Three-Tenths Hidden
"What on earth were you thinking?!"
Once Jinmyung had finished explaining everything, Ak Jun had no choice but to shout. Even drained from using his lightness skill, he still found the strength to raise his voice.
"Were you planning to have me carry your corpse back home?"
"Calm down first… Finish circulating your qi, then we'll talk."
Ak Min, chief steward of the Donghwa Merchant Group, had originally come from the Ak Family of Shandong. The Shandong Ak Family was a martial house renowned for generations for its spear arts, and during the last war its members had even risen to the rank of general.
Then the Emperor's purges had left most of the Ak Family either exiled or dead. Ak Min had been taken in by the Donghwa Merchant Group as a child, and so had managed to preserve his life.
His son Ak Jun had learned the family's hereditary spear technique from his father, but he had been strictly ordered never to display his martial arts unless the situation was truly desperate.
Jinmyung knew this as well, which made Ak Jun's use of lightness skill all the more extraordinary. Had Jinmyung not spoken of returning home, Ak Jun would never have revealed his martial arts at all.
Ak Jun set aside his seething emotions and began to regulate his breath and circulate his qi. Perhaps a single meal's time passed before he finished his meditation.
Only then did he notice that a sound barrier had been raised around the lodgings. Jinmyung sat facing him exactly as he had before the meditation began, calmly sipping tea.
"They say in the martial world you should always hide three-tenths of your true strength. That was the first thing you told me when you revealed your martial arts."
It had been in a back alley of Chang'an, during a brawl. That was the first time Ak Jun had drawn the spear shaft hidden in his clothes and defended his master.
"You said that aside from Father and the chief steward, no one knew you practiced martial arts — and that the difference between knowing and not knowing was three-tenths."
"…That's right."
"As repayment for ten years of service, I'll show you something. How about it?"
Ak Jun realized the air in the room was growing warmer. Using internal energy to generate heat was nothing unusual — he himself sometimes warmed a teacup that way.
But heating an entire room meant a fundamentally different quantity of internal energy. And more than that…
"You've been training in martial arts?"
"You of all people should know best that I've spent the last ten years surrounded by martial manuals."
"If martial arts could be mastered just by reading books… every scholar in the land would rank among the masters."
"True enough. Still, that archive was a place no one ever visited… so you could call it closed-door training of a sort."
"I understand that you've learned martial arts, and that you've accumulated no ordinary amount of internal energy. But a sparring match is different."
A sparring match was nothing like solitary training. You had to pit your martial arts against an opponent's — against countless forms and their endless variations.
"At the very least, I don't think I'll end up a corpse the way you're fretting. Well?"
"That's…"
Ak Jun realized his own thinking had shifted. From If my master enters the ring, he's as good as dead… to Still, he probably can't win.
"Don't worry. That three-tenths you spoke of will protect me."
Ak Jun saw the left corner of Jinmyung's mouth curl upward, ever so slightly. And once Jinmyung wore that expression, there was no stopping him.
On the first day of sparring at the Dragon-Phoenix Martial Gathering, Namgung Hyeon had, regrettably, not recovered enough to take the field himself. He had, however, recovered enough to watch.
He took a seat in the spectator stands beside Namgung Man, whose expression made plain his disapproval. Everyone nearby stared at Namgung Hyeon in open surprise.
No one was more startled than Suming of the Jeomchang Sect, who had already stepped onto the sparring platform. As he watched the figure approaching from the opposite side, he made no effort to hide his astonishment.
The man who tossed his participation token, caught it again, and strode onto the platform did not have the body of a martial artist. Anyone who trained in the martial arts knew how much a thick midsection got in the way.
He carried a modest belly — nothing excessive, but enough. He wore a mask, yet the slight fold of his chin alone was enough to suggest he had never practiced martial arts.
Of course, there were arts that could be cultivated even with a heavy build, and among their practitioners were those who had reached the ranks of masters through bizarre and formidable power.
But such cases were exceedingly rare compared to ordinary masters. Suming studied his opponent carefully.
On the white mask, the characters for Mumu — No Martial Arts — were inscribed across both cheeks. Did that mean he had no martial arts at all? Suming was thoroughly confused.
The man stopped within arm's reach of Suming and offered a cupped-fist salute. Suming returned it in kind.
"I received Young Master Namgung Hyeon's participation token by transfer. I am called Mumu."
"A man who comes to spar claims to have no martial arts?"
"I mean that I have never displayed them."
"Your joke goes too far. Are you saying you'll display martial arts for the first time here at the Dragon-Phoenix Martial Gathering?"
"The war is over. I would prefer never to have cause to use martial arts again. That, to my mind, is what a peaceful age looks like."
"Those are not words one speaks while standing across from an opponent on a sparring platform. If someone meant you harm, you could hardly speak so calmly."
Suming raised his sword as he spoke.
"In ages past, the martyred forebears of the Jeomchang Sect took up the sword to protect the common people and fulfill their purpose. I am no different. If you mean to stand in the way of that, then we have no choice but to test each other's martial arts."
"I'd hoped this would go easily… but things rarely go as one wishes."
Suming assumed the opening stance of the Sun-Piercing Sword Art. Mumu bent his knees slightly and settled into a horse stance.
Suming grew wary. In preparation for the Gathering, he had studied the martial arts of the other seven competitors who had advanced. His fellow disciples of the Jeomchang Sect had helped him.
