novelraw Chapter 67 : This and That (3)
Chapter 67 : This and That (3)
Training like real combat, real combat like training.
There are many sects that send their disciples into the martial world under the pretext of a heroic journey. For fear of leakage, they don't teach even a little of the sect's secret arts, and they throw the disciples who have received only a little teaching into the path of Asura.
It might feel heartless, but it's a method often used even in prestigious sects like the Nine Sects One Union, so it's a common occurrence in smaller sects.
It's not just the orthodox sects; the unorthodox and black way sects do similar things, but they take it a step further.
They send a new disciple who has just entered into the martial world without any basic teaching and make them earn money. This is called a 'money-collecting journey', and in this process, countless new disciples die. If they die, they have simply failed, and if they succeed, they return in glory and become a formal disciple.
Why do they do such a thing? It's to earn money, but it also serves as a kind of culling to find out the disciples' aptitude.
Those who have returned after completing the money-collecting journey have not died, which means they have an aptitude above the standard. And since they have gone through several real combats, their motivation is certain, and they are automatically mentally armed.
Jang So-gil's heroic journey was in a better situation than the money-collecting journeys of the unorthodox sects. It wasn't like he was being thrown out to die or live, and he could decide when to start.
It was close to a heroic journey attempted by a direct disciple of the Nine Sects One Union, the top of the prestigious orthodox sects.
"First, I have to lay the foundation."
So Jang So-gil was able to train until he was satisfied.
What he currently had was the footwork, the Cloud Dragon Eight Forms, the ice art, the Soul-Stealing Ice Art, and the internal energy heart method, the Sima Divine Art.
To this, he newly added the Sun-Shooting Sword Art and the Plucking String Body Step.
The secret martial art that only the sect leader of the Diancang Sect could learn, the Sun-Shooting Sword Art, as can be seen from the phrase 'shooting the sun', was created based on the anecdote of the hero Hou Yi in mythology who shot down nine suns. In other words, it was originally a martial art that started from a technique of powerfully firing a bow and arrow, not a sword art.
The Plucking String Body Step was a footwork that shot one's own body like an arrow, so if the two were combined, the intention matched perfectly.
Since they were martial arts that were intended to be learned together from the beginning, it was not very difficult to learn both at once.
After five days, the introductory stage was already over, and after ten days, he had reached the second star.
And now, when it was time to practice with real combat in mind, a problem occurred.
"It's getting twisted..."
The Sun-Shooting Sword Art and the Plucking String Body Step were fast, fast, anyway, fast. They were martial arts that pursued the extreme of speed and thrust towards the enemy at the shortest distance and the highest speed. So the sword had to be a straight line.
If it was a straight line, it was not compatible with the Cloud Dragon Eight Forms.
"I can't use the Sun-Shooting Sword Art during the Cloud Dragon Eight Forms."
The Cloud Dragon Eight Forms was the martial art of a dragon roaming the clouds, so it took rotation as its principle. The most important oral formula was to ride the air current by swirling the qi like the wind without interruption to lighten the body, and to fly in the sky by rotating from head to toe.
A straight line and rotation. The compatibility was bound to be bad.
Then should he fight while changing his footwork?
When using the Sun-Shooting Sword Art, he would only use the Plucking String Body Step, and at other times, he would only use the Cloud Dragon Eight Forms.
'It's heterogeneous. It's awkward.'
A skilled martial artist would be able to predict what he would do just by looking at his footsteps. If he did that in real combat, he would be likely to die.
Even Yang Gwan and Ye-er could predict whether Jang So-gil would use the Sun-Shooting Sword Art or not before he repeated it five times. After watching intently for about three days, they were able to guess it with a hundred percent accuracy.
'If it can be predicted, it's useless.'
The Sun-Shooting Sword Art was powerful yet very simple. The sword formula was only a thrust. For it to be called one of the Ten Great Sword Arts of the World with just that thrusting oral formula, it was ignorantly strong, but in the end, it had its limits.
'At this rate, it will become a martial art that is strong against the weak but weak against the strong.'
