Note : Hey everyone, I just realized the last chapter was incomplete, so I quickly fixed it. Please check it out so the content below makes sense.
“So now you’re saying you won’t attend Busaeng Hall?”
Chaos broke out in the Taeulmun Sect after the incident.
Gye Yeonseung’s nephew, Gye Cheolyeong, had been injured, prompting his father—Gyeryong Merchants head Gye Yeonseok—to make a huge fuss.
During the investigation, Gye Yeonseung’s careless teaching was exposed.
As a result, he was held accountable and expelled from Busaeng Hall, and was now banned from entering the Taeulmun Sect entirely.
Though Gye Yeonseok whined about losing someone to protect his precious son, the situation was already out of his hands.
“I already received completion recognition from the previous Busaeng Hall Master. So there’s no need for me to attend anymore.”
My father wore an even grimmer expression than usual.
To others, his face might inspire fear. To me, it still stirred an ache deep in my chest.
I quickly looked away, worried I might tear up.
“I still can’t believe it. How could you possibly beat Gye Yeonseung? Did you cheat or something?”
“Oh, that’s the same thing Gye Yeonseung said—right before his arm was broken. Want yours broken too, Father?”
“What did you say?!”
“In any case, I’m free until the other disciples finish Busaeng Hall.”
“Of all people, why did you have to bust Gye Cheolyeong’s thick skull…”
My father, Jin Taesan, is the head of the Outer Hall, responsible for external affairs of the sect.
Since the Gyeryong Merchants are our biggest backers, this outcome couldn’t have pleased him.
“The merchant lord already admitted fault. Isn’t that enough?”
“You brat! Do you think Gye Yeonseok is the kind of man to leave it at just words?! If the Taeulmun Sect’s meals get cut down to two a day, do you think the other disciples will just sit quietly?!”
“Watch your words, please. How is that my fault? That’s the failure of our incompetent Outer Hall Lord.”
“You little—!”
“Well then, I’ll be going now.”
“Go where?! If you’re not attending Busaeng Hall, help out with the Outer Hall work!”
“I’ve got personal things to do.”
“Like what?”
“I’m at the age where hair’s growing on my face. Please respect my privacy.”
“What?!”
Jin Taesan’s beard began trembling at my absurd response.
But really—how could I just outright say, “I need to prepare to protect the Taeulmun Sect from the return of the Demonic Cult”?
As his hand inched toward the club resting against the wall, I bolted out of the room.
“Then, I’m off—!”
“You brat! Get back here!”
“Are you that rootless brat Jin Sowoon?”
After escaping from his menacing father, a pig-faced old man with sagging cheeks blocked his path.
“Who are you?”
“You don’t… know who I am?”
How could he not?
Fancy silk robes that didn’t suit him. A jade-studded golden belt and a crudely oversized gold ring.
There was only one person in the entire Taeulmun Sect who would wear such a tasteless outfit.
Gye Yeonseok, father of Gye Cheolyeong—the man who turned the sect upside down day in and day out, his robes fluttering like banners.
“What business do you have with me?”
“You bastard! Watch your mouth! This is Lord Gye Yeonseok, the head of the Gyeryong Trading Company!”
A man who seemed to be an escort glared fiercely, eyes wide and twitching.
“Yes, I understand. Head of the Gyeryong Trading Company. And as I asked, what business do you have with me?”
Gye Yeonseok snorted in disbelief.
“Because of you, my Cheolyeong is injured and unable to get up. Do you think you can get away with doing that to the heir of the Gyeryong Trading Company?”
He did bleed a little, sure. But calling a single hit to the head an incapacitating injury was pushing it.
By that logic, what about all the Taeulmun Sect disciples who had been pummeled countless times by Gye Cheolyeong under the guise of sparring?
“Didn’t we already agree to let it go?”
“That was between me and your sect leader. But between you and me, things are far from over.”
At this point, was this shamelessness a martial art in itself?
“And if I don’t let it go?”
The escort’s hand went to his sword, ready to draw at any moment.
“If you’re afraid of getting hit, you should be teaching accounting, not martial arts.”
“Y-You insolent wretch! How dare you—!”
I ignored him and turned to Gye Yeonseok, who was silently rolling his eyes, deep in thought.
“If Senior Gye is admitted into the Martial Academy, are you planning to chase him there and demand compensation from the heirs of the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Clans as well?”
Both Gye Yeonseok and the escort looked taken aback.
Had they not thought that far ahead?
Or had they assumed the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Clans wouldn’t harm newcomers?
“You’re not answering. Seems like you don’t have the guts for that. But if you’re here throwing your weight around at the Taeulmun Sect, I guess you think we’re easy targets.”
“Y-You little…!”
Gye Yeonseok’s booming voice drew the attention of the hall masters and even the sect leader from the Great Pavilion.
“More than ten of our disciples have been bedridden for days from being beaten by Senior Gye. If you want to blame someone, maybe start with the one who caused that.”
“You impudent…!”
That was all he could say—“You impudent…!”—until suddenly he smirked with satisfaction.
