The Eve Festival (2)

It was a strange experience.

Even as muscles and bones broke and reknit at will, he felt no pain at all.

The merciless heat gathering in his lower abdomen also felt only hot, with no pain. The pain vanishing all at once even made him uneasy.

Jin-hyeon quickly came to his senses.

‘Done.’

Muscles tore and reattached; bones crumbled fine and rejoined. From the countless threads fanned out below his nape, iridescent lights clamored.

The process of change was perilous yet smooth.

Using the perfected Body-Refining Qi as feed, the True Qi that had transformed into Extreme Yang Qi was like a bomb in itself.

To place the word Heavenly Wolf before this True Qi, another change was needed.

This change was something even Jin-hyeon, who had lived the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader’s life, had not known. But he could read the intent.

It was a change to grant strong heat resistance to the body and dantian. Apart from being wholly consumed, the Body-Refining Art itself was running together with the Heavenly Wolf True Art, acting to protect the body in double layers.

It had lost everything of itself, yet its will remained.

Even without chanting the mnemonic, the martial art lived and moved. The Soul-Refining Art, paired with Body-Refining Art, led the now blind servant that Body-Refining Art had become, tilling its master’s field.

‘Thank you.’

Though neither person nor beast, he was grateful for the Body-Refining Art’s endless devotion.

How much time had passed like that?

Huk!

The flames clinging here and there to his body vanished, leaving only a faint lingering fire.

Under the full moon’s Yin Qi, an energy hotter than lava and fierce like a bomb rotated loftily, changing its color.

From translucent white, slowly to a bluish light.

It differed in grain from the blue that Body-Refining Qi had shown. It seemed like the sea seen from afar, or a hue of the cosmos beyond a cloudless sky.

Another hour passed.

At last the True Qi that turned and changed color settled stably into place.

Jin-hyeon took a deep breath.

Pureureureu!

It was as if a beast’s breathing was heard from somewhere.

At last, the Heavenly Wolf True Qi was born. Of the six stages of the Heavenly Wolf True Art, he took the first step—entering the first of the Six Paths, the Wolf-Call Path.

‘At last.’

It was initiation into the Heavenly Wolf True Art.

His heart pounded. The Heavenly Wolf Qi seated in his dantian seemed to lift its head and roar.

Saaaak!

Strength overflowed from all his muscles.

If he kicked the ground, he felt he could run forty kilometers in one stride; if he swung his hand, he could easily split rock. Different in nature from Body-Refining Qi, yet by converting to Heavenly Wolf Qi alone, the arts he used would become stronger and more ferocious.

After a few deep breaths to calm his pounding heart, Jin-hyeon suddenly thought it a pity to stop at this state.

He lifted his gaze to the sky again.

A broken mass of clouds in the distance moved to cover the full moon. At their speed, they would arrive within a quarter-hour.

‘With the full moon’s Yin Qi shining, stopping at the Wolf-Call Path is far too modest.’

The Wolf-Call Path, first of the Six Paths, merely signified initiation into the Heavenly Wolf True Art.

Of course even that alone made him stronger than before, but strictly speaking it raised no level. He had only learned a different martial art.

‘I can go to the next.’

If the three dantians, upper, middle, lower, did not respond perfectly, much polishing would be needed even at Wolf-Call. In the first place, the complete consonance of the three dantians was only possible upon reaching the third path.

But Jin-hyeon was different. Over a thousand years side by side with the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader let him awaken the three dantians quickly. Thanks to that, the Body-Refining Art’s tempering could also be sped up.

‘Heading straight to the third path right now is overboard, but…’

Entering the next stage after Wolf-Call, the second path, was possible. As a rule, the level of martial skill he now wielded corresponded to the second path when applied to the Heavenly Wolf True Art.

‘Let’s go.’

He closed his eyes again and murmured the Heavenly Wolf True Art’s mnemonic.

Paak!

The Heavenly Wolf Qi that had settled stable shot out to his limbs like lightning. It began to assault the blocked acupoints and then the fine meridians.

