Chapter 678: The New Semester Has Begun (12)

From of old, the chastisement of a witless brat has been settled upon the back. Of course, that “from of old” had little basis or root.

Even so, the temperament of those who get their backs smacked is similar across East and West, past, present, and future.

Thus, after Qing all but set his back on fire—and branded a broad white-phosphorus handprint—she had the gall to speak primly, feigning elegance.

“Your martial art is powerful, young sir, but it seems you first draw together the qi of nature. I merely struck before that to stop it.”

“But this is a duel! How can you do that before I even show my true skill?”

Chae Seong-ha must have felt very wronged.

After rubbing his back like a fool and hop-hopping three and a half laps around the ring, shame and grievance would come in a pair.

“When you see a boulder start rolling from a peak—what do you do? Do you simply wait in place until it’s upon you?”

“What are you—”

“Or.”

Qing’s projection cut him off.

Even her voice is a beauty—precise diction and loveliness that, by themselves, draw every ear.

“Do you slip your body aside in advance? Or dig out the path where it will fall? Or shove it, break it, and clear it before it truly gathers speed? I did nothing more than that, as an instructor.”

She had drawn enough attention.

Qing moved to the main point.

“Ivory Sword Oh the great hero who tested you merely watched long enough, as an examiner, to judge your martial ability. If it were an actual fight, your head would have fallen before you could unfold your first move.”

Don’t get swollen-headed for “defeating” the examiner; don’t truly think you won, either.

Qing does know that a martial art that handles nature-qi runs on a different grain from the Central Plains’ arts.

Naturally—because she herself is a real master of the Flower Realm.

From India to the Central Plains, on the banner of self-cultivation—self-completion—one borrows the qi of nature and makes it one’s own; the martial arts of the Central Plains, to put it crudely, are devotions of “my own.”

But Chae Seong-ha’s Azure Dragon Dance was different.

Be generous and call his personal skill first-rate?

His scant inner power is used merely to draw and guide nature-qi; at the root it’s a fundamentally different art.

If the roots are not deep, perhaps some eccentric among the Central Plains created it anew.

Nature’s true qi is limitless; saying you wield it can sound grand.

But—why, exactly?

Martial art is, in the end, a process of expanding from me to the world.

Fill your body by taking the world’s qi within, and that is the second-rate realm; extend your own qi into the weapon in hand until it becomes part of you, and that is Filling-Qi-Into-Steel—the first-rate realm.

When that qi goes out into the world, we call it the peak.

And the first moment two things meet is, by nature, collision.

The universe begins in a single impact; the chick must break the shell to meet the world—first bonds are acts of smashing, of battle.

Thus, the instant a person’s interior first touches the world, he attempts the most violent conversation—starlight shattering and burning the universe’s dark.

Steel-qi—superlative peak.

Before now, Qing could hardly be called a warrior; after all, what warrior learns by staring at a floating screen in the air, poking it, and burning a memory into her brain?

But now, despite the merits piling up, Qing does not go trading accumulated merit for new divine arts.

Because martial study is this kind of journey: differing routes that reach the same destination.

So they used to say martial study is “ten thousand streams return to the sea”—water’s road to the ocean.

So even if you learn a new divine art, it’s just another reference point—“ah, this path guides you to the end like this.”

Divine arts are merely tools for survival.

The more you have, the more foes you can beat?

With too many advisors, you can’t choose; you lose your line.

Adding arts does not guarantee entry into Harmony, much less beyond.

Up to late peak, Qing gulped things down whole, barely chewing what she’d hunted live.

But after that—what she achieved, she achieved herself. No longer learning whatever had a handsome name, unable to tell demonic from divine; no longer an outsider who did not know the martial world at all.

Now, as a true master of the martial world—as a senior who grasped many groups through many arts—she is a cultivator with deep inner power.

And from these eyes—these truly masterful, properly senior eyes—hm, Azure Dragon Dance? Nature-qi? It sounds grand.

But nature sits at the end of Central-Plains study as well.

Those recorded to have reached it can be counted on fingers, but be that as it may—

After you grind and temper that “I,” that sword that is you, to the bitter limit, in the end you let it go; No-Phase Nature, I am nature and nature is me; no-self and “this world is self.”

To pull nature-qi first?

Skipping the middle and ladling up a bit of seawater, so to speak.

