The Shaanxi Sword Assembly
Why did the world call first-class martial artists masters?
The answer was simple.
Third-class and second-class remained mere extensions of ordinary human movement. From first-class onward, however, a martial artist could accomplish things no ordinary person ever could.
They did not merely run faster—they raced across the surface of grass leaves. They left no footprints in the snow. They could even raise a wind that overwhelmed an opponent from a distance.
To an ordinary person whose sense of qi had never opened, watching them must have felt like gazing upon a superhuman or an immortal.
Yet from the perspective of a martial artist whose qi sense had awakened, the story changed entirely.
Every martial art contained its own martial principles. If one thoroughly investigated those principles and grasped their underlying logic, anyone who met the necessary conditions could attempt them.
Where battles between third-class and second-class fighters centered on fundamentals, from first-class onward the key became how deeply one understood the subtle principles woven into each technique—and how aptly one could unleash them at the decisive moment.
The two first-class martial artists exchanging blows right now were no different.
A young man whose boyish softness had faded into a more masculine presence faced a young woman just coming into the full bloom of her prime. Cheonhwa and Yeonhwa gripped long wooden swords tightly and locked eyes.
Then they swung at each other.
Mists of true qi streamed outward; the force of Jin Release raced across those streams, raising waves that transformed into a single, sharp wind.
It was the sword-wind art the world called Jin Release Wave—or simply Force Wave.
A heavy boom rang out as the opposing sword-winds collided in midair and scattered shockwaves in every direction. Yet neither fighter paused. They poured out more sword-wind without pause.
A blade-wind steeped in cold qi clashed again and again with a razor-sharp blade-wind, timing perfect to the instant. Their movements matched so precisely it seemed they had rehearsed the sequence beforehand—possible only because each knew the other’s habits down to the bone.
Shards of shattered force glittered as they scattered through the air, almost dreamlike. Yet that beauty also meant neither sword-wind could overwhelm the other. Cheonhwa and Yeonhwa adjusted their grips and charged.
At the same moment true qi soaked into both wooden blades, making them glow with a soft light—the method of driving true qi into an external object: Qi-Infused Sword.
Cheonhwa brought his sword down with the full power of Jin Release, a hard, crushing strike. Yeonhwa answered with a soft, yielding sword that flowed with his motion.
A thunderous crack split the air as the blades met. The difference in raw force drove Yeonhwa sliding backward.
The result looked like Cheonhwa’s clear advantage, yet the truth was more complicated. Thick white frost already coated the length of his wooden sword.
One clash and it’s frozen this badly. That’s why the Boundless Sword Art is such a headache.
The Boundless Sword Art. Simply by touching, it let the yin-cold qi of Dark Heaven True Qi seep into the opponent’s weapon—functionally a high-level internal sealing art delivered through the sword. Under normal circumstances a brief clash should not have frozen a blade so thoroughly, yet Yeonhwa’s innate sensitivity made it possible.
It’s only a wooden sword for now, but the longer the contact lasts, the deeper the cold will sink until it locks my movement completely.
People called a sword that moved in answer to the opponent “dull,” yet the Boundless Sword Art inverted that very idea—it made the opponent’s movements dull instead.
I have to force a short decisive fight before the yin-cold qi takes hold.
Cheonhwa shook the frost from his blade and lunged again. Yeonhwa kept giving ground, yet she received every attack with perfect stability, using the principles of the soft sword to bleed off the impact as much as possible.
With every exchange the frost on Cheonhwa’s sword spread farther, coating the entire blade and finally creeping over the hilt itself. The moment to gamble everything had arrived.
Cheonhwa moved first.
He wrapped a Force Wave around the wooden blade, converted the stored power into pure drive, and pushed the speed of his strike to its absolute limit.
A deviant application that turns Jin Release Wave into acceleration rather than direct attack.
The wooden sword came howling in on a blade-wind. Yeonhwa showed no panic. Instead she looked as though she had been waiting for exactly this. She drew up her internal energy; her qi pulse surged violently, revealing the card she had prepared.
Stored Jin—the art of releasing every scrap of accumulated Jin Release at once to reverse the flow of battle.
Ordinarily the proper answer would have been to meet Stored Jin with Stored Jin of her own. But Cheonhwa, having already poured his Force Wave into raw speed, had no room left for that reply.
