Chapter 3 - The Third-Rate Warrior Gathering Spiritual Elixirs

"So, you're saying you won't go to Busaeng Hall?"

This incident caused an uproar in the Taiyi Sect.

Gye Yeonseok, Gye Cheolyeong's father and the leader of the Gyeryong Merchant Group, had first thrown a fit over Gye Cheolyeong's injuries, and in the process of investigating the incident, Gye Yeonseung's negligent teaching methods were exposed.

Taking responsibility for this matter, Gye Yeonseung was fired from Busaeng Hall and was reduced to a state where he could no longer enter the Taiyi Sect.

Gye Yeonseok vented his frustration over pointlessly making a scene that resulted in the disappearance of the guardian who was supposed to protect Gye Cheolyeong, but what was done was done.

"I have already been recognized by the former Busaeng Hall Leader as having completed the course. Thus, there is no need for me to go."

My father scowled as fiercely as he could with his rugged face.

It was a face that would strike fear into others, but to me, it was still a face that made my heart well up with emotion.

I quickly averted my gaze lest tears fall.

"I still can't believe it. How could a bastard like you defeat Gye Yeonseung? Did you use some sort of trick?"

"Ah, Hall Leader Gye said the same thing, and his arm got broken. Do you want your arm broken too, Father?"

"What!"

"Anyway, I'm free until the other junior brothers complete Busaeng Hall."

"Of all the skulls you could have smashed, why did it have to be Gye Cheolyeong's?"

My father, Jin Taesan, was the Hall Leader of the External Hall, which handled the sect's external affairs.

As the Gyeryong Merchant Group was the Taiyi Sect's largest sponsor, this incident was bound to be unwelcome to him.

"Didn't the merchant group leader ultimately admit fault? Then it's fine."

"You brat! Do you think a guy like Gye Yeonseok will just end it with words! If the Taiyi Sect's meals are reduced to two a day right now, do you think the other disciples will leave you alone!"

"Watch your words. Why is that my fault? It's the fault of the incompetent External Hall Leader."

"You little-!"

"I will be taking my leave now."

"Where do you think you're going-! If you're not going to Busaeng Hall, help out with the External Hall's work."

"I have a lot of personal matters to attend to."

"And what is that?"

"I am at an age where hair is growing on my face. Please respect my privacy."

"What?"

Jin Taesan's beard began to tremble as if he had just heard something utterly absurd.

But it wasn't like I could honestly say, 'I need to prepare to defend the Taiyi Sect against the return of the Demonic Cult.'

Soon, my father's hand began moving toward the club propped up in the corner, and I quickly darted away.

"Then I will be go-"

"You little brat! Stop right there!"

* * *

"Are you that rootless bastard named Jin Sowoon?"

After escaping my fierce-looking father, an old pig with sagging cheeks blocked my path.

"Who are you?"

"You don't... know me?"

How could I not?

Mismatched silk robes. A jade-studded golden sash and a crudely large gold ring.

There was only one person in the Taiyi Sect who wore such vulgar attire.

Gye Cheolyeong's father, Gye Yeonseok, who fluttered his trouser hems and turned the Taiyi Sect upside down day after day.

"What business do you have with me?"

"You brat! Watch your words! This is Lord Gye Yeonseok, the leader of the Gyeryong Merchant Group."

A man who looked like an escort warrior scowled deeply and glared at me.

"Yes. I heard you. He's the leader of the Gyeryong Merchant Group. And that's why I asked what business he has with me."

Gye Yeonseok snorted roughly through his nose, as if he were dumbfounded.

"Because of you, my Cheolyeong is unable to rise due to his injuries. Did you think you could do such a thing to the legitimate heir of the Gyeryong Merchant Group and just get away with it?"

He had bled a little, but this was a severe exaggeration over getting hit in the head just once.

By that logic, what should be done about the disciples of our Taiyi Sect who had been beaten countless times by Gye Cheolyeong under the guise of sparring?

"Didn't we agree to just let this go?"

"That is a matter between me and the Sect Leader, but doesn't the matter between you and me still remain?"

Should shamelessness of this degree be counted as a martial art?

"And if you don't just let it go?"

At my words, the escort warrior placed his hand on his sword, looking ready to spring forward at any moment.

"If you were afraid of him getting hit, you should have taught him commerce. Why teach him martial arts?"

"... Y-You brat, how dare you when an elder is speaking...!"

I hammered my words into the ears of Gye Yeonseok, who was rolling his eyes in thought.

"If Senior Brother Gye gets drafted to the Murim Academy, do you intend to follow him all the way there and hold the descendants of the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Noble Clans accountable too?"

Not only Gye Yeonseok, but the escort warrior also wore a slightly surprised expression.

Had they not thought that far ahead?

Or did they think the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Noble Clans wouldn't flex their backing in the first place?

"Seeing as you cannot speak, it seems you lack the courage to do so. However, seeing you come to the Taiyi Sect and throw such an unreasonable tantrum, it appears you look down on the Taiyi Sect quite a bit."

"... Y-You little...!"

Gye Yeonseok's voice was so loud that the Hall Leaders of each hall and even the Sect Leader from the Grand Sage Hall began to come out.

"The number of junior brothers who couldn't rise for days after being beaten by Senior Brother Gye exceeds ten fingers. If you want to blame me, you should first blame Senior Brother Gye for putting the junior brothers in such a state."

"How dare you..."

Gye Yeonseok, who had only been shouting 'You little...', 'How dare you...', suddenly wore a triumphant smile.

"If the Taiyi Sect's sponsorship is cut off because of you, will you take responsibility?"

This was always the problem.

Half of the current generation's disciples were children who had been born and raised in the Taiyi Sect like me.

