Appearance of the Heavenly Demon - Chapter 25

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 25
Firewood Splitting.
It was one of the things Yeon-u was most confident in.
Firewood Splitting was something she’d done since before she was sold to the government house, back when she was a beggar—work her parents had made her do to bring in money.
Since around the age of four, which was far younger than now, it was, when you thought about it, something that made no sense at all.
Yet remarkably, Yeon-u had been exceptionally good at splitting wood from that very age.
It was thanks to her natural strength.
So how could she not be confident in it?
And yet.
“Split… this?”
Wood submerged in water?
Even I don’t think I can manage that.
“What do you think about before you split a log?”
“Before I split a log?”
“Before you bring the axe down, I mean.”
Yeon-u’s brows drew together slightly.
“I don’t think about it. I just go whoosh and bring it down—”
The axe blade struck the water with a splash.
“—and crack! The wood splits.”
“Where do you strike?”
“Obviously where it splits easiest?”
“And how do you distinguish which way splits easily?”
“Um, well—”
How did she tell the difference?
She’d never thought about it because she’d always struck instinctively.
Simply, whenever she struck there, the wood split.
“Everything in the world has a grain.”
“A grain?”
“Flow, in other words. Like the water circling past your body.”
Yeon-u looked down at the stream.
“Even the wind that blows from somewhere and touches you for a moment.”
Un-hyeon’s and Yeon-u’s gazes lifted to the sky.
Rustle—
A single leaf rode the wind and drifted down, landing with a soft tap on the bank.
The leaf drifted lazily along the stream, flowing past the two of them, and then—
Whoosh—
Un-hyeon drew his blade from the wooden block and held it before the flowing leaf, and the leaf was split.
It didn’t stop or slow where it touched the sword; rather, it parted smoothly, maintaining its speed as it rode the current.
Yeon-u’s eyes brightened with wonder.
“Oh.”
“Just as you instinctively sensed the grain of wood when splitting logs, sense the grain of all things: water, air, and earth.”
Yeon-u looked at Un-hyeon.
“Feel the world’s grain through your senses.”
“My senses?”
The practice from these past few days?
“Yes. Once you learn to read the grain of all things—”
Un-hyeon raised his blade.
“—this too will not be a difficult thing.”
Then he brought the sword down on the wooden block beneath his feet. And—
Crack—
Remarkably, just as the leaf had been split before, the wooden block cleaved cleanly in two.
It parted as smoothly as tofu being cut—whoosh.
“…!”
Yeon-u’s eyes brightened again.
It wasn’t the fact that Un-hyeon had split the wood that astonished her.
Yeon-u had seen it.
She had seen the water split along with the wood.
“How—how did you do that? How?!”
“I cut along the grain.”
“The grain? The grain?”
Water has grain too? Really?
“I want to as well…….”
I want to do it too!!
The impossible unfolded before her eyes, and it was breathtakingly magnificent.
“Can I do it too? Truly?”
“Yes. From today on, make this your goal.”
“Okay!”
The child held her first real purpose.
To part the water.
Her gleaming eyes drank in the creek flowing gently before her.
The child’s pupils, holding the shimmer of water, shone with more life than ever before.
* * *
From that day forward, Yeon-u’s training became far more systematic.
Rising before dawn, Yeon-u climbed the mountain with Un-hyeon.
At the summit, the two sat in lotus position and breathed in the dawn air.
That clear air, the grain of the air itself — she felt and read it through nose, skin, her entire being.
Then they descended the mountain, ate, and climbed again.
Next came a small waterfall located slightly above the mountain’s midpoint.
Yeon-u sat in lotus position beneath the falls once more, reading the flow of water.
Water falling, water crashing, water streaming, water spraying to seep into the earth, water swirling.
She traced every current, every movement.
The water carried a clean, briny scent.
She loved that fragrance so much that Un-hyeon had to stop her from letting her lips turn blue, so long did she stand under the spray.
Afterward, to warm her chilled body, she trained with the Axe Technique alongside Un-hyeon.
Un-hyeon was a swordmaster, yet the finest master in the Central Plains. The Axe Technique he knew was so vast he could not teach it all.
It was not training to split things apart.
Since Yeon-u’s target to split was already determined, there was no need to split anything else.
How to channel full power into the axe.
How to swing the axe correctly.
She learned through direct practice the differences that came with varying force, its magnitude, and where precisely that force was applied.
Then Yeon-u entered the water again.
A stream at about waist depth.
To split a log that had been buried in the earth and fixed with rope around nearby rocks.
Crack! Splash-crack! Crack!
Splitting wood underwater proved far from easy.
Each time the axe descended with full force, it lost its power the moment it touched water and wavered.
It was not easy to overcome the current striking the blade, and though she knew where on the wood she ought to strike, the axe invariably missed its mark.
Yet Yeon-u did not yield.
‘I will cleave the water.’
With each blow, she poured in her will and longing.
