Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 11 - Hall of Preserved Wholeness (4)

Chapter 11 – Hall of Preserved Wholeness (4)

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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I opened my eyes in a daze. They had opened on their own, but after staying up for two nights in effect, there was no way I wouldn’t be tired.

“So that little bit of work left you this exhausted. Tsk.”

At that voice, I jerked my head up. There stood Cheong-su, clicking his tongue.

As I tried to sit up straight, I realized something heavy was draped over my body. Looking closely, it was a thick fur. Don’t tell me that damned master of the Hall of Preserved Wholeness had covered me with it.

“If you’re awake, hurry up and get up. What are you lazing around for!”

“Ah. Yes.”

I got up while gathering the fur.

“Did the Hall Master perhaps cover me with this fur?”

“Hmph. If someone froze to death in the Hall of Preserved Wholeness for no reason, wouldn’t I be the one cursed for it?”

“…Thank you.”

To think he had this side to him. It seemed he wasn’t as damned a bastard as I’d thought.

When I tried to hand the fur back, Cheong-su scowled deeply.

“Are you trying to hand me something that covered your dust-caked body?”

“Then what should I do with it?”

“Sell it, throw it away, do whatever you want.”

Did this old man always have a side like this? Feeling puzzled, I folded the fur and stuffed it into my travel bag.

Reflexively, I looked over at the place where the message tubes for the Three Purities Hall were kept. Just as I expected, the same amount as yesterday had already piled up again. But I didn’t feel particularly afraid. I’d climbed the cliff three times during the night, so it would only be easier in the daytime.

“I’ll go deliver the messages.”

“You should. If I hear one more complaint that things are late because of you, I’ll beat the living daylights out of you.”

“Ah, yes.”

His manner of speaking was the same as yesterday, but perhaps because I knew he’d covered me with the fur, it didn’t sound quite as irritating.

As I put the message tubes into my travel bag, Cheong-su picked up several tubes himself from the side.

Not knowing what he was doing, I looked at him, and Cheong-su barked at me.

“I have business at the Three Purities Hall too, so I’m taking some with me.”

That startled me. He could’ve just said we were going together, so why was he shouting like that?

In the end, I left the Hall of Preserved Wholeness with Cheong-su. We didn’t exchange many words on the way.

I didn’t particularly want to ask something for no reason and get barked at again.

Cheong-su only opened his mouth once we’d reached the cliff.

“How many times did you climb this at dawn?”

It was a sudden question. Rolling my eyes around, I answered.

“Three times.”

“Three times. I thought so.”

I thought he’d shout at me for only making three trips, but he was quieter than expected.

“Have you ever learned any kind of wall-climbing art?”

“No.”

“I figured. There are no traces of martial training on you.”

After quietly thinking about something for a moment, Cheong-su abruptly removed his blue headband and handed it to me.

Since he was holding it out, I took it without thinking, but I had no idea why. Was he giving it to me? I started tying the headband around my forehead, but Cheong-su barked again.

“Who told you to tie it around your forehead?”

Then where else was I supposed to tie a headband? I looked at Cheong-su with aggrieved eyes. Cheong-su pointed a finger at his own eyes.

No way.

“You want me to cover my eyes with it?”

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“Put it on as a blindfold and try climbing once.”

I looked at Cheong-su as if he were insane. No matter how dark the night was, to the point where nothing could be seen, it was still different from climbing with your eyes completely covered. Even in darkness, you can make out some contours.

“Why?”

“Just because.”

At Cheong-su’s answer, indignation surged through me. I suddenly remembered making a scene in front of Cheong-hwa when I tried to run away. Was the phrase “just because” always this infuriating?

“I refuse.”

“Shall I cripple your dantian?”

I was struck speechless. To think these Daoists would throw around naked threats so openly. No wonder people called them hooked noses.

