Chapter 12
Our group is likely among the strongest, if not the strongest, of all the students entering this year. If we chose to abandon the Long Spear Pavilion and simply snatch the antidotes from others, we could do it as many times as we wanted. And once the three of us became predators, whoever had their antidote stolen by us would inevitably go looking for weaker students. The academy would descend into chaos in no time.
‘I don’t think they’d complain if that happened. No, it feels more like they’re encouraging it.’
However, there is never just one way to solve a problem. Both of them showed confidence that we could find the antidote within the Long Spear Pavilion itself. Since the plaque explicitly stated that the antidote is here, I felt that if we didn’t take the easy path and instead pushed through the mechanism formations, we would surely find it.
‘I can always run off alone and steal an antidote later. For now, let’s move together.’
It is better to overcome hardships together than to ruin a friendship from the very first day of the entrance ceremony. Assuming we succeed, that is.
"If only I had my internal energy, I could have cut them down in a single strike."
Namgung Min was diligently clearing the path even without me stepping in. She swatted away a spear with great effort, then rubbed her aching arm and grumbled.
"Would you like to switch places?"
"There is no need for that."
Wouldn't it be better to switch...? Even if she has mastered the Dominating Sword, in a situation where we cannot use internal energy, Myeong-seong, being a man, should have the advantage in raw physical strength.
Honestly, Namgung Min must know this as well. Even though Myeong-seong offered the suggestion a bit late, Namgung Min whipped her head around. Perhaps her pride as a member of the Namgung Clan wouldn't allow her to yield the lead.
"Step back!"
Of course, Namgung Min’s external martial arts were not lacking in the slightest. Her sensory perception was quite sharp; she quickly detected the spears falling from the ceiling and deflected them.
"Wouldn't it be better to dodge them appropriately instead of parrying every single one?"
It was impressive to watch her deflect them, but I was concerned she might exhaust her strength too early. She could have seen them and reacted sufficiently without putting so much force into it. In fact, the last one wouldn't have even hit her if she had just stood still.
"…Compared to the training I did at the Namgung Clan, this is nothing."
Is that so? If she says she is fine, I suppose there is no need for me to stop her. In truth, she was managing to deflect the spears and move forward bit by bit.
"The first one came from behind, then front, left, right, and the ceiling… there is a sequence! And it seems the large spears cannot emerge from the ceiling!"
While covering Namgung Min, Myeong-seong attempted to analyze the patterns in his own way.
"Do they teach you about mechanism formations at the Mount Hua Sect?"
"No, not really. This is my first time entering a place like this as well."
To grasp the pattern at a glance in a place he had never been before—his observational skills were truly remarkable. Although there were occasional exceptions, the rules Myeong-seong discovered were mostly correct.
"The color of the wall over there is different!"
I could only identify where the spears were coming from after hearing the rattling sound, but he was even predicting where the formations would trigger in advance.
If this had been written as a math problem, I would have found the rule quickly, too. But being inside the space itself, it wasn't easy to even realize such a thing existed. I listened to him earnestly, thinking it might be helpful if I ever took a course related to mechanism formations in the future.
About a quarter of an hour passed like that.
‘I think we’ve scouted enough by now.’
I began to feel frustrated. At first, of course, I had been cautious since I knew nothing about mechanism formations.
What if water suddenly flooded the room, or the walls started closing in? What if poisonous gas was released, or hopping corpses jumped out?
But there was nothing of the sort here. There were no complex formations; it was just a device made purely of mechanical parts.
‘At this speed, I could dodge them even if they flew from all four directions at once.’
Spears, spears, and more spears. Whether we moved forward in the corridor or entered the rooms on the sides, it was all just spears. After experiencing them flying at us several times, I no longer even felt that it was dangerous.
For one, they were slow. The speed was such that you could see them and react in time. And the spearheads weren't very sharp, designed so as not to inflict fatal wounds. Well, it would still hurt quite a bit if you got hit.
Earlier, when Myeong-seong said they must have sent us to a place we could overcome if we worked together, I had my doubts. But it really was a place the academy had assigned with full consideration for the students' skill levels.
‘Both of them seem way too scared…’
Is it because they are young? Because they lack real combat experience and have never been seriously injured?
Of course, aside from my death in my previous life, I hadn't been severely injured either. But even during the entrance exam I watched, many children were wounded by Eun-hyun’s blade. And the student named Dan-li-hyang recovered quickly thanks to the Small Return Pellet provided by the martial arts instructor. I was certain they wouldn't let us die, as they would surely take similar measures.
‘Can’t we pick up the pace a little? It would be troublesome if we don’t find the antidote here and the situation outside ends while we’re just dragging our feet.’
I was anxious because I still had the backup plan of stealing another student's antidote in case we failed. Besides, I have my own problems to worry about. If I can't use any internal energy for a whole month, won't it be difficult to show off my abilities and receive medicinal pills as a reward?
"Hey."
I opened my mouth to urge the two of them on.
"…"
"Ah, um. Is there something?"
"No, it’s nothing."
But Namgung Min only stared ahead as if she could bore a hole through the wall with her gaze, and Myeong-seong remained completely tense. If I, who had been "riding the bus" this whole time, told them to move faster, they would surely get angry.
‘Is it really necessary to go this far… No, wait. Could it be that I am superior to Namgung Min when it comes to eye-sight and external martial arts?’
A hypothesis occurred to me amidst my frustration. If they had seen the spears at the same speed I did, neither Namgung Min nor Myeong-seong would be this tense. Honestly, it didn't feel like I would get hit no matter what.