If possible, he should be able to use the Sun-Shooting Sword Art even while deploying the Cloud Dragon Eight Forms.
But to mix a straight line with a footwork of illusion and change, this didn't make sense.
Initially, he had planned to learn only the basic sword formulas and train the rest through real combat in Kaifeng, but it didn't go as planned. Even after twenty days, he had not been able to solve this basic problem at all.
"With this, the Sun-Shooting Sword Art has reached the third star. The Plucking String Body Step can be considered to be at its peak..."
The reason he could learn it so quickly was because the Plucking String Body Step and the Sun-Shooting Sword Art were easy martial arts to learn.
Of course, Jang So-gil had tried. He had made a little progress like that and had swung his sword, vomiting blood every day.
He could have given up, but he couldn't.
The number one in the world, Gumen Long, had said so.
He had said it was a very suitable sword art, that the Sun-Shooting Sword Art was the optimal choice for the current Jang So-gil.
Why was it suitable?
Why did he say the compatibility was good?
To solve that question, Jang So-gil continued his training.
* * *
One morning, over a month later.
Jang So-gil, while eating breakfast, suddenly muttered.
"Rotation. Not a straight line, but rotation."
"What? What kind of nonsense is that?"
"Not enough food?"
Yang Gwan and Ye-er asked in turn.
As if he couldn't hear their words, Jang So-gil muttered with a fried eggplant still held in his chopsticks.
"It wasn't a straight line. It was rotation. That's why he said the compatibility with the Cloud Dragon Eight Forms was good."
"The eggplant must not be good."
"He's in the middle of a sudden enlightenment, so we shouldn't disturb him. Let's step back for a moment and stand guard."
"Sheesh... What is this while eating?"
If one is disturbed during a sudden enlightenment, the sudden enlightenment is bound to be broken. If he missed that one moment of falling into a state of selflessness where thoughts and thoughts were connected, it might take a year, or ten years, to reach the moment of sudden enlightenment again. It might even take a lifetime.
Yang Gwan and Ye-er stopped their meal and began to stand guard.
So Jang So-gil was able to continue his sudden enlightenment without being disturbed.
"Thrust. The shortest distance at the highest speed. But a thrust is not about keeping your arm still and ramming your body. That's not a thrust, it's just a body slam with a sword. If you do that, a spear, not a sword, would be better. A cavalry spear used for thrusting while attached to a horse's gear would be good. If you fix it firmly to your side and ram with the Plucking String Body Step, it will have a similar function. But what kind of sword art is that, what kind of thrust is that? Thrust, thrust, thrust!"
Jang So-gil shot up and moved his body. He drew the White Azure Divine Sword from his waist in a whirlwind and swung it. The wind cut the dining table, the tableware was overturned, and the food scattered.
"!"
"!"
Noise could also break a sudden enlightenment. As soon as that thought occurred to him, Yang Gwan flew to collect the tableware and food, and Ye-er caught the cut dining table with her body. So no sound was made, and Jang So-gil's meditation continued.
"This is a cut. A horizontal cut and a vertical cut use the waist to swing the sword left and right, up and down. In other words, it's rotation. What is a thrust? The principle of a thrust is also the same. It uses the waist to thrust the sword from back to front. But since the human body has joints, a thrust is more inconvenient than a swing."
But swordsmen say that a thrust is three times more powerful than a cut.
"Why is that? A cut only uses the waist and arms, but a thrust uses not only the waist but also the power of rotating like a top from the tips of the toes to the top of the head. Moreover, if the technique, training, internal energy, and footwork that do not go against the forward force of a straight line are perfectly concentrated on one point, its power increases several times over. That is the reason why the Sun-Shooting Sword Art and the Plucking String Body Step are a perfect match."
The Plucking String Body Step, which launched the body forward, and the Sun-Shooting Sword Art, which amplified that power and thrust by twisting the whole body, were martial arts whose power was bound to be immense.
"Why can these two be exquisitely fused?"
The Plucking String Body Step is a footwork where one imagines oneself as an arrow. The Sun-Shooting Sword Art is also a sword art where one imagines oneself as an arrow that shoots down the sun. So the answer is in the arrow.
