Chapter 82: Chapter 82
A moment later, Hyeon-do, who came out, smiled proudly as he looked at the Plum Blossom Swordsmen taking the horse stance in a line in the manor.
“It is good to see.”
He soon whispered to Cheon-hwi next to him.
“Was it you who taught them?”
“That is right.”
Cheon-hwi scanned the Plum Blossom Swordsmen, who were sweating profusely as if they had reached their limits.
“Their foundations were a mess.”
“Haha. Anyone would be like that.”
Hyeon-do said quietly.
Had he not been like that as well?
Usually, once one learned advanced mental methods and martial arts, they were bound to become lax in basic training.
Visible sword qi.
Invisible basic stamina.
People were naturally bound to be absorbed in visible results.
“Martial Uncle.”
Just then, when the Plum Blossom Swordsmen, who saw Hyeon-do belatedly, wriggled to greet him.
“One shichen has not passed yet.”
Cheon-hwi stopped their actions.
“Listen to Cheon-hwi’s words.”
Following that, Hyeon-do drove a wedge.
The expressions of the Plum Blossom Swordsmen, who were trying to play a trick to briefly release their horse stance, turned black.
Hyeon-do opened his mouth while looking at them.
“How long are they doing it?”
“For one shichen.”
The Plum Blossom Swordsmen looked at Hyeon-do.
Hyeon-do, who saw their gazes begging to be saved, opened his mouth with an intentionally surprised expression.
“Why is it so short?”
The Plum Blossom Swordsmen’s mouths dropped open.
‘Martial Uncle! That is not right!’
‘How is one shichen short!’
Who would do the horse stance for a whole shichen?
They thought there would be no one more terrible than Cheon-hwi, but he was right in front of their eyes.
However, at Hyeon-do’s following words, they fell silent.
“Did you not make Seol Ran and Jeok-geom do it for at least half a day?”
“They did not even have the basics at all, so I had no choice but to do that.”
The two of them at that time and the Plum Blossom Swordsmen were different from the starting point.
“And I plan to finish the horse stance soon now. They cannot just keep doing the horse stance like this.”
Hearing Cheon-hwi’s words, the Plum Blossom Swordsmen cheered inwardly.
“Hmm. Already?”
“I will not be here continuously, so I should teach them some appropriate martial arts.”
At that moment.
Thud!
The Plum Blossom Swordsmen slumped to the ground.
“Pant, pant.”
“I-it is finally over!”
Cheon-hwi looked down at Cheon Yu, who was lying flat on his back in the shape of the character for great.
“Eldest Senior Brother.”
Cheon Yu, who looked up at Cheon-hwi whose hair was pouring down, spoke as if he was in a difficult situation.
“Haha, Junior Brother. I want to rest for a moment.”
“I was thinking of teaching you a palm art. Well, if you do not want to…”
“What? A palm art?”
Cheon Yu jumped up.
As Cheon-hwi looked at that sight with coldly cooled eyes, Cheon Yu’s expression turned strange.
“Ha, haha. That is…”
“Forget it.”
Cheon-hwi raised his hand as he finished speaking.
“This is the palm art you will learn, so watch closely.”
As soon as those words ended, a violet qi began to circulate on his pure white palm that was spread wide open.
“Purple Cloud Divine Art…?”
The bewildered Cheon Yu rubbed his eyes.
However, the qi blooming on Cheon-hwi’s palm was exactly the same as before.
At that moment, an indescribably intense qi began to surge from Cheon-hwi’s palm, crushing the space.
Paaang!
The empty air burst apart, and the ground was dug up.
From the palm print clearly imprinted about three inches deep in the ground, violet qi flowed out even now that everything was over.
‘I-it was like the Purple Cloud Sword Formula…’
Cheon Yu swallowed his saliva while alternately looking at Cheon-hwi and the palm print with blank eyes.
“W-what kind of palm art is this?”
“You are asking what kind of palm art it is?”
Cheon-hwi paused for a moment.
This palm art was a palm art created to maximize Cheon Yu’s Purple Cloud Divine Art.
Therefore, there was no martial art name.
‘I will just name it roughly.’
