Cheongnyong Sword Sect (2)
“Haaah….”
The Sect Leader's office of the Cheongryong Sword Sect.
Seong Gyu-ho, the Acting Sect Leader, had been reviewing paperwork there when his brow furrowed sharply. Pressing hard at the space between his eyes as if to hold back a pounding headache, he suddenly twisted his mouth and muttered under his breath.
“This quarter's a mess too, just as I thought….”
To put it bluntly, the Cheongnyong Sword Sect was suffering the worst financial crisis in its history.
The reason, of course, was a shortage of talent.
Unlike the Suzaku Spirit Sect or the White Tiger Binding Sect, which charged admission and registration fees, the Sword Sect collected nothing at all when a disciple joined.
Instead, once a student graduated and became a hunter, the sect lent out its name and took a sliver of the earnings to cover operating costs.
There was nothing wrong with the model itself.
The sect was the very definition of an elite hunter lineage, producing capable hunters by the dozen — and in an age where gates were becoming an ever-worsening problem, the income commanded by high-rank hunters was beyond imagination.
At least, until now.
“…At this rate, I'm not sure we can even take on the next class of students.”
Unfortunately, hunter was not a profession with a long life expectancy.
High-rank hunters earned their fortunes young, wrapped up their careers, and retired or transitioned into teaching, while lower-rank hunters lost their lives at gates with depressing regularity.
Hunters from the Sword Sect were no exception.
The hunters who had carried the sect's operating budget had all retired, and no talent capable of replacing them had emerged.
'Trust the children, Gyu-ho. People must come before money. That is the way things should be.'
That was what his brother — the Sect Leader, five years his senior — had said.
“At this rate, we'll be the ones starving to death first, brother.”
It felt as though the very survival of the Sword Sect was hanging by a thread.
Seong Gyu-ho was fidgeting with his faded, old-fashioned uniform and letting out a deep sigh when—
“S-Sir!”
The door to the Sect Leader's office burst open with urgent force, and a boy with a shaved-head buzzcut came tumbling in.
Barging into the Sect Leader's office of all places, that rudely, that desperately.
It looked like the boy's discipline needed correcting.
“You there! Do you have any idea where you are, bursting in without so much as a bow—”
“That's not important right now, sir!”
“…What did you say?”
“Do you know who's outside right now?!”
The boy swallowed dryly and forced the words out.
“L-Lee Tae-hyun is here!”
In an instant, Seong Gyu-ho's eyes went as wide as lanterns.
“Who did you say came…?”
“Ugh, are your ears clogged?! Lee Tae-hyun! Lee. Tae. Hyun!”
No way.
Why would that bastard come here?
“It's nothing fancy, but… please, have some of this.”
“My apologies for showing up unannounced. I should have at least called ahead.”
You think? I nearly coughed my soul out.
Seong Gyu-ho swallowed those words whole and watched, feigning composure, as Tae-hyun took a measured sip of his tea.
Meeting his gaze with a thin, sly smile, Tae-hyun set his teacup down.
“Well, I had a feeling that if I'd called ahead, the entrance to the Sword Sect would've been bolted shut.”
Twitch!
The hulking man flinched, ever so slightly, as if pricked by a needle.
“Ha, hahaha… what a hurtful thing to say.”
“Come on, let's drop the pleasantries. Everyone knows the Sword Sect wants nothing to do with the big corporations — with Shinseong and its hunter business license especially.”
“…….”
Tae-hyun's words were true.
Or rather, half true.
Because the sect's distance from money was, at its root, the product of Seong Yong-ho's stubborn personal ideology.
When capital stains the blade, the martial way becomes mere business.
That was the creed that had raised the Sword Sect to its pinnacle.
“…So you know everything. Then there's hardly any point in arguing.”
Seong Gyu-ho braced one massive hand against the table and rose to his feet.
“We have no intention of placing ourselves under Shinseong. And as I have said time and again, we refuse all unsolicited investment as well.”
