Chapter 94
Chapter 94: Third-rate Martial Family Becomes the Best Under Heaven
Could this… actually be a good idea…?
The lingering doubt echoed through Gu Ak’s thoughts with every step he took ascending the mountain trail.
Granted, his younger brother possessed an uncanny, almost frightening intellect…
Yet this plan seemed entirely unhinged. However he weighed the matter, orchestrating things like this felt like madness.
Gu Ak recalled the assignment Yanghwi had laid out for him the night prior.
“Brother Gu. Go seek out the greenwood bandits, let them fawn over you like an honored guest, conveniently ‘misplace’ the treasure map right under their noses, and stroll away.”
“Why can’t you handle this yourself, Little Brother? Why dump it on me…?”
“If someone bearing the radiant, upstanding aura of an orthodox chivalric hero suddenly waltzes in, those scoundrels will immediately raise their guard, won’t they?”
“Are you serious? Because from where I’m standing, nobody would ever mistake you for someone harmless.”
In all of Gu Ak’s years, he had never crossed paths with anyone whose tongue was sharper or fouler than Yanghwi’s.
Years ago, during Gu Ak’s days running with dark-path ruffians, he had genuinely marveled at how much his own cutthroats could learn from the boy’s venomous banter.
The most infuriating part was that Yanghwi had been all of eight years old back then. A mere eight-year-old brat whose cutting words could reduce hardened underworld villains to tears.
Yanghwi had simply scoffed at his remark:
“Be sensible. Just look at me. Tall, handsome, radiating righteous nobility — anyone setting eyes on me would immediately assume I’m an honorable champion of the orthodox sects, wouldn’t they?”
“…….”
A surge of helpless frustration had choked Gu Ak.
Why? Because the brat wasn’t wrong.
In all honesty, having reached fifteen years of age, Yanghwi had matured into an exceptionally striking young man. No one gazing upon him would ever imagine he had once scavenged the streets as a gutter beggar.
Provided he kept his mouth firmly shut, he gave off the exact air of a brilliant, rising prodigy from a venerable orthodox family.
“Hah. So you really expect me to march into the greenwood?”
“Precisely. Just strut in with the haughty menace of a ruthless dark-path villain, let them shower you with fine wine and feast, abandon the information, and make a clean exit.”
“And if they see through me?”
“You were gifted with the textbook visage of an underworld outlaw, so you don’t have to sweat being discovered.”
Gu Ak had swallowed a torrent of curses before pressing further.
“…And what if disaster strikes and they do catch on?”
“Simple… play it by ear!”
“…….”
Stripped of all flowery talk, the reality was blunt:
Regardless of how long you’ve walked beside the orthodox path, heaven blessed you with the mug of a rogue, so go play the scoundrel and plant the treasure map.
Fine. Let it be so.
Since the task was fraught with peril, dispatching him made sense; he was, after all, the sole apex realm master in their ranks.
Yet the crux of the problem lay elsewhere.
“No matter which angle I look at it from, this is a suicidal gamble…”
The core reason was terribly straightforward.
What Gu Ak was being asked to pull off was vastly more reckless than simply dressing up as a lowlife criminal.
…Have a little faith. Little Brother has an extraordinarily sharp mind. Surely he accounted for every variable.
Ever since his childhood, Yanghwi had possessed an uncanny knack for conjuring miracles out of impossible scenarios.
Though prone to sudden reckless whims, this particular scheme couldn’t possibly be… could it…?
Play it by ear…
‘Improvise’ was practically Yanghwi’s personal motto.
Could an assignment this absurd genuinely be handled just by making things up on the fly?
…Gu Ak felt not a single shred of confidence…
While he was swallowed by his spiraling anxieties, the outline of the mountain stronghold materialized ahead.
It stood precisely where the parchment Yanghwi provided said it would sit.
“Halt! Who goes there!”
Snapping out of his daze at the guard’s shout, Gu Ak hastily smoothed down his garments.
He even produced a pocket mirror to inspect his reflection.
Hm. Well, looking at it now…
A raw tiger pelt draped across his shoulders, a ragged beard, and a vicious scar running down his cheek.
Paired with a pair of battleaxes strapped firmly to his belt.
By all accounts, he looked every inch the ruthless bandit chief.
To hell with it! Whatever comes, comes!
A true man meets death only once, not twice!
