Surviving as the Terminally Ill Young Lady of the North Sea Ice Palace - Chapter 20

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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 20
“What? What? What? What?”
I was stunned.
What do you mean it came free so easily? Why?
Just moments ago, Ya Jang had sworn that no student had drawn this blade since he’d brought it three years back.
“Huh…? Uh…? What? How did you pull it? Even Gwang Yeom Do couldn’t budge it when he tried to break it free?”
Ya Jang’s face had gone pale.
Wait—even the martial masters had failed?
That meant it wasn’t simply a matter of the blade being stuck tight.
Either the demonic qi in the stone had been holding the sword, or something far stranger was at work.
“I didn’t do anything, actually…?”
I couldn’t answer Ya Jang’s question.
How could I explain what happened when I truly had done nothing at all?
“After sitting in that rock for years, and yet the blade isn’t even notched…?”
Ya Jang was clearly seeing the sword edge for the first time.
He stepped closer, mouth falling open, then examined the blade with grave intensity.
“Meteorite iron hammered ten thousand times, layered with Ten Thousand Refined Steel…!”
Even without consulting an expert, I could sense that this weapon belonged to an entirely different class than anything else in this forge.
“Huh?”
That was when So Un, who’d been admiring the blade alongside me, pointed at the edge.
At that same instant, I noticed it too—something strange.
When I’d first drawn it, the blade had been pristine.
The moment I became aware of the change, I felt a faint pull—my own vital energy being drawn into the sword.
The aura that had surrounded the blade converged into a single point.
What had been a subtle shimmer suddenly crystallized into black, and characters blazed into sharp clarity.
「Reverse Heaven Sword – Lord of All Demons」
“This is insane, what the—!”
I clamped my hand over my mouth.
For a moment, I forgot all propriety and cried out.
A function like that hidden in the blade itself?
Whether Ya Jang vouched for it or not, it was obvious this was no ordinary sword.
Especially with a name like “Lord of All Demons” inscribed on it.
‘Could this really be the Heavenly Demon’s blade?’
Logic told me such an artifact wouldn’t have been left gathering dust on Tian Shan for years after the Righteous-Demonic War ended. And yet I couldn’t help but suspect—or was it hope?
Hope, I supposed.
“Since I pulled it out, it’s mine—I’m keeping it!”
I claimed ownership without hesitation.
I’d come to the forge expecting to receive So Un’s sword.
But now that an extraordinarily magnificent blade had fallen into my hands, greed took hold.
“What?”
“It’s completely mine, isn’t it? No one could pull it free for three years, and I did it. I can’t just leave it here and risk someone else walking off with it—that wouldn’t be fair, would it?”
“Well, I… I suppose that logic holds.”
Ya Jang acknowledged the unusual circumstances.
But he didn’t simply concede the sword as mine—he hesitated.
“Is it the academy rules?”
“Hmm, well, Merit Points are needed just to enter this place to begin with, and besides, didn’t Neung Gwang Geom specifically ask that we find a sword for her since she didn’t have one?”
Surely he wasn’t suggesting I tell So Un to go without a blade just so I could keep this one!
“Can’t you extend me credit? You said Merit Points cost a hundred, right? I’ll work every single day and accumulate them first—I swear I won’t tell anyone I’m in debt. So Un will keep it secret too, won’t you?”
If this were truly forbidden, wouldn’t he have said so flatly from the start?
The fact that he was wavering meant there was hope.
I pressed my case eagerly, pushing the small Merit Plaque I’d found at Chang Chang Guan into his hands as well.
“All right, all right. Hmph—there’s no rule against extending credit anyway, so pay the Merit Points later. Take it with you for now. The sword chose you, after all, and there’s no sense leaving it here.”
In the end, Ya Jang accepted my claim to ownership.
So he claimed not to believe in miracles, yet he’d just said the sword had chosen me?
I’d thought my persistence had simply worn him down.
But he was referring to how the demonic qi that had emanated when blade and stone were joined had now vanished.
“Does that mean I’m the Lord of All Demons?”
“…Don’t ever say that in front of the seniors. If you can help it, don’t say it even around the martial masters!”
“Oh, right.”
At any rate, since he’d agreed to let me have it.
I forced down my excitement and nodded.
“Use this sheath for now. I’ll make you a proper one later.”
“…Thank you so much!”
Ya Jang had thrown in the sheath as well.
I’d come to run an errand and ended up with what looked like a priceless sword—my mood was excellent.
“A sword no one else could draw, and you pulled it free. So Un, you’re truly remarkable.”
I steadied my voice as I left the Blacksmith Forge.
“Ahem. Don’t you wish you’d tried first?”
“Me…? Surely not!”
So Un’s face flushed crimson.
Did she lack material ambition?
Martial training required a certain drive for improvement, though.
I stepped out with the new blade at my hip, my heart far lighter than when I’d first picked it up.
“I should give it a name. Hmm… if I called it something like the Lord of All Demons, what would people say?”
“Well, that might be…”
Even though two decades had passed since the Righteous-Demonic War ended, such a name wouldn’t sit well in the heart of the righteous martial world.
The character for ‘demon’ probably shouldn’t appear in it.
Since it came from stone—wasn’t it like Excalibur?
How did they write Excalibur in Chinese characters again?
The king’s sword, so ‘King’s’…
“…On second thought, there’s no real need to name it.”
“I agree.”
“King’s Blade” had an awkward ring to it anyway.
I decided to call this sword Excalibur, at least in my own mind.
* * *
The afternoon class was on basic Inner Power.
We had some time to spare, and it was too awkward for anything else, so So Un and I headed to the Lecture Hall early.
