The Wall of Talent
"The world is not fair."
Lee Ja-seong said it as though proclaiming a law of heaven.
"Mm."
There was no refuting that. Having lived, in full, both the life of a great clan's direct heir and the life of a beggar, I knew better than anyone that even a line tossed off in passing — the world is fair — was an affront to reason. Whether fairness truly existed in some fabled utopia beyond the Central Plains, a Peach Blossom Paradise, I could not say; but this much was certain fact: in the Jianghu of the martial world, the value called fairness did not exist save by rare exception.
Even so, curiosity stirred in me — because I had not entirely fathomed why Lee Ja-seong had chosen to open with those words.
"Put another way — talent is not fair."
"Ah."
That I could only concede. To claim that talent for the martial arts was distributed evenly was, in truth, nothing short of deceit.
To say talent was fair was to say that one's realm was decided by differences of effort. But look at it from another angle, and did that not become a slur upon the countless martial artists who remained below the Peak?
Having lived the beggar's road, I knew. Among those who trained in the ascending martial arts, there was not one who did not carve flesh from his own bones to do it. Even beggars, when it came to learning the martial arts, never once practiced them half-heartedly.
Yet some remained First Rate all their lives, some reached the Peak, and some surpassed the Harmony Realm. The differing arts each had mastered surely accounted for something — but one had to know that it was never a difference of effort.
"Why do you think you lost?"
"Mm."
By nature, the most important thing in a contest of martial arts was victory and defeat. They said victory and defeat were the common lot of soldiers — but that was a maxim for the battlefield, and a mistake to carry into the martial world. Save for extraordinary circumstances like today's, defeat in the Jianghu usually meant death.
Even so, if I had to name the most important thing in a contest of arms apart from victory and defeat, I would answer without hesitation: the review. The review was the very wellspring of improvement, and a contest from which nothing improved was, frankly, a wasted one.
"Allow me a moment to think."
"Take your time."
The review did not take long. Partly because my bout with Lee Ja-seong had been brief — but more than that, because he had carried the sparring along as though feeding me threads to pull.
"My moves were read."
Having honed my eye on the beggar's road, and having traded sword discourse and sparring with Chun-baek and the rest of the Dancheon family at every turn, there was no way I could fail to notice.
"That's right." He nodded, satisfied, and asked, "Why do you think they were read?"
"...That, I cannot say."
If a moment's pondering could have produced the answer, I would never have been defeated in the first place. Chun-baek, too, wore a distinctly curious look, as though the same question had taken root in him.
"I spoke of talent just now."
As if he had no intention of handing over the answer straightaway, Lee Ja-seong turned the conversation.
"In my judgment, Chun-baek was born with talent of perhaps one in a million. Truly resplendent talent, I would call it."
"You honor me too much, Master."
"Chun-baek. Excess courtesy, it is said, is no different from discourtesy."
"My apologies."
Lee Ja-seong nodded, and his gaze came to rest on me once more.
"You, I would judge, are somewhere near one in ten million."
"..."
I could not agree — but I raised no objection. To agree would have meant laying bare my secrets, the Yakseon Heart Decision among them, and I did not yet consider myself close enough to Lee Ja-seong for that. Nor, truthfully, did I wish to betray the faith of Chun-baek, who was nodding along as though it all rang true.
"As for that boy Gi-ha's talent... yes. One in a hundred million, I would have to call it."
"Mm."
That much I could grant. I had faced the martial artist named Yeom Gi-ha myself, and his talent for the martial arts had possessed a depth that defied fathoming. Frankly, I was not sure it was a talent that belonged within the category of human at all.
"I told you I went easy on the boy, but that was when he was still green. Gi-ha's talent is, quite literally, the kind that appears but once in an age."
Lee Ja-seong steadied his breath for a moment, and at last gave me his answer.
"When I say your problem lies in having followed Gi-ha, that is what I mean. You, too, hold brilliant talent, and so you could follow the boy's manner — but to melt it down and make it wholly your own is impossible."
"Ah..."
Now, at last, I began to grasp what my problem had been. Lee Ja-seong's words were prodding at my inner vision.
—Your problem lies in having followed Gi-ha.
Truthfully, judged as a sentence alone, that remark was not so very profound. And yet it circled my mind again and again. Not because the words were great — because the viewpoint was. A perspective I had never once considered had opened a new horizon across my inner vision.
Do they not say that one sees only as much as one knows? Words spoken from a vantage I had never looked upon could not help but strike me harder than any sage's aphorism. They kept brushing against my thoughts, so much so that I half-believed a new enlightenment might descend if I only entered seated meditation that very moment.
Even so, sinking into the state of no-self now would not do. Lee Ja-seong's words were not yet finished. Not out of courtesy to my friend's master — I should say it was anticipation, the hope that what came next might grant an even greater awakening.
"What martial art have you trained in?"
"The hereditary arts of my clan."
"The Dancheon Sword Formula?"
"Yes."
"No wonder it looked familiar."
"You know my clan's arts?"
"During the Muhan Bimuhaeng — the Infinite Sparring Tour — I crossed hands with the head of the Dancheon Clan as well. I remember a stalwart martial artist. Your grandfather, I take it."
"Ah..."
I felt anew how small the Jianghu truly was. No — in this case, perhaps it was Lee Ja-seong's Jianghu that was truly boundless.
Whatever my impressions, Lee Ja-seong went on.
"Mm."
