How to Walk
Status update on the backseat-gaming brat Aso blocked lolololol
The kid who got chat-banned for backseat gaming on Aso's stream vanished for two whole days, clearly in shock — and today, the stream is live again lmaoooooooo
LET'S GOOO!!
Beginning broadcast. Would you like to record?
"Record, you say... I know not what use a recording might serve, yet surely it can do no harm. So be it. I shall record."
Recording has begun.
A window — a chat window, I surmised — bloomed open at my side, and at last a solemn, majestic melody began to pour forth.
"Fine music this. Could its maker be one who knows the flow of wind and water?"
And in that very moment, a new world unfurled before me.
"Oh ho! Is this not Murim itself...!"
Mountains crowded thick with green, plains stretching emerald beneath high heavens — and moving among them, figures bearing swords, shouldering spears, faces veiled, clad in martial garb.
They were people of Murim, and this place was Murim itself.
While my heart was stolen by that familiar, dearly-remembered sight, something flashed white at the bottom of my view.
"A hidden weapon?"
Please choose a nickname.
It was not. Merely a system message asking me to choose a nickname.
"A nickname... ah, an alias, then. This body was one called the Sword God."
It was a body that had earned the right to be called so, after all.
"Naturally, Sword God is the only proper choice."
I could no longer recall precisely why I had come to be named the Sword God — yet there was not a single stain nor speck of shame upon that name. And so I remained the Sword God still.
"Sword God, it is."
Is "Sword God" correct?
"It is."
With the nickname settled, I waded through the avalanche of settings that followed — and, worn down by it all, skipped the lot. Only then did the chat window at my side begin to churn with a chaos of tangled characters.
"What a disorderly spectacle this is..."
And when the flood finally settled, what the chat contained was a truly unpleasant sight to behold.
And yet, they too were ignoramuses who had come seeking to take their very first steps. To remain unmoved by praise or blame is where the martial path begins.
"Hmm... from whence have you all come?"
Still, that my words would come out less than gentle was simply beyond my power to help.
All this had appeared in the mere breath it took me to speak. Though it was nothing but a string of characters, it was as if a chorus of clamoring voices rang in my ears.
What terribly talkative creatures. Some of it was grating to look upon, true — but I supposed they were fair questions to ask.
"You asked why this one is called the Sword God?"
Why am I the Sword God. Was that your question?
"The world itself named me the Sword God."
That was all. The judgments of other men meant nothing to me, for there were three heavens within me.
"In time, you shall come to know naturally why this one is called the Sword God."
"Ahem. A fine question, that."
Some eight viewers had gathered by now, and I had been thinking it was as good a time as any to begin. Too many people breeds confusion, too few makes the effort pointless — though the sheer noise of them was a problem, granted. But I am a broad-minded man.
Truly, I am. Do not doubt it.
"Today, I — who have spared no lamentation over your utter incompetence — shall myself bend the rules of Murim and bestow a teaching upon you. Engrave it well, and see that you master it with your own bodies."
"However — technique is a poison to the likes of you. One cannot very well teach the art of treading the void to an infant who has yet to take a first step, can one?"
However ignorant they might be — no, precisely because they were ignoramuses, they ought all the more to watch their tongues, yet this one knew nothing of it.
"You, there. You have need of closing your mouth."
A chat ban should be enough. Hmm... so this is how it is done.
Ha... and still they chatter on. In the videos I had watched, they would quiet themselves on their own when shown an example like this. But they were not entirely incapable of focus, so I would simply carry on.
"There was a minor disturbance, but the conclusion is this: I intend to teach you the Three Powers Steps."
"It is the very Three Powers that you know."
"You may be tempted to laugh the Three Powers Steps off as a joke. I know full well that the Three Powers Mind Method and the Three Powers Sword Method are engraved upon your minds as laughingstocks."
And in truth, I could not quite call you wrong. The Mind Method and the Sword Method had been little more than calisthenics. But the Steps were different.
"I shall not say that you are wrong. Yet know the difference, and know your measure. The Three Powers is not a thing you may treat so lightly."
"Yes — 'just Three Powers.' I suppose that is how you would think. The Three Powers Mind Method and the Three Powers Sword Method were, indeed, a kind of calisthenics."
"But the Three Powers Steps were not."
"Yes. Not so much special as strange. To ordinary folk, grasping its principle was all but impossible; to martial artists, it was nearer to sheer absurdity. On the surface, it was nothing more than how to extend a step, shift the body laterally, and fall back."
"The answer to that is exceedingly simple."
Taking one's first step in accordance with the principle of the Three Powers.
One extends the right foot forward. Without the slightest technique — simply forward. That is the first of the Three Powers.
"Man — for people move ever forward."
The halted rear foot slides level, and the body turns to the left.
"Earth — for the earth is unchanging."
The planted right foot draws back, and once more the balance and the stance reshape themselves.
"Heaven — for the heavens recede."
"Yes. You cannot understand. You, the ignorant — that is."
Talent might surface among them now and then, but measured against me, they were ignorant all the same. They simply did not know it. But that was no concern of mine.
"And yet — it was the same in Murim. Even there, only a handful of anomalies ever burrowed into the Three Powers Steps."
"And — so, too, was this one."
"Man — the advance of people is a reaching toward the heavens."
"Earth — the unchanging nature of the earth is, in turn, its vastness."
"Heaven — the recession of the heavens is that which no human hand may touch."
People stretch their hands toward the sky.
Beyond even the vastness of the earth.
Dreaming of the boundlessness of the heavens.
"This is the first stage of the Three Powers Steps."
"A dummy, you say... good."
This would serve well for a demonstration. And it would serve just as well to shatter their ignorant little world.
"Then I ask you: what is footwork?"
"Then I ask you once more: what is lightness skill?"
"Yes... now I know your level."
How was I to make human beings out of these ignoramuses...
And yet, beyond even the hopelessness of it, something else struck home at once — the sheer delight of being able to rise and stand once more.
"Tell me — how far does that dummy over there look to you from where you stand?"
"Very well. Then allow this one to show you the Three Powers Steps."
This was the first principle I had ever come to grasp, and it was a Three Powers Steps reborn.
"The place where humans set their feet is the earth. The place where immortals set their feet is the clouds."
Humans tread the ground; immortals tread the clouds.
"Immortal Cloud-Treading Steps."
A body light enough to tread upon the clouds itself could soar from castle to castle across a boundless continent. How much lighter still, then, the crown of a dummy so near at hand?
"Is it not precisely because you do not know such things that you are ignoramuses?"