The Placement Test
Danmok Jin knew this world was a wuxia novel.
Strictly speaking, calling it a wuxia novel wasn't quite right.
A fantasy academy story wearing a wuxia skin would be more accurate.
Back when Danmok Jin had still been Kim Yujin, a certain breed of wuxia purist would read "that novel" and very nearly have a fit. Honestly, he understood the screaming, at least a little. The book had been popular enough in its own right, but it was stuffed with worldbuilding that had no business calling itself wuxia.
The Cheonryong Academy setting alone should have been a non-starter. In the Murim, the bond between master and disciple was as close to a parent-child relationship as you could get without blood. Teaching martial arts through something that looked suspiciously like a modern school system was bizarre on its face. There was a reason the old saying existed: martial arts were never to be transmitted to the unworthy.
Sure, they plastered on a backstory about it being the legendary achievement of a Murim Alliance Leader, but still…
A half-baked justification like that was never going to win over the true believers. Danmok Jin — Kim Yujin — had never been the sort of reader who lost sleep over that kind of thing, though. Wuxia, fantasy, whatever. If it was fun, that was enough. To be perfectly honest, even if the final boss Heavenly Demon had fired off a Heavenly Demon Death Beam, he would have let it slide as long as the ride was entertaining.
…The problem was that bastard of an author couldn't even manage that.
The story had followed the well-worn path of a light academy romp right up through the midpoint — and then, once the Orthodox-Demonic War kicked off in earnest, it slammed face-first into grimdark. The author had even committed the cardinal sin of killing off several of the heroines for nothing.
Genre drift is a crime.
Burning with the righteous fury of a true reader, Kim Yujin had left a five-thousand-character rage comment… and when he woke up, he had been reborn as Danmok Jin.
A classic transmigration cliché.
Why did it have to be Danmok Jin of all people…!
Especially considering he'd landed in the extra villain whose entire purpose was to make the protagonist, Namgung Cheon, look good.
Fortunately, as a seasoned web novel reader, Danmok Jin knew better than anyone how a transmigrator was supposed to conduct himself. The standard playbook: change your miserable future without wrecking the original plot. And while you were at it, quietly pocket a few of the fortuitous encounters that were supposed to go to the protagonist.
Of course, eventually becoming the protagonist yourself was a cliché in its own right.
If it comes to that, so be it. Being a harem lead wouldn't be the worst fate in the world.
That said, he could hardly just roll over and hand every opportunity to Namgung Cheon. In the Orthodox-Demonic War to come, nothing would matter more for survival than his own martial strength. If it meant protecting the people of the Danmok Clan — his new family in this life — Danmok Jin was fully prepared to play the protagonist himself.
Still, the baseline plan is to stay quietly in the protagonist's shadow and fade into the scenery…
All in all, he figured he'd stuck to that principle reasonably well since transmigrating. Until the day he enrolled at Cheonryong Academy, the Jianghu's assessment of him had gone no further than "a talented rising star." He'd kept his real ability under wraps as much as possible, and in doing so had maintained a far better reputation than the original Danmok Jin ever had.
The reality he actually walked into, however, was wildly different from the novel in his memory. And the discrepancies started in places that had nothing to do with him — which meant he couldn't even blame a transmigrator's butterfly effect.
Whoa… so that's Namgung Cheon, the protagonist. Damn, he's good-looking. But why the hell…
The Namgung Cheon he'd run into at the entrance ceremony had been glaring at him as if he wanted him dead. Watching the protagonist stare him down with a bloodless face and veins standing out at the corners of his eyes had been, to put it mildly, a lot.
Come to think of it, it was already weird that Baek Woohyeok and Namgung Cheon knew each other before they even got to Cheonryong Academy.
Dodging Namgung Cheon's murderous gaze, Danmok Jin found himself replaying the scene that had stopped him cold just before the ceremony began: Namgung Cheon, the novel's protagonist, holding a perfectly ordinary conversation with Baek Woohyeok, the mid-story villain.
