Interlude: The World Is Wide and Masters Are Many
The world is wide, and masters are many. The world is wide, and masters are many. In truth, it was a hollow boast I had no right to make. Of the twenty provinces of the Central Plains, I had only glimpsed five with any real attention. Even counting Hebei, Shandong, and Hubei—places I had merely passed through by water—and Fujian, where I had visited only Wugeuk Castle, the total came to eight. And even those had been fleeting journeys. How many people could I truly claim to have met?
Looking back to the days when I lived alone, or even further to the time before I was left at that hermitage in the Kunlun Mountains, changed nothing. When I grew absorbed in solitary training, I rarely left the Kunlun range. In the first few years after my rebirth, I never needed to step beyond the estate walls to survive. That did not mean I was ignorant of the world's vastness or the abundance of masters within it. This was the Central Plains, after all—a land where the title "Hundred Myriad" was no mere exaggeration. Have you ever tried to imagine how many souls must dwell in a place for a hundred thousand laborers to gather at the mere rumor of work, with no telegraph or railway to spread the word?
Each of those countless people carried their own burdens and callings. Among them, those who considered martial arts their heaven-sent duty—or at least practiced whenever time allowed—were far from few. And just as in any field of study or craft, when so many people pursue the same path, it is only natural that what one person can do, another cannot, and what one has long understood, another must still learn. That was why talk of "realms" and "levels" had always made me uneasy. Everyone walks the wide world with their own eyes and feet. Who could presume to measure who had gone farther and who had lagged behind?
Still, even if I knew little of the Central Plains itself, I had wandered the world of martial arts longer than most. There were places others spoke of having visited that I had already seen. And after enough years of travel, one learns to judge the firmness of the ground without needing to set foot upon it. That had been especially true of late.
Cho Yak, who held considerable standing within the Demon Cult. Sama Geon, who bore the grandiose title of Martial Emperor. And behind them, the Heavenly Demon himself. And what of the Ghost Immortal? With strength enough to topple city walls yet hopelessly clumsy in actual combat, had he not danced in the palm of my hand? Somewhere in the midst of all that, a swell of pride must have taken root. No—not merely taken root. It had grown like bamboo shoots after rain. Otherwise, how could the fact of my defeat have come as such a shock?
"Sister, are you all right?"
The voice was thick with worry. I turned my head and saw Cho Yak. My throat was hoarse from long sleep. I coughed once and answered.
"Thanks to your concern, I seem to be fine."
"Is there anything you need?"
"Hmm..."
I let out a low hum, not because I was pondering the answer, but because I had nearly asked her to repeat the question. My mind had been too crowded with thoughts and feelings for the words to register properly. Listening, seeing, thinking—it all felt delayed, as though my head were filled to bursting. In that state, meaningful conversation was impossible, and even if I managed a few words, I would likely forget them after a single night's rest. I felt exactly like someone deep in their cups.
"Could you leave me alone for a while?"
Cho Yak hesitated, then answered in a smaller voice, "Yes." I had no presence of mind to wonder how she had taken my request or why her tone had softened. I simply replied, "Thank you," and let it end there.
It was nothing extraordinary. It was bound to happen eventually, and would happen again. In the end, it was no different from correcting one's own mistakes through self-reflection. As a seeker of the martial path, I should have been glad for the broadening of my experience. Yet no matter how many times I told myself that, I could not steady my trembling heart. This was the first defeat I had suffered since leaving that small hermitage where I had whiled away my days swinging a sword out of boredom.
Looking back, even setting aside our sparring matches, Yu Baek had already lost once before being dragged away by Sama Geon. That meant I had been late not only in making my debut in the martial world, but even in experiencing my first true defeat as a martial artist. When measured only by the number of years I had lived, I was quite old. Yet when asked what I had actually done with those years, the answer was painfully little. It was a spring for a three-hundred-and-some-year-old who felt ashamed of all the time wasted.
The seed of the incident that led to this belated first defeat had been planted roughly a month earlier, on the third lecture day for Cho Yak and me at Jipmudang. We had returned from handling that major affair in Luoyang only a few days prior. Because we had fled the chaos after our lodgings were attacked, neither of us had been assigned a presentation slot. Cho Yak therefore skipped the event entirely, while Gyeon Yo and I—who did not treat listening to lectures as work—attended in her place. Aside from those two points, it was no different from any other lecture day.
There were a few intriguing topics, and a similar number of unremarkable ones whose purpose one could at least guess. No one arrived late as I had on my first day, so the final presentation ended almost exactly on time. Just as everyone was about to rise, a voice called out.
"Everyone, if you could wait a moment."
Jipmususa stood and stepped forward. The atmosphere around me shifted strangely. Whatever he intended to say, the reaction should have come after he finished speaking. Yet people were already sighing or hanging their heads, as though they had heard this before. I glanced at Gyeon Yo, wondering if this was a continuation of last week's discussion, but even she—who had definitely been with me the previous week—furrowed her brow and let out a faint sigh.
Before I could ask what was going on, Jipmususa had already climbed onto the platform with quick steps and clapped his hands to draw attention.
"Now, now. I understand how you all feel, but this is part of the job, isn't it? After all, it's how you earn your research funds."
"Are we already preparing? It feels a good half-month earlier than usual."
The immediate reply came from Chae Jeje. She was normally the most cheerful among the scholars, but even she looked several years older in an instant at the mention of this topic. My curiosity only grew.
"Well, the scale of the work has increased starting this year..."
"It's gotten even bigger?"
The voice was almost a wail. The speaker was one of the newest Jeje, a timid person who had frozen and begun to stutter when I tried to speak with them in the cafeteria after finding their presentation interesting.
"Director, this really isn't right no matter how you look at it. Earning research funds is one thing, but if we're not careful, people will die from overwork making these useless scraps of paper instead of doing actual research."
"Wouldn't it be better to expand our cooperation projects with the military? My latest paper..."
"Enough! Be quiet!"
Jipmususa slammed his hand on the lectern and snorted.
"I'd like to focus on my own research too, but are any of you willing to run Jipmudang in my place? The money has to come from somewhere. And stop complaining about overwork. Has anyone actually died from it? You all pull all-nighters without complaint when it's your own research, so spare me the dramatics."
"Didn't we have to feed Jeje emergency medicine last year just to revive them after they collapsed?"
"But they didn't die, did they? And if you really want to quit this work, the answer is to work harder this year. Once our situation improves, we can hire dedicated investigators and writers for this sort of thing and just offer consultation. Understand?"
After the carrot followed the stick, the room settled into reluctant resignation. For me, who still had no idea what this was all about, it only deepened my confusion. I took a step toward Gyeon Yo to ask, but Jipmususa spoke first in a solemn voice.
"Good. Then I'll take that as confirmation. Let's all do our best on this year's compilation of the Martial Forest 108 Positions. Those doing it for the first time, ask the experienced Jeje for guidance. Understood?"