Steeling his dantian, Gu Ak let loose a thunderous roar that echoed across the clearing.
“Who gave a worm like you permission to bark at me so insolently!”
Startled that a solitary warrior standing outside their defensive palisade would bellow with such unrestrained fury, the sentry lowered his tone nervously:
“May I inquire… precisely which lord graces us?”
Gu Ak barked back instantly, as if he had been itching to shout the line all day.
“One of the Ten Greenwood Heroes! Gu Eok, the Mountain Blood Axe!”
“T-The Ten Greenwood Heroes…!”
“Could he truly be one of the legendary Ten?”
“Wait, is a man’s given name seriously just ‘Eok’…?”
Hm. Did I choose a fake name that sounds a bit too half-baked?
Shrugging off the muttering bandits, Gu Ak pushed his roar even higher.
“Summon your stockade master this instant! I have arrived in the flesh bearing words of dire importance!”
A brief moment passed before a man of imposing, barrel-chested girth climbed to the top of the timber barrier.
“Did I hear correctly that one of the Ten Greenwood Heroes has arrived?”
“You did.”
“Prove it.”
The demand was unmistakable.
Gu Ak smoothly recited the secret counterphrase Yanghwi had drilled into his memory.
“The chatter of mountain sparrows has grown too noisy, and so the fierce tiger awakens.”
“…….”
The air hung frozen for a heartbeat before the stockade leader’s voice exploded with fury directed at his own men:
“You blundering imbeciles! An esteemed member of the Ten Heroes honors our threshold, and you keep the gates barred? Throw them open this second, you worthless fools!”
Whew. Heaven be praised, it actually worked.
This particular fortress was Samho Stockade, resting at the very bottom rung of the Seventy-Two Stockades of the Greenwood.
Yanghwi’s theory—that a backwater, low-ranking stronghold would never know all the faces or epithets of the Ten Greenwood Heroes—had struck the mark precisely.
Though he claimed it was an absolute certainty, was it truly… or had the kid just taken a wild gamble…?
Burying his mounting cold sweat, Gu Ak painted a sneer of arrogant contempt across his face.
To thoroughly cow the brigands, he purposefully released the suffocating, oppressive aura belonging exclusively to an apex realm master.
“Leader of Samho Stockade! I require a discreet chamber to confer. Do you have accommodations fit for purpose?”
“Without question, Honored Hero! Follow this one, if you please!”
Escorted deferentially by the stockade leader, Gu Ak marched into the very belly of the mountain fortress.
If his identity slipped for a single breath, death was guaranteed.
The mountain bandits would swarm him in a frenzy and leave him looking like a pin cushion.
Curse it all. Having mounted the tiger, there was no jumping off now!
“The Mountain Lord has secured secrets that will alter the destiny of the entire greenwood! To that end, he has resolved to entrust an earth-shattering mission to your hands, Stockade Leader!”
“A-An earth-shattering mission, Lord Hero…? What manner of…”
“Hold your tongue for a moment. When true men discuss momentous affairs, does fine wine not come first?”
“I shall order our finest jars opened at once!”
Seeing how deep he had already waded, Gu Ak resolved that he might as well drink his fill.
Exhale as the breath recedes; draw inward as it returns.
With every deep intake, pristine earth qi flowed through his meridians to conclude a full cycle, augmenting the density of his Harmonious Heaven qi.
With every release, the murky dregs left over from refinement were vented into the surrounding air.
“Phew…”
The Harmonious Heaven Primordial Art [和天理原功].
In the life he had lived before, this was one of the two crowning legacies he had conceived alongside the Hundred and Eight Heaven-Splitting Swords.
Infused with the deepest insights of the apex realm, it was a peerless divine art capable of reshaping reality through the manipulation of mental-image qi once elevated to its heights.
From the very second he reversed the currents of fate and returned to this world, Yanghwi had continuously refined and pooled his internal reserves day and night without a single day’s rest.
Augmented by the mystical elixir left by the Sword Immortal that he had serendipitously claimed, Yanghwi’s internal cultivation had now reached the terrifying threshold of nearly sixty years.
Dwelling within the frame of a mere fifteen-year-old was a sea of inner strength that an ordinary martial artist would need sixty years of bitter meditation to accumulate through the realm’s common Three Powers Meditation Method.
