I Prayed for a Murim Reincarnation, But I Was Born as the Youngest Imperial Prince - Chapter 19

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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 19
Two years passed in that manner.
While practicing various martial arts at the High-Ascending Realm, Seonwu also turned ten years old.
“Hiyah!”
Seonwu swung his sword, even slipping in a needless sound effect.
The Banquet of Broken Hat-Strings.
Though he only swung it once, invisible strands of Sword Qi silently arose and stretched out in all directions.
With that, the leaves of the trees planted around the training ground were sliced off and fell all at once.
With a single swing, he had cleanly cut away exactly one hundred leaves he had targeted.
“Do you think I’ve grown mature enough with this?”
“It is magnificent, Your Highness.”
Lee Dae-yong bowed his head and praised him.
Seonwu was a bit confused as to whether this was flattery or genuine acknowledgment.
However, even in his own eyes, it did look rather cool.
‘Wow, I cut a hundred leaves with a single sword strike.’
And he had precisely cut only the ones he wanted.
Out of the countless leaves, he cut exactly those he had mentally numbered.
Furthermore, the Sword Qi used to cut them away like that was completely stealthy.
People talked about the Green Cloud Crimson Sunset Sword or the Twenty-Four Style Plum Blossom Sword, but to put it another way, it meant their Sword Qi was visible.
The crimson sunset is visible, and the plum blossoms are visible.
Using what is visible to your advantage to bring out the subtle essence of an illusion sword is certainly a magnificent feat, but…
‘I’m definitely not looking down on the prominent sword techniques of the Nine Great Sects.’
The advantage gained from using invisible Sword Qi was quite substantial.
Truly, the vast majority of enemies would fall helplessly like tumbling leaves, not knowing how to respond to this silently flying slash.
Let’s try using the heavy sword too.
Inquiring the Weight of the Nine Cauldrons.
He layered nine folds of Sword Qi.
Originally, it would only unleash its true power if he layered nine folds of Sword Gang, but at his current stage, he substituted it with Sword Qi.
Gathered and gathered tightly into an immensely compressed mass of Sword Qi, it cleaved into the steel before his eyes.
It was not ordinary steel, but Black Scale Ink Steel, which was known to be impossible to cut unless one used Sword Gang because it held Qi within itself, yet Seonwu’s sword somehow began to slice through it slowly.
“Phew.”
Seonwu sank to the ground after performing the first form of Inquiring the Weight of the Nine Cauldrons.
“I won’t be able to use this stance in a real battle with Internal Energy at the High-Ascending Realm.”
He had only swung a single strike, and only half of it at that, yet his inner energy had been majorly consumed.
“If you possess Internal Energy of the Peak Realm, it will be better than now.”
“But I still won’t be able to use it with ease even at the Peak Realm, right?”
“Yes, Your Highness. At the Peak Realm, depending on the martial arts they have learned, there are some who can handle Gangqi. Your Highness’s sword technique also makes that possible. However, it cannot be maintained for long.”
Seonwu nodded his head.
Even in the Peak Realm, there are a certain number of masters who can handle Gangqi for a brief moment.
However, that was literally just for a moment, and it consumed a massive amount of Internal Energy. Therefore, the trick was to break it up and use it only at truly critical moments.
“To sustain Gangqi continuously in the first place, one would probably have to reach the Transcendence Realm.”
“You will surely achieve that.”
“Right. Let’s talk about the distant future later, and first I should ascend to the Peak Realm.”
Soon, his tenth birthday banquet would be held.
And once the banquet was over, he would receive the Grand Ritual to raise his realm to the Peak Realm.
Seonwu looked forward to that the most as a gift for his tenth birthday.
To be honest, the rest of the gifts were just mediocre.
Even when it came to Spiritual Pills or rare treasures, he received them all the time, so he had just gotten used to them by now.
Besides, just because you had ten times more of these Spiritual Pills didn’t mean you could eat ten times more of them.
The side offering them did it as a sign of loyalty, but the side receiving them had a surplus.
He had gifted a few pills to Dan Suyeong, but since Dan Suyeong said he didn’t need any more for the time being, there was nowhere else to send them.
‘I could give them to my new subordinates later, though.’
Could he travel out to the Wulin and hand them out?
Thinking about it, that seemed difficult.
‘Every single one of them is an overly famous Spiritual Pill.’
Not to mention the Lesser Rejuvenating Pill, the Spiritual Pills of the other Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Noble Families were absolutely famous in the Wulin.
