The Battle for the Heavenly Sword - Chapter 48

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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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48
Woo Geom-san Competes for Supremacy
Although they earned far more Silver Taels than usual and bought countless goods, there was no change in the daily lives of the villagers.
They woke up early in the morning to tend to the rice paddies and Tea Plantation, and in the afternoon, they worked on the construction to connect the Plank Road.
If they had tried to connect the Plank Road using only the labor of the villagers, they wouldn’t have even been able to promise when it would ever end.
However, because Baek Ho-yang and Woo Geom-san helped out from time to time, the construction proceeded much more easily.
Among them, Woo Geom-san’s role was monumental.
Woo Geom-san took sole charge of constructing the most rugged and hard bedrock areas.
The only things held in his hands were a small chisel and a single hammer.
He merely placed the chisel against the rock blocking the path ahead and tapped it lightly with the hammer, yet it split wide open with a sharp crack.
While building the Plank Road over the past five years, Woo Geom-san had mastered the art of hammering.
He wasn’t even drawing upon External Qi, but every time he hammered, massive rocks were shaved away.
Even though he hadn’t been hammering for long, a heap of stone fragments piled up at Woo Geom-san’s feet.
Clearing away the stone fragments was the responsibility of others.
The elders, who had been watching Woo Geom-san intently, rushed forward as if they had been waiting and threw the stone fragments piled beneath Woo Geom-san’s feet down the Cliff.
The strong young men pioneered the Plank Road themselves through hammering or pickaxing like Woo Geom-san, but the elders who lacked strength wanted to help them at least in this way.
In that manner, the villagers became one to pioneer the Plank Road.
Thanks to their steady work over the past five years, they had nearly reached the naturally formed Plank Road.
The problem was the massive bedrock that Woo Geom-san was currently working on.
This was because an exceptionally large and hard bedrock was squarely blocking the front of the naturally formed Plank Road.
The young men of the village had clung to it and hammered away, but the bedrock was so hard that they couldn’t make a single scratch. So everyone had fallen back, exhausted, and Woo Geom-san was working alone to break the bedrock.
Clang! Clang!
Every time Woo Geom-san hammered, small cracks appeared in the bedrock.
It seemed as though he was placing the chisel and hammering just anywhere, but in reality, it was different.
One of the things Woo Geom-san had realized while hammering to the point of boredom for five years was that even rocks have a grain.
If one grasps the grain and transmits the force properly, no matter how hard the rock is, it splits easily.
Grasping the weakness to subdue it with minimal force was similar to the essence of Martial Arts.
Through millions of hammer strikes, Woo Geom-san had realized the method to transmit force efficiently.
Even without deliberately drawing upon External Qi, he had reached a realm where he could easily split rocks purely through hammering.
Having split all the minor areas, the hardest part remained.
Woo Geom-san scanned the bedrock with a sharp gaze.
To his eyes, a certain part of the bedrock came into view.
On the surface, it didn’t look much different from the other parts. Rather, it even looked more solid. However, Woo Geom-san noticed that this spot was the weakest area of the bedrock.
Whether it is a human, a beast, or a rock, the essence is the same.
They disguise themselves as strong to hide their weakest part. But they couldn’t deceive Woo Geom-san’s eyes.
Through his work over the past several years, Woo Geom-san had gained an eye that pierces through the essence of objects.
Woo Geom-san placed his chisel against the vulnerability of the bedrock he had identified. Then, he struck down with all his might.
Crack!
With a single hammer strike from Woo Geom-san, the massive bedrock split wide open.
The bedrock, which couldn’t be broken even when dozens of village young men clung to it, had surrendered all too easily.
“Whew!”
As Woo Geom-san stepped back with a faint sigh, the young men waiting behind him brought over a large log.
They inserted the log between the split bedrock and applied force. They intended to move the bedrock by utilizing the principle of a lever.
“Heave-ho!”
“Put more strength into it.”
“Ugh!”
Creak, crack!
The giant bedrock couldn’t withstand the force of the lever and broke away completely.
Thud!
The broken bedrock plunged straight down beneath the Cliff.
The giant bedrock crashed against the Cliff and shattered into pieces.
“Whoaaa!”
“It’s connected.”
Cheers erupted from the mouths of the people who had been watching the scene with bated breath.
As the bedrock fell away, the naturally formed Plank Road revealed its appearance before them.
“It’s the Plank Road.”
“At this rate, even a large cart could pass through.”
“This is insane.”
The villagers hurriedly ran toward the naturally formed Plank Road.
The Plank Road, which they had only looked at from afar until now, was much wider than they had vaguely imagined.
With this width, it seemed they could even travel with a cart hitched to a donkey’s back.
