How Could You Be So Generous? (2)
"You lot are really asking for it!"
"…."
The thunderous shout shook the training ground.
At the sheer force of his irritation, the second- and third-generation disciples of Mount Hua all flinched at once.
"I’m gone for barely a month, and you can’t even keep your heads on straight for that long? You just had to sit around loafing and wasting time?"
"…."
"And this is why I can’t ever leave you idiots alone!"
Baek Sang stared ahead with a dazed expression.
It was wronged. Deeply wronged.
The disciples who remained behind had absolutely not spent their time lazing around just because Chung Myung and his group were away. If anything, they had trained harder than usual, determined not to give him any excuse to pick on them.
So why was it wronged?
No, that wasn’t it.
No matter how they trained, Chung Myung would have found a way to pick a fight. So being caught in this situation wasn’t wrong at all. In fact, they had vaguely expected something like this.
Then what was wronged?
Baek Sang raised his head and looked at the man shouting at them with all his might.
…Why is it Senior Brother?
The face was familiar.
Far too familiar.
Well, of course. The one berating them now wasn’t that brat Chung Myung—it was Baek Cheon.
"…Senior Brother?"
Baek Cheon snapped his head toward Baek Sang. Seeing those two eyes shining with killing intent, Baek Sang flinched again and shrank back.
"Tsk."
"…."
No, Senior Brother.
You were only away for a month—why are you back acting like Chung Myung?
It was enough to make him faint.
Meanwhile, the one they had all worried about all this time, Chung Myung, had shown no reaction whatsoever.
Baek Cheon, along with Yu I-seol, Yoon Jong, and Jo Gul, were lined up in front of the disciples, each of them scolding the second- and third-generation disciples in turn, while Chung Myung himself was stretched out beneath the shade of a tree in the back, lounging around like he had all the time in the world.
What in the world was going on here?
"You need basic skill before you can even make proper use of elixirs! What on earth did you do for a month to let your skills rot this badly?"
Huh?
Our skills are slipping? Us?
That was when it happened.
Baek Cheon barked at Baek Sang in a voice full of fury.
"Baek Sang!"
"Y-yes? Yes, Senior Brother!"
"What were you doing?"
Huh?
Me?
Baek Sang stared at Baek Cheon with a blank expression.
"I wasn’t here, and yet you were the Great Disciple! How did you manage things to let it become this much of a mess?"
"Eh?"
No, what on earth had he been saying since earlier…?
To be fair, Baek Sang wasn’t the sort of person who couldn’t defend himself in front of Baek Cheon. Normally, he was actually the type to speak his mind.
But right now…
Why does he look so damn terrifying all of a sudden?
It wasn’t easy to even get a simple excuse out in front of the current Baek Cheon. Every time he opened his mouth, the oppressive force rolling off him made people shrink without thinking.
"No more talk!"
Baek Cheon drew his sword and pointed it upward.
"First, run to Nagan Peak and back. Anyone who comes back late runs it again!"
"…."
"Move!"
"Aaaagh!"
"I’m first! I’m going first!"
The second-generation disciples, who had hesitated for only a moment, suddenly broke into a full sprint toward Nagan Peak.
"Tsk."
Baek Cheon clicked his tongue in obvious dissatisfaction.
Watching that, Yoon Jong slowly turned his head toward the third-generation disciples.
"What are you doing?"
"Huh?"
"Since the senior brothers have gone to Nagan Peak, you lot should go to Yeonhwabong."
"…Huh?"
"The senior brothers said half of them are running back again. You lot are… let’s see."
Yoon Jong smiled faintly.
"Ten of you will come back and run it again."
"…."
"Go."
"What?"
"I said go."
"…."
Some of the quicker ones caught on and immediately took off toward Yeonhwabong. Seeing that, the rest also sprinted after them without a second thought.
Even as they ran at full speed, complaints kept spilling from their mouths.
"N-no! Why is Senior Brother suddenly acting like this?"
"Why isn’t Jo Gul Senior Brother stopping him and just going along with it?"
"How am I supposed to know?"
Chung Myung, who had been the one they’d all worried about, wasn’t saying a single word, while Baek Cheon and Yoon Jong, who had always been on their side, were the ones tormenting them now.
