Murim School Record - Chapter 15

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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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Episode 15: Mountain Upon Mountain (1)

Their presence alone risked sparking conflict and resentment within the Murim League.
Hack, hack, hack!
Seol Yeochul was struggling.
His right leg was not functioning properly.
Wumo, whose measured pace had been interrupted by the labored breathing, stopped and turned back, his brow furrowing.
“What is your name?”
“I am called Seol Yeochul.”
“Do you know martial arts?”
“I have come to feel the necessity of learning, and I am resolved to study.”
“Why is your head like that?”
He turned to look at Imobek, who stood to his right.
The boy had been struck by a small dog’s wooden stick and though the wound had been treated with medicinal salve, it had not yet healed and appeared slightly pale.
A thin smile crossed his lips.
“This? I fell and struck it while crossing over Jungsalyeong.”
Since the other man did not press the matter, Imobek let it pass as well.
“Fell?”
Even as he spoke, he swept his gaze up and down Imobek’s frame.
“Do you also not know martial arts?”
“I know a little. I am diligently practicing Baekbo Sinkwon.”
“Baekbo Sinkwon?”
“Yes!”
“Go ahead and strike that tree.”
Suddenly stopping, he pointed to a willow tree standing by the roadside.
Imobek’s expression shifted to alarm.
While not massive, the trunk was easily as thick as a grown man’s thigh.
“What are you waiting for? Strike it!”
Imobek glanced sideways at Wumo.
Though he wore the grey robes of a Buddhist monk, an austere presence emanated from him entirely.
Not all who take the cloth do so with compassion and warm smiles, speaking to others with gentle voices.
Wumo was the very embodiment of this truth.
Gentleness could not be found in him; whoever crossed his path met a torrent of cutting remarks.
Toward Imobek especially, his severity was marked, so much so that the common workers said their relationship was like that of a dog and cat.
Imobek had formed his initial judgment of Wumo the day they first met.
But lacking deeper experience with the man, he had deferred full assessment—until today, when it became unmistakably clear.
The mood was deeply unpleasant.
Cold.
Whether it was his nature or not, borrowing the speech of Gangho warriors, he appeared ruthless.
“Understood.”
Thud!
He slipped off the bundle he carried on his back and handed it to Seol Yeochul.
Whoosh!
The foundational posture of Baekbo Sinkwon—the Cheonju Budong stance.
A ripple ran through his frame.
Wumo’s eyebrows trembled slightly as he observed the stance.
“One…strike…one…four!”
Every passerby within earshot stopped and turned as he released a shout loud enough to command attention, then launched forward toward the tree.
Swish, swish, swish!
Crack!
He closed the distance and drove his fist forward.
The willow shuddered only slightly, while Imobek’s own jaw clenched instead.
He did his utmost to maintain composure, but his expression gradually twisted with discomfort.
Wumo said nothing.

‘Not worth noting,’ he seemed to think.

Imobek smiled to himself.
Wumo’s brow furrowed slightly.
It seemed to suggest the punch wasn’t terrible—but it didn’t quite look like he was calling it good either.
“Try once more.”
“Again?”
Imobek’s fist throbbed with pain, but he gritted his teeth and threw another punch.
Crack!
A cry nearly escaped him, but he clamped his jaw shut.
Wumo chuckled.
“An amusing one, this.”
Whoosh!
Wumo turned and walked away.
The three of them watched him go, and all wore expressions of displeasure.
Seol Yeochul muttered under his breath.

‘What is it, then? Does he like it or not? We feed him, and he trains his martial art day and night, yet we’re still third-rate in his eyes?’
‘Shh!’

