Obtaining Heavenly Demon Martial Arts in the Magic Era - 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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3
[ Episode 3 ]
The funeral was modest. After the cremation, Cheon Woo-hyuk was placed in a small urn and returned home.
‘So light…’
The grandfather who had once loomed like a mountain was now a handful of ash. Cheon Do-hyun felt swallowed by a sorrow as heavy as the lightness that had consumed his grandfather.
That night, Do-hyun fell asleep clutching the urn tight against his chest.
The heat of the cremation should have long faded, yet a faint warmth lingered.
As if his grandfather were lying beside him.
The thought brought a measure of comfort.
The next morning, before dawn. Cheon Do-hyun’s eyes opened by habit—a week’s reprieve from school was granted during the funeral period, but the discipline of years spent with his grandfather died harder than that.
Rather than return to bed, he dressed and made his way to the Training Hall.
The Training Hall stood hollow now, silent of his grandfather’s commanding voice.
Whoosh—whoosh.
Cheon Do-hyun threw punches into the empty air. As his body rolled and his legs moved, sweat soon beaded on his skin.
The moment perspiration came, his mind began to clear.
That was right. There were tasks his grandfather had left behind—too important to drown in grief.
‘I’ll move forward.’
To bury yesterday in the past and live fully in the present given to you—this was the philosophy of life Cheon Woo-hyuk had taught him.
After showering and a quick meal, he finished the dishes. It wasn’t even eight o’clock.
He’d woken far too early.
Cheon Do-hyun headed to the safe in the Inner Room.
There was no point delaying his grandfather’s final request.
Upon entering the Study, a small safe caught his eye in the corner.
‘A safe here? I never knew.’
Its position was easily overlooked if you weren’t searching for it.
Despite having lived with Cheon Woo-hyuk all these years, Do-hyun had never suspected the Study held such a thing.
Beep, beep, beep, beep—chirp.
Upon entering his birthday, a cheerful chime sounded and the door swung open.
Creak—
With the rusty scrape of the hinges, the contents of the safe revealed themselves.
The first things visible were a bankbook and bundles of cash.
Rustle—
As he dug deeper, something at the very back emanated an alien aura.
An old manuscript with a black leather cover.
On the spine, presumably the book’s title, were the characters: Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
“Heavenly Demon… Divine Art? That’s quite a grandiose name.”
Roughly translated, it suggested some kind of mysterious technique of a celestial demon.
Cheon Do-hyun chuckled and picked up the book. But his amusement was short-lived.
The moment he turned the pages, black energy surged up from the paper itself.
Wriggle—
“Huh?”
The black mass writhed as if alive, then in an instant, before Do-hyun could even react, it was sucked into his body.
Whoooosh!
“Gah—?!”
Forced to absorb the energy,
Cheon Do-hyun immediately felt excruciating pain.
“Ngh…ngh-aaargh!”
A sensation like an awl boring through his brain.
Then characters began to be forcibly crammed into his mind.
You who are worthy receive the teachings of the Heavenly Demon witness his almighty power bow before him this is the divine art he has left behind
With each phrase from the Heavenly Demon Divine Art seared into his skull, Cheon Do-hyun writhed on the floor in agony.
This was not reading the book—the book was reading him.
A sensation like molten iron driven through his skull. And alongside it came the voice of an aged man, solemnly reciting a specific incantation.
“Unngh…”
At first, the pain had blinded him to it, but as he listened closely, he recognized the voice repeating a single mantra.
The martial mantra of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
Empty the heart like a valley runs deep:
A hundred rivers return to the sea—
Receive the Qi and make it your source.
Empty the heart like a valley runs deep, a hundred rivers return to the sea, receive the Qi and make it your source. Empty the heart like a valley runs deep, a hundred rivers return to the sea, receive the Qi and make it your source.
Was she asking him to recite the incantation?
Cheon Do-hyun forced himself to begin following along, chanting the words aloud.
As he did, his head cleared suddenly, and new knowledge flooded into him.
It was understanding of what the incantation meant, how it functioned.
The first incantation was the essence of martial arts: empty yourself within so that the Qi of all things can flow through you.
As if waiting for just this moment, the voice began teaching him the next incantation.
My Body Is Void: My body becomes hollow emptiness.
Steal Heaven, Replace the Sun: Steal the heavens and exchange the sun.
Devour Heaven, Consume Earth: Swallow the heavens and devour the earth.
