I'll Give You a Standard
Cha Yu-sik's mind held nothing but the Emperor's Sword Form.
Even after dawn training ended, even through regular class hours, he burrowed into the interpretation manual he kept hidden under his desk.
What an incredible sword art.
The more he read, the more he could only marvel. Just imagining himself executing the martial art to perfection made his chest swell with excitement.
Hyung must already be learning it in earnest.
Cha Du-sik had graduated as top of the 17th batch. That only made him more restless. His brother would not be wasting time on meaningless classes like these.
A few days later, at the old training hall.
"Haaap!"
Cha Yu-sik was repeating the Earth form of the Three Talents Sword Style as usual when—
What's this?
Kang Hyun, sipping whiskey up on the platform, narrowed his eyes.
His heart is chasing after another sword.
His body was here, yet his mind wandered elsewhere. Others might miss it, but to Kang Hyun's eyes it was plain as day.
Thud.
Kang Hyun set down his whiskey glass.
"Stop."
At the cold voice, every movement froze at once. The cadets' gazes snapped toward the platform.
"Cha Yu-sik. Front and center."
"Yes, sir."
Cha Yu-sik wiped the sweat from his face and stepped forward. Kang Hyun looked down at him with indifferent eyes and spoke.
"Today I had intended to move on to the third stage of the Three Talents Sword Style—the Man form. Because of you, we will not."
Silence blanketed the training hall.
"……Did I make some kind of mistake?"
A startled Cha Yu-sik asked carefully.
"You don't seem like someone who doesn't know."
He had been distracted, yet his form had been perfect. So did this professor read minds?
"Did you get your hands on some fancy secret manual?"
"……!"
Cha Yu-sik's pupils shook.
How did he know that?
He was uncanny every single time. No matter what Cha Yu-sik did or thought, the man would pin it exactly. So rather than hide it, he decided to push harder.
"I'll be honest with you, Professor. I know full well how excellent your Three Talents Sword Style is. There's nothing better for laying foundations. But."
Cha Yu-sik gritted his teeth, certain the other cadets shared the same thought.
"In the end, the Three Talents Sword Style is only the Three Talents Sword Style. Compared to other superior sword arts, its limits and level are clearly lower, aren't they? Even you, Professor, would be far stronger if you used something else."
Kang Hyun slowly spun the whiskey bottle. He knew exactly why Cha Yu-sik was acting this way. From a single wavering movement he had already seen which secret manual had captivated the boy.
Emperor's Sword Form.
The ultimate secret of the Namgung family. A hegemonic martial art that crushed opponents under overwhelming pressure radiating from the sword, pinned them helpless, then bisected them in a single stroke. Together with the Sky-Soaring Unfettered Sword Style, it was one of the Namgung's signature arts. It suited Cha Yu-sik's elite temperament well.
If he saw that, I can somewhat understand why his heart floated off.
Even Kang Hyun, with his Heavenly Martial Body, had needed half a year to master the Emperor's Sword Form—it was that profound and excellent a martial art.
But.
The more excellent the martial art, the more solid the foundation had to be. Learning the Emperor's Sword Form in his present state would produce nothing but a hollow shell of superficial flair. So Kang Hyun decided to deliver a clean shock.
"The Emperor's Sword Form, is it?"
"……Hup?"
Cha Yu-sik's breath caught clean in his throat. Impossible. It was a secret the family had obtained under the strictest confidentiality. He had only just begun the early interpretation, and just now, unconsciously, a bare fragment of the movement had slipped out for an instant. How could that name leave Kang Hyun's mouth?
"It suits you rather well, but."
Gulp.
Kang Hyun took a sip of whiskey and warned,
"If you don't properly solidify your foundations, you won't be swinging the sword—you'll be dragged around by it."
Cha Yu-sik's mind reeled. Kang Hyun's admonition barely registered. He was far more curious how the man knew of the top-secret matter his father had strictly ordered never to reveal.
"H-How did you know that?"
"Fine."
Instead of answering, Kang Hyun grinned and slowly descended from the platform. His gaze swept across the five of them.
"I know what's on your minds. You're frustrated wondering how long you have to keep swinging some neighborhood scrap technique. You want to get noticeably stronger right now."
He stopped in the center of the training hall and spoke with finality.
"But a castle built on sand collapses with a single wave. The reason I make you drill the Three Talents Sword Style to death is to forge your vessels into iron that can hold any martial art whatsoever."
After a brief silence, Kang Hyun's eyes flashed sharply.
"Fine, then. If you insist, I'll give you a standard."
His eyes gleamed.
"When are the midterms?"
Academy midterms were held as martial arts tournaments by year—a long-standing traditional event.
"In two months."
Kwak Do-jin answered.
"Good."
He had promised the dean. Show clear results that would silence the dissatisfied professors. He had said he would teach them how to become strong, so he simply needed to show them becoming truly strong.
"In the tournament two months from now, each of you place in the top five of your year."
"……!"
"If you do, I'll transmit what you so desperately want—true martial arts that suit each of your constitutions and dispositions."
All five cadets' eyes widened at once.
Finally!
Finally they could escape the Three Talents Sword Style and learn real secret manuals?
Excitement was about to flood the training hall when—
"However."
Kang Hyun added the condition as casually as dousing them with cold water.
"In the tournament you may use only the Three Talents Sword Style—nothing else."
"……What?"
It was absurd. This was the Academy where Korea's top geniuses gathered. Just making top five was a bloodbath, and they had to fight with only the Three Talents Sword Style?
"Professor! That's impossible!"
Cha Yu-sik immediately protested, raising his voice.
"No matter how important foundations are, how are we supposed to make the top five of our year with just the Three Talents Sword Style?"