…At the time I just figured they already knew each other and let it go.
Thinking about it now, it didn't add up. In the original, Baek Woohyeok was a classic corruption arc — a man who'd fallen because of Namgung Cheon, who was basically the Murim's very own Tony Stark. There was no universe in which that arrogant Namgung Cheon would be caught dead chatting casually with Baek Woohyeok, an orphan with no backing and inferior martial arts.
…Don't tell me there are actual differences between the novel and reality?
Well. He'd read stories like that before. Having confirmed what he decided was a minor discrepancy, Danmok Jin nodded to himself. It wasn't what he'd expected, but the job in front of him hadn't changed.
"AAAAAARGH!!!"
A scream tore through the air, sharp enough to split stone. Danmok Jin turned toward the source. A cadet with all four limbs broken lay sprawled across the training ground floor. In front of him, Baek Woohyeok stood with his weight cocked on one hip.
"…This doesn't seem like a minor discrepancy."
Something had gone terribly, catastrophically wrong.
The first evaluation at Cheonryong Academy — what Danmok Jin called the "placement test" — was a round of spars among the incoming cadets. In my past life, I had gotten the living shit beaten out of me in that first evaluation.
It was only natural. Lined up against the new cadets who'd actually passed the entrance exam, my skills had been pitiful. I'd scraped through the provisional cadet evaluation, sure, but there was no catching up to kids who'd been training since they could walk. A half-baked nobody from a backwater orphanage, with no backing and maybe two months of martial arts under his belt. To every mediocre new cadet desperate to prove himself, I had been the perfect punching bag.
The bastards who hauled me onto the training ground and beat me like a drum, though, didn't come away with good marks. Picking an opponent of comparable skill was itself the start of the evaluation.
They always said that in the Murim, reading your opponent's level is the most important thing, right?
Song Muja, the Floating Cloud Great Tiger and Principal of Cheonryong Academy, who had personally overseen that first evaluation, was a cunning old fox. He didn't even bother explaining the scoring criteria. He just sat back, watched the new cadets make their choices, and tallied the points in his head.
"Those who wish to demonstrate their skills first, raise your hands!"
Once the entrance ceremony wrapped and everyone relocated, five training grounds stood waiting. The instant the instructor finished speaking, the new cadets who couldn't wait to show off shot their hands into the air and climbed up.
"Those who have stepped forward, call out your sparring opponents yourselves!"
I'd let my guard down a little, honestly.
This time my name isn't getting called first, right?
Unlike the old days, when anyone with eyes could tell I was a half-baked joke, I actually looked like a martial artist now. Unsatisfactory by my own standards, sure — but at the incoming-cadet level, my martial prowess was top-tier, and I hadn't particularly bothered to hide it.
What was it Danmok Jin called it… a "hidden powerhouse"? Yeah, that's not my style. And the Iron-Blooded Yama Divine Art isn't that kind of technique anyway.
The guys who'd climbed onto the training ground would call out someone else. Anyone else. I looked like a headache of an opponent even if they had no information on me.
"You there! The beanpole! Get up here!"
"Hah… that one was supposed to be my prey. Young Hero Gang snatched him right out from under me."
"Ahem. Truly, the speed befitting a disciple of the Ilseong Sect, famed for their Fast Sword."
Huh?
"…Me?"
"Yes. You. The idiot standing there tilting his head like a moron."
Do kids these days list dying young as their career goal?
Gang Hansang, disciple of Jo Jeongun — the Lightning Flash Sword, and sect leader of the Ilseong Sect, a mid-tier orthodox faction in Anhui Province. Fellow martial artists had hung the rather splendid title of Small Thunder Sword around his neck, and he ground his teeth as he watched Baek Woohyeok stroll onto the training ground like he had all the time in the world.
Already angling to cling to the Namgung Clan? Envious… no. What a sly bastard!
To Gang Hansang, a mere disciple of the Ilseong Sect, the martial artists of the Namgung Clan — overlords of Anhui Province — were stars in the sky. Even he, Small Thunder Sword and all, had never once sat at the same table as a Namgung. So how, exactly, was some nameless nobody on friendly terms with the clan's eldest son?
