Chapter 1: Who Did You Say You Were (1)

“Ugyagaga.”

The moment I realized I had regained consciousness was when I felt the headache that washed over me, as if it had been waiting.

In addition, the pain in my jaw, which had been slammed by that damn Yin Si-hoo who played with me throughout the spar, formed a perfect duet with the headache that felt like it would split my solid skull and pop out at any moment.

When I tried to grit my teeth to bear the pain, an even more terrible pain welled up.

“Auu!”

It really felt like being struck by lightning. Or should I say it felt like gouging a bleeding wound.

“Thanks to that, I’m waking up a bit. Damn it.”

Although it was odd to call it ‘thanks to,’ the sharp pain completely dispelled the grogginess from when I had just regained consciousness.

The only problem was that it felt like I was going to die from the pain.

It was a bit strange that the headache was this severe, not lagging behind the pain in my jaw which had been hit hard.

“By the way, what really was that?”

[I have never seen such a sloppy Supreme Ultimate Fist before.]

[How is moving so stiffly supposed to be the Supreme Ultimate Fist? It’s so frustrating that I can’t bear to watch, seriously!]

Although it sounded like a third party evaluating me, it was definitely not a sound heard through my ears. It was, first and foremost, a voice that echoed directly inside my head.

To think that my self-division could be heard so clearly. Perhaps that was why the sound touched my heart even more. Because it resembled the voice of the person I wanted to see during hard times like this.

“Still, I don’t hear it anymore?”

Anyway, that voice was no longer heard.

By this point, it was curious what kind of self-division was so selective.

Though I would have nothing to say if you asked if I knew what self-division was.

“Haa…”

Maybe I had taken the wrong path.

Thanks to having an eccentric grandfather, I had frequently encountered martial artists since I was young.

Usually, the officials who received stipends in government posts disliked the martial artists who ignored the law and ran wild as they pleased.

You could consider it to be almost at the level of loathing.

But my grandfather was someone who looked only at the person themselves rather than their background or status. If he felt they got along, he shared alcohol and friendship regardless of who they were, and established close relations with many good people.

Among them, there were quite a few martial artists.

Thanks to that, I also frequently encountered martial artists from an early age. And in conjunction with an incident from my childhood, I came to know the power of an extraordinary person and fell for it.

Vague admiration became envy, and it became the driving force that moved me.

Although the result was this shape and form.

Thanks to the recommendation of several people who looked kindly upon me, I entered the Wudang Sect as a secular disciple, but perhaps due to my lack of talent, I had been making a mess of things the whole time.

Everyone had told me that my bones and muscles were not bad and that I had some talent, but this is the result.

Since they were of an age where it was hard to find black hair, it was not incomprehensible that their eyesight was a bit poor.

“Are you awake?”

“Huh? Yeah.”

While I was lost in my own world, a fellow disciple who had approached me spoke.

“It’s time to review the spar we just had. Come out quickly.”

He was one of the peers who entered at the same time as me, but he was as cold as if he were speaking to someone he had met for the first time.

It probably meant he didn’t like me.

Watching the back of my peer who walked away after throwing those words, I let out a sigh once again.

Reviewing the spar.

It was a time when nitpicking was rampant to point out the rights and wrongs that occurred during the spar.

I had never heard a good evaluation here. Especially if the opponent was that bastard Yin Si-hoo.

Yin Si-hoo.

As if he found it fun to torment me, he was a guy who had mocked and harassed me ever since I entered. Since he was also a guy with a decent backing, I, who had been targeted by him, was literally an outcast.

It sounded like I was blaming others when I put it this way, but in a way, he was largely to blame for my lack of growth.

Because what a growing sprout needed was water, soil, and sunlight, not kicks.

“No, I can’t do this.”

For a moment, I wanted to run away, but I soon shook my head and steeled my mind.

What did a person move by?

What did a person move along?

My grandfather had once talked about that question, which sounded somewhat philosophical. And as an answer to it, he said this:

“A person looks for what is familiar to them. They move along the path they have made. Whether it is good or bad.”

To put it in a nutshell.

People moved by inertia.

If you did it today, you could do it tomorrow. If you did it tomorrow, you could do it the day after tomorrow. Therefore, if there was a way of life that you truly considered precious, do not accept it as a single homework assignment that must be finished, but accept it as a way of living. If you accepted that way as naturally as breathing, it would melt into your blood and flesh, becoming you yourself.

That was one of the serious advices my grandfather had given.

A person who knows how to cherish what is precious is cool.

Listening to those words, I thought that I would surely not forget this story for a long time. Because my grandfather, who said such things, looked cool.

I walked along that path.

“…I want to become strong.”

Although the ideal was high, the wall of reality was even higher.

Floundering in front of an insurmountable wall was painful. Sometimes it felt like being drowned alive.

It would be a lie to say it wasn’t painful. Anyone would feel that way if the results did not follow the effort.

Someone would call it foolish. Someone else would call it pathetic. Only bad reviews followed.

But even if it was foolish, even if it was pathetic.

Right now, I wanted to flounder with all my might.

They said talent shone like stars. If the stars shining in the night sky were each someone’s talent, there would be at least one star, even if small, shining for me.

“Let’s do our best.”

[Although your natural disposition, mindset, and temperament are not bad. Is the reason your achievement is low because you do not know how to practice?]

“Huh?”

***

Thud!

