Ten Paths of the Master - Chapter 6

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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 6. It Turns Out He’s the Sect Leader’s Son?
Four days after Dan Yeop and Ha Yong-wol first met, the Chulkwan examination was held.
Unlike the first cohort, the second had only twenty-two trainees.
Including Dan Yeop, that made twenty-three.
With fewer students, the examiners were thorough, yet every second cohort trainee earned their Chulkwan certification.
This year too, Dan Yeop attempted the Cheonji Dobeop, but his performance left much to be desired.
He executed the first form as smoothly as the others, but faltered from that very form onward.
Unlike the previous year, the smaller second cohort made it impossible to follow along by guesswork.
Among the second cohort’s synchronized movements, he alone fell out of rhythm, drawing hearty laughter from the junior trainees below, and failed once more.
Just before the examination, Ma Eun-rok had clipped Dan Yeop’s ear, warning that if he dared meet with Ha Yong-wol and then passed his Chulkwan, he’d die by his hands.
Having failed the Chulkwan examination a second time, Dan Yeop became a headache for the martial instructors of Byeongma Chong.
As the new year turned, the instructors split into two camps: one faction wanted to grant him Chulkwan anyway and put him to chores, while the other insisted he actually master a skill.
Dan Bul-wi, the local magistrate and chief martial instructor, favored the latter; but as his own martial prowess grew more formidable by the day, any forced certification for Dan Yeop quietly evaporated.
“So put your mind at ease and devote yourself to training. Haste makes waste.”
Dan Yeop felt gratitude at Dan Bul-wi’s words.
He’d never expected that fearsome Dan Bul-wi would care for him so deeply.
“Thank you.”
“By the way, you’ve been training in Bunsim Gong, haven’t you?”
“Pardon?”
Dan Yeop winced and tried to feign ignorance, but Dan Bul-wi didn’t let it slide.
“Greed. I took you for a man without ambition, but it seems otherwise.”
“I was just trying to calm my mind a little…”
“Why resort to that, when the Hao Moon’s Simjeong Dangong is so effective?”
“…I apologize.”
“If you scatter your efforts across everything, you’ll ultimately fail at all of it.”
“Yes…”
This time, Dan Yeop couldn’t muster a defense.
He understood Dan Bul-wi was scolding him out of concern.
“Do you know why people don’t train in Bunsim Gong?”
“Because it might be a fake technique?”
“That’s part of it, but there’s a far greater reason.”
“What is it?”
Dan Bul-wi tapped his own forehead with his index finger as he spoke.
“Because Bunsim Gong directly strikes here. It’s a martial art perfectly suited to inducing Juhwa Ipma if you practice carelessly.”
“Ah!”
Even Dan Yeop, notorious for being slow on the uptake, grasped the meaning at once.
The Munsin resides in Cheonmok—the space between the eyebrows.
“Simjeong Dangong is slower, but it guarantees safety. Make Simjeong Dangong your foundation, and it’s also good to learn Umah Gong from each sect.”
Dan Bul-wi recommended the various sects’ Umah Gong, which would suit Dan Yeop’s capacity for learning.
Umah Gong was nearly as straightforward as the Cheonji Dobeop.
“I’ll give it some thought.”
“Right. And I say again—don’t fret over falling a few years behind the others. Safety matters far more than speed. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“Now go.”
“Pardon me, Instructor.”
“What? Do you have more to say?”
“If spirit is called light, then where does light dwell?”
“If it exists beyond the body, it dwells in heaven; if it exists within the body, it dwells in the heart.”
Dan Bul-wi recognized this as a question about Bunsim Gong and answered offhandedly.
It was a secret technique scattered freely in the marketplaces anyway—why take it seriously?
Yet Dan Yeop didn’t hear Dan Bul-wi’s words in passing.
Something about it resonated with the notion that “the heart resides in breath.”
Dan Yeop slipped away from the junior trainees and ventured toward the outskirts.
Fortunately, neither Dan Bul-wi nor any of the other instructors paid attention to where he went or what he did.