In ordinary circumstances, such a feat defied the laws of nature…
The ignorant commonly believed that amassing endless internal power was always a blessing, but they were sorely mistaken.
An excess of power was just as lethal as a deficiency. Shoving a monstrous surge of inner energy into a fragile, underconditioned physical frame would only tear the practitioner apart.
For that very reason, rigorous temperance of the physical form had to come first, and the subtle profundity of one’s internal art was paramount in containing and governing such might.
Because of this, the Harmonious Heaven Primordial Art truly deserved its title as a supreme art…
“Yanghwi! Come play with me!”
The chamber door flew open with a deafening crash as Adu barreled inside.
The abrupt shock rattled Yanghwi’s concentration, sending his cycling true qi into chaotic disarray.
“Gack! Cough, hack!”
Wheezing violently as he struggled to stabilize his breath, Yanghwi glared venomously at the intruder.
“You brainless brute! I was half a breath away from descending into qi deviation because of you!”
“Hehehe.”
“I wasn’t praising you, you oversized oaf!”
Ugh, my meridians are still churning wildly… damn it!
Before the thought could finish, Adu vanished and reappeared behind him in an elusive blur, pressing an open palm against his back.
“Vajra Immobility [金剛不動]!”
“Gah! Are you trying to finish me off—wait?”
A warm, radiant wave of golden light cascaded from the boy’s palm, washing through Yanghwi’s pathways.
The violent, churning tides of inner energy settled into absolute stillness within the span of a single heartbeat.
“…….”
So the legends about Shaolin were not mere exaggerations.
All martial arts under heaven come from Shaolin [天下功夫出少林].
An ancient adage held that every martial discipline across the lands traced its heritage back to the roots of the Shaolin Temple.
Techniques so divine that outside sects would safeguard them behind death oaths and never leak a syllable outside their halls numbered seventy-two within Shaolin’s walls alone.
The Seventy-Two Supreme Arts of Shaolin… and towering among them, the Vajra Immobility Divine Art [金剛不動神功].
Even across Shaolin’s vast catalog of esoteric arts, this meditation method was infamous for its agonizing difficulty.
To suppress and soothe another martial artist’s violent, rampant energy in a solitary breath meant Adu’s attainment had reached the sixth star at the very least.
How could an absolute simpleton master the notoriously grueling Vajra Immobility Divine Art all the way to the sixth star at such an age?
“Yanghwi! Let’s play!”
“…Play what? Can’t you see I was cultivating?”
“Exactly! Which means you’re done and we can play together!”
“Since when did martial training count as playing?”
“It does!”
Yanghwi stared speechlessly at Adu.
Then again, reaching such terrifying heights at his age would truly be an impossibility unless the person treated grueling martial discipline as a joyful game.
More crucially, play together, he said…?
“Listen here. We’re setting out in a couple of days. Are you planning to tag along?”
“Huh? Of course. Wherever Yanghwi goes, I go.”
“Can’t you just remain behind?”
“No way. The Senior Monk instructed me that whenever I encounter a virtuous soul, I have to stick to them like glue.”
“…….”
Even if they attempted to slip away, the boy would hound their trail with relentless stubbornness.
Yanghwi might be able to evade him alone, but doing so while shepherding their entire entourage was out of the question.
If that was the case, they had no choice but to drag him into the Sword King’s Tomb as well.
“Fine. Let’s spar. I’ve been meaning to gauge your true strength anyway.”
Yanghwi pushed himself up and vaulted out the open window. Adu let out an ecstatic laugh and followed directly on his heels.
CRACK!
“Hey! Why must you squeeze that colossal frame of yours through a narrow window! You splintered the entire frame!”
“Oops. Sorry.”
“The silver needed to mend that could have bought a hundred sweet bean cakes!”
“Gasp! A whole hundred?”
Yanghwi clicked his tongue in pure annoyance.
Now they had an entirely avoidable repair bill to settle.
“Save the apologies. Show me what you’ve got.”
Operating as an outpost under the Hao Sect, this establishment featured a wide open practice field tailored for visiting warriors.
Yanghwi withdrew his blade, keeping it firmly housed inside its sheath, and dropped into an offensive stance.
“Hehe, a game! This is gonna be great.”
Adu sank his stance into a remarkably grounded horse posture, pulling both clenched fists back to his hips.
He made not the slightest movement to initiate an attack.