So passed another hour.
Yeon-u climbed the mountain once more.
This time, her eyes were bound.
With her eyes covered, the child had to use her hands and feet to keep from falling, from injury.
Her ears received every sound with keen sensitivity, and her skin had to feel alive to the world, senses alert in all directions.
Un-hyeon always followed behind her, his presence utterly concealed.
Hoping that one day Yeon-u would sense his presence.
By the time she reached the mountainside once more, the body that had grown cold in the water now burned with sweat.
When Yeon-u removed the blindfold at their destination, her expression was brighter and more refreshed than ever.
Not because she had trained hard.
The reason Yeon-u could find her way even with her eyes covered.
At the destination, sweet and delicious treats awaited her.
Though treats were piled high, Yeon-u kept her promise with Un-hyeon and ate only one before sitting in lotus position at the cave entrance.
And once more, she felt it.
The wind passing through the cave and the sweet fragrance filling the air around it, the countless sounds of birds and insects moving through the mountains.
And when she faintly heard Un-hyeon’s bell ringing through it all, Yeon-u eagerly raced down the mountain.
When she returned home, Un-hyeon, Am-yeong-ma-gun, and delicious meat always awaited her.
As she contentedly filled her belly with meat, the sun crossed over the mountain.
Yeon-u received the Acupuncture Technique from Am-yeong-ma-gun.
When the Acupuncture Technique ended, Am-yeong-ma-gun always pressed the sleep point on Yeon-u and sent her into deep slumber.
And so Yeon-u’s long day came to an end.
* * *
Three months later.
Tap-tap—
Am-yeong-ma-gun emerged from the room, brushing dust from his hands after finishing the Acupuncture Technique.
He glanced toward the courtyard.
By the extinguished bonfire, Un-hyeon stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing up at the moon suspended in the dark night sky.
Am-yeong-ma-gun observed him for a moment, then approached.
“Trying to look maudlin, are we?”
Un-hyeon turned to face him.
Am-yeong-ma-gun chuckled, pointing a finger at him. “Heh heh.”
“Slouch around like that and people will mistake you for an old man.”
“What about Yeon-u?”
“Put her to bed.”
“Much obliged.”
“Anyone listening would think you’re her grandfather.”
“Fair enough.”
“But not entirely wrong either.”
Un-hyeon exhaled a long breath.
After a brief silence, he asked, “Is the Acupuncture Technique complete?”
“Well, there’s no point continuing. We’ve gotten all we’re going to get.”
Yeon-u’s Meridian System had been perfected entirely.
Every impurity remaining in her body had been purged, and her naturally superior constitution had become even more flawless.
“The results are better than expected. It’s thanks to your training, of course. Though my contribution was considerable as well.”
The Acupuncture Technique had developed her Five Senses, and with her Five Senses sharpened, her training progressed smoothly.
As her body was tempered through training, the results of the Acupuncture Technique grew even better.
Un-hyeon’s training and Am-yeong-ma-gun’s Acupuncture Technique had achieved perfect harmony.
“I’m already looking forward to what she’ll become when she grows up.”
Training under the Central Plains’ greatest warrior, shaped by my own hands—a masterwork.
The thought of that child one day commanding Marong Manor filled him with such anticipation that his entire Life Energy seemed to surge with vitality.
“By the way, I’ll be gone for a while.”
“Where are you going?”
“Even if I look idle, I’m surprisingly busy.”
“You don’t look particularly busy.”
Am-yeong-ma-gun twisted his mouth wryly.
“Aren’t you going to ask where I’m headed?”
“Where are you going?”
“A secret.”
Un-hyeon’s eyes grew cold and distant.
He shouldn’t have asked.
In truth, he’d already anticipated this kind of answer.
Yet somehow, getting it still stung—and that was almost impressive in its own way.
“Since the Acupuncture Technique is finished, I’m planning to begin teaching her Internal Energy Cultivation tomorrow.”
“Oh—finally.”
So Yeon-u would finally begin accumulating Internal Power in her Dantian?
“I don’t know when I’ll return, but by then, that girl will have changed quite a bit…”
Un-hyeon began to speak but halted mid-sentence, his expression shifting into something strange as he frowned.
Why am I even saying this?
The sound of Am-yeong-ma-gun’s stifled laughter reached him.
“Are you looking forward to it? How touching. Now I absolutely can’t stay away.”
Un-hyeon’s gaze turned icy once more.
At this, Am-yeong-ma-gun laughed again. “Heh heh.”
“Anyway, I’m leaving a dog here while I’m gone, so don’t you worry.”
“A dog?”
A barking dog?
Before Un-hyeon could ask what that meant, Am-yeong-ma-gun had already moved some distance away.
He waved his hand dismissively, then stopped abruptly.
“Oh, that’s right.”
He turned back to Un-hyeon.

“They’ll be here soon enough?”
“……?”
“Those flunkies you’ve been waiting for.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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