The Archive
Honestly, I hadn’t expected all that much to begin with.
This was the second floor, accessible only with an iron token.
There was no way the manuals and martial arts texts stored here were anything extraordinary.
It would be embarrassing to imagine that some fortuitous encounter or peerless divine art was hidden in a place like this.
That would just be me trying to coast through the world on the cheap. Shameless, really.
Of course, it could exist.
Maybe some utterly idle peerless master had hidden their supreme technique here so that the one fated to find it could learn it someday.
In a way, that was a very romantic thought.
But even if something like that really was here, finding it would be difficult.
And even if I did find it, I had no way of recognizing it.
It’s not like the martial arts I learned came with neat little grades like S or A stamped on them.
Ah. Wait. Maybe there was a way after all.
When I ate a medicinal pill, the stars in my martial arts rose all at once, didn’t they? And the better the martial art looked, the fewer stars it increased by?
Then I could probably use that to judge their quality. It was a pretty cumbersome method, though.
Anyway, with those thoughts in mind, I began pulling the manuals one by one from the shelves.
Utterly ordinary manuals. Worn covers, handwriting that wasn’t particularly neat.
No, come to think of it, this wasn’t even really a manual of secret teachings. It wasn’t hidden at all. In that case, it was more accurate to call it just a martial arts book.
A martial arts book labeled Hoho Divine Art.
A divine art, of all things, in a martial arts book on the second floor.
Had the person who created this martial art overestimated themselves? Did they honestly think there was something in here worthy of being called a divine art?
And what had the people who classified this as second-floor material been thinking when they saw it?
I read it.
I read every character from beginning to end without skipping a single line.
Hoho Divine Art. Just as the name suggested, it was a martial art focused entirely on methods of protecting the body.
There was nothing especially remarkable about it. I couldn’t even tell how it differed from protective qi armor.
Still, it showed up in the skill window as Hoho Divine Art, so it had to do something.
Maybe it would produce some effect once I mastered it to the highest level?
While I was reading like that, Gyeokseon, Baek Jin-ah, and Dang Yeong-young were each wandering around, looking over the manuals in their own way.
They probably weren’t doing it to learn them themselves. They were likely just looking for anything promising to pass along to me.
At any rate, I put the manual for Hoho Divine Art back on the shelf and picked up another one.
A martial arts book labeled Mangryeon Hojo Punch. Hmm… do I really need to read this too? It’s not like reading takes that long anyway…
It was unfortunate not to know what was good.
If I could tell the grade just by looking, that would have been wonderful.
I put the Mangryeon Hojo Punch manual back for the moment.
Techniques like this, where only the form is present, won’t gain stars just because you take a medicinal pill.
To distinguish them, I had to learn techniques that included inner methods. Only then could I tell what was good.
So I focused on reading only the martial arts books that contained inner methods.
But even after reading them all, there were quite a few martial arts books that never appeared in the skill window.
Hmm… there were probably all sorts of reasons for that.
Maybe the martial art itself was trash, or maybe part of it had been lost somewhere, or maybe someone copied it down wrong while transcribing it… things like that.
That was why the number of martial arts books that actually registered was surprisingly small.
This was the problem with the Murim Alliance archive. There were too many things that weren’t the original texts.
Was it because this was the second floor? Well, who would even care about the martial arts on the second floor?
For example, there was no one here except us.
Of course, one or two people had come by earlier, but the moment they saw Gyeokseon, they’d turned tail and fled as if they’d suddenly remembered some forgotten errand.
Just what had they been doing to run away like that merely because they saw his face? Honestly….
Anyway, by the time I’d registered a few manuals in my skill window, Gyeokseon, Baek Jin-ah, and Dang Yeong-young were still just browsing around.
There probably wasn’t anything they could confidently recommend.
Martial arts like these would never catch Gyeokseon’s eye.
And Baek Jin-ah and Dang Yeong-young still didn’t have the discernment to tell the difference.
Still, after a little while, Baek Jin-ah brought a manual over to me.
"Harin. Want to take a look at this?"
What she handed me was a plain little manual marked Hanseon Art.
Just from the name, I could tell it was an ice-based technique. Definitely.
I took it from her and opened it at once.
Its characters were written with unexpected neatness, which made it easy to read. And it wasn’t very long, either.
"It’s not some amazing martial art. But surprisingly, it really captures the essence of ice techniques. It lacks depth, though."
Baek Jin-ah said that to me as I read.
If the vice palace lord of the Ice Palace said so, then that was probably true.
The person who wrote this manual would probably be proud if they knew, wouldn’t they?
They’d basically been acknowledged by someone who could be called the top expert in that field.
[Hanseon Art acquired.]
Good. So this was a proper martial art after all. It registered immediately.
I opened the skill window to check.
"Huh?"
"Hm? What is it? Is there a problem?"
"No, it’s nothing. Just a second."
Not wanting to look suspicious, I pretended to think casually while staring at the skill window.
Hanseon Art was definitely there. But even though I’d only just learned it, all twelve stars beneath it were already filled in.
What the hell? Was this the sort of martial art you could use immediately just by learning it?
No, that wasn’t right. Hanseon Art was still an ice technique, and it was definitely a martial art that required training.
