Chapter 19

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Translated by Seoulbound

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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**

The place I came to with my master was the library of the Mysterious Heaven Pavilion, which could not even be entered unless one was of the Myeong generation of the Wudang Sect or higher.

Just as it was said that if Shaolin had the Scripture Pavilion, Wudang had the Mysterious Heaven Pavilion, the scale of the building was vastly different from the Library Pavilion near Prince Slope that I used to frequent.

It was not just the scale of the building that was different. At the Mysterious Heaven Pavilion, disciples of Taoist studies and esoteric studies dispatched from the Wudang Sect’s Clear Spirit Pavilion and Secret Arts Pavilion, as well as senior martial brothers belonging to the Giant Gate Unit of the True Martial Pavilion who were in charge of the sect’s security, were heavily guarding the library, walking here and there.

Among them, Myeong-in, a senior martial brother belonging to the Giant Gate Unit who was guarding the entrance, clasped his hands toward my master.

“Greetings, Martial Uncle Gangwon.”

At the greeting of the disciples belonging to the Giant Gate Unit, my master nodded and spoke.

“I intend to view an incomplete manual in the Original Sage Library of the Mysterious Heaven Pavilion, so please obtain a permit from the Pavilion Chief.”

At those words, the Giant Gate Unit disciple clasped his hands again, disappeared for a moment, and then reappeared. A small jade plaque was held in his hand.

“You must not enter other areas. You must only enter the area of the Original Sage Library.”

“Of course.”

After hearing the warning and receiving the jade plaque, we were able to enter the Mysterious Heaven Pavilion.

“Master, what happens if we enter a library other than the Original Sage Library?”

At my question, my master answered with a sullen face.

“If you are curious, why do you not try entering another library?”

Without missing the corner of my master’s mouth twitching on one side of his sullen face, I replied.

“It seems that if we go to a place where entry is not permitted, lightning will strike from the jade plaque?”

The jade plaque itself appeared to be a magic treasure of the esoteric school. The unusual energy felt through the Tai Chi Diagram Exposition proved this.

As if his amusement had been spoiled by my answer, my master snorted softly and spoke.

“It is not that lightning will strike. It is just that the magic treasure held by the Giant Gate Unit disciples will ring. So do not worry too much.”

“Ah.”

Since there was not much difference to me between lightning striking and receiving the swords of my senior martial brothers of the sect, I kept my mouth shut.

We arrived at the entrance of the library prepared on one side of the giant pavilion.

“It is here.”

“It is… fine for us to enter, right?”

“If you did not possess this jade plaque, the jade plaque carried in the bosom of Myeong-in at the entrance would have rung.”

At my master’s suggestive tone, I bowed my head deeply and chimed in.

“As expected of the Great Wudang Sect’s elder who is with me, I cannot express how reassuring it is in words.”

“Indeed.”

With a light joke, my master threw open the door of the Original Sage Library library.

As it was a place where incomplete martial arts manuals were gathered, I had imagined a dreary, tomb-like atmosphere for the Wudang Sect’s supreme techniques that had not yet reached completion, but—

“It is cleaner than I thought?”

“Then what did you expect?”

“I thought it would be a bit dreary. After all, are they not incomplete and forgotten martial arts manuals?”

At my response, my master snorted and replied.

“Since the martial arts here sometimes become the new foundation of our Wudang Sect, it would be wise for you to look through them diligently.”

With that, my master walked ahead quickly.

I followed behind my master, quickly scanning the books on the bookshelves.

Surprisingly, there also existed manuals from before martial arts known as the Wudang Sect’s true transmissions, such as the Two Polarities Patterned Sword and the Three Absolutes Desolate Sword, were completed, like the Two Polarities Sword Manual and the Three Absolutes Sword Manual.

And among them.

‘The Tai Chi Sword Manual?’

Although I had practiced Tai Chi Chuan extensively, I had not thought much about performing the fist techniques with a sword. This was because fist-palm techniques and swordplay were quite different in their structure and purpose. At the same time, however, it was said that masters of swordsmanship had a realm where they used the sword like their own body.

‘So it is not that it does not make sense.’

Around the time I finished skimming through the Tai Chi Sword Manual, my master called me.

“This way.”

“Yes.”

Standing in front of the innermost bookshelf, my master picked up a book.

“This is it.”

The name written on the cover of the book that came into my hands was the Primal Chaos One Qi Art.

It was a plain and intuitive name.

When I opened the book like that, the very first page was written with basic contents regarding the stages of training true qi and cultivation power.

