Volume 1, Chapter 23
Yu Hyeonjun opened his eyes.
The morning air greeted him.
“Oh dear! I’m late.”
He had overslept.
He hadn't even had a nightmare.
He couldn't even remember the last time he had lazed about and slept in like this.
Not once since vowing revenge had he overslept. No, he couldn't. There was no time.
He had to rely on just two secret manuals.
One for an Internal Energy Heart Method, one for Swordsmanship.
And he had started late in life.
So even the time spent sleeping felt like a waste.
No, every single moment was precious.
He trained, collapsed, and slept as if he had fainted. When he regained consciousness, he would train again.
The blood-soaked house.
The gruesome corpse of his dead wife.
His children, whose bodies were never even found.
For that revenge, he would have done anything.
He wore down his body. His spirit was ground away.
Even when he laughed, it wasn't truly laughter. Even when he cried, it wasn't truly weeping.
Even when he breathed, he wasn't truly alive.
It was the same even after he reached a certain state of mastery.
He had nightmares every night.
When he closed his eyes, he saw his dead wife, his children whose bodies were never found.
They poured out their resentment. They rained down curses. They desperately sought him out. They looked for their husband, for their father. And yet, he could do nothing.
He had the same dream every day.
Hell was not far away.
Being alive, breathing, was already hell.
But not anymore.
His Head Disciple. Lee Hoo.
The child he took in, who reminded him of his dead son.
Always a quiet and good child. The child who, in his stead, shouldered the large and small affairs of the sect without a word of complaint.
It was because of that child.
When that child first came to him and declared his rebellion, saying he would live recklessly. When he opened his Myriad Liberations on his own. When he stepped forward to fight for his junior brothers and sisters. When he was endangered by the threat of an assassin.
Only then did he realize that child was his disciple.
He realized he was needed, that this was a child he had to protect and take responsibility for.
He realized how indifferent he had been until then, how he had simply brought the child here and left him neglected.
And so, for the first time, he confessed his past to that child.
That alone changed many things.
The life he lived only because he could not die had changed.
It was the first time.
The first time he had ever waited for the day he would return to the Sincerity Gate while on a trip to find a lead for his revenge.
Until then, the Sincerity Gate had been merely a place to stay for a while.
So he had no particular attachment to it.
That was what the Sincerity Gate had been, yet this time, he waited for the day he would return.
As if longing for home.
Yes.
When he met a good woman, started a family, had children, and lived together with them.
A home, something he hadn't had since then.
It had become such a home.
The Sincerity Gate.
A place that had been nothing more than a temporary stop had become a place to return to.
It had become a place he wished to return to.
That, too, was because of his Head Disciple, Lee Hoo.
And so he had returned.
He saw his Head Disciple, who had grown so much in the mere few days he had been away.
It was surprising and gratifying to see him having once again broken out of his shell on his own.
He had grown much taller, and his body was well-balanced, a sign he had not neglected his training.
That wasn't the only thing that had changed.
—Please teach me.
Chaehwa.
The third disciple to enter the Sincerity Gate, and the only female one.
The child who had been particularly intimidated by him.
And so, that child, with whom he had never even properly exchanged a word, spoke to him first.
Tug, tug.
She pulled on the hem of his clothes and met his gaze.
It was an astonishing change.
—Martial Arts! Teach me Martial Arts!
Amid that astonishing change, Chaehwa unreservedly demanded to be taught Martial Arts.
A bold and confident demand.
Her eyes looked as if she were asking for something that had been left in his care.
He was flustered.
It was the first time Chaehwa had spoken to him first, the first time she had ever asked for something like this.
But, thinking about it again, a smile came to his lips.
‘She’s right, it was left in my care. Yes. It was something entrusted to me.’
Chaehwa was his disciple, too.
Lee Hoo, Dan Goyul, Chaehwa, and Hohyeon.
All four were disciples of the Sincerity Gate, disciples he had taken in himself.
So it was no different from something left in his care.
A master, by nature, was one who passed on what he had learned to his disciples.
How could he have been so unaware of that until now?
Negligence to this degree was a sin.
No, he had known. He had simply been afraid they would walk the same agonizing path as him.
So he looked away. He pretended not to know, and he forgot.
But he intended to do so no longer.
He would face it.
Lee Hoo had already opened a different path from his own.
So now he knew that his disciples could avoid opening the same path he had.
They were still young, but each would have their own life, their own values, and their own future.
