Connection
"Jade Demon Sect Lord? You mean the Jade Demon Sect Lord—the head of the Black Path Sect?"
"Yes."
At my answer, Baek Jin-ah’s eyes widened as if she were checking to be sure she’d heard me right.
And, as expected, Guk-seon and Dang Yeong-young were both looking at me with expressions of open surprise.
"Why...? Is there a reason?"
"That part bothers me a little too. I can’t remember why. I only remember that I have to defeat the Jade Demon Sect Lord."
No need for some elaborate excuse. This was enough. It was absurdly convenient, really.
What was I supposed to do if I said I couldn’t remember?
So everyone fell silent with thoughtful hums. Even Guk-seon.
"It won’t be easy. That’s why I said it might be the sort of thing a person can’t finish in a single lifetime."
"To have to devote yourself to something without even knowing why... Yes, that would be a terrible burden."
But what Baek Jin-ah was worried about wasn’t that.
She wasn’t asking whether I could beat the Jade Demon Sect Lord. She was worrying about me.
That made my chest tighten a little. It was warmth I’d never really received before.
She looked colder than anyone, but inside she was warmer than anyone else.
"If you’re going to bring down the Jade Demon Sect Lord, you’re in for a hard time."
Guk-seon said it casually.
Which was why Baek Jin-ah and Dang Yeong-young both turned to stare at her with baffled faces.
"You’re not saying it’s impossible?"
When I asked that, Guk-seon let out a small laugh.
"What in this world is impossible? And if some nobody had said such a thing, I’d have dismissed it as nonsense and not given it a second thought. But you? You’re not the sort who can’t do it."
She looked, if anything, as though she liked the idea.
No matter how I looked at it, she had the look of someone hopelessly blinded by love. I really couldn’t explain it any other way.
"If your goal is that grand, then you need to train harder and sharpen your skill until it shines. So now, let us begin your proper training. From today onward, follow my teachings well. If you do, what need would you have to fear the Jade Demon Sect Lord? I’ll even make you into the strongest fighter under heaven. So come at once!"
As expected. That was her real aim all along. She was slyly satisfying her own private desires while calling it training.
Still, it wasn’t exactly wrong.
If someone of Guk-seon’s caliber guided me, the time it would take me to reach my goal would naturally shrink by a huge margin.
In the end, I followed the fired-up Guk-seon to the Murim Alliance training grounds, with Baek Jin-ah and Dang Yeong-young—who had been granted permission to join us—coming along as well.
"First, you should get used to the new sword you’ve obtained. Draw it. I need to see exactly what level you’re at."
With that, Guk-seon walked to the center of the training yard.
A broad smile spread across her face, and she looked almost unable to hide her pleasure.
If those who knew her well saw that expression, wouldn’t they get chills? That seemed likely.
I stepped forward with the newly acquired Hanjunggeom in my hands.
Was I worried that taking this sword head-on might be dangerous? Not really.
It was Guk-seon. Worrying about her on my behalf would be presumptuous.
"Let me see you give it everything you’ve got!"
So I quietly drew my sword and pointed it at Guk-seon.
A twenty-geun Hanjunggeom. A sword weighing a full twelve kilograms.
For an ordinary person, merely holding such a sword out before them would be an impossible posture.
Even if I told someone to hold up a full water bottle like this, their arm would already be shaking.
This was the weight of six of those combined, after all.
When I thought about it that way, it was obvious that Paeng Jeon-ho, swinging around the Jungcheolbungdo, was no ordinary person. He was monstrous, really.
In any case, I couldn’t just stand there holding the sword and watching, so I rushed straight at Guk-seon.
I began with Split-Light Sword Technique, an extreme fast-sword style that prized speed above all else.
And I unleashed it with a twelve-kilogram Hanjunggeom.
A blow containing tremendous force.
If someone blocked it carelessly, the sword might shatter—or at the very least, their arm could break.
But, as expected, Guk-seon was Guk-seon.
She had not drawn her sword at all until just before I reached her, but then, with graceful ease, she drew it and lightly deflected my strike.
It was barely a touch. But my blade was knocked aside with a dull thump, its path thrown off completely, and Guk-seon slipped away from that trajectory with languid ease.
Ah. So that’s what the mild in Mild Boundless Sword Technique means? Maybe? I guess that might be it.
The path of my sword had been disrupted, but the strength I’d gained through Iron Body Weight-Adding Force made all kinds of impossible things possible.
Forcing my body around and twisting the blade’s line, I linked the next form together through an absurd trajectory.
My waist twinged with a little strain, but I successfully changed the sword’s course, and my blade again flashed fiercely toward Guk-seon.
But once again, she brushed it aside without expending much force. Her expression remained calm and unruffled.
It went on like that.
I was using Split-Light Sword Technique and Mild Boundless Sword Technique, but fundamentally, I was still only at the level of a beginner.
There was no true depth in my sword yet. I was only copying the shape of it.
That was why Guk-seon could stay so calm.
No matter how ridiculous my strength was, and no matter how impossible the lines of my sword could become, everything was still laid bare before her eyes.
And so I traded sword blows with Guk-seon for nearly half a shichen.