[Internal qi accumulates in the body by absorbing external natural qi through breathing, and this internal qi flows, accumulates, and condenses by intent and essence to form an inner core; this is the basic principle of Taoist internal alchemy.

The basic stages of internal alchemy are the Vast Expansion Stage of feeling external qi through breathing, the Body Cultivation Stage of cultivating body and mind through the formation of internal qi, the Resonance Stage of influencing external qi through internal qi, the Elixir Condensation Stage of condensing internal qi to form an inner core in the dantian for the first time, and the Nascent Soul Stage of forming spirituality within the inner core…]

After passing through the early parts, which were no different from other Taoist internal qigong books, with indifference, the contents that entered my eyes from then on began to connect in a very interesting way.

[…Although the energy of heaven and earth is only one, humans contrive to divide and name it as Yin and Yang, the Four Symbols, and the Five Elements, which is fundamentally contrary to Taoist non-action. To correct this, I devise a method to accumulate internal qi and form an inner core through only the unified energy, naming it the Primal Chaos One Qi Art.]

Though my initial start with the dynamic art did not begin with things like non-action or deliberate action.

‘If anyone asks me later, I can answer like this.’

It served as good reference material.

Only after reading through the basic introduction and the intention behind the creation did the full-fledged mnemonic formulas and movement compositions of the dynamic art begin to appear.

‘Oh?’

The contents that met my eyes matched the dynamic art formulas and structures I was creating to a significant degree.

From creating cycles in true qi through precise movements, to operating cultivation power through acupoints and inducing changes in external true qi through this.

What was particularly impressive was that he had applied not only the Tai Chi Chuan I had implemented, but also the routines of various fist-palm techniques like the Supreme Clarity Free Hand and the Eighteen Clothes-Dampening Falls to the dynamic art.

‘If the internal strength consumed by releasing force in fist techniques is replenished moment by moment through the dynamic art, true qi will certainly not be cut off.’

In my head, I briefly envisioned the changes in Wudang martial arts that would flow continuously without interruption through the training of the Primal Chaos One Qi Art.

Even with high-level martial arts that consume vast amounts of cultivation power, like the Four Symbols Wind and Thunder Palm, there seemed to be no problem using them in real combat if one trained in the Primal Chaos One Qi Art.

Of course, all of this imagination was only under the assumption of training in the completed Primal Chaos One Qi Art.

The problem was that this Primal Chaos One Qi Art was also experiencing the same problem as the dynamic art I was creating.

‘The mnemonic formula for separating turbid qi in the internal energy of the Primal Chaos of One Qi is…’

I had hoped to refer to it to solve this issue, but unfortunately, even after flipping through the book, there was no formula written about filtering out turbid qi. With that, I flipped to the latter half of the Primal Chaos One Qi Art manual.

‘Why is it so tattered?’

The paper, which had been clean up to the previous section, was exceptionally worn and frayed. And on that page.

[The vortex of cultivation power moves external qi!]

Along with the short phrase, a table was drawn.

It was densely written with how the true qi flowing along the acupoints was affected by the external qi in accordance with the training movements and operation of cultivation power mentioned in the preceding chapters.

The latter half was filled only with empirical records, without a single character of mnemonic formulas written.

‘He recorded in detail how the polarization of true qi occurred when cultivation power was operated in a certain way.’

The records were like the results of countless experiments using his own body as a medium. I could not help but automatically recall the name of a certain scholar.

‘Faraday…’

If the English scholar Faraday had defined the correlation between electricity and magnetism through experiments, Grand-uncle Jin Heo had defined through experiments how the operation of cultivation power, and the true qi formed by that cultivation power, in turn affected cultivation power.

Furthermore, while Faraday defined the phenomena regarding positive and negative charges by magnetic fields, Grand-uncle Jin Heo recorded in detail the process in which true qi differentiated into Yin and Yang, the Five Elements, and the Eight Trigrams by flowing cultivation power, and how the cultivation power inside the body differentiated again by that true qi.

The only pity was that a systematic theory, or an established mnemonic formula, had not been formed in the book written by Grand-uncle Jin Heo. There was only a list of experiences and clear traces of a struggle to find rules within that list.

In other words, it was a casebook.

Grand-uncle Jin Heo, who recorded it, must have known better than anyone that such records could not ultimately be widely applied and established as a universal martial art.

That was why he called it incomplete.

Yet, to me, even this incomplete manual was more than enough. Because what I lacked was experience.

‘The results are overflowing. The theory… I will organize it.’

The moment I released my intent toward my upper dantian.

