Aha."
Second-rate.
"Second-rate is for those who have realized how to use that internal energy. It's the stage where they can circulate it to reinforce their physical bodies."
First-rate.
"First-rate is the stage where they can project internal energy outside the body. The results of that are things like Sword Qi or Fist Qi."
Peak Realm.
"And the Peak Realm is the stage where you can control that projected Qi to some degree. Of course, you can't control Qi once it's completely detached from your body, but you can intentionally fire it outward."
"Like Tanji-gong?"
"Yeah. But you're a bit different. Usually, when Peak Realm martial artists fire Sword Qi or use Tanji-gong to shoot finger pellets, the power isn't that great. The internal energy scatters quite a bit while traveling through the air, so the impact weakens."
Even so, because of the sheer difference in Realms, lower-ranked martial artists wouldn't find it easy to block. But against another Peak Realm expert, it was nothing more than a distraction.
Seo-jun nodded along to Chun-bong's explanation. "That makes sense. I just condense it really well so it doesn't scatter as much before I fire it."
"I'm telling you, you idiot, that is what normally doesn't make sense."
"Lately, I've been pouring all my internal energy into a single shot, and the power is actually pretty decent."
"Sigh..." Chun-bong shook her head.
He needed to say things that actually made sense.
In the first place, being able to pour the vast majority of one's internal energy into a single attack was entirely nonsensical.
No matter how deep a person's reserves were, there was a strict limit to the output capacity they could channel at any given moment.
If you poked a hole in a large bucket, a stream of water would shoot out, right? It was the exact same principle.
The larger the hole, the more water could pour out at once—but if the hole was that big, it wouldn't even be a bucket anymore.
"Well, you doing weird things is nothing new. Anyway, next."
Super Peak Realm.
"Actually, I don't know much from here on out. Everything I know is purely theoretical."
"That's better than nothing."
"I guess."
Chun-bong coated the branch in her hand with a platinum-colored internal energy.
"I told you before, right? When a 'star' dwells within Sword Qi, it's called Sword Astral Qi."
"You did."
"Do you remember me saying that 'Spirit' dwells within Qi?"
"Yeah. You said Mental Imagery dwells within the internal energy."
Chun-bong nodded. "Usually, when you reach the Peak Realm, the balance between the physical body and Qi is roughly established. In terms of Essence, Qi, and Spirit, the balance between Essence and Qi is set."
"And to use Astral Qi, you have to balance the Spirit on top of that?"
"Yeah. Once Essence, Qi, and Spirit achieve perfect harmony, your own Mental Imagery dwells within your internal energy, making it much easier to command than before. Conversely, you have to reach that level of mastery in manipulating internal energy just to step into the Super Peak Realm."
That was precisely why a martial artist had to break through the Life-Death Barrier. Only by opening the Governing and Conception vessels to accept the energy of heaven and earth, thereby achieving the Grand Heavenly Circuit, could one reach that level.
However, there was a paradox: to accomplish that, one had to already possess that level of ability beforehand.
And that was why it was called the Super Peak Realm. It was a domain that could only be reached by surpassing the Peak—the absolute zenith of human maturity.
After thinking deeply about her words, Seo-jun asked, "Then the Super Peak Realm isn't something you can reach just by being good at manipulating Qi."
"Exactly. I think so too. Anyway, back to the original topic."
Chun-bong pointed the branch at Seo-jun. "Your swordsmanship has changed from before. It's not that it's regressed, but it feels like its fundamental purpose has completely shifted."
Seo-jun blinked at her sharp observation.
She was right. He had recently developed a strong belief that the sword was merely a brush used to perform the New Primordial Unity Divine Art.
"Is that not allowed?"
"No, it doesn't matter. That's your path. Though it is a bit of a shame." Chun-bong let out a soft sigh and sat down on the ground.
"Do you know the Fist King?"
"The Fist King? I know Wreck-It Ralph."
"Stop bullshitting."
Chun-bong swung her fist playfully. It was a Meow-Meow Punch.
As he watched her blankly, she continued.
"The Fist King's realm is Second-rate."
"What?"
A mere Second-rate martial artist was the Fist King? He stared at Chun-bong, wondering what kind of nonsense she was spouting.
"He doesn't project internal energy externally. He only circulates it within his body, reinforcing his physical form to the absolute limit."
"And?"
"Combined with an external martial art trained to the absolute extreme, they say the Fist King's fist won't take a single scratch, even when clashing directly with Astral Qi. So, if you judge him strictly by Realm, he's Second-rate. But if you judge him by sheer combat strength, he is among the strongest, even when compared to Super Peak Realm experts."
Seo-jun met Chun-bong's eyes. He had a general idea of what she was trying to say.
Realms were not absolute. They were merely a universal standard of measurement.
Seo-jun felt the same way.
What one could actually achieve with internal energy varied wildly depending on the specific martial arts they practiced.
If someone learned a martial art focused solely on firing Sword Qi, perhaps even a First-rate martial artist could pull it off.
"Interesting." Seo-jun grinned. "Then what's above that?"
"The Transcendent Realm?"
"Is there nothing higher than that?"
His body began to heat up.
The realm of Heaven Beyond Heaven. A domain beyond humanity that he couldn't even be certain he would ever reach.
Was there already a pioneer who had explored that peak?
With a thrilling itch of anticipation tickling his insides, Seo-jun's eyes burned with a golden light.