Ten Paths of the Master - Chapter 8

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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 8. The Secret of Honwon Seongjin
At the mention of a debt of gratitude, The Boy felt a measure of relief settle in his chest.
At least he wouldn’t be beaten to death by the divine being’s hand.
Then the man spoke.
“In our Sect, when one receives a favor, one must repay it without fail. Is there anything you desire?”
The Boy ventured a cautious question in return.
“Forgive me, but is the Sect you speak of one of the factions of Kangho?”
“Something like that.”
The man offered no further explanation about the Sect.
If one was not a Cultivator, there was no need to know of such things, and even for those who were, it was unrelated to the Human Realm.
“Then there is one thing I wish for.”
“What is it?”
“Please teach me how to survive the hands of the So Yo Sect.”
The man let out a soft chuckle and spoke.
“Did I not tell you that you could hide your eyes with the Yeon-An Gyeong?”
“Still, there are always unforeseen circumstances. There is a saying: certainty beats all else.”
“Hmm.”
A thoughtful hum escaped the man’s lips—this was no simple request.
The So Yo Sect was one of nine Sects that ruled the Celestial Realm.
There could be no method to escape such a Sect’s grasp that dwelled in the Human Realm.
The only way was to master the inner methods of a Sect comparable to the So Yo Sect.
To the Cultivators of the Celestial Realm, the Human Realm was nothing but filthy mire.
Since it offered no aid to their cultivation, only True Immortals passed through it occasionally.
There might be descendants of the So Yo Sect in the Human Realm, but their attainment would be negligible.
Teaching the Boy even one or two techniques might allow him to escape death.
But that would require an explanation of his identity and his Sect, which went against the natural order of the Human Realm.
‘Or does it?’
Upon reflection, he had already commanded the Boy to defy heaven itself, and the Boy had come this far in obedience to that command.
After much deliberation, the man’s lips finally parted.
“Master the inner methods of a Sect comparable to the So Yo Sect, and you might—might—survive.”
“You sound uncertain.”
“Of course I am. One may learn to fish, yet not all fishermen catch their fill, do they? Life and death rest solely upon the achievement of the individual.”
“I understand your meaning. Does my master know the inner methods of such a Sect?”
At that moment, The Boy still believed Sects to be unknown factions of the martial world.
There were factions beyond counting under heaven.
“I do. I myself was an Outer Disciple of the Tae Go Sect, one of them.”
In an instant, The Boy threw himself prostrate and cried out.
“Master! Open the path of survival for this humble one! If you grant me this, I shall never forget your grace, even unto my final breath.”
“You wish to learn the inner methods of the Tae Go Sect from me?”
“Yes!”
“Fortune always walks hand in hand with calamity. Should you learn anything from me, you must also bear my debts and enmities. Will you still do this?”
“I lack the strength, but I swear my heart shall follow your will.”
It was a show of piety, yet beneath it lay a calculated willingness to gain first and reckon later.
The man saw through it but did not press further.
After all, such things would not unfold according to the Boy’s wishes.
“Very well. Make three bows to me. The first shall signify your respect for the Tae Go Sect; the second, respect for your master; and the third, your pledge to follow those Outer Disciples who entered the Sect before you.”
The Boy made three swift bows before the master could change his mind.
When the Boy finished, a satisfied smile bloomed across the man’s face.
Though his Original Spirit was now fractured and he was neither dead nor alive, this was a disciple whose future shone with promise once he mastered the Banbon Gwiso Dae-beop.
“My name is Jeok Song-ja. I came to the Human Realm by command of the Heavenly Emperor, alongside Seok Je-ga and Yuk Yak-bin. But they betrayed me. We fought, and my Original Energy was grievously wounded. Since then, you have seen my state. Should you ever meet Seok Je-ga, Yuk Yak-bin, or their descendants, you must kill them. Otherwise, you will lose your life to their hands.”
“Excuse me, Master.”
“I am not a divine being. Call me Master.”
“Yes, Master. You said you came to the Human Realm by command of the Heavenly Emperor. Yet this disciple is too dull to grasp the meaning hidden within your words.”
The Boy could make no sense of Jeok Song-ja’s metaphor.
He could understand the part about sustaining injuries and hiding away in a royal tomb to cultivate.
Ha O-mun, after all, lived in the Byeongma Chong, which was part of the Royal Tomb.
But the sudden appearance of the Heavenly Emperor and the Human Realm made it nearly impossible to interpret.
“There is no hidden meaning. You must have heard the names Feng Bo, Yu Shi, and Yun Shi before, have you not?”
