Chapter 102: Yes That Is How You Melt and Infuse Martial Arts
It was not for nothing that people said a beautiful woman looked good in anything; as a vibrant beauty sweating while pointing her sword stood there, it was a picture in itself.
The problem was that the person she targeted with that sword was me.
‘Is it… really a decoration?’
Although Lady Jang So-wol looked at the Pine-pattern Ancient Sword hanging from my waist and talked about a decoration, the biggest problem was that it really was a decoration.
However, the atmosphere flowing around did not seem to allow such words to come out of my mouth.
‘The gazes are truly…’
The gazes of the highly excited people poured down upon me.
Some looked with interest, and others looked with eyes filled with jealousy.
For reference, the majority was the latter.
‘I don’t think there will be anything good about clashing with swords…’
Let alone sword training, the times I had properly held a sword could be counted on one hand, so to face Lady Jang So-wol, who had established a family of her own with the sword in her own right?
‘I should avoid this…’
“Let’s call it the price.”
Just as I was about to refuse with the thought of avoiding it, she suddenly blocked my retreat by mentioning the price.
Thinking she was an influential person, I had abruptly approached her with the idea of getting close.
And then, I had suddenly vanished without a word.
Indeed, in the gaze looking at me, reason was clearly positioned above emotion.
‘She planned this.’
Lady Jang So-wol was famous as a talented woman of the world. Just with the news of her moving somewhere, the late-generation disciples of the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Noble Families would gather in crowds.
It was not something possible simply because she was a beauty. It was because she possessed a power to attract people that was as great as her appearance.
Her witty eyes looked straight at me.
It was a gaze full of desire for improvement.
It seemed that fellow Baek Mu-ho had detailed everything that had happened with Adept Heo Do.
It was clear, seeing that she specifically pointed out and mentioned the Pine-pattern Ancient Sword.
‘It seems avoiding it is out of the question…’
She was pointing her sword with an unclouded reason.
The one in front of me was not a woman, but merely a swordsman starved for the sword.
If I avoided this, I would not be a martial artist.
‘The problem is how much I can do… though.’
Different from the thoughts in my head, my body was reaching out to the sword at my waist.
Screeech!
The ancient sword, soiled by hands over many years, shed a sharp edge from my hand, which was unfamiliar even with the sensation of gripping a sword.
I drew the sword and held it in my hand.
As if possessed by something.
‘Love-hate relationship, indeed…’
It was a story I had told Adept Heo Do.
That to me, the sword was a love-hate existence.
Those words seemed to have come from a deeper place in my heart than I had thought.
[Wake up, you brat.]
‘Ah!’
I raised and held the sword toward the opponent who was gripping and pointing her sword.
It was a posture of permitting the spar and preparing.
At Master Zhang Sanfeng’s words, I turned my eyes to reality.
“Here I come!”
It was not the time to be distracted.
The way Lady Jang So-wol lightly kicked off the ground was short and light.
Her entire body rushed forward as quickly and lightly as a gust of wind.
The moment she closed the distance, her sword sliced diagonally, drawing an oblique line.
“Hap!”
The shout of spirit seemed to strike my body. Before my ears could hear that sound, my body reacted first.
‘This sword is heavy!’
It was a premonition I felt before the swords touched.
That premonition was not wrong.
Clang!
It felt as if a slender whip had been swung like a heavy axe.
Thanks to that, the Pine-pattern Ancient Sword suffered humiliation. The ancient sword, which had lived elegantly for many years, let out a scream.
“Oh? Are you not holding back at all?!”
“How can I hold back?! To the one who received that sword?!”
A strong strike carrying force has a large recoil if it fails to break the opponent. With a single blow like the one just now, one’s body could be pushed back the moment they collided.
However, even though Lady Jang So-wol’s sword was a strong strike, it flew in lightly as if she were swinging a whip.
Naturally, the recovery was also fast.
‘Kuh!’
Clang, clang, clang!
As if made of magnetic iron, Lady Jang So-wol’s sword followed stickily and struck the Pine-pattern Ancient Sword three times in succession.
It was heavy yet fast.
Instead of stupidly striking straight from the front, she constantly moved while aiming for the flanks.
It was full of changes.
Amidst the light and cheerful footwork, enough to bring to mind the martial arts of the Mount Hua Sect, taking positions here and there and blossoming splendidly, the sword carrying the movement of the whole dynamically moving body onto a single point wriggled as if the whole thing were alive.
‘The sword is alive?’
It was a sword shouting with its whole body that it was alive. I felt like I would not be surprised even if it spoke directly if I initiated a conversation.
‘It won’t do like this.’
Although I was a novice to the sword, I was not a novice to sparring.
First, there was a need to bring the flow.
Clang!
Swoosh!
The moment I collided with the sword force surging like a wave, I pulled my body back.
Using even the Cloud-Soaring Golden Light Step, I widened the distance sufficiently.
As if surprised by my movement, which widened the distance to more than twenty paces in an instant, Lady Jang So-wol also opened her eyes wide for a moment.
However, I could not be satisfied at all.
It was because I newly recognized that the footwork itself was different.
The footwork of a person who used a sword was different from the footwork of a person who used fists and feet. The stride length when advancing and the way of placing the center of gravity were different, and the temperament was different.
Holding a sword and clashing with a swordsman made me understand the difference even more clearly.
Blocking the continuous attacks was also merely an improvisation responded to by pulling my existing training and senses to the limit.
[Do you get it now?]
‘You are mischievous, Master.’
Master Zhang Sanfeng teased me mockingly.
