The Miraculous Divorce Technique

Chapter 2

'What... what is this...'

Guyang Pae blinked repeatedly, unable to believe the scene unfolding before his eyes.

Even in that moment, the number of empty wine jars scattered on the floor steadily increased.

CLANG. RATTLE.

A newly emptied jar rolled over and touched the tip of Guyang Pae's foot.

Guyang Pae lifted his head and looked in the direction the jar had come from. There, he saw the thoroughly drunk Lord, or more precisely, Muheo in Cheok Sagyeol's body.

"Hey, Guyang Pae. Come have a drink, why don't you? Hiccup."

Muheo greeted Guyang Pae with a sly face and a wave of his hand.

He had crossed hands with not only the Lord but most of the Demonic Cult's elders, so he knew their faces well.

"My Lord! How can you show such a side of yourself after a single defeat!"

'Huh?'

Muheo smacked his lips at Guyang Pae's worried words and deeply troubled face.

And the next words he had roughly anticipated followed from Guyang Pae's mouth.

"You will overcome this, just as you always have. My Lord, no matter what anyone says, you are the supreme one of our cult. Please, do not lose your composure."

Guyang Pae looked at Muheo with fervent eyes.

'Hehe. So that's how it is.'

Muheo grinned inwardly as he looked at Guyang Pae.

"Listen here."

"Please speak."

"The reason I'm drowning myself in wine like this is not what you think. I have my own thoughts on the matter."

"Your thoughts...?"

"Shaolin's, no, the world's greatest master, Grand Master Muheo. Why do you think he possesses such profound martial arts and such a fine character?"

Guyang Pae was as silent as a mute who had eaten honey.

The world's greatest? Grand Master? Him? And profound martial arts? Fine character?

To hear words of praise for Muheo coming from the Lord's mouth.

"It's the wine! Pursuing endless freedom through wine, unbound by his status as a monk. It is precisely his unconventional actions that are the foundation of his strength."

"Freedom..."

Guyang Pae nodded his head without realizing it.

It was a common saying that one had to break the mold and overcome given limits to advance to the next stage.

But when it came from an absolute being like the Lord, it carried a different weight.

"Therefore, this humble... no, this one intends to follow Grand Master Muheo's example and properly learn about this thing called wine, starting now."

Muheo swallowed the monk's speech pattern that had almost slipped out and swept his chest in relief.

The thought of what might happen to him in this place full of demons if they found out he wasn't the Lord was terrifying.

"So, about that. Elder Guyang."

"Yes, my Lord."

"Bring me some more wine. This is the last jar."

"...Haha."

Guyang Pae laughed awkwardly as he looked at the fifty or so empty wine jars rolling on the floor.

Was this what learning about wine meant? The amount was enough to kill a man from alcohol poisoning before he could learn anything, and Guyang Pae was dumbfounded.

"Elder Guyang?"

"Yes? Ah... Yes! I understand."

Guyang Pae nodded with a flustered expression and left the Lord's residence.

'Right. At my level, how can I judge his state? And when I think about it, isn't it a relief? That the Lord hasn't despaired and is walking a new path to surpass that bald monk Muheo.'

Guyang Pae walked down the corridor, nodding his head repeatedly.

* * *

"What did you just say?"

The leader of the Eui-cheon Alliance, Jongli Cheon, asked his subordinate with an annoyed expression.

"I said that Grand Master Muheo has returned to Shaolin."

"The war isn't even completely over, and he just left so suddenly?"

"You know his temperament well, Alliance Leader. He suddenly said he had to return to the main temple and then just left in a flash."

"Hmph... He's really incorrigible."

Jongli Cheon sighed, pressing his forehead.

Drunken Buddha, Muheo.

He was always willful and one of the Four Eccentrics of the World, who were called oddballs by both the righteous and demonic factions.

His personal martial prowess was represented by the title of the Righteous Path's Greatest, making him the undisputed strongest within the righteous faction.

Especially when dealing with the Demonic Cult, his ability, which earned him the name Demon-Subduing Monk, was unparalleled.