Too many people would recognize them, and if they asked where he got such things, his hidden sect concept would be completely ruined.
Worrying about having a surplus of Spiritual Pills made him wonder if anyone else in the world had such a privileged dilemma.
At any rate, since it contained the sincerity of the givers, he accepted them gratefully.
‘Is there nothing else to receive besides the Grand Ritual? Once my childhood passes, it will be hard to expect my royal father’s support like this. If there’s something I absolutely need, I have to get it now.’
And the next day, Seonwu was finally ready to receive the long-awaited Grand Ritual.
For that purpose, various Spiritual Pills were also generously prepared.
* * *
What comes after High-Ascending?
It is called Peak.
Peak Realm.
It means the summit of a mountain.
If you have walked the path, you can no longer go any higher by just walking.
Lee Dae-yong explained.
“The name Peak Realm is perfectly suited to describe that boundary. Even if a prodigy is taught by a good master with Spiritual Medicine and exerts their own effort, the limit they can stably reach is exactly up to this point.”
“Mhm, indeed.”
“In other words, up to this point, anyone with a certain amount of talent can absolutely reach it under proper education and support.”
Just like how one eventually reaches the summit if they steadily climb a mountain.
There is a difference in how fast or slow one goes.
However, if a faction pours in its resources, they can raise someone to it somehow.
Of course, the standard of a faction here referred only to the top selective few.
If it was a sect called a prestigious orthodox sect, they naturally raised a certain number of Peak Realm masters stably in every generation.
“The number of Peak Realm masters almost always comes out at a constant rate in proportion to the resources invested.”
“Indeed… and those resources would mean Spiritual Medicine, right?”
“Yes. A good master, a talented disciple, and excellent martial arts are also necessary, of course, but a master and martial arts are things a prestigious sect naturally possesses, and while disciples do have variations in talent, they are not impossible to find.”
Seonwu nodded his head.
‘Of course, achieving the Peak Realm at the age of ten is only possible because I am a prince.’
He needed to reach the Peak Realm quickly to make use of it quickly, but even that had its limits.
“For me to receive the Internal Energy of the Peak Realm at this age would be a speed difficult to even imagine in an ordinary general’s family or a Wulin sect.”
“Yes, Your Highness. Of course, various sects heavily push those of the successor class whom they hold especially dear so that they can reach the Peak Realm around their weak capping age. However, it is never at ten years old.”
Just in case, Seonwu verified.
“Hmm, is it bad to possess Internal Energy like this before passing through one’s growth period?”
“Yes, there is that aspect as well. However, since His Majesty told you that it is fine for Your Highness, please do not worry.”
“I heard those words too.”
The Peak Realm is a form of completion.
However, possessing that much Internal Energy in a body that had not even hit its growth period yet was a case of too much being as bad as too little.
Yet they said I was fine.
Why?
‘An empty Yeouiju can hold that much energy without any issue, huh…?’
At first, he was disappointed because it was empty, but maybe his Yeouiju wasn’t ordinary either?
At any rate, he would now possess the Internal Energy of the Peak Realm.
* * *
The Grand Ritual was completed.
Seonwu, who now possessed the Internal Energy of the Peak Realm, asked Lee Dae-yong.
“The cultivation of most Internal Energy hits a wall once at this point, right?”
“That is correct. Of course, the martial arts in the world that carry the name of Divine Arts naturally speak of what lies beyond the Peak Realm, but even those martial arts have no choice but to teach the Peak Realm and the next stage differently by drawing a boundary.”
It was the top of a mountain.
To go anywhere from here, the expression of overcoming a wall was actually insufficient.
After all, if you keep smashing a wall, it breaks down, doesn’t it?
Here, one had to gain enlightenment and fly upward.
If you did, it was the Transcendence Realm; if you failed, you would end your life in the Peak Realm.
In fact, martial artists who were called prodigies or geniuses in their childhood climbed to this Peak Realm quickly and were highly anticipated as exceptional talents, yet they often failed to cross this wall for the rest of their lives.
This was no exception even for places like Shaolin and Wudang, so the majority of those belonging to the elder generation of those sects remained stopped at the Peak Realm.
“Huh, if they are elders of Shaolin and Wudang, weren’t they all supreme masters?”
“Of course they are masters. Even the High-Ascending Realm is called a master to begin with, so how could the Peak Realm not be a realm of masters?”
“That is true.”
Seonwu nodded his head.
Come to think of it, if you reached the Transcendence Realm, you were counted among the top one hundred masters.
