The Day the Sword Awoke
Uncle Bang had promised that if I blocked three of his strikes, he would give me personal instruction in the martial arts — but that promise was not quite the truth. Of course, that doesn't mean he was lying to me. It means that the very struggle I was waging to block those three strikes was, in itself, the training.
I knew that the experience of standing against a superlative master's attacks without staking my life was not something money could buy. I was already receiving an immense education from Uncle Bang — even if, it must be said, I had yet to block so much as a single strike, and so measurable progress remained out of reach.
Ten days had passed since I first begged Uncle Bang for martial training. In that time I had taken a dozen-odd strikes to the body, and "died" ten times. Not easy. But anyone who assumed I was discouraged would be dead wrong. Was I not the man who had drunk down no fewer than ten drops of Empty Blue Stone Milk to enter the First Stage of the Yakseon Heart Decision? Little by little, I was catching up to his attacks — and that was no feeling, but a judgment grounded in objective information and hard fact.
"You're out here early again today."
"For one seeking instruction, it's only natural."
I caught the faint twitch at the corner of his mouth. Deny it as he might, my attitude plainly pleased him.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes. Today will be a little different."
"That's the tenth time I've heard you say that."
Uncle Bang let out a dry chuckle.
Setting aside the very first day, which I had suffered through without realizing anything, I'd said it every single time — so this was, in fact, precisely the tenth. It told me how much this seemingly indifferent man actually cared about my training.
"This time, I expect you to block at least one strike."
The moment those words left his mouth, the kindly uncle vanished, and in his place a swordsman honed to a razor's edge stood before me.
Gulp.
I swallowed against the tightening in my throat, and—
Swish.
Uncle Bang's figure vanished. I hadn't blinked, and I still lost him. It was a movement art that could only be called phantomlike — there one moment, gone the next.
But hadn't I said so? I was catching up to his attacks.
I knew that guessing blindly — behind me, probably — would never stop his blade.
I cycled my inner energy through each fleeting instant along my fully opened Ren and Du meridians. Thanks to my expanded qi sense, I could trace his trail.
Above!
"Oh? Found me?"
Silhouetted against the sun, Uncle Bang was bringing his sword down upon me.
Reflexively, I raised my blade into a high guard.
Clang.
Contact.
My sword had finally touched Bang Yeo-baek's.
The only regret was that it would have been perfect had I met his blade square and heard the clean ring of steel. My strike had left its sheath a beat too slow, so I caught his sword at a slant — hence that dull clang.
"Khh."
"Died again today, I see."
His edge, riding down along the flat of my blade, now pointed precisely at my throat. That was the result I faced.
"Thank you."
I sheathed my sword and offered my thanks.
The sessions were brutally short, but I knew these experiences were helping me enormously.
"Good."
Bang Yeo-baek answered in a voice without rise or fall.
That ghost-swift movement art of his, layered over a personality just as flat, made Uncle Bang feel even more like an assassin than Ma Sok of Soul-Chasing Life-Taking ever had.
"Come again tomorrow, same time."
With that, Uncle Bang vanished from the training ground like a wisp of smoke.
"Whew."
I would simply have to train.
Before the Blue Phosphor Liquid carried me into the Second Stage of the Yakseon Heart Decision, I would block his single strike if it killed me.
From where he had concealed himself in his phantom-swift movement art, Bang Yeo-baek's gaze swept the training ground. He watched his nephew — who, believing his uncle long gone, was drilling the first half of the Dancheon Sword Formula without a hint of laziness.
"Stop spying from the shadows and just come out."
"You knew I was there?"
"Pretending not to notice, every single time, is exhausting."
Bang Yeo-baek took the scolding impassively, while Dancheon Gang — the smile never leaving his face — stepped up to stand beside him.
"You've gone rusty in your old age, haven't you?"
He meant that Dancheon Myeong had tracked his movement art after a mere ten days.
"Does it look that way to you?"
Bang Yeo-baek asked back, perfectly level.
"Heh heh."
