Fire and Ice in a Teacup
"Decent piece of iron, this..."
Yun Cheon's gaze lingered on the battered iron rings encircling his wrists.
The balance was a mess and the metalwork crude. For pure body training they had sufficed, but now that he commanded internal energy, they were nothing more than cumbersome shackles.
Gongya Pae strode over, eyes blazing like a forge.
"Let me get a proper look at these."
Before Yun Cheon could even answer, the man snatched his wrist in a grip like a smith's tongs. Yun Cheon could have evaded it — but he didn't. He knew this was the cantankerous master smith's rough-hewn way of showing interest.
"The weight distribution on these rings is a joke. Wear junk like this into real combat and try to unleash a movement art, and you'll shred the ligaments in your wrist."
As Gongya Pae turned the iron over in his hands, weighing and testing it, his eyes gleamed with a smith's peculiar curiosity.
"Still... the heft is respectable enough. Don't tell me you did something this foolish just to build raw strength?"
"...Something like that."
"Hmph. A thing unworthy of its owner. Watch closely, now."
Before anyone could stop him, Gongya Pae breathed his inner force into the iron rings.
Fwoooosh—!
The domineering heat of the Flame Fire Demonic Art surged along the blackened metal. It was the same iron that, moments before, had frozen solid swallowing Yun Cheon's Limitless Ice Heart Canon.
The instant searing heat penetrated metal chilled to its extreme—
Tiiing—!
With a bright, ringing crack, a hairline fracture split through the heavy ring.
Krrrk... kkrrk.
The spiderweb of spreading fissures tore the ring clean in two.
"Whoops. My bad."
Gongya Pae shrugged with utter shamelessness.
"Cheap scrap iron, I suppose — it can't even endure your cold."
Yun Cheon stared quietly down at the fragments scattered across the floor. White steam was rising from the shards of iron where they'd clattered to the ground, as though they hadn't been able to bear the sudden swing in temperature.
That a man could vent this much heat in mere moments was itself proof of how deep his inner force ran.
"...It didn't fail to endure my cold, brother. It was your heat that did the damage."
At Yun Cheon's flat retort, Gongya Pae burst into roaring laughter.
"Hahaha! Well, either way, you're not wrong."
Then his laughter died. He planted his feet wide, and the mischief in him was replaced by something far sharper — killing intent.
"Right. The shackles are off now, so let's do this for real. Show me whether that cold of yours can quench my fire."
Instead of answering, Yun Cheon simply lowered his stance. He, too, wanted to test his frigid energy in live combat.
Vmmm—.
A bone-deep chill gathered across Yun Cheon's whole body, while a shimmering heat-haze rose from Gongya Pae's frame.
"Take this! Flame Fire Palm!"
Gongya Pae thrust his palm toward Yun Cheon. No technique, no finesse — just raw internal force hammered straight in. A brutish, brutally certain strike. Block it if you can.
His internal energy vastly outstrips mine. Meeting it head-on won't be easy...
Yun Cheon spread both arms and drew a circle.
Vwiiing—!
The crushing mass of flame warped unnaturally in front of him. The Limitless Ice Heart Canon — tracing the Taiji, he seized the heart of the blaze and poured it away into empty air.
"Oh ho...?"
Gongya Pae's eyes widened. The way this boy bled force away was no ordinary skill.
The Master always said: don't chase brute strength alone — temper it with suppleness. This brat's method is exactly that.
The craft of dissolving a mighty yang force with gentle redirection — it was something Gongya Pae himself had never possessed.
The soft overcomes the hard and the unyielding!
Saeng Sa Jon, looking past the surface craft, read the marrow of Yun Cheon's movements — and marveled inwardly.
How can a body that young embody the principle of softness conquering hardness so completely...?!
BANG—! BANG-BANG—!
Each time Gongya Pae's searing yang force crashed against Yun Cheon's frigid yin, the front courtyard of the Demonic Physician Hall vanished beneath billowing clouds of steam. Within the fog, the two traded blows, crimson and azure force colliding again and again.
Saeng Sa Jon caught himself imagining what kind of monster Yun Cheon would become if the Defying Heaven Secret Art succeeded.
If not for the rule of my household, I'd take this boy not merely as a ward — I'd take him as a disciple.
Watching the match, Seol Yeong's eyes, too, brightened with fresh wonder. Gongya Pae's profound internal energy she knew well. It was Yun Cheon who drew her admiration now.
He only just formed his dantian — and he's trading blows at that level with Brother Gongya...!
Ssssss—.
As the clash continued, the very air of the courtyard began to shriek. The hottest flame and the coldest ice — two natures that could never touch, colliding head-on. And in that instant, a strange phenomenon bloomed.
The two energies caught each other's tails and began to spin, furiously.
Guuuuugu—.
