Chapter 81: Chapter 81
At the point when the Murim Academy Regular Exam’s First Trial ended, the ones most heated with agitation were the disciples of the prominent sects.
The disciples belonging to the powerful sects of the One Hundred Eight Peaks, including the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Clans, had failed to subjugate the mountain strongholds not because they lacked skill, but because they had missed their chance. Their fury and obsession turned toward the others who had passed the First Trial.
“Scattered battles are already breaking out everywhere. In the process, many disciples of the One Hundred Eight Peaks have been eliminated, and in severe cases, some entire units have been annihilated.”
The contradiction was that no one pointed their swords at the Nine Sects and One Gang or the Five Great Clans.
“The one in the greatest danger right now is Young Master So-un.”
Perhaps it was only natural.
Twin Curtain Stronghold, one of the Seventy-Two Green Forest Strongholds.
The eight First Trial Tokens we had obtained by subjugating the two strongholds that, in truth, consisted of Fire Curtain Stronghold and Gold Curtain Stronghold, would surely whet their appetites.
If the two tokens Bang Du-chil had personally possessed were added to that, the total came to ten.
“I am prepared.”
Even in my previous life, I had always been an easy target, but this was the first time I had become such a mouthwatering one.
“Right now, the sects of the One Hundred Eight Peaks based in Zhejiang Province, including the Yellow Sword Sect and the Blue Saber Gang, are moving toward Mount Tianmu.”
“Already?”
My face stiffened before I realized it.
The Yellow Sword Sect and the Blue Saber Gang were local powers of Zhejiang Province that held the Twenty-Third Peak and the Thirty-Second Peak of the One Hundred Eight Peaks, respectively.
In my previous life, each of them had sent three disciples into the Murim Academy. Those very sects were now coming to capture us in order to maintain the prosperity of their sects.
“The Beggars’ Sect has already begun focusing on Young Master So-un.”
We were probably the most appetizing prey and the most expensive information.
If we were the weakest while holding the largest number of Entry Tokens, there would be any number of targets willing to pay a thousand gold for information about us.
“We are spreading other information as much as possible, but that is……”
Yang Gun-baek spoke with the face of someone confessing a grave crime.
There would inevitably be a gap in the reliability of information between the Beggars’ Sect, which served as one axis of the Murim Alliance and received interim exam results in real time, and Hao Gate, which had to gather information directly on foot.
Moreover, if Hao Gate gave out other information to obscure my information, Hao Gate would lose its credibility.
I did not want innocent people to suffer because of me.
Besides, spreading false information did not seem very good for me in the long run either.
I looked at Yang Gun-baek and shook my head slightly.
“No. I don’t want you to do anything that would crack Hao Gate’s credibility.”
“Pardon?”
“If Hao Gate’s credibility falls to the ground, would it not also become difficult for me to use it later?”
“……But if that happens…… Young Master So-un, you truly may be in grave danger…….”
I looked at him and smiled slightly.
“I am Hao Gate’s guest retainer, not Hao Gate’s enemy, am I not?”
Yang Gun-baek looked at me with a complicated gaze.
“First, how long will it take before we encounter the Yellow Sword Sect and the Blue Saber Gang?”
“There is a four-day difference in distance, but…… the moment Young Master So-un delays, that distance will close in an instant.”
A darker shadow than ever had settled over Yang Gun-baek’s face.
It was still before sunrise, the Hour of the Tiger, from three to five in the dawn.
When I left my room to go fetch my junior brothers,
Village Chief Heo was standing in the corridor with his back turned, smoking from his long-stemmed pipe.
“Elder.”
“……You are awake?”
“Yes.”
“You are leaving early.”
“Yes. I think we need to move early.”
“You have a little time, do you not?”
I glanced once at the room where the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers were sleeping, then nodded.
There was too much regret on Village Chief Heo’s face for me to refuse him and leave.
The village people, including Village Chief Heo, had wanted to throw a feast even if they had to empty everything they possessed, but with the Yellow Sword Sect and the Blue Saber Gang said to be chasing us so desperately that their feet were sweating, we could not stupidly hold a feast. We had declined with proper courtesy.