Dancheon Gang gave that signature laugh of his, the one reserved for when his mood was good.
"So — is our Myeong coming along well?"
To that question, Bang Yeo-baek offered an answer of a slightly different shape.
"I'd say there isn't much time left."
"Time for what?"
"For Young Master Myeong to block my three strikes."
Dancheon Gang knew better than anyone how exceptional Bang Yeo-baek's eye was. He was, after all, the living proof of it.
"He's that close, then?"
Bang Yeo-baek nodded at the astonished question.
"Though I can hardly be expected to let him win easily, either."
"Hmm."
Without a word, Dancheon Gang committed the sight of his second son, deep in training, to memory.
"You!"
Yang Su-rin had come looking for me again.
It was already our third meeting since my regression.
In my past life, I hadn't laid eyes on her until after our engagement was arranged. I remembered falling for her at first sight — and then needing more than a year just to see her face three times. If that wasn't proof that worlds can differ, I didn't know what was.
"Are you serious right now?"
"Serious about what?"
Though I'll admit, I had a hard time guessing why she was bristling the moment she saw me. Regression, after all, hadn't made me fluent in a woman's moods. Then again, when would Myeong-gae the three-knot beggar ever have gotten the chance to learn?
"Serious about what? That's what you have to say right now?"
My bland response set a double wick alight in Yang Su-rin — her temper roared to full flame. And when I still seemed not to follow, she heaved a long, deep sigh.
"The first time, I came here to see you, didn't I?"
"You did."
Though the sight of her standing shoulder to shoulder with my mother, Baek Yeo-hae, hadn't exactly been easy on the eyes.
"And the second time, I came here again?"
"You did."
That meeting had been a profitable one, mind you — the day a crack first opened in the alliance between Baek Yeo-hae and Yang Su-rin.
"So why should I have to come find you a third time?"
"Hm?"
Wasn't that a bit unfair? The thought flickered through my mind before I dismissed it. After all, I had no particular reason to go calling on Yang Su-rin.
"You're the one with business with me, aren't you?"
When it comes to money, the borrower is the one who comes knocking. I'd lived ten years as a beggar, but even I knew that much.
"That's not the point!"
Yang Su-rin's voice cracked out sharply.
"A lady has come to see you twice in person. Wouldn't courtesy demand you come see her at least once? No — even a note would have sufficed!"
"Why would I have to?"
Yang Su-rin looked utterly dumbfounded at my answer. Dumbfounded was supposed to be my line. Could this woman still be entertaining the idea of our engagement?
"We agreed I would bring you ten thousand nyang within seven days and nights, and today is precisely the day those seven days and nights run out. And here you are, arriving just as the promise comes due — so as far as I'm concerned, the matter is closed."
"No!"
Something was clearly stifling her; Yang Su-rin beat her own chest as she said it. I paid it no mind. On this one, I was right. Certain, even.
"Just hear me out."
On the verge of erupting, she abruptly changed her entire bearing. The raging buffalo became, in an instant, some sheltered young lady of a good family. She had already shown me every card in her hand — why play demure now, of all times?
Uncharacteristically, Yang Su-rin hemmed and hawed before she finally spoke.
"We agreed to take some time, remember?"
"Time for what?"
"Time to get to know each other."
"I thought that matter was already settled."
"Who said you could settle it?"
That was the heart I had longed so desperately for. And the heart I had never, in the end, managed to win.
And now that I pushed her away, she leaned in. A truly baffling thing.
"Well. Do as you like."
I'm sorry, but I have no intention of binding myself to you anymore.
Fortunately, I had a way to end this pointless conversation.
"Ten thousand nyang."
I handed Yang Su-rin the bank draft of the Cheonha Money House that I had received from Yeo Wol, matriarch of Haomun.
"It was real?"
Even holding a draft worth ten thousand nyang, disbelief was written plain across her face.
"This isn't a forgery, is it? Try counterfeiting one of Cheonha Money House's drafts and they'll pull every tendon from your body."
