novelraw Chapter 238 : The Secret of the Heaven Sea Divine Art (1)
Chapter 238 : The Secret of the Heaven Sea Divine Art (1)
Chapter 238: The Secret of the Heaven Sea Divine Art (1)
I dragged a cart loaded with books into the grain storage.
Once inside, I struggled to calm my violently pounding heart.
The Heaven Sea Divine Art wasn’t a mere martial art.
It was a martial art recorded as legend in murim history, and aside from Hoi Eulshin, it had not yet been passed down—remaining shrouded in mystery.
‘It’s no wonder the Heavenly Demon Sect wants to swallow the Sky Ocean Merchant Union. They’re afraid of the Heaven Sea Divine Art resurfacing in the world.’
I had brought all five carts into the storage, yet nothing changed.
‘Was I mistaken?’
I had thought that the five carts represented the weight of the Five Poison Classics, but perhaps it was a misunderstanding.
Trying to retrace where I went wrong, I looked around the storage once again.
I knocked and rubbed the walls, but I couldn’t find anything unusual.
I even thought there might be a trap formation installed in the storage, so I inspected the gaps in the walls thoroughly.
Even where traps were likely to be placed, there was no sign of such mechanisms.
I even examined the ceiling.
But even there, I found no traces of any mechanism.
“Damn it, I got all excited and ended up making a fool of myself.”
I flopped down on the floor.
Lying flat on my back and staring at the ceiling, a chuckle escaped me at my own stupidity.
“If I leave here with nothing, I’ll just end up looking pathetic.”
Feeling empty, I turned over and rested my head on my arm.
Putting aside the foolishness, being alone in this space somehow made me feel at ease.
Rolling around lost in thought, I turned to my right and discovered something.
“Huh?”
While lying down, I spotted a sunken mark in the corner of the storage floor.
The dent was smooth, as though someone had intentionally made it.
I jumped up and brushed away the grains filling the dent with my hand, clearing it.
It was about the span of a hand, and there was another mark on the left corner, about the length of an adult arm away.
“What is this?”
Pondering for a moment, I swept another corner of the floor with my foot where the grain was piled.
“Just as I thought. There’s a mark here too.”
Upon checking the last corner, I found another identical mark.
Eventually, I realized all four corners of the storage had the same marks, clearly man-made.
“Why would there be marks like this in a storage?”
But having run the Sky Ocean Merchant Union in my past life, I had never heard of any such reason.
While rubbing my chin in thought, my eyes landed on the cart filled with books.
“Could it be related to the carts?”
Clap!
Staring hard at the cart, a thought struck me and I clapped my hands.
“That’s it!”
I measured the width between the cart’s wheels and compared it to the space between the floor’s dents—and they matched precisely.
‘If the width of the cart’s wheels matches, then these dents are slots for the cart wheels.’
I pushed the cart and aligned the wheels with the dent in the floor.
Amazingly, the wheels fit the dents perfectly. I excitedly aligned carts with the dents in the other corners.
“Where should this last one go?”
Having placed carts at all four corners, one of the five remained.
Murmuring to myself, I looked at the remaining cart and smiled.
“Now I get it. There’s a mechanism installed here. When carts filled with books are placed at all four corners, the weight activates the mechanism. And this last cart—it needs to go at the center, the balance point.”
I swept the center of the floor with my foot, searching for another dent.
“There it is.”
There was a sunken mark at the center as well.
Unable to contain my excitement, I rolled the cart to the center.
Once the wheels slotted into the dent, the storage began to tremble faintly.
Grrruuuunnnng!
A vibration started from the floor, and I felt a gradual descent.
‘It’s not just about having five carts—it’s about placing the exact weight at all four corners and the center. What a precise mechanism.’
As the floor slowly descended, I shivered in awe.
‘So I was right. Fortune favors me. If I had given up, I wouldn’t have encountered this chance.’
Had I not emptied my mind and laid down on the floor, I would never have seen the dent.
If I had kept obsessing over the Heaven Sea Divine Art and acted rashly, I would’ve missed it completely. Because I was in a state of no-thought and no-self, I saw the floor’s mark. Could it be that Hoi Eulshin had counted on this?
That thought alone showed just how difficult it was to find the marks.
Krrrrrrng!
The floor that had been sinking came to a halt.
Looking up, it seemed to have descended a good five jang.
The place where the floor had dropped was inside a natural cave.
“Now I see. Hoi Eulshin must’ve discovered this natural cave and built the storage facility above it. Thanks to the cool air blowing in from the cave, the books and grain didn’t rot. It’s highly likely Hoi Eulshin left behind his insights here.”
My heart pounded.