For perfect opening of the points in the core of inner-energy circulation, the Ren and Du meridians, more acupoints had to be opened.

Tududuk!

This time there was considerable pain.

It felt like needles stabbing down to every finger joint. But compared to when he’d just entered, this pain was nothing.

The hot heat became countless skeins of thread and reached every corner of the body.

As blocked points opened and fine meridians were released, abundant Qi lodged even in the extremities and the minutest corners.

His breathing’s depth changed, and it felt like his skin breathed alive. In truth, unrefined natural Qi seeped through the skin, expelling turbid energy on its own and drawing in only a minute amount of pure energy through the fine meridians.

The many grain-like energies drawn in were devoured at once by the Heavenly Wolf Qi. Engorged, it grew in size and density, returned to the dantian, then spread through the whole body again, repeating.

Hwoooong!

The wind grew stronger, or so Jin-hyeon felt.

In truth, the wind had not strengthened; only the draw from whole-body breathing had. His body opened mouths everywhere to suck in more Qi.

Grains gathering repeatedly over and over again.

The Heavenly Wolf Qi, having eaten the grains, swelled amply.

As the energy grew, the lower dantian expanded to match. To fill the emptiness of the expanded dantian, the body drew in surrounding energy all the more.

Time passed like that, until the long cloud was just about to touch the full moon.

The Heavenly Wolf Qi split in an instant into two and headed along the Ren and Du meridians.

Peo-peo-peo-peong!

It was like firecrackers bursting inside his body.

Because the Soul-Refining Art had sufficiently activated the upper dantian, the pressure points in the head were all half-melted. The Heavenly Wolf Qi swept along that path, and in an instant the points were clear.

There was no special pain, no great shock.

Thus the Heavenly Wolf Qi, having opened both the Ren and Du, underwent another evolution.

Kureung.

It was as if lightning flashed around the blue Heavenly Wolf Qi.

The energy itself felt like it bared fangs. Fierce and perilous like a bomb, it met a change like the former Body-Refining Art, living and breathing on its own.

Jin-hyeon’s eyes flashed open.

Hwaaaak!

Energy filled his whole body.

He wanted to open his mouth and shout without meaning to. He wanted to draw out this power and hurl it everywhere at once.

An unmanageable power. Had he not tempered his body with the Body-Refining Art, he would have been swept away by the energy itself.

‘Done.’

Joy colored Jin-hyeon’s face.

Beyond initiation, he had entered the second path, the Cunning Wolf Path, the stage that was the true beginning and could be realized stably.

By rights, only upon reaching the peak of Cunning Wolf Path does one pierce the minor meridians and open both channels. Having opened all the body’s points to enter the second path, if he only raised the level of Cunning Wolf itself, he could quickly enter the third stage, the third path.

‘It’s still lacking, but…’

Jin-hyeon thought of the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader.

He was a strong man who had reached the fifth path of the six.

The final sixth path was in effect the realm of casting off the flesh and ascending to the rank of an immortal, and so it was near-unfinished. In short, the Alliance Leader had seen the end of what a human could reach.

The second path and the fifth.

Merely three stages apart, yet truly a world apart. How much effort and sacrifice it would take to reach that level, he could not know.

‘For now, this is enough.’

Jin-hyeon rose to his feet.

The sequence of releasing his lotus position, setting his foot to the ground, and standing was smooth as flowing water. With overflowing strength, he nearly leapt into the air.

“Hoo.”

A light breath came out white.

Looking up, the full moon’s light appeared and vanished between passing clouds.

Was it just feeling? When the rich moonlight showed, the rampaging energy seemed to quiet, when hidden, the True Qi seemed to bare fangs.

Jin-hyeon smiled.

“The essence of the night… Feels like a wolf monster out of a tale.”

In the place where he meant to begin his true life, he announced the start of true martial arts.

Reining in the energy that wanted to rampage, Jin-hyeon descended the hill.

His lengthening shadow looked like a fierce beast with a long snout.

Walking the marketplace streets, Seol So-ha suddenly glanced around.

There were still many people. Bustling and noisy, laughter burst out here and there, filling the place with joy.

