If It's Good, It's Good

"I was told a guest retainer faces no restrictions on his movements, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠save for approaching the clan's secret garden."

Muhwa closed his mouth. The voice was one of reproach.

"And yet here you are, watching me like this. Did you take me in as a hired hand rather than a guest?"

The crushing pressure that had pinned Muhwa in place vanished, and he realized at once how badly he had misstepped.

Sun Wukong had been accepted as a guest retainer under certain conditions. Cooperate with the Namgung Clan's affairs, and they would grant him a place. Wukong had agreed without hesitation. But the gaze just now had been unmistakably that of a watchman. Even a conditional arrangement made them partners in cooperation — not a superior and a subordinate. Surveillance was something that should never have happened. If word spread that the Namgung Clan had been caught watching one of its guests, more than a few retainers would take it as an insult.

Muhwa bowed deeply at the waist.

"I apologize. I sensed a powerful energy and came to see whether some strange incident had occurred. I ended up watching."

A gleam flashed through Sun Wukong's eyes.

"You sensed a powerful energy?"

"...Does that have something to do with you, Teacher Sun?"

"I was training."

Muhwa bowed his head once more. Watching another person train in martial arts without special permission was taboo.

As he watched Muhwa apologize again and again, Sun Wukong fell into thought.

Just for an instant — but he felt the yoryeok from a distance.

Humans cannot sense yoryeok. Even if the origin of their internal energy traces back to demonic power, the two are of entirely different natures. Of that, Wukong was certain. It was the reason even renowned Taoist masters and Buddhist monks had been deceived countless times by demons wearing human faces. Human beings are, by their very nature, incapable of sensing demonic energy — save for those rare few favored by the heavens, like Sanzang. And even Sanzang had been fooled by demons more than once.

And yet this one had felt it.

A pure white thread of fate touched Sun Wukong's eyes.

Who were you?

Sanzang? Or someone else? Even looking through his Fiery Golden Eyes, the true form did not reveal itself.

Sun Wukong clicked his tongue. To discover Muhwa's identity, he would have to lower the mental barrier that currently towered high in the man's upper dantian. In other words, he needed to get closer to him.

He gradually withdrew the aura he had been faintly radiating.

"I'll accept your apology. In return, would you grant me a favor?"

"A favor?"

Meeow—

Sun Wukong scooped the cat up in one motion.

"Looks like a stray with no owner. Mind if I keep it?"

"..."

Those eyes that had been so cold they could freeze a body solid were now the playful, childlike ones from before. Muhwa was thoroughly confused.

A little surveillance never hurt anyone.

Sun Wukong did not care whether others watched him or not. Had he not spent his entire life under the watchful eyes of Heaven? But right now, he needed to keep prying eyes away. So he had politely dismissed Muhwa with the excuse that he had been training.

He quietly felt the yoryeok within his body, coiled and ready to burst forth at any moment.

Martial arts, huh.

He had witnessed several martial artists. Starting with Ojeong, then Sa Hyeol-cheol-gwi, the warriors of the Namgung Clan, and finally Namgung Jinbaek.

Qi simply moves as it flows. But they move it efficiently, and impose their will upon it.

Heart Void. To move qi as one intends, and drive it through by will alone.

The nature of yoryeok is greater than their internal energy, not weaker.

Violent, cruel, and running wild as it pleased. Yoryeok dominated even its master's flesh and mind. Demons grew cruel and destructive. To smash and trample — that was the mission of their kind. But those of higher rank, and further still the great demons, became so skilled at handling yoryeok that they were often more rational, more human, than humans themselves. Cunning, wise great demons who toyed with the gods of Heaven had appeared throughout the vast stretches of history.

Demons who could impose their will upon their yoryeok. Sun Wukong himself was the prime example. And even the great Sun Wukong had sometimes found it difficult.

When I couldn't contain my ferocity and ran amok in Heaven. When I let killing intent show toward Sanzang.

In the few truly fierce battles he had fought, his mind had been swept away by rampaging yoryeok. The Buddha's palm was the prime example. And also...

Sun Wukong's brow furrowed.

The Buddha is one thing, but Big Brother was terrifying too.

That had been the fight with U-mawang. Tch. If he hadn't lost his mind back then, he would have won.

He shook the memory from his head.

If I can operate it efficiently, the way they do...

That would strip yoryeok of its weakness. A flaw vanishing from a power even more primordial and pure than internal energy.

Heart Void, huh.

Sun Wukong's eyes blazed like fire.

Hell, why couldn't I make one?

Humans had made them, after all.

"There's no way Teacher Sun, the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven, couldn't make one."

He slowly gathered his memories. The martial arts he had seen firsthand rose vividly in his mind, one after another. It was not merely the scenes of warriors using their techniques — even the flow of their qi came back with perfect clarity.

Ojeong's Water Transformation Qi.

The martial art that had driven two Namgung Clan warriors into a corner underwater. The flow of qi itself had been completely different from anything those Namgung men had shown.

Breathing was not only important for accumulating inner energy in the dantian. It was indispensable to the entire process of sensing qi, condensing it, and forming a dantian in the first place. The very operation of qi depended on the breath. In the drawing in and the letting out, the current of energy moved smoothly.

But Ojeong was clearly different.

The Fiery Golden Eyes pierced through appearances to the essence beyond. Something like the flow of qi was as plain as day. Sun Wukong had grasped the core of Water Transformation Qi to a certain degree.