“I don’t think I can spare a long time.”
“It will not take long.”
Village Chief Heo led me to the space behind the inn that was used as a vegetable garden.
The vegetables, dried up because they had not been tended, looked unsightly, but Village Chief Heo paid them no mind and headed to one corner of the garden before starting to dig into the ground.
“One cycle ago, you see. Back when I had just inherited the inn from my father and was running the business, there were days when flies kept buzzing around, perhaps because the taste had changed.”
“……”
Village Chief Heo silently began unraveling a story from his past whose meaning I could not understand.
“That day, too, after the business had been a failure and I was about to throw away all the noodles I had made, a beggar-like middle-aged man came in, of all things.”
Perhaps judging that he had dug enough, Village Chief Heo picked up a hand hoe and carefully scraped around the area.
“When I told him I had nothing to offer as alms because business was not going well, he laughed heartily and asked me to make him a bowl of noodles. It was obvious that he had no money, but…… since business had failed anyway, I made him noodles, thinking of it as alms.”
After digging for a while, Village Chief Heo’s expression changed as though his hand had caught something deep in the ground, and he carefully took out a small bundle.
Perhaps because it had been buried in the ground for so long, part of the cotton cloth wrapped around the outside had rotted away and fell off with the soil in clumps.
“As expected, after he finished the noodles, he said he had no money. I had expected as much, so I was about to simply send him away. But then he said he would leave one of his belongings with me. No matter how many times I refused and said it was fine, I ended up taking it as though he had forced it on me.”
The bundle had been wrapped in several layers of cloth. When he peeled off those layers one by one, an oiled leather pouch appeared. When he removed the leather pouch, the item tightly wrapped inside popped out.
“But the middle-aged man never came back. Not after ten years, nor after twenty years. I don’t believe in Buddha, so I thought about throwing it away, but it gave off a strange energy.”
What emerged from the final pouch was a rosary made of beads of various colors and a small wooden case.
“When I wore it, strangely enough, distracting thoughts disappeared, and my mind became peaceful. This object was so unusual that I never even dared to open this wooden case.”
Saying that, Village Chief Heo handed me the rosary.
“……”
When I silently gripped the rosary in my hand, strangely enough, my head, which had been filled with complicated thoughts all night because of the Yellow Sword Sect, the Blue Saber Gang, and the other sects, seemed to clear.
“Could it be…….”
I immediately began searching the library in my head. I opened the section on the strange objects of the murim among Sim Hyeon-gak’s confidential records.
‘The Demon-Purging Spirit Beads……?’
One of the Seven Great Strange Objects recorded in the section on strange objects.
The Demon-Purging Spirit Beads, which should have been enshrined in the deepest sanctuary of Shaolin Temple right now, were in my hand.
“How is this……?”
The Demon-Purging Spirit Beads were made by gathering the single sarira left behind by monks of great Buddhist power after they entered nirvana, turning one hundred and eight of them into rosary beads, and having those who entered the inner sanctuary for wall-facing cultivation hold them so that they would become filled with Buddhist faith and be made into a sacred relic.
Not only had it taken a long time to make, but because one hundred and eight sarira had been used, it was known as an item that possessed Buddhist power equal to one hundred and eight stone pagodas.
“Is it precious?”
Village Chief Heo looked anxious, like someone waiting to have an antique he had kept for a long time appraised as genuine.
I barely managed to answer.
“……It is an item whose worth cannot be discussed in terms of high or low.”
It was the sacred relic that members of the Murim Alliance had longed for most desperately when they faced the Demonic Cult on the front line.
There had been many in the Demonic Cult who had mastered the witchcraft of the Heavenly Demon Scripture.
Rather than external destructive power, that witchcraft clouded the mind and caused one to lose reason.
When people went onto the battlefield, more of them had their minds ruined after morale and Demonic Qi invaded their brains than were killed by blades. Yet at the time, the Murim Alliance had not taken out a single sacred relic during the war.
They had merely spouted nonsense about chanting the Demon-Subduing True Mantra to straighten one’s righteous mind.
