Chapter 19. Dream Awakening (19)
"Ah, young master!" exclaimed Chae Young-Ryong, the son of the guild's second-highest official.
"Well, this crazy person was asking for food while I was busy."
Standing next to Chae Young-Ryong, Yu Mun-Gwang looked at the nameless man, who happened to be the person that accompanied Woo-Moon.
'That bastard Woo-Moon…'
He had been afraid of Woo-Moon at first, but as time passed, the fear had mostly dissipated, replaced by anger and hostility. He now thought that Woo-Moon had dealt with the Dragon-Piercing Nail by pure luck.
However, he was still somewhat scared of Woo-Moon, so he couldn't just go and say anything to his face. In the end, he had just stared at Woo-Moon from afar. It seemed that the time had finally come for him to settle his anger, though.
"Huh, but we have to leave now. He's quite senseless. Why didn't he eat on time? Well, it's not like I have any say on the matter since I'm not a guild member..."
When Mun-Gwang intentionally dragged his words long, Chae Young-Ryong smiled. "No, how can you say you aren't a guild member?! It's okay. I'll take responsibility, so do whatever you want."
Although Young-Ryong was the son of a merchant and not a member of the murim, he was well aware of the value of the Kunlun Sect's name and how beneficial it was to get to know one of the masters of the murim. Hence, Chae Young-Ryong tried to gain Mun-Gwang's favor with honey-coated words and a sweet smile.
The nameless man stared silently at Mun-Gwang and Young-Ryong, who were nothing more than caterpillars in his perspective.
Hearing Young-Ryong's words, Mun-Gwang strode forward and raised the half-wrapped meal behind the cook.
"There is no food for those who fooled around instead of eating at the appointed time!" With that shout, Mun-Gwang threw the rice container to the ground.
Although he thought that such actions were excessive, Young-Ryong wouldn't interfere with a Kunlun Sect disciple just because of an insignificant porter. Hence, he just smiled and stayed silent.
At the feet of the nameless man, the wooden rice container rolled on the ground, spilling the rice everywhere.
"Haha…" The nameless man suddenly burst into laughter.
Mun-Gwang, Young-Ryong, the cook, and the guild members watching looked at him, finding him weird. Even as they thought to themselves 'is he crazy?' he continued to laugh.
"Hahahaha! HAHAHAHAHAHA!!"
At first, it was just laughter. However, it grew louder and louder, until its sheer volume was enough to make their eardrums ring.
"AAARGHHHH!!!!" Everyone around the man covered their ears with both hands as they suffered. Some had blood dripping from their ears, and some even vomited.
Mun-Gwang turned pale as he felt the immense power within the nameless man's laughter.
When he stopped laughing, he placed his hand on Mun-Gwang's shoulder.
"You're a great guy. A really great guy, hahaha. It's probably been a hundred years since I was last treated like this. Hahahaha."
The nameless man tapped Mun-Gwang on the shoulder three times.
Meanwhile, no one, not even Mun-Gwang, could move. They could feel something immeasurable pressing down on them. It was absolute horror—the manifestation of Absolute Qi.
As the nameless man turned and walked away, Mun-Gwang stumbled and fell backward. A loud noise came out of his posterior, followed by a certain filthy discharge mixed with blood. A terrible stench spread everywhere.
As the nameless man walked away from the bewildered people, he noticed Woo-Moon watching the whole scene.
The nameless man grinned. "Did you see that?"
"… Yes."
"Now that we're near Go-Ryang Pyeong, I'll have to leave soon. Follow me. There are many things I can do for you."
Woo-Moon followed the nameless man, whose aura had changed somehow.
Completely frozen, Mun-Gwang didn't even feel the filth and blood filling his pants.
"He's an unfathomable master…over a hundred years old…."
A name popped into Mun-Gwang's mind. "No way!"
The nameless man walked all the way to a nearby forest, sat on the trunk of an old tree, and looked at Woo-Moon.
"Are you surprised?"
Woo-Moon shook his head. "No. I've always thought you were a remarkable man."
He had felt the nameless man's energy the first time they had met. It was so strong that he was simply unable to treat the man carelessly.
"Hahahaha. As expected, you are a great young hero. I don't think I was as good as you at that age."
That was a really great compliment, considering the character of the nameless man. Those who knew his eccentric personality would have been shocked to hear it. He had stronger self-esteem than anyone else and rarely praised others at all, much less tell them they were superior to him.
Having chased them all the way here, the silver tiger cub lay on its belly behind Woo-Moon.
"Koo!" With a low sigh, it rested its chin on its front paws and looked at Woo-Moon and the nameless man. Fortunately, the guild people were busy preparing for departure, so nobody noticed the scene.
"Before I leave, I have a question for you."
"What is it?"
"What is your goal? What do you want to become? What is your dream?"
"My goal is to earn a lot of money and be filial to my parents. In particular, my mother is very weak and she is having a very hard time. I want to help her."
Hearing Woo-Moon's answer, the nameless man's face darkened for some reason. A look of sadness passed in his eyes for a moment, but his usual expression swiftly returned.
"Right. It seems your mother is very ill. But that isn't a goal for yourself, is it? What do you want to become? I want to know what your dream is."
Woo-Moon had thought that the man was just asking a random question. Hence, he had just answered without thinking much of it. Now, however, he was at a loss for words.
"What I want to be…"
When he was a child, before he fell into a dreamy state, he had wanted to become a martial hero. However, when he asked himself if he still wanted to be such a person, he no longer found that wish inside him.