After thirteen years failing to master a single form of the Cheonji Dobeop, he was essentially abandoned.
Dan Yeop stopped at a stone chamber in the unexplored region north of Byeongma Chong.
It was the very place where he’d once lost track of time immersed in Simjeong Dangong.
Settling into a cross-legged position before the stone wall, he quietly recalled the incantation of Bunsim Gong in his mind.
He no longer had any gaps in knowledge about the Munsin and the breathing spirit from the first half.
The second half concerned light and the Munsin.
‘Spirit is fire, and when intent moves, motion follows. Fire is flame, which is light itself, and what moves is true spirit…….’
Today Dan Bul-wi had said that light exists either in the heavens or in the mind.
Now that he thought about it, spirit, light, and intent were all manifestations of the mind.
‘Mind is light?’
In that instant, a wordless understanding flashed through his consciousness like lightning.
‘Mind is breath!’
His breathing transformed in a single heartbeat.
He began to follow the incantation of Simjeong Dangong, breathing as his body had learned.
The tangled thread in his lower dantian unraveled strand by strand, flowing out through his nostrils and drawing back in.
After observing the thread’s current for some time, Dan Yeop suddenly wondered.
‘Could the light also dwell in the breath?’
As if awaiting permission, the thread began to glow.
With each cycle of Tonaep, the thread that emerged from and withdrew into his nostrils shimmered with dazzling brightness.
The luminous thread seemed to ignite a small flame within his dantian.
Dan Yeop could not tell whether this flame arose from Simjeong Dangong or from Bunsim Gong.
The spark, once no larger than an acorn, gradually swelled until it matched the size of a chestnut.
Suddenly he wondered whether that flame was Naegong, Naedan, or merely a glowing thread.
But there was something more urgent to accomplish now.
‘If I turn the light toward the Cheonmok and illuminate it, I will obtain Beopsin and come to command Musin and Munsin as I will.’
He had no idea what it meant to turn the light toward the Cheonmok and illuminate it, but suddenly understanding came.
Literally—he need only use the luminous thread to illuminate the Cheonmok between his brows.
No other method came to mind.
Coincidentally, the final incantation of Simjeong Dangong was also ‘Pursue the Light.’
Whether right or wrong, he acted.
He guided the luminous thread that had risen into the nasal passage toward the space between his brows.
The true spirit of Bunsim Gong means ‘the advancing spirit.’
The luminous thread entered the space between his brows without the slightest hesitation.
Whoosh—
It was as though a blade slid into its sheath.
In that instant, something erupted before his eyes in a burst of white light.
“Ugh!”
Dan Yeop reflexively squeezed his half-open eyes shut.
A sharp ringing echoed through his ears.
Beeeee—
***
As the boy slowly opened his eyes, his face filled with confusion.
“Where am I?”
No matter how many times he looked, he could not recognize the place.
Just as the bewildered boy was about to take a step, it happened.
Suddenly, a torrent of unfamiliar knowledge flooded into his mind.
Or more precisely, memories surfaced.
The martial arts of Hao Moon, various military treatises, mechanical designs, Buddhist scriptures, the Five Classics, and miscellaneous texts…….
The boy rapidly organized the cascading information.
It took roughly an ilgak to sort through the memories.
The boy, nodding in satisfaction, realized something crucial was missing.
“But who am I?”
He rummaged through his clothes on the chance of finding something, but only dust emerged.
Yet one thing seemed clear.
“It looks like I’m a member of Hao Moon.”
His intimate knowledge of Hao Moon left no doubt.
“Maybe I’m the sect leader’s son or something like that?”
From the boy’s musing, his nature appeared quite optimistic.
When nothing new came to mind, the boy unhesitatingly left the place where he had first opened his eyes.
As he walked through a stone passage, a short rope roughly three meters long caught his eye.
Bored, the boy picked it up and casually deployed the San Wang Pyeon.
Crack! Snap!
Just as expected—no obstruction anywhere.
The boy tossed the rope aside and swiftly executed the Beon Cheon Su.