The relief from the headache lasted only a moment.
The moment the second incantation entered his mind, the characters began to take form, then tore through Cheon Do-hyun’s body.
“Aaaagh!”
A pain like being carved open by a blade.
It was as though something were ransacking every inch of him through his veins.
And within moments, Cheon Do-hyun understood what the Heavenly Demon Divine Art was trying to do.
The characters found the Qi of the Taihei Hun-yuan Heart Technique seated in his Dantian and suppressed its turbulent force.
It was a verification process.
This was why Cheon Woo-hyuk had called the Taihei Hun-yuan Heart Technique a seed. Had the sacred art been transmitted without the technique, had he opened the Heavenly Demon Divine Art Manual without it, his body would have torn apart from the incantation alone.
“Uuuh… My Body Is Void, Steal Heaven Replace the Sun, Devour Heaven Consume Earth…”
As Cheon Do-hyun chanted the second incantation, the final one came, as if waiting in the wings.
Qi Sea Without Measure: The ocean of Qi has no bounds.
Ten Thousand Demons in Reverent Submission: All demons bow and submit.
Do not beg—seize.
At last, the final incantation was complete.
Whooooom—
Then, independent of his will, the black Qi that slumbered in his Dantian stirred awake.
Whiiiieeee—
The Qi inside his Dantian began spinning wildly of its own accord. A black void formed, possessing tremendous suction. It was as if a black hole had manifested in his belly.
That void cried out with ravenous hunger, devouring everything around it.
‘Dangerous. My life force is being pulled in.’
Primal terror seized him. If he didn’t control this, it would consume him.
‘No…!’
Just then, new knowledge poured into his mind.
‘The method to guide the Qi.’
Without a moment to think, Cheon Do-hyun immediately began guiding his Qi according to the method the Heavenly Demon Divine Art revealed.
He directed the Qi along specific acupoints, and as he drew the Qi out through the Laogong Acupoint—
Shuuuuuck—
The Laogong Acupoint tore open, generating tremendous suction.
Wheeeeeek!
The Qi drifting in the air around him was sucked into his palm.
A powerful inhalation phenomenon.
Simultaneously, the Qi drawn in was funneled completely into his Dantian.
The efficiency was easily double that of ordinary Qi Circulation Practice.
But there was a severe cost.
Crrrunch—
As the intake grew, the suction intensified.
And with the intensified suction came proportional hunger and agony.
Moreover, the unrefined Qi accumulating within caused his meridians to swell as though about to rupture.
Crack—
Every blood vessel in his body bulged grotesquely; the fragile capillaries burst. The pain of vessels engorging and tearing rippled through his entire frame.
‘Stop… stop!’
Cheon Do-hyun felt his life slipping away. In a flash of desperation, he reversed the flow of Qi in the opposite direction.
‘Please! Cease!’
Mercifully, the suction began to subside.
Whiiieee—
He tamped down the surging Qi and slowly opened his eyes, finding the surrounding air transformed.
“The Mana in this area has been drained.”
All from a brief deployment.
‘So this is the first sacred art of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art…’
The Star Absorption Technique.
“This is… magic.”
When perfected, the martial art was called the Heavenly Demon Star Absorption Divine Art. It was a force like magic. More than magic, even.
Powerful enough to evaporate Mana across an entire area.
But danger came with it. He’d already brushed against death more than once while practicing the Star Absorption Technique.
A normal person would have been too terrified to use it again. It wouldn’t have been strange to seal the Heavenly Demon Divine Art away in the Safe once more, condemning it as an ill-omened tome.
But Cheon Do-hyun’s reaction was different.
“Ha… haha…”
Laughter burst from his throat.
Cheon Do-hyun carried the blood of a beast. That was what the Cheon bloodline meant.
But he’d been born in the wrong era, and because of that, he’d lived his entire life as the weaker one.
Blocked at every turn by the barrier called magic.
Yet he’d never given up, training himself relentlessly. Do-hyun possessed an obsession with primordial strength so profound it bordered on compulsion.
And now, in his own hands, he held a power that could bridge that gap. Of course he laughed.
“And this is supposedly just the first martial art.”
Then what other arts waited in the pages that followed?
And once he mastered all of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, how much stronger would he become?
But the tome was unforgiving.
[Warning: Do not covet the next page until your mastery of Star Absorption reaches five stars. If one without qualification turns the page, the Demon shall devour you.]
