Spiritual Nature
Perhaps it was because he had given it a new name.
Before he knew it, a scabbard rested in Cheonhwa’s hand.
It was the mid-stage Polar Extreme of the Boundless Ocean Formula, given form. The great sea of martial learning embraced all things without exception—and so the Heavenly Dipper Sword Secret, once called killing intent, was no different.
Cheonhwa held the scabbard out to the boy. With a faint smile, the boy laid his hand upon it. His figure blurred at once, drawn into the scabbard, and in the next breath the Heavenly Dipper Sword Secret had become a longsword.
“I’ll be counting on you from now on.”
A low thrum answered him from the hilt, as if the blade itself had heard the request.
He now held the keenest weapon his past had ever forged. Only one task remained.
I challenge the wall of Peak Expert.
Cheonhwa passed through the prison door that swung open of its own accord and climbed the stairs. Unlike the descent, the ascent took almost no time at all. The underground had been so deep only because he had buried his killing intent so thoroughly. Now that he had made that intent wholly his own as the Heavenly Dipper Sword Secret, the vanishing depth of the depths was only natural.
In a heartbeat he emerged from the underground passage and once more faced the massive door. It remained shut fast; the lock was unchanged. But Cheonhwa now held the key.
He set the longsword, still nested in its scabbard, against the lock. A sharp click answered him. With a heavy groan the great doors swung open on their own.
Beyond them lay pure white light. He could not know what waited on the other side, yet to challenge the realm of Peak Expert he would have to step through. Steadying his breath once, he walked toward the light.
It flooded his vision until he could not see an inch ahead. Then, before long, the glare subsided and the world returned.
Cheonhwa hurriedly took in his surroundings. He seemed to stand inside a cavern—and somehow it felt familiar. Half in disbelief he studied the interior more carefully, and certainty settled over him.
This is the cave where the Founding Patriarch left his sword scars.
The moment he recognized the place, a presence stirred deeper within.
It’s calling me.
He could not put the sensation into clear words, yet the feeling was unmistakable. Following that summons, Cheonhwa walked deeper into the cavern and entered the chamber where the sword scars lay alongside the engraved formulas of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven.
Before the wall of carved formulas stood the source of the presence—a figure he knew well. It wore Jinhyun’s face, yet the air about it was utterly different: a Taoist priest of another nature entirely.
“Founding Patriarch?”
At Cheonhwa’s call, the figure that wore Jinhyun’s form turned.
“So you have made it this far after all. To think you would reach this place before even passing the age of twenty.”
The Founding Patriarch offered a wry smile. How many in all the history of the martial world had attained this stage before their twentieth year? Almost none—and those few had been born with the gifts of grand masters. The martial artist before him possessed no such natural endowment, yet he had arrived here all the same. Fortune had played its part, but beneath every opportunity lay unceasing effort. The martial arts of Zhongnan, shaped by the Founding Patriarch himself, had always been designed so that those who strove would be rewarded; and Cheonhwa’s inner landscape harmonized extraordinarily well with the core intent that underpinned the Zhongnan lineage. Layer upon layer of such factors had produced the absurd result of an ordinary man surpassing genius.
From this moment on, however, what Cheonhwa would face had nothing to do with talent or relative skill.
“Why are you here, Founding Patriarch?”
“Because it is necessary for one who would become a Peak Expert.”
The Founding Patriarch began to explain, piece by piece, why he stood in this place.
“Do you know the old teaching: Kill the Buddha, Kill the Patriarch?”
“If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet the patriarch, kill the patriarch. Even if Buddha or patriarch should return alive, do not be led astray by them—walk your own path. That is the saying as I understand it.”
“Correct. The process of becoming a Peak Expert is precisely that.”
To become a Peak Expert one had to forge a Spiritual Nature—the purest crystallization of intent. To forge that Spiritual Nature required an unshakable will of one’s own. Yet those who had trained in orthodox martial arts were inevitably swayed by the teachings of their predecessors. To break free, they needed to step beyond the doctrines of their sect.
“Therefore, when a martial artist who has learned orthodox arts challenges the Peak realm, he confronts either a being that embodies the foundation of his martial arts, or the founding master of his school.”
It was the creator’s intent, lingering within the martial formulas, given form. Under ordinary circumstances free conversation like this would have been impossible; such harmony was possible now only because Cheonhwa had once absorbed the Founding Patriarch’s intent in the very cave of sword scars.
“This appearance will be inconvenient for a fight, I expect.”
The Founding Patriarch cast off Jinhyun’s form. What remained was no longer a blurred silhouette but a complete figure—robed as a Taoist, yet bearing none of a Taoist’s air. Had he introduced himself as a wandering swordsman or a soldier, Cheonhwa would have accepted it without question.
“When you first visited this place, you declared with impudent boldness that you would become a master.”
The Founding Patriarch’s voice no longer seemed to speak directly into Cheonhwa’s mind. It was the living voice of a man with flesh, and that alone conjured the illusion that he faced not the lingering intent of the dead, but a living person.
“Then prove it before me.”
Dokgo Jin, the Founding Patriarch, leveled the tip of a crude iron sword at Cheonhwa.
So the final step in forging a Spiritual Nature was to fight the Founding Patriarch himself—and this one possessed clear intellect, shaped by intent absorbed long ago. Was Heaven testing Cheonhwa for having risen too swiftly?
