Chapter 20
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“W-w-w-what?”
I was flustered.
What is this? Why did it come out so easily?
Didn’t they just say that no cadet had been able to pull this sword out since it was brought here three years ago?
“Uh… Huh? What is this? How did you pull it out? Even the Mad Flame Saber couldn’t budge it when he tried to break it!”
The blacksmith was just as bewildered.
Wait, even the martial arts instructors had failed?
If that was the case, it was hard to believe it had simply been stuck tightly.
I began to suspect that the demonic energy of the rock had been holding the sword, or perhaps the other way around.
“I didn’t do anything…?”
I couldn’t answer the blacksmith’s question.
Even if he asked how I did it, the truth was that I had done absolutely nothing.
“It’s been stuck in that rock for years, so how is the blade not damaged at all…?”
It was clear that the blacksmith was seeing the blade for the first time, too.
He walked over with his mouth agape and examined the sword with a serious expression.
“Ten-thousand-fold refined steel, forged by folding meteorite iron ten thousand times…!”
Even without an expert’s opinion, I could tell that this item was incomparable to any other sword in this room.
“Huh?”
Just then, So-woon, who had been looking at the sword with me, pointed at the blade.
At the same time, I noticed an anomaly as well.
When I first pulled it out, the blade had clearly been clean.
The moment I became conscious of it, I felt a tiny bit of energy from my body being sucked into the sword.
Then, the energy lingering around the sword converged into one point.
The subtle energy transformed into a distinct black color, and characters became clearly visible.
— — —
「Supreme Demon Sovereign Who Defies the Heavens (逆天行道 萬魔至尊)」
— — —
“Crazy, what is this!”
I covered my mouth with my left hand.
I shouted, forgetting to maintain my composure for a moment.
To think it even had such a suspicious feature.
There was no need for the blacksmith to vouch for it; at a glance, I knew this was no ordinary sword.
Especially when it went as far as to call itself the “Supreme Demon Sovereign.”
‘Don’t tell me this is the sword the Heavenly Demon used?’
Naturally, I thought it unlikely that such an item would be left abandoned in the Heavenly Mountains for years after the Great War of Righteous and Evil, but a part of me couldn’t help but wonder.
No, should I call it hope?
“Since I pulled it out, give it to me!”
I asserted my ownership first.
I had originally come to the smithy to get a sword for So-woon, but now that I had my hands on a sword that looked incredibly impressive, I became greedy.
“What?”
“It’s completely mine, isn’t it? I’m the one who pulled it out after no one else could for three years. It wouldn’t be right to leave it here and let someone else take it, would it?”
“W-well, that is true, but…”
The blacksmith understood the unique situation, but he hesitated, unable to simply acknowledge the sword as mine.
“Is the Academy rule the problem?”
“Hmm, well, you need merit points just to enter this place, and the Sword of Radiant Light specifically requested a sword for this girl here.”
Aish, as if I would tell So-woon to go without a sword because I wanted this one!
“Can’t you put it on credit? You said it was 100 merit points. I’ll work every day and be the first to earn them! I won’t tell anyone I got it on credit. So-woon will keep it a secret too, right?”
If it were truly impossible, wouldn’t he have just said no?
Given his ambiguous attitude, there had to be hope.
I pushed hard to get the sword, and I even handed him the small merit plaque I had found in the Long Spear Pavilion.
“Alright, alright… Sigh, there’s no rule saying credit isn’t allowed, so pay the merit points later and take it for now. At a glance, it seems the sword chose you, and it’s not like it should just be left here again.”
In the end, the blacksmith acknowledged my ownership.
He said he didn’t believe in supernatural phenomena, yet he claimed the sword chose me?
I thought my pestering had worked, but it seemed he was referring to the fact that the demonic energy that had been emanating from the sword and rock combined had vanished.
“Does this mean I am the Supreme Demon Sovereign?”
“……Never say that in front of your elders. And try not to say it where the martial instructors can hear you, either!”
“Ah, yes.”
Regardless, since he said I could have the sword, I calmed my excitement and nodded.
“For now, use this scabbard. I’ll have a proper one made for you later.”
“……Thank you!”
The blacksmith even threw in a scabbard.
I had come on an errand and ended up with a precious-looking sword, so I was in a great mood.
“To think you pulled out a sword no one else could—you really are amazing, Miss Seol Sool-ryeo.”
I cleared my throat as we left the smithy.
“Ahem, aren’t you disappointed that you didn’t try it first?”
“Yes……? Not at all!”
So-woon’s face turned bright red.
Does she lack material desire?
A drive for improvement is quite important for martial arts training, after all.
I strapped the new sword to my waist and walked out with a heart entirely different from the tension I felt when I entered.
“I feel like I should give it a name, hmm… What would people say if I called it the Sword of Ten Thousand Demons?”
“Haha, that might be a bit…”
Even though twenty years had passed since the Great War of Righteous and Evil, calling it that in the heart of the righteous Murim would indeed be a bit much.
It would be better not to include the character for ‘Demon’ (魔).
Since I pulled it from a rock, should I call it Excalibur?
What was Excalibur in Hanja?
It’s the King’s sword, so King (王)…
“……Now that I think about it, I don’t think I need to give it a name.”
“I think so too.”
The Sword of the King (王者之劍) sounded a bit off.
I decided to call this sword Excalibur only in my heart.
— — —
* * *
— — —
The afternoon class was Basic Internal Energy.
There was still some time left, but it was awkward to do anything else, so So-woon and I headed to the lecture hall early.