What kind of bizarre situation was this?
Watching the disciples tear off as if their lives depended on it, Yoon Jong began to click his tongue too.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk."
After shaking his head a couple of times, Yoon Jong looked at Baek Cheon.
"Senior Brother."
"Hrrngh."
Baek Cheon sighed and then said in a thoroughly dissatisfied tone,
"Now I see why that brat Chung Myung was always so desperate to beat us into shape. I was gone for only a month, and they’ve become like this!"
"I understand a little too. Just a little, though."
Baek Cheon’s eyes blazed.
"Three days. I’ll whip them back into shape within three days!"
Watching from the shade of the tree in the back, Chung Myung snorted.
He figured the others were probably just as bewildered as Baek Cheon, Yoon Jong, Jo Gul, and Yu I-seol.
They had only gone to Yunnan and come back, yet the disciples left in Mount Hua all looked pitifully weak to them now. It wasn’t strange that they were shocked.
But there was one thing.
They don’t even realize they got stronger themselves.
Strength was relative.
All the way to Yunnan, Baek Cheon and the others had been brutally beaten—no, brutally trained—by Chung Myung. Thanks to that, their current level was incomparable to what it had been before they left.
They had fully made the internal energy from the Honwon Dan they had taken before leaving their own, and their sword forms had become even more refined. In other words, over the course of the trip to Yunnan, their martial arts had risen several full levels.
That wasn’t all.
Watching the duel between Chung Myung and the Tang Family head, they had firsthand felt what true master-level skill was. Watching Chung Myung fight Tang Oe, they had learned what real combat looked like.
And on top of that, they had faced the Beast Palace Lord up close and seen the Beast Palace warriors who could truly be called elite troops.
It would have been stranger if their standards hadn’t risen.
So how could the ordinary disciples of Mount Hua, who had barely changed since they left, possibly look good to them?
From this point on, Baek Cheon and Yoon Jong would probably keep pushing their junior disciples harder and harder until they reached the level they wanted.
Yeah. That’s how a sect grows stronger.
Whenever a single exceptional expert appears in a sect, that expert hounds everyone around them relentlessly until they’re satisfied. Those who survive that abuse grow stronger, and then they in turn start turning over everyone around them.
When that process repeats a few times, the whole thing spreads downward like water flowing downhill, and everyone ends up being pushed to improve.
And then?
Of course they’ll grow stronger.
Only now was the current Chung Myung had been quietly pouring beginning to fill Baek Cheon, Yoon Jong, and the rest, then flow on down below.
At this point, Chung Myung only needed to sit back and watch, stepping in now and then to fix whatever went off track.
If they keep this up for a year, they’ll naturally develop the habit of training on their own.
Only then would Mount Hua finally gain the minimum qualifications to be called a prestigious sect.
After all, being a prestigious sect didn’t mean simply being exceptional—it meant producing results from generation to generation.
Chung Myung smiled with satisfaction.
Looks like I can finally relax a little.
Watching the seeds he had sown begin to sprout was always a pleasant thing. If Mount Hua’s momentum became firmly established and then the Honwon Dan was added into the mix, Mount Hua would grow rapidly indeed.
And then reclaiming the glory of the past wouldn’t be far awa—
"Chung Myungaaaaaaaaa!"
"…."
Chung Myung’s head slowly turned.
The Sect Leader, the elders, and the Medicine Hall lord could be seen racing toward him from afar.
"…."
Seeing the urgency on their faces, he let out a long sigh.
Of course. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.
As if he’d ever get to relax.
No doubt something else had blown up again.
Better to die than to suffer! Better to die than to suffer—seriously, better to just die!
Chung Myung lifted his head and looked up at the blue sky.
"Aigoo, Senior Brother Sect Leader."
The state of the sect was… huh?
And now you want me to, what?
Ugh!
It almost sounded like that old Sect Leader’s gleeful chuckling laugh.
—Stop whining, you brat. Even if you add all of that together, it still doesn’t come close to the mess I had to clean up after your screwups.
"Damn it!"
Chung Myung shouted in frustration and got to his feet. Just then, the Sect Leader and the Medicine Hall lord reached him.
After a quick bow, Chung Myung clasped his hands.
"I greet the Sect Leader."
