Chapter 110: A New Internal Energy Heart Method (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 110: A New Internal Energy Heart Method (3)
Song Jeong sat in a chair outside his office, his gaze fixed on the meticulously landscaped pond.
He made it a point to come here once a day to appreciate the scenery. While the space wasn't large enough to fill his entire field of vision, the sight always lifted his spirits. Perhaps such a small, contained space simply suited his temperament better.
Step, step, step.
A man approached as the Sect Leader sat with his eyes closed. Seeing Song Jeong, the man hesitated, wondering if the elder had fallen fast asleep. He began to turn away slowly, hoping not to disturb him.
"What is it?" Song Jeong asked.
He was a man who could distinguish the sound of a falling leaf from thirty paces away. Even if he had been deep in slumber, there was no way he would fail to notice someone approaching this closely.
"There is a child who wishes to see the Sect Leader."
"To see me?"
"Yes."
"Who is it?"
"It is Seok Jun."
"Seok Jun... Seok Jun, is it?" Song Jeong murmured the name to himself before nodding. "Let him in."
The man bowed and quickly exited the garden, taking care not to brush against any of the delicate plants lining the path.
A moment later, a young man walked down that same path.
"Your face is heavy with worry."
Song Jeong wasn't even looking at Seok Jun, yet he seemed to read the boy's heart with ease.
"I have something to tell you, Sect Leader."
"Is it important?"
"Yes. It is important to me."
"Then I must hear it. It has been a while since I’ve had a private audience with a First Generation Disciple. Come, sit beside me."
There were chairs placed to the left and right of Song Jeong. Seok Jun sat down cautiously in one of them.
"Haha. Why are a young man's shoulders drooping so? In a duel, there are times you win and times you lose."
"..."
Seok Jun did not respond to the Sect Leader's attempt at a joke. He simply sat there in silence, looking dejected. Song Jeong clicked his tongue and spoke again.
"Did you tell Song Hak you were coming?"
"No, I did not."
"Then it must be an exceptionally important matter."
"...Something like that."
"Very well, let's hear it."
At Song Jeong's prompting, Seok Jun finally turned to him.
"Sect Leader, do you remember the sparring match from a few days ago?"
"You mean the duel between you and Seok Myeong at the Grand Purity Hall?"
"Yes."
"Of course, I remember it well."
Encouraged, Seok Jun continued. "Then you must also know of the energy the Eldest Disciple unleashed at the very end."
"Yes, I saw it. He crushed your energy with a power I had never seen before."
"About that..." Seok Jun's eyes widened, the words pouring out as if he had been holding them back by force. "That energy. That black energy that looked like molten iron. Did it truly look like an evil, heterodox energy to your eyes as well, Sect Leader?"
Song Jeong looked at Seok Jun. An amused smile played across his lips as he asked, "Why do you ask that?"
"It's... well..." Seok Jun lowered his head. "My father says it is, but I... I don't think it was an evil energy."
"What makes you think so?"
"The heart method I learned at Qingcheng is the Azure Origin Heart Method. It is the pure internal energy of an orthodox sect. If Eldest Disciple Seok Myeong's energy were truly evil, there should have been a violent explosion or a fierce repulsion upon contact. But that energy did not explode."
"Ho? Is that so?"
"Yes. From what I felt when I was struck by it, it was more like... annihilation. Not mere destruction, but as if my own energy was simply brushed aside and scattered. My experience is shallow, so I can only describe it this way, but that is how it felt."
"Hmm. Scattered, you say."
"At the very least, there was no explosion. Doesn't that mean the energy the Eldest Disciple emitted was pure? At least, it means it wasn't some bone-chilling heterodox or demonic art like my father claims."
Seok Jun's voice trembled, which was unlike him. It was no small feat to voice an opinion directly opposite to that of his father, Song Hak, especially to the Sect Leader. Song Jeong waited patiently for him to unburden his heart completely.
"I want to hear your thoughts, Sect Leader," Seok Jun asked, finally looking up.
Song Jeong gave a small smile and nodded. "My thoughts are the same as yours."
Seok Jun's eyes flashed. "Then why...?"
