Murim School Record - Chapter 3

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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 3: The Axe of Songshan (3)

Yi Mobaek rose from his bed with a deeply furrowed brow.
Usan, the head of the Kitchen Hall, had come to find him and issued a deeply unpleasant order.
Usan was the supreme authority of the Kitchen Hall.
His orders were absolute law to everyone who worked there, carrying unquestionable authority.
Though some monks served in the Kitchen Hall, even they dared not talk back.
As for a temple worker, there was no question at all.
“You’re telling me to clean Songru Hermitage right now?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s… not that I dislike it, but I have so much to do today.”
“Go!”
He spoke curtly and turned to leave.
Yi Mobaek glared after the departing Usan for a long moment, then spat with a harsh sound.
And muttered something under his breath.

‘That pig monk Usan deserves a beating.’

After turning the phrase over roughly a dozen times in his mind, his anger began to settle.

Songru Hermitage stood on Moonfall Cliff, on the eastern side of Songshan.
Moonfall Cliff.
A precipice whose name meant the cliff where the moon falls.
No one knew who had named it, but Songru Hermitage sat not only at the dizzying peak of Moonfall Cliff but in a space atop the cliff so narrow it spanned barely fifty feet.
Moreover, strong winds blew through at irregular intervals, and one careless moment could send you tumbling into the fathomless depths of Moonfall Cliff below.
And Yi Mobaek suffered from a severe fear of heights.
Whoooosh!
A powerful vortex of wind rose up from below the cliff, as if ready to blow the hermitage away at any moment.
“Good grief, how dreadful!”
With the door left open for cleaning, the stench was unbearable.
It wasn’t merely the stale, musty smell of an old man.
“This deranged old fool must be defecating in his room.”
The quarters of Gwangseung, who had fallen into Demon Possession Meditation and could no longer recognize his own dharma brothers, yet would drop his pants anywhere without shame.
“Ugh!”
Yi Mobaek, who had been tracking the smell by alternately narrowing and widening his nostrils, froze in horror.
He’d suspected it, but it was true.
When he lifted the straw mat from the floor, a yellowish mass came into view.
Feces.
An enormous amount of it, concealed beneath the mat.
“Ugh!”
The smell was so acrid his back teeth ached.
“Aaaghhhh… Cough, cough!”
He hastily covered the mat again.
Yi Mobaek clenched his jaw.
Had Gwangseung been standing before him, even if the man held the highest rank in all of Shaolin, Yi Mobaek would have poured out a torrent of curses.
Thus descended the worst of all possible tasks.
The most grueling work in any cleaning: laundry soiled with waste.
He had to clear away the feces and wash the mat.

‘Shaolin is no place just anyone can enter.’

His father had spoken those words with weight.

‘You have been chosen because of me. It is called the blessing of parentage.’

He does not deny it.
Shaolin is a place where only the chosen may enter.
There’s no denying that regardless of one’s station, the fact of having taken the precepts holds meaning.
Yet whenever such matters arose, doubt flooded through him like a tide.

‘Did I really come all this way just to clean up after some mad old monk?’