"No! This is not the time for greetings!"
"Pardon?"
"Come with me! You need to see this!"
The Sect Leader grabbed Chung Myung by the nape and started running without another word.
Held by the scruff of the neck and lifted off the ground, Chung Myung smiled with quiet satisfaction.
This old man’s gotten pretty rough too.
Hahaha.
"Look at this!"
"…."
"What are we supposed to do about it?"
Chung Myung looked dully at the massive cauldron placed before him.
"What about it?"
"Look closer! The bottom."
"Huh?"
Chung Myung stretched his neck and peered at the underside of the cauldron.
"Huh? Why is it cracked? Did someone punch it?"
"It wasn’t punched. It was infused with internal energy."
"What? Into a cauldron? Not a sword, but a cauldron? What kind of internal energy are you putting into a cooking pot? Are you trying to invent some new martial art that uses cauldrons?"
"That isn’t it!"
Hyun Jong thumped his chest, looking frustrated.
Then the Medicine Hall Lord, Un-gak, quickly picked up the explanation from there.
"This is the special part of the Honwon Dan refining method. Purple Wood Grass was merely an ingredient that was common in the past but has become rare now. This is different. To make Honwon Dan, a master with enormous internal energy must heat the cauldron with their power."
"…And what’s different about that?"
"I don’t know the exact principle myself, but it seems that by doing so, the internal energy seeps into the Honwon Dan and purifies the impurities within it."
Huh? That could happen?
Still, Yakseon really was something else.
"That’s amazing. So?"
"So, before starting the actual refinement, I had the Sect Leader try infusing it with internal energy, just in case. The cauldron couldn’t hold it. This is the third one already."
"…."
"If we hadn’t tested it in advance, we would’ve blown away not just the materials but everything else too."
"So, to sum it up…"
Chung Myung scratched his head hard.
"To make Honwon Dan, you need to infuse a cauldron with internal energy, but an iron cauldron like this can’t withstand it and breaks, right?"
"Yes."
"Then why not make it out of the same metal as a sword?"
"Swords and cauldrons are forged differently. A sword is basically made through repeated hammering, folding, and stretching. But something this big is hard to make that way. I asked Soso, and she said even the Tang Family would have trouble with it."
"Hrrngh. Then what?"
"I think we simply need a stronger kind of iron, but rare metal capable of making a cauldron this large isn’t exactly easy to come by."
"…Can’t you just make it in a small pot in batches?"
The Medicine Hall lord shook his head.
"I did consider that, but Yakseon’s instructions only give a single ratio. If the quantity changes, the mixture must change too, but with my ability, I can’t figure out that ratio."
What a deadlock.
"Then the conclusion is… we need to find iron strong enough to withstand that enormous internal energy and forge a cauldron this size out of it?"
"Exactly."
"Ha."
Chung Myung’s face began to redden.
What the hell!
Just when one problem was solved, another one popped up. Solve that one, and yet another appeared!
It wasn’t like someone was deliberately tormenting him or anything!
"No, where the hell are we supposed to find iron like that—wait. Iron?"
Just as he was about to explode, Chung Myung suddenly stopped. He tilted his head.
A special metal that could withstand internal energy? Enough of it to make a cauldron this big?
For example…
"Something like Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron?"
"Exactly! If it were Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron, there’d be nothing better."
"…."
"It isn’t easy to get, so I came to consult you first. Can you think of any way to obtain Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron quickly?"
Ah…
Think of a way?
Hahahahahaha.
Seeing Chung Myung snicker, Hyun Jong let out a long sigh.
"Yes. Even you probably can’t just go out and get huge quantities of such rare Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron. For now, perhaps we should ask Hwang Da-in of the Eunha Sangdan…."
"Today."
"Hm?"
"Ah, not today. I’ll bring it to you tomorrow."
"…."
Hyun Jong stared at Chung Myung with a bewildered expression at his sudden confidence.
"Wh-what exactly will you bring?"
"Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron."
"…."
"Ah. Should I just make the cauldron for you too?"
Hyun Jong and Un-gak looked at Chung Myung as if to say, Has this brat finally gone mad?
But even as he saw their reaction, Chung Myung only kept snickering.
Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron?
He had it.
And not just a little—it was an absurd amount.