Ten Paths of the Master - 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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Chapter 3. The Stone Monkey—A Monkey That Loses When It Fights
As the path grew treacherous, the carriage slowed.
Yet stubbornly grinding forward, it came to a complete halt at the foot of a high mountain.
The road that had barely held together until now was entirely severed.
The carriage driver opened his mouth.
“We’ve arrived, Sect Soldier Dan.”
“I can’t see anything. Can’t we go any further?”
“Mercy! We’ve come fifty li since the road was cut off. As you can see, there’s nowhere left to go.”
……
Dan Bulwi decided there was no point in speaking further and leaped down from the driver’s seat.
Soon he approached the carriage and threw open the door, shouting.
“Everyone out!”
Only then did children begin crawling sluggishly from inside the carriage.
Each child wore small ankle shackles on one foot, and all were connected by chains.
The moment the last child descended, the driver turned the carriage around and left.
Dan Bulwi checked the children’s condition thoroughly.
Regardless of whether the Baeknyeon Daegye succeeded or failed, he had to complete the task given to him.
Though they had spent seven days in that sweltering carriage, not a single child was ailing—and Dan Bulwi’s expression brightened.
“We’re almost there now. Go just a bit further and you’ll reach the place where you’ll live. Once we arrive, I’ll remove the chains, so hold on until then. Do you understand?”
“Yes……”
Several of the thicker-headed children answered in hoarse voices.
Just as Dan Bulwi was about to set off, he glanced back at the last child.
Through the disheveled front of his clothes, a scar on his neck was plainly visible.
‘That one needs to follow the mountain path properly……’
Worried, he approached the four-year-old and spoke in a threatening tone.
“Yanma, follow the person in front of you closely. If you can’t keep up, you’ll die. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Plucky little thing.”
Dan Bulwi rapped the child on the back of the head and strode into the forest.
After advancing through the forest for about half an hour, a withered ravine suddenly appeared.
The area around the ravine was covered entirely in gravel, and every large boulder scattered about was thick with shed snakeskins.
Dan Bulwi called back a warning to the children following him.
“Stay close behind me! If you wander off foolishly and get bitten by a viper, you’ll die.”
Startled by his words, the children hurried their steps and closed the distance to Dan Bulwi.
As they ventured deeper into the ravine, a sinister cave appeared.
Dan Bulwi fashioned a torch from oil-soaked cloth and branches, then entered the cave.
As the children filed in after him, the quiet cave echoed with the sound of chains dragging—Clank, clank!
After descending along a downward-sloping passage for about half an hour, the cave grew narrower until only one person could barely squeeze through.
Even a bold man would have turned back, but Dan Bulwi’s pace did not slow.
After another quarter hour or so through the narrow passage,
the passage suddenly opened wide, revealing an enormous space.
The underground chamber was roughly three hundred meters in both width and length.
In the center of the chamber, a sunken area about three meters deep held hundreds of terracotta soldiers and horses standing in perfect formation.
The Terracotta Army Tomb.
The armored soldiers and saddled horses seemed so lifelike they could spring to motion at any moment.
Dan Bulwi led the children to an open area beside the tomb.
Already gathered there were roughly sixty children and forty adults.
Once Dan Bulwi removed the ankle shackles from the children, they instinctively moved toward others their own age without being told.
Ha Soran, the true power of Haowen and Sect Leader of Gimun, counted the children’s heads on her fingers.
“Seventy-one, seventy-two. Is this all?”
Hong Sogwang, Sect Leader of Amun, answered with a reluctant expression.
“Yes. As you know, this year’s harvest was good, so finding children wasn’t easy.”
“It’s unfortunate, but you’ve worked hard nonetheless. We were in a hurry, so we accepted help from Amun, but from now on, we’ll have Yukmun select and send the children.”
Hong Sogwang, Sect Leader of Amun, nodded.
It was better than having Amun abduct children on its own and supply them.
Since it was work for his own faction, the sect leaders of the other sects didn’t object.
The seventy-two children brought from Amun would later be divided among Yukmun.
Shortly after, Ha Soran, Sect Leader of Gimun, stepped forward before the group.