Self-mockery washed over him.
There was a way to avoid it.
He could simply walk out of Shaolin right now.
No one at Shaolin turned away anyone who wished to leave.
Whoosh!
He lifted the cover back again.
Phew!
A stench of overwhelming proportions assaulted his nostrils.
“At least they cleaned up after themselves.”
A single yellowed sheet of paper lay crumpled, as though someone had done their business and wiped.
He pinched the edge of it between his fingertips and lifted it carefully.
Paper in hand, Yi Mobaek made his way cautiously outside, then walked toward the far end of the courtyard.
His intention was to cast it into Moonfall Cliff, whose depths none could fathom.
“Is this really what I came to Shaolin for?”
Grumbling, he flung the paper down toward the cliff’s edge.
Smack!
But just then a gust of wind surged up from below, catching the falling sheet and plastering it against his face.
Slap!
He tried to tear it away quickly, but fumbled so badly that yellow filth smeared across his entire face.
“Damn it all—”
Rip!
He tore the paper from his face with both hands.
Patter-patter-patter!
Then he bolted like a man possessed toward the rear of Songru Hermitage.
There stood a small well, with a single cracked wooden bucket resting beside it.
Splash!
Yi Mobaek scooped water into the bucket and began scrubbing his face.
Splash-splash-splash!
He emptied the bucket, drew fresh water, and kept scrubbing.
“Haaahhhhh!”
He washed with a roar of fury tearing from his throat.
“Ughhhh!”
Yet even as he scrubbed, the stench lingered.
Again and again he drew water, scrubbed, emptied it—repeating the cycle many times over.
“Ughhhhhhhh.”
His face had grown raw from the vigorous washing.
Huff, huff!
Breathing heavily, he touched his face in various places with wet hands.
There were no more clumps of what he presumed to be filth.
“Hmm, hmm-hmm!”
He flared his nostrils.
Yet somewhere he could still detect the odor.
He rinsed once more with fresh water as if to be certain, then rose to his feet.
He froze.
At the bottom of the well lay the soiled paper, waterlogged and settled.
In his haste he’d held onto it the whole way, and as he washed, it must have gotten wet and sunk to the bottom.
Most of the filth had been washed away, leaving no visible trace.
He froze again.
Yi Mobaek’s eyes widened.
There was a drawing on the paper.
He’d nearly walked past, but something in the image looked familiar—so he crouched down and peered at the submerged paper below the surface.
After staring at it for some time, his eyes narrowed.
“Huh.”
He leaned his torso lower over the water.

‘This… this is the pattern of One Fist One Death, where each punch takes one life.’

Thump!
He fished out the toilet paper he’d been squeamish about just moments before and examined it closely.
No matter how many times he looked, it was unmistakably the form of One Fist One Death from the Baekbo Divine Fist that he’d been obsessing over in his training lately.
Yet there were subtle differences between his own execution and what was drawn here.

‘The footwork is different.’

The angle and direction of the fist were roughly similar, but the feet showed considerable variation.

‘The difference lies in the footwork…in the steps themselves.’

About three months ago, he’d worked up the courage to ask Byeogwun, who belonged to the Arhat Hall.

‘May I ask you something?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘What is the most important thing in cultivating martial skill? Is it inner energy? Or outer technique built on forms?’

There was no one in the Kitchen Hall fit to teach him.
Usan would never teach him—he’d sooner see him dead—so he’d sought out Byeogwun, whom he’d been carefully observing.
Perhaps it had been too lofty a question.
Byeogwun had hesitated.

‘At least give me something.’

Still, it would surely be better than what he knew, so he’d pressed.

‘I’m not entirely sure myself, but I’ve heard it’s the footwork. Forgive me—I wish I could give you a more satisfying answer.’

Yi Mobaek stared at the footprints drawn on the paper for a long time, then rose slowly.
He gazed down at the drawing and began mimicking the footsteps.
Swish!
Whoosh! Whisper-whoosh!
Cautiously, wary of making a single mistake, he adjusted his stride and the spacing of his steps, calibrating the angle of his toes against what was marked on the paper.
“This is no joke!”
It looked simple, but it wasn’t easy at all.
“Huh.”
He kept getting it wrong.
Beads of sweat formed on his brow.
“Click!”
“Scrape…click-click!”
Making sounds with his mouth, he moved his feet.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Ground Seep Press.
Minimizing his movement as if sinking into the earth itself.
Motion without motion—that was how he moved.
Tracing the footprints on the paper without pause, he looked like a man dancing at the edge of a well.
“Hoo-hoo-hoo!”
He was drenched in sweat.
Yet the expression darkened by anger moments before had vanished without a trace.
With bright, gleaming eyes fixed downward, he studied whether his feet aligned with the drawn pattern.
Swish-swish-swish!
Bit by bit, it was working.
As time passed, he grew close enough to the pattern that he no longer needed to look at the drawing.
“First, let me finish the cleaning.”
He bounded back into the room.
The stench remained just as potent and foul as it had been half a hour before, yet because of that paper with the Baekbo Divine Fist’s footwork drawn upon it, it had become bearable.
“Ha ha ha! Out of his wits, he must’ve torn up a teaching copy meant for his disciples and used it to wipe himself.”
Yi Mobaek chuckled to himself as he hung the bedding on the line to dry.
The cleanup was finished.
He only needed to come back at dusk and bring in the laundry, then spread it across the room.
Rustle.
Perhaps it was the lightness in his heart.
His feet glided across the ground without his eyes needing to guide them.