Blade-wind and countering Stored Jin crossed.
An overwhelming collision of sword force should have produced a deafening explosion—yet no sound came at all. Worse, there was no sensation of impact whatsoever.
This is…?!
Only then did Yeonhwa realize what had happened. Her eyes snapped to Cheonhwa’s wooden sword. The blade that had been thickly frosted moments before now trembled with violent intensity.
A form that absorbs impact into the true qi already infused through Qi-Infused Sword, storing it as the foundation for the next strike.
Yeonhwa tried desperately to open distance, but she was already too late.
A sudden boom exploded like a cloudburst out of a clear sky—the impact Heavenly Rain Pond had absorbed now released all at once.
The stored force erupts without warning while the blades are still locked.
Caught with their swords still pressed together, Yeonhwa had no chance to evade. She skidded far backward. She fought to regain her stance, yet Cheonhwa was a half-step faster; the tip of his wooden sword already rested at her throat.
“……I lost.”
Yeonhwa exhaled the words like a sigh. Cheonhwa withdrew his sword.
“I lost again. We used to be pretty evenly matched.”
“I’ve been working at all sorts of things these past four years just to keep the head disciple’s seat.”
Still, it had been close, Cheonhwa said, and held up his wooden sword. The battered blade looked ready to crumble the instant the reinforcement of Qi-Infused Sword faded. Absorbing the full shock of Heavenly Wind Grind colliding with Stored Jin and yet not snapping was a miracle in itself.
“I blocked in a hurry with Heavenly Rain Pond and released it as Heavenly Sudden Rain. If the absorption had failed or the release had come even a fraction later, I would have been the one who lost.”
“Enough. Defeat is defeat, no matter what excuses you stack on top of it.”
Yeonhwa’s face was pure sulk. Consecutive losses of late had clearly soured her temper.
In their earlier matches Cheonhwa, inferior in many respects, had clung and dragged the fights into draws. At some point he had drawn level—and now, more and more often, he took clean victories like this one. The root of the gap lay in their relative attainments.
Yeonhwa had yet to master Dark Heaven True Qi completely. Cheonhwa, by contrast, had already linked lower and middle dantians and stood on the very brink of mastering Vast Heaven Qi Art.
“No matter how I look at it, it’s strange.”
“You mean my rate of growth?”
“Yeah.”
Cheonhwa’s progress was disturbingly unnatural, and that unnatural quality only grew more obvious with time. Even perfect mastery of a foundational art should not produce such continuous explosive gains.
“I thought it was strange too, but I’ve decided to take it easy. I just tell myself my skill rises exactly as much as I work.”
Cheonhwa shrugged and gave a wry smile. The martial scholars of the Zhongnan Sect had spent a full six years studying the phenomenon and still had not fully explained it. There was nothing he himself could do about it.
Yeonhwa still looked unconvinced. She added one last line.
“I’m going to catch up. Just watch.”
With that she turned and hurried out of the training ground. Cheonhwa’s gaze followed her retreating back. Yeonhwa never made empty boasts; she must have already found some method. No matter how long it took, her peculiar patience and drive would make good on her words.
I’ll be looking forward to it, Junior Sister Yeonhwa.
He murmured the thought inwardly—and only then noticed the state of the yard.
Cleaning up this wrecked training ground… looks like I’m doing it alone.
After finishing the cleanup by himself, Cheonhwa received a summons from Gakhyeon.
When he arrived, Gakhyeon sat with the usual deep furrow between his brows and waved him to a seat. Once Cheonhwa settled, Gakhyeon stated the reason for the call.
“I called you today because I’ve finally uncovered the secret behind that abnormal growth rate of yours.”
“That’s good news, yet your expression isn’t exactly bright, Senior.”
“I had my suspicions long ago, but confirming them took a disgustingly long time.”
Gakhyeon shuddered as though he never wanted to repeat the experience, then continued the explanation.
“I’ll give you the conclusion first. Your growth speed is the result of three interlocking conditions.”
He raised three fingers and listed them one by one.
“The first is the pure functional effect of fully mastering Balanced Heaven Qi Accumulation Art—the tempering of the body so that it becomes a perfect vessel for Zhongnan’s martial studies.”