The Sword Sect had been the target of countless corporate sales pitches over the years.
The sect's prestige, its students, the name value of its famous hunter alumni — no corporation on earth would pass up coveting all of that, and Shinseong was, naturally, among them.
Placing the Cheongnyong Sword Sect beneath the Shinseong name would yield benefits too obvious to bother spelling out.
After all, the Sword Sect brand was a luxury label that carried weight even on the world stage.
“If you understand, then finish that tea and hurry on your way.”
But the corners of Seong Gyu-ho's eyes trembled, just barely, as he said it.
He knew perfectly well what kind of man sat before him.
These days, Lee Tae-hyun stood at the center of every firestorm, for better or worse — which was exactly why the man was already planning to snatch up his wooden practice sword at the first sign of trouble.
“Why have you been conducting this conversation all by yourself this whole time?”
Tae-hyun spoke up at last, shrugging his shoulders with an expression of utter bafflement.
“If I'd come to talk business like that, I'd have brought my legal team with me. Did you really think I'd show up all alone?”
“Er… hm… well, that's true….”
Come to think of it, the man had a point.
Tae-hyun had come to the Sword Sect completely alone today — not a single bodyguard, let alone a lawyer.
“Then… why on earth did you come?”
“My, what a quick question.”
Tae-hyun gave a small nod and cast a leisurely glance around the room.
His gaze, which had been sweeping the walls, drifted gradually down to the floor and up to the ceiling. Only after taking his time appraising every ornament and even the worn-out door handle did he finally speak.
“This building has gotten quite old.”
“…….”
“Buildings up in the mountains weaken easily, you know. Insects gnaw away at them, and the terrain itself is comparatively unstable. Come to think of it, the Sword Sect hasn't done a single renovation since it was founded, has it?”
“…What exactly are you getting at?”
Tae-hyun curled his lips into a villainous smile.
“Acting Sect Leader Seong Gyu-ho. Sell me a chance to take the Ascendance Ceremony.”
The moment the words left my mouth, bewiliation washed over Seong Gyu-ho's face.
“I'm sorry… what did you just say?”
“You heard me correctly. Sell me a chance to take the Ascendance Ceremony.”
“I….”
It was hardly surprising that the burly middle-aged man would be flustered.
Because the Ascendance Ceremony was, in essence, a kind of qualification exam.
A trial that determined whether a disciple had earned the right to learn the Seven Forms of the Blue Dragon, the foundational martial art of the Sword Sect.
The gap between disciples who passed it and those who didn't was stark and unmistakable.
Every hunter who'd made a name for himself out of the Sword Sect had passed the Ascendance Ceremony and received the Seven Forms in full.
It was the gate one absolutely had to clear to enter the sect's true bloodline of elites.
'Under normal circumstances, you'd have to spend at least five years as a disciple here before you'd even be granted eligibility.'
With not a single day to spare, I had no time to waste five years playing student.
So I'd decided to use the means available to me.
“I don't need anything else. Grant me only the right to take the test — that will be enough.”
“But….”
“One billion won.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
“One billion won for a single shot at the Ascendance Ceremony.”
“Huuuh…!”
Seong Gyu-ho's fingertips trembled violently, and cold sweat poured down his face.
As far as I remembered, this was right around the time the Sword Sect had been strangled by a truly vicious cash shortage.
Seong Gyu-ho in particular might be Acting Sect Leader now, but he'd originally been the man handling both instruction and administration for the sect.
Compared to the others, the stress of running short on money would weigh on him all the more heavily.
The dark circles sunken deep beneath his eyes and the strands of white threaded through his tangled hair said as much.
“Hm… so, let me see….”
Seong Gyu-ho rolled his eyes and bounced his knee.
If I'd demanded the Seven Forms of the Blue Dragon outright, he'd have cursed me up and down. But merely taking the exam? That was a proposal with genuine appeal.