‘They say the pursuit of martial arts begins with the will to pursue it.’

His progress seemed to bound forward with his improved mood.
Stop.
Then, in an instant, something came to mind and he halted.

‘Wait.’

Yi Mobaek furrowed his brow.
No sect teaches disciples by creating multiple copies of secret manuals to distribute like textbooks; they demonstrate techniques and offer instruction by word of mouth alone.
The reason they don’t make copies is the danger of secret knowledge leaking to the outside world.
Since the copies contain content identical to the authentic originals, teaching form and method is done entirely through oral instruction and demonstration to safeguard the Sect Secret Protection.
And in a great school like Shaolin, the controls would be far stricter.

‘Then this must be the authentic original.’

Yi Mobaek shook his head.
That couldn’t be right.
An original manuscript of a supreme martial art like the Baekbo Divine Fist couldn’t be wandering freely within Shaolin, no matter how vast its grounds.
Why else was it called the Scripture Repository?
It was a chamber of secrets guarded more strictly than any other institution in Shaolin.
Removing secret martial techniques would be impossible without the highest authority.

‘Ah, never mind.’

It wasn’t as though he’d stolen it—he’d merely found a scrap of paper that Shaolin’s most senior disciple had used and discarded. Whatever came of it later, the fault wasn’t his.

He slipped quietly from his sleeping mat.
This was the dormitory where the Temple Workers of the Kitchen Hall slept.
Yi Mobaek crept out without a sound.
Excitement had made sleep impossible.
The footprints of the Baekbo Divine Fist he’d obtained from Songru Hermitage flickered endlessly before his eyes.
After glancing around, he began to move.
Seven steps.
The paper showed seven footprints.
Seven Steps.
Each step’s width and direction differed from the last.
Rustle.
His feet whispered across the ground in the darkness.
Having practiced whenever he could since returning from Songru Hermitage, his steps had grown comfortable and natural—nothing like his clumsy beginning.
A name suddenly surfaced in his mind.

‘Could it be the Buddha Shadow Step?’

Shaolin’s supreme technique.
A step method transmitted only to Named Successors—disciples chosen to become Shaolin’s future masters.
Yi Mobaek moved again.

‘Then maybe I’ll add a punch this time.’

Whish!
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
He stepped forward and drove his fist outward.

‘Hmm.’

A flicker of surprise crossed his mind.
The punch felt light.
No—fast.
He hadn’t intentionally relaxed his shoulders to increase speed.
As he extended his fist in sync with his footfalls, it had naturally accelerated and sharpened.
For months he’d labored over every stance, chasing speed and devastating power, all in vain.
He’d exhausted every technique he could devise to gain velocity and striking force, yet always hit the same invisible ceiling.
But now, all those obstacles dissolved on their own.
Whoosh!
Whish-whish-whish!
Lightning swift.
At least, that’s how Yi Mobaek’s own fist appeared to him.
A satisfied grin.
He was pleased.
After a final practice nearby, he returned and lay down in his quarters.
Time wasn’t something to rush through, nor a resource to squander.

The morning air felt wrong.
Monks in gray robes hurried past in small clusters, gathering in ones and twos.
“Brother, what’s happened at the temple?”
Yi Mobaek stepped into the Kitchen Hall, asking Dang Duchun, who was busy preparing the morning meal.
“My head’s pounding!”
“Why?”
“A dispatch order!”
“For whom?”
“Look for yourself!”
He handed over a slip of paper he’d set on the shelf.
Familiar names were written on it, and at the bottom, he saw his own.

‘Yi Mobaek’

“What is it?”
“An urgent dispatch came down from the Murim Alliance at dawn, it seems.”
“From the Murim Alliance?”
“A major heterodox figure that the Murim Alliance has been tracking is apparently fleeing toward Qingrao Mountain.”
“Qingrao Mountain!”
It was a mountain no more than two hundred li from here.

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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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