Imobek quickly pressed a finger to his lips.
The hearing of masters transcended ordinary imagination.
Thud-thud-thud!
The three of them ran again.
Whether he meant to torment them or had urgent business at the Murim League, there was no way to tell, but Wumo set a pace the servants could barely keep up with.
Still, no one dared suggest he slow down.
They matched his stride nearly at a sprint.
While Dang Dujun and Seol Yeochul bore strained expressions, Imobek looked pleased.
There could be no better opportunity than this.
Wumo’s gait moved at a pace perfectly suited to practicing the Bulyeongbo—not too fast, not too slow.
By contrast, Dang Dujun and Seol Yeochul were struggling to keep pace.
Wumo’s quickened step was surely deliberate torment.
Whether it was a master’s strategy to break their spirit or simply that he enjoyed tormenting people, there was no telling.
Though their martial prowess was weak or nonexistent, they were servants who prepared food.
There were tales of them spitting into the meals of certain monks they’d marked.
Of course, it was only hearsay—no one had witnessed it directly—but it was a matter that made the monks uneasy nonetheless.
The approach was either to choke off their breath from the very start or to show mercy as Buddha would have shown.
Wumo had apparently chosen the former.

‘Not that I’m complaining.’

Though he felt for the two struggling men, for Imobek there was no opportunity better than this.
Inwardly he rejoiced, but outwardly he wore a sorrowful face and redoubled his effort to refine the Bulyeongbo.

‘Do you know who the most foolish man in the world is? The one boasting about his strength.’

His father used to say that a protruding stone inevitably gets struck by the chisel.
Men who boast of their strength are struck from behind without fail.
But those who hide their talent modestly never die and live long.

‘The secret to longevity in the Gangho is to conceal yourself. For there is nowhere in the Gangho where a man better than you cannot be found.’
‘Are the monks of Shaolin also wearing such double masks?’
‘Are they not warriors?’

His father had said that even the most enlightened monks of Shaolin were preoccupied with hiding themselves.
Swish!
Swish-swish-swish!
The Bulyeongbo is speed and fluidity.
It moves but stands still; it appears motionless yet shifts endlessly.
The essence of the Bulyeongbo was ultimately speed and unpredictable movement.
Once you grasp that, no man appears—only the shadow of Buddha remains.

Nothing happened.
Wumo, who had dragged the three of them—or rather, Dang Dujun and Seol Yeochul, excluding Imobek—along as though throwing sacks of grain, disappeared into the Murim League to attend to his own business.
“What kind of wretch behaves like that?”
Seol Yeochul’s indignation erupted.
Even before arriving at Taepyeong County, his right knee and sole had begun to trouble him.
Dang Dujun had reported clearly that Seol Yeochul’s leg injury had caused them to fall behind schedule.
Yet Wumo had driven them forward with merciless, almost murderous haste—especially harsh on Seol Yeochul.
“The man’s utterly base. What kind of monk behaves like a wretch?”
Seol Yeochul made no attempt to hide his agitation.
Dang Dujun exhaled a long breath.
He had come knowing something of Wumo’s character.
As the official responsible for overseeing the Shaolin refectory at the Murim League, he had needed to understand the nature of the Shaolin monks dispatched there.
Among them, the records concerning Wumo had been the most complex and voluminous.

‘He merely skims the Thirty-Seven Aspects of Enlightenment without penetrating their depths. That is because his mind turns elsewhere.’

This was one passage from the records on Wumo.
The records stated that the “elsewhere” his mind turned toward was hunger for martial prowess and the desire for power that strength brings.
Though a renounced monk, he harbored a fierce attachment to worldly ambition.
Dang Dujun personally believed that the reason he had lost his position as Gongsan’s chief disciple was likely rooted in such inclinations.
But the Wumo he had directly encountered transcended imagination.

‘The indiscriminate appetite of a path-wanderer.’