Perhaps he read my attentiveness in that murmur, for satisfaction settled over his face. And I realized that his expression just then resembled Uncle Yeobaek's, and Yeom Gi-ha's, and Mugeuk Jinin's. Teacher, mentor, master — I knew that great men who could be called by any of those names all wore that same look.
"As you know, a martial art is composed of shape and pattern. Through the emission of internal qi one can force radical transformations upon them, but at the root there is no great change. Even for one who has mastered an art, the trajectories a human body can trace have their limits."
"You mean there is no great difference between one martial art and another?"
Lee Ja-seong shook his head.
"Forms are not the whole of a martial art. The formulas and exegesis held within them, their hidden essence, the handling of true qi — those surely carry their own special worth. But in a life-and-death bout, here and now, what shows on the surface can only ever be the forms and their subtleties."
Lee Ja-seong's finger lifted, and began to trace the acupoints along my body.
"Grasp the flow of these four — Gyeollyo, Cheoktaek, Bigwan, Dokbi — and you can roughly deduce the forms. And if you see through the Jungjeong, you can gauge the flow of the torso and the distribution of force."
They referred, in order, to the shoulder joint, the elbow, the hip joint, and the knee. The Jungjeong was, as the name implied, the point seated at the very center of the body.
"Predicting an opponent's movement out of nothing, and responding once you have caught his starting point and direction — those are matters of entirely different dimensions. The loftier the art, the truer it becomes. I made it sound grand, but you have likely been doing it all along. Every martial artist applies exactly that method against an opponent far beneath him."
"Ah."
I had faced martial artists weaker than myself as well, so understanding came in a flash.
"Of course, the forms of one who has reached the Harmony Realm or beyond pass in the blink of an instant — no easy feat. With a mediocre eye, even the attempt would be impossible."
"Hm?"
A mediocre eye, he says.
I swallowed the laugh that threatened to slip out. I took no small pride in the fact that Myeong-gae's eye had, in name and in fact, touched the very topmost stratum of the Jianghu. And with Dancheon Myeong's realm stacked on top of that, the attempt was more than worth making.
"Oh dear, there goes my tongue. Old men grow talkative — you'll understand someday."
"Please, think nothing of it."
Every word had been flesh and blood to me. The proper reply was not think nothing of it but thank you.
"That is why I spoke of talent. The martial art of one brimming with talent is a truly dazzling thing. The real reason Gi-ha's art is so formidable lies not in his realm, but in forms that refuse to chase shape or pattern. Put another way — you would do right to seek it in his unpredictable offense."
Not that it was wild flailing. Though it followed neither shape nor pattern, it carried unmistakable intent, with consummate subtlety dissolved throughout.
"One in a hundred million. A talent of that order can devise flows of form and true qi that a common man like me could never imagine."
"I see."
"Do you follow?"
"I have crossed hands with him, after all..."
"Hoh ho."
I had experience sparring against Yeom Gi-ha, the Sovereign of Destruction. Not once — ten straight days of endless sparring, a staggering hundred-odd bouts. One hundred and one bouts: no wins, a hundred losses, a single draw. Such was the tally of my bouts with him.
I had blamed the abyss between our strengths, but hearing Lee Ja-seong out, I now knew the truer reason. The greatest source of my struggle had been simply this: I could neither predict nor decipher Yeom Gi-ha's attacks.
"The reason I subdued you so easily was nothing else. First, I restricted the release of your internal qi and so narrowed your forms; and your movements, tethered as they were to the shape and pattern of the Dancheon Sword Formula, I could read with ease."
Lee Ja-seong spoke as though it were nothing, but I could tell how extraordinary his insight and craft truly were. It would be no exaggeration to say I had received a sliver of the understanding of an absolute master who had completed the feat of the Muhan Bimuhaeng.
"As I said, the world is unfair. I do not even tell Chun-baek, my own direct disciple, to imitate my way of seeing. By the same token, Gi-ha's forms are not something to be copied. Your talent, too, is truly brilliant — but it dwells within the human domain. That boy's talent, however, is difficult to call human at all. And so his martial arts, likewise, must not be judged as the work of a human being."
"I am grateful for the lesson."
I, too, knew the man called Yeom Gi-ha the Sovereign of Destruction well, so I knew Lee Ja-seong's words were never meant to demean me. If anything, I ought to see them as a great kindness granted to a man he had met but once — and all for no reason but that I was his disciple's friend.
But it seemed his kindness was not yet spent.
"Chun-baek."
"Yes."
"What means is there for leaping beyond the unfairness of talent?"
Chun-baek opened his mouth without a moment's hesitation, as though he had known the answer all along.
"Effort and training."
Lee Ja-seong sent a satisfied smile to the disciple who had given the proper answer — and his gaze came back to me.
"Just so. The thing that overturns the unfairness of talent is, once more, effort."
His eyes swept over Chun-baek and me.
"Your talents cannot surpass that boy's. That much is settled at birth."
Yet the eyes of Lee Ja-seong as he spoke held not resignation, but longing.
"So — will you try crossing the wall of talent?"
"What has a martial artist of the righteous path but an unswerving heart and the will to advance?"
"You speak true. We shall begin your training tomorrow."
"Thank you."
The new year. In other words, the first day of the first month. In other words, the day the Demonic Cult would come invading.
Seven days and nights remained until that day — and the time allotted for my training was much the same. And speaking without a shred of self-conceit, it was time more than enough to open a new horizon.