Only now did I understand why the Murim Alliance and Shaolin Temple had never been able to bring out the Demon-Purging Spirit Beads, the greatest sacred relic for Purging Demons and Destroying Evil.
When people asked them for something they did not have, nonsense was the only thing that could come out.
“My guess was right. My guess was right.”
For the first time, a faint smile crept onto Village Chief Heo’s lips, but I simply could not understand it.
One cycle ago was when Great Master Suheo of Shaolin Temple had been serving as abbot.
A sacred relic like this could not be taken out carelessly without the abbot’s permission, and every removal should have left a record.
Moreover, there had been no monk in that generation who had supposedly gained enlightenment and wandered around looking like a beggar.
“Did no one come from Shaolin Temple to look for it?”
“This was an item of Shaolin Temple?”
It seemed Village Chief Heo had not known even that fact.
“Yes.”
“Ha, ha. So that was it.”
“Why did you not ask around for its owner?”
“How would a rustic like me know who the owner of such a precious item was and ask around for him? If I had done that, who knew what would have happened to me?”
If a rumor had spread wrongly, his entire family could have been massacred. Moreover, in the face of a strange object of this caliber, the distinction between the Orthodox Path and the Black Path was meaningless.
Was the essence of the murim not more cold-blooded than anything else before stronger military force and authority?
There was a reason why the academy exam of the Orthodox Path, which claimed to be righteous, was held so fiercely that people died.
I nodded in understanding.
“Will you open this too?”
“……Is it not an item with an owner?”
“I have thought about it. Though it is far too great an item to have received in place of noodle money, in the end, did I not receive it as payment? Moreover, if he has not come looking for it for one cycle, then it is strictly mine, is it not?”
A smile formed on my lips on its own.
“You truly sold a bowl of noodles for the highest price in the world.”
“Stop saying useless things and open it.”
I nodded and opened the wooden case.
With the sound of air bursting, the wooden case opened, and a clear fragrance wafted out from within.
It felt as though I were not standing in a ruined vegetable garden that smelled only of soil, but in the middle of a lush forest.
“How is it?”
Village Chief Heo swallowed and asked. I nodded.
“It is an item called a Small Reversion Pill. You have heard of it, have you not?”
Even among civilians with no interest in the murim, it was rare for someone not to know about the Small Reversion Pill.
“You mean the Spiritual Medicine said to revive even the dead?”
“Well, it does not go quite that far, but they say that if an ordinary person takes it, he can live a long life without suffering minor illnesses for the rest of his life.”
“Then if someone who has learned martial arts takes it?”
“What need is there to say? One can immediately obtain the inner arts that others would have to train fifteen years for, so is that not why even in the murim, the Small Reversion Pill and the Great Reversion Pill are considered Spiritual Medicines among Spiritual Medicines?”
“Ha, ha. Is it that much?”
“If one digests it well, yes.”
Village Chief Heo stroked his beard and nodded. Then he quietly muttered, “I did well. I did well,” praising himself for having kept such a precious object without revealing it to the outside.
“You must have been curious for a long time. You endured well.”
“No. If there had not been a reason, I would not have taken it out. Over those long years, I have seen with my own eyes countless people die because of treasures that appeared in the murim.”
“I see.”
I handed the wooden case to Village Chief Heo.
For some reason, however, Village Chief Heo shook his head and pushed the wooden case back.
“Pardon?”
When I looked at him with a puzzled gaze, Village Chief Heo gripped my hand tightly and said,
“You should eat that.”
Had I heard him wrong?
I asked Village Chief Heo again.
“Elder, did you not hear what I said? If an ordinary person eats it, he will not suffer minor illnesses, and if someone who has learned martial arts eats it…….”
“I know. But eating one of those will not overturn heaven and earth, will it?”
“……”
“If my grandson says he wants to learn martial arts, I can simply take him to a nearby martial hall. If the energy of the Spiritual Medicine remains in his body and draws suspicion for no reason, a greater calamity will come upon us.”
Considering the years he had endured, I simply could not accept the treasure.
