Enrollment
Not merely a school for the scions of the great factions — the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Clans — but the cradle of every young martial artist in the Orthodox Murim.
That was the reputation Cheonryong Academy had carried since its founding some sixty years ago, when Cheonbul, then Leader of the Murim Alliance, established the institution out of concern for the Orthodox Murim's future.
Of course, plenty of people these days dismissed it as little more than a decorative garden for the promising heirs of the great sects and clans. Yet for all the mockery, Cheonryong Academy remained the last bastion of growth for young warriors who had no powerful background to lean on.
"Ahem. So the provisional students selected this round number thirty in all. More than I expected."
After all, Cheonryong Academy was the only place under heaven that offered a chance to learn not just to graduates of third-rate martial halls, but even to those who had never properly studied martial arts at all.
"You provisional students will now receive instruction from the instructors assembled here. The deadline is two months from now, when Cheonryong Academy's enrollment ceremony takes place!"
Those who had failed the entrance exam but left a strong impression on the examiners along the way were given a second chance. Under the title of provisional students, they would spend two months under the tutelage of active instructors.
"If you meet the academy's minimum standards at the evaluation two months from now, you too can become official students of Cheonryong Academy!"
The standards the academy demanded were, unsurprisingly, far from generous. It was a cruel arrangement for provisional students who dreamed of becoming full cadets — but from the academy's perspective, there was no other choice.
In the Murim, nothing mattered more than one's own martial prowess, and that was truer still for warriors with no backing. If a student lacked even the talent to meet the academy's minimum bar, it was kinder to dash their hopes quickly.
"I'll tell you one thing. Last class, only two provisional students passed the evaluation!"
The later one began studying martial arts, the harder those arts became to master. Those who had passed the evaluation so far were vanishingly few.
Baek Woohyeok — the orphan from a backwater village in Hangzhou, who would one day be known as the Ghost Shadow Blood Rakshasa — had been one of those vanishingly rare cases. A boy who had never learned a proper martial art, overflowing with nothing but vicious grit, he had endured a brutal education, passed the provisional evaluation, and become an official student of Cheonryong Academy.
"Ugh… that lunatic actually turned back time?"
Which meant that for Baek Woohyeok, waking up to find himself back in his provisional student days — those days of suffering like a dog — was a distinctly unpleasant development.
"…Ha."
Namgung Cheon, you son of a bitch. What the hell did you drag me back here by the hair for?
I woke up and I was in the past.
I knew who was responsible. I didn't know why. And I didn't particularly care.
Namgung Cheon probably still has his memories of the last life. He's the one who did this, after all…
Whether Danmok Jin retained his memories from before time reversed was another question. I had no idea.
According to Namgung Cheon, that guy's an outsider from another world, so he might have some kind of ace up his sleeve…
Honestly, I doubted it. A man who rewound time to reclaim his rightful place wasn't about to leave the last life's memories in the hands of the thief who'd stolen that place from him.
Namgung Cheon was a lunatic. He wasn't an idiot.
Well. Those two can sort that mess out themselves.
What mattered was how I was supposed to live from here on out — a man who'd already retired, now tangled up in this disaster against his will.
The last words my men had left me meant nothing now.
The Orthodox-Demonic War isn't over. Hell, it hasn't even started.
And at this point in time, those men were all still alive and well, which meant those weren't even last words.
"Haha…"
It was almost impressive, how thoroughly this situation defied belief.
Should I just run?
The thought flickered through my mind, and I dismissed it just as quickly. I was already back in the past. One way or another, I was going to have to live as a martial artist all over again.
It's the only thing I know how to do…
Fortunately, my situation was far better than it had been the first time around. I had an enormous advantage: I had come back from the future.
First, I enroll in Cheonryong Academy.
There was nowhere in the Murim safer to build strength than Cheonryong Academy.
…And then I deal with the source of this rage that's been boiling up inside me.
While I was at it, I'd set right a few of the regrets from my last life. I'd come back to the past — I might as well do that much, if I wanted to live with myself.
"Hmph… Coming back to the past might not be such a bad thing after all."
At this point, I even felt a faint flicker of gratitude toward Namgung Cheon.
You bastard. I'll let this slide once — even if I end up making a mess of things.
So long as he didn't get in the way of me taking the Heavenly Demon's head, that is. The source of my rage was that damned Heavenly Demon, after all.
"Next! Baek Woohyeok, of Dansu Village, Hangzhou!"
A voice called my name while I was still sorting out my plans for the future. It was time to choose the instructor who would teach me for the next two months.
"Baek Woohyeok. Here."
"Right, Baek Woohyeok. Which instructor's teaching do you want?"
I walked forward without hesitation and stopped in front of one of the instructors standing in a line.
"I'll take this one's instruction."
"Oh…? Are you serious?"
"Yes."
A giant of a man, his body a map of scars. If I'd spotted him in a marketplace, I would have sworn he was an unorthodox fighter — that was how savage he looked.
Explosive Fist Hwangbo San. For drilling the fundamentals of unarmed combat, there's no instructor better than this man.
As the name suggested, he was a martial artist of the Hwangbo Clan, and a master of fist techniques. If I was thinking about the future, there was no instructor better suited to me than Hwangbo San.