The instructor was a Wudang Sect priest who went by the title Heo Gong.
“I’m glad you managed to find the antidote.”
“I came to the Academy under Wudang’s name, so I couldn’t very well walk around without Inner Power.”
Unlike Je Gal In, who always arrived precisely on time, Heo Gong was already seated in the classroom.
He was even chatting with a disciple from another sect who’d shown pride in fetching water earlier.
The Wudang disciple seemed to have been in the same group as Maeng Ryeong Ji—had he stolen him away from another student?
In any case, the instructor appeared outwardly like a kindly old grandfather.
But I couldn’t let my guard down after what Sun Gak had done to me.
“Hmm? Did you always carry two swords?”
Maeng Ryeong Ji, arriving slightly after So Un and me, noticed the change.
Most students carried only one sword or blade.
Even Maeng Ryeong Ji had two axes on his back and there were a few who carried two swords, but it wasn’t common.
“Just happened to come by it. There are lots of interesting things around the Academy.”
I gave a vague answer.
“Did you already visit the Stone Cave?”
“The Stone Cave?”
“Hyeol Yuk said that if you go to the Back Mountain, sometimes you find rare artifacts in that cave.”
She’d made an odd guess.
When I said I wasn’t sure yet if the sword was any good, she didn’t seem particularly interested.
“Everyone’s here now. We’ll start class, though it’s a bit early.”
Everyone had already arrived and was either listening to Heo Gong chat with the Wudang disciple or talking amongst themselves.
The moment Heo Gong opened his mouth, all eyes fixed on him.
“Sigh.”
He began with a heavy breath.
“This class puts me in a bind, truly. The Academy Master, really… he strips one-third of the students’ Inner Power and then asks me to teach Inner Power training. Isn’t that too much?”
I agreed completely.
It made no sense, and it would be nice if he’d at least push back a little.
Goak Do Cheon felt the same way, it seemed—no one could defy the Academy Master.
“But since I’m told to do it, I do it… Sigh. I shouldn’t have owed Sun Gak a debt, but that’s my fate.”
Heo Gong continued to heave sighs for several breaths.
“Most of you likely learned an Inner Power Technique from your families or sects already. Since you don’t really expect much from me, consider this time as an opportunity to focus on Qi Circulation Breathing.”
He sorted the students into categories.
From prestigious families like the Namgung Family, they’d been taught Inner Power Techniques by their own retainers since childhood.
A single family’s martial arts techniques number in the dozens, even hundreds.
He had no intention of forcing the academy’s framework upon such children.
“If you have questions, ask them. If I see something being done incorrectly, I will point it out. Thanks to most of your families and sects—through persuasion by Sun Gak, or rather, for the sake of the righteous martial world’s century-long vision—generously contributing their techniques, I have conducted extensive research. There is no need to doubt whether a mere outsider is spouting nonsense.”
I had heard that when the academy was founded, the Nine Sects and One Alliance and the Five Great Families were practically coerced into making donations.
So secret martial arts techniques were included in those donations as well.
While they say the most vital secrets were not handed over, there would be no students at the academy who would reach that level anyway, so it posed no problem.
Even if it was not a technique he knew well, he asserted he could offer guidance.
“Of course, if you wish, it would be good to learn the Tian Wu Academy’s Inner Power Technique anew. It is a technique with extremely minimal discord, so it will harmonize seamlessly with most of your Inner Power. Sun Gak, myself, and several instructors who have reached Go Gang Han’s level put our minds together to create it. Though its history is not yet twenty years old, I am confident it yields to nothing.”
Present Cannot Match Past—the universal sentiment of the martial world.
The secret manuals left by ancestors from centuries past are considered supreme.
This was a declaration that directly contradicted the common belief that as time passes, techniques are lost to oblivion or understood poorly, and martial arts quality inevitably declines.
Given Heo Gong’s seniority, he seemed to be at least an elder.
For someone rooted in the Nine Sects and One Alliance to say that his technique “yields to nothing” must mean he possessed genuine confidence.
……
Of course, the students from the Tian Ming Sect and Ji Jeong Sect had lukewarm reactions.
But the friends from our dormitory, who had had few chances to encounter proper Inner Power Techniques, shone with interest.
“Those who wish to study independently, go over there. I will guide you to the Training Hall.”
About half the group rose and moved to the direction Heo Gong indicated.
If it were me, I think I would want to try learning this new Inner Power Technique out of sheer curiosity, but far more students were choosing to go than I would have expected.
“Um, but…… what should we do about students who cannot use their Inner Power right now because of Scattered Power Poison?”
One student started to stand but stopped and asked instead.
They wanted to go to the Training Hall rather than learn personal techniques here.
It seemed they were unable to perform Qi Circulation Breathing due to the Scattered Power Poison.
“That is precisely the problem.”
Heo Gong heaved a deep sigh at the question.
He had seemed quite frustrated by this aspect since the lecture began.
“There is nothing for it but to build a solid foundation from the very basics. Ahem.”
“The basics?”
“The foundation of Inner Power Technique is…… surely Acupoint Knowledge, is it not?”
Acupoints? Meridian nodes?
“It is laughable to even speak of Qi circulation when one cannot memorize the Twelve Standard Meridians. Here, take this.”
Heo Gong handed out a stack of papers.
They were dictation sheets and coloring exercises marking the regions governed by each acupoint.
Survival as a Limited-Time Heir of the Northern Sea Ice Palace (Serialized)
Author │ Sa Hyang Noru
Publisher │ Kim Ju Hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae Hyuk
Address │ 401, 11 Digital-ro 33-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Ace Techno Tower 8th)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Sa Hyang Noru 2026
※This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder, and the content cannot be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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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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