Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 10 - Hall of Preserved Wholeness (3)

Chapter 10 – Hall of Preserved Wholeness (3)

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Climbing the cliff turned out not to be as difficult as I’d feared. At first there were plenty of moments where I almost slipped and fell, but Nimble Movement prevented every one of them.

My hands and feet moved ahead of my will, wedging themselves into the irregularities of the rock. When one hand searched upward, three of my remaining limbs automatically formed a triangle to keep my balance. Once I found a place to grip, my body formed another triangle and began climbing upward little by little.

Of course, it wasn’t entirely smooth. Because I hadn’t expected anything like this, my untrimmed fingernails bent back and broke. My clothes scraped against the rock and tore, and my whole body was covered in scratches and abrasions.

Sometimes, when I glanced down without thinking, my mind went blank. Only then would it truly sink in that I was clinging to a cliff face dozens of zhang above the ground. Every time that happened, I gritted my teeth, forced my head up, and looked higher instead.

By the time I finally reached the top of the cliff, the sun in the distance was already sinking low.

Looking at the Three Purities Hall dyed orange by the evening light, I was seized by deep emotion. The beauty of the building itself came second. What filled me with pride was the fact that I had climbed that cliff with my own body.

Naturally, that proud feeling did not last long. The elder who received the delivery grumbled at me for being so late, and climbing back down the cliff turned out to be even harder than climbing up.

By the time I made it all the way back down to the Hall of Preserved Wholeness, Wudang Mountain had already been swallowed by darkness. Apparently everyone else had finished work and gone back to their own quarters, because there wasn’t another person around. I was just wondering what I ought to do next when someone suddenly flashed out of the darkness.

“Aaagh!”

I ended up dropping backward and landing hard on my rear. Normally I should have done no more than stagger a step or two backward, but all the strength had gone out of my legs completely.

“You damned brat! What in the world took you this long?”

The one who had appeared before me was Cheong-su, the master of the Hall of Preserved Wholeness. I found it deeply annoying that out of everyone here, he was the one who still hadn’t gone home.

I planted a hand on the ground, got back up, and dusted off my trousers.

“Didn’t I just return from making deliveries?”

“Today, less than half the messages that were supposed to go to the Three Purities Hall were delivered! Do you have any idea how much trouble I was put through listening to those people howl about how late the courier was?”

“Didn’t I tell you I’d be slow?”

“Do you think that counts as an excuse?”

Cheong-su yelled at me at the top of his lungs. But honestly, there was no way I could have climbed any faster.

“You don’t get to go home until you’ve finished every last message bound for the Three Purities Hall.”

“What?”

It felt as if lightning had struck me right there on the spot. When I looked outside, it was already so dark that you couldn’t see even an inch ahead.

“You mean to tell me to climb that cliff in this darkness?”

“That’s your job.”

“Are you trying to kill me?”

“If you can’t even do that, then perhaps you ought to die. Does it make any sense at all for a main-sect disciple of the Wudang Sect to fall to his death from a cliff?”

“And what if I refuse?”

“Then I’ll personally cripple your dantian and throw you out.”

“Immortal Cheong-hwa is going to love that.”

“You’re only a provisional main-sect disciple, and not even Cheong-hwa’s disciple yet. Do you think Senior Brother would say anything over one little brat like you being thrown out?”

I had no answer to that. To be honest, if I were in his place, I probably wouldn’t think that some bastard who became a main-sect disciple at twenty was especially valuable either.

“…Fine. Understood.”

“Good. Then do your work. I’m going home.”

You damned bastard. Inside, I poured out a whole bucket of curses as I watched Cheong-su walk away.

I went back into the courier room. Inside, a single weak lamp barely lit the room.

There was still a huge pile of messages that had to go to the Three Purities Hall. It seemed more had piled up while I was away making the earlier deliveries.

“Damn it all.”

Looking at the stack of messages, it was obvious that even if I spent the entire day making deliveries, I could never finish. By tomorrow there would just be another pile this size waiting.

At this rate, moving at night too actually seemed more efficient. Luckily my eyes had already adjusted to the night somewhat. After all, I’d practically stayed up the whole night when I tried to run away.

I stuffed the bamboo tubes full of messages into my travel bag and slung it over my back.

At least getting to the foot of the cliff in front of the Three Purities Hall was easy enough now. I’d become familiar with the roads of Wudang. A merchant must also have a good memory and a good eye for roads. I had never once forgotten a trade route after traveling it.

“The real problem is the cliff.”

The cliff was now nothing but a pitch-black wall. The moonlight lay behind it.

Still, I trusted Nimble Movement. If I hadn’t, I never would have come this far.

“Hoo.”

Taking one deep breath, I reached for the same section of the cliff I had gripped earlier during the day. In that instant, a strange sensation came over me.

Astonishingly, I felt as if I remembered every step of climbing this cliff. Not with my head, but with my body. No matter how good my memory was, there was no way I could have memorized a cliff path in one go. This was definitely one of Nimble Movement’s effects.

I began climbing slowly, feeling along the cliff face. In truth, there was hardly any groping involved. Even in this darkness, my hands seemed to know where to go, and my feet naturally found the ridges and protrusions.

Once I had climbed about halfway, I realized there was actually a pattern to scaling this cliff.

Before, I had only been desperate to keep climbing and so hadn’t noticed it. But now that I had some room to think, I realized that I had been moving with the same posture and applying force to the same kinds of places over and over.

Once I recognized that pattern, climbing the cliff became abruptly easier.

I made it up quickly and handed the message tubes over to the duty guard at the Three Purities Hall. The man there looked utterly astonished that a courier had arrived at such an hour.