“Elder, no matter what, this is far too great an item.”
“If not for you, I would not have taken it out.”
“Pardon?”
“I have seen countless people over the years, but no member of the Murim Alliance and no chivalrous man of righteousness ever drew a sword for us. The chivalry and justice they claimed to protect were all for themselves.”
I could not assert that everyone was like that, but most of them were. That was reality.
No, there were even sects that interrogated their own people for forming grudges with Black Path factions because of powerless common folk.
The corners of Village Chief Heo’s wrinkled eyes curved.
“You are the first. That is why I intend to have you eat it.”
“……Elder, I…….”
“If it is such a precious item, then think of it as you owing me a debt. I, too, have thought that it would be nice to have someone I could trust and rely on as a backer, just once.”
I knew that Village Chief Heo’s words were ultimately meant to ease my burden.
Just as I had done for Village Chief Heo.
“Then to my junior brothers…….”
“No, you should eat it.”
“Pardon?”
“Is it not safe only if there are not even people who know the evidence?”
“……”
In the end, Village Chief Heo stubbornly watched until the Small Reversion Pill passed into my mouth.
The moment the Small Reversion Pill touched my tongue,
it dissolved and went down my throat so quickly that I could hardly believe it was a medicinal pill that had aged for one whole cycle.
“Good. Good. It has finally found its owner.”
Village Chief Heo could not wipe the smile from his face, as though he found something terribly delightful.
“Ah, right. You should take this too. Whether your junior brother uses it or you return it to its owner, do as you please. I will think of it as an item I know nothing about.”
It seemed that after seeing Dong-ryong crazed by his Killing Star Nature a few days ago, he had made up his mind to take out this item.
If a rumor spread wrongly because of me, he and his family could have been placed in danger, so he must have agonized over it greatly.
Even so, moved by the courage he had shown for me and my junior brothers, I respectfully offered him a clasped hands greeting.
“Thank you, Elder.”
“……Enough. From now on, I will go around saying that you are my backer.”
Perhaps because of the sun just rising, Village Chief Heo’s face seemed flushed red.
As though afraid that would be noticed, Village Chief Heo quickly went back inside the inn.
Jin So-un’s group, having left Mount Tianmu, headed straight north.
After crossing Zhejiang Province, they intended to immediately change direction to the northwest.
It was a route planned with consideration for the optimal course for the Second Trial, which would soon begin, and the Third Trial, which had not yet been announced.
Clang, clang, clang, clang, clang!
“Dong-ryong! don’t rush out!”
“O-okay!”
“Hold on just a little longer! Senior Brother is coming soon!”
Perhaps Geum-pyo’s desperate shout reached the heavens, because screams began ringing out from the rear line.
“Graaagh!”
“I-it’s an ambush!”
The eight attackers who had been surrounding the three Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers fell into chaos among themselves because of Jin So-un’s attack. In that gap, the three Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers activated their Sword Formation even more viciously, attacking the assailants from both front and back and ending the fight in an instant.
“Master…… I am sorry……. Khh, khh.”
“Senior Brother! It’s not your fault! It’s all my fault! If I had not made a mistake…….”
The examinee who had become unable to fight collapsed into despair and burst into tears as though he had lost his parents.
Even though they had won the battle, there was no refreshing feeling.
“Haa, haa. Damn it.”
“Damn it.”
Curses spilled naturally from the mouths of the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers, who had never even cursed when they left Taeul Sect.
It was already their second ambush.
Less than two days had passed since they had left Mount Tianmu.
The attackers had been disciples and martial artists of the Red Immortal Sect, which was based in Mount Yandang, Zhejiang Province.
It was questionable how the Red Immortal Sect, located at the edge of Zhejiang Province, had already come all the way near Mount Tianmu, practically on the opposite side, but there was no time to think deeply about it.
“Get a hold of yourselves! More are coming!”
“Damn it.”
They had already gone through two fierce battles, but fortunately, about half of their inner arts remained.
It was thanks to their desperate use of Moving Circulation.
