The Dragon and Phoenix Gathering
I got thoroughly beaten by the clan lord and ended up spilling quite a few truths. Things about Jisuseong and Jijiseong, to be precise. Namgung Jeong listened and nodded without a shred of doubt. After all, the moment I casually brought back Jisuseong's leg, there was no way I could be a demon, right?
At the end of our fierce sparring, the clan lord said he would send a search party to the cave I mentioned. Given how meticulous those bastards were, they had probably erased their traces and retreated, but even finding their remnants would be meaningful.
I remembered the clan lord saying this after I had poured out everything I knew in the middle of the training ground: "You may use Jisuseong yourself. However, the evil demonic qi dwelling within it must be resolved, and this clan lord shall assist with that. In return, once the qi is purified, you must accompany this clan lord somewhere with the leg of Jisuseong."
"What are you planning, Clan Lord?"
"The Yongbong-jihoe is approaching soon. I intend to share this information with the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Clans gathered there. As proof, I will present the leg of Jisuseong. It is the perfect pretext, justification, and timing for those busy old men to gather in one place."
"Dragon Phoenix of the Circle?"
"...What nonsense are you spouting? Well, regardless, that is how it will be. So, would you mind remaining a guest of our clan until the Yongbong-jihoe begins? We will treat you well."
"Sure. I need time to sort through a few things anyway."
That was how the conversation ended. For a while, I would be staying as a guest of the Namgung Clan.
When I opened my eyes after reminiscing, Yong Cheong, Namgung Ryeon, and the little twin sisters were all there. They were all looking down at me, who had been sleeping soundly. It felt a bit awkward to suddenly become a spectacle.
"What? Why are you all staring like that?"
"Sister, that's not it. What did you go do? Look at those bruises—how did this happen?"
"It was nothing much. I just got hit."
"Did you run into the Pirate King or something? Who else would dare lay a hand on you?"
"I got these bruises while sparring with the clan lord."
At those words, everyone fell silent. Everyone except Namgung Ryeon.
"Father? Father did this? Sister, Father did this to you?"
"Yeah. He was really going at it, pounding away."
Namgung Ryeon covered her mouth with both hands as if her own face had been struck.
"No, even so, hitting a woman's face? What do we do, what do we do? How could he hit your face when you have no reason to be struck? Has Father gone mad?"
"Young Lady Namgung. No matter what, calling your father mad is a bit... improper..."
"Shut up, Blue Dragon! Even having a man alone in a room full of women is improper! Especially when this is Sister's bedroom!"
At that, Yong Cheong's face showed surprise, as if he had only just realized it. The twin girls were too young to be seen as women, and as for me... well, I was pretty, but in this state, no one could perceive me as a woman. Namgung Ryeon had simply developed the habit of unconsciously ignoring me and treating me like I wasn't there, so she had never thought of it as "Oh, the Sword Phoenix is here."
But now that I thought about it, Yong Cheong had entered a room full of women—while I was sleeping soundly—and was staring at my injuries. His face turned red. Honestly, seeing him blush like that was incredibly annoying. What the hell was he embarrassed about? Did he want to die?
I grabbed him by the waist and threw him straight out the door. With a scream of "Aaaagh! My Lady!" he vanished beyond the doorway.
Only then did Namgung Ryeon nod and begin kneading my cheeks again. Worry and sorrow were now plainly written on her face.
...It felt like picking up a stray cat on the road, only to find it purring like a dog after just two days. What was this? She wasn't like this before. Did she really just need someone that badly? And if she was this quick to grow attached, why had she lived the way she did? If you want love, you have to act cute. What kind of mindset must be stuck in her head to make her behave like that? I really couldn't understand it. This was what they meant when they said status ruins people.
"Seriously, what is this? It's upsetting. You've got bruises here!"
"When you're fighting, who cares if it's a man or a woman?"
"...Wait here, Sister."
Namgung Ryeon pulled something that looked like medicine from her robes and slapped it onto my face. Honestly, it was sticky and unpleasant.
"It's the highest-grade geumchangyak from our clan, so it'll heal quickly. Father really has lost his mind. What if it leaves a scar...?"
"My recovery is good, so it'll be fine."
I had recovered even after that mess with the Black Moon Cult Lord, and Shin-ui had assured me that as long as my limbs weren't severed, everything would heal. It would probably be completely fine. If not, well, too bad.
Namgung Ryeon's expression grew worse by the second as she applied the ointment to my face. The more she rubbed and thought about it, the more the stabbing feeling in her heart intensified instead of fading. People were like that—if a beautiful work of art or cultural artifact was damaged, even if it had nothing to do with them, they felt pained. They got angry at the scoundrel who did it, even if it didn't affect their own interests. And the one who had done this to the sister she had come to respect and admire was her own father? It felt like her fault somehow, and she wanted to apologize.
