The Books No One Wanted

“Then, from the library, each of you will choose two secret manuals.”

The moment Instructor Ga Cheon-ak's order fell, the cadets stampeded through the great stone gate and into the Basic Archive inside, plunging it into chaos — a free-for-all at the market stalls.

“The manual for the Soul-Seizing Sword Art is mine first!”

“Move! The Chaos Origin Demonic Art belongs to me!”

“Hand over the Seven Killing Saber Method!”

Ga Cheon-ak watched the commotion from the dais with emotionless eyes. He clicked his tongue and spoke in a low voice.

“Do not make a racket.”

Instantly, the children froze mid-motion.

“There is no need to rush. There are sufficient copies of every basic art you covet — enough for all of you to see them.”

His voice, laden with inner power, pressed down on their very souls like an iron hand.

“Anyone who continues this disturbance will be expelled from the Cave.”

Only then did order take hold of the cadets scrambling toward the archive.

But Yun Cheon had never been swept up in the frenzy to begin with.

'The cult's basic martial manuals are bound to be mediocre. No reason to charge in like moths to a flame.'

In his past life, Yun Cheon had stood at the vanguard of Kunlun, cutting down hundreds, thousands of cultists with the sharpest sword the sect had ever raised. The arts the Demon Cult commonly wielded were already familiar to his eyes.

Learning their basic arts all over again now would be nothing but a waste of time.

'What I'm more curious about... is what else is sitting in that archive.'

Battles from the past flickered through Yun Cheon's mind. A single master who had refined a unique art to its extreme was always harder to face than an entire brigade using techniques he'd already seen a hundred times.

Opponents trained in an unfamiliar footwork, in particular, had been endlessly troublesome.

'Yes. That's exactly what I need right now — a footwork art. One that can hide Kunlun's martial path while still lending me real strength.'

His goal sharpened into focus.

Yun Cheon walked past the central shelves where weapon arts and internal cultivation methods were kept, and headed for the deepest, most neglected corner of the archive.

There, alongside the footwork arts, sat the secret manuals for external body cultivation — the category the children avoided most — still shrouded in dust.

'Thick with dust. As expected... when forced to choose only two arts, few ever pick footwork and external cultivation.'

Unlike weapon techniques, whose progress revealed itself in a day or two, the gains of footwork were slow to show. And external cultivation was generally dismissed as inferior to the ascension-focused internal methods.

No one had browsed these shelves in a long, long while — the dust lay undisturbed.

Yun Cheon was idly combing the shelves alone when his footsteps suddenly stopped.

'...This feeling?'

Among the demonic manuals soaked in blood, madness, and slaughter, a handful of books radiated a strikingly different aura. Not as fierce as the demonic arts, but clear and deep — like pebbles glowing alone in muddy water.

To him, a former Daoist of Kunlun, the energy was achingly familiar: the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠subtle, mysterious, pure and refined current of Mysterious Qi.

As if spellbound, Yun Cheon reached out and drew one dust-caked manual from the shelf.

'Heaven and Earth... Moving Art?'

Sky and ground. A name that carried the very order of the world. A martial art's name always betrayed what its creator pursued — from the name alone, and the aura it gave off, one could divine its general direction.

Far too alien a manual to be sitting in the Demon Cult's archive.

'...It feels like an art rooted in the Dao.'

As curiosity drove him to open the manual, Yun Cheon's eyes narrowed in a flash. It bore neither the founder's name nor any grand preface — and yet the calligraphy alone told him, instinctively, that this was no ordinary text.

'It really is a Daoist art... Did the cultists plunder this from somewhere?'

Every stroke of every character was steeped in the mysterious principle of the Dao.

'...Anyone not versed in Daoist scripture and study would never have sensed it. And the cultists certainly can't appraise it properly.'

The opening sequences were so elementary they could pass for health calisthenics. But Yun Cheon could see it — hidden within those simple movements lay a profound logic: straightening what was twisted, unblocking what was dammed, restoring order to the body as a small universe unto itself.

'This isn't an art that piles internal power into the dantian. It treats the whole body as a great vessel and reforges it from the root!'

For someone afflicted with the Severed Meridian Syndrome, no art could have been more perfect. While others blindly scattered seeds into unturned fields, he would be plowing the wasteland itself — and if he devoted enough time to cultivating fertile soil, a harvest would surely follow.

'Heaven and Earth Moving Art... an art that receives the qi of heaven and earth and reclaims this barren body as rich earth.'