Centering around the Hundred Convergences acupoint, the true qi of the Tai Chi Diagram Exposition surged as if it would explode. The fine meridians connecting the Hundred Convergences acupoint to the pupils of my eyes became hot as if burning, and my vision instantly turned white. I tried to call for help from my master, but my voice did not come out. Then, slowly, my eyes regained focus, and on a white space, a ruddy-faced old man was smiling warmly and looking at me.

Even though it was a face I had never seen before, I could tell who he was.

“Grand-uncle Jin Heo?”

Instead of answering, Grand-uncle slowly approached me with a smiling face and placed his finger on my forehead.

‘Uh?’

The index finger that touched my forehead went into my forehead, then his arm went in, and Grand-uncle’s smiling face went in.

When Grand-uncle’s figure completely disappeared in that manner, the white space returned once again to the Original Sage Library of the Mysterious Heaven Pavilion.

Spread out in front of my eyes was the incomplete manual recorded with tenacity.

The moment I blinked my eyes to grasp the situation for a second, I realized.

That even without the records written in the manual, all the trial and error Grand-uncle had experienced while creating the Primal Chaos One Qi Art had entered my head.

And all the information from those trials and errors met the knowledge inside my head, recalling numerous names.

‘Ampere, Gauss, Faraday, and Maxwell.’

The theories of the great grandmasters who compiled electromagnetism danced in my head. Just as magnetism influenced electricity and electricity influenced magnetism, external qi influenced internal strength and internal strength influenced external qi. As countless empirical results met theory and were established and organized into a single mnemonic formula, I began to recite the completed formula.

“Work is originally qi, qi is originally void, vortices are like micro-qi, vortex qi is like a flow field…”

**

As Gangwon was focusing on the secret manual, seeing his disciple reciting the formula as if possessed, he instinctively took out his brush.

‘This is…’

If another person had heard it, it would have been difficult to understand what it meant, but Gangwon had already read Senior Martial Uncle Jin Heo’s secret manual. The meaning of the formula his disciple was speaking now was coming to him clearly.

‘Indeed!’

According to the interpretation of the formula, internal energy moves the true qi, true qi affects the internal energy, and in turn affects the force field configured through the internal energy. Accordingly, the true qi that was one divides into two, into three, and merges again.

The amount of internal energy, the passed acupoints, meridians, directions, when forming a vortex, when flowing in a straight line, the moment of force release, and the moment of circulating qi and breathing are all established differently.

It was truly the compilation of internal martial arts.

It seemed that even the Supreme Clarity Mind Art created by Senior Martial Uncle Jin Heo in the past could not compare to the formula of internal energy that his disciple was emitting now.

In that manner, Gangwon frantically wrote down the formula his disciple spoke in the blank space of the incomplete secret manual of the Primal Chaos One Qi Art. What he reached at the end of writing down the formula was the final page of the secret manual.

feel that the day I can breathe properly is not far away, wash your ears and listen well, children. How can the one qi primal chaos be divided into two polarities, four symbols, five elements, and so forth? It is because it is one and at the same time two, and two and at the same time four, five, and eight… Keep this in mind, and the one who completes this book… will be able to become like the legendary Peng bird!]

The last character of the internal cultivation formula spoken by his disciple ended right before the character ‘I’ where the manuscript of Senior Martial Uncle Jin Heo began. It was as if it had been foreseen from the beginning that the book would be completed this way.

When Immortal Gangwon put down the brush, his disciple Yeon Baek-jung’s eyes also regained their light.

“Master… I completed the Primal Chaos One Qi Art.”

It was a different feeling from when his disciple had re-established Tai Chi Chuan.

If that was fixing what already existed to be more practical, this was creating something from nothing. Even though he had borrowed and applied the wisdom of other sages, the system of thought, ideas, and Qigong that his disciple had first conceived remained intact, merely borrowing a portion of Senior Martial Uncle Jin Heo’s insights.

“No, it is not.”

Gangwon could not help but speak.

Toward his disciple who tilted his head at Gangwon’s denial, Gangwon spoke again.

“I am saying that what you completed is not the Primal Chaos One Qi Art.”

“Then… what is it?”

“You should know that. Since it is the internal martial art you created.”

“Created by me…?”

“Yes.”

His disciple seemed to think of something for a moment, and then opened his mouth.

“This art. With my short experience and insight, I would not have been able to complete it. And it still cannot be said to be perfect.”

Instead of adding words, Gangwon quietly listened to his disciple’s words.

“There is no end on the path toward ten-fold perfection. And the Limitless is soon the Supreme Ultimate.”

Yeon Baek-jung picked up the brush Gangwon had put down, and corrected two characters on the cover.

“Primal Chaos Tai Chi Art. That is the name of the new internal moving cultivation.”