“Yes—are they not gods from the ancient age of Tae Go?”
“Gods, you say…. Well, to human eyes, we must have appeared as gods. In those days, people called me Yu Shi, Seok Je-ga they knew as Feng Bo, and Yuk Yak-bin as Yun Shi.”
“…….”
The Boy studied Jeok Song-ja with doubt flickering in his eyes.
Waking from a stone coffin was remarkable enough, but a celestial being? That was another matter entirely.
No matter how much he revered his master, this seemed to stretch credibility.
Jeok Song-ja read the bewilderment in the Boy’s gaze but did not press him to believe.
“But why did they betray you, Master?”
“Because the common people revered me more than either of them—I brought them rain. The Wind Lord, cruel by nature, could not bear it. In the end, he corrupted the Cloud Master into plotting my death.”
“I see…….”
“The master of this Royal Tomb was one whom even the Wind Lord and Cloud Master feared, so I hid here to treat my wounds.”
“That’s why you left behind those paintings and poems.”
“Precisely. Had you damaged the paintings and characters as a human would have, the resulting explosion would have left not even your bones behind.”
In truth, the paintings and characters had been Jeok Song-ja’s creation—a filter to separate the worthy from the unworthy.
Had Seok Je-ga and Yuk Yak-bin laid eyes on them, rage would have seized them instantly, driving them to obliterate everything.
The Boy, for his part, could not help but feel a chill at Jeok Song-ja’s words.
He had thought of the mechanism merely as a riddle to solve, never imagining such a horrific device lay beneath.
Jeok Song-ja’s heart, his master’s heart, was as terrifying as anything Seok Je-ga and Yuk Yak-bin might devise.
Fear seized the Boy; he did not even dare breathe deeply.
After a pause, Jeok Song-ja began to teach the Boy the methods of the Tae Go Sect.
“The Tae Eul Won-Won Yeon-Sung Gyeol is the practice for cultivating Tae Eul Energy—the primordial sacred breath that birthed heaven, earth, and the stars themselves. When the microcosm within me and the universe of the heavens merge and flow as one, then at last Tae Eul Energy awakens…….”
After expounding three thousand characters of doctrine, Jeok Song-ja casually posed a question to the Boy.
“Have you memorized all of this?”
“Yes.”
“You possess a capable mind indeed. Yet to perfect the Tae Eul Won-Won Yeon-Sung Gyeol, your Original Spirit must become one. When perfected, the boundary between inner and outer dissolves, and you gain access to the realm of consciousness itself. There, if your heart harbors deep shadows, you will experience the Asura Realm; if not, the Heavenly Realm.”
To enter the realm of consciousness with one’s physical body required achieving a state of spirit and flesh as one—but Jeok Song-ja left this unsaid.
Even with the supreme methods of the Tae Go Sect, achieving such a state through cultivation in the Human Realm was nearly impossible.
Even after centuries of practice in the Celestial Realm, one might barely succeed. What point was there in speaking of it here?
“What are the Asura Realm and Heavenly Realm?” the Boy asked.
“The Asura Realm is where sinners go after death. Endless war rages there. The Heavenly Realm, by contrast, is where those who have attained the Way are reborn.”
“If I perfect this, I can go there without dying?”
“Your body does not go. You experience it through Spiritual Consciousness—through what you might think of as the Heavenly Eye.”
As he spoke, Jeok Song-ja tapped the space between the Boy’s eyebrows with his index finger.
Only then did the Boy understand: not the eyes of flesh, but the eyes of the mind.
‘Of course—one cannot journey in a living body to a place the dead reach after death.’
The celestial cultivators—like the Wind Lord, the Rain Master, and the Cloud Master—could move freely between the higher and lower realms by their own will, but the Boy did not yet know this.
Jeok Song-ja then taught the Boy only three forms of the Tae Heo Mu-Young Geom, the technique opened to Outer Disciples.
The Boy might be captured by descendants of So Yo Sect cultivators or by the heirs of Seok Je-ga and Yuk Yak-bin, and forced to surrender the Tae Go Sect’s methods.
“The Tae Heo Mu-Young Geom is as ancient as the history of the Tae Go Sect itself. Master it properly, and you will earn the title of the strongest in all the land.”
“Then I could defeat the people of So Yo Sect in combat?”
“Do not fight So Yo Sect, nor the descendants of Seok Je-ga and Yuk Yak-bin. Your cultivation cannot withstand three breaths against them. If they move with full intent, you cannot endure a single strike.”
“But you just said I would become the strongest in all the land. How can this be?”
