Seventy Years on This Path

I have walked this one path for more than seventy years!

I had meant to die. Of that, I was certain.

Living alone in a place where I had no disciples, no friends, not a single soul who knew me—what kind of life was that? If that was all that remained, I would rather have died and looked upon my disciples again, even if only from the celestial realm.

But the moment I saw that shabby poster on the wall, I wished to live. The poster bore my disciple's face, and her name.

Why are you here...?

The person in the picture resembled my disciple to an uncanny degree. Hair the soft brown of sunset, and a smile warm and gentle enough to match it—looking at that, I could not help but think of Hyeon.

It can't be mere resemblance... can it?

The world is vast, and somewhere in it there are surely people who look alike. I had never seen the world so narrowly as to deny a thing like that. But the picture was so vivid it seemed as if the living person had been pressed straight onto the paper, and it went beyond a similar face. The smile was there, and the temperament showing through it. What were the odds that those, too, would be the same?

And this world used only strange names, written not in the characters I knew but in some odd, curling script. In a world like that, even the name was identical. I could not write it off as coincidence.

But how is it I understand this strange writing? I have never so much as seen it—let alone heard it spoken.

No. That was not what mattered now. What mattered was that, in this unfamiliar land, I had come upon a child I believed to be my disciple.

That child is my disciple. She must be.

I could have sworn to it—past certainty, all the way to an oath. According to the poster, she was surely at that place called the Academy. I had to go there. A master's duty is to see to the life his disciple leads. Master and disciple are as parent and child.

In my past life I had done my part in putting down the demonic, and even a life of ease in the celestial realm would have been too small a reward. I would not abide her living on foreign soil with neither parent nor master. This life would be different. This time, I would raise her so that she would not die. This time, I would raise her to be happy.

But to see that done, I had to reach the Academy.

And how am I supposed to get there?

It wasn't that the poster failed to give a location. The trouble was that I did not even know where I myself stood. How was I to find the Academy from here? Were this the Central Plains, it might have been another matter. In this strange land, staring at a map would not have told me where I was.

And I've no idea where that innkeeper has gone, either.

They say a person despairs not upon meeting a wall that cannot be climbed, but upon meeting a wall they thought they could. I don't know who coined it, but they coined it well. At the very start there had been no hope at all—only hardship, not despair. Then hope had appeared, and vanished, and I was getting a thorough taste of what despair actually was.

But I mastered myself at once. I had chosen to walk the path of Heaven-Breaking—the path of one who dares to shatter the heavens—and I would despair over a thing like this? From the moment I took that name upon my shoulders, I had not once despaired of fate. Had I not given myself the name in the first place so that I might break the cruel fate heaven had handed down?

If I give up here, the name Heaven-Breaking will weep.

The one thing the world has in abundance is people. Seize any one of them, and among that number someone would know of the Academy—and someone, further still, would be on their way there.

The problem lay elsewhere. From the description, the Academy seemed much like the academies and sects of the Central Plains. To enroll, then, I would have to show some measure of martial strength, or of intellect. I was the Number One Under Heaven. For me, a trial of that sort ought to have been a trifle. So what was the problem?

Of course there was a problem!

I could not even understand the tongue of a world I was seeing for the first time. How was I supposed to prove the quality of my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mind? Intellect, then, was out. What remained was the body...

And this body of mine held nothing. No internal energy, no muscle, no stamina. Worse, I had not even grown used to this child's flesh. If a place would take me on sparring alone, well enough. But if they meant to look at internal energy or external arts as well, I would be rejected on the spot.

First, I have to form a dantian. At the very least.

With even a minimum of internal energy, I could pass the rest. And this body was still young. That meant I had more time than others.

Everyone carries regrets of their own. I was no different.

If only ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I had trained harder back then! If only I had learned the martial arts even a little sooner! If only I had at least gone through the motions of cultivation! If only I hadn't been caught sneaking off to the wine house behind my disciples' backs!

Mm... I'll let that last one pass.

"I can do it again."

I had risen to the seat of the Number One Under Heaven, and I had reached even the Profound Realm. A height others could not imagine—and still I had not been satisfied. Rather, the stronger I became, the more clearly I saw that my past self had walked the wrong road, and trained in ways that wasted effort.

What matters most is the groundwork. The foundation.

The study of the martial way is like walking a road without end. To walk a road without end, one must prepare to the utmost, for how far you can go is decided by how well you have prepared. And yet that preparation is not easily done, even when you understand how much it matters.

Why? You have to ask it the other way around. How are you supposed to?

