Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 215 - Emperor Beneath the Sea (3)
Chapter 215 – Emperor Beneath the Sea (3)
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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“I had more or less heard that emperors sometimes hid their tombs away, but I never imagined one would be made here at the bottom of the sea.”
“…Truly. I myself had no idea.”
“Heavenly King Sect Leader, please speak more comfortably. You’re older than I am and higher in seniority too.”
“I-is that really all right?”
Even if his line had fallen, he had still once been both a member of the imperial bloodline and the sect leader of a martial sect, and yet he was acting so pathetically that I could not help but feel some pity. It truly seemed that this hierarchy of demonic qi was absolute.
“Yes. Go ahead. It’s very uncomfortable having an elder speak to me that formally.”
“You do not seem all that strict about hierarchy yourself, though…”
The moment I glanced at him, Zhu Mun-hwan flinched and changed his words.
“A-ah, no. Pretend you didn’t hear that. Then I shall speak more casually.”
“Yes, yes.”
I had no need to turn Zhu Mun-hwan into an enemy, however long we might remain trapped in this burial mound. In any case, now that he was no longer the Great Toad of the Eastern Sea, he was hardly threatening.
“First, let’s go find that stone wall the immortal grandpa mentioned.”
For an emperor’s tomb, the burial mound was immense. Though honestly, there should still have been a limit. This was not a tomb so much as a palace built beneath the sea. I could not begin to imagine how something like this had been made at such a depth.
And to keep the water from entering at all down here in the deep sea, formations must have been laid all throughout. It made me realize just how wealthy and powerful a nation Great Ming must once have been.
“The night-luminescent pearls embedded here are of the very finest grade.”
I looked about the ceiling and walls in admiration. However much time had passed, the fact that they still shone so brightly meant they were truly of the highest quality.
“You look rather like you want to steal one.”
“Come now, do I really look that much like trash to you?”
Zhu Mun-hwan unexpectedly struck right at the heart of it, but thanks to acting skills honed through many trials, I smoothly played it off.
To be honest, I had wanted to pocket one, but grave-robbing an ancestor’s tomb in front of his descendant was not the act of a human being, so I had restrained myself. Somehow he seemed to have noticed anyway. A merchant really did have to beware of seeing profit and forgetting righteousness.
After wandering for some time like that, we finally found the stone wall the emperor had mentioned.
“…Hm.”
Both the height and width of the stone wall looked to be about one jang each. It was a correspondingly large diagram.
There was a night-luminescent pearl embedded right above it, so seeing it was not difficult. But no matter how much I looked, I could not tell what it was meant to depict. All I could make out were unusual patterns and some wave-like lines hanging about them.
“Does it suggest anything to you?”
I asked without much expectation, but unexpectedly Zhu Mun-hwan nodded.
“Yes. I mean, yes.”
“What is it?”
“Overlay the human body onto the image. Think of that pattern slightly below the center as the dantian.”
Overlay the human body? Narrowing my eyes, I compared the diagram to the human form. Once I imagined a body with its limbs spread and laid it over the image, I found, to my astonishment, that the lines followed the acupoints.
Seen that way, the wave patterns and the acupoint lines of the human body separated from each other. The chaotic parts around it were all waves, while the central part was the bodily diagram traced along the acupoints.
“Wow. You’re smart.”
“Ahem. Not that. It’s simply that all members of Great Ming’s imperial house knew this diagram to begin with.”
“Oh, really?”
I let a trace of disappointment show. Already lacking confidence in his voice, Zhu Mun-hwan’s shoulders drooped.
“Then what kind of heart method is this?”
I asked. No matter how one looked at it, it was the diagram of a heart method.
It showed which acupoints one had to guide the qi through, and how one had to breathe. By now, as a martial artist, I could at least discern that much.
“This is the Heavenly Demon Heart Art, one part of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art that only the emperors of Great Ming may practice.”
“But you said everyone of the imperial house knows it.”
“Knowing it and being able to practice it are different matters. Only the emperor may cultivate it.”