Moreover, there was another problem. Cha Yu-sik needed to learn the Emperor's Sword Form for the succession fight. He had assumed that even if Kang Hyun knew of the Emperor's Sword Form, he could not teach it.
As if reading his mind—
"I'll teach you the Emperor's Sword Form."
Kang Hyun said it first.
"You know it, Professor?"
"Come out."
"……Pardon?"
"I'll show you, so come out."
Cha Yu-sik swallowed hard and stepped forward. Doubt still filled his expression.
"You've been reading some half-baked interpretation scrap. Don't get full of hot air—open your eyes wide and watch."
Ssshhk.
Kang Hyun slowly raised the wooden sword above his head. It was a very simple, slow movement. No energy was even being emitted.
But the moment the wooden sword reached its apex and stopped in midair—
First Stage: Suppression
BOOM!
A thunderous roar like an auditory hallucination rang in Cha Yu-sik's ears.
Huh?
His breath caught. The air in the training hall suddenly felt dozens of times heavier. Kang Hyun in his vision looked like a massive mountain range—no, like an absolute emperor who commanded the world and looked down upon all creation.
I-I can't move……!
Cha Yu-sik's legs trembled like aspen leaves. Instinct screamed at him to run, yet his feet were rooted to the ground as if planted; he could not take a single step. With nothing but the formless pressure radiating from the sword, Kang Hyun had seized the space and completely crushed his opponent.
That was the first stage of the Emperor's Sword Form: Suppression.
"I'll cut."
Kang Hyun's usually languid eyes flashed coldly for an instant. The raised wooden sword fell vertically toward Cha Yu-sik's crown.
Cha Yu-sik knew instinctively. If this had been a real sword, he would have been bisected right then and there.
Yes. This could not be fake. This was the real Emperor's Sword Form he had read about in the text!
The wooden sword stopped above Cha Yu-sik's crown.
"Haaah, hah……."
His legs gave out, and Cha Yu-sik collapsed to the floor. His back was already soaked with cold sweat.
Kang Hyun withdrew the wooden sword and tossed out casually,
"Satisfied with the answer?"
At those words, life returned to Cha Yu-sik's eyes.
This might just……!
He could surpass his brother! No—with the Professor, he would definitely surpass him!
"I-I will definitely make the top five……!"
"The rest of you listen too."
The four cadets who had been watching blankly flinched in unison.
"What I'll teach you will rival this sword art, so if you want to learn it, reach the standard."
At those words, for the first time in a while, joy lit the cadets' eyes.
"We'll do it with pure grit and determination, Professor!"
"Top five of the year? We'll devour them all!"
They were burning with fighting spirit, but Kang Hyun knew. It was by no means easy. Not a full year—making top five in half a semester.
"All talk. Say that after you've done it."
After the five left the training hall, in the corner, still holding a horse stance and trembling, was Baek Yu-yeon.
"Haaah, huuuh……."
"Stop."
"Hah, hah!"
Finally she collapsed to the floor, sweat pouring down.
"So, what question do you have for me today?"
For the past week Baek Yu-yeon had been wrestling with a difficult problem given by Professor Hwang Ye-rim. No matter how hard she wracked her brains and flipped through books, she could not find the answer, so she had come to Kang Hyun. Of course she did not truly expect him to provide it. Even Professor Hwang, called the top authority in martial arts medicine, had not found a solution. She had come drawn by a slim hope—clutching at straws.
"Is there a way to unravel the cold qi tangled in the acupoints without damaging the heart meridians?"
"Is that the question?"
"Yes."
"It depends on how many acupoints are blocked."
"Nine of them."
"Nine Yin Severed Meridians, then."
In that moment a gleam appeared in Kang Hyun's usually languid eyes. It was only natural.
Nine Yin Severed Meridians. A congenital intractable disease treated as mere legend even in Murim. From birth the body was filled with extreme yin energy, and that cold qi blocked the nine major meridians throughout the body. With no circulation of qi, one spent a lifetime suffering bone-chilling pain and eventually died young without living past twenty—a cursed constitution.
But Kang Hyun had been searching for that constitution.
Because it's the only constitution that can deploy the Monday Formation.
Among the old monsters who had tormented him there had been one woman. The Sword Empress, Seol Mu-wol. She had been Nine Yin Severed Meridians.
That old hag with her disgusting fake demureness.
Through rejuvenation she had regained youth and, in Murim, received the respect and love of men while pretending to be kind and elegant. But only in front of her disciple Kang Hyun was she different. When training time came, the elegant smile vanished and she turned into a bloodless, tearless witch who beat him mercilessly. To Kang Hyun, the true Demon God was not Asura—it was that old monster Seol Mu-wol.
Annoyed, Kang Hyun took another sip of liquor and asked,
"Why are you digging into that?"
Baek Yu-yeon parted her lips, then said,
"……To treat my younger sibling."
"Your sibling has Nine Yin Severed Meridians?"
Kang Hyun's eyes widened. It was astonishing. How could one family possess both the Heavenly Pulse Eye and Nine Yin Severed Meridians?
Only then did Kang Hyun understand why Baek Yu-yeon had been so obsessed with martial arts medicine.
"Don't tell me the alchemy you were studying was for that too?"
"Yes, to create a spiritual medicine that can expel the yin energy."
"Hah."
Kang Hyun let out a short sigh and quietly closed his eyes.
"So that's why you clung so tenaciously. Even enduring the horse stance."
"If it's to save my sibling…… I can do anything."
Kang Hyun felt the sincerity in those words. In truth, sincerity came more from actions than words. In reality she was pouring her entire life into saving her sibling.
Staring fixedly at Baek Yu-yeon, Kang Hyun tossed out casually,
"Even if it means dedicating your entire life to it?"