“Haowen has always been weak and disunited, so we’ve only suffered losses. Ten years from now, together with these children, we will unite all the Haowen across the Ten Great Paths of the realm. When Haowen becomes one, we’ll stand as equals to the Open School. Until that day comes, the secret of the Baeknyeon Daegye must be guarded. Therefore, among those present, only sect leaders and vice sect leaders will leave; the hall masters, village masters, sect soldiers, and general sect disciples will remain here.”
She then appointed Ma Tong, a hall master of Amun, as overall supervisor of the Terracotta Army Tomb training grounds and instructed three other hall masters to assist him.
The Hall Masters and Village Masters already knew, so they showed no particular reaction, but the Sect Soldiers and ordinary Sect Disciples mobilized for the event seemed utterly bewildered.
Yet no word of objection crossed their lips.
In Haowen, a place of strict hierarchy, the words of the strong were law itself.
How much more impossible was it to defy an agreement made by six Sect Leaders together.
Shortly after, the Sect Leaders and Vice Sect Leaders of Haowen departed, leaving only the tomb’s custodians behind.
Ma Tong, the Hall Master bearing overall responsibility, appointed a martial arts instructor, a scholar-teacher, and a gatekeeping watch.
The appointment of a scholar-teacher was made necessary by the mountain of books accumulated there.
Though obtained from the marketplace, the collection included not only Secret Martial Arts Manuals but also Formation Techniques, Military Strategy Texts, the Five Classics, and miscellaneous other works—enough to fill three carriages worth.
Books were useless if no one could read them, so a scholar-teacher was essential.
From that day forward, the children of the Terracotta Army Tomb learned their characters and martial arts at appointed hours.
***
Time flows like water; ten years had slipped away unnoticed.
As June arrived, the quiet atmosphere of the Terracotta Army Tomb shifted in subtle ways.
Some of the boys and girls carried a new brightness in their faces, their eyes gleaming.
But not all of them shared in this.
Only the seventy-two first-generation disciples showed such excitement; the rest of the children remained as they always were.
The hour of si, by the old reckoning—eleven in the morning.
From the stone chamber on the left side of the Terracotta Army Tomb emerged a fine-featured boy in his mid-teens, shuffling forward with a halting gait.
In his hand he carried a tattered copy of the Thousand Character Classic.
When the boy reached the central tomb, he glanced nervously left and right.
The other children must have gone off to study martial arts, for the tomb stood nearly empty—they had long since finished the Thousand Character Classic and moved on to learning the techniques of the six schools.
The six schools of Haowen each possessed their own distinctive traditions of martial practice.
For example, the Stable Masters’ school practiced the Day-Moon Palm Technique, Mountain King Whip, and Heaven Crash Fist.
The Boatmen’s school studied the Flowing Water Heart Method, White Willow Blade Method, and Heaven-Turning Water.
The Shop Workers’ school learned the Heaven-Earth Blade Method and Tiger Learning Twin Fist.
The Porters’ school trained in Horse-Strength Work, Carrying Technique, and Thousand-Mile Step.
The Courtesans’ school mastered Jade Form Work, Falling Flower Mountain Water, and Elegant Grace Step.
The Human Traffickers’ school practiced Heart-Stabilizing Cinnabar Work, Seven Wounds Blade Method, Secret Flowing Step, and Hidden Form Technique.
The martial instructors of the six schools resided in six stone chambers surrounding the tomb, each teaching their school’s distinctive techniques.
Most children completed the Thousand Character Classic before the age of ten, after which they devoted themselves to training in one of the six schools’ martial arts.
Therefore, a boy in his mid-teens still carrying the Thousand Character Classic was most unusual indeed.
Upon reaching the central tomb, the boy looked around before launching himself downward with a light leap.
He landed nimbly on the horse’s back and began bouncing and bounding across it with practiced ease.
Yet this display did not last long.
The boy, who had seemed to be running well, suddenly lost his footing and tumbled down to the ground below.
With a heavy “Thud!” he crashed onto the stone floor, and a groan escaped his lips.
“Hnnngh…….”
Just then, Yi Geumak, a first-generation disciple who witnessed the scene along with his companions, burst into laughter.
