The Tree That Cannot Be Climbed
Those formally enrolled into the Wudang Sect were called registered disciples — the term for martial artists who had been granted both a generational rank and a Daoist title.
For the record, the name of registered disciple of the Nine Great Sects was a truly precious thing. Most martial artists who ranged across the Jianghu yearned for it desperately, yet it remained a mirage forever beyond their grasp.
To become a registered disciple of Wudang, one had to cast off all worldly ties and enter the remote mountains before even reaching the age of five. A child that young could hardly climb Mount Wudang of his own will, so it was inevitable that every such child carried his own story behind him.
Being young, moreover, did not mean all things went smoothly. The entry process included a screening of basic constitution and innate temperament — for while the Dao existed for everyone, martial talent did not, or so it was said.
Children who succeeded in entering became trainees. Trainees passed their years learning the Dao, the discipline of heart and mind, the sword, and the arts of fist and foot.
When they reached the age of fifteen, their attainment of the Socheong Sword decided who would remain and who would descend the mountain. Only children whose grasp of the Socheong Sword was judged worthy — whose talent had truly blossomed — could shed the trainee's mantle and become Gate Disciples. From that rank onward they were treated as disciples of Wudang proper, and only then were they granted the right to learn the sect's various arts.
Which arts they learned depended on the master they served, or on their own attainment and temperament — but one thing every Gate Disciple was required to master was the Taecheong Sword. The Taecheong Sword was the fundamental backbone of all Wudang's martial learning.
In truth, the Taecheong Sword was said to be an abstruse art — a discipline of ascension, one might call it. Inevitably, there were those whose attainment fell short and who could not pass beyond the Gate Disciple stage, and many descended the mountain at that point as well. Only upon reaching the age of twenty, and only for those who had at last brought the Taecheong Sword to completion, was the qualification of formal disciple of Wudang granted.
"Oh, look there — someone our age."
Brother Chun-baek, who had been surveying the Great Training Grounds for some time, spoke with wonder in his voice. And he was not wrong: most of the martial artists occupying the grounds were well past their fortieth year.
"He must be a third-generation disciple. Considering Wudang's present generational ranks, I'd say he's of the Mu generation."
When I gave my answer, Brother Chun-baek turned to look at me as if I were some curious thing.
"How do you come to know all that?"
"It's common knowledge, that's all."
Brother Chun-baek's gaze slid from me to Dancheon Hak.
"...I didn't know either."
Dancheon Hak confessed the truth with a sheepish face, and Brother Chun-baek let out a snort of laughter. When his eyes came back to me, they seemed to press for the whole truth.
"Hmm."
I understood well enough — the breadth of common knowledge possessed by a man who had lived a beggar's life was simply of a different order from that of ordinary martial artists. In truth, if even a first-knot beggar failed to know information of this caliber, he could protest his innocence even while being smacked over the head with a begging bowl. But since Brother Chun-baek and Dancheon Hak were not first-knot beggars, I granted them exemption from the bowl in the privacy of my heart.
"Well, I suppose a man might not know."
"Isn't it stranger that you do?"
"Better than not knowing, no?"
"Ugh."
Dancheon Hak stepped forward to argue back, only to be demolished by my logic. He was still a long, long way from matching Myeong-gae's seasoned experience.
"Brother, they say ignorance is no crime. Think nothing of it."
"..."
It was a little sorry business, but it was only right that Dancheon Hak be made out to be a somewhat dim fellow. I could hardly come out and confess a past life as Myeong-gae out of nowhere, now could I?
Hwooo—
Fortunately, something soon arose to claim Brother Chun-baek's attention.
"Ho — so the name of Wudang is no idle boast. Even a third-generation disciple is a sight to behold."
"Indeed it is."
Just as Brother Chun-baek said, the swordwork being honed by the young martial artist who appeared to be a third-generation disciple held subtleties of supremely lofty depth. Judged by my own discerning eye, he was a man who had long since brought the Taecheong Sword to completion and was now treading the footsteps of the higher arts.
The Taiji Wisdom Sword, is it.
However long I had lived a beggar's life, I could hardly know everything about every sect under heaven. But consider it however I might, the subtleties of the Taiji Wisdom Sword seemed far beyond the realm of what was practiced in the open — so feigning ignorance was the wiser course.
My eyes met the third-generation disciple's. His face was familiar. But what stirred me just then was not his face so much as the light in his eyes. Lodged within that gaze were utmost single-minded devotion, relentless diligence — and the hunger to stand above all others.
Hmm.
Truly, Wudang's name was no empty thing. In any case, it was inevitable that every registered disciple of Wudang be exceptional — prodigies handpicked from all under heaven and raised on the Nine Great Sects' secret arts. Even the third-generation disciples had mastered the Taecheong Sword long before their time; they were more than fit to walk out into the Jianghu and stand as swordsmen in their own right.
