Once Again, It’s Obvious (5)
You can’t have everything. If there’s something you absolutely must gain, then you have to be prepared to lose something else.
And this is the moment of choice that comes to everyone who seeks to develop a sect.
For the sect’s future, disciples must be raised. And the ones best suited to raise them are, without question, the strongest members of that sect.
Of course, being highly skilled didn’t automatically make someone a good teacher. That was how those infamous, “Wait, how do you not know that?” moments happened all the time.
Still, in general, the higher one’s level, the better a teacher one tended to be. It was like the one standing atop a mountain being far better able to show those climbing from below the easier path.
The problem was time. Time was finite.
Reaching the heights always came at a price. What’s more, the mountain of martial cultivation grew steeper the higher one climbed. So merely maintaining one’s level already consumed an enormous amount of time and energy.
Those who could climb such unforgiving terrain, where even the air grew thin, were usually seasoned mountaineers. Yet even they, just before reaching the summit, couldn’t so much as lend a hand to a companion collapsing beside them. One wrong move, and they’d fall too.
“Uuuuuuuugh…”
His legs were trembling uncontrollably. His pupils had gone loose, his mouth had fallen open on its own, and saliva dribbled down his chin.
But he couldn’t fall.
“Go on. Fall over.”
“……”
“I’m waiting, so please, just fall already. I’m practically begging you.”
Namgung Dan poured every ounce of strength he had into his shaking legs. But this damned body refused to listen. No matter how hard he tried to brace himself, he swayed this way and that like reeds battered by a typhoon.
“Tsk tsk. Look at those legs going all wonky. You call yourself a swordsman and you can’t even control your own body.”
Of course, the criticism was accurate. A sword was ultimately something one held in the hand and wielded with the body. To use the sword properly, one had to first control the body properly.
But Namgung Dan had his excuses too.
What the hell, you lunatic? How am I supposed to—
“Oh? You’re tipping over? You’re tipping over?”
“Uuuuuuuuuugh.”
Namgung Dan desperately clamped his legs together.
At the same time, the boulder the size of a house strapped to his back lurched to one side.
“Tsk tsk.”
Cheong Myeong looked at the scene and clicked his tongue as though utterly disgusted.
“Honestly, kids these days have no grit. In my day, we used boulders this size as toys rolling up the mountain trail!”
That doesn’t even make sense, you insane bastard!
Sweat streamed into his eyes and stung viciously.
If it were only the boulder, that would almost be a relief. But unfortunately, Namgung Dan’s body was also weighed down by large iron spheres hanging all over him. And on top of that, he was being told to carry the boulder without using his inner force. Calling it hell was an understatement.
“What? Willpower?”
“……”
“You kids always have such a big mouth. Do you think mental strength is some poison you smear on a blade before a fight? That it suddenly turns a person strong? Willpower is for times like this. During training, when you’re so short of breath you think you’ll really pass out! The mental strength that lets you hold out for one more moment—that’s what it is.”
“Ugh…”
“So instead of just talking, if you’d show me that mental strength—”
Thud!
Before Cheong Myeong could even finish, one of the men struggling beside Namgung Dan collapsed face-first.
A boulder rolled past him, skimming near the foam-flecked face he’d pressed to the ground.
“……This is a damn mess. Assistants!”
“Yes!”
“Move him!”
“Yes!”
Jo Geol and Yoon Jong, who had already rushed over, grabbed the fallen man and dragged him away across the ground.
To the Medicine Hall?
Don’t be ridiculous. Those who failed to endure the training were thrown into special willpower-strengthening training. They would not be sleeping tonight.
Who couldn’t talk a big game about trying hard? Real effort had to be shown by the body, not the mouth. Right?
Namgung Dan didn’t answer. Or rather, he lacked even the strength to answer.
That didn’t mean he agreed with Cheong Myeong. If anything, he was closer to strongly resisting him.
How on earth was this kind of training supposed to help with swordsmanship?
But after he saw the man who’d had the exact same thought throw down the boulder on his back, shout at Cheong Myeong, and get kicked cleanly into the Yangtze River in a single blow, Namgung Dan decided to forget how to think.
“I’ve never seen a bastard who preached willpower live long, you punk. When you’ve been fighting for three days and nights straight, what shakes in the end isn’t the hand holding the sword—it’s your damn neck. Every martial artist has the same good stamina. What decides who lasts at the end is all the training you’ve stacked up beforehand.”
“……”
“Fine swordsmanship? Pure inner force? That isn’t something you people are at a level to talk about yet. You can’t even run, and you’re talking about flying. Just shut up and focus on being able to swing your sword one more time.”
Namgung Dan almost nodded without meaning to.
If he hadn’t gone through the Maehwado disaster, he might have dismissed Cheong Myeong’s words as total nonsense. But he had felt it at Maehwado. He knew there was nothing wrong with what Cheong Myeong was saying.
Once the battle dragged on past the third day, there was no such thing as swordsmanship or anything else. The only thing that mattered was stabbing at whatever came into view by reflex, wasn’t it?
Perhaps this training had even taken that into account…
“Ah, watching these kids shit themselves really clears my head. Heh heh heh.”
