Don't Underestimate the Three Talents
The next morning at dawn, Kwak Do-jin actually showed up.
Shff, shff!
He came dragging his feet through the sand, clearly dead drunk.
"What the hell?"
Cha Yu-sik frowned at the sight.
"Senior Kwak. Looking like that right now…"
No, seriously. How much had this guy even drunk?
"Huuuurgh…"
He staggered. Kwak Do-jin's body pitched forward and collapsed.
Thud!
He face-planted straight into the sand, twitched once, and went completely limp.
Yoon Hyun-jong and Han Tae-ho recoiled and started to rush over, but—
"Leave him."
Kang Hyun, who had been perched on the edge of the platform, climbed down at a leisurely pace. He looked down at the sprawled Kwak Do-jin, then casually reached out and tapped a single point on the man's back.
"Gahk!"
Kwak Do-jin's body arched like a drawn bow. Immediately after—
"Bleeaargh!"
All the liquor and bile that had been sitting in his stomach came pouring out at once. A foul stench spread across the training ground, and the other cadets instinctively wrinkled their noses.
Willpower's a pass, at least.
Right. If you want to claw your way out of the mud under your own power, you keep your promises. If you want to change a life that's been rotting in the gutter, you need at least that much spite and resolve, don't you?
"If you're up, wipe your mouth and stand."
"Cough! Haaack, huff…"
Kwak Do-jin gasped for air and staggered to his feet. Kang Hyun had forced qi into a vital point and driven the alcohol out, so the man had recovered some of his senses.
Neither of them said a word about the night before.
"What are you waiting for?"
Kang Hyun turned his back and gave the order.
"Horse stance. Begin."
The horse stance continued for a full week after that.
It was nothing more than holding a position in place, yet clear changes were taking root in the five cadets' bodies. On the first day they had collapsed after less than ten minutes, legs shaking like aspen leaves. Now they could hold their spines reasonably straight even after thirty minutes had passed.
And not a single one of them had quit yet.
This should be enough.
Their breathing had settled. Their spines had straightened and their centers of gravity had stabilized. The bare minimum conditions for qi and blood to circulate properly were finally in place.
"Enough."
Kang Hyun's short command dropped.
"Haaah!"
"Gyaaaah!"
In that instant the five cadets crumpled as if they had planned it together. They lay sprawled on the ground, chests heaving, soaked in sweat, staring up at the sky. Kang Hyun spoke to them.
"You've worked hard wrestling with the dirt. Looking at the sorry state of you, I'd say you can finally hold a sword hilt."
The cadets sprawled on the ground froze for a beat.
"Starting today, I'll teach you real martial arts."
"…!"
Cha Yu-sik's eyes snapped open first.
Finally!
Truth be told, he had seriously considered quitting this special class as recently as last night. He was impatient. If he didn't get stronger fast, he would fall completely behind his older brother. He couldn't just keep doing horse stance every single day, could he?
I can practice basics like this on my own time outside of class.
What Cha Yu-sik wanted from the professor was martial arts. Not some peerless divine technique, maybe, but something far stronger than anything the Academy normally handed out!
"Pick up one of those wooden swords lying around."
The cadets scrambled to pull training wooden swords from the rack in the corner of the grounds. Kang Hyun flicked one up with his toe and caught it as well.
The cadets waited with anticipation. What grand, magnificent name of a sword style would come out of his mouth?
"The first martial art I will pass on to you,"
Everyone swallowed hard, eyes locked on Kang Hyun's lips—
"is the Three Talents Sword Style."
"…?"
Silence settled over them.
What?
Three Talents Sword Style?
Every face went blank with disbelief.
There were four martial arts manuals that spilled out of trash dungeons so often you practically tripped over them: Three Talents Sword Style, Six Harmonies Art, Six Harmonies Fist, and Iron Cloth Shirt. You didn't even need to come to the Academy to learn those. They were national-calisthenics-level techniques you could download as a PDF from the Hunter Association website for a few bucks.
Cha Yu-sik's face twisted.
"…I must have misheard you. Three Talents Sword Style?"
"You heard correctly. Heaven, Earth, Man. The most fundamental of fundamentals—said to contain the three principles of the universe."
At last Cha Yu-sik's face flushed red and purple.
"Professor! Are you messing with us right now?"
He had held it in this whole time. He had swallowed his pride as the son of a major guild and endured a horse stance that even neighborhood dojo brats practiced. Every morning his muscles had screamed, and his peers in the Unyeon Society had snickered behind his back, yet he had still dragged himself to the training ground with stubborn grit.
Why?
Because he had expected some incredible secret technique waiting at the end of that humiliation!
"The reward for enduring that brainless horse stance is a piece of garbage sword style like that?"
"Garbage?"
Kang Hyun's eyes narrowed.
"Yes! I finished learning trash techniques like the Three Talents Sword Style long before I even entered the Academy. Hell, even the bottom-rung porters under our family guild don't use that crap!"
The other cadets seemed to quietly agree with Cha Yu-sik. Even Yoon Hyun-jong wore an expression that said, Three Talents is a bit much, even for this.
"There's a misunderstanding here."
In the Murim where Kang Hyun had lived, there was a saying.
Could mastering the Three Talents Sword Style alone make you the greatest under heaven? He would admit that was a con man's nonsense. But to deny that nothing equaled it for laying a foundation—that was something you simply could not do.
Even the old Sword Maniac had said it. No matter what sword art you practiced, in the end none of them escaped the Three Talents.
If you had run your mouth in front of that old man and called the Three Talents Sword Style a porter's trash technique?