That function alone allowed Cheonhwa to learn every martial art of the Zhongnan Sect and, when acquiring new techniques, to draw on the aid of an already polished foundation. Yet that alone could not account for his speed, so the remaining two conditions entered the picture.
“The second is compatibility between heart methods. As you know, Balanced Heaven Qi Accumulation Art and Vast Heaven Qi Art stand in a mutual generation relationship according to the Five Elements—earth generating metal.”
Originally that referred only to affinity between heart methods. Combined with the first condition, however, the fully realized qi of Balanced Heaven Qi Accumulation Art actively nourished Vast Heaven Qi Art, driving its attainments upward at a steep angle.
The third condition had poured oil on that fire.
“The third is the compatibility between Balanced Heaven Qi Accumulation Art and the martial artist named Cheonhwa himself.”
Just as martial arts possessed affinities with one another, so did martial arts and martial artists. That affinity hinged on how closely the intent woven into a technique matched the person practicing it. Every martial art carried its own intent; when one refined body and mind in accordance with that intent, the art’s power rose another level.
Cheonhwa’s extraordinary growth stemmed exactly from this.
“The core intents that form the formulas of Balanced Heaven Qi Accumulation Art are these three: Lack of Talent, Relentless Effort, and Surpassing the Limit.”
Lack of Talent referred to those born without gift—ordinary or dull. Relentless Effort was the attitude of pouring every moment into martial cultivation. Surpassing the Limit was the will to overcome natural gift through that very effort.
“Every last one of them fits you perfectly.”
Since the founding of the Zhongnan Sect, had there ever been another human who matched the foundational formulas so completely? When the results came in, even the martial scholars had simply nodded as if to say, of course.
“Each condition is simple on its own—which is exactly why confirming them took far too long.”
Gakhyeon clicked his tongue and added one more remark.
“Still, thanks to that I can now be certain. Master Balanced Heaven Qi Accumulation Art, then learn the higher heart methods one by one. That was the correct sequence of heart-method cultivation designed by our founding master.”
“Does that mean…”
“Yes. You, who discovered this truth, are the legitimate successor of the Zhongnan martial lineage.”
The senior disciple of the Zhongnan Sect drove the nail home. At the same time he regarded Cheonhwa with a faintly worried look, as though wondering whether it was truly safe to place this particular young man in that role. Cheonhwa had no ready reply, so he simply smiled.
“That finishes the first matter. The other concerns an event of the main mountain. Word is the Shaanxi Sword Assembly will be held soon.”
The Shaanxi Sword Assembly—an exchange between the two great orthodox sword sects that represented Shaanxi Province: the Zhongnan Sect and the Huashan Sect.
“I’ve heard of it. Originally it was held once every five years, but both Zhongnan and Huashan lacked the leisure and postponed it indefinitely.”
“Correct. Both sects suffered heavily at the hands of the Six Tyrant Coalition.”
“Already six years ago.”
Zhongnan and Huashan had worked tirelessly to repay the Six Tyrant Coalition in kind. As a result Zhongnan had shattered the branch responsible for the assault, while Huashan, after a hard confrontation with the Tyrant Sword Sect, had succeeded in pushing back at least part of their influence.
“The incidents themselves have been settled for the moment, yet the shock of two of the Nine Great Sects being attacked by the Six Tyrant Coalition has not faded. The two sects need to demonstrate that they remain strong.”
“And that is this year’s Shaanxi Sword Assembly.”
“Exactly. I hear they plan to invite prominent figures from across Shaanxi as well.”
In ordinary years the Shaanxi Sword Assembly served mainly as a gathering for the young disciples of both sects to discuss the sword and deepen friendship. This year it would be different in many respects.
“Where will the assembly be held?”
“Zhongnan and Huashan take turns hosting. This year it falls to Zhongnan.”
“Since it is no longer a simple exchange between sects, we will be busy exactly as you said.”
The main participants would be the third-generation and second-generation disciples. As head disciple charged with leading the third-generation, Cheonhwa felt a weight of responsibility that matched his anticipation.
This will be my first major event since becoming head disciple.
The Shaanxi Sword Assembly, opening after a full nine years. The moment when two long-crouching sects would finally stretch their limbs was drawing near.