Preparation (3)
Cheonhwa answered Muwol’s summons and stepped out onto the training grounds.
It was for the request he had made earlier—to experience the Zhongnan Sect’s many martial arts for himself.
The second-generation disciples would take turns sparring with him. First among them stood Muwol, eldest senior brother of the second generation.
“As you know, the sword art that represents the Zhongnan Sect is the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven.”
As one of the four foundational arts taught to every initiate, every disciple of the Zhongnan Sect practiced it. From the main mountain to the secular households, countless people used it to lay their foundations. Among the sect’s disciples, none would dispute that claim.
“But the Zhongnan Sect’s sword arts are not limited to the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven alone.”
Five branches had been born from that parent form: the Heavy Sword, the Strong Sword, the Soft Sword, the Fast Sword, and the Blunt Sword.
“What I will show you in this match are two arts of the Heavy Sword lineage—the Mutual Injury Sword Art and the Star Array Sword Art.”
The Mutual Injury Sword Art was the superior form of the Heavy Sword. The Star Array Sword Art was its supreme technique. Both inherited the Heavy Sword aspect of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven. How different would they prove from the original?
“I humbly ask for your instruction.”
Cheonhwa drew Okgyeong and settled into stance. Muwol likewise drew his Hyeonhwang Sword and assumed the opening form.
A spar with live steel, close enough to real combat that a single mistake could leave a lasting wound. Tension stretched taut between them.
Cheonhwa fixed his gaze on Muwol’s Hyeonhwang Sword. Qi layered itself, dense and deliberate, along the blade—the Heavy Sword’s signature, force accumulated within the steel.
Three kinds of energy… Balanced Heaven Qi Accumulation Art, Flame Heaven True Qi, and Blue Heaven Qi Art.
Through the principles of Wood generating Fire and Fire generating Earth, the earth qi of the Balanced Heaven Qi Accumulation Art was driven to its peak. Harmonious Balanced Heaven Qi formed the core, and the layered energies rose thick and full. The density exceeded what Cheonhwa himself could produce—proof of superior inner-energy control.
To feel the difference properly, Cheonhwa poured the principles of the Heavy Sword into his own blade as well. Then both men launched themselves at once.
The first exchange was honest—each testing the other with a straightforward cut. Two diagonal arcs crossed in the shape of an X and collided.
BOOM!
Air burst outward with a thunderous crack; the shock of jin force rippled away in concentric rings. Muwol held the advantage. Cheonhwa’s arms and legs trembled under the crushing pressure of the Heavy Sword, while Muwol’s face remained calm as he prepared the next strike.
Too discontinuous for linked techniques. More like the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven—centered on single decisive blows?
Single decisive blows traded the flow of continuous motion for raw power in one stroke. When both sides used that approach, the stronger sword force naturally prevailed. They traded several more exchanges, and each time Cheonhwa was forced onto the defensive. Without the perfection of the first half of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven, he would already have been driven off the platform.
The longer the exchange lasts, the wider the gap between each clash of blades…
The power packed into Muwol’s sword body slowly uncoiled outward. Along every trajectory of his strikes, heavy shockwaves howled and swallowed space.
Similar to Clear Wind Rain Hand—but broader in range, and far denser.
Clear Wind Rain Hand was an applied form that poured jin release into the qi sheath around the blade, turning it into a cutting edge of pure force. Muwol was doing something comparable—channeling jin into a pressure field—yet the density of that field demanded control so fine that Clear Wind Rain Hand could not compare. The slightest slip in that control would unleash the shockwaves and wound the user as well.
A sword art that strikes a wide area at once, yet can just as easily injure its master—a double-edged blade. That dual meaning is why they named it the Mutual Injury Sword Art.
Having tasted it in direct collision, Cheonhwa grasped the martial principle behind the Mutual Injury Sword Art and, almost without thought, began folding it into the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven.
I don’t need a range as wide as the Mutual Injury Sword Art. At my level, that would only make energy control harder. Instead, I’ll narrow the field and pack it tighter.
Qi wound around Okgyeong’s blade while jin release honed its edge. Up to that point it was the same Clear Wind Rain Hand he always used—but when he concentrated power and jin force to their absolute limit, the cutting edge of force grew still sharper. Clear Wind Rain Hand, now carrying the principle of the Mutual Injury Sword Art, split the domain of Muwol’s technique cleanly open.
Muwol stopped his assault, openly startled.
“I had heard you could learn simply by experiencing a technique—but seeing it with my own eyes is something else entirely.”
Imitating the outer shapes of a sword form was one thing. Piercing the intent within it and digesting that intent into one’s own method was another. Even limited to Zhongnan arts, the ability was astonishing.
Anyone else walking the same path would never manage this.
Being free to study every Zhongnan art without restriction, and absorbing those arts by sight alone, were two entirely different achievements. The compatibility between Cheonhwa and the Zhongnan martial lineage was simply too perfect.
Otherwise, how could someone who has not even reached Peak Expert bring the first half of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven to absolute perfection?
Even with Muwol holding back, Cheonhwa had lasted this long only because of that perfected first half.
“Enough of the Mutual Injury Sword Art. Next I will show you the Star Array Sword Art. Properly speaking, this form assumes sword qi, so I will substitute sword wind—but it will still be quite dangerous. Are you certain?”
“I am.”
Muwol had stated outright that a single mistake could mean a fatal wound. Cheonhwa chose to face it anyway. That boldness was possible only because of the restorative power he had gained by perfecting Dark Heaven True Qi.
So long as it isn’t something irreversible like a severed limb, the recovery can handle it.
