As much as I wanted to harden him straightaway with live combat, that only works if the body can carry it.
I held out something like armor.
“Put it on.”
“What is it?”
“You’ll know once it’s on.”
Jeok Wigun did as told and slipped into the armor-like rig—and a suspicious sound answered him.
CLACK— CLACK—.
Then he felt something clamp tight around his arms and legs.
“Try moving.”
“Urgh!”
Even lifting one foot took effort.
The weight was one thing; the locks on his arms and legs didn’t track smoothly, so he had to strain for every inch.
CREEEAK— CREEEAK—.
He’d only taken two steps and sweat was already running down his whole body.
“Your stamina really is trash.”
It annoyed him how easily I said that when it wasn’t my body on the line.
Even for me, this would obviously be hard—so he thought.
“This is too much. How am I supposed to move with this on?”
“It gets easy once you’re used to it.”
“I’ll never get used to this!”
“You will.”
“Easy for you to say when you’re not the one wearing it! If you moved with this on, you wouldn’t say that.”
I flicked my sleeve up.
“I’m already wearing one.”
“I-isn’t yours lighter than mine?”
I smirked and shrugged mine off onto the floor.
THUD—.
The ground caved under where the armor landed with a heavy thump.
Just how heavy did he think it was?
Jeok Wigun swallowed.
“Want to try it?”
He shook his head.
Anyone could see mine weighed several times more than the one he had on. Watching me pick it up one-handed and slip back into it without a blink left him speechless.
“How strong are you, really?”
“Find out yourself.”
“Are you sure you really don’t have internal qi?”
“Want me to prove it?”
I stepped in, took his hand, and set it against my lower abdomen.
“Check.”
“Huh?”
“Breathe your internal power in. If there’s a dantian, it’ll answer yours.”
He knew that much too.
He did exactly that—pushed internal power in—and nothing answered.
Nothing at all.
Even ordinary folk who don’t cultivate will show a reaction if you breathe power into their dantian, but with me there was none.
“...It’s true.”
No internal qi—so why am I this strong? His eyes asked the question he didn’t speak.
“Enough chatter. Let’s start.”
Start what?
Wasn’t this the training?
“Dodge well. If you don’t, you’ll get hit.”
“What?”
THUMP—.
“Guh!”
My fist flew.
“I said, dodge.”
Even wanting to, he couldn’t with that damned armor.
Heavy, and awkward to move in.
“If you don’t dodge, you’ll keep getting hit.”
“I told you—I can’t dodge!”
THUMP—.
“Gah!”
Hurts like hell.
“We’re keeping this going.”
“W-wait!”
This was the beginning—
—of Jeok Wigun’s hellish training.
Face puffed up like dough and temper boiling over, Jeok Wigun glared.
He couldn’t explode at me to my face, though.
Do that and I’d tell him to put the armor back on.
Every movement had a pain attached.
It was the first day; I could have gone easy.
I didn’t—or so he thought—so he felt wronged.
“I did go easy. It’s the first day.”
At my words, his head snapped around.
“T-this was going easy?”
“Right?”
He was dumbstruck.
He’d nearly died.
His body still hurt too much to move right now.
If I didn’t go easy next time, maybe he’d actually die. He wondered if he should run far away to avoid me.
The problem was tomorrow.
He had to do this every day.
Would the pain even fade by tomorrow?
Ah.
A good idea came to him.
The one person who could actually make me toe the line.
Mother.
He’d go to Mother and report my atrocities.
He wouldn’t even need to explain—just showing the bruises would blow the roof off.
Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner?
He grinned to himself, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“I can see every thought on your face.”
“W-what thought?”
“You were about to go tattle to Mother, weren’t you?”
“Uh?”
Ghost.
Can I read minds, too?
“Why? Going to show her the bruises?”
How did I know?
“Sorry, but you won’t be able to show her.”
Was I not going to let him go home? he wondered.
I reached out a hand.
“Eek!”
Jeok Wigun reflexively hunched, bracing for a hit.
“I’m not hitting you, idiot. You really do scare easy.”
Try getting hit like today, too, he griped—only in his head.
I murmured a phrase, and white light rose from my hand.
As the light soaked into his body, the pain vanished.
Warmth enfolded him like a mother’s arms; he felt good without knowing why.
“Done.”
It felt good—
“Now get up.”
“I said I’m hurti—huh?”
It didn’t hurt.
Just a moment ago he’d been too sore to even move.
He leaned toward the blade’s mirror-polish and checked his face.
Every bruise had disappeared.
What is this? Scary.
What did I just do?
He couldn’t believe it.
And it wasn’t like he’d dreamed it away.
He’d hurt like hell.
“Brother... do you use sorcery too?”
“Mm.”
“Mm,” he says.
Not just strong—he even used sorcery?
“How do you use sorcery without internal qi?”
As far as he knew, sorcery also required internal qi.
“Ah, I found another way. It isn’t sorcery from the Central Plains—it’s from Pasa. They call it magic.”
“Magic?”
“You inscribe formula rings around the heart and—”
I started to explain magic, and none of it landed for him.
“Sorry, Brother. I don’t understand a word.”
“Fine. Just take it as a kind of art brought over from Pasa.”
“And you rewrote it to your taste?”