"...No matter how I think about it, this won't do. Sister, wait here for a moment."
"Huh? Where are you going?"
"I need to have a word with Father."
With that, she turned and walked away, her back radiating cold fury. I smiled wickedly inside. They always said no father could win against his daughter. I hadn't planned to go this far, but this was a small revenge against Namgung Jeong, who had been throwing nothing but straight punches without any flair. The clan lord who couldn't control his strength during sparring deserved a scolding.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Sister. A gift."
"What's this?"
"An elixir."
"Really?"
I didn't need elixirs. I already had plenty to digest from everything I had consumed so far. I had already swallowed Shin-ui's one-of-a-kind elixir, Gongcheongseokyu, and one of the Namgung Clan's finest pills while at the Jeoljeong realm, so I was still in the process of absorbing them. But Namgung Ryeon's expression was oddly smug, as if demanding that I rejoice at her tremendous generosity and favor.
"Ta-da!"
She opened the lid of a palm-sized jar. Inside flowed a strange liquid.
...What was I supposed to do with this?
"What is it, Namgung?"
"Sister, this is called Geumgol-aek—Golden Bone Fluid."
"Gold Skeleton Slime?"
"Pardon?"
"Never mind. Keep going."
Namgung Ryeon chattered excitedly. Apparently, after yelling at her father about what he had done to her benefactor, she had dragged this out of the warehouse. A mere Cheongso-dan wouldn't suffice—though it wasn't exactly "mere"—but anyway. She had nagged him that repaying the one who saved the Sword Phoenix's life with violence was unacceptable and that he needed to put in more effort. I nodded. Even so, a single round bead as compensation for saving his daughter's life had been a bit much.
"They say if you apply this and train your external arts, the efficiency increases dramatically."
"Really?"
"As you know, Sister, unlike internal energy, external arts require consistent training and time to mature and reach mastery, no matter how talented you are or how good the technique is."
That was true. Muscle and bone density growth, skin reinforcement—none of it could be completed just by taking good medicine and training. External arts needed a great deal of effort and time to truly ripen. But the world always found shortcuts.
"If you apply this to your body and train external arts, the time required is greatly reduced."
"Really?"
"Wouldn't it be perfect for training the Budongmyeongwanggyeong you obtained this time?"
I clicked my tongue inwardly. I was grateful, but my interest still lay only in sword techniques. However, dismissing it outright as a matter of preference felt wasteful.
'The clan lord was strong, after all.'
During my fight with him, I had realized something: no matter how great your technique, you needed at least the right physical level to exchange blows. I was working hard on my internal energy, but external arts were harder to solve. A martial artist who had trained in superior external techniques since birth versus a girl who had only been training for a few months—there was still an absolute lack of time, even if I had improved considerably. If I could shorten that time...
Even if it was just a martial art of punches and kicks... I had no choice but to swallow my pride a little.
"Sounds good. Thanks, Namgung."
"Hehe, it's nothing, Sister."
After chatting with Namgung Ryeon for a while, we parted ways. She said she had to return to the Namgung Clan for regular training and studies. Thanks to that, I had some free time. Yong Cheong, still shocked from being useless during the Geum Ra-geol incident, was training diligently after taking the So-hwan-dan. The twins, Oh-ryeong and Yuk-ryeong, had also been sent to the training hall to learn basic martial arts so they would have at least minimal strength to survive this harsh world when they grew up. Everyone was training hard. I might as well ride this wave of enthusiasm a bit.
"Let's take a look."
I opened the book titled Budongmyeongwanggyeong. I had heard it was a martial art based on the teachings of some esoteric Buddhist sect. As expected, the moment I opened it, it was filled with incomprehensible nonsense. That made sense—the Budongmyeongwanggyeong had been created for esoteric Buddhists to learn, and its teachings were steeped in their doctrines, which were difficult for outsiders to grasp. Fortunately, when it came to the external arts section, some of that problem was alleviated.
"Right. Even the body training part doesn't have any weird stuff attached."
I had no interest in the internal energy part of the Budongmyeongwanggyeong—the Budongmyeongwang-simgyeong—to begin with. Even as a reference, it wouldn't mesh well with the arts I was currently practicing and would only cause conflicts. What I wanted was the external arts. If I could extract and learn just the essence, that was enough.
Under the lantern light, I flipped through the pages, committing the characters to memory. Among them, one part stood out as particularly useful, making it hard to suppress my admiration.
My gaze stopped on a certain phrase and refused to move.
"Budongmyeongwang-bo."
The moment I read it, I understood. This was the footwork technique that Geum Ra-geol had said reached the level of a divine art. If I mastered the Budongmyeongwang-bo thoroughly, I felt like I could naturally comprehend one of the principles of martial arts without even realizing it.
