Chapter 81 :

Chapter 81. Those Who Chase the Dragon (2)

At the point when the first gate of the Martial Academy entrance exam ended, the ones whose bodies heated up the most were the disciples of prominent sects.

The disciples belonging to the powerful sects of the One Hundred Eight Peaks, including the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Families, had failed to subjugate mountain strongholds not because they lacked skill, but because they had missed their opportunity, and that anger and obsession turned toward the other people who had passed the first gate.

“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, there are even places where entire units have been annihilated.”

The contradictory part was that no one pointed their sword at the Nine Great Sects or the Five Great Families.

“Right now, the one in the most danger is you, Lord Sowoon.”

Perhaps it was only natural.

Twin Curtain Stronghold, one of the Seventy-Two Green Forest Strongholds.

In reality, the eight first-gate tokens gained from subjugating the two places made up of Hwamak Stronghold and Geummak Stronghold would whet their appetites.

If the two gate tokens Bang Duchil had personally possessed were added to that, the total was ten.

“I’m prepared for it.”

In my previous life, I had always been an easy target, but this was the first time I had become a target so mouthwatering.

“Right now, the One Hundred Eight Peaks sects based in Zhejiang Province, including the Yellow Sword Sect and Qingdao Gang, are moving toward Mount Tianmu.”

“Already?”

Without realizing it, my face stiffened.

The Yellow Sword Sect and Qingdao Gang were local powers of Zhejiang Province, holding the twenty-third and thirty-second peaks of the One Hundred Eight Peaks respectively.

In my previous life, they were forces that had each sent three disciples into the Martial Academy.

They were now coming to catch us in order to maintain the layer of power their sects possessed.

“The Beggar Gang has already begun focusing on you, Lord Sowoon.”

We were probably the most appetizing prey and the most expensive information.

If we were the weakest while possessing the most entrance tokens, there would be countless people willing to pay a thousand gold for information about us.

“We are releasing as much other information as possible, but that is.......”

Yang Gunbaek spoke with the face of someone confessing a grave crime.

There would naturally be a difference in the reliability of information between the Beggar Gang, which played one axis of the Martial Alliance and received real-time interim results of the exam, and Haomun, which gathered information by running around directly.

Moreover, if Haomun gave out other information to blur my information, Haomun’s trust would end up being damaged.

I did not want innocent people to suffer because of me.

Furthermore, spreading false information did not seem very good for me in the long run either.

I looked at Yang Gunbaek and shook my head slightly.

“No. I don’t want any action that would crack Haomun’s trust.”

“Yes?”

“If Haomun’s trust falls to the ground, wouldn’t it also become difficult for me to use it later?”

“……But if that happens…… you really may be in great trouble, Lord Sowoon.......”

I looked at him and smiled slightly.

“I am a guest of Haomun, not Haomun’s enemy.”

Yang Gunbaek looked at me with a complicated gaze.

“First, how long will it take before we encounter the Yellow Sword Sect and Qingdao Gang?”

“There is a difference in distance depending on the route…… but the moment you delay, Lord Sowoon, that distance will close in an instant.”

A darker shadow than ever had settled over Yang Gunbaek’s face.

It was still before sunrise, during the early dawn hours.

When I left the room to go get my junior brothers,

Village Chief Heo was standing in the hallway with his back turned, puffing smoke from a tobacco pipe.

“Elder.”

“……You’re awake?”

“Yes.”

“You’re leaving early.”

“Yes. I think we need to move early.”

“You have a moment, don’t you?”

I glanced once at the room where the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers were sleeping, then nodded.

Village Chief Heo’s face was filled with regret, making it hard to refuse and leave.

Village Chief Heo and the villagers had tried to hold a feast even if they had to scrape together everything they had, but with the Yellow Sword Sect and Qingdao Gang supposedly chasing us so hard their feet were sweating, we could not foolishly hold a feast, so we had politely refused.

“I don’t think I can stay long.”

“It won’t take long.”

Village Chief Heo took me to the space behind the inn that was used as a vegetable garden.

The dried-up vegetables were unsightly because the garden had not been maintained, but Village Chief Heo paid them no mind and headed to one corner of the vegetable garden before beginning to dig.

“Sixty years ago, you see. Around the time I had just inherited the inn from my father and was running the business, there were days when flies kept buzzing around because perhaps the taste had changed.”

“.......”

Village Chief Heo quietly unfolded a story from his past whose meaning I could not understand.

“That day, too, when business had failed and I was about to throw away all the noodles I had made, a beggar-like middle-aged monk walked in.”