"You've misunderstood. Seok Myeong went to the Heaven Pillar Prison of his own accord."
"Why would he go to such a place...?"
"I don't know exactly. Perhaps he went in because he was frightened, or perhaps he did it because he feared there might be others who felt the way you do..."
"Ah..."
Tap, tap.
Song Jeong brushed off his hands and stared quietly at Seok Jun. "Do you feel a bit more relieved now?"
"...Sect Leader." Seok Jun's fingernails dug into his palms.
As if interrogating him, Song Jeong spoke slowly but in a gentle tone. "When Seok Myeong said he would enter the Heaven Pillar Prison, you must have felt a sense of relief in your own way. You needed a way to vent the resentment of your defeat. Isn't that right?"
"..."
"And now that your head has cooled, you've realized it was a wrong decision and came to tell me. Tell me—if your heart hadn't softened, would you have been able to defend Seok Myeong's position?"
"No. I am still... the same."
"If that were true, you would have gone to Song Hak."
Seok Jun lowered his hands. His eyes were bloodshot, and he found it difficult to make a sound, as if something were stuck in his throat. Only now did he understand.
He understood Seok Myeong's position. Seok Myeong knew he had done nothing wrong, yet he had stepped back. He had taken the fall for Seok Jun's sake.
"Why would the Eldest Disciple go that far...?"
"Because he is the Eldest Disciple." Song Jeong shook his head as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "A junior's failure is the senior’s responsibility. A junior’s triumph is the senior’s pride. That is the heart an Eldest Disciple must possess. He likely hoped for the same from you."
"Ha..."
Seok Jun let out a hollow sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. Come to think of it, he was right. Before their duel, Seok Myeong had clearly said:
— It is truly a pity.
— What do you mean by that?
— I thought you might be a little different. Weren't you the first among us to wear the Azure Sutra Robe? Furthermore, your martial arts were more than enough to serve as an example to our brothers. But it seems nothing has changed with the passage of time.
Grip!
Seok Jun clenched his fists. The thought currently crossing his mind was, absurdly, to find Seok Myeong and...
"...I want to punch him once."
"I'm sure you do. I felt the same way."
The Sect Leader chuckled. Seok Jun blinked in surprise. "You felt the same way, Sect Leader?"
"Did you think I didn't have an Eldest Disciple of my own? Though his talent wasn't great, and I was the one who wore the Azure Sutra Robe first, I had a senior brother too. He was a truly stubborn... hateful senior."
Song Jeong's eyes slowly turned toward the sky. The memories of the old Taoist, now past fifty, returned to his childhood.
"There are people like that. People whose vessels are simply too large. People you hate for no particular reason. I wondered if it was because of his swordsmanship. I wondered if it was because of the woman he held in his heart. But it wasn't. Isn't that right?"
"..." Seok Jun could not answer. With a devastated expression, he lowered his head, his gaze turned inward toward his own heart. The Sect Leader was right.
"Be bold, Seok Jun."
"..."
"Admit that what is scary is scary, and admit that what you envy is envy. That is true courage. That is the spirit of Qingcheng."
No Sword, No Person.
If there is no sword, there is no person.
Qingcheng was a sect that sought to resemble the sword more than any other Taoist sect. A straight and clear sword. A sword that grows as honestly as the effort put into refining it.
Clutch!
Seok Jun covered his face with his hands. Then, with great difficulty, he finally spoke.
"Sect Leader. I..."
"Yes."
"I hate the Eldest Disciple. I really do..."
"...I see."
A sob threatened to burst out. Seok Jun, his head bowed, could not stand up from his seat for a long time. The image of Seok Myeong's smile—the smile that had always accepted him without limit—flickered before his eyes.
*
Seok Myeong could not spend his entire day solely on researching heart methods. He knew that qi flows through the body's acupoints and that desired results aren't achieved through short-term effort alone.
Furthermore, the path of qi circulation he had envisioned was different from before. For reasons unknown, the Azure Wind Origin Heart Method, which formed the skeletal structure, and the demonic qi were rotating in the same direction. Seok Myeong decided to devote time to research while waiting to find the cause.
Naturally, his remaining time began to shift toward another area: swordsmanship.