It looked like two dragons coiled about one another, each devouring the other in an endless spiral. And for a single fleeting instant, an enormous sphere — its crimson and azure halves in perfect division — condensed in the empty air.
Vmmm—!
The perfect image of the Taiji.
'...!'
Seol Yeong's pupils quaked as if the earth itself had convulsed beneath them.
But the vision lasted only a heartbeat. The Taiji collapsed into a violet sphere — and then burst apart.
BOOM, KA-BOOOM—!
Uncontrolled heat and cold scattered in every direction, drowning the courtyard in thick mist.
It vanished...
Seol Yeong stared blankly into the fog. But she had seen it — unmistakably. Not the mutual destruction of clashing opposites, but the possibility of mutual generation: forces that did not kill each other, but sustained each other.
Yet it had slipped away like a mirage in the blink of an eye.
Was it chance? Or... did Brother Yun Cheon intend it?
Her heart began to pound. She had to know. Whether that phenomenon was a miracle born of random collision — or something within Yun Cheon's power to command.
If it was the latter...
Then the esoteric treatise of the Western Regions — the Two Extremes Merging Art — was no longer a dream.
Seol Yeong cried out in haste.
"B-both of you — wait, please!"
The mist cleared, and the two men emerged. Having already traded dozens of exchanges, they had acknowledged one another's strength and drawn apart. Yun Cheon and Gongya Pae withdrew their energies as one.
They call it frigid yin energy, but it's nothing like Sister Seol's Ice Soul Divine Art... and that rotational application of cold force is nothing short of extraordinary.
Gongya Pae had realized that Yun Cheon's handling of his internal energy was far from ordinary. Conversely, Yun Cheon could feel just how deep Gongya Pae's reserves ran — deeper than he had imagined.
A wielder of remarkably profound blazing-yang force. If he committed his full strength, I couldn't yet withstand him.
Gongya Pae's art sacrificed precision and technique for sheer mass and depth of power, far beyond the average of their generation.
Both men turned to her with puzzled expressions.
"What is it, little sister?"
"Watching the two of you clash just now, I felt as though I stood on the edge of some realization! I know you've fought enough exchanges — but might I ask for a little more? A contest fought purely through internal energy?"
Realization was a rare visitor to any martial artist. Seol Yeong's eyes shone with earnest longing.
"Well... that's hardly difficult. But can he even hold out? His technique is decent enough, but his reserves looked none too deep?"
Gongya Pae scratched his head as he answered.
"I know well how profound Brother Gongya's power is. So perhaps this time, you could settle it by some other means?"
At the words Brother Gongya, the blacksmith's face visibly softened. For all his gruff, brutish appearance, he was hopelessly weak to requests from Seol Yeong, who looked for all the world like his sickly little sister.
"Ahem. Well, if Sister Seol is asking, it's no trouble at all. So — what do you want us to do?"
As Gongya Pae agreed readily, Seol Yeong turned her head toward Yun Cheon — and winked.
Brother Yun Cheon must have caught on to my intent by now.
Her expression seemed to say exactly that.
An experiment in the Two Extremes Merging Art? True — testing it externally carries far less risk than detonating it within the body. Clever girl.
Yun Cheon grasped her purpose at once and gave a small nod. Seol Yeong then pointed to the teacup resting on the table.
"Both of you — how about you contest your internal energy using the water in this cup?"
"Water?"
"Yes. The rules are simple. Whoever makes the water in the cup boil — or freeze — wins."
Gongya Pae snorted.
"Ha! What kind of childish contest is that? The moment I lay a hand on it, that water will vaporize before you can blink—"
"However — you must duel without harming the cup. If you go pouring your force in recklessly, the way you shattered the iron rings, the cup will simply break."
"Tch. Fine. Power control to that degree isn't difficult."
Gongya Pae accepted without hesitation. He was confident he held an overwhelming advantage in both the quantity and quality of his internal energy.
Yun Cheon, however, was already deducing why Seol Yeong had gone out of her way to add such a rule. Beneath its surface, this was no simple contest of force.
Clever. The condition that the vessel must not break — she's placed a cap on the raw quantity of internal energy.
It was an ingenious measure to prevent either side from flooding the contest with overwhelming force. What she intended to observe was the moment when frigid yin and blazing yang collided at roughly equal measure. One-sided quantitative supremacy had nothing to do with the Two Extremes Merging Art.
Unaware of her design, Gongya Pae scratched his head and asked, sounding put upon.
"Then again, is there really any need to make it this complicated?"
He seemed to think the conditions favored Yun Cheon, who outclassed him in technique.
"You've spent more than ten years building your internal energy, Brother Gongya — while Brother Yun Cheon has only just begun learning a cultivation art. Surely a senior like you can bear a little inconvenience on his behalf?"