“Stubborn thing…”
Cheon Do-hyun closed the book and pushed himself to his feet. Fortunately, there was still time before he had to leave for School.
His goal was clear: to make the Star Absorption Technique his own.
#
Cheon Do-hyun’s confident expression twisted into anguish within a single day.
“Cough—”
Crimson spatters of blood dotted the Training Hall floor. Above them, Cheon Do-hyun clutched his chest and rolled, gasping.
His insides felt wrung out like laundry.
‘Damn it. The balance is all wrong.’
Until now, Cheon Do-hyun’s body had been nearly perfect. The muscles and nerves forged by his grandfather’s hellish training were like a precise machine. But when Internal Martial Power—that foreign engine—was added to the equation, that very precision became poison.
The moment his Dantian opened, the shift in power balance threw him off-kilter.
When he thrust his fist forward, his center of gravity lurched ahead; when he tried to move his feet, the suction force activated unbidden and toppled his balance.
Like a healthy body sprouting an uncontrollable third arm.
Given enough time to focus, the power was immense—but the moment he tried to move, his body creaked and stuttered like a broken machine.
“Spit.”
He spat out the blood pooling in his mouth—a side effect of twisted channels.
“Just adding movement to it, and it’s this agonizing…”
Dodge the opponent’s strike. Find the opening. Reach in and land the Star Absorption Technique.
Easy enough when the mind pictured it, but his body refused to follow. The slightest lapse in focus sent Qi rushing backward, shredding his meridians. Pain so terrible he wanted to quit. Yet Cheon Do-hyun rose again.
How had his grandfather, Cheon Woo-hyuk, taught him?
—How long will you lie there? Get up!
His grandfather’s voice echoed in his mind as if Cheon Woo-hyuk stood right beside him.
“Do-hyun. When a new technique hasn’t taken root in your body yet, don’t force it to fit.”
“Breathe. Sync your breathing to the rhythm of your feet striking the ground. Martial arts aren’t about strength. They’re about rhythm.”
Was this a memory from the past? Or was it his grandfather’s will, lingering still inside him?
Cheon Do-hyun closed his eyes.
‘Yes. Rhythm…’
He let go of his impatience. He abandoned his hunger to force Qi where it would go.
Instead, he listened to his own heartbeat.
Thump… thump… thump…
He stepped forward. Breath drawn inward. The whirlpool in his Dantian swelled in time with his respiration.
He thrust his fist. He breathed out.
‘Now!’
Cheon Do-hyun’s eyes snapped open. His form glided like a phantom, sliding up to the Sandbag.
A chain of movements as natural as flowing water.
[Star Absorption Technique]
The moment his outstretched palm touched the Sandbag.
Crack—!
No dull thud. Instead, a sickening rupture tore through the Training Hall.
The leather Sandbag’s body crumpled like paper, and unable to withstand the pressure inside, it burst open.
Whoosh—
Sand poured from the ruptured Sandbag’s side.
“Haah…”
Cheon Do-hyun breathed heavily, his eyes falling to his own trembling hands.
The fingertips quivered with excitement, and the power pulsing within them had grown incomparably refined compared to before.
Then a voice resonated from within his mind—the voice of the tome.
[The star of Star Absorption shines for the second time.]
The Star Absorption Technique had advanced to the second level.
“I did it… I actually did it.”
Cheon Do-hyun brushed back his sweat-dampened hair and let out a quiet laugh.
The blood stains on the floor, the burst sandbag—they felt like badges of honor.
Failure as the path to success—he understood it now, not in theory but through his own flesh and blood.
The dying words his grandfather had left came back to him.
—Do-hyun. This old man’s greed, perhaps. I will return to the earth, but my martial arts, my very soul… I wish it to live on within you.
Grandfather’s final words were no lie.
Though he was gone, the teachings Cheon Woo-hyuk had left behind had become bone and flesh, sustaining Cheon Do-hyun even now.
“So you really do live within me, Grandfather.”
Whenever I wander lost like this, please guide me often, Grandfather.
Swallowing those unspoken words, Cheon Do-hyun pulled out a pen and added one more line to his tattered training journal.
[Key principle: Unity of breath and footwork. Do not be greedy—find the rhythm.]
School would start soon. Cheon Do-hyun looked toward the school uniform hanging on one side of the Training Hall.
The clothes that had always felt like a convict’s garb. But now, somehow, it felt different.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
He found himself actually anticipating the walk to school.

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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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