Heartscape (2)
‘No… something’s different.’
Cheonhwa’s joy lasted only a moment before an odd sense of dissonance settled over him. The outward appearance was unmistakably Jinhyun’s, yet the atmosphere the figure gave off was not the same.
“Who are you?”
At Cheonhwa’s question, the smile on the face that wore Jinhyun’s likeness deepened.
“So you noticed after all. I sensed it from the moment you recognized the sword scars and form demonstrations in the cave — your gift for telling dissonance apart is truly exceptional.”
The sword scars in the cave, and the demonstration of forms. Only one person was connected to both.
“Could it be… the Founding Ancestor?”
“Indeed. I am Dokgo Jin, Founding Ancestor of the Zhongnan Sect. More precisely, I am the will that dwelt within the sword scars you absorbed.”
“Why have you taken the form of Martial Uncle Jinhyun?”
“It was unavoidable, if I was to help you.”
“To help me?”
“Yes. You had overdrawn your will so severely that you nearly sank to the bottom of your own consciousness.”
The words — that he had been a single step from becoming a vegetable — sent a chill through Cheonhwa. He had known he was pushing himself too far, but never imagined it would come to this.
“I am deeply indebted to you, Founding Ancestor.”
“I only did what was natural as the progenitor of the sect. More importantly, let us leave this place.”
The Founding Ancestor beckoned him to follow, and Cheonhwa moved after him. Darkness filled every direction, yet the Founding Ancestor’s steps never faltered, as if he already knew the path. At last light poured through the dark ahead, and the moment they passed through it, the darkness fell away and a new landscape unfurled before them.
A vast plain, and colossal mountain ranges stretching out in every direction. Cheonhwa could only stare, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the sight.
“Founding Ancestor… what is this place?”
“Surprised? This is your heartscape — the place where the martial arts you have learned take form.”
“My… heartscape.”
At the Founding Ancestor’s explanation, Cheonhwa studied the landscape again with care. Now that he knew it was martial arts given shape, the terrain itself began to make sense.
The broad plain was the foundation of Zhongnan martial arts itself — the Gyunchon Chukgi-gong. And the mountain ranges reaching out in all four directions had to represent the Four Directions Heaven Arts.
‘The eastern and southern ranges are faint, but the western and northern ones have a presence that is almost vivid — and they carry the feel of the seasons.’
The arts he had not yet learned existed only as foundations, rendered as bare stone peaks. Those he had mastered, by contrast, were expressed through the seasons tied to the Five Elements. The western range, standing for the Hocheon-gigong, showed an autumn scene of fruit heavy on the branches and grain ripening in the fields. The northern range, standing for the Hyeoncheon-jingi, offered a winter vista of frozen lakes and snow piled soft and deep.
“Does the form change depending on the kind of martial art?”
“It does. Inner arts are the cultivation of the mind, so they take shape as the land and mountains that form the foundation of the heartscape.”
“Then how are martial arts other than the inner arts expressed?”
“As the shapes of animals that make their home upon this land.”
As if to prove the Founding Ancestor’s words, a presence drew near. A monkey with five-colored fur clambered onto the Founding Ancestor’s shoulder. A crane, long of leg and beak, drifted in on quiet wings and settled itself. A swallow, small and swift, came to rest upon the Founding Ancestor’s hand.
‘The monkey is the Ohaeng-kwon, the crane is the Gugung-bo, and the swallow is the Cloud-Gathering Free Roaming Art.’
As he studied the animals, Cheonhwa suddenly realized two arts were missing. One was the Yukhapgamgakdo; the other was the Cheonhasamsipyuk-geom.
When Cheonhwa began to look about, the Founding Ancestor asked,
“What are you searching for so intently?”
“I was looking for where the Yukhapgamgakdo and the Cheonhasamsipyuk-geom might be.”
“Hahaha. The Yukhapgamgakdo? It is right here.”
With a hearty laugh, the Founding Ancestor pointed to himself. Only then did Cheonhwa remember the words about borrowing a form.
“You mean…?”
“Exactly that.”
The Yukhapgamgakdo was the martial art Jinhyun had created for Cheonhwa — his legacy. That it would wear Jinhyun’s likeness within Cheonhwa’s heartscape was only natural.