“……”
Yeah, no way. There was no chance that demon of a man had planned it for that reason.
“Hey. Your legs are giving out again. Brace yourself.”
“Uuuuuuuugh.”
He wanted to cry, but his eyes had dried so thoroughly there weren’t even tears left.
“……”
Namgung Myeong broke out in a cold sweat as he watched the young swordsmen of the Namgung Clan groaning under house-sized boulders.
“Th-there…”
And the one in the very front, Namgung Dowi, was staggering under a boulder nearly twice the size of everyone else’s.
“What in the…”
As he stared at the absurd sight in utter bewilderment, a voice laced with amusement reached his ear.
“You seem rather flustered.”
“Y-Yes, I am. That is…”
Un Geom, standing beside Namgung Myeong, slowly shook his head.
“It may look like nothing more than torment, but this is a process all the disciples of Mount Hua have gone through.”
“……That?”
“Yes.”
Un Geom gave a wry smile and added,
“So just watch for now. Since that child has personally taken charge, the effect will be undeniable.”
“No, but…”
Namgung Myeong still stared at the training with a face that said he could not possibly understand. Instead of answering further, Un Geom gave a low laugh.
He’ll understand soon enough.
And when he did, he would likely regret one thing: that he had grown old.
Among the survivors from Maehwado, those who were older couldn’t even take part in that training. From the beginning, Cheong Myeong had removed all the ones who were already past a certain age.
It wasn’t simply because they were difficult to handle or inconvenient to teach because they were older. It was because those whose minds and bones had already stiffened had limits to how far they could grow. Dragging such people forward would be torment for both sides, with little real effect.
So it must have been judged better, for the sake of Namgung’s future, to focus on the ones whose bodies and minds were still soft and flexible.
Still, I’m not the only one who has reasons to regret things.
If Un Geom had been born even a little later, if he had at least been able to rise to the rank of a Baekja disciple, perhaps he could have become stronger than he was now.
What a pity…
“No. You little bastard—!”
Crash!
At that moment, Cheong Myeong kicked Namgung Dan without mercy.
“I told you to keep your back straight! Straight! Are you deaf? You trying to pick a fight with me now? This damned fate of mine—now even the Namgung brats are giving me grief! Get up, you punk! You’re doing double today!”
“……”
No. Really, it was better to age in moderation.
At least if one wanted to live alongside that guy.
Martial arts were the same.
If one didn’t cultivate diligently and sharpen oneself without end, one rusted in an instant, and if one strayed in the wrong direction, one could even be consumed by inner demons. That was the world of the supreme strong.
That was why almost every sect treated its great experts with special care. So they could focus on nothing but martial cultivation and shine with the sect’s name.
As a result, those known as the strongest in a sect usually passed their martial arts down to only a couple of disciples, and rarely even met the disciples far below them.
It was the path for the sect’s sake, and the path for their own sake.
Most prestigious sects had risen to the top of the martial world through exactly that structure: a handful of absolute masters, supported by exceptional disciples behind them.
But…
“Lucky bastards.”
Here stood a man entirely excluded from that life of immortal leisure.
Cheong Myeong ground his teeth.
The uncharted land… no, saying “uncharted” was a little embarrassing when the Heavenly Demon existed. Anyway, this was a man who had climbed to a realm so high it nearly touched the heavens, only to somehow find himself with an absurd amount of time on his hands again.
Not only was he building up his own martial arts, he had somehow also acquired the time to personally wipe the runny noses of these useless little disciples and teach them everything from the ground up…
The Plum Blossom Sword Saint had never paid much attention to the lower generations. To his eyes, which had scolded even his fellow senior disciples for being insufficient, the so-called Mingzi generation, whose skills fell far short, had never been worth a glance. The generations below them? No need to mention those.
To put it more bluntly, the Mount Hua he had once seen was nothing more than a sect filled with rolling stones, except for the truly great Sect Leader Cheong Mun, the half-decent Cheong Jin who at least had a working head on his shoulders, and a few members of the Cheongja generation who had some use here and there.
Setting aside how much he later regretted that judgment…
In any case, what must it have felt like when Cheong Myeong was flung a hundred years into the future and first saw Mount Hua?
All he could do was somehow turn the kids he’d once never even looked at into swordsmen who could stand against anyone.
Which meant…
Everything the disciples of Mount Hua had trained in until now was a system forged by Cheong Myeong—by the former world’s greatest swordsman, who had torn down his own martial arts from the foundation through countless real battles in the war against the Demonic Cult, and who had built this system with one single thought: to raise disciples into something useful.
What was there to say about its efficiency?
While other masters of similar standing devised new martial arts for the future of their sects, Cheong Myeong spent his time thinking about how to squeeze even the tiniest scrap of talent out of these fools and drag it into the open.
While other experts demonstrated their overwhelming power to the world, Cheong Myeong stayed up late wondering how he could explain, in words, the things he knew only by instinct to idiots who didn’t even understand how to hold a sword.
That was why the training system he had created was absurdly efficient, as long as one could endure it. It was enough to turn the disciples of Mount Hua—who had once been, to be blunt, less than third-rate—into top-class swordsmen within just a few years.
Yes, as long as one could endure it.
As long as one could endure it.
* * *