Now, they no longer wondered why they had to learn such cumbersome martial arts, as they had at first.
Without Moving Circulation, they would already have had to give up several times.
When their inner arts finally ran dry despite the Moving Circulation they had operated so desperately, the sun had set, and that day’s ambushes came to an end.
“……Do you think it will become worse?”
Avoiding the eyes of their pursuers, Jin So-un’s group had entered the deep forest of a mountain and were chewing jerky without lighting a fire.
“It would ease your mind to think that this is the most comfortable it will ever be.”
“……Why is everyone so desperate?”
Eun-ho voiced a question he had never once harbored before.
As though he truly could not understand, he stared briefly into empty air, then looked at So-un.
“Why, exactly, are they going this far?”
The face of the Red Immortal Sect disciple who had attacked them during the day, filled with desperate frustration, came to mind.
Jin So-un, who had been quietly tearing into his jerky, stopped moving.
Then he stared into Eun-ho’s eyes.
“Because that is the essence of the murim.”
“……”
“If you don’t rise, you fall. Staying still does not mean remaining in place. Only by continuing to climb can you barely hold your position.”
Within the power structure of the murim centered on the Murim Alliance, authority inside the Alliance directly became profit for one’s sect.
It was a principle one could understand by looking at how Taeul Sect had never enjoyed prosperity even once over the last five hundred years, and conversely, by looking only at the sects that had not been exterminated in Hefei, such as Dragon’s Den and Tiger’s Lair.
“No martial sect in the murim can live outside the influence of the Murim Alliance. Why do you think Gye Cheol-yeong wanted to enter the Murim Alliance so badly?”
Gye Cheol-yeong and Gye Yeon-seok had planned to use the Murim Alliance to grow the Gyeryong Merchant Guild into the greatest merchant guild in Jiangxi.
They had tried to accomplish through the Murim Alliance what was impossible through their own abilities in their own generation.
“The examinees don’t take the academy exam solely for their own success.”
Even if it was the Murim Alliance that sought to set justice right, even if it was the murim that gathered its will around righteousness and chivalry,
“their shoulders also carry the prosperity of their sects.”
In the end, “survival,” and creating an environment where the people precious to them could “survive,” was the most important goal.
“……”
At Jin So-un’s words, Eun-ho felt his mind grow distant.
He had thought everyone took the exam simply to enjoy wealth and glory and make their names known.
Yet everyone had been shouldering a far greater weight than he had imagined.
“Because of that fierceness and cold-bloodedness, even though it is an exam supervised by the Murim Alliance, it is called the Hell Regular Exam.”
Eun-ho, who had been listening silently, clenched his fists tightly and asked,
“……Why does the Murim Alliance tolerate an exam like this?”
As expected, it was the question of someone who had not yet been stained.
A pure belief that if a group had been founded for justice, it would not sit by and watch unjust things happen.
“There are many people with enormous greed, and resources are limited. So they have no choice but to engage in fierce competition. In addition, that is probably advantageous from the standpoint of the vested sects currently occupying the leadership of the Murim Alliance.”
At that moment, Geum-pyo tilted his head.
“Couldn’t they just divide things fairly?”
“……Well, if you were told to reduce the two meals you eat a day down to one meal, would you accept it?”
“……Th-that is.”
“And for the sake of Iron Sword Sect, not Taeul Sect.”
“That absolutely wouldn’t do!!”
Jin So-un lightly patted Geum-pyo’s head.
“Yes, that is what it means.”
“……”
Jin So-un had merely compared it to one’s rice bowl, but during the future Great Righteous-Demonic War, they would have to risk their lives and fight a power struggle.
A sect without power would cause more disciples to die, while a sect with power would at least suffer less grief.
Jin So-un had experienced the cold-bloodedness of power more keenly than anyone in his previous life.
That was why he understood better than anyone those who risked their lives on “mere” entrance exams.
Eun-ho suddenly had the thought that he was forgetting something.
“The Second Trial! The Second Trial Exam has not started yet, has it?”
“As if that would be the case?”
Jin So-un looked dumbfounded.