“As you well know, a will is nothing more than a hazy outline. I had to rely on the heartscape dwelling within the Yukhapgamgakdo for help.”
“…”
Cheonhwa was grateful he stood here as a spiritual body rather than a physical one. Had he still possessed flesh, the swell of emotion would have brought him to tears. The Yukhapgamgakdo itself had already been of immense help to him — and even within the heartscape, it was cooperating with the Founding Ancestor’s will for his sake. He could never lift his head before Jinhyun again.
“I understand about the Yukhapgamgakdo. Then where is the Cheonhasamsipyuk-geom…?”
“There.”
The Founding Ancestor’s hand turned upward. Cheonhwa lifted his gaze and recognized the presence of the sky. That clear blue expanse itself was the symbol of the Cheonhasamsipyuk-geom.
‘Just as its name says — Under Heaven. It covers the entire world beneath the sky.’
The thirty-six directions divided across heaven and earth meant the whole of the world, and it was the greatest sword art of the Zhongnan Sect, the pride of its Founding Ancestor. That it would become the sky itself was only fitting.
“Ordinarily, a heartscape cannot take form this clearly and concretely unless one is already approaching the realm of a Peak Expert.”
The Founding Ancestor spoke as he looked up at the blue sky. The satisfied smile on his face made his feelings plain — he was thoroughly pleased with the scenery of Cheonhwa’s heartscape.
“It means you have laid your foundations that well. I conceived all of this, yet I never expected to see it realized so perfectly.”
The Founding Ancestor’s gaze turned to Cheonhwa, warm with goodwill. Perhaps because of the borrowed form, it overlapped with Jinhyun’s.
“I am proud that you are a descendant of the Zhongnan Sect.”
He had never taught Cheonhwa directly, yet Cheonhwa was walking the path he had laid with stubborn, unwavering steps. Cheonhwa himself was living proof that the Founding Ancestor’s ideal had not been wrong. Perhaps that was why the Founding Ancestor suddenly felt the urge to meddle.
“Has your progress in swordsmanship not stalled of late?”
“It has… but how did you know?”
“This is your heartscape. Of course the state of your martial arts would be plain to see.”
The Founding Ancestor looked up at the sky as he spoke. Following that gaze, Cheonhwa looked up as well — and the sky of the Cheonhasamsipyuk-geom began to move.
Rain fell. Wind blew. Clouds shifted. It was the heartscape of the mid-section forms of the Cheonhasamsipyuk-geom. Where the early forms focused on the shape of the sword itself, the middle forms centered on techniques performed through true qi. Every form name carried a character tied to weather: those that used Qi-Driving Sword bore the character for rain; those that used Jin Release waves, the character for wind; those that used the Inner Heavy Hand Method, the character for cloud. Forms that combined several methods were named for thunder and lightning.
The vivid, fully present shapes of rain, wind, and cloud were proof that he had made the Qi-Driving Sword, Jin Release wave, and Inner Heavy Hand Method forms entirely his own. By contrast, the final two forms of the mid-section had not yet been fully mastered — so within the dark clouds, only lightning flickered. There was no sound of thunder, and no bolt ever struck the earth.
“The last three forms of the mid-section originally take a long time to learn.”
The nine forms of the mid-section could be mastered naturally enough if one trained the foundational technique of each form with diligence. The final three, however, required linking those techniques together — and that was no easy thing.
“That is why I designed them so that one would raise one’s realm slowly while training the inner arts.”
Once the Gyunchon Chukgi-gong was fully mastered, progress in the Four Heavenly Inner Arts would come in proportion to the effort spent training them. He had expected roughly ten years for a disciple to master the Hocheon-gigong and Hyeoncheon-jingi, and only then to learn the last three forms one by one.
“But you shattered that expectation cleanly and mastered the form of Heaven’s Lightning Flash.”
To the Founding Ancestor, it was a welcome miscalculation. It meant his descendant had not merely walked the path prepared for him, but was growing in a way that was his alone.
“Even so, you still seem to have no sense of how you managed Heaven’s Lightning Flash so readily.”
“Yes. Unlike Heaven’s Lightning Flash, the other forms have proven difficult to link.”