Even the complex Geumna Subeop flowed as naturally as water.
And that was not all.
He picked up a fallen wooden branch and swung it—the Baekryu Dobeop. A kick became the Seomjeon Gak.
The unique martial arts of Yuk Moon clung to his hands and feet like they’d been grafted there.
Seeing this, he was certain he must be a son carefully raised by some sect leader of Yuk Moon.
“It has to be.”
The boy muttering to himself glanced around the space.
Though the chamber was quite spacious, it wasn’t pitch black—light filtered in from somewhere.
As he wondered where he was, his forehead gave a dull throb, and an image flashed across his mind.
A vast underground cavern flooded with light, and within it, terracotta soldiers and horses.
“Byeongma Chong? An ancient royal tomb, then.”
Now he knew where he was, but not how to leave—that uncertainty remained.
From that moment on, the boy relied purely on instinct, moving forward one deliberate step at a time.
The only problem was his direction.
Where the boy headed was not toward Byeongma Chong, but into uncharted territory.
After walking for some distance, his vision grew steadily darker.
An ordinary person would have sensed something was wrong and turned back, but the boy pressed on.
The loss of his memories had stripped away the reference points by which he might judge abnormality.
Still, instinct sent a warning—his pace, which had been steady, began to slow.
“What is this? When does it end?”
By his stride, he’d walked at least ten li—roughly four kilometers.
The Byeongma Chong he’d remembered wasn’t nearly that expansive.
At most, the width and length combined might be three hundred meters each.
Stone chambers large and small twisted around Byeongma Chong like a maze, but even so, ten li seemed excessive.
“Lord, I’m going to lose my mind.”
Despite the lament, the boy’s eyes gleamed with vitality.
If worse came to worst, he could simply retrace his steps—nothing simpler.
He’d passed twenty-nine forks in the path.
By counting his strides in reverse, he could honestly walk back with his eyes closed.
He’d memorized not only all of Yuk Moon’s martial techniques but eighty-seven volumes of texts whole—what was twenty-nine forks?
If he could just solve the problem of stamina, returning would be as easy as eating rice cakes in bed.
Gurgle-gurgle—
At the sound of thunder from his belly, the boy’s pace quickened again.
After walking another ten li, he stopped.
Part of it was the darkness that had grown too thick to see ahead, but more than that, a massive wall blocked his way.
“This is the end?”
From where he’d awakened to here, navigating countless random forks, he’d counted forty-nine.
He’d walked roughly twenty li—about eight kilometers.
Twenty li of underground passages hewn from stone! He was genuinely curious about who owned this tomb.
The boy felt a strange sense of incompleteness and ran his hands over the stone wall.
“Hm?”
His fingertips caught something—odd grooves carved into the marble-smooth surface.
Sensing there was something here, the boy slowly ran his palms across the entire wall.
He was trying to discern what had been carved there using touch alone.
After a moment, blinking in the pitch darkness, the boy murmured aloud.
“Is this person insane?”
Looking at the image and words carved into the wall’s center, it was hard to call the carver sane.
A figure gripping a serpent in each hand, and beneath it, these words were inscribed:
Sever the head of the Wind White
Shatter the skull of the Cloud Master
Against the mandate that defies Heaven
Set right the qi of the Heavenly Realm
To humankind, the Wind White and Cloud Master of the Heavens are divine beings.
To behead them, to shatter their skulls? Any reasonable person would dismiss this as the ranting of a madman.
Yet it was hard to dismiss the carver as mad when the scale of the underground royal tomb was so immense.
“Whoever you are, I understand your resentment, but what exactly am I supposed to do about it?”
Naturally, the stone wall offered no reply.
After standing before it for some time, the boy slowly turned away.
Not knowing who he was, how could he carry out “the mandate that defies Heaven”……
And yet the keen curiosity of adolescence held him fast.
The boy spun back around, rubbing his still-smooth chin thoughtfully.
“It feels like I finished the job but didn’t wipe my rear, if you know what I mean.”

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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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