The sight of Baek Woohyeok cozying up to Namgung Cheon, the greatest rising star in the Murim, sat in Gang Hansang's gut like a stone.
In Danmok Jin's private estimation, the single most frustrating thing about protagonist Namgung Cheon was his entourage of utterly useless sycophants. In the original novel, Gang Hansang had been precisely that kind of character.
"Ahem. I am Gang Hansang, the Small Thunder Sword of the Ilseong Sect."
"Ah… this is a spar, right. Baek Woohyeok of Dansu Village, Hangzhou."
"A maggot without even a sect, was it. Hah. My sword will be stained with filthy blood today."
Unfortunately for him, he would not be fulfilling that role in this life.
"You do know this is a spar, right?"
"I shall punish you for the crime of daring, far beyond your station, to put yourself on equal footing with a future hero!"
He had gone and poked a sleeping tiger.
"Then… the evaluation spar between Cadet Gang Hansang and Cadet Baek Woohyeok will now begin!"
The instant the instructor declared the match open—
BOOOOOOM!!
A tremendous crash rolled across the grounds.
"Kids these days — no, people back then. Why is everyone so stupid?"
The lament that followed did not match the youthful voice that delivered it.
This was, without question, an era of peace. Among the old-timers, people who'd actually seen real combat were vanishingly rare. Not just the new cadets — most of the Orthodox Murim was like that.
Which is exactly why they got pushed back so badly in the early stages of the Orthodox-Demonic War.
Compared to the Demonic Cult bastards who were even now spilling blood and honing their blades of vengeance, the current Orthodox Murim was amateur hour.
In that case… I'll be the one to stir the pot.
Danmok Jin used to say it all the time: a peaceful Orthodox Murim needed a shit-stirrer. And who on earth was more qualified for that job than me?
Honestly, that's all just an excuse. This is closer to blowing off steam.
BOOOOOOM!!
The moment the spar began, I drove my foot into the ground. The training floor split, and a thick cloud of dust boiled up into the air.
"Ugh…"
The guy with the grandiose title of Small Thunder Sword, or whatever it was, staggered, his balance already gone.
His lower body is that weak, and he's supposed to be a rising star who made a name for himself across a whole region?
A stray dog would laugh at that.
SHWOOOOSH!!
I stepped straight in.
"…Hah?!"
Shock flooded Gang Hansang's face. The dust was already wrecking his vision — and on top of that, my body had vanished as if it had never been there.
The secret movement art of the Killing Emperor, an absolute master of the previous generation — and, together with the Iron-Blooded Yama Divine Art, one of the two techniques that had kept me alive.
The source was Danmok Jin, obviously.
This martial art was supposedly another fortuitous encounter hidden inside Cheonryong Academy. At this point I had to wonder what kind of place Cheonryong Academy even was.
"Tch! These cheap tricks!"
Startled, Gang Hansang swung his sword in a clumsy arc. I didn't dodge. I stepped in deeper.
"…Huh?"
He made a stupid little sound as I appeared in front of his nose. I caught the arm he was swinging, and casually folded it the wrong way.
"AAAAAARGH!!"
In front of the guy screaming his lungs out, I stomped again.
CRACK!!
This time, instead of the training ground floor, it was Gang Hansang's foot that came apart.
"Urgh…"
He looked ready to black out. I neatly folded his other arm the opposite way as well.
"Hnnngh…"
Then, for the sake of symmetry, I wrecked the remaining good leg.
Tak.
I gave him a light shove.
Thud.
The unconscious Gang Hansang crumpled to the training ground floor. What a crybaby. For martial artists of the Orthodox-Demonic War, if your arms and legs were broken, it was common sense to keep fighting even if you had to bite the bastard with your teeth.
"Hmm… he really lived up to the title of Small Thunder Sword."
Went down like a bolt of lightning.
"Anyone else want to spar with me?"
Nobody answered.