But this stance matched the opening form of no school he knew. Or rather — more precisely — a horse stance was a posture found in every school.
It was a fundamental training stance for building lower-body strength: feet rooted to the earth as if planted there, a posture that made it difficult to deflect or evade an opponent's attacks.
That was why, once basic training was complete and true martial arts began, most practitioners adopted freer opening stances that allowed them to move with proper footwork.
For that reason, Suming was unsettled. Did the man simply not know martial arts? Or was he deliberately inviting an attack?
The man before him was the one who had taken Namgung Hyeon's participation token — Namgung Hyeon, who had subdued opponents with a single form. Perhaps this stance was specialized for receiving that very form. Suming turned the problem over and over in his mind.
"Hmm. Whoever he is, he seems well-versed in military strategy. Using a horse stance to induce emptiness and substance… Could it be that someone from the Sima Clan has entered?"
"The Sima Clan was all but wiped out in the last war. More likely one of the Zhuge Clan's recluses is concealing his identity."
"Trying to use a natural body… rare thinking for someone of that age."
As the standoff dragged on, the spectator stands filled with varied reactions. The closest to the truth was Namgung Hyeon's private guess.
He actually entered the sparring matches… I can't begin to fathom that nerve.
Even behind the mask, Namgung Hyeon — who had spoken with him face to face — recognized that it was Jinmyung. And on the opposite side of the stands, someone else had also seen through Mumu's identity.
Ak Jun watched the match with his heart in his throat. The first stratagem Jinmyung had described was already taking effect.
The martial manuals Jinmyung had studied recorded countless forms and the stances from which those forms began. But after watching a fortnight of sparring matches, he had seen that real combat differed from the books.
Hiding one's intent behind endless variations so the opponent could neither read a stance nor receive an attack — answering each move with a counter — that was what sparring truly was.
And so Jinmyung had hidden his identity behind a mask. Then he had deliberately sought out the participation token of Namgung Hyeon, famed for ending fights in a single form, precisely to force his opponent into this kind of deliberation.
When Suming finally shifted his stance after long hesitation, Ak Jun was certain Jinmyung's first stratagem had landed exactly as planned.
The Jeomchang Sect's Sun-Piercing Sword Art was famous for the meaning of its name — piercing the sun — and was accordingly specialized in thrusting techniques. And a thrust, by nature, had a narrower attack range than a slash.
Suming hid his sword behind his body so that no one could tell where he meant to thrust. In the past fortnight, the only form he had ever used from this stance was one: Hou Yi Drawing the Bow.
According to Jinmyung, if a swordsman drew and simultaneously hid the blade behind his body, only two forms were possible: Hou Yi Shooting the Sun and Hou Yi Drawing the Bow.
But Hou Yi Shooting the Sun was the ultimate form, usable only by one who had reached the essence of the Sun-Piercing Sword Art. And since Suming had used nothing but Hou Yi Drawing the Bow all this time, the odds were eight or nine out of ten that he would use it again.
Suming's realm, Jinmyung had added, was almost certainly not one of full mastery over the Sun-Piercing Sword Art…
When Ak Jun had asked whether he could actually stop Hou Yi Drawing the Bow, Jinmyung had only smiled.
The moment Ak Jun swallowed hard, recalling that smile, Suming's blade rippled.
Unlike the straight thrusts that defined most of the Sun-Piercing Sword Art, this form's thrust undulated like a wave — a rippling sword-force that deflected an opponent's attack and drove into the opening left behind.
Suming intended to gauge his opponent's skill with the form that boasted the most perfect balance of offense and defense among all the techniques of the Sun-Piercing Sword Art.
And the response was far simpler than he had expected. Mumu simply raised one hand into the path of the thrust.
A golden radiance began to bloom from Mumu's hand, but Suming did not panic.
The form of Hou Yi Drawing the Bow glanced off Mumu's hand and redirected toward his shoulder. Suming was certain his attack had succeeded.
CLANG!
What told him that certainty was wrong was his own sword. The instant it touched Mumu's shoulder, a tremendous shock traveled up the blade.
The force tore the sword from Suming's grip.
"I-Iron Cloth Shirt?"
Iron Cloth Shirt was a martial art that reinforced the body with qi as though wrapping it in iron armor. Generals of the old dynasties had often practiced it, and it was said that only one who had reached the realm of Sword Qi Coating — the stage of sheathing a blade in qi sharp enough to wound — could break through it.
Suming himself had not reached that realm, nor had any of the other rising talents at the Dragon-Phoenix Martial Gathering. Suming could coat his sword in qi only by concentrating on the earliest forms of the Sun-Piercing Sword Art.
Mumu turned the hand he had extended and crooked a finger, inviting Suming to attack again.
If it were ordinary Iron Cloth Shirt, there wouldn't be this kind of rebound force… Could it be Protective Qi?
In Suming's mind, Mumu's realm climbed higher and higher. He looked down at the sword he had dropped on the ground.
For a swordsman, losing one's blade was already as good as defeat. More than that, Suming had lost all confidence that he could break through Mumu's Iron Cloth Shirt.
He picked up his sword and offered a cupped-fist salute.
"I concede defeat. I cannot surpass your martial arts."
As Mumu relaxed his stance and returned the salute, the first sparring match of the Dragon-Phoenix Martial Gathering came to an end. Behind the mask, Jinmyung smiled, pleased that his first piece had fallen exactly where he had planned.