"An arrow doesn't just fly. A strong arrow rotates, so it pierces the wind."
Since the arrow rotates, the body flying with the Plucking String Body Step can also rotate.
And the Cloud Dragon Eight Forms is a footwork deployed while imagining oneself as a dragon swirling in the clouds.
A dragon rotates. Continuously and strongly.
He was just adding the principle of an arrow to it, so the principles of the two could be combined.
Faster and stronger than when using only the Plucking String Body Step.
Faster and stronger than when using only the Cloud Dragon Eight Forms.
The thrust of the Sun-Shooting Sword Art, with that amplified rotational force.
"It would have a speed and power incomparable to an ordinary thrust."
Jang So-gil flew up. He changed direction with the Cloud Dragon Eight Forms, and changed, and changed. It gradually increased its speed, and from the third leap, it was to the point where it was not even visible to Yang Gwan's eyes. At the moment he finished the fifth leap, not even a shadow could be seen. A flash of lightning, was that a person in the form of the wind?
In the midst of his astonishment, a sound spread. A sound that shook the heavens and the earth, 'kwang'. It was the sound of him striking the ground of the schoolyard.
When he hurriedly turned his head, Jang So-gil was there.
With his sword stuck in the ground, on one knee. He was catching his breath in a large crater.
He smiled as he pulled out his sword.
"I understand. I understand."
The footwork of Diancang and the footwork of Kunlun had met and become a new martial art. A footwork that pursued illusion and a footwork that pursued speed. These two were exquisitely complementing each other as if they had been one body from the beginning, and were made to pursue the principle of advancement perfectly.
The oral formula of the Plucking String Body Step was one, and the oral formula of the Cloud Dragon Eight Forms was eight.
"Since these two have been perfectly combined, from now on, it should be called the Cloud Dragon Nine Forms."
The enlightenment brought many things to Jang So-gil. It didn't just stop at combining the two footworks to learn a new footwork; his original eighth-star level had risen to a tenth-star level. Now he would be able to change direction at least six times in the air.
Jang So-gil, who was smiling with a pleased heart, suddenly sat down.
He didn't even know how he had just done it, but he felt exhausted from having drawn out all the internal energy in his body.
"Ugh, what is this!?"
His fingernails were all torn, and there was no place on his body that didn't hurt. It was only natural, since he had made a huge crater by striking the bare ground with his sword.
Jang So-gil was astonished, looking at the traces of destruction he had created.
"How much is this training ground worth-!"
* * *
The training took longer than expected, so the plan was a little delayed, but it didn't matter.
Because the work he had asked Sima Hui to do had also been delayed.
"You ran away to Luoyang, so the work was over for you, but I had the aftermath left."
Even Sima Hui, who had profound internal energy, looked very tired, as if the journey to and from Luoyang and Yunnan had been hard. But what could he do? It was public duty. Since Gumen Long was more anxious than Jang So-gil, Sima Hui had to handle the public duty without even relieving his travel fatigue.
"Did the thing I asked for go well?"
"It went well. But I never dreamed I would have to use the Fengya Unit for such a thing..."
"It can't be helped. You can't use the Beggars' Sect to investigate the unorthodox and black way sects near Kaifeng. Judging by the circumstances, they are in a secret collusion with them."
"That's why I worked without a word of complaint."
The Beggars' Sect was rotten now. The lower and upper levels were clearly divided, and it was a strange sight where the lower was rotten and the upper was pure water. And the rotten lower level was colluding with the forces of the unorthodox and black way sects.
Jang So-gil's heroic journey was aimed at cleaning up all the unorthodox and black way sects located near Kaifeng, the base of the Beggars' Sect.
What would happen if he used the Beggars' Sect's information network to obtain information about them? They would cover up their own faults, seal them, and then give him information that was one step too late.
"So this is their information."
Jang So-gil looked with satisfaction at the report brought by the Fengya Unit, the information organization directly under the Martial Alliance Leader.
(End of Chapter)