Prepare as diligently as you like off to the side—people are built to look at whoever has gone farther. The results of the future are unknown, and so it is only human nature to fix one's attention on the goal right in front of you. Picture it. My disciple is grinding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠away at her foundation, and the one beside her flashes a single splendid sword technique, or goes and wins a sparring tournament. From that day on, foundation and all the rest of it be damned. Straight into practical swordsmanship.

Mm... Now that I think of it, I am sorry. I ought to apologize, later...

At any rate! With things as they stood, who in the world would sit down to foundation training? You were busy enough just learning one more form.

"But! Now it is different!"

There was no master here to bellow at me like that—though that master had been me—and I carried the enlightenment of how one must climb toward a higher realm. Moreover, the martial arts of Heaven-Breaking were orthodox arts, not heretical arts or demonic arts. As time passed, I would grow stronger in ways that showed. Reincarnation had given me more time than others. If I brought the enlightenment and the training of my past life to bear from this age onward, becoming twice as strong as I had been would be no impossibility.

Twice the realm of the Heaven-Breaking Sword Saint...

It was still a story like a dream. But if it truly became possible, then taking the Heavenly Demon alone would not be beyond me.

Then I ought to begin with the dantian.

Form a dantian in a place like this, and I might die on the spot. I needed somewhere safe. A martial artist is at their most vulnerable not while eating, and not even while squatting in the privy, but while circulating their energy. Even one who splits a mountain with a single sword will die to a child's kick in the middle of circulation.

This place should do.

I sat down in a vast cave and crossed my legs into the lotus position.

"What should I learn?"

I knew countless divine arts and supreme techniques. Heaven-Breaking Gangqi, capable of cleaving even the sky. The Four Divine Beasts Body Art, said to turn even an ordinary body into the Heavenly Martial Body and purify the flesh completely. And if I looked beyond the internal methods of Heaven-Breaking—the Shaolin Temple's Muscle-Tendon Altering and Marrow-Washing Scripture, which no art could match for purity; the Wudang Sect's Dual-Principle Heart Art, which divides the mind in two and leads one on to swifter enlightenment. I knew a great many others besides, but my mind was already set.

"The Four Divine Beasts Body Art. There is no other."

Internal energy is important. That is true. But is internal energy the only thing that matters? That is false. If only internal energy mattered, why would every sect swing swords, run themselves ragged, build their stamina, and temper their external arts? They would simply tell you to circulate once more and be done with it.

People often say the dantian is a vessel for holding inner force. They are right. But the body is nothing other than the tool that puts that force to use. However vast the dantian, however profound the internal energy, it is useless without a body capable of wielding it. Shaolin, for one, ate nothing but greens, and Daoist sects such as Wudang and Mount Hua forbade cooked food altogether, all to purify the flesh. The purer the body, the more the dross vanished, and the more cleanly one's inner force came forth. Efficiency improved. That was the whole of it.

Then what of the great clans—the Namgung Clan, the Paeng Clan, and their like? Their martial arts gather internal energy in sheer quantity. Even granting that impurities block a portion of it, the force they send out is so abundant that a drop in efficiency hardly matters.

To put it simply: Buddhist and Daoist sects such as Shaolin, Wudang, and Mount Hua might gather a hundred and twenty, and what they released would be about a hundred. Their bodies were clean, so they gathered less, and yet their efficiency was sound. Clans such as Namgung, Paeng, and Tang might gather three hundred, and still release only about a hundred. They gathered so much that even with poor efficiency, the force that emerged was much the same.

In that light, this divine art—one that purified the body to perfection—was a truly extraordinary art. The amount of power it gathered at the outset might be small, but once the Four Divine Beasts Body Art was fully mastered, one advanced to the next stage. Accumulating internal energy from then on would not be too late. Gather a great store of it now, and the vessel itself would not be ready; the efficiency would suffer; it would be drawbacks heaped upon drawbacks. Better to set the body properly in order, and accumulate internal energy after. That might well be the more efficient road.

And the purer the body, the fewer the impurities—so the easier it will be to accumulate internal energy.

For me, who had to look at both the present and the future beyond it, no martial art could have suited better. Purifying the body through external arts would show results that could be seen, and those results would carry me to admission at the Academy. Once I was in, I would accumulate internal energy within a body made pure, and grow strong.

"Mm. A perfect plan."

For the sake of that perfect plan, I had to lay the foundation well, beginning with the body itself. I had walked this road once already. If I failed, I would not even deserve to bear the name of Heaven-Breaking Sword Saint.

"I have walked this one path for more than seventy years—and I should be unable to do this?"

At once, I began to circulate ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the Four Divine Beasts Body Art.