But had it not been said — one crane among a flock of chickens? There existed a lofty prodigy who made all other prodigies look ordinary.
He was none other than the present third-generation disciple of Wudang: Mu-dam of the Mu generation.
Hwooo—
Mu-dam was diligently wielding the Pine Gate Ancient Sword again today. His swordwork flowed on without a single break, and it truly resembled a river. Perhaps it was no surprise that his attainment was astonishing — for he was the very prodigy who had earned the epithet of Dragon of his generation: the Flowing Dragon.
Genius, it is said, is born when innate talent is joined to unrelenting training. As if to prove the saying true, his fellow disciple Mu-sang came up to him even now, as Mu-dam went through the Pine Gate Ancient Sword without fail.
"I say, Mu-dam. Have you heard?"
"Heard what?"
"They say the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe is almost upon us."
"I don't live with my ears closed. How could I not know?"
Mu-dam answered with a faint smile. And just as in their exchange, the topic most on every tongue in Wudang of late was the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe. For those who shut themselves away in these deep mountains and valleys doing nothing but train, it was an event of unprecedented interest.
"The rising masters and Dragons of the Jianghu will be coming to Wudang, then."
"That is my understanding as well."
"Shall we count them off?"
"Hmm."
Third-generation disciples they might be, Daoists attained in the Way — but were they not still martial artists, pursuing and polishing the martial path? They could hardly be without the desire to prove themselves stronger.
"They say the Jianghu is vast. Those who won recognition far and wide out there must surely possess no small attainment."
When Mu-dam answered thus, his friend Mu-sang laughed.
"Do you mean that?"
Mu-sang's question pressed for the truth. Deciding that Mu-sang was not a man to be fooled, Mu-dam laid his honest heart bare.
"I find myself thinking I would likely be the stronger."
Only then did Mu-sang laugh in earnest.
"Hmm. That's unlucky."
"I only said it because you asked."
"Who's arguing? I happen to agree."
Their talk carried a certain weight of credibility. Mu-dam was a true genius, without rival among his peers. He stood out even in Wudang, where the martial talents of all under heaven were gathered — if he was no genius, then who in the world could be called one?
"He'll be coming too, I take it?"
"Who, that fellow?"
"The Dancheon Divine Dragon, of course."
"...He'll come."
At the mention of the Dancheon Divine Dragon, the smile that had never left Mu-dam's face stiffened for the first time.
"This year's Dragons seem, after all, a notch below those of years past."
Manbakja, was his name. Mu-dam's keen hearing had once caught those words, murmured low and to himself during the examination. And Mu-dam, who had long looked up to the Dragons and Phoenixes, could not possibly have failed to know whom the man meant.
The Dancheon Divine Dragon. The epithet he had seized in the days of the Assembly was the Dancheon Dragon. The second son of the Dancheon Clan — known by the name Myeong. It was said he had shattered the tradition of the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly, claiming the honor of the Single Seat by unanimous acclamation.
Mu-dam was not a man who ordinarily harbored much competitive pride, yet toward this one called the Dancheon Divine Dragon he felt a strange rivalry. The reason was simple: he, too, had shown overwhelming distinction at the Assembly of his own year, yet the honor of the Single Seat had never come to him. He would swear it — among the Dragons of his generation there had been no martial artist who could stand beside him. Inwardly he had longed for a contest with the Dancheon Dragon, but it had never come to pass. For in the year Mu-dam took part in the Assembly, the Dancheon Dragon had not set foot there.
He also remembered the day, not long past, when he had braved discourtesy to put a question to the Sect Leader, Taecheong Jinin.
"Sect Leader."
"Speak."
"Do you know of the Dancheon Dragon as well, Sect Leader?"
"Hehe. Of course I do. I attended as an examiner in the very Assembly where he became a Dragon."
"Is he far stronger than I?"
For Mu-dam, it had been a question weighed with all the care he possessed, reached only after long agonizing. Whether Taecheong Jinin knew this or not, he did not rebuke him. He merely held his silence for a time, as if arranging his thoughts — and at last opened his heavy lips.
"The desire to excel is a vital thing in any martial artist. But a tree one cannot climb becomes nothing more than torment to a Daoist."
Those words were the end of it. The metaphor was hardly an obscure one, and Mu-dam understood its meaning completely. And yet, at the same time, he could not accept it. For Mu-dam had never once been the one who climbed — he had always been the tree that could not be climbed. There was also the fact that, had anyone but the Sect Leader of the great Wudang spoken them, he would never have brought himself to accept such words.