Half a shichen was an hour. I had been swinging a twelve-kilogram sword for that long, and yet my arms weren’t even sore—they were still perfectly fine.
Just a little winded, that was all. Seriously, what kind of body had I become?
"Child."
"Hah... yes, Senior."
"It’s a bit early to say this, but keep it in mind. You must not become obsessed with form. Nor should you become fixated on the individual techniques."
I waited for her to continue, and Guk-seon explained the rest on her own.
"The Split-Light Sword Technique you used, and the Mild Boundless Sword Technique I taught you, were both made with ordinary swords in mind. No one ever imagined someone would take a twenty-geun sword and use it for swordplay, did they?"
"No, Senior."
"Exactly. So there is only one thing you must do. You don’t need to force yourself to imitate the sword forms that already exist. Take only what is good from them, and understand only their essence. That is how you will gain a sword that is truly your own."
I understood what she meant.
Even though they were both PC games, FPS and AOS were completely different genres.
In other words, I was supposed to be playing FPS, but the sword techniques I had learned so far were basically AOS.
So what she was telling me was to learn only the parts that mattered here—judgment, visual acuity, quick reactions, coordination, teamwork, reading the situation.
And then, later on, I’d play the real FPS properly.
"I understand."
"Good. Then that settles it. Now, then...."
As Guk-seon began thinking about what I should do next, Baek Jin-ah and Dang Yeong-young approached us and spoke up.
"Senior. I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to interrupt, but... we were just too curious to hold back."
"Curious about what?"
"Harin’s sword... It seems a little strange."
Guk-seon grinned and looked at me.
"Ah, that. Yes, it probably does. Hmm. Better to see it for yourself than hear me explain it, isn’t it? Want to take a look? My sword?"
"Can I?"
"Why not? We’re all on the same side here. But be careful—you don’t want to drop it. Mind your feet."
"Huh?"
Baek Jin-ah seemed to be unusually struck by the phrase on the same side.
She looked a little dazed after that and probably didn’t catch the rest of what I said.
"Eep!?"
Baek Jin-ah took the sword from me and immediately staggered.
She didn’t drop it on her foot or anything, but her face was clearly flustered.
"W-What is this?"
Baek Jin-ah was, after all, a martial artist in name as well as practice, so she wasn’t so weak that she couldn’t lift a twelve-kilogram sword.
Still, she couldn’t help looking stunned.
Understandable. It looked like a normal sword, but it weighed twenty geun.
"How...?"
"Amazing, right?"
"Why? What is it? What is this thing?"
Dang Yeong-young, eyes full of curiosity, chimed in from the side, and Baek Jin-ah carefully held the Hanjunggeom with both hands before offering it to her.
"It’s heavy. So be careful when you hold it."
At the warning, Dang Yeong-young tilted her head and took the sword.
And the moment its weight settled into her hands, her eyes went wide.
"What!?"
Dang Yeong-young was small-framed and didn’t have much strength, so when she received it, she staggered even more dramatically than Baek Jin-ah had.
Good grief. I was worried she might cut herself on the blade. Maybe I should have put a scabbard on it before handing it over.
"No way? This is absurd."
She turned the sword this way and that, examining it with wonder.
Baek Jin-ah was no different. After staring at it for a long while, she looked up at me and said,
"But, Harin."
"Yes?"
"How is there such a cold aura coming from the sword?"
Apparently having felt it, she touched the blade with her finger and asked.
"Ah, that. When I made this sword, I tempered it using ice-based inner energy. I poured everything I had into it—seven times over. That’s why it’s called Hanjunggeom."
"I see... But you tempered it with ice-based energy?"
Then she took the sword back from Dang Yeong-young.
Though heavy, Baek Jin-ah gripped it firmly with both hands and held it upright without wavering.
After looking at the sword for a moment, she suddenly unleashed a flood of Ice Soul Divine Art.
Cold burst out of nowhere—far beyond anything I myself could summon.
Baek Jin-ah then fed that energy into the sword.
Crack, crack—frost gathered on the Hanjunggeom. Pale-white sword qi rose from it.
At this rate, it really did feel like some hidden treasured blade of the North Sea Ice Palace.
"Incredible... To contain the energy of ice arts so easily..."
"That’s incredible?"
"Yes. Ordinary swords can’t hold that much ice qi. Why else would the Ice Palace rely on palm techniques? Weapons forged by fire don’t suit ice-based arts very well. That’s why it’s difficult to infuse them with that much internal energy."
Ah. So that was it. No wonder things hadn’t gone smoothly.
Apparently even Guk-seon hadn’t known that, because she listened to Baek Jin-ah with interest.
Still, that was fascinating. So this was the secret behind the Ice Soul Divine Palm?
"But at this level... there doesn’t seem to be any problem at all with storing internal energy. If the Ice Palace had been able to make swords like this, maybe sword techniques would have developed instead of palm techniques...?"
Then, as if the sword’s weight finally struck her, she withdrew her energy and held it out to me.
I took it lightly with one hand, and Baek Jin-ah and Dang Yeong-young watched the sight with astonishment.
"Sword techniques of the Ice Palace, huh..."
I muttered the words to myself, and then I felt something click.
What Guk-seon had said. What Baek Jin-ah had said.
If I put those together properly... wasn’t there something there?
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