I let out a deep sigh and tied the headband over my eyes. Ever so kindly, Cheong-su tightened the knot at the back of my head that I’d deliberately tied loosely. Now I really couldn’t see anything.

“Climb.”

Suddenly, I grew curious. Would my Nimble Movement still work properly even in this extreme situation?

I placed my hands on the cliff. Just like at dawn, I felt my body remembering the path.

Though it was pitch-black darkness, the cliff stood out vividly before me. The path seemed to glow like constellations in the night sky.

I knew it instinctively. I could climb this cliff.

I immediately pressed myself to the cliff and began to climb. For some reason I wanted to show Cheong-su something, so I climbed even faster.

I was ascending at high speed when it happened. Suddenly, the area around my dantian grew hot, and that heat spread throughout my entire body.

I knew this sensation. I had learned martial arts in my previous life too, so I knew what it was.

It was the flow of inner qi.

In my previous life, my inner qi had refused to move no matter how hard I tried, but now it was naturally coursing through my body in rolling waves. The inner qi circulated once through all the meridians in my body and gathered in the soles of my feet.

The heated soles of my feet knew the way forward. I climbed the cliff in an even deeper trance.

As I climbed, I realized something. This wasn’t just an ordinary cliff. It was a single path created for a specific purpose.

Until now, I had thought I was choosing the correct way up. But that wasn’t it. The moment you stepped onto it, your course was forced to be correct. A path that compelled a single step. This was footwork.

Only after realizing that did I pull myself up over the top of the cliff. When I removed the blindfold, I saw Cheong-su already standing there.

And at my feet lay a single booklet. On it was written Azure Cloud Steps.

“That’s the martial art you just reached the first stage in.”

Blankly, I picked up the booklet. I had learned a martial art of Wudang.

“You learned it with your body first, but it is still only the first stage. If you study the theory from the book and unfold the principles, it will become different again.”

It was definitely on a different track from the martial arts I’d learned in my previous life. Back then, the forms had been so artificial that even my inner qi didn’t move well, but here, simply by climbing the cliff, the flow that heated my dantian had felt natural.

‘So this is a superior martial art.’

In the past, no matter how much money I’d spent, all I could learn were the martial arts of ruined second-rate sects. Yet now I had learned, for the first time, a superior martial art from one of the Nine Great Sects.

For some reason, a grand feeling swelled up in my chest. At this moment, I forgot money, forgot becoming the Merchant King, and simply reveled in the joy of martial attainment.

“To think you’re this happy after learning a footwork art that five-year-old children in Wudang learn. What a dullard.”

“Heh heh.”

Cheong-su hurled abuse as usual, but at this moment even that sounded good.

“Thank you. To think you would grant me such a great lesson.”

“This is only a very small part of it. If you become a proper main-sect disciple, you can learn things far deeper than this. Even so, do you still want to run away from Wudang?”

I hesitated. For just a moment, I felt as though I’d glimpsed why martial artists became so absorbed in honing themselves.

A main-sect disciple of Wudang. It might be better than I’d expected. If I trained together with the Martial Talent Shop, I even thought I might be able to become first-rate.

If that alone happened, I would have no more wishes.

What had irritated me the most while traveling with merchant caravans hadn’t been masters at the peak realm or above, but third-rate riffraff. It was always those mediocre or outright useless ones who strutted around just because they were martial artists.

“Can a main-sect disciple of Wudang work in the secular world?”

“If you work in the Hall of Preserved Wholeness, then naturally you’ll be working in the secular world. Of course, there isn’t a single main-sect disciple who wants to work in the Hall of Preserved Wholeness.”

“Can one form a merchant company or an escort agency?”

“That, you cannot do. Though with the sect leader’s permission, you can enter the secular world as a protector.”

That was a bit disappointing. But when I thought about it, I realized I already had no other choice.

I had gone and learned a martial art of Wudang, and if I wanted to leave for the secular world now, the only way was to have my dantian crippled.

‘Come to think of it, have I just been roped in?’

