Moonlit Training
The Beggar Sect stood as one of the two great information networks of the Central Plains, rivaling even the Haomu Gate.
To keep the flow of intelligence smooth, they dispatched their beggar disciples across the land and wove networks wherever they went. Among those assignments, some were sent under deep cover, their affiliation carefully hidden.
This was precisely one such case.
So that young man is the successor the Dragon Head Chief has his eye on?
Park Chil, a Four-Absolutes disciple, cast his mind back to the conversation he had held with Elder Ilho-gae before being sent here.
A youth thrashing ruffians with staff blows that looked for all the world like he was clubbing a rabid dog. A youth who, with nothing more than an ordinary knotless stick, beat those thugs down like dogs in a style that unmistakably recalled the Dog Beating Staff Technique.
“Quietly tail him and confirm whether he truly is the successor.”
“Yes, sir.”
And if he really had mastered the Dog Beating Staff Technique, the elder had added, Park Chil was also to examine the youth’s character and aptitude—to see whether he was worthy of the seat.
“And by any means necessary, learn the whereabouts of the missing Dragon Head Chief.”
“Yes, sir.”
The chief’s place in the Beggar Sect had stood empty for years. The Dragon Head Chief’s return was the dearest wish of every beggar disciple.
Yet “find it out no matter what”…
“Only take care not to ruffle the next Dragon Head Chief’s feathers while you do it. Handle that part yourself.”
So was he supposed to dig, or was he supposed to keep quiet?
In any event, Park Chil had recalled Ilho-gae’s counsel, struck the pose of a free-spirited chivalrous hero, and approached the party with the utmost caution.
“I am Ma Jungcheon. I look forward to working with you, Young Hero Dan Mujin.”
“Ah… yes.”
Of course, he had never imagined his cover would be blown the very moment he infiltrated.
The mystical energy of the Star Cloud Heart Method churned hotly through my body.
When I finished circulating my qi and checked the result, I held roughly twenty years of internal energy. At this pace I might hit half a sexagenary cycle by year’s end.
I had risked danger to steal starlight energy; that was the only reason for such growth. It also meant I kept getting tangled in incidents and accidents as if fate itself were shoving me into them.
“Still not enough.”
In pure quantity of internal energy I would not lose even to the scions of great houses raised under their clans’ full support. Unfortunately I had entered the martial path far too late, so my actual achievement in martial learning inevitably lagged behind.
Especially the Dog Beating Staff Technique whose forms and formulas had been crammed into my skull while I was being beaten black and blue not long ago. I had only just reached the first star by imprinting the basic forms into my body; the road ahead was still long.
Yet as the Heavenly Killing Star I possessed one shortcut.
“More real combat! More fights!”
During the escort job I declared that any bandits or ruffians who appeared were to be left entirely to me. Boss Jo had no reason to refuse: the fee stayed the same while I ran around doing the hard work.
And so, every time troublemakers popped out, my Dog Beating Staff Technique danced with delight.
“Guh!”
“What the hell is this bastard—kegh!”
Crimson trails scrawled wildly across my vision. The tip of the staff threaded through the killing moves thrusting toward me and smashed into vital points. The bizarre technique that bent one way and coiled the other tore screams and cries of shock from the enemies.
A form of the Dog Beating Staff Technique that crashes through an enemy’s advance like a rabid dog blocking the road.
Indeed, raising the Heavenly Killing Star was never about quiet training—it was about blood-soaked real combat. The more I hurled myself into killing intent and mixed offense with defense, the faster I could feel the Dog Beating Staff Technique’s achievement climb.
And when I fought in a frenzy like that, a strange sensation would steal over me: the staff began to feel like an extension of my own limbs.
“Almost… but it won’t quite catch.”
If I swung just a little longer something seemed about to click, yet it slipped away like a mirage. Moreover, with a city near Shaolin Temple coming up, the villains who used to spawn like full-attribute monsters no longer appeared.
In every way the situation was maddeningly unfinished. Still, the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering—money and fame both on the line—lay just ahead, so whenever free time opened I swung the staff with redoubled fury and pressed my training harder.
Then the undercover beggar disciple sidled up, clapping his hands and striking up conversation.