The other half were children from families in the village that were not very well-off either.

Most of them were children who had entered the sect to lessen the number of mouths to feed at home.

Just as children who grow up facing hardships become adults quickly, they knew better than anyone that resisting Gye Cheolyeong would cause harm to others.

"Responsibility?"

Because of this, Gye Cheolyeong and Gye Yeonseok were able to comfortably abuse their power in the Taiyi Sect like this.

"There are many places among the other '108 Peaks' that want Cheolyeong. We can just move there at any time. Will you take responsibility then?"

Gye Cheolyeong's entering a sect directly translated into massive sponsorship funds.

And the Taiyi Sect was not the only one of the '108 Peaks' struggling with its management.

The fact that 'there are many places that want Cheolyeong' was a weakness that forced those living in the Taiyi Sect to swallow their dissatisfaction.

Because of that, we had never even once been able to flex our backing like everyone else did.

"Go ahead."

"What?"

"Responsibility? I'll take it. So go right ahead."

My father, who was approaching from afar with another Hall Leader, turned pale upon hearing the conversation and was just about to come running.

"The evaluation period for the Special Admission is less than a year away. Would Senior Brother Gye really receive the same treatment as in the Taiyi Sect if he went elsewhere? Furthermore, what martial arts sect would welcome an outsider like Senior Brother Gye just to receive a mere year's worth of sponsorship?"

"You... How do you..."

My father, who had been about to run over, suddenly stopped in his tracks.

"The disciples of the Taiyi Sect are not stupid idiots. Having learned the virtues of a gentleman, they simply do not wish to associate with base individuals."

Trembling all over, Gye Yeonseok ground his teeth and spoke.

"I will make absolutely sure to inflict great damage upon the Taiyi Sect. Because of what you have done, the disciples of the Taiyi Sect will soon have to reduce their meals and wear only hand-me-down clothes."

It was an explicit threat.

I whispered softly into his ear.

"Do you think I'll let that happen?"

Seeing my father rushing over as if he could no longer hold back, I quickly turned around and left the Taiyi Sect.

I had a mountain of things to do.

* * *

In my past life, after Gye Cheolyeong entered the Murim Academy through the Special Admission, the sponsorship for the Taiyi Sect drastically decreased.

Even though he was a lay disciple, the sponsorship ultimately dried up within a few years as if they were cutting ties, and the disciples of the Taiyi Sect had to reduce their meals.

"If it's going to end up like that anyway, someone other than Gye Cheolyeong should go."

Considering that the Taiyi Sect was bound to be swept up in the Orthodox-Demonic Great War in the future, someone from the Taiyi Sect had to go to the Murim Academy. Entering as a low-rank warrior would only result in being used as a meat shield and thrown away.

"The problem is that the Taiyi Sect's martial arts are too..."

Tras... I mean, completely full of wasted movements.

According to Zhuge Cheongi, the only useful things among the Taiyi Sect's martial arts were the Lesser Heaven Sword Technique and the Taiyi mental cultivation method.

The issue was that all those numerous martial arts were completely incompatible with the Taiyi mental cultivation method, which was the root of the Taiyi Sect.

Since the roots and branches were completely different from one another, it was no wonder that not a single expert capable of shaking Jianghu had emerged in hundreds of years of history.

Although my head contained all the supreme martial arts of the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Noble Clans.

"If I learned those, not even a single dog in the Taiyi Sect would survive before the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult even returned."

Ultimately, the only way for me to get stronger right now was to overwhelm others with my internal energy.

"Just as the currents of the Yangtze River carve through rocky islands."

However, with the Taiyi mental cultivation method, one would have to practice for about two hundred years to gather sixty years of internal energy.

In the end, it meant I had to consume as many spiritual elixirs as possible, but spiritual elixirs weren't called spiritual elixirs because they were common.

"... Hehe. But there is a way."

I immediately began to search through the grand library constructed in my mind.

While my junior brothers were helplessly dying at the hands of the Demonic Cult, my job was to stay behind in the Murim Alliance and memorize miscellaneous reports and documents that uselessly took up a lot of space.

However, when the final defensive line was broken by the surging numbers of the Demonic Cult and there was no more time left, a situation arose where I had to memorize even all the documents in the Mantong Bureau and the Simhyeon Pavilion.

Classified documents that were far more complex and voluminous than the miscellaneous reports.

Giving up on understanding and absorbing them, I constructed a massive grand library in my mind simply to store them.

A single book I found in the deepest part of the grand library in my mind that I had created in such a way.

The Jianghu Spiritual Elixir Book.

A classified document encompassing all the discovery locations, appearance times, and movement routes of spiritual elixirs that appeared in Jianghu from ancient times up to twenty years into the future.

Although it was called a classified document, it was a book that recorded spiritual elixirs that had already all been discovered by that time.

Trying to memorize such useless things had overloaded my brain, leaving me living with nosebleeds all day long.

And the price for such suffering was being silenced by death.

"It pisses me off just thinking about it again. Supreme Clarity Divine Sword, that bas..."

My childhood idol.

A being above the heavens who had no match among his peers.

The savior of the Orthodox Faction who instantly brought order to the fragmented Murim Alliance when the Orthodox-Demonic Great War broke out.

And the hero who ensured the survival of the Murim Alliance, which had almost disappeared from Jianghu, until the very end.

However, to ensure the Murim Alliance's survival, the Supreme Clarity Divine Sword made scapegoats out of everyone except for a select few.

The Murim Alliance established in the North Sea had ultimately been rebuilt upon their blood and corpses.

"I will never trust you or the Murim Alliance ever again."

Grinding my teeth, I directed my steps toward the location of the first spiritual elixir, the Ten-Thousand-Year Fleeceflower.