Zhu Mun-hwan added more.
“When one ascends the throne, the very first thing done is to receive a sacred blessing at the altar where the Heavenly Demon is revered. Only then is one granted the qualification to learn the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.”
“That’s absurdly complicated.”
“…”
“What happens if someone else tries to learn it without receiving that blessing?”
“He’ll bleed from all seven apertures and die.”
Sometimes there were mechanisms like that. The jade casket that had once held the Divine Demon Pill in my previous life had worked on the same principle. It would open only when qi was poured into it along a specific route. This stone-wall diagram seemed to be something of that sort.
“Then can you learn it, mister?”
“I am of the imperial house’s direct line, but I have never received the altar’s blessing, so I cannot.”
“Then I suppose I should probably be able to, shouldn’t I?”
“Hm?”
“Aren’t I higher-ranked than the emperor?”
Saying that, I placed my hand upon the diagram. Astonishingly, the moment I touched it, the internal energy in my dantian began moving on its own.
From the crown baihui acupoint above my head to the yongquan acupoint beneath the soles of my feet, my internal energy surged while touching only certain acupoints.
I had never really possessed a principal heart method of my own. When storing away the spiritual qi taken from elixirs and the demonic qi I had absorbed, or when occasionally accumulating qi, I had merely used whichever heart methods were taught to lay disciples. I had no heart method comparable to Shaolin’s Marrow-Cleansing Scripture that I regularly used to build my inner power. At most, I had been using the Dual Intent Heart Art to refine demonic qi while accumulating spiritual qi.
In that sense, the diagram of this Heavenly Demon Heart Art might have been exactly the martial art suited to me.
Primordial Mixed Qi circulated through all the acupoints of my body and returned to my dantian over and over again. This diagram was unquestionably favorable beyond measure to one who possessed the Heavenly Demon’s aura. All I had to do was observe the qi as it came and went and naturally absorb it as a heart method.
How much time passed? By the time I had grown accustomed to the operating method of the Heavenly Demon Heart Art, the internal energy in my dantian slowly withdrew like waves returning to the sea.
“…Hmm.”
“Finished?”
The moment I let out a low hum, Zhu Mun-hwan’s voice came from directly behind me. Turning back, I grinned.
“Yes.”
“Fortunately, you didn’t die. Though I did think it would work.”
“Now all that remains is getting out.”
“Hm? About that…”
Ignoring Zhu Mun-hwan, who looked as if he still had something more to say, I placed my hand upon the stone wall once again.
My internal energy seemed gradually to stretch along the path opened by the diagram. Hope swelled within my chest that I would soon be able to leave. But to my dismay, my Primordial Mixed Qi could not travel even a tenth of the route shown in the diagram before it weakened and died down.
I removed my hand from the stone wall for a moment, then placed it on again. Zhu Mun-hwan seemed to be saying something behind me, but I could not hear him. That was how badly I wanted to get outside as quickly as possible.
The damned Martial Alliance Leader who had fled would surely, with the imperial palace, begin pressing down upon the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Clans. And as a result, both the Wudang Sect and the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company were certain to suffer hardship.
Yet still, no matter what I tried, my qi could not advance along the diagram’s route at all. I removed my hand and looked down at my palm. What exactly was the problem?
“Wait, just a moment. Hold on.”
Only then did Zhu Mun-hwan’s voice properly reach my ears.
“Yes?”
“How can you expect to open the diagram after only just stepping through the gate? You would need to raise it to at least the sixth level before you could open this diagram’s gate.”
“…The sixth level?”
They said that martial realization ran from the first level to the twelfth. Of these, the tenth was called completion and the twelfth was called great accomplishment.
Because I possessed talents purchased from the shop, I had naturally leaped over such things without ever paying attention to them.
And now to be caught by martial attainment at a time like this. It was a troublesome thing indeed.
“How does one reach the sixth level? Do I just continue circulating qi and regulating breath?”
“First of all, do not become too hasty.”