I knew that because I’d memorized the entire formula. So that made no sense.
"Why? Is something wrong?"
My face must have looked a little serious. Baek Jin-ah looked at me with a slightly worried expression.
"No. I was just thinking about something. About this Hanseon Art."
"Ah. Is that all? Then there’s no need to worry?"
"Yes."
"If it’s because of this martial art, then you really don’t need to be concerned. From what I read, it’s very true to the basics. It made me wonder if the one who wrote this manual had read the opening sections of the Ice Soul Divine Art. It would be a waste for it to be sitting in a place like this."
Hearing Baek Jin-ah say that, I started to get a vague idea.
So I thought of the Ice Soul Divine Art and compared its formula to Hanseon Art for a moment.
After checking that way, I more or less understood.
Maybe this happened because the Ice Soul Divine Art was at four stars?
As Baek Jin-ah had said, Hanseon Art was basically a lower-tier version of the Ice Soul Divine Art.
A martial art that laid out the fundamentals of ice techniques in a fairly systematic way.
A method written so that even in places not as harsh as the Ice Palace, one could still begin to learn ice arts.
That’s probably why it jumped straight to twelve stars. After all, the higher martial art above it, the Ice Soul Divine Art, was already at four stars.
Thinking that far, I quietly circulated my internal energy.
Hanseon Art at twelve-star mastery. And the Ice Soul Divine Art at four stars.
Hanseon Art itself didn’t amount to anything particularly remarkable. But when I ran the Ice Soul Divine Art again, I could feel that something was different from before.
It felt much easier to guide.
The flow of true qi was smoother too, and the cold energy felt even denser than before.
If this really meant that Hanseon Art had strengthened the Ice Soul Divine Art, then that would be incredible.
So Ice Soul Divine Art got stronger just by collecting lower-tier martial arts? I wasn’t going to let that go.
"Miss Baek."
"No, you should call me older sister."
"Ah… older sister."
"Yes. Go on."
Baek Jin-ah said it with perfect composure. So calling her older sister mattered that much?
"Do you think there might be other proper ice techniques here besides Hanseon Art?"
"Hmm. I suppose we’d have to keep looking."
"Sorry, but could you help me find them? When it comes to finding ice arts, there isn’t anyone better than you, older sister."
I wasn’t sure whether it was because I’d praised her as an expert in ice arts or because I’d called her older sister.
Either way, Baek Jin-ah smiled brightly, said she would, and immediately set off to look for other ice techniques.
Still, this was pretty amazing. This actually worked?
Did it have some kind of built-in synergy? Was that only possible because these were ice techniques?
Since they were in the same category? Probably. Looking at this, it felt extremely game-like.
Wait. Then did other things have this kind of synergy too?
For instance, if I learned a famous inner method from the Zhongnan Sect and then learned one of its subordinate methods, would that work the same way?
But that was a little unclear. The two techniques would have to belong to the same category, after all.
Thinking about it that way, ice techniques were in a pretty advantageous position.
There weren’t many of them to begin with, and I was already learning the highest-level one of all, the Ice Soul Divine Art.
Hmm… how should I check the others? Should I ask Gyeokseon after all?
But Gyeokseon felt a little burdensome.
If I were to go to him first and ask him to tell me about the Zhongnan martial arts, he’d probably grin from ear to ear and explain everything to me.
But then I’d end up taking too much.
The world is a place where you have to give back what you receive.
If nothing goes back when things come in, trouble eventually follows.
For now, it was fine because Gyeokseon was watching me with such obvious goodwill, but kindness like that never came free.
So I decided against asking Gyeokseon for Zhongnan’s martial arts.
Besides, for the moment, the Ice Soul Divine Art alone was enough.
With that thought in mind, I looked at my skill window.
Then I stared at the True Origin Inner Method at the very top and the martial art listed beneath it.
Moonlight Divine Art.
A martial art that had increased by 0.25 stars even when the Ice Soul Divine Art rose by only half a star.
The Ice Soul Divine Art might not be S-rank, but it had to be at least A-rank.
Which meant the Moonlight Divine Art was something extraordinary. A technique that was, quite plainly, S-rank.
I recalled the formula of the Moonlight Divine Art once more. Then I savored it again in my mind.
It was still a difficult martial art. The contents were so obscure and complicated they were almost absurd.
Hmm… should I ask Gyeokseon about this too? See if he knows anything?
So I left Baek Jin-ah to continue her automatic search and approached Gyeokseon.
He’d been reading a martial arts book with a rather indifferent expression, but when I came close, he gave a light snort, closed the book, and slid it back onto the shelf.
"Senior."
"What is it?"
"Do you perhaps know anything about the Moonlight Divine Art?"
When I asked that, Gyeokseon’s expression turned faintly startled, and he looked at me in return.
"The Moonlight Divine Art? How do you know of that? Did you perhaps find a martial art that mentioned it?"
"What? No, nothing like that."
"If you ever find a martial arts book that mentions it, tell me immediately. I’ve already checked every martial arts book in the archive once, so that shouldn’t be possible, but still."
At Gyeokseon’s words, I felt a little puzzled.
This… was it actually an insanely impressive martial art? His reaction sure made it seem that way.