Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Moon Shadow
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"Vast Cold Moon Shadow Step... Quite an unexpected name."
Baek Hyun dusted off the various bits of residue clinging to the manual and mulled it over.
The Vast Cold Palace was the home of Chang'e, the moon goddess and wife of Hou Yi. In Chinese mythology, this goddess Chang'e was an extremely infamous bitch.
Depending on the legend, the details varied, but in every version, she devoured the elixir of immortality that her husband had obtained through unimaginable hardship and ascended to the heavens alone.
She was the epitome of a disloyal wife who abandoned her husband and ran off.
Needless to say, she wasn't a goddess he particularly admired.
Moreover, the moon that symbolized Chang'e inherently carried yin properties, which contrasted sharply with the yang nature of the Starpoint Sect's martial arts.
A technique named after the palace where such a goddess resided...
This reeks of a total scam technique, doesn't it?
Techniques with slightly unusual names tended to boast scammy levels of performance.
Baek Hyun opened the manual with an expression brimming with anticipation and began to read.
"Skip... probably can't do that, right? Still, it's the words of an ancestor."
The ancestor's rambling, lofty words—suggesting he must have been quite the excessive talker in life—made him desperately crave a skip button.
However, understanding the process by which the creator developed the technique was immensely helpful for comprehending the martial art itself. Suppressing his rising boredom, he pressed on through the manual.
"Hm... As expected, that's the vibe of how this technique was born."
Baek Hyun swiftly grasped the gist of the lengthy tale, reading it like a Korean SAT literature passage.
A martial art born from an eccentric ancestor's obsessive longing for the moon—quite the oddity even among the Starpoint Sect.
At first glance, the seemingly useless preface needed to be interpreted and understood from a martial artist's perspective, taking the creator's words at face value where appropriate.
That Sam-soon guy definitely said something like that.
Recalling a chat with Kim Sam-soon from long ago, Baek Hyun began interpreting the manual's preface.
Unlike himself, who focused solely on a technique's performance and practical utility, Sam-soon was a pervert gamer who savored every phrase and incantation in manuals like personal autobiographies.
The fact that he even memorized incantations for game-worthless techniques stemmed largely from Sam-soon's influence.
Sam-soon always said when reading manuals:
A martial arts manual is akin to classical literature on the SAT Korean section.
The key is grasping the creator's intent—hidden through myriad subtle metaphors and allegories—or the narrator's unintended sentiments and will.
Based on Sam-soon's advice, first interpret the 'beautiful moonlight' and 'moon shadow' in wuxia terms.
'Beautiful moonlight' signifies the subtleties of 'Illusion (幻)' and 'Transformation (變)'.
The ancestor who penned this manual likely pursued a swordsmanship as gorgeous, beautiful, and mighty in itself as the Plum Blossom Sword of the Huashan Sect.
Yet such an ideal fundamentally clashed with the Starpoint martial philosophy of extreme speed and efficiency.
In the end, all the ancestor could infuse into his sword was not moonlight, but the moon's shadow.
Here, the moon's shadow also signifies 'Illusion (幻)' and 'Transformation (變)', but not in the form the ancestor desired.
Not a sword like the Plum Blossom Sword that mesmerizes foes with outrageously beautiful techniques, but one reinterpreting those subtleties through the Starpoint Sect's methods.
From the ancestor's view, it was tantamount to a failure—the 'moon shadow'.
An eagle's warped desire for the sea birthed a freakish technique.
To the very end, the eagle never reached the ocean.
Yet amid countless frustrations, it succeeded in mastering truly heterogeneous and wondrous wingbeats.
By stubbornly pioneering the wrong path to achieve an impossible dream, it reached a new realm unattained by any other.
What a cool ancestor. Talks a bit much, though.
With a rough grasp of the technique's origins, Baek Hyun tucked the interpretation aside and began memorizing the incantations.
The incantations of Vast Cold Moon Shadow Step were utterly alien and specialized compared to any footwork he had learned—simultaneously profoundly advanced and excruciatingly intricate.
Even Baek Hyun, with his above-average aptitude, found them nearly incomprehensible.
Despite preemptively guessing the technique's nature, he spent an eternity just understanding its structure.
"Hoo... As expected, grasping it from text alone isn't easy."