“Refusing to advance? You want me to strike first?”
“Yep. The Senior Monk instructed me never to start the game myself.”
“Is that so? Whoever this Senior Monk of yours is…”
The old man certainly held a high opinion of himself, didn’t he?
“Then brace yourself.”
Activating Vessel Thousand Steps, Yanghwi erased the distance between them in an instant, thrusting the tip of his scabbard toward the boy using Arrow Feathers Pierce Rock from the Hundred and Eight Heaven-Splitting Swords.
At that very fraction of an instant:
“Tathagata Divine Palm!”
Adu drove an open palm directly toward the oncoming scabbard.
A massive hand cloaked in a blinding mantle of sacred golden light loomed forward.
No, it wasn’t merely approaching—it was expanding.
…Swelling rapidly until it measured more than twice the width of a fully grown man’s torso.
“Have you lost your mind?!”
Frantically gathering every drop of Harmonious Heaven qi he could muster and invoking Bee Wing Resonating Vibration, Yanghwi unleashed an explosive storm of strikes.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
Only after executing dozens of rapid-fire forms in the blink of an eye was he able to completely shatter and disperse the concentrated might packed into that solitary palm.
“You complete lunatic!”
Yanghwi had intentionally held his tongue out of customary respect for a Buddhist novice until now, but his fury broke its bounds.
“Who in their right mind channels that much raw internal energy for a friendly exchange! You could have killed me!”
“Aw. I barely used any.”
“Barely, my ass! You loaded at least thirty years of internal energy into that one strike!”
“Told you, that’s barely anything.”
“…….”
Recalling the bottomless well of energy the boy seemed to possess, it truly was a mere drop in the bucket for him.
“Sigh. I don’t know why I even bother trying to reason with you.”
“Hehe. Let’s do it again!”
“Not a chance.”
“Aww.”
Just then, an admiring voice sounded from behind them.
“Looking past his immense build, his features clearly belong to someone who hasn’t even reached twenty. Yet his internal cultivation borders on the miraculous.”
“Quite so. It makes one wonder how his physical frame can even support that much power without bursting.”
“Well, seeing how relaxed he is, it seems he carries it effortlessly, Young Lord.”
“Indeed, Hero Gu. That does seem to be the reality.”
Unnoticed by Yanghwi, the Tang siblings and Chudal had been observing the duel from the sidelines.
Shaking his head, Yanghwi directed his gaze toward Chudal.
“You see that, Chudal? That monster standing there is the living testament to why conditioning your physical shell is so vital.”
Observing the blank, uncomprehending expression on Chudal’s face, Yanghwi elaborated.
“Only when you ruthlessly temper the vessel of your flesh can you expand its capacity to house greater oceans of internal energy. Do you see now?”
A body forged like hardened steel could endure and sustain far greater reserves of power.
That was the foundational reason why Shaolin, which placed a heavier emphasis on cultivating external arts than any other order in the world, reigned with such undisputed might.
“Hold on, Boss. If someone spends all their hours punishing their muscles, wouldn’t they have zero time left to sit and cultivate internal energy?”
It was a perfectly rational question.
And yet:
“Great Return Pill. That’s your answer.”
“Ah.”
“Did you think the fame of Shaolin’s Great Return Pill was unearned? There’s a reason its name commands such reverence.”
Shaolin held the most peerless alchemical legacies across the martial realm.
Furthermore, with an unceasing flood of wealthy pilgrims pouring fortunes into their coffers, their wealth was practically limitless, ensuring they could bestow at least one Great Return Pill—or a Small Return Pill at the very least—upon virtually every promising disciple.
That ungodly foundation was why they could comfortably pour their youth into agonizing physical conditioning.
“Setting that aside, Brother Hwi. Isn’t it time we made our move?”
They had already lingered at this tavern for ten full days.
Having promised Jin Geumbo that they would require half a month, they had barely five days of leeway left to spare.
“Taking into account the march toward Mount Baeksu and the search for the hidden entrance, our window is growing uncomfortably narrow.”
“Brother Tang speaks the truth. Yet there remains one final piece on the board we must address.”
“And what would that be?”
Yanghwi’s eyes narrowed, darkening into cold, unfathomable depth.
“We have to set our most vital pawn in motion.”
The great Namgung clan. At least, if they truly wished to make those arrogant nobles bleed until they were dry.
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