True to the Hwangbo Clan, he's got a big, generous personality. Not the type to kick up a fuss over nothing…
"Hmph. You really want to learn from me?"
…or so I thought.
Hwangbo San's attitude was considerably different from what I'd expected.
"Yes. I want to learn under you, Instructor."
"You might want to think this over. My teaching may not suit you."
"Is it because I'm a street orphan?"
Was Hwangbo San one of those types who looked down on any martial artist who hadn't come from a great sect or clan? Then again, the Hwangbo Clan was one of the ten greatest families in the Central Plains Murim. It wouldn't have been strange.
"No. Your origins don't matter to me in the slightest. It's just…"
But Hwangbo San shut that thought down, and his gaze dropped to my waist.
"I don't know the first thing about swinging a sword."
Ah. So that was the problem.
Hangzhou, in Zhejiang Province, where I was born, had no sects of any real standing. High-ranking officials visited often enough that the government's presence was strong, and that was probably why.
The only martial artists I'd seen as a child were unorthodox thugs collecting protection money in the marketplace. Then, just once, I got lucky — I happened to watch disciples of the Putuo Sect, Zhejiang's mysterious hidden sect, carrying out a righteous act. That was what made me dream of becoming a Murim master.
And so, at this age, I had believed something very simple: a righteous martial artist carried a sword. Unlike the unorthodox rabble with their motley collection of dirty weapons, every Putuo Sect disciple who'd been delivering justice that day had held a blade.
It didn't take long to learn I was wrong. Even so, my hunger for the sword never went away. I'd wanted, in my own clumsy way, to become a chivalrous hero — and the hero in my head always carried a single sword.
Thanks to that, I wasted a good long while even after I enrolled in Cheonryong Academy.
The problem was that my true talent didn't lie with the sword. It lay somewhere else. Danmok Jin had put it this way: I was a martial artist who could never break his ceiling with swordsmanship.
At the time, Danmok Jin had been famous for a piercing eye and for giving advice that fit each person like a glove. On the strength of that advice, I finally put down the sword — and with a martial art he'd brought from somewhere, I broke through that ceiling.
Hmph. If Namgung Cheon is right, Danmok Jin only raised me so he could set me up as a meat shield later?
Looking at the results alone, it was a plausible story. In the end, the Black Tiger Unit I led — and I myself — had been nothing but blade fodder in the final battle against the Demonic Cult.
But the Danmok Jin I knew was not that kind of underhanded man.
…If even that was an act, I wouldn't have much to say about it.
Well. Nobody would know until I heard it from the man himself. What mattered was this: the martial art Danmok Jin had given me had carried me to the Transcendental Realm — and that martial art was not a sword art.
Clang!
Which meant the cheap iron sword I'd spent half my worldly possessions on was, in fact, a completely useless piece of junk.
"There. Sword's gone. That do it?"
Explosive Fist Hwangbo San, instructor of Cheonryong Academy, looked with genuine interest at the boy who had just flung his sword to the floor.
Baek Woohyeok… They say he passed the first gate of the entrance exam without ever having properly learned a martial art.
The first gate of the entrance exam was enduring the killing intent of a master of the Peak Realm. A boy who'd at best picked up something like the Three Calamities Qi Art off a marketplace stall should never have been able to pass it.
And yet this kid endured a Peak master's aura on vicious grit alone.
Of course, he'd collapsed the instant he cleared the first gate and never made it to the next, which was why he'd failed the exam. But the showing he'd put on at that first gate had been more than enough for the examiners to recommend him as a provisional student without a second thought.
And when they looked into him later, they found that Baek Woohyeok had been born with an innate martial physique. More than a few of Cheonryong Academy's instructors were quietly expecting great things from him.
"Hmph. Good."
Hwangbo San was one of them.
Vicious grit that can endure any pain for the sake of a goal. A frame and a physique so superior you'd never believe his age.
The boy looked like he'd been born to learn fist and kick arts.
I was ready to give up on him because he seemed to be dreaming of becoming a swordsman…
But Baek Woohyeok had thrown away the sword and chosen Hwangbo San's teaching.
A true man fought with his bare fists, not a blade. Baek Woohyeok was a true man.
They estimate his age at fifteen, so he's late to be starting martial arts.
But what did that matter? Geniuses produced results no matter how hard you wrung them out.
"My teaching will be brutal. If you want to quit, this is your last chance."
Fortunately, Cheonryong Academy was generous even with its provisional students, starting them off with a versatile basic internal cultivation method and sparing no further support.
Baek Woohyeok. You could become the strongest provisional student this academy has ever seen!
As Hwangbo San saw it, even starting martial arts from this moment, Baek Woohyeok had every chance of reaching a real realm of mastery.
"What the hell. Let's give it a shot."
At Baek Woohyeok's answer, a bright smile spread across Hwangbo San's savage face. It was the kind of face you'd be afraid to see in a dream.
AAAAARGH!!
From that day on, a certain rumor began circulating through the training hall where Cheonryong Academy's provisional students received their instruction.
"More! More! Don't you dare stop there, Baek Woohyeok! You've got ten more in you!"
It concerned a savage-faced instructor who put his assigned provisional student through something closer to abuse than education — and a provisional student who, crimson light blazing in his eyes, poured out a rage aimed at someone no one could name.
"Fuck…! Going through this hell again at this age… I'm dead!"