"When I saw you, I felt you're just…living, with no goals or purpose for the future."
While Woo-Moon was entranced by that landscape painting, a dream, he had no time to think about his goals or his future—that dream was taking up all of his time and energy. Immediately after he woke up from the dream, he had only one goal, and that was to fall into the dream again. But then, he realized it was no longer possible, and yet...
'I've never thought about what I want to be. I didn't set any goals. Maybe I still haven't gotten out of that dream.'
As if he had been turned into a stone statue, Woo-Moon suddenly ceased moving. His gaze lost focus as he fell into such deep contemplation that he could no longer sense anything that happened outside of his mind.
Tock tock.
The nameless man knocked on the tree trunk with his finger, then stood up.
"Do you want to be like me?"
Just then, Woo-Moon woke up from his thoughts. He looked like he couldn't understand what the nameless man was talking about.
"Like the nameless man…?"
"Haha. I am the most carefree among murim people, the leader of the murim people who live without any worries, goals, or purpose. Well, I can say that about myself, no?"
"Hahahaha." Woo-Moon tried to hold back his laughter but failed. It was funny to hear the nameless man talk like that about himself.
"Yeah, that's it. Smile. Don't make such a heavy face. It's really nice to see you smiling."
The nameless man then took a book from his pocket and tossed it to Woo-Moon.
"Take this. It's a little something you might need."
It had Martial Arts Fundamentals written on the cover.
"Why are you giving this to me?"
"Didn't I just tell you? I live my life the way my heart tells me to. At first, I was curious about your martial arts, so I accompanied you. But then, I felt close to you. Hahaha. This booklet doesn't explain any divine martial arts or whatever, but it does explain the basic principles of martial arts in detail. Reading it will definitely help you."
Put together by the nameless man himself, the Martial Arts Fundamentals had detailed explanations about various basic martial arts concepts such as qi, lightness arts, sword techniques, saber techniques, and so on. In other words, it explained what internal energy was, what principles could be used to collect and control it, how lightness techniques worked in such a way that they allowed one's footwork to imitate weightlessness, and more. Those general things were presented in great detail, according to the nameless man's own comprehension.
Woo-Moon only had a shallow grasp of what murim people thought of as basic knowledge, and what he desperately needed right now was not another divine technique, but precisely this kind of fundamental knowledge.
"Thank you!"
Woo-Moon paused for a moment, then spoke out about what he really wanted to know.
"No-name…"
"What is it?"
"Do you know how to inject internal energy into a sword or a limb to make it stronger?"
"Ah. You want to know how to materialize qi, don't you?"
"Yes, that's it."
As expected, Woo-Moon was a fun guy. How could he use such high-level arts while at the same time lacking this absolutely elementary knowledge? The nameless man had been living for a long time, yet this was the first time he had seen such a martial artist.
The man smiled. "It's better if I demonstrate it than if I just explain it in words. You can then improve your control over it by working on yourself."
He picked up a branch from the ground. "Anyway, I'm not a saint and I'm not that patient. I'll only show it to you once, so be sure to carve it into your brain. You better focus all your concentration!"
The nameless man slowly injected his qi into the branch in his hand. "First, you have to infuse qi into the object. Once it exceeds a certain amount, the energy in it will overflow and appear on the surface."
He slowly demonstrated the very phenomenon he was talking about.
"However, if this happens, you're essentially just pouring water into a bottomless pot, making it difficult to exert any kind of power with it. Hence, you have to make detailed adjustments so that your internal energy doesn't flow out and go to waste. The more control you gain through practice, the more qi you can put into the target and maintain it. If you do it over and over again, you will eventually be able to produce sword qi, then sword threads, and finally, sword aura. Now, look."
Having said that, the nameless man once more infused his qi into the branch. The tangible energy wrapped around the branch became clearer and split into what looked like tens of thousands of threads. These threads then uniformly overlapped in all directions and turned into a net, which once more condensed into a single layer of qi—the sword aura he was talking about.
"Ah…" It was clearly the technique that Jin Won-Myeong had used a while back. Woo-Moon's eyes turned slightly hazy.[1]
'I want to be able to use it too.'
"Remember this important detail: if you just let qi out, then there's nothing to worry about. However, when you imbue the sword with qi and want to compress it, you have to prevent it from breaking your sword. In other words, you have to shape your qi while also protecting your weapon."
Woo-Moon suddenly remembered that his wooden sword exploded when he tried to use Raging Wind and Heavy Rain while fighting Jin Won-Myeong.
"Of course, if the medium—that is, the sword—is strong and can accept qi well, then there's no need to put much effort into protecting the sword."
The nameless man turned and walked away. "Okay, I'm going now."
"Wait, No-name! Please tell me your real name before you leave!"
"My name is Baek Sang-Woon. We'll see each other more often in the future! Oh, by the way, it's not permitted in the murim to show your techniques to others. From now on, even if someone like me asks you, don't listen to him!"
"Baek…Sang-Woon?!?!"
Baek Sang-Woon was the Palm Martial Emperor.
The nameless man was one of the Nine Provinces' Eight Emperors of Heavenly Martial Arts, or the Eight Martial Emperors for short. He was one of the eight Absolute Masters ranked at the peak of the murim and one of the two individuals that made countless people head to Go-Ryang Pyeong.
* * *
"Song Woo-Moon! Where is Song Woo-Moon?!"
The team leader in charge of Woo-Moon's group looked for him nervously.
1. This is an error in the raws. It's specifically stated in chapter 5 that what JWM used was not a sword technique, but the Amitabha Vajra Divine Art. ☜
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