Reap What You Sow (2)
When Cheonhwa emerged from the training cave and announced that he had become a Peak Expert, the Zhongnan Sect was thrown into an uproar.
Reaching the extreme of First-class before the age of twenty had happened countless times before. But reaching Peak before twenty was an unheard-of marvel throughout the entire martial world.
The Zhongnan leadership even ordered an emergency assembly over it. If the elders were reacting like that, the disciples' response needed no description.
"He became a Peak Expert?!"
"Hahaha, I sensed the signs, but I never thought he'd actually pull it off…"
"How did he become a Peak Expert in such a short time? Is there some special trick to it?"
"That's not the point right now! One of our third-generation disciples has become a Peak Expert! And the youngest ever—he hasn't even passed twenty!"
Some were stunned by a reality they could scarcely believe. Others gave hollow laughs of pure disbelief. Some pressed for any scrap of insight into the Peak realm. Still others cheered and praised Cheonhwa's achievement to the skies.
With so many people crowding in and talking at once, even a single word from each left his ears ringing. In the end, Cheonhwa had to flee to his private quarters just to escape his sect brothers and sisters.
Myeonghwa stepped in, calmed the crowd, and then went to Cheonhwa's room as their representative.
"Tough day again, Junior Brother Cheonhwa."
"Tell me about it."
Myeonghwa spoke with a sly smile. Cheonhwa let out a long sigh and nodded.
"Not much we can do about it. You just set an unprecedented record."
Anyone could reach First-class with enough time and resources. Peak, however, lay beyond that. Even the gifted floundered against the wall of Peak. Cheonhwa had vaulted over that wall in a short span of time—so of course every eye was fixed on him.
"So how does it feel to be the youngest Peak Expert ever, Junior Brother?"
Myeonghwa fired the question without preamble. His sly smile and sparkling eyes were full of curiosity; he clearly wanted Cheonhwa's reaction more than anything.
Cheonhwa merely shrugged.
"I expected something special, but there really isn't. Just that the things I can do have increased a bit."
"What? I was hoping for something more exciting than that."
Myeonghwa pouted and grumbled that it was boring. After that he collected the questions the third-generation disciples had been burning to ask and put them all to Cheonhwa. Once the round of questions was finished, he asked about Cheonhwa's plans.
"So what are you going to do next?"
"I intend to learn the Blue Heaven Qi Art and the Clear Wind Sword Art. I'll also master the later forms of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven."
"What? You barely rested after the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering before diving straight into closed-door training. And now more training?"
Myeonghwa was astonished. After an achievement like that from closed-door training, anyone else would have taken a break. Yet Cheonhwa wanted to start learning new martial arts immediately. Did the man never get tired?
Cheonhwa gave a small laugh.
"I finished closed-door training, but there are still many gaps. I felt I needed new arts to fill them."
Refining the Heavenly Dipper Sword Secret still required time, and to buy that time he needed to solve the problem of extreme internal-energy consumption. Fortunately he had the century-old fleeceflower root elixir he had won at the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering. Absorbing it with his existing internal arts would work, but combining it with a new internal art would produce far more dramatic results. And now that he had awakened Spiritual Nature, he could operate a fourth internal art. He meant to learn Blue Heaven Qi Art so he could digest the elixir more efficiently.
Stacking Blue Heaven Qi Art on top of the rest will drain me even harder than before, but it's a path I have to walk eventually.
Refining the Heavenly Dipper Sword Secret—born from the Thirty-Six Swords—was largely a matter of handling intent. As a foundation for that, he needed the later forms of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven. Those later forms dealt with high-level techniques such as Intent Qi Manifestation, seizing objects through empty air, and Striking the Mountain to Hit the Ox. All of them required the use of intent, so they would be of great help in controlling the Heavenly Dipper Sword Secret.
Unaware of Cheonhwa's private calculations, Myeonghwa looked at him with worry.
"You're not pushing yourself too hard, are you?"
"I'm not. If anything, my hands are itching to start training as soon as possible. I can feel myself growing with every session."
"Aigoo… that's such a Cheonhwa answer…"
Myeonghwa clicked his tongue. Perhaps that level of drive was exactly what it took to become a Peak Expert before twenty. Cheonhwa's natural talent was utterly ordinary, yet his mindset was extraordinary beyond measure.
"The Dragon-Phoenix Gathering is over, so there won't be any major events for a while. Focusing on training for the time being should be fine."
The Martial Alliance was still at war with the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace, but that was not a fight for third-generation disciples. Unless something else erupted, it would be a long time before the third generation set out into the martial world again.
Contrary to every expectation, however, less than five days after Cheonhwa finished closed-door training, grim news arrived.
In Jiangsu Province, at the eastern edge of the Central Plains, a strange calamity had broken out: the dead were rising and attacking the living.
Cheonhwa was summoned by Okwon Jinin.
He had already spoken with the Sect Leader once before entering the training cave. He had never imagined a second private audience would come so soon.
Okwon Jinin spoke slowly.
"Have you heard the rumors about Jiangsu Province?"
"Yes, Senior Brother Myeonghwa told me. He said the whole Central Plains is in an uproar over them."
"They are more than rumors. From what has been confirmed, the things appear to be jiangshi."
Jiangshi.