I had learned a martial art without even wanting to. Once I thought of it that way, it did feel a bit unpleasant.

“But is it really alright to teach martial arts like this to a provisional disciple like me?”

“I didn’t teach you anything. You learned it yourself. Was it not you who climbed the cliff, not me?”

Well, he had a point. This cliff was a divine object that let you learn a martial art just by climbing it. I also understood now why the Three Purities Hall was located atop this cliff. It was their way of telling anyone who was not a main-sect disciple of Wudang not even to think of coming up. One had to use Wudang’s martial art properly to climb it.

“For now, I understand.”

“For now? That’s an answer so arrogant it’s nearly mad coming from a mere provisional disciple.”

“I’m sorry.”

Cheong-su clicked his tongue, turned his back, and headed toward the Three Purities Hall. I hurriedly tucked away the manual for the Azure Cloud Steps and followed after him.

Cheong-su and I handed over the message tubes to the person handling the administration of the Three Purities Hall.

“Now it’s over.”

I said that because, although Cheong-su had helped a little, we’d still managed to send all the message tubes to the Three Purities Hall.

I thought it was finally time to head to the Hall of Exhausting the Way, where Immortal Cheong-hwa was waiting.

But that was my enormous misunderstanding.

“What’s over?”

“Isn’t the work done? Didn’t we send every message for the Three Purities Hall today?”

“It seems you didn’t hear. Starting today, you’re taking charge of every message that passes through the Hall of Preserved Wholeness.”

For a moment, I couldn’t speak. Was this some kind of joke?

Judging from Cheong-su’s eyes, it wasn’t a joke at all.

“What kind of bullshit is that?”

My face hardened instantly as well.

In the next moment, Cheong-su’s hand blade struck the crown of my head. The pain shook my skull itself, and clutching my head, I rolled on the ground.

“Aagh! You crazy hooked-nosed bastard!”

“Crazy hooked nose? It seems you have no wish to die in your natural span.”

Cheong-su immediately rolled up his sleeves. Right there in front of the Three Purities Hall, a dusty beating began. I shouted at the people passing by.

“Help me! This man is trying to kill me!”

But among the people coming and going before the Three Purities Hall, not a single one paid any heed to my words.

That was right. This was not the world of dignified merchants.

This was the barbaric murim, where even if a man was beaten or killed in front of you, people looked on as though watching livestock.

“Die, die!”

“I really think I’m going to die!”

“That’s why I’m beating you!”

Cheong-su ignored my cries and struck only the places that hurt most.

As pain shook my entire body, I slowly felt my consciousness growing dim.

And so my second day in the Hall of Preserved Wholeness passed.

***

For some reason, when I opened my eyes, there was no pain at all. Far from pain, it actually felt like my body had more vitality in it than before.

As I remembered it, he’d really beaten me until I lost consciousness, so the fact that I felt no aftereffects even after that was astonishing.

The mysterious profundity of murim people truly could not be measured.

When I opened my eyes again, I found myself in the courier room of the Hall of Preserved Wholeness.

The room was once more filled with countless message tubes. Looking outside, I saw the morning sun rising. It seemed I had passed out and slept straight through.

“I really do want to run away.”

Now, climbing the cliff wasn’t much of a problem anymore. Which meant I could leave Wudang Mountain without taking the proper roads.

No matter how great the Wudang Sect was, they couldn’t have posted guards enough to surround all of Wudang Mountain.

But now I was already someone who had learned the Azure Cloud Steps. That meant if I tried to slip out of Wudang Mountain without permission, they might really cripple my dantian.

Judging by the way Cheong-su had beaten me half to death over being called a hooked nose, it didn’t seem like an empty threat.

As I sighed at my stifling future, translucent letters suddenly appeared before my eyes.

[ Having met the conditions, the shop rank is increasing. ]

[ More talents are now available for purchase! ]

…What the hell is this now?