Eun-ho, who had been chewing jerky, grimaced as though he had chewed sand.
“The exam has already started?”
“It came together with the First Trial Token.”
Jin So-un showed him the Second Trial announcement he had received from the Hangzhou Branch Chief.
●Murim Academy Regular Exam Second Trial
Self-Development
Exam- Securing Inner Cores.
Contents- A student of the Murim Academy must know how to strive for his own development. The most basic development for a warrior is increasing his inner arts. To increase his inner arts, he must be able to secure Inner Cores.
Conditions-
One Inner Core based on ten years may be exchanged for one Second Trial Token.
Only up to three tokens may be exchanged per Inner Core.
However, there is no distinction between the Inner Cores of Spiritual Creatures and Demonic Beasts.
After seeing the announcement, Eun-ho’s eyes widened like a rabbit’s.
“Senior Brother, since when did Inner Cores become the gallbladders of neighborhood brown bears?”
Instead of answering, Jin So-un smiled bitterly.
“No, I’m really not joking. What kind of bullshit is this?”
At Eun-ho’s words, Geum-pyo and Dong-ryong looked at the announcement and furrowed their brows deeply.
“These crazy bastards.”
Spiritual Creatures and Demonic Beasts.
They were beings that received mysterious energy deep in nature, where human hands did not reach, and lived beyond their originally limited lifespan.
A tiger with a body larger than an ordinary tiger was also a Spiritual Creature, and if that tiger had a tendency to attack humans, it became a Demonic Beast.
However, Spiritual Creatures and Demonic Beasts that had lived long enough to form Inner Cores were rare.
It was common for them to harm the human world and die before an Inner Core formed, or conversely, to be discovered by humans and hunted.
Moreover, could a Spiritual Creature or Demonic Beast that had formed a ten-year-level Inner Core not be regarded as a martial artist who had trained external arts for thirty years?
Those who had passed the First Trial had to go hunting while at the same time resisting the checks or ambushes of other competitors.
“This exam was not made to be completed at all.”
Jin So-un pointed at the announcement and said,
“Look carefully at that. What do you think the intention behind this exam is?”
Geum-pyo and Dong-ryong tilted their heads as though they had no idea at all.
Eun-ho, on the other hand, examined the announcement reflected in the moonlight even more closely.
‘The intention behind the exam?’
Eun-ho, who had fallen into even deeper thought at Jin So-un’s words, finally discovered the strange point in the announcement.
“It says securing Inner Cores, but it does not say that we must obtain the Inner Cores by hunting them ‘directly.’”
At Eun-ho’s words, Geum-pyo raised one eyebrow.
“What are you talking about? Telling us to bring Inner Cores means telling us to hunt.”
“Brother, think about it carefully. It’s only because we don’t have money. If we had enough money to obtain Inner Cores from the market, couldn’t we get as many as we wanted?”
Geum-pyo’s mouth fell open with a “huh……” as though he had been struck on the back of the head without realizing it.
“Huh…….”
“Can I assume that the intention of this exam is the same as the first one?”
At Eun-ho’s words, Jin So-un nodded.
“In the end, saying that one can secure Spiritual Pills while protecting the First Trial Tokens means…… they intend to select people who have military force, while also possessing the financial power to obtain Spiritual Pills, or overwhelming military force enough to hunt Spiritual Creatures.”
“That is right.”
“Hah…….”
He had heard the correct answer, but none of his questions had been resolved.
In the end, was this exam not selecting not talented and hardworking people, but people who had money and power on top of that?
As though he had read Eun-ho’s inner thoughts, Jin So-un said,
“The Murim Alliance wants the Murim Alliance alone to be the absolute power of the murim. To maintain that system, it wants those with power, money, and authority to continue competing inside the Murim Alliance.”
“Then those who don’t have those things…… how are they supposed to climb to a higher place?”
Even though he knew the obvious answer,
Eun-ho asked again because he did not want to acknowledge that cruel reality.
But the answer that came back was still cruel.
“What need is there to say? They have to take that absurd exam.”
For the first time, Eun-ho truly felt how fucking miserable it was to face reality.