“Yeah. It’s completely different now. I even gave it a new name: the Five-Phases Incantation Art.”
“Oh, I see... And you healed me with that Five-Phases Incantation Art?”
“That’s right.”
“How much can it heal?”
“Mm, I ran experiments. As long as a person’s still breathing, I can pull them back.”
The fact that I’d “run experiments” scared him more.
“Don’t tell me... your test subjects weren’t people, right?”
At my little smile, he had his answer.
Right.
I’d tested on people.
But when?
Hadn’t I been at home every day?
And wasn’t Taecheon always watching the door?
“Does Taecheon know you’re strong?”
“No. Not yet. I should tell him.”
“Is healing the only thing your magic can do?”
“Nope. What it can do is inexhaustible.”
“Inexhaustible?”
“Yup. Watch.”
I punched, and the boulder in front of us exploded in one shot.
It hadn’t even looked like I swung that hard.
RRRRUMBLE—.
I stretched a hand back toward the shattered rock, murmured—and just like that, the rubble knit itself into the original boulder as if nothing had happened.
At this point, isn’t that immortal-art, not sorcery?
I could turn my body transparent, and I could fly.
I could also attack—water, fire, wind, ice, lightning—there wasn’t much I couldn’t do.
That’s broken.
No internal qi, and yet I could unfold things that made no sense.
And the force was strong.
“The force is weak. It’s really only good for showing off.”
Are you insane?
How is that weak anywhere?
The places I’d struck with the Five-Phases Incantation Art were devastated.
Ah. Of course, he only thought this to himself.
“Haah. You’re still a kid, so it can’t be helped.”
No, that’s not it!
Being a kid isn’t the issue!
You’re strong!
He was going mad wanting to shout it.
“So if that’s ‘weak,’ there’s something stronger, right?”
“There is. This.”
At my extended fist, Jeok Wigun pulled a face.
He did admit my fist was strong.
One punch had knocked him out.
But that was only when the opponent was a ten-year-old him.
When he grew up, it would be different.
“Why? Want me to show you?”
Even if my fist was strong, could it really be stronger than the Five-Phases Incantation Art I’d just shown?
“But my fist is still on the weaker side—maybe because I’m still young.”
I sometimes sounded like I’d swung it as an adult.
“For now it isn’t that strong, so keep that in mind while you watch.”
He thought: talk long, show little.
I pointed between two mountains, toward a saddle.
“I’ll cut a road there.”
What are you even saying.
Do you take me for an idiot?
His annoyance spiked—and I punched.
A colossal pressure-gust roared.
WHUUM—.
KUKWAKWAKWANG—.
A deafening blast, then a backdraft hammered over us.
The force was so intense he couldn’t open his eyes; he raised his arms to shield his face.
Only after a long moment did the gale settle; cautiously, he lowered his arms—and a flat road now ran between the two mountain shoulders.
This must be a dream, Jeok Wigun thought.
Who would believe a twelve-year-old’s punch did that?
“Still weak.”
Absurd.
I shook my head, dissatisfied.
That was weak?
What realm would you even need in martial arts to produce a force like that?
Flower Realm? Manifest Realm? Mythic Realm?
A body like Vajra—blades won’t bite—mysterious sorcery on °• N o v e l i g h t •° top of that, and now divine-level physical force to boot.
At this point I barely looked human.
Wait—my age is twelve.
When I grow, I’ll get far stronger than now.
The punch he saw today would be far stronger when I’m grown.
Then with that punch, could I flatten that entire mountain into a plain?
The thought came to him.
A monster like this had been treated as feeble just because I had no dantian.
He too had looked down on me for that reason.
“Why won’t you be the successor when you’re this strong?”
“It’s a hassle. You do it.”
What the—
His temper spiked again.
“Haa...”
He hadn’t even played properly because of successor lessons.
It felt unfair.
But there was nothing he could do.
I was strong, and he was weak.
He had no choice but to do as told.
Three years passed.
Jeok Wigun trained bare-torsoed; his upper body was perfection itself.
Not an ounce of excess—only combat-purposed muscle compressed to the extreme.
Everyone who saw it could only marvel.
They called him a genius, a body gifted by heaven—but every time he heard that, Jeok Wigun grew irritated.
They had no idea what he’d gone through for three years to forge this frame.
He wanted to tell them so badly, but he held it in.
The body-enhancement armor I’d developed turned out absurdly effective.
It didn’t just raise bodily capacities; it sculpted the musculature to perfection.
Each year it doubled in weight and doubled in awkwardness, so the initial adaptation nearly killed him.
And it wasn’t simply “toughing it out.” He had to wear it and train with me every single day.
To avoid being hit, he had to grit his teeth and move.
Finishing the day’s training with me didn’t mean he was done.
He trained alone again.
Sit still and progress slowed, and if progress slowed, he got hit even more.
Training done in order to live soon reached the ears and eyes of the sect, and everyone rushed to praise Jeok Wigun.
The elders of the family rejoiced that True Martial Sect’s future was secure.
But that wasn’t it.
“Haah. People look up to me so much these days it’s suffocating.”
“Good. That just means they trust you and believe in you that much. You’ll take the lord’s seat with their recognition, so there won’t be any trouble consolidating the sect.”

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