“What if, because of you, the Taeulmun Sect loses its sponsorship? Will you take responsibility for that?”
That was always the problem.
Half the current disciples were born and raised in the sect like me.
The other half came from poor families, not even well-off by village standards.
Most joined the sect to lessen the burden on their families.
Just as hardship forces a child to grow up fast, we knew better than anyone how resisting Gye Cheolyeong could bring harm to others.
“Responsibility?”
And that’s precisely why Gye Cheolyeong and Gye Yeonseok could act so brazenly within the Taeulmun Sect.
“There are other ‘One Hundred and Eight Peaks’ that want Cheolyeong. We can move him anytime. Will you still take responsibility then?”
Cheolyeong’s enrollment meant a massive influx of sponsorship.
And the Taeulmun Sect wasn’t the only struggling peak among the 108.
“The fact that many places want Cheolyeong” was a hidden threat, forcing those living here to swallow their complaints.
That’s why we had never harmed a newcomer like other sects.
“Then by all means.”
“What?”
“Responsibility? I’ll take it. So go ahead.”
From the distance, my father—who had been approaching while conversing with another hall master—turned pale and rushed over in alarm.
“The special recruitment exam is less than a year away. Do you really think Senior Gye will be treated as well elsewhere as he is here? And what sect would welcome a mere one-year guest like him just for a bit of temporary funding?”
“You… you—”
My father stopped mid-step.
“The disciples of Taeulmun Sect are not fools. We’ve learned the virtue of a gentleman. We simply choose not to associate with the low and vulgar people.”
Gye Yeonseok trembled, grinding his teeth.
“I swear I will bring great harm to the Taeulmun Sect. Because of you, the disciples will soon go hungry and wear rags!”
A blatant threat.
I whispered coldly in his ear.
“Do you really think I’ll let that happen?”
And with my father finally breaking into a run, I turned my back and left the Taeulmun Sect.
There was far too much to do.
In my previous life, after Gye Cheolyeong was specially admitted to the Martial Academy, Taeulmun Sect’s sponsorship rapidly dwindled.
Though he was a secular disciple, it was as if he cut all ties. Within a few years, the funds dried up completely, and Taeulmun Sect’s disciples had to endure hunger.
“If that’s going to happen anyway, someone other than Gye Cheolyeong should go.”
Considering that the Taeulmun Sect would eventually get caught in the war between the orthodox and unorthodox sects, someone from here had to join the Martial Academy. Joining as a low-level warrior would just make them cannon fodder.
“The problem is, Taeulmun Sect’s martial arts are just too…”
Trash….
According to Jegal Cheongi, the only usable techniques were the Socheon Sword Technique and the Taeulmun Internal Technique.
All the countless martial techniques had no synergy whatsoever with the foundational Taeulmun Internal Technique.
With roots and branches so disconnected, it was no wonder not a single great master had emerged in the sect’s hundreds of years of history.
In my head, I carried the combined martial knowledge of the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Clans.
“If I practiced any of that, the entire Taeulmun Sect would be wiped out before the Heavenly Demon Cult even returned.”
Which meant the only way I could become strong now was by overwhelming others with internal energy.
“Just as the Yangtze carves through stone.”
But with the Taeulmun Internal Technique, it would take about 200 years of cultivation to build up even a first-rate warrior’s worth of internal energy.
So I’d need to consume as many elixirs as possible—but elixirs aren’t called that because they grow on trees.
“…Heh. But there is a way.”
I immediately dove into the library I had constructed in my mind.
While other disciples of the Martial Alliance died helplessly at the hands of the demonic cult, I remained behind, memorizing useless reports and documents that took up far too much space.
But as the demonic horde overwhelmed even the last lines of defense, I had no choice but to memorize everything in Mantong Division and the Simhyeon Pavilion as well.
More confidential and far more complicated than the usual reports.
I stopped trying to understand or absorb it all and instead created a massive archive in my mind, simply to store it.
And from the deepest part of that mental archive, I retrieved one book.
The Compendium of Elixirs of the Martial World.
A secret document covering the discovered locations, appearance times, and transportation routes of elixirs that would appear over the next 20 years.
Though labeled “classified,” it was really just a record of elixirs already found.
Back then, I worked myself to the brink of mental collapse memorizing such useless information—nosebleeds all day, every day.
All that suffering paid off… with betrayal.
“Still makes me furious. That damned Taechung Divine Sword…”
He was my childhood idol.
An unrivaled genius of the Heaven Beyond Heaven sect at our age.
The hero who swiftly unified the fragmented Martial Alliance during the Great War of Righteousness and Evil.
And the one who kept the Martial Alliance alive when it was on the verge of disappearing from the world.
But to do that, the Taechung Divine Sword sacrificed nearly everyone.
The Martial Alliance, rebuilt in the North Sea, stood atop the corpses and blood of the fallen.
“I’ll never trust you or the Martial Alliance again.”
Grinding my teeth, I made my way toward the location of the first elixir: the Thousand-Year Polygonum.
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