Obstinacy (3)
Cheonhwa and Daehwa swung their fists at each other.
The only martial art either of them could use was the Five Elements Fist.
Both were equally close to their limits. Cheonhwa had burned through ten spars in a row and poured everything into reinforcing his intent, leaving him utterly spent. Daehwa had exhausted both stamina and internal energy forcing out powerful Jin Releases, and the hastily drawn Stored Jin had overheated his muscles and meridians.
Neither man’s fists carried the same force as before. The true energy that had once flooded the floor was gone; even the most basic circulation of internal power was beyond them. They no longer had the strength to generate force through proper fist forms. All that remained was the grinding effort of forcing broken bodies to move, producing motions too clumsy to deserve the name of martial arts.
A limp Wood Collapse Fist smacked against a chest. A swaying Metal Wall Fist slapped a cheek. Neither had the luxury of defense; both poured every scrap of remaining will into attack alone.
“Uwaaaaah!”
“Haaaaah!”
They roared as if wringing the last of their guts out through their throats—desperate thrashing to squeeze out one more drop of strength. The sounds were closer to screams than battle cries.
The reason was simple.
They could not lose to this one. They had to win this spar.
At the root of that obstinacy lay mutual hostility. To Cheonhwa, Daehwa was the ringleader of the opposition and the source of every scheme. To Daehwa, Cheonhwa was the mirror that reflected his own wretched state. Had they been like the other members of the opposition and sparred for months, things might have been different. But this was their first match, and it was also the last chance either of them would have to face the other as leader of the opposition and its sworn enemy. So they scraped every last buried emotion from the bottom of their hearts and set it ablaze.
Fists heavy with that heat slammed into each other’s faces. Both men staggered back several steps from the impact and the pain. Their heads swam, their ears rang, and nausea clawed up their throats. Still they did not fall. Gritting their teeth and forcing their eyes wide, they fixed each other with blazing stares. They whipped their trembling legs forward, closed the distance, and lifted arms that hung like wet rags, clenching their fists once more.
The final blow, wrung from the last dregs of strength.
Their fists flew. The vertical strike of the Wood Collapse Fist and the palm strike of the Metal Wall Fist streaked toward each other’s faces at the same instant.
Thud!
A pair of dry impacts sounded as one. The blow pushed both men past their limits; they crumpled as if their strings had been cut. Each tried desperately to rise, but their bodies refused every command.
With the combatants no longer able to decide the match themselves, the outcome fell to the referee’s judgment. After examining both, he delivered his ruling.
“Both sides remain conscious, yet it is confirmed that neither is able to continue the spar.”
In an ordinary match this would have been a draw unless one side conceded defeat.
“However—exactly thirty exchanges passed before both men became incapable of action!”
The special rules of this examination decided the result.
“This spar is a victory for examinee Cheonhwa!”
The referee’s declaration seemed to restart time itself. People began to move again. Cheonhwa and Daehwa were loaded onto stretchers and carried to the Medicine Hall. Spectators buzzed about the wheel-battle spars that had just ended. Examiners hurried about preparing the next matches.
When Cheonhwa’s victory was confirmed, Myeonghwa let out a long breath of relief.
I never thought he’d actually beat Senior Brother Daehwa.
Even with the restrictions on allowed techniques, it was an astonishing feat.
And that change in his sword forms near the end—that was clearly the Peak Mastery of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven.
Myeonghwa had read the manuals for the first half of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven while frequenting the Jangseogak with Cheonhwa. According to those texts, mastering all twelve forms of the first half was Minor Accomplishment. Internalizing them until they could be used freely was Major Accomplishment. Breaking free of the existing framework to create one’s own sword forms was Peak Mastery.
The manuals said that only a Peak Expert who had learned the latter half’s secret formulas was truly ready to attempt Peak Mastery of the first half.
Of course, Peak Expert rank was not an absolute requirement. Even at a lower realm, one could pour day and night into the twelve forms, awaken sword intent, and complete a personal sword style. The process simply took years—sometimes more than a decade—depending on the person. That Cheonhwa had reached Peak Mastery in so short a time was thanks to five relentless months of nonstop wheel-battle spars and no small measure of heaven’s luck.
Now that he’s reached Peak Mastery, he’s far beyond the level of an entry disciple.