I was hit again in my already painful jaw.

My vision turned white again.

It really hurts like hell!

“Right now is not a spar, but a review to identify the rights and wrongs of the previous spar. Do not engage in actions that inflict direct blows.”

“Yes, I apologize.”

A main sect disciple of the Wudang Sect, who had come out to instruct the secular disciples, issued a warning to Yin Si-hoo, who had struck my jaw under the pretext of review.

Of course, there were no sanctions.

A warning in words alone had no power.

That was why that bastard Yin Si-hoo ran wild like that.

It was understandable. Since his backing was solid, the other side probably didn’t want to mess with him either. Since Yin Si-hoo knew that, he only gave such a sly reply.

Look at him even now. He had no interest in me, who was sitting down after being struck.

[Cover Hand and Punch is performed without preparatory movements. Because you have the greed to strike hard, your body stiffens and the form is revealed.]

It was starting again. Did I really get hit in the head wrong?

The voice, which I thought had disappeared, began to be heard again inside my head.

“Yeon Cheong-un, focus.”

My mind was hazy because of the voice that kept echoing in my head, but the words of the main sect disciple, who only now paid attention, were extremely solemn. It was as if he immediately noticed that my concentration had wavered.

It was a mess both inside and outside, a double whammy.

I was really going crazy.

“When your jaw was struck just now, if you had to perform another technique instead of Cover Hand and Punch, which technique do you think would be correct to perform?”

[Six Sealings and Four Closings.]

The answer came immediately in my head.

Though it didn’t seem like the answer at all to me.

“…Six Sealings and Four Closings?”

This mouth of mine reflexively accepted those words.

“Puhut! Six Sealings and Four Closings there? Hahaha!”

Thanks to that, I could see that bastard Yin Si-hoo’s rotten smile.

“Anyway, if the head is lacking, the body suffers.”

The look in Yin Si-hoo’s eyes as they met ours for a passing moment flashed sharply.

It was a look I had already seen multiple times.

“Go ahead and try.”

As if he had caught me good, Yin Si-hoo moved his body again.

[Pound the Mortar!]

In line with Yin Si-hoo’s movement to strike my jaw once more, a voice burst out like thunder inside my head.

[Double palms! Extending the front hand is for attack, but it is also to grasp the interval and distance from the opponent! Therefore, it has the meaning of sealing the front and back, left and right, up and down, and blocking all four directions!]

Words containing angry emotions poured out like a storm.

[Keep your center! Plant your two feet into the ground! I said Pound the Mortar!]

The movement according to those words was strangely natural.

[It is not a wrong thought to sink your center for fear that your lower body will shake, but you are too low. The point is not to sink your center, but to keep it from shaking. Vividness of life energy. Do not think with your head to match it, but let it flow.]

To the point where it was incomprehensible how such words could pour out all at once in that short moment. To the point where I didn’t know how I had accepted all those words.

What was clear was that my body was moving according to those words.

Six Sealings and Four Closings.

I knew of it, but what this voice was teaching me now was new.

Although it was the same, I moved my body according to the technique of Six Sealings and Four Closings, which was different and had more depth.

Tak!

In that way, following the voice in my head, my two hands extended forward pushed away the fist that was aiming for my jaw.

Pak!

My legs, which had taken the center, held me so that I wouldn’t be pushed back by Yin Si-hoo’s rushing momentum.

Ta-tak!

In the process, when my two hands struck down Yin Si-hoo’s hurried defense, [Bash him!]

The rebound that naturally followed started from the waist, extended to the shoulder, and further to the arm.

That offensive cut through the opponent’s opening, which had been exposed as a reaction to his unreasonable attack.

A heaviness was felt in the center of my outstretched palm.

Smash!

It was the sensation of striking up Yin Si-hoo’s jaw. A sensation so deep that I wondered if I had split his jaw remained as clear as a dull pain.

Thud!

And the result fell to the floor.

Yin Si-hoo, who had lost consciousness and collapsed, was foaming at the mouth and twitching.

“Six Sealings… and Four Closings?”

From the mouth of the main sect disciple, who was looking at me with astonished eyes, flowed the name of the technique I had performed.

I could not answer those words.

Although I had done it, it didn’t feel like I had done it.

I only stared back and forth between the fallen Yin Si-hoo and my hand.

***

After Yin Si-hoo, who collapsed foaming at the mouth, was carried out, and all the gazes looking at me with strange eyes had disappeared, by the time I was finally alone, I recalled the Six Sealings and Four Closings that I had performed against Yin Si-hoo.

“Six Sealings and Four Closings.”

Sealing the front and back, left and right, up and down, and blocking all four directions. I had certainly learned it that way.

But no one used it the way I moved today.

I might have felt it wrong, but the martial arts I performed today definitely had parts that were different from what I had learned.

“Why does Six Sealings and Four Closings feel like Six Sealings and Four Closings?”

[Is your vocabulary lacking, or is your intelligence deficient?]

The voice in my head answered my monologue. Although sarcasm still remained in that voice, I could no longer ignore it.

Above all, if this was really something like self-criticism, it made no sense that it knew what I did not.

Which meant, though it was hard to believe, this voice did not originate from me.

“Who are you?”

I asked in a trembling voice in the place where I was alone.

[Zhang Sanfeng.]

“…Pardon?”

The answer that came back was one that far transcended my common sense.