Perhaps deciding 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 because business had been bad, he laughed heartily and asked me to make him a bowl of noodles. It was obvious he had no money…… but since business had failed anyway, I made him noodles as if I were giving alms.”

After digging like that for a while, Village Chief Heo looked as though something had caught in his hand deep beneath the ground, and he carefully pulled out a small bundle.

It must have been buried for so long that part of the cotton cloth wrapped around the outside had rotted away and fell off with the dirt.

“As expected, after he finished eating the noodles, he said he had no money. I had already expected it, so I was just going to let him go. 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 if it had been forced into my arms.”

The bundle was wrapped in several layers of cloth, and when he removed those layers one by one, an oiled leather pouch appeared. When he removed the leather pouch, the item wrapped tightly inside came out.

“But the middle-aged monk never came. Not after ten years, nor even after twenty. Since I do not believe in Buddha, I even thought about throwing it away, but it gave off a strange energy.”

What came out of the final pouch was a rosary made of beads of various colors and a small wooden box.

“Strangely, when I wore it, distracting thoughts disappeared and my mind became peaceful. This object was so unusual that I could not even think of opening this wooden box.”

Saying that, Village Chief Heo handed me the rosary.

“.......”

When I silently held the rosary in my hand, strangely, my head, which had been filled with complicated thoughts last night because of the Yellow Sword Sect, Qingdao Gang, and the other sects, seemed to clear.

“Don’t tell me.......”

I immediately began searching through the library in my head.

Among the secrets of Simhyeon Pavilion, I opened the section on wondrous objects of the murim world.

“Demon-Cleansing Spirit Beads……?”

One of the Seven Great Wondrous Objects recorded in the wondrous objects section.

The Demon-Cleansing Spirit Beads, which should have been enshrined in the deepest inner sanctuary of Shaolin Temple right now, were in my hand.

“How is this.......”

The Demon-Cleansing Spirit Beads were made by gathering the single sarira left behind after the passing of monks with great Buddhist power throughout history, turning them into one hundred and eight prayer beads, and handing them to those entering the inner sanctuary for wall-facing cultivation so that they could fill it with Buddhist devotion and make it into a sacred relic.

Not only did it take a long time to make, but because as many as one hundred and eight sarira were used, it was known as an item possessing Buddhist power equivalent to one hundred and eight stone pagodas.

“Is it valuable?”

Village Chief Heo had an anxious expression, like someone having an antique he had possessed for a long time appraised for authenticity.

I barely managed to answer.

“……It is an object whose value cannot be discussed in terms of high or low.”

It was the sacred relic that Martial Alliance members had most desperately wished for when facing the Demonic Cult on the front lines.

There were many in the Demonic Cult who had learned the sorcery of the Heavenly Demon Scripture.

This sorcery did not have much external destructive power, but it clouded the mind and caused one to lose reason.

Once people entered the battlefield, more than those who died from being cut by swords, countless people had their minds ruined after demonic morale and demonic energy seeped into their brains. Yet at the time, the Martial Alliance did not bring out any sacred relics during the war.

They merely spouted nonsense about reciting the Demon-Subduing Mantra Beads in order to establish a righteous mind.

Only now did I understand why the Martial Alliance and Shaolin Temple had been unable to bring out the Demon-Cleansing Spirit Beads, the greatest sacred relic of demon-cleansing and evil-destroying.

Since people were asking them to bring out something they did not have, nonsense was all they could say.

“My guess was right. My guess was right.”

Village Chief Heo smiled faintly for the first time, but I simply could not understand.

Sixty years ago would have been when Great Master Suheo of Shaolin Temple was serving as abbot.

Such a sacred relic could not be taken out carelessly without the abbot’s permission, and all removals had to leave records.

Moreover, in that generation, there had been no monk who wandered around dressed like a beggar while claiming to have gained enlightenment.

“Did no one from Shaolin Temple come to look for this item?”

“Was this an item of Shaolin Temple?”

It seemed Village Chief Heo had not known even that.

“Yes.”

“Heoheo, so that was it.”

“Why did you not search for its owner?”

“How would a rustic villager like me know who the owner of such a precious item was and search for them? Who knows what sort of trouble I might have brought on myself?”

If rumors had spread by mistake, his entire family could have been massacred.

Moreover, before an object of this level, the distinction between the righteous faction and the dark faction became meaningless.

Before greater force and power, was the essence of the murim world not colder and more ruthless than anything else?

There was a reason the Academy exam of the righteous faction, which claimed to be orthodox, was conducted so fiercely that people died.

I nodded in understanding.

“Would you like to open this too?”

“……Isn’t it an item that has an owner?”