“There is no need to overthink it. It is simply that you grew accustomed to linking Qi-Driving Sword and Jin Release wave as one. So — why did that particular link become familiar to you?”
From the clue the Founding Ancestor had given him, Cheonhwa found the answer.
“Clear Wind Rainy Hand.”
The applied form that fused Heaven’s Rainy Hand and Heaven’s Clear Wind into an invisible blade of kinetic force. It was a form of Cheonhwa’s own, one that appeared nowhere in the secret manuals of the Cheonhasamsipyuk-geom.
“Exactly right. An applied form you created by chance trained you to handle Qi-Driving Sword and Jin Release wave together.”
Without realizing it, Cheonhwa had forged the very foundation of Heaven’s Lightning Flash.
“Then you mean… if I create and use new applied forms, the groundwork for the twenty-third and twenty-fourth forms will form on its own?”
“Just so. But it will not be easy. Things fell into place by chance this time — there is no guarantee they will the next.”
If he created a flawed form, bad habits could take root and hinder his growth instead.
“So I will help you.”
The Founding Ancestor made it clear he would accept no refusal. With the Founding Ancestor’s aid, creating the forms would go far more smoothly. Cheonhwa decided to accept the reality before him without resistance.
“I am in your hands.”
“A wise choice. Until you awaken, I will give you my full and earnest company.”
And so, until he recovered his senses, Cheonhwa devoted himself within the heartscape to inventing new applied forms alongside the Founding Ancestor.
Cheonhwa came to his senses some ten days after the subjugation of the Yihwa Gate. Part of the delay was the time needed to recover the will he had spent so recklessly — but he had also been so absorbed in forging new applied forms within the heartscape that he had woken later than expected.
In the ten days Cheonhwa slept, much had changed in Baoji. The black-path sects that had flocked to the city were cleared out by Jeokhwa, Yeonhwa, and the martial artists of Geongonmun once they had recovered from their internal injuries. Rumors of a peerless martial art were settled as well: the Master of Yihwa Gate had possessed one, but the secret manual had been lost without a trace in the fire. Remnants of the black path still lingered, but even those would be dealt with soon enough.
“While I was asleep, Baoji has grown peaceful.”
When Cheonhwa spoke with an awkward smile, Wijiun, who had come to visit him, answered.
“It’s thanks to you, Ubo. If you hadn’t brought down the Master of Yihwa Gate, things never would have gone this well.”
Wijiun recalled the Master of Yihwa Gate roaring with mad laughter, claiming he had reached the level of a Peak Expert. The crushing pressure of that man’s presence still made his legs weak just to remember — and that Cheonhwa had faced him alone and won still felt almost impossible to believe.
“All I did was cut down the root of the evil. Restoring Baoji to normal was only possible because of everyone else’s efforts.”
“Say what you like — out there, they’re already calling you a hero. The man who single-handedly struck down the villain who nearly burned Baoji to the ground. You’ve even got a new moniker.”
“A new moniker?”
“That’s right. They’re calling you the Jade Light Sword.”
A title that praised the jade-colored arcs that had cleaved through the Master of Yihwa Gate’s flames. Cheonhwa turned his gaze to the object resting in the corner of the sickroom. There on its stand lay Okgyeong, the jade wooden sword, its surface covered in blackened scorch marks.
Thanks to the special nature of a spirit tree’s branch, it had not burned away completely — but it was far from whole. Catching Cheonhwa’s look, Wijiun spoke with an apologetic face.
“The long robe came through fine — thousand-year silkworm thread holds up well against heat. But they say the wooden sword will be hard to repair.”
It was harder than ordinary iron, and the burn marks were nothing like ordinary fire damage. The only way to restore it would be to seek out the one who had made it.
“I understand. Once this is over, I’ll have to stop by Xi’an.”
“Ah — about that…”
Just as Wijiun was about to say something more, Jeokhwa entered the sickroom. Her expression was not bright. Something was wrong.
“Welcome, Sister Jeokhwa.”
“Brother Cheonhwa. I know you’ve only just woken and must still be unsettled, but there is something I had to deliver at once.”
“What is it?”
“While you were unconscious, I sent a letter to the main mountain. The reply arrived a short while ago.”
Cheonhwa took the letter Jeokhwa held out and unfolded it, examining its contents.