The Ink-Clad Sage (4)
"You were magnificent today."
"It's all thanks to the valuable lessons you've given me."
The sun had already slipped below the horizon, yet I remained on the mountain, crossing swords with my master until the very last moment before I had to head home. We had long since moved past basic cuts, and apparently finding that insufficient, my master had taken up a wooden pole to spar with me. The session unfolded with a body I still wasn't fully accustomed to. It was a time of perfect reflection, one that left no room for even the slightest deficiency in my self-examination.
"Some people take the finest iron ore and merely forge it into an ordinary blade, while others can take the worst ore and temper it into a sword renowned for generations."
"I'm grateful that you followed my inadequate teaching so well."
Inadequate? The feeling in my left arm, where he'd struck me earlier, was still vividly sharp. If this was what inadequate felt like, I shuddered to imagine what a truly demanding session from my master would be like.
"I'll head down now."
I prepared to descend the mountain with somewhat hurried steps. My master watched me silently for a long moment. Just as I was about to leave, he called my name.
"Sowoon-ah."
"...Yes?"
I turned without thinking. My master was still smiling as he looked at me.
"Perhaps it's because I'm getting old, but my memory feels hazy. I wanted to ask—would that be all right?"
People who started conversations like that rarely asked comfortable questions. My heart trembled with a touch of premature regret as I answered.
"Yes."
Still wearing that unwavering smile, my master asked, "Have we met somewhere before?"
...What?
My heart plummeted. Could it be that Master also remembered everything? Or at least... remembered me?
Completely unaware of my inner turmoil, Master continued searching through the fog of distant memories, his expression deeply thoughtful.
"From the first time we met, I couldn't shake the feeling that you were somehow familiar."
Familiar? A sense of déjà vu, perhaps. Most of the memories between my regressions had vanished, but it seemed a faint trace of who I was had remained somewhere in his mind.
"And then today, I saw it. Your sword."
My sword? Had there been something unusual about today's training? As if answering the question forming in my mind, Master gave a small shake of his head and continued.
"Crude and unrefined? Did you really think I would keep falling for such an obvious lie?"
He swung the wooden pole he'd been holding since earlier in various directions. The speed was utterly different from any swordplay I'd seen him use before. It was almost... like watching my own style.
"Though it appears chaotic, the blade strikes at vital points with ghostly precision. Fast and powerful. I may be rusty now, but I once considered myself quite strong. Even at my peak, I doubt I could have imitated that easily."
It had been a perfect mistake. The moment he struck my left arm, the demon who had fought on the edge of life and death stirred in my chest. Instinct had screamed that my life was in danger the instant I was hit. Mind before body. Before I could even think properly, I had already unleashed the hidden sword.
Though it had been blocked, in retrospect, it was the only strike that had come close to reaching him.
Yet simply believing I wouldn't be caught was arrogance in itself.
"I thought you might be the reincarnation of the Three Talents Sword God, said to have mastered the Three Talents Sword Technique to its limit."
The Three Talents Sword God. A mere rumor about a martial deity who had supposedly pacified the murim with the Three Talents Sword Technique. It was obviously fiction, so why was Master comparing that figure to a child like me?
Still pondering, Master posed the question to himself.
"It certainly seems like you've learned a proper sword style, so why do you insist on using mine?"
With the expression of someone who had found what he was looking for, Master followed his own question with another.
"It's impossible, but... could it be that you learned that sword from me?"
He lifted his head and looked at me.
"I've never learned such a sword, yet who knows? When I was a little younger than I am now, I taught martial arts quite freely."
"So I ask you this."
At some point, the smile had vanished from Master's face. With a truly serious expression, he waited for my answer.
What was I supposed to say? That yes, I learned it from you? No, I didn't? Either way, my position was impossibly awkward.
"Never mind."
While I was still wrestling with my thoughts, Master broke from his reverie and spoke. When I looked at him again, the kind smile had returned to his face.
"I've put you in a difficult spot. I'm sorry. If you don't want to answer, that's fine. Let's pretend I never asked you this today."
He had noticed my discomfort. He was offering to erase the entire conversation. A heavy lump rose in my chest.
"...Wait here a moment."
Master turned and went into the house, where he began searching for something. After several rustling sounds, he emerged again, this time carrying a book.
Jintcheon Shinbo
Heaven-Suppressing Divine Step
"Take it."
The book Master handed me looked so old and poorly maintained that it seemed it might tear if handled carelessly. The title clearly read Jintcheon Shinbo.