Therefore, they would find their own Myriad Liberations and their own Heaven's Will.
He decided to think of it that way.
His heart felt much lighter.
Besides, wasn't Lee Hoo there?
Lee Hoo, who had already found his own path, would be a good guide for the other disciples.
That was enough.
“You rascal. Are you trying to make even your worthless master grow?”
He recalled Lee Hoo, who had grown so much in the short time he hadn't seen him.
Lee Hoo had not grown alone.
He had made him see what he could not, and face what he had tried to ignore.
He had given him a reason to live in the hell where he had lived only because he could not die, and had created a home to which he could always return, no matter where he went.
It was an enlightenment.
An enlightenment of daily life.
It was not an enlightenment of Martial Arts, so it did not offer a glimpse into a new realm in an instant.
But perhaps for that very reason, it was more valuable, more noble.
For it was an enlightenment that served as the foundation for his growth as a human being.
It was a pleasant morning.
He rose and opened the door to his room.
Through the open door, along with the chirping of birds, warm sunlight poured into the room.
And among the things pouring in was the sound of children's laughter.
“Ahahahaha! Senior Brother! Run! Run! Hohyeon is the fastest!”
“Hohyeon, you’re cheating!”
“Senior Brother, let’s go together.”
The children were running along the wall.
Hohyeon, the youngest, was on the back of the Head Disciple, Lee Hoo, and was ecstatic.
Clinging to Lee Hoo's back like a cicada, he burst into bright laughter.
And following behind them were Chaehwa and Dan Goyul.
They were smiling.
The day he had said he would teach them Swordsmanship.
Lee Hoo had dropped his sword.
After that, he had run every day, whenever he had a spare moment. That was the scene he had witnessed before leaving the sect.
And now, that scene had changed.
He doesn't run alone.
They are running together. And they are all smiling.
Hohyeon, who seems to have not a care in the world, but is in fact the most timid.
Chaehwa, who among all the disciples had been particularly intimidated by him.
And even Dan Goyul, who rarely showed a smile and always kept his distance from others.
All of those children are wearing joyful smiles. And they are running together.
“You’ve all changed so much.”
He felt the change.
He had changed, and his disciples had changed. And the Sincerity Gate had changed, too.
“That rascal!”
A laugh escaped him.
His gaze had, at some point, settled on the one at the very front of the disciples running along the wall.
There was the child who was the beginning and the center of all the change.
Head Disciple Lee Hoo.
Lee Hoo was smiling, too.
“This is good.”
Since the moment his every moment had turned into a living hell, had there ever been a moment this good?
They probably hadn't.
This very moment, right now.
Facing the scene unfolding before his eyes, he felt better than at any other moment he had spent in hell.
And for that, he was grateful.
It was miraculously astonishing.
* * *
It was a pleasant day.
Laughter never ceased at the Sincerity Gate all day long.
Playing, running, working.
At some point, they began to do all those things together.
At the dinner table, which had always been quiet except for Hohyeon, conversation blossomed.
Perhaps spurred on by Chaehwa's actions the day before, Dan Goyul even spoke to their Master first.
For the first time, their Master slyly placed a piece of meat on top of Dan Goyul's rice.
The look on Dan Goyul's face at that moment.
I had a hard time keeping myself from laughing at his flustered expression.
And amidst it all, Hohyeon's bright innocence as he declared that he liked meat side dishes too.
It was a different kind of dinner at the Sincerity Gate than ever before.
That was another reason it was a pleasant day.
And there was something else that was different from before.
Dan Goyul and Chaehwa.
After dinner was over, the two of them were to be taught Martial Arts.
For now, it was only the Internal Energy Heart Method.
Although it was Chaehwa who had asked to be taught Martial Arts, he couldn't possibly teach only her while leaving out her Senior Brother, Dan Goyul.
Myriad Seas Heart Method.
What Lee Hoo had learned. And what their Master had learned.
They were to learn these things.
This had happened much earlier than in his past life.
Not bad.
It was the established theory in the Murim that one should start learning Martial Arts at as young an age as possible.
Moreover, the two of them were destined to become great masters in the future.
Having been introduced to Martial Arts even a little sooner, they would surely be able to reach a level worthy of being called a Master in less time than in his past life.
And so, a pleasant day was drawing to a close.
After his junior brothers and sisters had gone to bed.
Lee Hoo looked up at the sky.
Stars twinkled in the night sky.
A crescent moon, like a small boat, shyly peeked out from between the clouds.