Even now, the minor wounds from meeting the Mutual Injury Sword Art head-on had nearly closed. However advanced the technique, Muwol would still restrain himself—if Cheonhwa focused purely on defense, he should be fine.
He reset his stance with that thought. He learned how thin that thought was almost at once.
A chill raced up his spine. Instinct screamed for him to leave that spot immediately. Before any question could form, Cheonhwa threw himself sideways.
In the next instant—
KRAAASH!
Sword light flashed. With a savage crack, the air split in a single straight line. Cheonhwa looked back on reflex and found a razor-sharp groove carved into the floor where he had stood. A fraction slower, and that same mark would have been carved into his body.
What was that just now?
Given Muwol’s earlier explanation, it should have been a jin-release wave—yet there was no residual qi sheath, no aftershock of force at all. He had no time to reason it out. The follow-up attacks were already coming. Abandoning any thought of blocking, Cheonhwa poured everything into the Nine Palaces Footwork and fled from strike after strike.
Every flash of sword light sent a keen edge of killing intent stretching out in a line. Watching them felt like watching meteors streak across the sky. Cheonhwa understood at once why Muwol bore the title Meteor Sword—and why the art itself was named Star Array, for the pattern of stars arrayed across heaven.
Through the Six Harmony Sensory Path he read his opponent’s sword paths and slipped free of them. Yet with every passing moment the space he could escape into shrank. It felt as though a wide encirclement were slowly tightening, sealing off every avenue of movement.
Like the Mutual Injury Sword Art, it leans toward single decisive blows—but like the Blunt Sword, it also focuses on suppressing the opponent’s mobility.
The Heavy Sword’s power and broad striking range made that tactic possible. Power and range of that scale should have drained jin force and inner energy at a ruinous rate, yet Muwol showed no sign of fatigue. Even with a middle-dantian method that extended the endurance of true qi, sustaining this should have been difficult.
How does he still have that much room to spare?
Then Cheonhwa saw the secret in the sword light itself.
He isn’t letting the qi sheath and jin force scatter. He’s reclaiming them and using them again.
The sword light was itself a wave of jin force, controlled with such precision that not even an aftershock remained. Theoretically possible—but it demanded true-qi control far finer than anything required by the Mutual Injury Sword Art. The seat of chief disciple among the second generation clearly had not been won by luck.
I understand the principle, but imitating it is nearly impossible for me.
The core of the Star Array Sword Art lay in extremely precise energy control and the recovery of true qi and jin force released outside the body. Cheonhwa lacked the talent for either.
Mind-intent and inner observation only reach inside the body. I can’t watch what happens outside it.
So he chose to concentrate solely on the energy within himself and the weapon in his hand. Jin force whirled furiously through the qi sheath rolling over Okgyeong’s blade. Then the whirlpool shrank, tightening until it clung to the wood itself. The scale diminished, but the speed of rotation grew fiercer still—Wind-Flow Cloud Mountain compressed until it was one with Okgyeong.
A thin, uncanny vibration sang from the blade. Trusting that new Wind-Flow Cloud Mountain, Cheonhwa met the Star Array Sword Art head-on.
The instant the sword light of the Star Array clashed with Okgyeong’s vibration—
CRASH!
A sound of shattering porcelain rang across the training grounds. The shockwaves of the Star Array Sword Art could not withstand Okgyeong’s vibration and burst apart like broken china.
Muwol let out a helpless little laugh.
“Just what did you do?”
“The shockwaves of the Star Array Sword Art are so tightly compressed that their structure is dense—and that density, I judged, would leave them vulnerable to structural collapse through Heavenly Cloud Mountain.”
Wind-Flow Cloud Mountain was an applied form that spun multiple layers of Heavenly Cloud Mountain at high speed to grind down protective energy. With the insight of the Star Array Sword Art added to it, that power of structural destruction had been driven to its peak. Against true sword qi the result might have been different—but the Star Array, reduced to sword wind, had shattered in reverse.
“A simple applied form, yet highly practical. At that level of completion, it deserves a place in a martial manual.”
Muwol praised the techniques Cheonhwa had devised and spoke of recording them. The great manuals of a major sect often absorbed the applied forms created by successive generations of disciples. To add a new line to the mountain’s martial lineage was a tremendous honor.
“Now that you have even absorbed the core secrets of a supreme technique, I have nothing left to teach you. To think you would grasp the essentials in less than a day…”
Muwol could only click his tongue at the absurd pace of Cheonhwa’s growth. From the perfection of mind-intent and the Balanced Heaven Qi Accumulation Art onward, every ability he had accumulated—joined with fortune, experience, and relentless effort—had finally reached the realm of acquired genius.
Just how far will this child go?
What Muwol felt toward Cheonhwa was no longer unease, but anticipation. Through the pure essence of Zhongnan martial study and his own unceasing labor, the boy had come to surpass even those born with natural genius. Muwol wanted to see how high he would fly.
For that, he will need to experience the rest of the Zhongnan sword arts.
A little more than half a year remained until the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering. In that time Cheonhwa could digest the Strong Sword and Blunt Sword of the Zhongnan Sect and perfect the middle forms of the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven with room to spare. Muwol found himself looking forward to the gathering half a year from now. Cheonhwa would surely raise both his own renown and the honor of their sect.
He would, of course, first have to be selected as a participant—but that part caused Muwol no concern.
Who else would we send to the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering, if not the chief disciple of the third generation and our strongest fighter?
With that thought, Muwol began considering how to draw the other second-generation disciples into the training. If necessary, he was prepared to schedule spars even rougher than today’s.
Why did a chill just run down my spine?
Cheonhwa’s keen survival instinct stirred in answer—but unfortunately for him, there was nowhere left to escape.