"Hooh."
This was quite interesting. No wonder Geum Ra-geol had been flying around despite his mangled body—he had been practicing such excellent external arts and footwork. However, it was clear that this martial art didn't suit his style. The Budongmyeongwanggyeong was upright, silent, and solid, which wouldn't have matched a water pirate like him. The occasional footwork tricks he had shown hadn't been "unmoving" at all. As a master who had reached Hwagyeong, he had probably taken only the essence of the Budongmyeongwang-bo and modified the rest to suit himself—creating a water pirate's footwork that allowed free and rapid movement even in water.
I couldn't see the highest level of the Budongmyeongwanggyeong through his modifications, but even so, Geum Ra-geol had used Ihyeonghwanwi and Gungshintanyeong brilliantly. No wonder his body had been ridiculously sturdy. He had been practicing excellent external arts. Still, if he had mastered the Budongmyeongwanggyeong and reached its peak, he would have attained the realm of Geumgangbulgoe described here, which was a bit of a shame. Really, the guy always took the long way around, ignoring the good path right in front of him to do whatever he wanted. That attitude and mindset were probably what allowed him to reach Hwagyeong as a water pirate.
"Hmm."
I pondered for a moment whether to learn the Budongmyeongwanggyeong by modifying it to my taste like Geum Ra-geol had. The conclusion came quickly.
"Let's just do it as instructed."
I was still modifying the Heopsung-daebeop and hadn't fully mastered the mysteries of Jeongjungdong yet. I hadn't even begun to learn the Ihyeonghwanwi and Gungshintanyeong that Geum Ra-geol had taught me. In the midst of all that, leisurely modifying a new martial art to my liking was a luxury. It was a high-level technique to begin with, so I didn't even dare to modify it recklessly. It was so intricately woven that touching just one part wrong would probably mess up the whole thing. I would need to set aside dedicated time and focus properly to modify it, but the gains didn't seem worth the cost and time.
"The Heopsung-daebeop is fine. The dense killing intent unique to the Sosumagong is the problem. Its compatibility with the Budongmyeongwanggyeong is poor, but..."
It was fine because I hadn't raised the Sosumagong's realm through slaughter. If I could somehow make them fit together, even if their energies couldn't harmonize perfectly, they should be able to coexist without interfering. If it didn't work, I could just take the footwork part. You never knew until you tried.
From what I could see, if I mastered the Budongmyeongwanggyeong to a certain level, I would deal double critical damage against those who practiced demonic arts. I wasn't sure if it was really double, but that critical hit bonus was driving me crazy.
"I can't resist guaranteed crits."
Budongmyeongwanggyeong, you're hired! Let's get along from now on. And don't even make eye contact with the Sosumagong in the next department over.
"My Lady."
"Yeah."
"I received a letter from my master. This year's Yongbong-jihoe seems like it will be quite entertaining."
"A festival where they gather kids to show off and make them fight?"
"...Even so. Anyway, that's how it is."
"Why?"
"I heard that the Demonic Cult and the Four Kings Alliance will be participating directly in this Yongbong-jihoe."
"I see."
"It's just a rumor, but there's talk that the So-cheonma might move as well. I thought you would be pleased, but you're surprisingly calm."
"Well, I was wondering if I was at the level to participate in a kids' talent show... Hmm. It's foolish to dismiss it without even going. Fine, let's go take a look. I need to keep my promise to the clan lord anyway."
"Do not underestimate the rising stars of Murim. They may fall short compared to you, but they are heaven-sent geniuses who have trained their entire lives with rare elixirs, martial arts, and masters. They will not be easy opponents."
I tapped the table. Indeed, if even half of the reputation suggested by nicknames like Dragon and Phoenix held true, it would be a worthwhile experience. At the very least, from the perspective of broadening my horizons, there was no reason not to go.
"Then shall we go? Are there people stronger than you?"
"...I hate to admit it, but there are a few. The next abbot of Shaolin, the daughter of the Heavenly Demon Sword Lord, and the So-cheonma, I suppose."
"Then it should be worth going. Pack your things."
. . . . . . . . . . . .
"Young Cult Lord. The guardians for this journey into the martial world have been decided. The Sword Demon and the Bewitching Demon Queen have already reached Sichuan to assist you. The child is with them as well."
"Is that so."
"Additionally, the heirs of the Seven Great Families have declared their intent to enter the martial world, claiming they will assist the Young Cult Lord and elevate the cult's prestige."
"It doesn't matter. By the way... is there any information about a young demonic witch using the Heopsung-daebeop appearing in Murim recently?"
"Pardon?"
"Never mind. Forget it."