Unable to bear the frustration, Baek Hyun stood and began moving according to the incantations.
It was the first technique where the feel evaded him despite reciting the incantations repeatedly.
-S...wk, ...swk, s...swk
Like a snail crawling over leaves, Baek Hyun moved agonizingly slowly while reciting the incantations.
Not having memorized them fully, he flipped back to the manual intermittently to reconfirm unmemorized parts.
For any incantation he didn't fully grasp, he reproduced it bodily multiple times until it clicked.
The enhanced Solar Body's power, Clear Mind Heart Method's effects.
And Baek Hyun's innately superhuman focus.
These factors synergized, plunging him into a near-trance where he immersed in training for days without rest.
-Wuuung!!
His internal energy and body had grown rapidly, but his martial insight lagged—until now.
Unbeknownst to himself, he reached the 'Peak' realm, worthy of respect as a master in the world.
Yet Baek Hyun did not stop training.
Even at Peak realm, fully comprehending the newly obtained manual required more.
How much longer did he continue without pause?
When he somewhat understood all the incantations' meanings, Baek Hyun realized what Vast Cold Moon Shadow Step truly was.
Now that's an interesting mechanism for a footwork.
Or could it even be called mere footwork?
Its uniqueness was unparalleled among any footwork.
He never imagined the Starpoint Sect's martial arts could produce such a form...
A technique that becomes the ultimate spear or ultimate shield depending on the user's prowess and mastery.
The absurdity that a mere footwork could serve as a 'finisher' in battle left him dumbfounded.
If I perfect this, won't I become untouchable from then on?
Baek Hyun genuinely thought so in that moment.
In this world rife with dangers, allowing not a single effective hit henceforth.
A bit exaggerated, perhaps, but perfecting this footwork might make even that impossible feat reality.
The basic principle of Vast Cold Moon Shadow Step was exceedingly simple.
Overlapping 'future' movements onto the 'present'.
A somewhat abstract explanation, but literal.
The Starpoint Sect's foundational martial art was compression and release.
Vast Cold Moon Shadow Step took this to the extreme as footwork.
-Swk...
Baek Hyun maximized his focus and slowly extended his right fist.
Not even perfected Flowing Cloud Fist—just the plain act of thrusting a fist, devoid of meaning.
An everyday motion any untrained commoner could do effortlessly, yet Peak-realm Baek Hyun performed it with utmost care.
The instant his right fist was about to fully extend...
-Tszpaang!
His left fist overlapped the right.
As if performing entirely different motions simultaneously.
As if a shadow acted wholly independently of its owner.
Completing the sequence, Baek Hyun caught his ragged breath but couldn't suppress a smile of ecstasy.
"Hoo... Who'd have thought it compresses not internal energy, but the motions themselves."
Multiple sequential motions compressed into one, then released at once to execute them all 'simultaneously'.
At the timing for only Motion A, performing subsequent B, C, etc., together.
Profoundly simple, yet outrageously cheat-like.
This is beyond cheat-tier; it's ridiculous.
Overlapping motions might sound trivial, but considering practical applications revealed its terrifying power.
It went beyond mere increased strikes.
In life-or-death combat where each exchange is mortal, he could unilaterally unleash multiple moves alone.
He could evade attacks impossible to dodge even knowing them, while foes couldn't evade what they could have.
In man-to-man combat, an unrivaled ultimate technique.
Its sole flaw...
"...To use in real battle, I'd need years training nothing but this."
Unimaginably high difficulty.
To realize the absurd notion of superimposing multiple motions, it infused Starpoint martial arts with extreme Transformation, Illusion, and Speed.
Even overlapping a simple punch took him about 30 seconds at best...
He couldn't fathom the training needed for combat use.
A true divine art.
Master it, and it would multiply his prowess several-fold—but for now, a bigger headache than the upper elixir field.
"Ha... I definitely got stronger, but my to-do list just grew."
Already buried in techniques to learn, now even more piled on.
One Yang Finger, Vast Cold Moon Shadow Step, and Shoot the Sun Sword Art requiring other Starpoint techniques...
Looks like he'd have to drop spirit herb gathering for a while and focus solely on training.
As Baek Hyun finished all his business and moved to leave the cave...
Oh, right—haven't I been here over a day?
I didn't tell the senior brothers...