"It's a footwork technique called the Heaven-Suppressing Divine Step."
The steps of a god that suppresses the heavens. That was what Master called it.
"When I was young, I wondered—why is the God-Slaying Heaven-Shattering Sword so weak?"
As if reminiscing, he closed his eyes and took a single step forward.
"Its strikes are powerful. But they are too honest, too easy to evade."
With his second step, the air grew heavy.
"So I thought..."
On the third step, an overwhelming weight crushed down on me. Unable to withstand the pressure, I fell to my knees.
"If I could completely control my opponent's movements, they wouldn't even be able to dodge."
"Suppress the heavens. Place the heavens beneath your feet. Then who could possibly evade me?"
The pressure vanished as suddenly as it had come. Master extended his hand to me. I took it lightly, and he pulled me up with surprising strength.
"Originally, I never intended to teach this to anyone. And of course, I never have."
Why? I had never heard of footwork that dominated space with such precision. There would be a line of people waiting to learn it.
"I considered it the kind of knowledge one must know how to discard, as I mentioned earlier."
To me it seemed like the finest footwork imaginable, yet Master called it knowledge that must be discarded.
"The Heaven-Suppressing Divine Step is an incomplete technique."
"Its power is tremendous, but the burden it places on the body, both internally and externally, is too severe."
Only then did I notice my master's body trembling faintly. He was clearly forcing himself to endure, and even then, he seemed barely capable of movement.
"You are a genius. The kind that appears once in an age, if that. So this old man indulged in one moment of greed."
"Someday, you will stand in a higher place than I and look down upon the world. When that time comes, I hope you will tell me."
"What it truly feels like to hold the heavens beneath your feet."
A place higher than Master. It seemed he did not believe he could complete this martial art himself. He appeared to think that only someone who had reached the Transformation Realm—where anything becomes possible—could perfect it.
"...Before the mountains and rivers change, I will show you."
The Transformation Realm. I would probably reach it faster than in my previous life. One more reason to grow stronger quickly had been added.
"Sowoon-ah."
I was truly about to descend the mountain when Master's voice reached me once more. I tucked the book into my robes and turned, but he had already gone inside and was nowhere to be seen.
"You once said I was your first master."
Yes. That's right. Both then and now, you are my one and only master.
"Your own God-Slaying Heaven-Shattering Sword was truly beautiful."
Master's final words lingered in my ears like an echo that refused to fade.
"You may descend the mountain now."
I bowed deeply for a long time toward where I believed Master stood, then slowly made my way down the mountain.
...
"Jintcheon Shinbo, huh..."
The next day, I deliberately chose not to climb the mountain. Learning this unknown martial art took priority.
Jintcheon Shinbo was a footwork technique that suppressed space with tremendous force to control an opponent's movements.
"This should pair quite well with my style."
If there was one attack I found most threatening, it was coordinated assault techniques. What use was launching sword strikes at inhuman speeds when a human's attacks were limited within the same span of time? Even I had far more strikes than others, but not an infinite number. Therefore, in group tactics, my sword strikes would inevitably become dispersed. It meant losing the greatest advantage of my sword art entirely.
With Jintcheon Shinbo, that weakness could be perfectly compensated for. If I could seal the opponent's movements, even a coordinated assault would reveal a momentary gap. It might only be one or two seconds, but that was more than enough to disrupt their formation.
"First, I'll try it myself..."
I rose from my seat and assumed the starting stance. Concentrating my inner energy in my legs, I took one step forward. In that instant, the world seemed to shake and sink.
"Fuck..."
It wasn't an illusion. I was actually sinking. The imprint of my footprint remained perfectly formed in the caved-in ground. The same weight I had felt on my shoulders earlier pressed down again. In the end, I couldn't even take two steps before dropping to my knees.
"Wait, if you get crushed by it too, what's the point?"
Ah. I'm not criticizing you, Master. It's this damn technique's fault.
The unexpected flaw in the art irritated me slightly, but I could see the problem immediately. Extreme inner energy consumption and the oppressive pressure on the body, both leading to utter exhaustion. How long would it take to overcome this? Honestly, I had no idea.
It sounded simple at first glance, but it wasn't. The issues of inner energy and pressure could be solved right away, but doing so would weaken the technique exponentially. Since I would face stronger enemies as my realm increased, weakening it was the worst possible choice.
"For the time being, I'll just have to train this."
My sword was nearly perfect anyway, and my body would adapt little by little as I grew. So I took another step. And then another.