Chapter 5

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Translated by Seoulbound

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

A thirst arose.

Because I ultimately failed to reach the place I had set as a standard.

‘Master’s Supreme Clarity Free Hand was different. The vortex formed following the Release of Force is not loaded onto Tai Chi Chuan.’

When the Release of Force occurs, natural energy naturally responds and generates waves.

Whether it takes the form of a vortex, an explosion, or a wave.

A similar phenomenon did occur in the Tai Chi Chuan Release of Force that I displayed.

The internal force emitted from the center of the fist formed a single flow, generating the unique vortex of Silk Reeling Force. The problem was that the internal force of the Release of Force soon lost its power and scattered.

The waves of natural energy, the force waves of the Release of Force, are essential in high-level martial arts because they control the routine of the opponent’s martial arts and limit their movements. In other words, it meant the Tai Chi Chuan I displayed was a half-measure that fell short of high-level martial arts.

At that moment, Master opened his mouth.

“By the response of natural energy, you must mean the force waves of the Release of Force?”

I immediately nodded at Master’s words, which were as if he read my mind.

Master, who let out a low groan for a moment, soon broke the silence.

“You must learn the Tai Chi Diagram Exposition.”

“The Tai Chi Diagram Exposition…?”

As a formal disciple, it was right that there should be nothing I did not know regarding Wudang Sect’s studies. However, the Tai Chi Diagram Exposition was a martial art name I heard for the first time.

As if he had anticipated such a reaction from me, Master continued.

“It is natural that you do not know. It is not handed down carelessly, and it is a difficult art to master.”

“What kind of martial art is it…”

“I do not know if the Tai Chi Diagram Exposition can even be called a martial art. Among the disciples of martial studies, there are not many who master it, but it is a study mainly learned by disciples belonging to the Secret Arts Pavilion.”

Wudang Sect was a collection of several Taoist temples before being a martial sect. As such, various lineages existed within Wudang Sect, but they were largely divided into three systems.

From the system of martial studies to which I belonged, to the system of Taoist studies that comforted the struggling people and bestowed Taoist teachings, to the system of esoteric studies that bestowed talismans and spells to those harmed by bizarre entities, monsters, and miscellaneous ghosts.

The Secret Arts Pavilion that Master spoke of was like the True Martial Pavilion to the disciples of the esoteric studies system.

“Why such a martial art…”

A doubt was bound to arise.

Master replied calmly to my doubt.

“They said the Tai Chi Diagram Exposition penetrates the principles of nature and their flipside to study the flow. If properly mastered, Feng Shui enters one’s eyes, and there were occasionally disciples who read human destinies. They also say it allows one to pierce through miscellaneous ghosts and monsters that confuse humans, which ordinary people cannot see. That principle departs from observing the movement of Qi, the natural energy, which forms all things under heaven.”

Chasing the flow of natural energy.

Moving natural energy through internal force.

Since only by knowing how the Qi around me moves could I move that energy through internal force.

Therefore, I swallowed at Master’s words.

Since entering Wudang, receiving the gazes of Master, martial uncles, and senior uncles, the thought of wanting to achieve something grand or learn something was not large.

I had only mastered it because I possessed talent for martial arts and was a Wudang disciple of martial studies.

However, experiencing the recent changes, something was wriggling and rising within me as well.

Greed.

Or it was a sprout by the name of aspiration.

“I wish to learn it.”

I wanted to complete this half-measure Tai Chi Chuan that had not reached the standard.

Of course, if I investigated it somehow in the future, it would not be impossible even without the Tai Chi Diagram Exposition, but if there was a faster path, there was no reason to refuse.

However, Master shook his head.

“Not right now.”

“Why?”

At my question, Master smirked unlike himself and spoke as if soothing me.

“Because I do not know it.”

“Pardon?”

“How can I teach you what I have not mastered myself?”

“Ah.”

Master continued, seeing my disappointed expression.

“The Tai Chi Diagram Exposition can only be handed down to a disciple who has proven their qualifications. And if one is not a disciple of esoteric studies, the minimum condition of that qualification is that they must at least be a disciple belonging to the True Martial Pavilion.”

The name of the True Martial Pavilion came from Master’s mouth.

A name I knew all too well.

A name that made the chest of any Wudang disciple, especially a disciple of martial studies, throb.

The symbol of Wudang martial studies.

The vanguard of Wudang’s military might.

Because that was indeed the True Martial Pavilion.

“But doesn’t the True Martial Pavilion refuse disciples before capping age?”

“Who said so?”

“Everyone said so, though?”

“There is no such regulation. It is just that there have been no people who passed the admission to the True Martial Pavilion before capping age.”

“?!”

Clearly thinking about it clearly, there was indeed no restriction regarding admission to the True Martial Pavilion among the written regulations of the sect.

Master showed a strange expression while watching me raise my eyes in surprise.