Originally they were corpses animated by a technique devised to carry the war-dead back to their hometowns. Beyond simple movement they could do nothing, so they held no value as soldiers. The jiangshi that had appeared in Jiangsu, however, were of a completely different breed.
"They do not hop stiffly about. They move as freely as living people—and they can even use martial arts."
At the words "corpses that use martial arts," Cheonhwa's eyes went round with shock.
Martial arts required the three elements of essence, qi, and spirit. A corpse that became a jiangshi lacked all three. When a person's soul left the body, the intent that moved flesh and internal energy was severed. The force that had held the internal energy in place vanished as well, and it slowly dispersed into nature. A body whose breath had stopped either stiffened or rotted, unable to form proper techniques.
Wait—the Mysterious Forces researched jiangshi, didn't they?
Cheonhwa recalled the Ga Wol-ak incident in Nonghyeon. The murderous group that had imitated Wol-ak had been one of the fruits of that research.
"Could this jiangshi incident be connected to the Mysterious Forces?"
"Almost certainly."
In the present martial world, those who handled sorcery were extremely rare. Where jiangshi specifically were concerned, only two factions in the entire righteous path had ever known the art: the Mount Mao Sect and the Jinju Eon Family.
"But the Mount Mao Sect was wiped out, and the Jinju Eon Family publicly renounced sorcery and declared they would walk the pure path of a martial clan."
The Jinju Eon Family's roots lay in a house of undertakers who recovered and buried the war-dead. They had learned the jiangshi arts precisely to return unclaimed corpses to their homes. Their main household, however, sat dangerously close to the imperial capital of Beijing, and the imperial court had never looked kindly on a martial clan that commanded jiangshi. Even under the principle of non-interference between court and martial world, angering the throne could erase a clan overnight without a sound. For the sake of survival the Eon Family had been forced to abandon the jiangshi arts and pursue the pure martial path.
"So there is essentially no sect or clan left that can offer a proper countermeasure against jiangshi."
"Exactly. And the jiangshi that have appeared this time differ from the traditional kind in many respects as well."
"What is their current activity like?"
"They appear to be moving quite actively."
The jiangshi horde was currently rampaging across the whole of Jiangsu Province—which was why news of it had reached as far as Shaanxi. After the fall of Mount Mao, Jiangsu had no major righteous sect left. The jiangshi attacked martial artists indiscriminately, whether righteous or demonic, white path or black. Yet they never laid a hand on officials or common folk who were not of the martial world. Such systematic behavior was clear proof that someone was controlling them from behind the scenes.
Ordinarily the powerless commoners would be the first targets. Why attack only martial artists?
During the Ga Wol-ak incident they had slaughtered martial artists and civilians alike without distinction. This time they were selecting only martial artists, and that felt wrong. Was their purpose not simple rampage, but something else? For now the information was too scant to be certain of anything.
"How has the righteous path decided to respond to this jiangshi incident?"
"Normally the major sects near Jiangsu would be tasked with it, or the Martial Alliance would summon elites and dispatch them. The Namgung Family, however, has objected."
Jiangsu bordered Anhui and Shandong. The Namgung Family's seat was in Anhui, right next to Jiangsu. If the jiangshi horde advanced outward, that region would be the first in danger. Yet the Namgung Family insisted they could handle a problem of this scale themselves and refused outside help.
"Didn't the Namgung Family also send their elites for the Southern Barbarian campaign? They must be short-handed just like everyone else. And they still reacted that way?"
The campaign against the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace was the Martial Alliance's first true joint operation. Failure was not an option, so vast numbers of elites had been committed. Every major righteous sect had contributed heavily. Zhongnan itself had sent the Taiyi Sword Masters and several second-generation disciples. The Namgung Family was no different.
And in that situation they dig their heels in like this…
Cheonhwa could not understand it. Okwon Jinin seemed to share the feeling; he nodded.
"The other sects reacted much the same way. The Huangbo Family of Shandong, who would also take direct damage alongside Namgung, protested especially loudly."
"But things did not go smoothly, I take it."
"Indeed. With so much strength already poured into the Southern Barbarian campaign, any additional support is a heavy burden."
Even if they scraped together more men and sent them, if the unorthodox or black paths stirred in the meantime and threatened the home sects, the whole enterprise would be reversed—guests and hosts swapped.
"What is even stranger is that, in the midst of all this, an invitation to a banquet has arrived from the Namgung Family. And not in the Family Head's name, but in the Young Master's."
"The Young Master—Namgung Myeong? On what pretext is he holding a banquet?"
"He says he wishes to deepen friendships with the rising talents he met at the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering."
The Namgung Family had publicly declared they would solve the Jiangsu problem themselves—yet at that very moment the Young Master was throwing a banquet? By any common sense it made no sense. And the Namgung Myeong Cheonhwa knew was not the sort of man to do such a thing.
There must be a reason.
Okwon Jinin felt the same unease. He looked at Cheonhwa.
"It seems necessary that you go and discover what is truly happening."
"Understood, Sect Leader. I will leave as soon as I am ready."
Cheonhwa accepted Okwon Jinin's charge. Even with the jiangshi horde running wild in Jiangsu, Namgung Myeong had deliberately convened a banquet. To learn the Young Master's true intent, Cheonhwa left the mountain and set out on the road.