Granted, if Azure Dragon Dance—Azure Dragon’s “Dance”—is an art on a wholly different track, it may seek aims unlike the Central Plains’.

It piques my curiosity, yes, but—must we call it astonishing?

There are voluntary commentators who appear without fail whenever a duel—or anything like a duel—breaks out in the Central Plains.

Why do they always appear?

Is there an academy that trains such commentary?

Of course not.

The eye for martial skill, advantage, and flow is not a profession but a matter of cultivation.

If finer commentators take seats at a fight, those unsure of their skill and eye shut their mouths and return to being onlookers, learning by listening.

But if no one fit to judge is present?

“Then I could do it, no? A chance to attach commentary and flaunt my discernment?”—and the clumsier sort steps up.

In short, these commentators—whatever “commentary skill” means—aren’t paid and aren’t the ones fighting; they live on attention.

And they missed no chance now.

“There is sense in the Heavenly Flower Sword’s words. What an examiner does is neither duel nor spar. He is there to receive what the examinee unleashes as fully as possible to judge his art. So it is a bit much to say Little Azure Dragon defeated Ivory Sword.”

“Indeed—real battle is a different law entirely. Some are peculiarly strong in formal duels; and what of the Tang Family of Sichuan, famed for extreme poison and hidden weapons? Who in this Central Plains dares slight their name?”

“Little Azure Dragon’s skill is formidable and astonishing, yes—but it takes the time of five breaths before he unfolds truly lethal technique. A master adept in movement could easily kill him in that span.”

“Ivory Sword is head of the Martial Alliance’s battle unit’s Teeth Division and a lay disciple of Mount Wudang. Wudang’s sword is supremely swift, and Ivory Sword is famed for a killing stroke that pierces in one go, like a wolf seizing the throat. He erased his strengths and took to defense; as the Heavenly Flower Sword said, to call that defeat is not fair.”

Only—the tilt felt one-sided.

But that’s how it is.

What a master says is truth.

Offer a different opinion and you’ll be asked what realm you stand in to be flapping your lips—and you won’t even be able to rebut.

When Little Azure Dragon “beat” Ivory Sword?

Excitement for witnessing a new master’s birth, and a simple, clear law—whoever wins is the master—put everyone on his side.

But once Heavenly Flower Sword smacked Little Azure Dragon squarely between the shoulders?

Ah—Heavenly Flower Sword is far the greater master!

There hadn’t even been some grand exchange.

She simply dashed in and brought her palm down on his back—an appalling strike that made the watchers’ innards go cold, yes—but to the crowd, it wasn’t a lofty sequence or a flashy form.

Chae Seong-ha grew flustered.

The reason he’d come out into the rivers and lakes—he had descended to carry on his master’s will; all this was for that.

He must make the lords of Vermilion Bird, White Tiger, and Black Tortoise yield and take their arts to complete the Four Gods Dance—the fate passed down line by line to the inheritors of the Four Directions Dance.

If he made a splendid name, the inheritors would come find him themselves.

Or perhaps some among them wished to enter the Righteous-Proper Martial Academy.

And for a personal reason besides.

—Can you pick up women by learning martial arts? Fool, never heard that a hero keeps three wives and four concubines? Women cling to masters. Flash a sliver of skill and—there: “Will you come with me?”

This was how an eight-year-old brat ended up shut in the mountains for over ten years, practicing dance forever.

And now, as if by fate, he faced the most beautiful under heaven (if eight in ten agree, that’s “most beautiful”).

—Women unfailingly adore a strong man. Strength means personal might, yes, but also boldness and poise; speech and conduct without hesitation; ambition like Mount Tai.

He had tried the seduction his master had taught:

Bold, poised, unhesitating words!

—What? What if the woman is strong in martial arts? Idiot, the Azure Dragon Dance you learned is the greatest divine art under heaven; once perfected, it has no rival in this world. And listen: there are no women easier than female warriors. Say in their face, “Let’s fight,” and their pride is huge—they charge right in. Then subdue and turn your back—done. After that it’s “Great hero,” and they live and die on you.

Only—why had his master, old and alone, wandered the world by himself, looking for a disciple with talent?

Why had not even one among the countless women who “lived and died on him” come up the mountain?