"In any case, since he defeated the Demonic Lord before he left, there shouldn't be any major problems."

"Phew... Is there any intelligence on the Demonic Lord's condition?"

"He woke up three days ago and has been drowning in wine ever since."

"Oh? He, who never touched wine, is drinking?"

"It's probably because of his defeat at the hands of Grand Master Muheo, isn't it?"

"Hehe. It seems even that ill-tempered Demonic Lord finds his first defeat quite bitter."

Jongli Cheon sank deep into his chair and raised the corners of his mouth.

If the Demonic Lord Cheok Sagyeol's condition was as such, they could rest easy for the time being.

"For now, order them to maintain the current front and form a defensive line."

"Then, Alliance Leader, are you not going to advance further and reclaim Gansu?"

"With Grand Master Muheo gone, of course not. The Demonic Lord's current appearance could be a trap."

"There will be opposition from the Kongtong Sect."

"If they oppose, let them step up and reclaim their main temple themselves. This Alliance can't keep cleaning up after the Kongtong Sect forever."

Jongli Cheon gave the order to his subordinate with a cold expression.

Although they operated under the banner of the righteous faction, the martial world was fundamentally about the law of the jungle.

The Kongtong Sect, having lost its power, no longer had any weight in its words.

* * *

Mount Song, Shaolin Temple.

Shaolin was the main temple of martial arts, known as the Mount Tai and Big Dipper of the martial world.

A place that had made its name as the origin of martial arts for over a thousand years since its founder, Bodhidharma.

As soon as he was able to move, Cheok Sagyeol, in Muheo's body, came straight to Shaolin.

'I must get my body back.'

To find a clue that fit that purpose. And the place closest to that clue was the Scripture Pavilion, a repository of the world's martial arts and a library storing vast knowledge from all fields.

There were not only martial arts manuals but also various books from beyond the central plains, including Tibet, Nanman, the northern barbarians, the eastern barbarians, and even the western regions. Cheok Sagyeol intended to find a breakthrough within them.

"To think I'd live to enter this place like this..."

Cheok Sagyeol muttered softly as he looked at the plaque of the Scripture Pavilion.

If you were to ask any martial artist in the pugilistic world where they wanted to go most, the first place would be the Scripture Pavilion right in front of him.

It was unthinkable for an outsider, especially the Lord of the Demonic Cult, to enter this place, which was as good as forbidden, without any restraint.

But.

"Right, since it's come to this, I'll strip it clean."

Cheok Sagyeol steeled his resolve and took a step.

Upon entering the Scripture Pavilion, vast bookshelves lined the left and right, and a few scholar monks were moving and organizing books.

"We greet the Grand Martial Uncle."

The scholar monks who spotted him bowed their heads in unison with a half-bow.

Cheok Sagyeol nodded and said.

"Who is in charge here?"

"..."

The scholar monks looked at each other and hesitated. Their expressions all said, why doesn't the Grand Martial Uncle know that?

Cheok Sagyeol asked again nonchalantly.

"It's been a while since I've been here, and my memory has been hazy lately, so hurry up and tell me."

"Uh, Martial Uncle Gongseon is the head of the Scripture Pavilion. But he is currently away on business regarding the Buddhist scriptures to be sent to Jaryun Temple."

"Away? For how long?"

"It is expected to take about three months."

When a sharp-looking scholar monk answered, Cheok Sagyeol asked him back.

"I see. What is your name?"

"My name is Wonsang."

"Alright, Wonsang. Will you help me with something?"

"What... is it?"

Wonsang asked, bewildered by the request from his sky-high Grand Martial Uncle, and Cheok Sagyeol smiled and said.

"The seventy-two ultimate arts. Besides the ones on display, there must be separately stored manuscripts, right?"

"We have some stored separately in case of damage."

"Then bring them to me."

"That... as you know, Grand Martial Uncle, the key to the secret repository is kept by the Abbot, so no one can enter."