He spat out the martial art name that came to mind.
“It is the Purple Cloud Divine Palm.”
“Purple Cloud Divine Palm?”
Cheon Yu’s pupils shook.
“Was there a palm art in the Purple Cloud Divine Art?”
“I will recite the formula.”
“W-wait.”
Without a chance to think, Cheon Yu immediately memorized Cheon-hwi’s voice reciting the formula.
“Did Cheon-hwi see the Purple Cloud Sword Formula?”
Hyeon-do’s pupils, who had been staring at the palm art Cheon-hwi performed from afar, took on a distinct color.
The palm art Cheon-hwi had just performed exactly resembled the Purple Cloud Sword Formula.
“Was it in the Ten Thousand Scenery Pavilion? Or did Cheon-hwi create it again?”
Hyeon-do shook his head.
Whether it was in the Ten Thousand Scenery Pavilion or he had created it.
What did it matter?
Cheon-hwi was a disciple of the Mount Hua Sect.
“It is the great fortune of our sect.”
Around the time Hyeon-do laughed, Cheon-hwi went to find not only Cheon Yu but also the rest of the Plum Blossom Swordsmen and passed on martial arts that suited them one by one.
Sword arts, blade arts, palm arts, leg arts, footwork…
The martial arts Cheon-hwi was performing and teaching were not just one or two.
‘Even if they just achieve great success in the martial arts I taught them, they would not have many opponents in the world.’
After teaching martial arts to everyone like that, he finally approached Cheon Geuk.
“Senior Brother, you have something you are curious about to me, right?”
Cheon Geuk opened his eyes wide.
“How did you know?”
“You were fidgeting because you wanted to keep talking to me.”
“I have recently become able to bloom sword scent.”
“It is a quite fast achievement.”
Unlike his nonchalant expression, Cheon-hwi was slightly surprised.
It was Cheon Geuk who could not even perform the Plum Blossom Sword Art properly, let alone sword scent, just a while ago.
But to think he had bloomed sword scent during the few days he went to the Yangtze River.
It was a quite surprising achievement.
‘Unexpectedly, he might be the most talented among them.’
“You have achieved quite a fast accomplishment.”
“Haha, it is all thanks to you, Junior Brother.”
Cheon Geuk smiled gently.
It was natural for him to rejoice at his achievement.
Because he had gained an even greater achievement in just half a month than what he had trained for three months.
“So regarding that, Junior Brother. Around when do you think I will be able to bloom sword flowers?”
“Yes?”
Cheon-hwi stared intently at Cheon Geuk.
“It should be possible even now.”
“No, I have never bloomed it even once.”
“That cannot be.”
Cheon-hwi frowned while talking.
“Try performing the Plum Blossom Sword Art once.”
Cheon Geuk immediately grasped his sword.
And then he performed the Plum Blossom Sword Art.
The internal energy and Plum Blossom Sword Art that bloomed in an instant embroidered the manor, and a shallow plum blossom scent tickled the tip of the nose.
“Tsk. It is not swung like that.”
Cheon Geuk was flustered.
“I learned it as it was written in the martial arts manual, but if this is not it…”
“That is why it is like that.”
“Huh…?”
“That is why it became strange.”
“What?”
“Why do plum blossoms bloom and a scent come out when casting the Mount Hua Sect’s sword arts?”
“Because it is the Mount Hua Sect’s sword art…”
Cheon-hwi’s eyes cooled coldly.
“You did not really think that, right?”
“…”
“Phew.”
Cheon Geuk cowered at the sigh.
“Of course, since you learned the Plum Blossom Sword Art after accumulating the internal energy of the Plum Blossom Qi Art, if you reach a certain level, you would be able to bloom sword scent and sword flowers. Because it is originally that kind of sword art.”
Cheon-hwi shook his head.
This kind of situation happened because he only blindly followed martial arts in a superficial way.
“But the important thing is understanding and performing the martial art. If you do not do that, it will only become a half-baked martial art like the one you performed just now.”
“Understanding?”
“Yes.”
He lifted it scabbard and all.
“Open your eyes wide and watch closely.”
The pitch-black scabbard smoothly moved from left to right, wrapping around Cheon-hwi’s body.