“What a marvelous staff technique. Does it have a name of its own?”
He had stared holes through me the entire time I fought the bandits—utterly burdensome. And every time I beat down another pack of scum he would clench his fists beside Jo Harang and cheer from the rear. A difficult man whose intentions I could never quite read.
“It’s the Hell Demon-Slaying Staff Technique.”
Howl, Hell Demon-Slaying Staff.
I had deliberately altered the forms, and I could hardly call it the Dog Beating Staff Technique in front of a Beggar Sect man, so I coined a temporary name on the spot. I rather liked it, actually.
“…Hah. Quite the bloodthirsty name.”
Ma Jungcheon let out a hollow laugh at my brilliant naming sense.
“A staff technique that sends evil things straight to hell.”
Truth be told I had not sent anyone there yet—I only planned to. And even then, only the irredeemable kind.
“Young Hero, with skill of that level you must surely possess a moniker as well…”
There was a beautiful female wanderer carrying a greatsword right beside me, and nearby Boss Jo’s daughter was openly curious about the new young expert. Yet this young man squeezed between them just to focus on me alone. Had I not already known he was from the Beggar Sect, I would have completely misread his preferences.
“Among the comrades of the jianghu they call me the Nine-One Lucky Hero.”
Not that I was fond of it, but it was still a moniker that referred to me.
“Th-that is… quite the novel moniker.”
He forced the compliment. I paid it no mind. Once I stacked achievements and made a real name at the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering, it would change into something respectable.
“Ah, Boss. Thanks to wiping out those human traffickers last time and handing them over to the authorities, your moniker’s already changed.”
Oh—now that was welcome news. Ilhong had been busily darting in and out of the Black Market and half a dozen other places ever since that incident; she must have overheard something.
“What do they call me now?”
Apparently the children I rescued had spread word of my exploits just as I asked. I waited for the rest with carefully managed expectation.
“People are calling you the Seven-Three Lucky Hero now.”
“…”
Kids, if you were going to spread rumors you could have put a little more muscle into it. Why did this moniker cling so stubbornly and refuse to die? Did everyone else’s titles climb step by step just by swapping the numbers?
“Pfft—the Seven-Three Lucky Hero.”
One female wanderer with zero empathy jiggled her greatsword and laughed out loud.
“Don’t laugh, Minor Tiger Blade.”
“But I’ve never seen a moniker change in such tiny increments.”
Look at her, laughing so freely because it was not her problem. I shot her a pointed glare.
“Keep it up a little longer and you might become the Five-Five Lucky Hero. Hang in there, Mujin.”
“Quiet.”
This was exactly why first impressions—and first monikers—mattered so much. My reasons to shine at the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering had just multiplied.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
And so, on a journey soaked through with sweat, I gritted my teeth and threw myself even harder into training the Dog Beating Staff Technique.
Among the old idioms there is one: when the moon is bright, the stars grow few. It also means that when a great figure appears, lesser ones fade from the light.
“Tonight the stars are hiding behind the moonlight.”
It felt exactly like my present situation. Whether Jo Harang or the rising geniuses of the great orthodox sects, the world was simply full of experts. Yet here I was—born under a malevolent star as a murim killing machine—stuck at the wall of the First-class Realm and groaning.
“Haaah.”
I looked up at the stars and let out a deep sigh. Jo Harang drifted over and spoke.
“Mujin, why the heavy sigh?”
Did she never sleep either? From the sweat rolling down her nape and her uneven breathing, she had clearly been training hard like me.
“I like training under the starlight too. So what’s the problem?”
I lifted the Dog Beating Staff crafted for the successor and told her that internal energy simply would not settle into it. More precisely, even when I poured in more than twenty years of power it scattered like smoke; it would not form cleanly. Like pouring water into a bottomless embankment.
“Looks like you’re struggling at the threshold of the Peak Realm the same way I am.”
She smirked and drew her greatsword, shook the cold sweat from her brow, and began carving the moonlit empty air.
Whoosh!
A fierce wave of energy vibrated from the internal force loaded into the blade.
“Putting internal energy into a weapon isn’t hard by itself. You just have to think of it as part of your body and let the power flow.”