“I thought about it. It is an excessive item to receive in place of the price of noodles, but in the end, did I not receive it as payment? Moreover, if no one has come looking for it for sixty years, then strictly speaking, it is mine, is it not?”

A smile naturally formed at the corner of my mouth.

“You truly are the person who sold noodles at the highest price under heaven.”

“Stop saying useless things and open it.”

I nodded and opened the wooden box.

With a popping sound as the air burst, the wooden box opened, and a clear fragrance wafted out from inside.

It felt as though I were not in a ruined vegetable garden that smelled only of earth, but in the middle of a lush forest.

“What is it?”

Village Chief Heo asked while swallowing, and I nodded.

“It is something called a Small Rejuvenation Pill. You have heard of it, haven’t you?”

Even among civilians with no interest in the murim world, there were few who did not know of the Small Rejuvenation Pill.

“You mean the elixir that can even bring the dead back to life?”

“Well, it is not quite to that extent, but they say if an ordinary person eats it, they can live a long life without suffering from minor illnesses for the rest of their life.”

“Then if someone who has learned martial arts eats it?”

“What need is there to say? Since one can immediately gain internal energy that others would need fifteen years of training to obtain, isn’t that why the Small Rejuvenation Pill and Great Rejuvenation Pill are regarded as the elixirs among elixirs even in the murim world?”

“Heoheo, is it to that extent?”

“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 world.

“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. I am someone who has seen with my own two eyes countless people die because of treasures that appeared in the murim world over the long years.”

“I see.”

I handed the wooden box back to Village Chief Heo.

But for some reason, Village Chief Heo shook his head and pushed the wooden box back.

“Hm?”

When I looked at him in puzzlement, Village Chief Heo gripped my hand tightly and spoke.

“I want you to eat that.”

Did I hear wrong?

I asked Village Chief Heo again.

“Elder, did you not hear what I said? If an ordinary person eats it, they will have no minor illnesses, and if someone who has learned martial arts eats it.......”

“I know. But eating just one of those will not make heaven and earth open anew, will it?”

“.......”

“If my grandson says he wants to learn martial arts, I can take him to a nearby martial arts school. If the energy of an elixir remains in his body and he draws suspicion for no reason, an even greater calamity may come.”

Thinking of all the years he had endured, I could not bear to accept the treasure.

“Elder, even so, this is far too great an item.”

“If not for you, I would not have taken it out.”

“Yes?”

“I have seen countless people over the years, but no member of the Martial Alliance, nor any righteous hero, ever raised a sword for us. The chivalry and justice they claimed to protect were all for themselves.”

One could not declare that everyone was like that, but the reality was that most were.

No, there were even sects that interrogated their disciples for building grudges with dark faction members because of powerless common people.

Village Chief Heo’s wrinkled eyes curved into a smile.

“You are the first. That is why I intend to feed it to you.”

“……Elder.”

“If it is such a precious item, then think of it as you owing me a debt. I, too, have always thought it would be nice to have someone at my back whom I could trust and rely on, just like other people.”

I knew that Village Chief Heo’s words were ultimately intended to ease my burden.

Just as I had done for Village Chief Heo.

“Then to my junior brothers.......”

“No, I want you to eat it.”

“Yes?”

“Isn’t it safer if even the people who know the evidence do not exist?”

“.......”

In the end, Village Chief Heo persistently watched until the Small Rejuvenation Pill went into my mouth.

The moment the Small Rejuvenation Pill touched my tongue,

It dissolved and went down my throat in an instant, making it hard to believe that it was a pill that had been aged for sixty years.

“Good. Good. It has finally found its owner.”

Village Chief Heo could not erase his smile, as if he were delighted about something.

“Ah, right. Take this too. Whether your junior brother uses it or you return it to its owner is up to you. I will think of it as an item I know nothing about.”

It seemed that after seeing Dongryong driven mad by his murderous star a few days ago, he had resolved to take out this item.

If rumors somehow spread because of me, he and his family could be put in danger, so he must have had many worries.

Even so, moved by the heart he had shown in mustering courage for me and my junior brothers, I respectfully cupped my fist in salute.

“Thank you, elder.”

“……That is enough. From now on, I will go around saying that you are the one backing me.”

Perhaps because of the rising sun, Village Chief Heo’s face seemed tinged red.

As if afraid that it would be noticed, Village Chief Heo quickly went back inside the inn.

North.

Jin Sowoon’s party left Mount Tianmu and immediately headed north.

After crossing Zhejiang Province, they intended to change direction northwest at once.

It was a movement that considered the optimal route for the second gate, which would begin soon, and the third gate, which had not yet been announced.

Cha-cha-cha-cha-cha-chaeng!