"Oh, look there — Cheonun Jinin is coming this way."
At Mu-sang's commotion, Mu-dam shook off his reverie and turned his gaze. There stood Cheonun Jinin, with three outsiders trailing behind him. He knew not the reason for the visit, but Mu-dam could tell at a single glance that one of the three was the Dancheon Divine Dragon.
"...Which of us is stronger?"
Mu-dam murmured the words to himself. Mu-dam the Flowing Dragon — the prodigy of the ages, acknowledged by Wudang itself. And he could not get the Dancheon Dragon, Dancheon Myeong, out of his mind. Or more precisely — perhaps what he truly wanted was to prove that Manbakja and Taecheong Jinin had been wrong.
At first glance, the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe and the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly seemed much alike. Both were hosted with the Nine Great Sects at their center, and both were stages for the finest rising masters of the Jianghu. But it was right to judge the two events as fundamentally different in nature.
The reason was this: where the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly was a stage for rising stars seeking to be tested, the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe was a gathering of rising masters who had already been tested. In other words, the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe ought rightly to be seen not as a stage for rising stars, but as a gathering for martial artists of true and proper standing.
The atmosphere of the grounds and the conduct of those in attendance proved as much. At the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly, the crowds had clustered around the influential rising stars of the famous sects and great clans. Call them factions, and you would not be wrong. For those who lacked confidence in themselves, entrusting their bodies to those stronger — to an individual or a group — was something akin to survival instinct. And so the Assembly had naturally taken the shape of factions clinging tightly to their own kind and shunning all others; the fierce in-group consciousness born of factionalism strangled all exchange between them.
But the Sinjin Gyoryuhoe was different. As I said, every soul here had already made his name known across the Jianghu — martial artists who had proven themselves with their own two hands. The nature of a martial artist is the nature of a beast of prey, and a tested martial artist is one in whom that predatory nature has come into full bloom. And a beast of prey does not, as a rule, crawl beneath another beast. There was simply no room here for factions to form. At most, the occasional sociable beast might acknowledge another and strike up an acquaintance.
Amid all this mutual standoffishness, a hulking figure of imposing build came toward me.
"Hahaha! A pleasure. Name's Paeng Jin-hu."
Paeng Jin-hu, who had openly claimed the epithet of Saber Dragon at the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly, was a man who lacked nothing to be called a beast of prey. Though he had borrowed the form of the Five Tigers Severing Gate Saber, the raw strength with which he had once crushed hundred-refined steel on innate power alone still lingered vividly in my memory.
"The Mad Tiger Blade himself, great hero. It has been a while."
"Hmm?"
Just as the Sword Dragon Dancheon Hak had become the Flying Cloud Sword, the Saber Dragon Paeng Jin-hu had become the Mad Tiger Blade. The Mad Tiger Blade Paeng Jin-hu was the man who, in the Great War of Righteousness and Evil, had stood shoulder to shoulder with the King of Vagabonds Yi Chun-baek and led the righteous Murim Alliance — how could I not know of him?
"What is it?"
"Hahaha. Truth be told, I only half believed you'd know my face."
He was probably right. In the days of the Assembly, I had no memory of so much as exchanging a word with Paeng Jin-hu.
"And you even honored me not as the Saber Dragon but as the Mad Tiger Blade — my delight knows no bounds."
"The Mad Tiger Blade's fame resounds throughout the Jianghu. How could I fail to know it?"
"Who in these times has made a greater name for himself than the Dancheon Divine Dragon?"
"You flatter me."
The mere fact that I had spoken his epithet made the air between us grow quite warm. As I said long ago — is the Jianghu not a place where men live by honor and die by honor? The simple fact that I knew Paeng Jin-hu's epithet was enough for him to take a liking to me. The struggles of the Jianghu are the road by which a man proves his own existence, and so nothing pleases him more than another who recognizes it. And I could hardly deny that the men of the Paeng Clan, with their bold, open temperament, carried that trait more strongly than most.
Laughing heartily, a thoroughly satisfied look on his face, Paeng Jin-hu continued.
"I hear my uncle owes you a considerable debt."
It was not difficult to guess which uncle he meant. The only member of the Paeng Clan with whom I had formed ties was Paeng Ga-heon, the Shanxi Branch Chief of the Murim Alliance.
"Your uncle, you say?"
But I asked anyway. Friendship, I had learned, is built through mutual exchange — not through silent inference.
"The Reckless Blade Paeng Ga-heon is my uncle. The martial artist I respect most in all the world."
Admiration shone plainly in Paeng Jin-hu's eyes as he spoke of Paeng Ga-heon. That look of his so resembled my own when I think of my Uncle Yeobaek that I found myself liking the man Paeng Jin-hu all the more for it.