Then, he lowered his head and looked at his hands.
He was holding the sword, stained with the touch of his Master's hands.
Grip.
He clenched it tightly.
The sensation of it fitting snugly in his hand was not unpleasant.
‘At this level.’
He gauged it, holding the sword in his hand.
“Are you ready?”
He turned his head toward the voice he heard.
There stood his Master, Yu Hyeonjun.
‘Yes, at this level, I won’t drop it.’
It had only been ten days, but many things had happened in that time.
Thanks to those various events, he had now gained enough physical strength to wield the sword without dropping it.
That was why he had asked his Master first.
That he would try to perform the Heaven's Will Sword once more.
So there was no turning back now.
“Yes.”
Lee Hoo nodded.
“If so, then perform it.”
His Master took a step back. Lee Hoo knew this was a small consideration, allowing him to wield the Heaven's Will Sword to his heart's content.
“…”
He did not swing the sword right away.
He steadied his breath.
His Master was watching. He could feel his Master’s gaze.
Even though he had swung the Heaven's Will Sword countless times in his past life, he felt a needless tension in his heart.
But that tension was fleeting.
Soon, a smile graced his lips.
‘I already know I have no talent.’
It was pointless anxiety.
—You have no talent.
In his past life, he had been told twice by his Master that he had no talent.
Once when he received the Myriad Seas Heart Method, and again when he received the Heaven's Will Sword.
In truth, it was fair to say he had no talent whatsoever when it came to Martial Arts.
So what did it matter?
He had already heard that he had no talent in his past life.
He was simply showing him.
Showing him that he had memorized the path of the Heaven's Will Sword, and the path he had found during his ten days of training.
Thud!
He moved the sword.
Drawn with a powerful stomp, the sword cut diagonally through the air.
Thud!
Another stomp.
The tip of the sword, which had risen high in a diagonal slash, was now brought straight down.
Swish!
The sword, aimed at the ground, then swept wide as if to brush the floor.
It began with Drawing the Sword, followed by the Falling Sword and Earth-Turning.
The sword did not stop.
One by one, he unfolded the nineteen forms contained within the Heaven's Will Sword.
‘It’s still not enough.’
The tip of his sword wavered. It failed to stop precisely when it should have, overshooting its mark. The blade wobbled, and he lost his balance, missing a step.
He made many mistakes while performing the Heaven's Will Sword.
Though he did not drop the sword, his body was not yet trained enough to perform the Heaven's Will Sword perfectly.
It was a flawed performance.
‘It’s not as if I didn’t expect this.’
Nevertheless, Lee Hoo unfolded the sword forms without pause or hesitation.
He did his best.
Into the Heaven's Will Sword he performed, he tried to pour the Heaven's Will Sword he had wielded in his past life. He also tried to incorporate the Heaven's Will Sword his Master, Yu Hyeonjun, had shown him at the Chagon Gang. And he tried to include the Heaven's Will Sword he had discovered himself over the past ten days.
Fire's Ascent, Shadow Submersion, Turbulent Flow, Great Sword, Keen Sword, Without Greatness, Without Keenness, Flowing Over, Shattering Strength, Piercing Point, Deceptive Draw, Blunting Control, Solidifying Strength, Scattered Flight, and finally, Heavenly Completion.
Tap.
The final step.
The tip of the sword touched the ground.
And so, the final form ended.
“…”
Lee Hoo’s gaze followed the tip of his sword downward.
Sweat drenched his entire body. His heart pounded. His breath was ragged.
‘I have shown him everything.’
The Heaven's Will Sword, performed in what was a brief moment, was full of shortcomings and clumsiness, but Lee Hoo had done his best. He had focused.
That was enough.
“You…”
His Master’s voice reached his ears.
He already knew the answer.
‘You have no talent.’
It would be no different from his past life.
He knew that a Master who had reached the same level as his own possessed the ability to gauge the size and depth of a person’s vessel just by watching their swordsmanship.
So there was no need to be disappointed.
Hadn’t he already heard those words once before?
“…have talent.”
But the words that flowed from his Master’s lips were completely different from what Lee Hoo had expected.
“Pardon?”
His bowed head shot up. He looked at his Master.
“I said, you have talent.”
His Master confirmed that Lee Hoo had not misheard.
‘It’s changed.’
His Master was smiling.
—You have no talent.
Unlike his past life,
—You have talent.
It was the complete opposite assessment.
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