That night, I managed to climb that cliff three full times. Considering that I had needed the whole daylight span just to manage it once, it was astonishing progress.

“Haa.”

After checking that there were no more tubes marked Three Purities Hall in the courier room, I leaned back against the wall and sat down. The moment I realized the work was done, all the strength drained from me at once.

Watching the morning sun begin to brighten through the window, I drifted off before I knew it.

***

At the entrance to the Hall of Preserved Wholeness, Cheong-su ran into Cheong-hwa. Cheong-su ignored Cheong-hwa’s respectful martial salute and moved past him. Smiling, Cheong-hwa slipped right in behind him.

“So you didn’t trust me to handle it myself?”

“How could I not trust Senior Brother? I was merely curious.”

“Didn’t you tell me to work him hard? So I’ve been working him very hard indeed.”

“You may work him even harder. Since he has talent, he’ll do well.”

When Cheong-hwa had come looking for him earlier, he had given him this instruction. A boy would be coming who had talent but no proper foundation.

Naturally, no matter how heaven-given one’s martial bones might be, it was hard to train martial arts if the basic stamina wasn’t there and the belly was sticking out. In that sense, Cheong-hwa truly seemed to mean to raise that fellow Muk Hui-yeong.

‘A great blessing for Wudang, then.’

Cheong-hwa was famous for taking few disciples compared to the martial power he possessed. If someone did not catch his eye, he would not teach them martial arts at all. For someone like that to be so captivated at first glance, the boy could hardly be ordinary.

“In truth, he really does have talent. He climbed the cliff of the Three Purities Hall on the very first day. He must have clawed his way up through sheer force of will, but he does know how to use his body.”

“Huh. Is that so? That’s impressive.”

What mattered wasn’t that he’d spent the whole day doing it. What mattered was that someone who had never learned a single martial art had climbed the cliff to the Three Purities Hall.

“He’s probably climbing that cliff right now. I told him to try it once at night. He probably only set out a little while ago.”

Cheong-su looked toward the morning sun as he said this. To climb the cliff to the Three Purities Hall at night, one had to understand the martial principles hidden within the cliff itself. Because that cliff was not merely a cliff. It was a martial manual created by nature.

“So even Senior Brother has high hopes for him, then. Telling him to climb it at night on the first day.”

“Hmph. Hopes? Hardly. Since not many children can climb it on the first day, I merely tossed the challenge at him. No matter how great a genius is, sometimes his arrogance needs to be broken.”

Cheong-hwa agreed with Cheong-su’s reasoning. The Central Plains were filled with geniuses, and Wudang was one of the places where many such geniuses gathered.

Some geniuses grow up convinced they are the greatest under heaven, only to encounter a sky beyond the sky and be crushed. The way to teach such people was to give them their first defeat early, so they might grow used to it.

At night, when the moonlight did not reach it, the cliff to the Three Purities Hall could not be climbed. The boy named Muk Hui-yeong had probably not even dared approach it and was simply milling around beneath the cliff, waiting for daylight before trying to move.

“The messages for the Three Purities Hall must have piled up badly.”

“He’s taking quite a scolding because of it.”

“My apologies, Senior Brother.”

Cheong-su sighed at the sight of Cheong-hwa smiling brightly even as he apologized. There is a saying that one cannot spit on a smiling face, but looking at that smile still made him want to throw a punch.

“I have business at the Three Purities Hall. If there are any messages, give them to me and I’ll take care of them on the way. A master’s burden ought to be borne by the master.”

“Well now. You’re already calling yourself his master? I thought you said he was only provisional.”

“Heh heh. I’m telling you in advance in case you develop any ideas of your own. That boy belongs to me.”

“Ridiculous.”

Shaking his head, Cheong-su opened the door to the courier room. The instant he stepped inside, he stopped short in surprise. Someone was slumped against the wall with his head hanging down.

What caught his eye even more than that, however, was the fact that the place where the messages for the Three Purities Hall had been stacked was completely empty.

“Huh.”

Cheong-hwa, who had followed him in, saw it as well.

“He’s not dead, is he?”

At the same time, a shallow sound of breathing came from Muk Hui-yeong’s mouth. The one sleeping there with his head hanging low was none other than the very subject they had been discussing.

“…The messages are gone.”

Cheong-hwa pointed that out. For a moment, both men of the Cheong generation were speechless before that unbelievable sight.

Wudang was a place where geniuses among geniuses gathered. There was a reason why, among the countless sects scattered throughout the Central Plains, it was counted among the Nine Great Sects.

And yet even they had never seen anyone learn the Azure Cloud Steps carved into the cliff of the Three Purities Hall on the very first day.

And Cheong-su knew exactly how many messages had been piled up for the Three Purities Hall.

“One trip would never have been enough. He must have climbed it at least three times.”

Cheong-su saw straight through how many times Muk Hui-yeong had climbed up and down. Hearing that, Cheong-hwa clicked his tongue again in astonishment. Not once, but three times?

Cheong-hwa felt he might need to redefine the very word genius. In Wudang, everyone was called a genius, and the word itself had begun to lose its meaning.

Genius. A talent bestowed by heaven. That was a phrase that belonged to someone like Muk Hui-yeong.

“What a pity. If only he’d entered Wudang ten years earlier, he would have become a pillar of the martial world…”

Cheong-su clicked his tongue. On that point, Cheong-hwa agreed with him deeply.

Even with his bones and meridians already set, he had shown talent like this. Had he entered Wudang ten years earlier, he truly would have soaked up every teaching like dry cotton meeting water.

“…Senior Brother.”

“Hm?”

Cheong-su looked toward Cheong-hwa. In Cheong-hwa’s eyes were mixed regret, greed, excitement, and joy.

“Let’s work him even harder.”