“Because they exist Beyond Heaven. ‘Strongest in all the land’ does not mean you match even a single instant of their being. So harbor no pride, and above all, never reveal that you are a disciple of the Tae Go Sect.”
“…….”
At his master’s warning, the Boy’s mouth fell slightly open.
He had entered the Tae Go Sect to live, and yet he would still die—the absurdity of it stung.
Jeok Song-ja felt a pang of regret watching the Boy’s expression.
But even if he taught the Inner Methods of the Tae Go Sect, the Boy’s current training would not suffice to match them.
Better that he accept reality swiftly.
Of course, if he himself remained in the Human Realm to guide the Boy’s development, there would be no need for secrecy. But he was not in a position to do so.
From what the Boy had told him, the era in which he had lived was the ancient past.
To take vengeance on the Wind Lord and Cloud Master, he had to return to the Celestial Realm as soon as possible.
‘This is ironic—I teach him the Sect’s methods, only to earn his resentment.’
At that moment, the Boy spoke with bitter self-deprecation.
“Fear not, Master. I will live my whole life hidden away, quiet as a mouse.”
Those words struck Jeok Song-ja with profound shock.
The Tae Go Sect was one of the nine great Sects that dominated the Celestial Realm, its name echoing across the cosmos.
Lesser sects trembled at the mere sight of a Tae Go Sect cultivator’s robes.
And yet, a disciple of the Tae Go Sect would live hidden like a mouse for his entire life?
As a member of the Tae Go Sect, Jeok Song-ja’s chest tightened with emotion.
“What nonsense is this! A disciple of the Tae Go Sect, hiding like a mouse! There has never been such a cultivator in all our history!”
“But…….”
“Ha!”
Jeok Song-ja cut short the Boy’s words and suddenly shrugged off the Geumru Okui he’d been wearing.
Clink, clink.
Each time the jade plates collided, a crystalline sound rippled through the air.
Hearing it alone made the chest feel light—this was no ordinary garment.
Presently, Jeok Song-ja intoned the incantation of the Banbon Gwiso Dae-beop, and from the Geumru Okui there erupted two otherworldly flames—one scarlet, one azure.
The red flame spiraled into the Boy’s crown, while the blue flame drew into Jeok Song-ja’s own.
Once the great rite was complete, Jeok Song-ja held the Geumru Okui out to the Boy and spoke.
“Take it. This is the Seong-Jin Geumru Okui—the greatest treasure among all treasures of the Tae Go Sect. Within its ninety-nine jade plates dwells the essence of Honwon. When you don this and cultivate the Tae Eul Won-Won Yeon-Sung Gyeol, your progress shall accelerate beyond measure.”
“Master, surely something so precious is too much for me to accept?”
The Boy made no real protest and swiftly received the Seong-Jin Geumru Okui.
“According to the teachings of the Tae Go Sect, the ninety-nine jade plates contain the secret of the Honwon Star-Celestial.”
“What is the Honwon Star-Celestial?”
“‘Honwon’ speaks to the breath of the primordial beginning; ‘Star-Celestial’ to the order of the heavens. The ninety-nine jade fragments hold within them both the genesis and the ending of all existence. I spent ten thousand years meditating in that stone chamber and never unlocked its secret. Perhaps it was some cruel jest devised by a Cultivator of the mythic age—in any case, simply remember it for what it is.”
“But Master, how can I keep something so treasured? If the successors of other Sects learn of it, they would surely kill me to seize it……”
The Boy’s face, which had glowed with delight at the mention of treasure, darkened.
Did they not say that to possess treasure was itself a curse?
Setting aside the other Sects, even those above Ha O-mun could strip it from him at will.
At this, Jeok Song-ja drew something from his robes and tossed it before the Boy.
What had been a walnut-sized bundle swelled and unfolded into a satchel as large as a man’s body.
“This is called the Maha-Dam—a Dharma Treasure. It can contain goods the size of an entire cart. To place items within it or withdraw them, you must always infuse it with your Original Energy. Only then will others be unable to perceive what lies inside.”
“What if I don’t infuse it with Original Energy?”
“Then it serves as an ordinary satchel. But the Geumru Okui must always remain within the Maha-Dam, withdrawn and used only where no one can see. And do not fear having it stolen from you—I have woven the Banbon Gwiso Dae-beop into the Geumru Okui itself.”
“What does that mean?”
“When you die, the Geumru Okui will transcend space and return to me. The reason it has remained with the Tae Go Sect all these ages is by virtue of that very art.”

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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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