The martial instructor in charge was a Daoist from the Wudang Sect who went by the name Heo-gong.
“I am glad you managed to find the antidote.”
“I came to the Academy in the name of Wudang, after all; I cannot go about without internal energy.”
Unlike Zhuge In, who arrived exactly on time, Heo-gong was already sitting in the lecture hall, chatting with a disciple from his own sect who had been showing off his pride in drawing water earlier.
I think the Wudang disciple was in the same group as Maeng Ryeong-ji—did he take it from another cadet?
Anyway, the instructor looked like a benevolent grandfather on the surface, but after what happened with Great Monk Seon-gak, I couldn’t let my guard down.
“Hmm? Did you originally have two swords?”
Maeng Ryeong-ji, who arrived slightly after So-woon and me, noticed the change.
Most cadets carried only one sword or saber, but it wasn’t unheard of—Maeng Ryeong-ji herself carried two axes on her back, and there were other cadets who carried two swords.
“I just happened to come across one. There are many strange things in the Academy.”
I gave a vague excuse.
“Did you go to the stone caves already?”
“Stone caves?”
“My brother said that if you go to the mountain behind the Academy, you can sometimes find strange artifacts in the stone caves.”
She made a random guess.
When she asked if it was a good sword, I told her I wasn’t sure yet, and she didn’t pay it much mind.
“Everyone is here. It’s a bit early, but let’s begin.”
Everyone had already arrived, listening to Heo-gong talk to the Wudang disciple or chatting among themselves.
As soon as Heo-gong opened his mouth, the cadets’ attention was focused.
“Sigh.”
He started with a sigh.
“This class is quite a predicament. The Academy Master is really… to strip away one-third of the cadets’ internal energy and then tell me to teach an internal energy class—isn’t that too much?”
I agreed entirely.
If he thought it was unreasonable, he could have stopped it.
Like Gwak Do-cheon, it seemed he couldn’t defy the Academy Master.
“Still, since I’m told to do it, I must… Oh, I shouldn’t have owed that Great Monk Seon-gak a favor. Such is my fate.”
Heo-gong sighed deeply a few more times before continuing.
“Most of you will already have internal energy cultivation methods you learned from your clans or sects. In truth, you likely don’t expect much from me, so you may consider this time as an opportunity to focus on your Energy Circulation Breathing.”
He categorized the children.
High-nosed clans like the Namgung Clan taught their own family members internal energy cultivation methods from a very young age, and they possessed dozens, even hundreds of types of martial arts.
He meant that he had no intention of forcing the Academy’s system on such children.
“If you have questions, ask them, and if I see you doing something wrong, I will point it out. Thanks to the fact that most of your clans and sects willingly handed over their martial arts due to Seon-gak’s threats… no, for the sake of the grand plan of the righteous Murim, we have conducted extensive research. So, there is no need to doubt that a layman is spouting nonsense.”
I had heard that when the Academy was founded, they had semi-forcibly extorted donations from the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Clans.
So that included martial arts manuals, too.
They hadn’t handed over their core secret techniques, but since no cadet at this age would reach that level anyway, it was fine. He assured us that even if it wasn’t a method he was intimately familiar with, he could at least offer advice.
“Of course, if you wish, it would be good to learn the Heavenly Martial Academy’s new internal energy cultivation method. It is a method with extremely low resistance, so it will blend with most of your internal energy without issue. It was created by Seon-gak, myself, and several other martial instructors who have reached high realms putting our heads together. Although its history is less than twenty years, I am confident that it loses to none.”
It was a statement that clashed head-on with the common sentiment in the Murim of ‘the present is not as good as the past’ (今不如古).
The belief that the manuals left by the ancestors hundreds of years ago were the greatest, and that as time passed, the oral formulas were lost or understanding diminished, causing the quality of martial arts to decline.
Considering Heo-gong’s age, he seemed to be at the level of an elder.
If someone belonging to the Nine Great Sects could say it “loses to none,” he must truly be confident.
“…….”
Of course, the cadets from the Heavenly Mandate Pavilion and the Earthly Righteous Pavilion had sour expressions, but my friends from the dormitory, who had had few opportunities to encounter proper internal energy cultivation methods, had their eyes shining.
“Those who wish to study on their own, go that way. I will guide you to the training hall.”
About half of them stood up and moved in the direction Heo-gong pointed.
If it were me, I would have wanted to learn a new internal energy cultivation method out of curiosity, but there were far more of them than I had expected.
“Um, excuse me… what should the cadets who cannot use their internal energy due to the Energy-Dispersing Poison do?”
A child started to stand up, then hesitated and asked a question.
They seemed to want to go to the training hall rather than learn a new internal energy method here.
It appeared they were in a state where they could not perform Energy Circulation Breathing due to the Energy-Dispersing Poison.
“That is indeed the problem.”
At that question, Heo-gong let out a deep sigh.
He had been feeling quite frustrated about this very issue since the lecture began.
“There is no choice but to build a solid foundation, starting from the very basics. Ahem.”
“The basics?”
“The foundation of any internal energy cultivation method is... surely the study of acupoints, is it not?”
Acupoints? Pressure points?
“It is laughable to discuss energy circulation when one cannot even memorize the Twelve Standard Meridians. Now, take this.”
Heo-gong held out a stack of papers.
It was a coloring exercise that required filling in the blanks and marking the areas governed by each acupoint.
Surviving as the Heiress with a Limited Time Left in the Arctic Ice Palace (Serialized)
Author │ Musk Deer
Publisher │ Kim Joo-hyung
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ⓒMusk Deer 2026
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