One lesson had been driven home: one must deal with Wumo as cautiously as testing a worn bridge with every step.
“Yeochul! Rest for a few days.”
“Rest? But none of this misfortune would have befallen me if I possessed martial skill.”
Seol Yeochul ground his teeth.
“Imobek—I swear I’ll become the greatest master under heaven. The moment I do, I’ll face that charlatan Wumo.”
Poison had taken root in him completely.
“Are you the three?”
At the gravelly voice, all three turned.
An elderly monk, appearing to be in his seventies, approached them.
Imobek instinctively recognized him as Naong, the representative of the Shaolin monks dispatched to the Murim League.
At Shaolin, he had been the Head of Guest Affairs.

‘Before we are warriors, we are monks who must learn and practice the Buddha’s teachings.’

His words conveyed a clear conviction: compassion must come before hatred and enmity.
“We bow in respect, Abbot.”
All three clasped their hands in unison.
Stop.
Naong’s gaze fixed on Seol Yeochul’s leg.
Moments before, he had lifted the hem of his robe to examine it, and his knee—swollen and crimson—lay exposed.
“What has happened to your leg?”
“We hurried in our ascent, and I sustained considerable injury.”
Seol Yeochul spoke plainly.
It was, in effect, a complaint to Naong against Wumo’s conduct.
“Amitabha Buddha.”
Naong’s expression hardened.
“Is Jangan here?”
He called toward the temple hall where the Shaolin monks lodged.
Whoosh!
A young monk burst forth, evidently in the midst of martial practice—he was perspiring heavily.
“You summoned, Abbot?”
“Take this young man at once to the Hwariuidang. See that his knee receives proper treatment.”
“Understood. Come with me.”
Jangan led the way, and Seol Yeochul limped after him.
As Naong watched Seol Yeochul’s faltering gait, his expression grew grave, and he murmured the Buddha’s name.

Everyone from the kitchen had gathered together.
Six people in all, including Dang Dujun and his group.
The Shaolin monks dispatched to the Murim League numbered roughly one hundred, with Naong as their leader.
Dang Dujun oversaw the kitchen.
“Nothing will change. We need only tend to the monks’ meals as we always have, with no neglect.”
“Yes!”
Everyone answered in unison, their voices firm.
“Then let’s each attend to our duties!”
The Bumok scattered, each seeking out their assigned tasks and moving about their business.
Imobek shouldered a wooden frame and began climbing Cheonmok Mountain.
Nothing would change.
This place too was a dwelling of men.
Just as in Shaolin, one climbed the mountain while singing.

‘Chung-chung, pale-chung-chung…’

He broke off mid-song, just as he would have in Shaolin.
But this was outside Shaolin.
There was no need to mock the absent, even beyond the monastery walls.
Imobek continued climbing in silence.
The mountain’s terrain was steep and jagged, each peak rising to a sharp point like the eyes of heaven itself—hence the name Cheonmok Mountain.
The locals divided it into East and West Cheonmok, and on this very plateau called Juksapyeong stood the Murim League, founded through the combined strength of fifteen hundred orthodox sects, including Guipa Ilbang and Odae Sejga.
The fates of the Murim—its survival and ruin—were decided within these halls.
It was also called the Cheonha Jeil Gwonbu.

His body’s strength had changed too.
What once took an average of two shijin to gather a full frame of wood now took less than one, and he filled it with ease.
He could sense his Naegong growing steadily within him.

‘Could it really be the Daehwandan?’

Imobek sat on a flat stone and rested for a moment.
Huff.
Then he shook his head and laughed.
What was the Daehwandan?
It was, quite simply, a legendary elixir without equal.

‘Which matters more to Shaolin—the Nokgok Buljang or the Daehwandan?’

After the Abbot Cheongak and the Four Diamond Kings had left, breathing fury as though they would beat him to death, he had caught Byeokun that night in the Nahanjeon and asked him this very question.
Byeokun’s face had clouded with discomfort.

‘Why must you always ask questions that exhaust me to answer?’
Not long before, he had asked Byeokun what “Seven Steps One Heaven,
Hundred Fists One Step” meant,

but Byeokun had been unable to answer that either.

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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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