“Well then. Training. We must do it, right?”

**

A wide vacant lot near the Purple Yang Hermitage.

Master stood in front of me and flipped his palms, beckoning me.

“With that, can you enter the True Martial Pavilion?”

At Master’s words, I shook off the dirt on my clothes and raised my body.

“I am going again.”

The first day of special training for admission to the True Martial Pavilion.

I was rolling on the ground countless times.

-If you touch your hand to my chest, you win. You must at least reach that level to be at the stage of taking the True Martial Pavilion admission test.

Although he spoke as if it were easy, Master’s words could not be easy.

Because simply telling me to touch his chest was synonymous with telling me to perfectly parse and break through Master’s martial arts for a single moment.

Of course, Master was not doing his best.

A level of a quarter of the sea-like internal force Master had accumulated.

He was facing me with an amount of internal force similar to or even lesser than the two Lesser Cleansing Pills and the internal force I had accumulated so far.

However, Master was a high-level master.

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Again.”

Master, who looked down at the fallen me, felt as giant as the Heaven Pillar Peak of Wudang Mountain.

The understanding of stances accumulated while learning high-level studies, the depth of realization regarding martial arts, and above all, the gap of overwhelming real combat experience were not a distance to bridge in a short time.

However, no matter how high the peak, if one moved their steps without tiring, the summit would show itself someday.

I possessed tireless physical strength, and there was an aspiration wriggling inside my chest.

Additionally, since the blow with which Master knocked me down did not contain grand internal force, I did not suffer a major blow either.

Even if I fell, I stood up again, gathered Master’s martial arts into my eyes, and contemplated.

‘The deployment of the Supreme Clarity Free Hand stances is not that fast. The Wudang Cloud-Climbing Step and Flowing Cloud Movement Skill’s footwork aren’t to the extent of being un-followable with the eyes either.’

Then, from a certain moment, Master’s martial arts began to grow familiar to my eyes.

‘I can see it.’

I took the Great Emptiness Form stance of Tai Chi Chuan once more and deployed the strike of Advancing into Emptiness, Leaving the Temple toward the fine gap opened in Master’s Supreme Clarity Free Hand hand-sword chop.

**

Immortal Gangwon could not hide his great surprise.

‘What is this!’

Because even if he deployed it with thirty percent of his internal force, he had not predicted that a simple straight punch of Tai Chi Chuan’s Advancing into Emptiness, Leaving the Temple would pierce the gap of the Supreme Clarity Free Hand so accurately.

‘His eyes to observe martial arts have been opened!’

He realized anew.

The growth of his disciple.

However, there was no time to be soaked in such pride.

He could not allow himself to be struck on the chest by the straight punch of his approaching disciple. If so, the master’s authority would crash.

Dong.

He immediately pulled his body up from the ground through a leap of Wudang’s secret Cloud-Climbing Step.

The fist that had reached near his chest was growing distant.

At that moment, Immortal Gangwon saw.

The eyes of his disciple looking at him, who was growing distant in an instant, like a beast targeting its prey.

And under the feet of the disciple who had the eyes of a beast, dust rose, and

Dong.

‘The Cloud-Climbing Step!’

As the Cloud-Climbing Step footwork deployed in a perfect posture was manifested in the body of his young disciple, Yeon Baek-jung’s body was also pulled up from the ground.

‘He uses a martial art I did not teach.’

He had copied it by watching what he himself had trained all this time. Of course, it was not perfect.

‘He must firmly support not only the Gushing Spring acupoint but also the Zhubin, Jiaoxin, and Zhaohai acupoints.’

The thought of needing to tell him the lacking parts and the gaze of his approaching disciple crossed, and

at the moment his disciple’s extended Grappling Hand stance of Grasping the Sparrow’s Tail approached threateningly as if it would tear off Immortal Gangwon’s sleeve at any moment,

a small wave arose in Immortal Gangwon’s heart.

A wave by the name of desire to win.

As that wave stirred up internal force, his thirty percent internal force rose to sixty percent before Immortal Gangwon recognized it himself, and

just as the disciple stole the master’s martial arts, the master also stole the disciple’s martial arts.

‘Rascal, try facing your own martial art.’

A double Push Hands strike adding the Tai Chi Chuan speed mnemonic formula smoothly pushed the air layer between his disciple and Gangwon.

The pushed air layer was compressed along the Qi force waves, and

Bang!

it exploded.

**

The air layer formed by Master’s pushing palm exploded before my chest.

‘This is!’

It was a palm wind.

If I had not defended with the stance of Six Sealings and Four Closings in Tai Chi Chuan at the last moment, a great shock to the extent of making me lose consciousness struck my body, and

my rising body lost propulsion and fell.

Master, who felt close enough to touch at any moment, slowly grew distant.

Watching Master grow distant, I recalled the moment when air compressed and exploded in Master’s palm center.