Because of the Nine Yin Severed Meridians, I had been training my external martial arts for years without using the Yin-Cold Qi I had accumulated. Although I had gathered a small amount of non-Yin-natured internal energy to use for things like light-body techniques, I had become very accustomed to dodging or deflecting attacks from opponents who were stronger and faster than me—those who fought using far greater amounts of internal energy—rather than clashing head-on. So, it must have been why seeing and dodging the spears didn't feel difficult at all.
Thinking that, everything suddenly made sense. Unlike me, the two of them, who relied heavily on internal energy, were perceiving the speed of the spears as much faster than I was. That was why they were having such a hard time grasping the situation objectively!
‘Come to think of it, I am the top talent of the Ice Palace. The Nine Yin Severed Meridians is also a genius-level constitution in its own way.’
Perhaps my father wasn't exaggerating. Maybe I really am… among the quite strong ones.
During the entrance exam, was Eun-hyun not holding back, but actually giving it his 100% best? Am I a little, no, a lot more talented than I thought? I knew I wasn't ordinary because I had physical abilities that were incomparable to my previous life, but since I wasn't a martial artist back then, I hadn't been able to make a proper comparison until now.
‘It seems I really am quite strong…!’
Seeing Myeong-seong barely dodge a spear that Namgung Min had missed, I became even more convinced. A student at the level of a top-ranking student in a rural school might be a dime a dozen in a prestigious district, but sometimes that top student can also be the valedictorian at a top university.
I made up my mind.
"Hey."
I called out to the two of them, who were gripping their swords tightly in extreme tension.
"I’m going to go check up to that point to see if there are any other devices besides the spears."
I pointed to the end of the long corridor. We had been moving slowly, checking the corridor and the rooms on both sides together, but at this rate, it would take all day.
"It’s dangerous!"
Myeong-seong was startled.
"It’s problematic to act on your own outside of the formation."
Namgung Min warned me coldly. All we were doing was holding our swords out. Is this even a formation?
"I think I can see them and dodge them well enough. Don't worry about me; wouldn't it be fine for you two to stay together and watch each other's backs?"
They were very scared right now, but they weren't so weak that I needed to look after them. I hadn't done anything up until now anyway. If they moved slowly while keeping an eye on their surroundings like this, they wouldn't get seriously hurt.
"If you get hurt after wandering off alone, I won't be able to help you."
Namgung Min narrowed her eyes and turned her body toward me. At the same time, the blade of the sword she was holding pointed toward me. Honestly, if she wanted to look at someone, she should have put her sword behind her back or back into its scabbard. She was a friend who lacked basic manners.
"Yeah. Don't worry about me."
Since they had essentially given me the go-ahead, I left the two of them behind and strode forward.
*Tap, tap-tap, tap!*
Until I was some distance away from them, I deliberately widened my stride so that the spears wouldn't fly at me as much as possible. Unlike Namgung Min, I dodged the spears I could easily avoid and deflected the ones aimed at my back to change their trajectory.
"Miss Seol!"
I wasn't moving cautiously like before; I sprinted to the end of the corridor, and it took less than a minute.
"A-are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. There’s nothing much here."
I answered Myeong-seong’s question as I ran down the corridor.
‘Ugh, it’s a bust.’
But unfortunately, there was nothing at the end of the corridor.
While the antidotes for other students were written in intuitive locations, our group's plaque only said "Inside," so I had secretly hoped that the antidote would appear just by passing through the corridor. It seemed the conditions weren't that simple.
In the end, do we have to check all these rooms? It would be better to split up and search as originally planned.
"There’s nothing in the corridor! You two check the rooms starting from that side. I’ll look from this end!"
It might be a bit slow over there, but it would be better than just standing still. When I shouted loudly,
"Are you sure that’s alright?"
Myeong-seong’s voice reached me a moment later.
"Yeah! If you find anything, let me know right away!"
Namgung Min didn’t say anything, but it was she who had suggested dividing the area in the first place. Since she didn’t object, I took her silence as tacit agreement and opened the door to my side.
“Whoa.”
The floor collapsed the moment I opened the door. Using the door I was holding as leverage, I pushed off and vaulted over the pit.
Sometimes, spears were embedded in the spots where I was meant to step, and contrary to Myeong-seong’s analysis, massive spears would occasionally burst out from the ceiling. Regardless, the traps were simple and my progress was slow.
“Not here, either.”
After throwing open several doors, I even stumbled upon a room that looked like a lecture hall. Was I supposed to attend a lecture on spear techniques here? Setting aside the fact that it wasn’t particularly dangerous to me, I had no desire to take a class on spear techniques.
“What’s this?”
Since there were bookshelves and drawers in the lecture hall, I wondered if something might be hidden inside and began opening them one by one. I even found a plaque with the character ‘功’ (Gong) inscribed on it.
Did they forget to clear it out after class last year? Or was it placed there on purpose? Thinking it might come in handy later, I tucked it into my money pouch for the time being.
“Wow, there are so many books, too.”
I eventually came across a room that resembled a study, where all four walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Surely they wouldn’t expect me to dump out every single book to see if an antidote was tucked between the pages, would they? With a sinking feeling, I flipped through a few of them. Ah, were they all about spear techniques? It was astonishing that there were so many martial arts manuals dedicated to the spear.
However, no matter how much I wandered around, not a single spear trap triggered in this room. Every other room so far had been rigged without exception. I deliberately ran around, stomping on various parts of the floor.
Still, there was no reaction.
“Hmm.”
I had a strong hunch that something was hidden here. If not the floor, then the walls? Since the walls were covered entirely in bookshelves, I shook them with just enough force to ensure the books wouldn’t fall. Even if they did fall, it would be the fault of the academy master for sending us here, but did schools ever operate with such common sense?
Even so, they might just force me to put every single book back.
‘Oh!’
As I carefully examined the shelves,
*Click.*
I soon discovered two bookshelves sliding apart to either side.
“Oh, I’m lucky.”
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