Seol Yeong's answer was laced, quite deliberately, with words calculated to provoke him. And as expected, Gongya Pae jolted upright and rounded on Yun Cheon.
"What?! You — is it true? You've only just started handling this frigid yin energy?"
Gongya Pae asked again, as if he couldn't believe it. Even if Yun Cheon's reserves fell short of his own, that was a comparison against Gongya Pae, of all people. The man was a few years his senior, and a smith who spent most of every day before a roaring forge — his blazing-yang force crushed nearly every peer of his generation.
But if Yun Cheon had only just set foot on the path of internal energy, everything changed.
...Nonsense! Beyond the quantity itself, that refinement and control could never belong to a novice. So that's it... I thought as much — the Life and Death Venerable would never take just anyone under his wing.
In an instant, Gongya Pae's eyes were burning with the hunger to win.
"True enough. Though the energy I gained while curing the young lady's illness is by no means a light one."
"...Ha? Then that means her complexion improving, too—"
Gongya Pae pieced together the whole story from Yun Cheon's reply.
"I see... no wonder the Venerable claimed him as a ward. Come on, let's go again — right now!"
The two men sat facing each other across the table.
"Are you both ready?"
Between them sat a single teacup filled with clear water.
"Begin!"
At Seol Yeong's signal, crimson light flared in Gongya Pae's eyes.
Vmmm.
Heat poured from his palm and enveloped the cup. Yet the result was nothing more than a faint tremor across the water's surface.
"Oh ho?"
Gongya Pae raised an eyebrow. Water that should have boiled over in an instant was, impossibly, still.
Because Yun Cheon was flowing his frigid energy into the cup, neutralizing the heat as fast as it arrived. Not the crude flood Gongya Pae used, but yin force laced with rotation — a whirlpool of cold.
"Hmph. So brute force won't do it, and now you'll play the technician?"
A wicked grin spread across Gongya Pae's lips.
Fwoooosh!
"But even technique has its limits."
Gongya Pae's palm flushed burning red. This was no mere warmth. The heavy, devastating power of a master smith — the force that melts iron and hammers steel — gripped the teacup in its fist.
Extreme heat against extreme cold. Within the cramped battlefield of a single teacup, the two energies caught each other's tails and spun madly, round and round.
"The real contest starts now!"
SSSSSHRREEEK—!
The placid surface shrieked and heaved. Soon white steam began curling up from the water.
The difference in raw power was simply too vast for craft alone to bridge.
As I thought... head-on, this won't do.
Beads of sweat gathered on Yun Cheon's brow. His opponent's reserves were twice his own, at least.
Yet his eyes only sank deeper into calm.
If I cannot win by force — I will change the current.
Instead of dumping the Ice Soul Divine Art's cold into the cup, Yun Cheon concentrated on wielding it with ever-finer precision.
Gongya Pae was hardly a man to miss that shift.
"Ho? Backing out of the fight? Don't tell me a man resorts to sneaky little tricks!"
Riding his momentum, Gongya Pae poured in the maximum blazing-yang force the fragile cup could endure without shattering.
Bubble... buble-bubble—.
And then it seemed the match was decided. The water at the top of the cup had begun to boil.
"Well? Ready to admit defeat? Not bad, though — more than fit to be sworn brother to me."
Gongya Pae laughed heartily, certain of victory.
But the corner of Yun Cheon's mouth had lifted, ever so slightly.
"Brother Gongya — the outcome is not yet decided."
"Hah. I could get used to hearing that. And it will be — soon enough!"
Gongya Pae took Yun Cheon's use of the word brother as a concession of defeat.
But Yun Cheon hadn't finished.
"Do you know the principle that hot energy rises upward, while cold energy sinks below?"
At the out-of-nowhere question, Gongya Pae frowned.
"What kind of nonsense is that? It's just water in a teacup, isn't it?"
"And even inside it, the energies never stop moving. Look closely."
At his words, Seol Yeong and Gongya Pae's gazes turned to the cup at the same instant — and their eyes went round.
'...!'
It was an impossible sight.
The upper portion of the water was roiling at Gongya Pae's heat, dissolving into billows of steam. But the bottom of the cup was another world entirely.
Krrrk... krrk.
The water below was spiraling with cold, freezing over as it turned. Boiling water above; ice below. Within a teacup scarce wider than a fist, the extremes of two seasons coexisted.
More than that — the vaporized water pooled beneath the cup's rim, and long icicles began to form.
"What the—?! Th-this... what is this?!"
Gongya Pae, flustered, was about to pour in even more force—
"I believe it's time we brought this contest to an end."
With Yun Cheon's cool declaration, the vortex churning in his lower dantian surged violently to life.
—
Return of the Cloud Dragon
Author | Chu Sang (Autumn Frost)
Publisher | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
Managing Editor | Editorial Department
Published by | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — Dream Books
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