But she was a merchant, wasn't she? Face to face with the genuine article, denial was no longer an option.
"What reason would I ever have to lie to you?"
My purpose in meeting her had now been accomplished.
"Now take that money and go unfold your ambitions."
I had planted the seed. Someday, it would bear harvest.
"As I've told you time and again — you will succeed."
I would let it mature for ten years.
So that when I became Leader of the Murim Alliance, the Yang Family Hall would be there to raise its hand for me.
There are days like this.
Mornings when the body rises oddly light and unburdened. Days when, for no reason you can name, mood and spirit are simply, plainly good.
In my begging days, such days usually meant an alms bowl filled more generously than usual, or the exact piece of information I wanted dropping straight into my ear.
And today, somehow, felt like a day I might finally block Uncle Bang's sword.
"You're out early."
I was in the middle of drilling the first half of the Dancheon Sword Formula when Uncle Bang appeared, watching me. Something in me balked at cutting the forms short, so I greeted him with my eyes alone and let the remaining forms flow out of their own accord.
Uncle Bang silently took in the path of my sword.
"Hoo—"
I sheathed my blade and walked over to him.
"My apologies — it seems I'm a little early for your arrival."
"Not at all. I'm the one who came out early."
After a moment's thought, he went on.
"You're better than Young Master Hak."
"...Thank you!"
Somehow I doubted the reply he was hoping for was 'Well, you are stronger than the elders, Uncle.' We were drawing closer, little by little, just like this.
"Ready?"
With that, Uncle Bang drew his beloved sword. Today, of all days, his blade looked sharper and clearer than ever.
"Today will be different."
I'd said it every time before, but today something was genuinely, truly different.
Perhaps he felt it too; my uncle gave only a quiet nod.
Swish.
The same phantom-swift movement art as always. The figure of the man who had stood before me vanished.
Right.
My eyes chased his trail.
This was not like before — losing his afterimage, then stretching my qi sense to its limits just to barely follow his whereabouts. From the very first instant, my eyes had not let go of his blurred trace.
It was the first time it had ever happened, yet it felt as natural as something I had done a hundred times before.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Watching it with my own eyes, I finally understood just how consummate his movement art was. In the sliver of time I had always taken for an instant — the span between his strike beginning and reaching me — his footwork shifted a total of three times before it arrived at my body.
Straight on.
His sword thrust for my solar plexus, dead center. The momentum was so ferocious that no easy thought like he'll pull it before it lands could survive.
How did one answer an attack coming straight down the middle?
There were two ways. Beat his blade aside and bend its trajectory — or move my own body.
The judgment came swift.
Spending my own strike merely to batter his sword off course was the lesser path. The me of today had no intention of being satisfied with simply blocking one strike.
Whoosh!
I whipped my body to the side. His blade, driving for my solar plexus, shaved a whisper across the front of my robe.
In the same breath, I raised my sword.
The form I had drilled until it lived in my bones — the first form of the Dancheon Sword Formula's opening half, Dancheon Lightning Strike.
The technique unfolded as naturally as breathing.
And in that same moment, something unexpected happened.
Vmmm.
With a faint hum — a sword's cry — a thin, blue-tinged light draped itself over my blade.
It was sword qi, the proof of the Peak Realm known throughout all of Jianghu. At eighteen, I had crossed the threshold of Peak.
There would be time to savor the feeling later.
"Hah!"
Without hesitation, I loosed my sword at my uncle.
And then—
CRASH!
"Urk."
Without understanding what had happened, my body went skidding backward.
"Oh dear."
Uncle Bang offered his assessment in that same flat voice.
Rippling along his blade was a sword aura my crude sword qi could not begin to compare with. Unmistakable proof of the Harmony Realm.
"My apologies."
"...I'm all right."
The rebound of the sword aura had knocked the words out of me, so my answer came late — but I truly was fine. I felt wonderful, in fact.
I had thought this merely a day when my mood was good. I had been wrong.
Today was the day I made the First Stage of the Yakseon Heart Decision entirely, perfectly my own.