Treat it like an extension of your own limbs. I had occasionally felt something similar while swinging the staff without rest.
“But this isn’t my arm or leg.”
Just as thinking of yourself as a transcendentally peak pretty boy does not rewrite reality, the Dog Beating Staff was not my limb.
“It means operate your energy as if it were. The same way you circulate qi along the Conception and Governing vessels.”
When I scratched my cheek at the vague explanation, she told me to place my hand on her greatsword. Instantly I felt the natural circulation of qi that entered the blade as though performing the small heavenly circuit and then returned into the body.
“Ah—so that’s what you meant!”
It was not about brutishly locking internal energy inside the weapon. Qi possessed the nature of flowing water; I was simply to regard the staff as an arm and let the power circulate through it.
I carefully guided the energy and opened channels like meridians inside the Dog Beating Staff. At once the staff began to conduct qi as naturally as a battery with both poles connected.
“It’s working—I can feel the qi!”
Once the knack clicked, the rest followed like a flood. My twenty years of internal energy rushed toward the Dog Beating Staff as though a dam had burst, filling it to the brim with raw power.
As a test I gave a nearby thick tree a full-powered smash.
Boom!
The trunk’s side exploded into splinters. Wood chips sprayed in every direction. The crash was loud enough that the escort guards jerked awake, wondering what on earth had happened.
And even after unleashing that destructive force, the Dog Beating Staff itself remained unscarred under the protection of internal energy.
“Whoa… what is this…”
Until now I had only poured power into my body for crude improvements like “swing harder.” This attack was something beyond that.
“Congratulations on becoming a First-class martial artist, Mujin.”
Standing dazed, I listened as Jo Harang celebrated beside me as though the achievement were her own. She looked a little sheepish, muttering that this was the sort of thing a master was supposed to teach and that she felt she had stolen the role.
“No… it’s completely fine. That so-called master of mine is terrible at this kind of thing.”
That was how the teaching style of people born with talent usually worked: beat you until you figured it out yourself.
“But is it all right to give this kind of instruction?”
Most murim folk did not share insights or martial learning with someone they had only just met. In business terms it was like handing over your trade secrets. And stranger still was receiving such help from a woman who had already declared she would kill me.
“Why wouldn’t it be? It isn’t even a sect technique—I’m just offering advice.”
“Still… why are you treating me so well?”
At my question she glanced up at the brilliant moon once before answering.
“Because good people have to be stronger than evil ones. That’s the only way we can actually pursue justice, right?”
With nothing more than that philosophy she was bestowing teaching on a wanderer she happened to share a single request with.
“Hey, I’m not a good person.”
“Yeah, yeah. Good people always say that.”
Whereas bad people, she added, dressed themselves up as good ones. She was clearly under some misunderstanding. I was simply an extreme profit-chaser who moved according to gain. Right now accumulating merit happened to help with life extension and martial cultivation, so I did it.
“Anyway, I’ll repay this someday.”
As Eun Hwaran always said: repay what you receive—whether it is a grudge or a favor.
“Yeah. I’ll look forward to it.”
The round moon slipped behind a cloud, and only then did the stars begin to show their light. Beneath that brightening starlight, Jo Harang smiled with a quiet mystery.
The next day we reached Dengfeng, a city lying at the foot of Mount Song and Shaolin Temple.
Once through the gates, Boss Jo again announced only the assembly time, told us to spend the interim however we liked, and vanished with his family. Even Mount Geumgang looks better after a meal, I decided. Mount Song where Shaolin stood was rugged and food would be scarce, so the first order of business was filling our stomachs.
Having cleaned out the human traffickers, my purse was comfortably full; a fairly expensive inn was no problem. With that thought I stepped into a high-class establishment—and immediately spotted a familiar face.
“Huh? What the hell are you? Why are you popping up here?”
Bobbed hair swaying beneath her ears, those sharp red eyes that still had not lost their edge.
“Dang Yeohye…?”
“Hey, am I your friend? Calling me so casually?”
The brat of the Sichuan Tang Family, Poison Claw Blood Maker Dang Yeohye, was chewing on a chicken leg and staring straight at me.