‘It’s different.’

Looking at them, Seol So-ha felt her own change.

Only a few months ago, these streets had weighed on her.

The reason was clear. Hearing people’s noisy talk, she would get angry without knowing, and her head would swim.

But not now. Strangely enough, after training the Tianshan’s Ten-Thousand-Year Only-White Art, the stimuli coming in from outside had greatly lessened.

Seol So-ha recalled her talk with Jin-hyeon.

“There’s a big problem with the Snow-Mountain Heart Method. On the surface it looks like a decent first-rate martial art, but in truth it’s an aberrant art that sucks out origin essence, the source of life.”

‘!’

“As I told the Patriarch, when origin essence is damaged, the symptoms differ by person. Some dislocate joints easily; some have fingernails and toenails that break easily. Or none at all. But in Lady Seol’s case…”

“Mania.”

“Right. I see this as essentially close to a bloodline issue.”

“Bloodline?”

“Hard to explain. Let’s talk about this part later.”

There had been strong conviction in Jin-hyeon’s words.

That conviction stemmed from vast knowledge and experience. Even without knowing his past, Seol So-ha could feel how tremendous his knowledge was.

Indeed, after returning from a trip to tend patients, Woo Jang-ho began examining Seol Hong-baek’s body again. He found Jin-hyeon’s words plausible.

‘If so…’

She lifted her bamboo hat slightly and looked up at the sky.

The cloudless night sky filled with countless stars was truly beautiful.

‘Teacher Jin is not merely a benefactor who passed down the clan’s arts, but a benefactor who saved all our lives.’

At first, for a time, Seol So-ha could not fully trust Jin-hyeon. Apart from gratitude, she thought such a serendipitous encounter was not easy to come by.

But now it was different.

Seol So-ha was deeply grateful to Jin-hyeon. In this harsh world, even among fellow disciples, it was no easy thing to share such precious martial arts without reserve.

And the reason alone was that he had cared for her who had collapsed.

With character like that, he would have taught them had the chance arisen, even if he had not cared for her.

‘Father knew that Teacher Jin had no crooked intent.’

His experience from running the clan was different. She could not help but admire her father’s eye.

‘I must work hard too. To become like Father and to repay Teacher’s grace.’

Jin-hyeon was also her teacher. Though they had not formally bound as master and disciple, without him she could not have made the Tianshan’s Ten-Thousand-Year Only-White Art and the Moonlit Snow Shadow Sword settle in her body so quickly.

Seol So-ha thought of Jin-hyeon.

That face, eyes round with dumpling filling smeared about the mouth, now felt very dear.

‘Since I thought of it, I should buy him dumplings.’

It was just ahead, as it happened.

Searching for the shop, Seol So-ha could not help inward puzzlement.

‘I truly can’t find it.’

Though familiar, it was hard to find where it was.

The path was not complicated. It was somewhat in, but clearly set by the roadside. It should not have been something to wander over.

Yet every time she came alone it was hard to find.

‘Only when I come here does my head seem to stiffen.’

After glancing about a few times, Seol So-ha finally managed to find the shop.

Sadly, it was closed today. It seemed something had come up for the owner.

‘What a pity.’

Clicking her tongue inwardly, Seol So-ha set off again.

How long did she walk?

Walking without thinking, suddenly talk that pricked her ears came.

“Ahh, what’s going on in this peaceful neighborhood?”

“Tell me about it. Gok, mischievous as he was, was a truly good person.”

“Two days ago, they say the old master at Seong Family Cloth Shop had his son and daughter-in-law meet a tragic end?”

“A sad thing. They say it was truly a gruesome murder. Shocked by it, the old master himself is now hovering at death’s door.”

“Damn it. Shouldn’t the Investigation and Defense Court be stepping in?”

“They say the constables moved, but, well, only just now were sent in.”

“Hope nothing more happens from here on.”

It was not talk she could just hear and pass. At least, the peace of this area was also the Seol Clan’s concern.

Seol So-ha approached the two.

“About what you just said, please tell me the details.”