The shock of the second-generation disciples at Cheonhwa’s growth proved as much. Not everyone recognized the Peak Mastery of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven, of course. Most third-generation disciples simply focused on the fact of his victory.
“I still can’t believe Ox Boy beat Senior Brother Daehwa even after seeing it with my own eyes.”
“I never thought he’d snatch a decision instead of a draw there.”
“And it wasn’t just any win—he took ten straight after nine consecutive matches. No one can deny that victory.”
“It’s an incredible record. Highest score this examination will ever see, no question.”
The entry disciples’ reactions were largely favorable. Cheonhwa had filled the maximum number of consecutive matches in the second trial and toppled both a prestigious family’s son and the strongest among the entry disciples. The opposition’s schemes had, ironically, only certified that Cheonhwa’s skill fully matched the rank of a full disciple. With this, he stood closer than anyone to the pinnacle of the entry disciples.
More important than anything is that Cheonhwa’s conflict with the opposition ends today.
The feud itself had been an open secret. Few knew the full details of the wager, but the second-generation disciples had been watching closely.
The scale of what they did was too big for the senior brothers to miss.
A tightly packed wheel-battle schedule handled by only a handful of second-generation disciples—suspicious circumstances that demanded investigation. Belatedly they realized the affair involved not only entry disciples but second-generation ones as well.
If Junior Brother Cheonhwa hadn’t insisted on settling it himself, it would have blown up into a major scandal.
Even if the ringleader was the eldest son of the Shinchang Yang Family, there were limits. The Zhongnan Sect could easily have imposed severe punishment even at the risk of conflict with the Yang Family. That it had not happened was solely because the victim, Cheonhwa, had chosen to resolve the matter himself. The sect had decided to wait and watch.
What remained was how the opposition would respond. If they accepted the result quietly, everything would end cleanly. But if they refused and caused further trouble—
The sect, now armed with full justification, would come down hard.
If that day ever came, Myeonghwa would abandon his current neutrality and take an active hand.
Carried to the Medicine Hall, Cheonhwa regained consciousness before long.
“How is it that every time you take a promotion exam you end up carried in here unconscious?”
Danwon, Head of the Medicine Hall, launched straight into a scolding. Taking the exam was fine, but he needed to take care of his body first. Even allowing for the spars against the opposition, Cheonhwa could not deny he had driven himself past the limit, so he simply endured the lecture in silence.
Around the same time, Daehwa in the next bed opened his eyes.
“Both of you have reached the third stage of foundational training, so lie still, circulate your energy with the proper breathing method, and recover properly. If either of you causes a disturbance, I’ll seal your pressure points and leave you unable to move until you’re completely healed.”
With that warning, Danwon left them alone. An awkward atmosphere settled over the ward. In the uncomfortable silence, Cheonhwa spoke first.
“What exactly about me bothered you so much that you formed an entire opposition just to harass me?”
It was the question he had wanted to ask for a long time. He had thrown it out expecting no real answer, yet Daehwa replied without hesitation.
“Exactly what I said when I proposed the wager. I didn’t like you. The way you never gave up, and the way you kept succeeding—those things especially got under my skin.”
“You caused all this over something that small?”
“You wouldn’t understand. How miserable it feels to hit a wall no matter how hard you try and never move forward.”
“Have you ever gone hungry? Have you ever clawed just to stay alive from one day to the next?”
“……”
“Of course not. You’re the son of a prestigious family. Unlike me, a complete orphan, you never lacked clothes, food, a roof, or a family.”
Cheonhwa had no idea how hard Daehwa might have worked or what private burdens he carried.
“You already have everything I never had, so hearing you talk about misery just sounds like the complaints of someone who’s never gone without.”
Different environments. Different natural talent. Different goals. When everything from start to finish was different, how could equal effort produce equal results? Effort was only a challenge and a chance—it was never a magic spell that handed over the outcome you wanted.
“I won’t deny I was lucky. Without luck I never would have walked a path of success after joining the Zhongnan Sect.”
But pure luck alone had not brought him here.
“I was able to seize that luck only because of the effort I put in. You know that much yourself. You studied me thoroughly just to create a countermeasure.”
“……”
Daehwa kept his mouth shut, face twisting. Cheonhwa’s words were pure reason. He was well aware that everything he had done was both a nuisance and a petty venting of frustration. Yet understanding with the head and accepting with the heart were different matters. He could not find a way forward.