It was an art that came before martial arts, breathing the scent of an ancient, classicized lineage. Yun Cheon decided then and there that it would be his first art.

As he continued scanning the shelf, he was naturally drawn to another book radiating the same aura as the first. Spellbound once more, he pulled out a second manual.

'Limitless...'

Heaven and Earth, and the Limitless. They harmonized as perfectly as if they ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had been a pair from the very beginning.

One glance at the open manual told him this was footwork of considerable depth.

'It is neither swift nor endlessly unpredictable... and yet its movement never ends — footwork of the Limitless, truly.'

'Footwork like the embrace of the sea.'

Just as no one can say where the sea begins or where it ends, every movement flowed like water, its start and finish impossible to grasp. And yet, strangely, it never felt evasive — nothing about it dodged or wavered.

'It borders on the harmony of yin and yang, the teaching of Taiji. To think a manual this profound was left sitting in the Demon Cult's archive...'

It would not have shamed even the arts of Kunlun.

There was no hesitation.

'I've stumbled onto a rare opportunity... someday, I must trace the origins of these two manuals.'

Tucking the two dust-caked manuals under his arm, Yun Cheon made for the exit of the archive.

When the instructors saw the two manuals he carried out, a strange silence briefly settled over them.

“...The Heaven and Earth Moving Art? The Limitless Step? Were such arts even in our cult's basic archive?”

“I've never heard of them.”

Even though the instructor had personally instructed them that the orthodox path was to choose one internal cultivation method and one weapon technique, the boy had picked his manuals from the least popular external cultivation shelf and the footwork shelf, of all places. The instructors who managed the archive frowned as they recorded his selections, unable to make sense of it.

“Well. The price of a choice is the chooser's to bear.”

Choosing conspicuously obscure arts from an archive stuffed to bursting with the basic techniques of the cult's famous clans and sects — Yun Cheon could not help but stand out.

“Kuk kuk, look at him. With no eye for quality, he's gone and picked up trash from who knows where!”

“Passing over a proper internal cultivation method — truly the ignoramus we took him for.”

Muk Ha-jin's clique, who had disliked Yun Cheon from the start, laughed openly and without pretense.

Yayul Hui stared at him with a face full of puzzlement, while Yu Ha, leaning his back against a pillar, watched with eyes glinting with interest.

'...It's true that ascension-focused internal methods show high efficiency.'

And as for what anyone said about him now —

this path was right.

'Besides, with this body as it is, I couldn't cultivate an ascension method anyway.'

Moreover, ascension-focused internal arts — he already had as many of those as he could want, stored in his head.

'What matters is recovering the body and polishing the vessel.'

Yun Cheon paid such cheap provocations no mind whatsoever, quietly gathering the manuals into his arms as the jeers washed past him.

“Those finished choosing their arts will now select their weapons.”

Instructor Ga Cheon-ak led the children to the training armory, where wooden weapons of every kind needed for practice stood neatly arranged.

Most of the children seized their weapons without hesitation — it was enough simply to pick one that matched the art they had chosen.

Muk Ha-jin chose the gauntlets. Yayul Hui ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠picked a swift, slender wooden saber.

When Yun Cheon's turn finally came, every eye converged on him. They were curious what choice a boy who hadn't even picked a weapon-technique manual would make.

'I cannot reveal Kunlun's sword here. In that case...'

Indifferent to the stares, Yun Cheon selected a single wooden saber.

'The Life-Chasing Saber — the cultists won't recognize it easily. Its power is tremendous, but its killing intent is far too thick.'

A Kunlun art sealed under sect law, forbidden to be unleashed outside the Realm of Life and Death.

'...It was so lethal that even among Kunlun's arts, it was often mistaken for a demonic technique.'

For a disguise at the heart of the Demon Cult, there could be no better art.

Ga Cheon-ak addressed the boy holding the wooden saber.

“You choose the wooden saber?”

But Yun Cheon shattered everyone's expectations and put a question back to the instructor.

“Might I choose one more weapon?”

At those words, laughter burst out among the children once again. Ga Cheon-ak asked in his flat, emotionless voice.

“Planning to wield a pair of sabers, are you?”

“I don't yet know which weapon suits my hand, so I merely wished to compare the two.”

Yun Cheon offered the excuse roughly, off the cuff. Yet at that answer, Ga Cheon-ak's brow twitched, ever so slightly.