“Dongryong! Don’t rush out!”

“O-okay!”

“Just hold out a little longer! Senior Brother will come soon!”

Perhaps because Geumpyo’s desperate shout reached the heavens, screams began ringing out from the rear.

“Kraaaaak!”

“A-an ambush!”

The eight attackers who had been surrounding the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers fell into internal confusion from Jin Sowoon’s ambush. In the meantime, the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers activated their sword formation even more fiercely and attacked the attackers from both front and back, ending the fight in one breath.

“Master…… I am sorry....... Keuheuk.”

“Senior Brother! It isn’t your fault! It is all my fault! If only I had not made a mistake.......”

The examinee who had become unable to fight broke into tears in utter despair, as if he had lost his parents.

Even though we had won the battle, it did not feel refreshing.

“Haa, haa. Dammit.”

“Damn it.”

Curses naturally slipped from the mouths of the Geum, Eun, and Dong brothers, who had never even cursed before leaving the Taeul Sect.

It was already the second ambush.

Less than two days had passed since we left Mount Tianmu.

They were disciples and martial artists of the Hongseon Sect, which was located on Mount Yandang in Zhejiang Province.

It was questionable how the Hongseon Sect, located at the edge of Zhejiang Province, had already come all the way near Mount Tianmu, which was practically the opposite side, but there was no time to think deeply.

“Stay sharp! More are coming!”

“Damn it.”

They had already gone through two intense battles, but fortunately, about half of their internal energy remained.

It was thanks to desperately operating energy circulation.

Now, they no longer wondered why they had to learn such cumbersome martial arts like they had at first.

If not for energy circulation, they would have had to give up several times already.

Around the time their internal energy finally ran dry despite desperately operating energy circulation like that,

The sun set, and that day’s attacks ended.

“……Do you think it will get worse?”

Jin Sowoon’s party, having entered the deep forest of a mountain to avoid the pursuers’ eyes, was chewing dried meat without lighting a fire.

“It will be easier on your mind if you think of right now as the most comfortable time.”

“……Why is everyone so desperate?”

Eunho voiced a question he had never held before.

As if he truly could not understand, he looked into empty space for a moment before looking at Sowoon.

“Why on earth are they going this far?”

The face of the Hongseon Sect disciple who had attacked them during the day came to mind, filled with bitter despair.

Jin Sowoon, who had been quietly tearing into dried meat, stopped moving.

Then he stared into Eunho’s eyes.

However, everyone was carrying a heavier burden than he had imagined.

“Because of that fierceness and ruthlessness, even though it is an exam supervised by the Martial Alliance, it was given the name Hell Official Exam.”

Eunho, who had been listening silently, clenched his fist and asked,

“……Why does the Martial Alliance tolerate this kind of exam?”

As expected, it was a question fitting someone who had not yet been tainted.

A pure belief that if a group was established for justice, it would not stand by and watch something unjust.

“There are many people with great greed, and resources are limited. So they have no choice but to engage in fierce competition. In addition, that is probably advantageous from the perspective of the vested sects that currently occupy the upper ranks of the Martial Alliance.”

At that moment, Geumpyo tilted his head.

“Can’t they just divide it fairly?”

“……Well, if someone told you to change from eating two meals a day to one meal, would you accept it?”

“……T-that’s.”

“And for the sake of the Iron Sword Sect, not the Taeul Sect.”

“That’s absolutely unacceptable!!”

Jin Sowoon lightly patted Geumpyo’s head.

“Yes, that is what it means.”

“.......”

Jin Sowoon had merely compared it to a rice bowl, but in the future Righteous-Demonic War, they would have to risk their lives in a power struggle.

“Because that is the essence of the murim world.”

“.......”

“If you do not climb, you fall. Staying still does not mean remaining in place. Only by constantly climbing can you barely maintain your position.”

Within the power structure of the murim world centered around the Martial Alliance, power inside the alliance directly became profit for one’s sect.

One could tell this from how the Taeul Sect had not enjoyed a single period of prosperity over the past five hundred years. Conversely, one could also tell from sects that were not annihilated in Hefei, like those in the dragon’s pool and tiger’s den.

“No martial sect in the murim world can live outside the influence of the Martial Alliance. What was the reason Gye Cheolyeong wanted to enter the Martial Alliance so badly?”

Gye Cheolyeong and Gye Yeonseok had planned to grow the Gyeryong Merchant Guild into the greatest merchant guild in Jiangxi through the Martial Alliance.

They had tried to accomplish through the Martial Alliance something impossible with their own ability in their own generation.

“The examinees are not taking the Academy exam merely for their own advancement.”