The Ascendance Ceremony is a trial where you must defeat every single disciple of the Sword Sect, one after another, alone.
A single defeat, and the ceremony was over.
In other words, if I lost, I'd walk away with nothing, having simply donated one billion won to the sect.
And as it happened, the Sword Sect had a very reliable form of insurance on hand.
“…Very well. In exchange, everything proceeds in strict secrecy.”
“An excellent choice.”
There was no reason for him to refuse my offer.
I took Seong Gyu-ho's hand and donned my business smile.
“Shall we hold the test right away, then?”
“What?! Isn't that far too sudden — the students need time to prepare—”
“Prepare? They seem fully prepared to me.”
Ever since I'd walked through the entrance of the Sword Sect, whispers had been tickling my ears.
Five Senses Amplification (C)
I'd been planning to let most of it slide, honestly.
'You lot, though? Not happening.'
Time to knock some sense into them.
The training hall of the Sword Sect.
I stood in the makeshift arena the disciples had thrown together, lightly twirling the wooden spear in my hand as I took the temperature of the crowd around me.
The emotions the disciples aimed at me were distrust and mockery, with a sprinkling of outright contempt and indifference now and then.
I was busy chewing through all of it when a man in a training uniform walked up to stand across from me.
“Greetings. I am Jo Seung-hyun, a disciple of the Cheongryong Sword Sect. I have been assigned as your first opponent.”
“Pleasure. Lee Tae-hyun.”
He was fairly clean-cut, but he struck me as a man short on patience.
Why?
Creak!
Because the tendons on the hand resting atop his sword hilt were standing out viciously.
He seemed to be fighting down, with everything he had, the urge to swing that blade right this second.
Jo Seung-hyun glared at me sharply.
“I heard from the Acting Sect Leader. That you intend to take the Ascendance Ceremony.”
“That's right.”
“The Ascendance Ceremony is… not a test anyone can take simply because they wish to. Least of all something a man like you should treat so lightly.”
His jaw clenched.
“The Acting Sect Leader has approved this, so a mere disciple like myself cannot raise objections. But that does not mean I — that we — that the Cheongnyong Sword Sect acknowledges you.”
“I see.”
“You are a villain. So I will cut you down. Your Ascendance Ceremony ends with me.”
Wow. Now there's a guy who talks like the hero of his own story.
“We'll see.”
Jo Seung-hyun bowed his head toward Seong Gyu-ho, then drew his sword from a distance and took his stance.
I raised my spear as well, and Seong Gyu-ho lifted his hand in signal.
“The Ascendance Ceremony of Lee Tae-hyun begins now — the first trial!”
At the signal, Jo Seung-hyun charged at me, sword raised.
“I'll show you the power of hard work and grit!”
Huaaaaaaah!
His blade came cutting in with some genuinely seasoned technique.
“Go get him, Seung-hyun!”
“Cut that bastard down in one stroke!”
“You can do it!”
And there were the tearful cheers of everyone around us, on top of it all.
Truly, it was like watching a legendary scene from an old-school manga.
The classic tale of toppling the enemy through grueling effort and the power of friends!
'Except….'
That trend died a long time ago.
“These days….”
I sidestepped his blade with casual ease and swept Jo Seung-hyun's leg out from under him.
For a guy who wielded a sword, slacking on his lower-body training like that?
Effort, disqualified.
“The protagonist's supposed to be strong from the very first page.”
“Whaaaaat—?!”
Crack!
As the man tipped over, center of gravity gone, I drove the shaft of my spear straight up into his chin.
“Gghh….”
His eyes rolled back and he crumpled to the floor where he stood.
I glanced at the quest window floating before my eyes and declared with confidence:
“Next.”
[Quest — The Ascendance Ceremony]
▷ Pass the Ascendance Ceremony.
▷ Reward ①: 10 Exp upon passing
▷ Reward ②: +10 Exp if you make the disciples feel admiration
▷ Reward ③: +13 Exp if you make the disciples feel awe