Cheok Sagyeol smacked his lips in disappointment and cleared his throat.

"Ahem, right, that's how it was. Then have the scholar monks transcribe all seventy-two volumes in their spare time. I recently had an epiphany and plan to dissect the temple's martial arts one by one. I need the manuscripts to add annotations and make improvements."

"...Uh... Grand Martial Uncle..."

Wonsang mumbled, unable to give a clear answer.

"What is it? Don't tell me I need permission to transcribe them too?"

"It's not that... as you know... even if a manuscript of the seventy-two ultimate arts is made, it is forbidden to take it outside the Scripture Pavilion. I'm just saying this just in case."

At Wonsang's words, Cheok Sagyeol clicked his tongue inwardly but didn't show it.

Considering the security for the supreme martial arts, it was a natural measure.

"I am well aware that taking out the secret manuals is forbidden. You just prepare them as I ordered."

"...Yes, Grand Martial Uncle."

Where there's a will, there's a way.

He just had to create a method.

Cheok Sagyeol decided to think about it slowly and moved on to his next business.

"And explain the interior of this Scripture Pavilion to me. It's been a while, so it seems to have changed a lot."

Cheok Sagyeol said, looking at the endlessly lined bookshelves with his hands behind his back.

'It's not that it's been a while, it's your first time...'

Wonsang, who had been swallowing the words he couldn't say out loud, slowly opened his mouth.

"...First of all, this first floor is more than half Buddhist scriptures. And..."

Wonsang took the lead and diligently explained the classification criteria for the books in the Scripture Pavilion.

The explanation of all the bookshelves and the interior of the Scripture Pavilion continued for the time it takes to eat a meal, and after sending Wonsang away, Cheok Sagyeol remained alone, skimming through the books.

'I have a rough grasp, but classifying them myself is another matter.'

FLIP. FLIP. FLIP.

Cheok Sagyeol quickly turned the pages.

It was a waste of time to meticulously read the contents of all the hundreds of thousands of books.

'I'll identify the core of all the books and classify them in my head. I'll just identify the important ones, have them transcribed, and then smuggle them out later.'

After that, three months passed.

THUD.

Cheok Sagyeol closed the last book and closed his eyes.

'Out of one million two hundred thirty-five thousand four hundred seventy-two books, there was not a single one that could explain the situation of a body swap. The closest similar phenomenon would be the anecdote related to Bodhidharma... but am I supposed to believe something like this?'

The anecdote related to Bodhidharma's appearance was like an old wives' tale from a country bumpkin.

That Bodhidharma, who had an out-of-body experience during his training, lost his original body in a brief moment and entered the body of a vagrant, thus acquiring his current ugly appearance.

'First, let's look at the Muscle/Tendon Changing Classic and the Marrow Cleansing Classic, the books related to Bodhidharma, and then decide. What's clear is that this is not a coincidence.'

At first, he thought it was a miracle, but after spending time in the Scripture Pavilion and calmly reflecting on the past events, Cheok Sagyeol had an uneasy feeling in a corner of his mind.

It was a sixth sense, or an instinct, that an absolute master possessed.

'But even if Muheo found a way to change bodies like Bodhidharma, is he really the culprit? No matter how crazy he is, would a guy who is even called a Demon-Subduing Monk swap bodies with me, who is called the dog of the Demonic Cult?'

Cheok Sagyeol thought it was absurd but immediately corrected his thoughts.

'No. Muheo, that old monster, is one of the Four Eccentrics of the World. I shouldn't judge those four crazies by common sense.'

They were the kind of people who, no matter what they did, it was considered possible because they were the Four Eccentrics.

Each one of them was the greatest eccentric in the world.

Thinking like that, the Four Eccentrics other than Muheo also became suspects.

It was possible that they had obtained something absurd during their eccentric travels.

He didn't know if Muheo had pulled this off alone or if the four of them had conspired, but suspecting them was the most rational thing to do at the moment.

'First, I need to screw over those four bastards, the Four Eccentrics of the World.'

(End of Chapter)