He was not sure the comparison was apt, but an animal came to mind.

A turtle.

It swam through the water on a single breath. It operated the true qi already stored in the dantian naturally, by will alone, even without breathing. That was the core of Water Transformation Qi.

Of course, he did not know in what order or by what method Ojeong had learned it. It was a martial secret — would Ojeong just blurt that out? But the direction, at least, was clear.

The secret lies in operation refined to the extreme.

Internal energy had never existed in humans to begin with. So how difficult must it be to wield power by will alone? The key of any cultivation method was to make that relatively easier. But Water Transformation Qi took this principle and excluded breathing to an extreme degree. It maximized fine operation through will and the user's senses alone.

There's a reason Ojeong uses it so well.

Underwater, every sense was blocked or restricted. When hearing, touch, and sight — the most basic senses — grew weak, a human naturally maximized whatever remained. Every faculty concentrated on the operation of qi. Even a human's full potential. That aligned perfectly with Ojeong's nature: the affinity with water that had carried over from his previous life.

The Ojeong of that time had no equal in the water.

His movement underwater had been so innate ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that even Sun Wukong had to step back. That nature had manifested in this new life as well, so Ojeong could move freely beneath the surface while using the secrets of Water Transformation Qi with his maximized senses.

Whoever taught Ojeong Water Transformation Qi was a man with a real eye for talent.

An ordinary human could not do it. Concentrating every sense on the operation of qi and pushing it to the limit was not something humans were capable of. That was why the gap between Ojeong in the water and Ojeong on land was so vast he seemed like a different person entirely.

Sun Wukong decided to use those principles as his foundation. He himself did not care whether he was underwater or on land. Smiling, he took the essence of it into himself.

Handle yoryeok by sense alone. By will alone.

Sun Wukong did not know it, but what he was doing was similar to what martial artists called a Heavenly Circulation.

He repeated it, and repeated it again. The speed grew faster and faster. His senses grew finer still.

So it's roughly like this.

He did not stop there. A new idea rose in his mind.

Sa Hyeol-cheol-gwi.

He did not know whether it had been that man's martial art or something else. But the memory of that moment was vivid.

True to being a python, it was like a snake.

A foul stench had come from his breath. Not mere bad breath, but a sinister reek emanating from his true ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠qi. Poison. A single fang. That had been the essence of Sa Hyeol-cheol-gwi's internal energy.

Sun Wukong remembered the fatal strikes that had flashed, moment by moment, amid that merciless barrage. He had shrugged them off without a care, but they had been threatening enough. A lethal killing technique hidden among countless feints.

He summoned that flow in his mind and added a new current to the yoryeok already moving along the Heavenly Circulation, applying the principles of Water Transformation Qi.

"..."

Anyone who could have peeked into Sun Wukong's thoughts would have been unable to contain their shock. Had there truly never been such a thing in the long history of the martial world? The attempt to take only the finest principles from various martial arts and create a new divine technique. Countless masters, remarkable figures, and great sect leaders had tried it innumerable times. The moment they succeeded, a peerless divine art worthy of the name was born. But considering how few such peerless arts existed in the current martial world, one could guess just how insane an endeavor it was.

The vast majority failed. In the form of qi deviation.

KRSSSSHHHH—!

Yoryeok was no different. It thrashed violently, writhing like a dragon, and broke from its path. It was fiercer than internal energy. His meridians tore and burst in an instant.

"..."

For a human, this would have been an extreme situation — immediately coughing blood, eyes rolling back, clutching at one's own throat. But Sun Wukong merely narrowed his brow for a moment and kept his composure. The extreme pain racing through his entire body? He chewed it up and swallowed it.

A solemn voice had brushed through his mind unbidden. Sun Wukong had learned a great deal from Sanzang. Not merely the Buddhist Dharma. He had always been a thick-skulled oaf who cried and dragged them into every manner of incident — but those sharp words, poured out in the moments when Wukong could not control a great demon's ferocity, were still branded on his chest like a brand.

Unmoving Heart.

The greatest power that, through those long austerities, had allowed Sun Wukong to become the Victorious Fighting Buddha.

Sun Wukong does not waver. He merely watches, and moves.

The yoryeok that had been tearing through every meridian as if to shred them all grew calmer as time passed. Slowly, it moved according to his will. To a current that flowed solely by precise calculation, a fatal fang was added. The two streams mixed and mingled as they ran. But they did not become one.

It was coexistence.

Sun Wukong stopped the Heavenly Circulation with a dissatisfied look.

I still don't quite get it.

He twirled a lock of his hair around one finger and recalled the magnificent internal energy contained in Namgung Jinbaek's dantian. He was already mixing two currents together, and now he intended to add one more.

If it's good, it's good.

If he just took the advantages from each, that was a good thing, wasn't it? It was an idea possible only because Sun Wukong had no knowledge of martial arts to begin with. But he soon stopped.

...Hmm. This one's not so easy.

Looking at Ojeong's internal energy, a turtle came to mind. Looking at Sa Hyeol-cheol-gwi, a viper's fang. But the Namgung Clan?

The sky, perhaps.

A high, blue sky. Sun Wukong could not easily mix that concept in.

I'll have to be satisfied with this for now.

Feeling the yoryeok flowing in two currents, Sun Wukong slowly headed to his room with the cat in his arms.