Even if it was the Martial Alliance that claimed to establish justice, and even if it was the murim world said to have gathered its will through righteousness and chivalry,

“On their shoulders, they also carry the layer of power of their sects.”

In the end, the most important goal was “surviving,” and creating an environment where one’s precious people could “survive.”

“.......”

At Jin Sowoon’s words, Eunho felt his mind grow distant.

He had thought everyone took the exam simply to enjoy wealth and glory and make their name known.

A sect without power would cause more disciples to die, while a sect with power would at least suffer less grief.

Jin Sowoon had felt the ruthlessness of power more keenly than anyone in his previous life.

That was why he understood better than anyone those who risked their lives for “only” an entrance exam.

Eunho suddenly felt that he was forgetting something.

“The second gate! The second gate exam has not started yet, right?”

“Do you think that would be the case?”

Jin Sowoon had an expression of disbelief.

Eunho, who had been chewing dried meat, frowned heavily as if he had chewed sand.

“The exam has already started?”

“We received it together with the first-gate tokens.”

Jin Sowoon showed the second-gate notice he had received from the Hangzhou branch leader.

–Martial Academy Entrance Exam, Second Gate

Self-Development

Exam - Securing Inner Cores

Details - A student of the Martial Academy must know how to strive for their own development. The most basic development for a warrior is increasing internal energy. To increase internal energy, one must be able to secure inner cores.

Conditions -

One inner core based on ten years may be exchanged for one second-gate token.

Gate tokens may be exchanged for up to three per inner core.

However, no distinction is made between the inner cores of spiritual creatures and demonic creatures.

Eunho’s eyes opened wide like a rabbit’s when he saw the notice.

“Senior Brother, since when did inner cores become neighborhood bear gallbladders?”

Jin Sowoon smiled bitterly instead of answering.

“No, seriously, I’m not joking. What kind of bullshit is this?”

At Eunho’s words, Geumpyo and Dongryong looked at the notice and frowned deeply.

“These crazy bastards.”

Spiritual creatures and demonic creatures.

Beings that receive spiritual energy deep in nature, untouched by the hands of the human world, and live beyond their originally limited lifespans.

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 was a demonic creature.

However, spiritual creatures and demonic creatures that had lived long enough for an inner core to form were rare.

That was because before an inner core formed, they would usually be killed while harming the human world, or conversely, be spotted by humans and hunted.

Moreover, was a spiritual creature or demonic creature with a ten-year level inner core not no different from a martial artist who had trained external arts for thirty years?

Those who passed the first gate had to go hunting while at the same time resisting the checks or attacks of other competitors.

“This simply isn’t a test made to be accomplished.”

Jin Sowoon pointed at the notice and said,

“Look carefully at that. What do you think the intention behind that test is?”

Geumpyo and Dongryong tilted their heads as if they had no idea at all.

Eunho, on the other hand, looked more closely at the notice under the moonlight.

“The intention behind the test?”

Eunho, who had fallen into even deeper thought at Jin Sowoon’s words, finally discovered something strange about the notice.

“It says securing inner cores, but it does not say that we must obtain them by hunting them ‘personally.’”

At Eunho’s words, Geumpyo raised one eyebrow.

“What are you talking about? Telling us to bring inner cores means telling us to hunt.”

“Brother, think carefully. We don’t have money, but if one has enough money to buy inner cores from the market, couldn’t they get as many as they want?”

Geumpyo opened his mouth blankly, as if he had been struck on the back of the head without realizing it.

“Huh.......”

“Can we say the intention of the test is the same as the first one?”

At Eunho’s words, Jin Sowoon nodded.

“In the end, saying that one can secure spirit pills while defending the first-gate tokens means they intend to select people who have martial strength and, at the same time, the financial power to obtain spirit pills, or overwhelming martial strength enough to hunt spiritual creatures.”

“That’s right.”

“Ha.......”

Although he had heard the correct answer, none of his questions were resolved.

In the end, wasn’t this test not choosing talented and hardworking people, but choosing, among them, people who also had money and power?

As if reading Eunho’s inner thoughts, Jin Sowoon spoke.

“The Martial Alliance wants only the Martial Alliance to become the absolute power of the murim world. To maintain that system, it wants people with strength, money, and power to continue competing inside the Martial Alliance.”

“Then people who don’t have those things…… how are they supposed to climb to a higher place?”

Even though he knew the obvious answer,

Eunho asked again because he did not want to accept that cruel reality.

But the answer that returned was still cruel.

“What need is there to say? They have to take that absurd test.”

Eunho felt for the first time just how damn awful it was to face reality.