‘Newtonian fluids.’

Air possesses the property of being easily compressed according to the force applied. Through this, compressed air exerts great physical force.

‘He shoots palm wind with his hands, so why can I not do it with my feet?’

At the moment of falling, I recalled the story I had only heard in words.

The story that if one deployed the Cloud-Climbing Step to the limit, there was a state of swimming in the air as if stairs were generated in midair, stepping upon them.

Of course, although I could not reach such a state right now, since I had obtained a clue.

‘Let us try it.’

I compensated for the parts I felt were lacking in the first leap.

Just as the water current flowing through a ruptured dyke is swifter than ordinarily flowing water, I narrowed the acupoints on the path of internal force heading toward the Gushing Spring acupoint.

‘After firmly tying the internal force at the Zhubin, Jiaoxin, and Zhaohai acupoints—’

Simultaneously with the thought, the body moved.

Along the path connecting the three acupoints from the calf to the heel, the surrounding muscles swelled and hardened.

And now.

‘—It is about bursting it through the Gushing Spring acupoint.’

Starting from the Sea of Qi, the internal force that was tied to the three acupoints was emitted toward the Gushing Spring acupoint like waterfall water. However.

‘This alone is insufficient force to float the body.’

The accelerating brain calculated. The gravity felt by the body and the Gushing Spring propulsion force canceled out. However, it was a value precariously insufficient to rise.

Additional force was needed, and

‘Screw it.’

I extended my bent leg with all my might.

The leg technique of Heaven-born Divine Strength combined with the internal force wave emitted through the Gushing Spring acupoint, compressing the air layer under my foot, and

Bang!

it exploded.

And it gradually approached.

Master’s greatly surprised face.

I stretched out my fist with a smirk, and

Tap.

my fist lightly touched Master’s chest.

**

“Phew.”

I landed on the ground while catching my breath.

The Sea of Qi acupoint was empty.

‘Just how much internal force must I accumulate to be at the level of walking around in midair?’

As of now, just once.

Even with just one step of a leap, I had to pour out all the gathered internal force.

Even if I refined the mnemonic formulas and optimized the routine and the Release of Force, calculating with my head right now, it seemed it would only be possible if I accumulated only internal force until I became a white-haired old man.

‘Will I have to grab and eat a handful of spiritual medicine from somewhere.’

Or perhaps a better internal energy cultivation method was needed.

‘Even so, for now.’

I looked at Master with a pleased expression.

Naturally, Master’s face was frozen stiff.

Since he would not have even thought that he would lose.

I opened my mouth with a proud heart.

“Now I have qualified to take the True Martial Pavilion admission test, have I not?”

At my question, Master, who looked at me with strange eyes for a moment, nodded.

“Yes. Though it is something that happened because I was careless at the last moment. Well. Mmh. Yes.”

“Hehehe. Master. Just admit it. Or at least a praise?”

“You rascal. If you boast and end up failing the admission sparring, you will be in deep trouble.”

I nodded my head greatly at Master’s words.

Since I beat Master—of course, it seemed Master faced me while placing several restrictions, but did the palm wind he deployed at the last moment also seem somewhat sincere?—I did not think I would lose to the True Martial Pavilion admission sparring opponent.

“Then, I shall go to the Library Pavilion again.”

Leaving behind Master who gave me a rough nod, I headed to the Library Pavilion.

My footsteps were incomparably light.

**

The first time Gangwon saw Yeon Baek-jung was when Yeon Baek-jung was around seven or eight years old. The child, tightly packed with poison and obstinacy, fearlessly approached the Wudang Sect elder to pickpocket him, and naturally got caught.

That was their first connection.

‘Such a fellow.’

On the day he entered Tai Chi Chuan after completing training of eight of Wudang’s nine skills in about a year, he had roared with laughter in a place where no one was watching.

And seven years.

The disciple, who had caused worry by falling short of expectations, left a mark on his master’s chest.

Of course, although it was a light contact where neither internal force nor strength was loaded, the trace of his disciple’s fist method remained intact on the slightly crumpled chest hem of his robe.

While that was satisfying on one hand, on the other hand, it generated a somewhat empty feeling.

However, the master could tell.

That to keep him only in his own embrace, the disciple had already grown too big.

‘Yes. To a disgusting extent.’

His disciple’s final, sly laugh was an expression that made him itch to strike his Hundred Convergences acupoint with a solitary fist, but.

“Hehehehe.”

Immortal Gangwon could not hold back the laughter that leaked out, and did not hold it back.

Saying so, he turned his head.

Toward the place where Gangwon’s own master resided.

Toward the Resting Sword Hermitage.

‘It is time to see Master.’

Gangwon could finally intuit that the moment to personally show his disciple to his master, the first in Wudang, Sword Immortal Master Jin-cheon, had arrived.