The situation was hopeless, yet Cheonhwa slowly drew the longsword from its scabbard. However intelligent the presence might be, it was only a re-creation within his inner landscape; it would fall short of the true Founding Patriarch. Even so, Cheonhwa’s chances of victory were next to none. The Heavenly Dipper Sword Secret in his grip trembled without cease, warning him: the being before him could not be defeated—flee at once.
But I cannot withdraw.
Had the Founding Patriarch not spoken the words himself? Prove before me that you will become a master. Those were the same words Cheonhwa had heard when the sword scars first showed him the vision. The time had come to test whether that day’s exchange had been true. If he did not prove it now, when would he ever?
I will hurl everything I have built against him.
Cheonhwa took the opening stance of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven. The Founding Patriarch answered with the same form. Without any signal, the two of them lunged at once.
The opening exchange used no advanced arts—only the first twelve forms of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven, the foundation of all swordsmanship.
Strike, thrust, parry, cleave—the four root motions of every sword art. Sharp metallic clamor rang through the cavern as Cheonhwa and the Founding Patriarch wielded the twelve forms with complete freedom, trading blow after blow. The force invested in the Founding Patriarch’s blade was clearly superior; in realm and in depth of training alike, Cheonhwa was outmatched. Shock traveled up the blade until his grip burned. Naturally he found not a single opening to seize the offensive. Simply enduring the onslaught was miracle enough.
“Truly fine sword form. From center of gravity to trajectory, there is nothing to fault. The higher one’s realm, the more easily foundations are neglected—yet I see no such sign in you.”
The Founding Patriarch spoke with leisure, the complete opposite of Cheonhwa, who was hard-pressed merely to continue the exchange. Yet the words carried no mockery—only pure admiration. In a mere decade of training the boy had raised his skill high enough to withstand this sword.
“Proof enough that you have packed those years with dense training and hard experience.”
The Founding Patriarch’s tone made plain he did not regard Cheonhwa as a true opponent. The gulf between them was simply that vast.
To change the flow, Cheonhwa began to circulate the mid-stage Polar Extreme formula. Longsword and iron sword clashed. The aftershock of overwhelming sword force set his sleeves snapping—yet this time he was not driven back several paces. Like a great tree that had sunk its roots into the earth, he held his ground without a tremor.
Even the way he received the assault had changed. Before, he had parried with the blade alone. Now he used the empty space between his hands on the hilt, the pommel at the end of the grip, and when his exposed back was struck he even laid the flat of the longsword against his spine. Unorthodox methods, all of them. The unyielding center born of his resolve never to retreat kept him from being easily pushed, and free sword paths unbound by fixed forms righted the collapsing tide.
The smile at the Founding Patriarch’s lips deepened.
“A center that does not easily shake, and sword form unbound by shape. An interesting mid-stage Polar Extreme. I especially like the latter.”
The forms of sword arts were efficient movements refined over long ages. When one attained the Polar Extreme, the result usually lay on the extension of that efficiency. The free, diagonal paths Cheonhwa had forged stood at the opposite pole. When necessary he discarded existing efficiency outright and even made inefficient motions into techniques. From an opponent’s perspective he was a walking mass of variables. Gaps still existed, of course—but he used even those to lure attacks and narrow the enemy’s trajectory. Such variation was possible only because his foundations were rock-solid.
“To greedily embrace every means for the sake of survival… a sword that is both unlike a common man and exactly like one!”
Those born with ordinary talent could not do many things at once; they lacked the surplus strength. Cheonhwa’s sword paths denied that truth to its face. Erasing the boundaries between forms to paint free trajectories was closer to the work of a genius. Yet a desperate man will chew food with his gums when he has no teeth left.
“The early forms are enough. Let us see the mid-stage forms.”
So saying, the Founding Patriarch poured internal power into the iron sword. The blade vibrated lightly and gave forth a pure ringing cry.
Sword cry? That means Body-Sword Unity!
Body-Sword Unity—the realm of the sword path said to be reachable only by those who had taken the art of riding qi into the blade to its utmost. Through internal power as medium they erased the boundary between self and sword, achieving sword-and-self as one. A swordsman who attained it could unfold techniques far more delicate and precise than before. The sword cry was one of the signature phenomena that appeared upon reaching that state.
Even ordinary strokes were hard enough to endure. If he uses Body-Sword Unity as well, can I still receive them?
While Cheonhwa fretted and absently worked the hilt of his longsword, a faint vibration answered from the blade—something like a voice speaking to him.
We can do it too?
To take the first step into Body-Sword Unity one first had to erase the boundary between sword and swordsman, and for that one needed long years with a single weapon until it became as familiar as one’s own limbs. Even with Okgyeong, which he had wielded for years, Cheonhwa had never achieved Body-Sword Unity. But what of a longsword that was the very image of the Heavenly Dipper Sword Secret’s inner landscape?
The Heavenly Dipper Sword Secret itself is a part of me. There is no boundary that needs erasing.
A method possible only because this was an inner landscape where form shifted with will. Cheonhwa concentrated his internal power into the longsword and strained to listen for its voice.
And in the next instant—
A clear, resonant cry poured from the longsword of the Heavenly Dipper Sword Secret.