Unlike usual, there was no teaching.
[Look closely at that child’s martial arts.]
Look and feel.
He declared that he had no intention of teaching me directly.
Perhaps it was a realm that I had to learn and master by myself.
But for that, the foundation regarding the sword was too lacking.
‘Sword… the sword, indeed…’
I tried thinking differently. I retraced my past experiences.
Getting into a carriage, or mounting a horse, suddenly changed the field of view.
The moment I gripped a sword, the range I could attack changed.
Although the changing of the field of view and the changing of the range I attack were completely different realms, at the same time, there was also a shared point.
It was unfamiliar.
When extending an attack to a certain extent, at what speed, in what range, and what level of blow would follow?
There was no standard at all.
From breathing, to footsteps, to the distance of offense and defense, everything was different from bare fists.
But I could not back down.
Master told me to look closely.
What I had to learn was right there.
‘Because it was always like that.’
If teaching was the masters’ share, learning and mastering was my share.
Master had simply pushed my back in a different way than before.
Then I had to learn and master it.
Do not stop!
Think and think!
Desire fiercely!
For some reason, it felt like returning to the time when I first learned from Master.
The leisure that had increased because I had learned a bit of martial arts was completely erased.
However, that did not mean all those traces were erased.
From fingertips to toes.
Breathing and blood vessels.
A body dedicated to martial arts down to the exhaled breath.
This physical body was a vessel to contain the teachings of the martial gods.
Although this body was surely weak.
‘The gods of martial arts reside in this body!’
I contain what I have learned.
I do what I can do.
If it was unfamiliar, I just had to move the sword in a familiar way.
Covering weaknesses with strengths.
Utilizing the strengths I had.
Melting down everything inside me to create new things that could be utilized.
‘I definitely blocked Lady Jang So-wol’s sword.’
Even though I was pushed back miserably, it was a clear fact.
Amidst my fierce contemplation, Lady Jang So-wol closed the distance again.
‘What I can do! The problem I have right now!’
The most problematic thing was, after all, that I was not familiar with utilizing the sword.
‘Then, I discard it.’
Clang!
I block Lady Jang So-wol’s sword strike rushing like a tiger.
However, Lady Jang So-wol’s sword did not end with a single strike. It stuck tenaciously like glue, persistently aiming for gaps.
It was a sword that added change, heaviness, and speed, surging like a wave to eventually swallow the opponent.
Clang, clang, clang!
Successive clashing sounds followed.
However, there was clearly a different part from before.
“The sound is different?”
Someone watching accurately pointed out that changed point.
Unlike the beginning, the sound emitted by the Pine-pattern Ancient Sword held in my hand was no longer as wretched as a scream.
‘A sword is just a sword. Discard the expectations of the sword.’
Discard the fixed idea that I must swing the sword of Wudang, the Pine-pattern Ancient Sword.
Shaolin’s fist intent is matchless and valiant.
Advancing without hesitation, stirring and swinging.
I could not contain all of that in the sword, but I could contain the momentum.
Whoosh!
Although I contained the momentum properly, making it rough and powerful, the step extended, the force swinging the sword, and the breathing connecting all of that were all clumsy.
It was full of gaps.
Naturally, Lady Jang So-wol’s sword did not miss those gaps.
Clang!
However, that sword was bounced off without being able to approach me.
It was because I had another weapon, not just the sword.
‘Taiji Line… I see it!’
And there was my bare left hand.
If it were a general swordsman, they would contain everything in a single sword.
But I was rather more familiar with the method of using bare hands using both hands.
Lady Jang So-wol laughed as if it were absurd.
“What is that? Right sword, left hand?”
“If you are desperate, you do everything!”
The sword held in my right hand is swung for now.
It was extremely loose, but the gaps in it were filled with Tai Chi Chuan performed with the left hand, the bare hand.
For example, a sword and a shield.
I bring out my own strength, which other swordsmen do not have.
‘It might be different from what Master Zhang Sanfeng thought…’
I did not know what Master Zhang Sanfeng wanted me to realize.
But I do what I can do right now.
Toward Lady Jang So-wol, who retreated with a hollow laugh, I moved offensively for the first time.
‘This method isn’t completely without merits either!’
There was no longer any need to force myself to use footwork matching the sword.
The Cloud-Soaring Golden Light Step closed the distance in an instant.
I fight in my distance, my territory.
Whoosh!
Swinging the sword.
Clang!
The bare hand strikes away Lady Jang So-wol’s counterattacking sword.
Two hands moved busily.
In the midst of that, I pulled out another weapon.
‘Master Bodhidharma said so.’
That fist techniques are pure.
And foot techniques.
‘Strike as if to pierce even a great mountain!’
The toe, moving at the distance I was familiar with, extended like a strong bow from the blind spot of Lady Jang So-wol’s vision!
Crash!
A blow bursting out from the range of fists and feet.
A scream similar to the one my Pine-pattern Ancient Sword had let out in the first clash flowed out from Lady Jang So-wol’s sword.
My own strength, different from Lady Jang So-wol.
‘Because I can produce power even at a short range!’
A sword is not a long weapon, but it is not a short weapon either. It is difficult to exert its proper power at a short distance where hands and feet reach.
But I was different.
I could show strength where the sword was vulnerable.
“This isn’t swordplay!!”
“What does it matter!”
First, I just mix it.
Then something will come out!
***
Zhang Sanfeng sat down on his chair as if relieved.
“Yes, that is how you melt down martial arts.”
The smile of Zhang Sanfeng, looking down at everything from a high place, deepened.