“What should I have done?”
“I don’t know. If I had known, I wouldn’t have lived as a wretched orphan until the day I entered the Zhongnan Sect.”
At that answer Daehwa covered his face with both hands. The ragged breaths that escaped between his fingers were thick with self-loathing and inferiority. Where exactly had he taken the wrong path? It was a useless question now. He had simply run wherever emotion drove him and, after all his thrashing, lost the wager. That was the result, and that was everything. Anything more was only the sordid excuses of a loser.
In this state, anything I say will only sound like mockery.
Cheonhwa decided to leave the suffering Daehwa alone for a while. Even if they had been enemies, he was not so heartless as to shove a fellow disciple who was already hanging over a cliff. Besides, while someone was drowning in emotion, words were useless. Even if help stood right beside him, climbing out of this pit was something only Daehwa himself could do.
The real problem is how to handle the opposition…
No matter what excuses were attached, the fact remained that the opposition had lost. From the moment Cheonhwa won the wheel-battle spars, the terms of the wager took effect. Yet the other side had already forced extra conditions once before. A man who had crossed a line once could become shameless again without limit.
Even if the hostility has thinned, it hasn’t completely disappeared.
After long thought, Cheonhwa settled on how to dispose of the opposition.
Cheonhwa recovered faster than Daehwa and left the Medicine Hall first. The secret of that swift recovery was the continuous circulating breath that never stopped even in sleep. After the first day they exchanged no more words. Though they had bared their hearts, each still regarded the other as an enemy, and neither intended to deny it. When they parted they did not bother with greetings.
The first thing Cheonhwa did after leaving the Medicine Hall was to summon the opposition. The called members gathered at the meeting place; most still looked as though they could not believe they had lost the wager.
Once he confirmed everyone was present, Cheonhwa drew something from his robes—the written pledge bearing the signatures of every member of the opposition. Before their eyes he tore the document into shreds. Then he delivered his first and last command.
“Listen well, opposition. From this moment I nullify every promise written on that pledge.”
The opposition, never expecting him to destroy the document, could not hide their shock. To tear up a pledge guaranteed by the eldest son of the Shinchang Yang Family—what was he thinking? One of them could not restrain his curiosity.
“Why did you nullify the pledge?”
“Because a single scrap of paper can never make the entire opposition my subordinates.”
Cheonhwa swept his gaze across every face.
“Some of you will leave the main mountain in a few years. Do you really think that pledge would still bind them?”
Silence answered him. Taking it as agreement, Cheonhwa continued.
“Even if it still bound those who remain, you and I were enemies. Thinning hostility does not change that fact.”
If he tried to order them around on the strength of a piece of paper, the faded resentment would only flare hotter. That would merely create more potential enemies. What use were subordinates who might stab him in the back at any moment?
“So anyone with complaints may leave. Only those who choose to follow me should stay.”
At Cheonhwa’s declaration the opposition members glanced at one another for a moment—then, without a single exception, dropped to their knees.
Caught completely off guard, Cheonhwa asked what they thought they were doing.
“What is this supposed to mean?”
“The entire opposition will follow Junior Brother Cheonhwa.”
Sohwa spoke as their representative. Most of their dislike for Cheonhwa had sprung from jealousy. Yet through the wheel-battle spars they had witnessed firsthand the effort he had poured in, and he had finished the wager against the opposition with a complete victory, proving his skill beyond any doubt. Resentment at defeat might remain, but they could no longer deny his ability. To deny it would be to belittle the five months of effort the opposition itself had poured into the challenge.
That alone would have been reason enough to follow him, yet there was more.
“Junior Brother Cheonhwa gave us a choice instead of an order.”
He had not simply wielded a contract to control them; he had told them to decide for themselves where they would stand. That decision sent ripples through every heart present. It became the moment they moved beyond mere submission to the result of the wager and chose, of their own will, to follow Cheonhwa.
“If Junior Brother Cheonhwa becomes a full disciple, we will support him. Even if he does not, we will still assist him as fellow disciples.”
Cheonhwa studied their faces. Every pair of eyes looked up at him with genuine respect, as if affirming Sohwa’s words. At this rate, even if he drove them away they would simply trail after him on their own.
He let out a soft sigh.
“Do as you like.”
That day, without ever intending it, Cheonhwa gained a powerful faction of supporters who would follow him of their own free will.