Even if he said not to be hasty, it was still a dizzying thing to hear. This was true of sword arts and palm arts alike, but especially with heart methods, one had to know the oral formulas in order to expand one’s understanding quickly.
Right now, the only thing I knew was the method of guiding true qi. Of course, if I kept circulating it and guiding true qi, I would eventually rise naturally, but that was the very definition of charging headfirst into bare ground.
Seeing the expression on my face, Zhu Mun-hwan seemed to realize my concern and continued.
“Do not worry. All of the Heavenly King Sect’s martial arts were created by adapting the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. So I know the oral formulas of the Heavenly Demon Heart Art as well.”
“…That is, at least, fortunate to hear.”
I nodded slowly. In any case, that meant I now had what was needed to raise the Heavenly Demon Heart Art to the sixth level.
My own talent, Zhu Mun-hwan who knew the oral formulas, and time.
Of those, the most precious was naturally time itself. I did not wish to waste even a moment of it here.
“Then please teach me quickly.”
“Before that, there is something we need to discuss.”
Zhu Mun-hwan’s expression turned serious. I had already been able to guess what he was about to say.
“You mean I should help restore Great Ming, don’t you?”
“…Yes. That’s right.”
Because I had guessed it so easily, his voice came out a little deflated.
I had indeed expected this topic to arise. Even the emperor who had vanished when his strength ran out had spoken as though I carried some mission to restore Great Ming.
In truth, it was not a matter unworthy of consideration. My first life had ended at the hands of the Demonic Cult, after all.
Even if, as Gwan Seo-ye had said, that had been another branch of the Cult, it could not be denied that they too were people moving for the sake of Great Ming’s restoration.
Of course, the Imperial State’s methods were subtler still.
To keep Great Ming, that is, the Demonic Cult, in check, the Imperial State had taken advantage of the mutual opposition of martial arts.
It must have inserted anti-demonic tendencies into all orthodox martial arts. Otherwise there would be no way to explain why orthodox arts and demonic arts stood in such direct opposition.
I surmised that when the Imperial State had first seized the throne and was carrying out its purges, every sect had bowed its head and obeyed the palace’s command to forcibly insert altered formulas. One only had to look at the martial arts of the Eastern Depot and Embroidered Uniform Guard to know as much.
Thus the Imperial State sought to shape people’s unconsciousness and achieve what it wanted. On top of that, it had joined hands with the Martial Alliance Leader to reduce the power of the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Clans as well.
In any case, it had become difficult for the Imperial State and me to coexist.
“…Well?”
Perhaps because my answer was slow in coming, Zhu Mun-hwan asked anxiously.
“I understand why one such as you, who knows nothing of Great Ming, would naturally hesitate. The Heavenly Demon Divine Cult of the jianghu has also produced many victims. Even if, from our perspective, those were sacrifices for a greater cause, from the perspective of decent commoners like you, who could only ever be the ones sacrificed, it would naturally be intolerable.”
Apparently anxious, Zhu Mun-hwan began spilling out words one after another.
I looked at Zhu Mun-hwan. Now that he was no longer the Great Toad of the Eastern Sea, he did not look particularly dangerous.
If all of them were a mild group like Zhu Mun-hwan, then perhaps helping them would not be such a bad thing, I thought.
No, wait. Like the flash of a sudden realization, a strange clarity crossed my mind. I was not some ant fated to labor for Great Ming’s restoration. I was the god they revered.
If that was the case, then all I needed to do was cut away the excessively violent elements among what people called the Demonic Cult.
“Very well.”
Once my thoughts had reached that point, I nodded. Zhu Mun-hwan’s expression brightened.
Nor did I really have any reason to refuse. All I needed to do was act according to my own conscience.
Even so, the merchant’s blood in me could not let such a perfect chance to extract a little consideration pass by unused.
“Though may I ask one small favor in return?”
“Hm? As many as you like.”
“That sword at your waist. It looks quite fine. May I have it?”
“…”
Zhu Mun-hwan lowered his head blankly and looked at his own waist. There, hanging at his side, was Longyuan, one of the Eighteen Famous Swords.