"The representative sword techniques of Qingcheng are the Azure Cloud Red Mist Sword and the Heaven and Earth Sword."
These two were high-level sword arts. This meant that unless one reached a certain realm, they could not grasp the true essence, let alone draw out their full power. Seok Myeong focused on this point and thought of a way to resolve it.
Could I combine the strengths of the Azure Cloud Red Mist Sword and the Heaven and Earth Sword? Furthermore, could I create a sword technique that exerts sufficient power even in the hands of disciples with lower cultivation?
Once his thoughts reached this point, Seok Myeong listed all the Qingcheng sword techniques he knew. Starting from the basic Azure Wind Sword Technique, to the Azure Center Sword Technique, the Nine Currents Sword, and so on—eventually, the number reached thirty-two.
Seok Myeong was quite surprised. Even excluding Azure Cloud Taoist's personal martial arts, there were far too many sword techniques in Qingcheng.
I must make it simple, yet capable of containing powerful strength.
Seok Myeong sat in the lotus position and entered a state of meditation. First, he began to visualize the martial arts he had mastered and the ones the disciples of Qingcheng learned. One martial art came to mind. Then another was drawn beside it. In this manner, the martial arts continued to connect.
As he recalled them one by one, the number soon grew to nearly thirty. This was something an ordinary person could hardly imagine. Visualizing even a single sword technique in one's mind is difficult, yet thirty different sword techniques were moving simultaneously within his head.
A transformation occurred within his Upper Dantian. Seok Myeong's mental world became so deep and wide that the Dark Heaven Bracelet became useless. It was truly an extraordinary and grand world, bringing about changes that transcended human capability.
This time, Seok Myeong began to erase the visualized martial arts one by one. The first ten or so were easy to discard. There were parts where the sword paths overlapped, and the methods of operation were similar. However, as time passed, it became increasingly difficult to weed them out. They seemed to overlap, but upon closer inspection, they were slightly different; and within those differences, similar parts caught his eye.
When Seok Myeong opened his eyes, it was night, not morning. Judging by his hunger, at least three or four days had passed.
"Nine."
Nine sword techniques survived in his mind. Twenty-three forms of the Azure Cloud Red Mist Sword, supposedly a high-level martial art, had vanished, and three forms of the Heaven and Earth Sword had also been discarded.
Seok Myeong wrote down the names of the remaining forms and the sword techniques on the paper he had placed on the floor. He knew that from this point on, enlightenment could not be achieved through meditation alone. He had to personally practice and train to create the optimal combination. Furthermore, he had to make the flow of the forms harmonious, from the first to the last.
*
Seok Myeong divided his daily schedule and occasionally turned his attention back to the internal energy heart method. He hadn't found a specific solution, but he contemplated his own body and felt the energy circulating within.
Then, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.
Isn't the direction currently flowing naturally within my body exactly what I want? Isn't the path the internal energy takes within me a heart method that has already stabilized by melting the strengths of each technique together?
Seok Myeong jumped to his feet. It was true. Developing a heart method from scratch was meaningless. The three heart methods already within his body were moving as one.
The Azure Wind Origin Heart Method had not mixed with the demonic qi initially, but they had merged due to the mediation of the Taiji Empty Heart, and now they could be considered one.
The resulting Black Ink Energy.
Upon closer inspection, its core contained the energy of Qingcheng, and the black energy expressed outwardly was the result of the demonic qi being neutralized.
The fact that the Dark Heaven Bracelet had disappeared... that, too, was because the energies within his body had completely synchronized along a set path. Since the neutralizing function was no longer needed, the artifact had oxidized on its own.
In other words, the answer was already dissolved within his own body.
"The answer was right here all along!"
Seok Myeong picked up the brush lying on the floor. He quickly spread out a sheet of paper and began to move the brush like a man possessed.
Qingcheng Heart Method (靑城心法)
The name of the heart method that would later be called the greatest in the history of the Qingcheng Sect was thus decided. This innovative method of combining demonic qi with the energy of Qingcheng was born under the name of the last lineage of Azure Cloud Taoist, inheriting his immense labor and final will.