Just the thought of finally being able to witness the legendary martial art, the Heaven Sea Divine Art, made my fingertips tingle.
Though the cave was pitch dark with no light coming in, I had already surpassed the Transcendent Stage, so I could faintly discern my surroundings.
Still, I thought it would be nice to have a torch, and that’s when I spotted the books loaded on the cart.
Utilizing Samadhi True Fire, a martial ability acquired after transcending the Transcendent Stage, I ignited one of the books.
The surroundings lit up, illuminating the full outline of the cave.
By the time the book had fully burned, I had memorized every detail of the cave's layout and muttered to myself.
“Now I understand why the books were loaded onto the cart. If all the books are burned, the floor must rise again. Which means I have to finish mastering the martial art before that happens. In other words, anyone who can’t learn it before the books are all gone probably doesn’t deserve to train in the Heaven Sea Divine Art. Only someone with exceptional talent can comprehend it. But... do I really have the kind of talent Hoi Eulshin anticipated?”
A sudden sense of anxiety crept in.
Sure enough, when I went deeper into the cave and burned another book, I saw writing on a stone shaped like a stele—it seemed to be inscribed using spiritual energy.
"If you’ve made it here, you must be the one who deciphered the testament left behind by this old man. As you may have expected, this Secret Cave opens only once. After the floor descends and rises again, the Kirin River is designed to flood this place. Therefore, you must obtain my final teachings before all the books are burned."
He left behind several instructions.
It noted that at the far end of the cave, there’s a small pond connected to the Kirin River, where fish sometimes come in. That fish would be the food source, and water should also be drawn from that pond.
“Ah, thankfully, since this was a grain storage room, there are plenty of grain kernels in the corner. I can at least last about ten days with that.”
Once the cave flooded, the books Hoi Eulshin had left behind would become soaked, rendering them nothing more than useless clumps of paper.
I couldn’t help but be impressed by how meticulous Hoi Eulshin had been in setting up this mechanism.
Near the center of the cave wall, I found a book made of parchment.
“This is it!”
With trembling hands filled with excitement, I picked up the thick parchment manuscript.
Hoi Eulshin must’ve installed this mechanism never expecting someone who’d surpassed the Transcendent Stage would come.
He had intended for the writings on the parchment to be read by the light of the burning books, but I had unlocked the Clairvoyant Eye Technique and the Time-Space Realm, granting me superior eyesight.
Because of that, I didn’t even need the booklight to read the text.
Hoi Eulshin hadn’t accounted for that.
I carefully turned the parchment pages.
I lost track of time as I read the lines on the parchment, completely absorbed.
It was one surprise after another.
I even felt a tinge of regret that I had to experience this amazement all by myself.
“To think the Heaven Sea Divine Art was derived from a sliver of the martial arts of the Heavenly Martial God Gwae Wolbaek…”
I stared blankly, still reeling from the lingering shock of what I had just read.
Hoi Eulshin had originally been an escort warrior.
While escorting a shipment over a mountain range, he had encountered a heavy downpour. Separated from his group, he had been looking for shelter when a landslide struck the area.
His companions, believing he had died in the landslide, descended the mountain. But Hoi Eulshin, who barely survived, found a cave where the Heavenly Martial God Gwae Wolbaek had once trained—and thus clung to life.
That cave, previously sealed from all sides, had an entrance torn open by the landslide. Hoi Eulshin had accidentally fallen into it.
“So, the reason Hoi Eulshin named his martial art ‘Heaven Sea Divine Art’ was because it originated from Gwae Wolbaek, the Heavenly Martial God…”
If Gwae Wolbaek’s martial art belonged to the gods of heaven and earth, then Hoi Eulshin’s martial art was something that rivaled the sky and sea.
Perhaps he felt using the term ‘heaven and earth’ would be presumptuous, so he paid his respects to Gwae Wolbaek by naming it ‘Heaven Sea’ instead.
“In a way, Hoi Eulshin was truly an incredible man.”
Reading further, it seemed Hoi Eulshin had trained in the martial art Gwae Wolbaek had left behind but saw little progress.
At one point, he even suspected the martial art might be fake. But soon after, he blamed his own lack of talent and began training even harder.
Despite that effort, he couldn’t comprehend Gwae Wolbaek’s martial art for years.
Eventually, through continued effort, Hoi Eulshin realized why he had failed.
Gwae Wolbaek’s martial art was not about techniques; it was about momentum. Unlike typical martial arts that formed shapes through techniques, Gwae Wolbaek’s martial art could not be defined by any one form and could transform into countless variations.
For instance, if one had reached a level where they’d mastered something like the Three Talents Sword Formation, they could fuse it with the momentum of Gwae Wolbaek’s art.
The higher one’s level, the more they could gain from it.