'A warrior's primary weapon is a companion for life — a true confidant. Naturally, one ought to choose it with care. These brats laughing at him... did they choose their own confidants properly?'

Where the other children took Yun Cheon's words for a foolish excuse, Ga Cheon-ak's thoughts ran along an entirely different line.

'Impossible.'

>

Countless warriors trained on the first weapon they ever happened to pick up. The vast majority mistook mere familiarity for 'talent' — and died that way, their gifts never blooming.

'I, too, passed through many weapons. In the end I cast them all aside and chose the fist. Only by going through that process does a warrior come to fight without regret, without hesitation.'

Ga Cheon-ak rendered a judgment entirely removed from Yun Cheon's actual intent — and far more favorable.

'...Don't tell me he deliberately chose footwork and a moving art first — things one can master regardless of weapon? A deep schemer, this one.'

Ga Cheon-ak nodded his assent without fuss.

“Very well. Granted.”

With permission in hand, Yun Cheon added a single wooden sword to his selection. Watching this, Muk Ha-jin's group clicked their tongues loud enough to be heard.

“Heheh, so he doesn't even know what weapon fits his hand. What an idiot.”

“A sword and a saber, one of each? I've seen it all now. He'll just waste his effort and end up nowhere.”

Ignoring the mockery raining down on his back, Yun Cheon fastened the wooden sword ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and wooden saber at his hips in silence and headed for the stone chamber assigned to him.

The moment the cold stone door closed, every sound from the outside world was severed.

“Hah...”

Only then did Yun Cheon exhale a short breath in his own private space.

“Finally — I can train my martial arts properly.”

Truthfully, Yun Cheon was burning to test the two manuals radiating Mysterious Qi the moment he'd touched them, and suppressing that urge left him with no attention to spare for the other cadets' reactions.

The moving art especially, being trained through bodily motion, was not something to be shown before others.

Yun Cheon settled at once into a cross-legged seat and quietly gazed down at the two manuals he had gained that day.

'The Heaven and Earth Moving Art, and the Limitless Step... an unexpected harvest from the cult's basic archive.'

Without even opening them, Yun Cheon recalled the first verse of the Heaven and Earth Moving Art. From that single reading in the archive, the contents were already engraved perfectly in his mind.

'These two arts are not the kind that should be gathering dust in a basic archive.'

Memorizing manuals straight from the shelves would have been easy enough, but beyond these two, nothing there had even caught his interest.

'I don't know how much effect the Moving Art will have on congenital Severed Meridian Syndrome... but I can't sit on my hands.'

Uuuung...

'This is not about sitting and accumulating qi. Through movement, I receive the qi of heaven and earth into my body!'

Within the narrow stone chamber, his body began to move — slow, yet exquisitely precise and harmonious. A motion simple but solemn, as if upholding the sky and treading upon the earth.

And with it, the faint meridians scattered across his whole body trembled gently, as though waking from sleep.

Within blood and qi that had lain dead and dammed by the Severed Meridian Syndrome —

a very little.

But an unmistakable change could be felt.

Like the first threads of water cracking open across parched, withered earth.

'It's working...! With this, I can truly rebuild this body!'

Swallowing his elation, Yun Cheon plunged into the Heaven and Earth Moving Art — so deeply that even the flow of time slipped his mind.

How much time had passed since he shut himself into the stone chamber?

BANG! BANG!

A clamor exploded at the ears of Yun Cheon, lost in total immersion. Outside his firmly sealed stone door, someone's rough voice was ringing out.

“Hey, you beggar's brat! Open this door right now!”

Yun Cheon frowned. The interruption of his training's flow was irritation enough, but the voice carried naked malice. He rose slowly from his seat and opened the stone door.

Standing before it were three or four boys from Muk Ha-jin's clique, arms crossed.

“Just how long are you going to stay in there?!”

“Holed up in your little hole cultivating the Dao, are you?”

Yun Cheon answered as if they were beneath his notice. Listening to them, it seemed they had waited a long while for him to come out on his own.

“What do you want?”

“A mudfish like you stirring up the water deserves a beating, doesn't he?”

“Thanks to you, our brother Muk Ha-jin's mood has been quite troubled.”

“The discipline of the Hidden Demon Cave — and above it, the authority of the Serpent Scorpion Muk Family. We'll carve both into your bones. Kuk kuk kuk.”

Yun Cheon simply looked them up and down with the eyes one might give an insect, and replied with airy disdain.

“Hah... At your level? That's it?”