You would have had a wooden sword flying into your jaw before you even finished the sentence. You would have been slammed into the dirt and beaten until your bones broke and you spat blood, all while being called a bastard who didn't even understand the principles of Heaven and Earth.
But I'm not those old men.
Kang Hyun smirked inwardly.
When a student doesn't know something, teaching him is a professor's duty. If they were under a misunderstanding, all he had to do was clear it up with his own body.
"Cha Yu-sik, step forward."
Kang Hyun let the wooden sword hang loosely in his hand and jerked his chin.
"The sword art you've been training is the Wolf Fang Sword Art, correct?"
"…That's right."
"A fine sword art."
Even within the Green Forest League, only the elite execution squads had practiced it. It wasn't as refined as the swords of the great orthodox sects, but it was a real combat style tempered in blood. Naturally, it existed inside Kang Hyun's head as well.
"Come at me with that sword art. I will use only the Three Talents Sword Style."
At those words, Cha Yu-sik's eyes grew cold.
Only the Three Talents Sword Style?
Really?
Cha Yu-sik imagined what would happen if his father used only the Three Talents Sword Style against him. The conclusion came easily.
I might not win, but I'm confident I won't be completely overwhelmed.
No matter how overwhelming the presence, a sword art still had clear limits. That was exactly why good secret manuals commanded high prices.
The Wolf Fang Sword Art is the technique that raised Cheonrang into one of the three great guilds. This professor is looking down on Cheonrang.
Cha Yu-sik swallowed his rage and gripped the wooden sword.
"Don't regret this."
"Regret?"
"You said you would use only the Three Talents Sword Style. What will you do if my wooden sword so much as brushes your sleeve?"
"My sleeve? Most people would say they'll win."
"I'm not stupid enough to bluff."
"Or is it that you have no conscience?"
The corner of Kang Hyun's mouth curled upward.
"Fine. If your sword so much as grazes my clothes, I'll join your Cheonrang Guild under you."
"…!"
Cha Yu-sik was stunned.
An S-rank hunter joining Cheonrang? If it actually happened, it would be an enormous opportunity to rebuild his standing as the successor.
"You'd better keep that promise."
Cha Yu-sik planted his feet in the sand and lowered his stance, expression turning deadly serious.
I'm going all out.
"Come."
Taah!
Cha Yu-sik kicked off the ground and shot forward. Was it the effect of the lower-body training? His leap was far sharper than before.
Whoosh!
The wooden sword carved a vicious arc through the air with a rough tearing sound. Even to the other cadets, it looked like an overwhelming strike.
But—
"First, Heaven."
The foot moves before the sword.
Kang Hyun took a half-step forward. From foot to waist, spine, arm, and finally the tip of the sword—his entire body connected into one perfect line. All the strength had left his shoulders, yet the weight of the sky itself already rode in that blade.
"Descend."
The simplest downward cut, from high to low.
Tukaang!
"Khk!"
The moment Cha Yu-sik's fiercely charging sword met Kang Hyun's wooden blade, a horrific impact boom exploded outward.
Insane!
A throbbing shock loosened Cha Yu-sik's grip; he reeled in panic. Anyone could see it was nothing but a basic downward slash… and yet he felt this kind of pressure? It felt exactly like a mountain falling from the heavens.
"Second, Earth."
Kang Hyun's two feet, planted on the ground, sank into the earth like the roots of a centuries-old tree. Lift your feet and the sword dies. Twist only the waist and it becomes slow. The power of the earth rose through ankle and knee into the waist, then flowed straight into the horizontal path of the wooden sword.
"Hold."
A heavy horizontal cut that skimmed just below the waist.
"Gyaaah!"
That single strike made Cha Yu-sik's body sway like a reed. It felt as if a boulder had rolled across the top of his sword; he lost the weapon entirely.
"Last, Man."
Between Heaven and Earth stands Man. Look only upward and you become empty cloud; look only downward and you become dull and heavy. The human axis that joins above and below must never collapse. Kang Hyun's gaze was not on the tip of his own sword—it was boring straight through Cha Yu-sik's completely open center.
Greed makes it too long; fear makes it too short. From the most perfect distance, the most direct thrust.
"Pierce."
Hwaaaaaah!
Kang Hyun's wooden sword shot forward at terrifying speed and stopped dead just under Cha Yu-sik's chin. The neat fringe of the young man's hair whipped upward under the violent wind pressure.
"…"
Silence.
A suffocating stillness swallowed the training ground.
Cha Yu-sik couldn't breathe.
T-this was the Three Talents Sword Style?
Descend, hold, pierce.
Those boring, obvious forms… had been this?
Impossible.
A moment ago the downward cut had felt like the sky collapsing. The horizontal cut had felt as heavy as the earth itself heaving. And the final thrust…
It felt like all of that condensed into a single stab.
Behind them, Kwak Do-jin, Yoon Hyun-jong, Han Tae-ho, and Seo Hae-in all stood frozen with their souls knocked clean out of their bodies. In their eyes, the Three Talents Kang Hyun had just displayed looked larger and more overwhelming than any flashy peerless divine technique.
"Well?"
Tuk.
Kang Hyun withdrew the wooden sword that had been hanging in the air and spoke in a lazy drawl.
"Is this still garbage?"
He patted his own shoulder and added,
"A sword that is nothing but flash without foundation is just a sandcastle in the end. How do you expect to learn any martial art when you don't even know what the Three Talents are?"
Cha Yu-sik's pupils shook hard.
"If you understand, pick up your wooden sword. Today it's one thousand downward cuts."