Why, though Chae Seong-ha ended up doing all the work, had the master’s solitary-life skills—cooking, cleaning, laundry—been so very practiced back when the boy was small?

These were the first questions he should have asked.

But at the time he was too young.

And alas, they lived just the two of them until he grew—no occasions arose to raise questions later.

Chae Seong-ha clenched his fist.

All those years learning martial arts while seeing neither woman nor man, living with his master alone; taking every house chore upon himself, getting hit while he trained—

The pain I bore through those long, long hours...!

“As the lady says, I only relaxed because it was a duel. This time, I will show you properly.”

A little shabby, perhaps—but he still had time.

There had been issues in the process.

He had, in fact, relaxed.

—Boy, you’re supposed to ride the wind right—why are you pulling the wind to you? What, it looks cool? Hm, well, it does look cool—

Heavenly Flower Sword.

The next number one under heaven—or at least, at minimum, certain to be the foremost among women, the Queen of Swords—the most famous young master and female warrior.

If he broke her here, his name would spread wide; he would prove what true Central-Plains martial study is; he would fulfill his school’s lifelong wish.

And he would take as wife the most beautiful under heaven, who would have fallen for true, overwhelming martial skill.

“Hm. Good. Properly, then.”

Qing hesitated a touch.

Truth is, she could simply not accept.

But honestly, she was curious.

If the process of drawing nature-qi by dancing is riddled with holes, isn’t that a fatal defect as martial art?

Even without smacking a back, the methods are many—she could just hurl a Thus-Come Palm from range or pull a Battle Hairpin and throw—

Off to Yama in one shot.

If there’s another way—

Why didn’t he use it from the start?

Surely not because the dance looks cool and he wanted to pose. It is cool in its way—Qing had imagined herself unfolding that Azure Dragon whatever—but still.

“Then I will yield you one move.”

“You still won’t take up your sword?”

“That depends on you, young sir.”

Qing tapped the waist where her belly-dagger rested—ready to draw at any time, but whether she would draw depended on him.

Then she sank back into the fist-art guard and gathered her fingers—flick, flick.

Chae Seong-ha’s expression changed at once.

Leaving aside good and evil, like a beast before prey: some formless pressure settled and rose.

He stepped.

Not forward—sideways.

Qing’s brow twitched. No way—because he got clipped coming straight in, he’ll dance along the side to gather qi? If that’s it, I shouldn’t have indulged him—go home, rub on ointment, and wait—

Then a wave of dissonance surged.

Qing sees the world with her eyes—and with her skin.

The spatial sense of shen-movement reads the air’s flow with keen sensitivity, stacks those experiences, and forms a learned model of movements within a given radius.

And now, Chae Seong-ha’s movement had melted fully into the air’s flow; like a formless mirage—a presence without shape—he did not register to her senses at all, felt like empty space.

To ride a flow, you must first read it.

So—ah, he can do something similar.

If you can still catch and feel the foe completely even when you turn your back, then you may spin and show your back.

So “I relaxed” wasn’t a lie?

Qing watched his toes closely.

His weight sat back—ready to burst in any of eight directions.

A sudden pounce now wouldn’t land.

He took on a graver cast; the dance lines narrowed and slowed until, to Qing’s eye, it turned into a limp, undercutting motion.

Admittedly, the earlier version had style; this—meh.

But with each step, qi clearly swirled.

Movement shrank, speed slowed—but with a keen WHOOOSH, visible blades of wind surged, roiled, and packed—

“Here I come!”

He barked and charged.

This brat. “Here I come” in half-speech, is it.

Blades of wind circled on all sides.

His sword traced the shape of a colossal blade—nearly five feet across—sweeping in level to the ground, rushing at Qing.

Suddenly, Qing vanished.

Nothing special.

She sank until her knees were just shy of the floor, hips level with her knees, torso folded tight.

As the blade skimmed over her head, her arm speared upward.

Long, slender fingers reached and softly caught his wrist—then yanked with a weight that was anything but soft, weight in the hundreds of pounds.

A blink later, Qing was upright as if nothing had happened, back in place.

Her left hand had already clenched by her ribs, like an arrow nocked on the string—ready to loose at any time.

A near-Diamond-Indestructible, vicious little-demon-art, terrifying core punch drove deep beneath Chae Seong-ha’s solar plexus.