But the fact that the top one hundred masters sounded like a large number was just an optical illusion centered around the protagonist.
In reality, that was a truly small number.
It varied from time to time, but assuming there were around a hundred people, just the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Noble Families alone made fifteen factions.
And there were more prestigious grand sects that didn’t make this list but were respectable in their own right.
The Unorthodox Factions also had sizeable forces.
In addition, even in mid-tier sects, there were cases where at least one top leader, like a sect leader or family head, was in the Transcendence Realm.
In other words, the Transcendence Realm was something that even large factions found impossible to keep an average of five members of.
Therefore, the Peak Realm was already a realm where even ordinary elders in Shaolin and Wudang stayed for their entire lives.
“It really is the end of one stage.”
“That is correct, Your Highness. The reason this is the end is that it is the realm where the human body has completely filled up all the Internal Energy it can contain through cultivation and Spiritual Medicine.”
“Completely?”
“Yes. Starting from the dantian, the Qi has been packed into the fine vessels of the entire body, meaning no more Qi can be contained.”
That was why it was called the Peak Realm.
“But I heard there are levels of high and low even within the Peak Realm… Is that like building the mountain a bit higher from the summit?”
“That is so. Even if one has reached the peak stage of the Divine Art they learned in terms of Internal Energy, there is no end to refining their stances and tactics in battle by utilizing it, so how could all Peak Realms be the same?”
It was a convincing point.
‘In other words, even if the attack power and defensive power are the same, the performance varies drastically depending on how you handle it.’
Of course, since there was no martial artist who really only cultivated Internal Energy and didn’t train in anything else, if one’s Internal Energy was at the Peak Realm, their other skills should generally be viewed as above a certain level, though there might be variations.
‘Excluding free riders like me, of course.’
Free riders also had their own things to do in their own way.
Seonwu began trying out the Internal Energy he had obtained.
As Seonwu began using the Internal Energy of the Peak Realm in earnest, Lee Dae-yong was about to give a warning in advance but held his words back.
It was naturally not an irreverent idea to purposely let him suffer, but rather because it was difficult to easily gauge just how far Seonwu’s talent went.
‘Originally, one shouldn’t be able to create Sword Gang as soon as they ascend to the Peak Realm…’
Completing an Internal Cultivation Method to open the threshold of the Peak Realm was one thing, and forming Sword Gang from there was another.
The gap between merely having the foundation to create Sword Gang and actually producing it was extremely wide.
He himself had also obtained the Internal Energy of the Peak Realm at the age of twenty-five, but that did not mean he could manifest Sword Gang from that moment.
‘So normally, I should tell him words to lower his expectations right now, but…’
Had he not already witnessed it once when the prince was at the High-Ascending Realm?
Furthermore, the stance of ‘Inquiring the Weight of the Nine Cauldrons’ that the Fifth Prince had practiced—albeit incompletely—at the High-Ascending Realm was very closely related to the knack for generating Sword Gang.
Would he really pull it off right away?
Or would it take time?
While the Admiral watched on, Seonwu excitedly unfolded the stance of Inquiring the Weight of the Nine Cauldrons first.
He had learned a few types of martial arts, but nothing caught the eye as much as Sword Gang.
‘How can anyone hold back against Sword Gang!’
If he could use it, he had to try it.
He gathered the Sword Qi.
He compressed it and compressed it again.
It wasn’t something that would work just by forcing it down.
Precisely.
Delicately.
If it was pressed down clumsily, it would only leak out here and there and burst apart.
He truly had to achieve a strict and complete compression.
That was the primary sword intent contained within Inquiring the Weight of the Nine Cauldrons.
The reason he called it primary was that even Seonwu himself could faintly sense a profound meaning that lay beyond it.
The intent that King Zhuang of Chu put into the sword was definitely not just that.
But for now, this would be enough.
The Sword Qi gathered on the sword became denser and denser, and then crossed the critical limit in an instant.
Would it burst and scatter, or would it rigidly maintain its compression?
‘Listen to me.’
Even though it was his own Internal Energy, trying to seize control of the massive Internal Energy obtained overnight through the Grand Ritual felt like taming a wild horse.
He didn’t actually have any experience taming a wild horse, but wouldn’t it feel roughly like this?
The rampaging Internal Energy gradually yielded in accordance with his intent.
As his strong will joined it, it finally took on a proper shape and form.
“It worked!”
Looking at the glowing Sword Gang manifested on the blade, Seonwu smiled brightly.
It was Sword Gang.

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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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