It was the first form of the Plum Blossom Sword Art, Plum Blossom By The Roadside, that Cheon Geuk had performed earlier.
“This is just when it is swung according to the sword form like you did earlier. It is the same, right?”
Cheon Geuk unknowingly nodded his head.
“And this is…”
The scabbard shook.
The firm and upright Plum Blossom By The Roadside from earlier suddenly became boundlessly light.
As if like a flower petal scattering in the wind.
When he was blankly looking at the smoothly moving scabbard as if possessed.
‘Plum blossom?’
A thick plum blossom scent pierced his nose.
“This is the proper Plum Blossom By The Roadside.”
“H-how did you bloom sword scent without even manifesting internal energy…”
Cheon Geuk was flustered at the strange occurrence, but.
“Because it is originally like this.”
Cheon-hwi was nonchalant.
“The Founding Patriarch of the Mount Hua Sect must have been crazy about plum blossoms, as even all the martial arts are related to plum blossoms. Perhaps because of that, if one properly performs the Mount Hua Sect’s sword arts, the sword scent blooms.”
Cheon Geuk was startled.
To express the Founding Patriarch like that.
“J-Junior Brother. The Founding Patriarch…”
“It is the truth, so what.”
He did not know who the Founding Patriarch of the Mount Hua Sect was, but it was certain that he was a crazy person.
Who would make it so that every martial art they created was related to plum blossoms?
And it was not just mental methods and sword arts either.
Palm arts and footwork, and even finger arts.
Unless one was completely crazy about plum blossoms, they could not have created these martial arts.
“Anyway.”
Cheon-hwi continued his interrupted explanation.
“No matter how much scent comes from the sword, it is not a real scent, and no matter how much sword flowers bloom, they are not real flowers.”
“Those words mean…”
“Existence and non-existence give birth to each other.”
Cheon Geuk fell into doubt.
Because he was also a Daoist, he knew exactly what existence and non-existence giving birth to each other was.
It was the philosophy of Laozi that observed the principles of all things in the world from a relative perspective.
‘But, why is that coming up now?’
That doubt was resolved by Cheon-hwi raising his sword.
Soon Cheon-hwi swung his sword, and.
Swish-
Plum blossoms were embroidered in the empty air.
Beautiful and deadly plum blossoms.
“The important thing is merely existence and non-existence.”
Cheon-hwi’s sword stopped.
At that moment, the plum blossoms also disappeared.
“Since you bloomed a false scent, there is no way you cannot bloom false flowers.”
“…!”
Lightning struck Cheon Geuk’s head.
It was just as he said.
Sword scent and sword flowers. They were the same illusions.
Yet to be obsessed only with sword flowers.
“The important thing is existence and non-existence.”
Cheon Geuk’s momentum changed.
Having thrown away the hesitating appearance from just before, he gripped his sword with all his might.
“Oh, you understood this right away?”
Surprise dwelled in Cheon-hwi’s pupils.
His internal energy was not even a handful, and his body was like that of an ordinary person.
However, there was only one thing.
His martial arts mind, that is, his comprehension, was outstanding.
“Are the words you just said the truth?”
At that time, Hyeon-do approached panting.
“That sword scent and sword flowers are the same?”
He, who had been listening to the explanation Cheon-hwi was giving to Cheon Geuk, was also in a state of shock.
The teaching of the Mount Hua Sect passed down from the past was that sword flowers bloomed after blooming the sword scent.
But what Cheon-hwi’s words meant now was that sword scent and sword flowers were originally the same thing.
“That is…”
The moment Cheon-hwi was about to answer.
Bang!
Suddenly, the main gate opened, and Hyeon-jin, who had gone outside, ran over urgently.
Hyeon-do spoke while looking at Hyeon-jin coming over even performing footwork.
“What is the matter…”
However, he could not finish his words.
It was because Hyeon-jin spat out even more shocking words before that.
“T-the Zhongnan Sword Saint has come to the Alliance!”
Enjoyed the chapter?
If you like our work, consider supporting us on Ko-fi. This site solely runs on donations. Every donation helps us keep translating!
Support on Ko-fi