“Haha! Stone Monkey falls off his horse again! Can’t even manage the Thousand-Mile Step, yet he’s greedy for the Secret Flowing Step. No wonder he ends up like that.”
Gwak Nosim, who followed him about, chimed in as well.
“Hey! Stone Monkey! Still haven’t finished the Thousand Character Classic? So you think you can graduate with us this year?”
So Sangwon, the third member of the trio known together as the Three Musketeers, did not let the moment pass either.
“Listen here! If you don’t graduate this year, you have to call us ‘senior’ instead of ‘brother’—understand? If we meet later and you try to claim we’re the same generation, you’ll eat a beating.”
The three laughed until their sides ached, thoroughly amused by their mockery of the boy.
From a distance, Ha Yongwol, a second-generation disciple, wrinkled her delicate brow.
Unaware of her displeasure, Ma Eunrok standing beside her thoughtlessly let slip a comment.
“Stone Monkey probably needs another ten years before he’ll graduate.”
Since the Terracotta Army Tomb had once been an ancient royal tomb, the trainees referred to entering as “entering the coffin” and leaving as “exiting the coffin.”
Though it had started with seventy-two disciples ten years prior, a few were added each year, and the number now stood at one hundred and eighty.
Having lived together for anywhere from one to ten years, the disciples knew one another well enough, but generational rank was strictly observed, and juniors feared their seniors as they would demons.
That Ma Eunrok, a second-generation disciple, would call the first-generation boy “Stone Monkey” was therefore quite bold.
Seeing Ha Yongwol’s obvious displeasure, Ryu Seolri quickly stepped forward.
“Still, I don’t think we should call Dan Yeop by such a name.”
Ryu Seolri, the youngest of the three, spoke to Ma Eunrok with formal deference.
The boy who lay sprawled on the tomb floor was named Dan Yeop.
When the Haowen disciples first saw him arrive, he had been so small they called him “Baby Monkey.”
As he grew older, “Baby” was replaced with “Stone.”
For ten years, he had not finished the Thousand Character Classic, nor had he properly mastered even a single technique from any of the six schools.
“What are you talking about? Didn’t you just hear what our senior said? We’re supposed to call him ‘senior,’ not ‘brother’—basically, he’s been kicked out of the first generation anyway.”
“But the senior disciples might just be joking. If the juniors really start treating Dan Yeop disrespectfully, he might actually get angry about it.”
Ma Eunrok had no rebuttal to that.
Even if Dan Yeop was utterly useless, covering for his cohort-mate meant only he would suffer the loss.
Finding nothing more to say, Ma Eunrok let out a sharp “Hmph!” and a sneer before taking his leave.
The moment he disappeared, Ryu Seolri pouted and grumbled.
“Ugh, that temper of his.”
“Thanks for stepping in.”
“Oh, don’t mention it. If you’d said anything, Dan Yeop would’ve been the one suffering for it. Ma’s jealousy is something fierce, you know.”
Ha Yongwol was counted among the Byeongmatong three beauties, alongside Yi Sogun from the first generation and Hong Choyeon from the third.
Ma Eunrok had his eye on both Ha Yongwol and Hong Choyeon among them.
“What relationship could I possibly have with Dan Yeop to make him jealous?”
“Well, you don’t have any relationship, but it’s true that you think of Dan Yeop differently than everyone else does.”
“The man’s kind-hearted. I’ve never seen him fight with anyone.”
“It’s not kindness—it’s a lack of sense.”
At Byeongmatong, where the merest eye contact could spark a quarrel, Dan Yeop drew an unusual amount of harassment. His cohort-mates bullied him, and even the younger disciples disrespected him and picked fights.
Which gave rise to another epithet: “The Monkey Who Loses Every Fight.”
Like the monkey Sun Wukong—the “Buddha Who Wins Every Battle”—Dan Yeop was mocked by the same measure.
Whenever someone challenged him, Dan Yeop always lowered himself, and for that, he was treated like a fool.
Stone Monkey, the Monkey Who Loses Every Fight—Dan Yeop crawled up through the rows of terracotta soldiers, searching until he found a fallen Thousand Character Classic and picked it up.
Soon, looking awkward as he scratched his head before the younger disciples, he turned his steps toward the training hall.

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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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