By utilizing carts, they could transport more goods.
“Great work.”
“You did well.”
The young men of the village who had worked together until now patted Woo Geom-san on the shoulder as they passed by.
A smile played around the corners of Woo Geom-san’s mouth.
It was a moment when his heart swelled with pride.
He had felt good when he mastered Huifengjue of the Choyen Sword Technique, but it wasn’t to this extent.
No matter how deeply Woo Geom-san mastered Martial Arts to a supreme realm, it wouldn’t bring a great change to the lives of the villagers. It was merely an individual achievement at best.
However, the Plank Road was different.
The Plank Road that he and the young men had united to pioneer over five years could greatly change the lives of the villagers.
A distance that used to take ten days could now be traversed in about a day or two. If that happened, interactions with Guangu County would become more frequent, and the lives of the villagers would become more affluent.
Of course, the Plank Road wasn’t completely finished.
The construction to connect the opposite side of the Plank Road still remained.
How long the remaining construction would take was something even Woo Geom-san and the villagers couldn’t know. But there was no need to be intimidated in advance.
Just as they had connected the Plank Road on the village side, if they proceeded step by step, they would eventually be able to break through the opposite side as well.
The important thing was to work steadily day after day without growing weary.
Woo Geom-san believed that this kind of consistency was the most important.
Doing the same thing every day without getting tired.
Some might call it foolish, but Woo Geom-san believed that this very foolishness and steadiness were the greatest driving forces that allowed humans to develop.
Carried away by the momentum, the villagers walked all the way to the end of the Plank Road.
The winding Plank Road stretched on endlessly.
Not every spot was wide or flat, so they would have to touch it up more in the future, but there was no problem for people to travel on it.
“Ah!”
Finally arriving at the end of the Plank Road, the villagers let out sighs of lamentation.
Just like the part connected to the village, the end of the Plank Road was blocked by massive bedrock and boulders.
Even so, the villagers held onto hope.
Though not right now, they believed it would be connected someday.
Baek Do-gyeong spoke in a loud voice.
“Let’s throw a feast today for the people who worked hard. Bring out all the alcohol and food we’ve been saving. Let’s eat to our heart’s content today.”
“Whoaaa!”
“It’s a feast, a feast!”
At his declaration, the villagers cheered.
They immediately returned to the village and began preparing food.
They brought out all the alcohol they had made last year and distributed it to the hardworking young men and Woo Geom-san.
“Bwahaha!”
“This is wonderful.”
The young men, including Baek Wol-sang, laughed heartily as they drank.
Woo Geom-san also raised a glass with them.
Now, he too occasionally enjoyed a drink.
It wasn’t to the level of pouring it down his throat like the village young men, but it posed no problem at all for mingling casually.
Baek Ho-yang also showed up at the feast. However, the area around Baek Ho-yang was swarming with children.
They were all children who had started learning characters from Baek Ho-yang.
The children bothered Baek Ho-yang, calling him grandfather or master.
Baek Ho-yang looked half-dazed, but he still kept a smile until the end.
After being tormented by the children for a while, Baek Ho-yang finally found his freedom and approached Woo Geom-san.
“You went through a lot of trouble to clear the path.”
“It’s not like I did it alone, anyway.”
Woo Geom-san replied with an embarrassed expression.
Baek Ho-yang also smiled and asked.
“Right! Did you gain anything?”
“My eyes and hands have improved.”
“You’ve gained something grand.”
“I’m still lacking a lot.”
“You sure are greedy. Even that alone is a huge harvest.”
“Since I’ve already started, I plan to gain everything I possibly can.”
“You rascal…”
Baek Ho-yang laughed.
Woo Geom-san also looked at him and smiled.
The smiles of the two men resembled each other to a startling degree.
***
Early in the morning, Woo Geom-san strolled alone through the Tea Plantation.
The Tea Plantation was heavily shrouded in mountain mist.
When looking closely like this, it appeared to be simple mist, but in reality, clouds were caught on the mountain.
Since it was such a high-altitude area, the clouds couldn’t easily pass over the mountain and lingered like fog.
Woo Geom-san liked walking alone through this foggy scenery.
Though his immediate view was blurry and his vision wasn’t clear right now, he knew that a beautiful landscape existed beyond this fog.
When the fog cleared and the hidden, beautiful Tea Plantation revealed itself, the scenery was mystical beyond words.
Waiting for the fog to clear, Woo Geom-san thought to himself.
“Everyone must be doing well, right?”
It had already been over six years since he left the Woo Family Manor.
He wondered how the Woo Family Manor might have changed during his absence.
Woo Jang-myeong, the Lord of the Woo Family Manor, had a total of seven children.
Woo Geom-san was the third among them.
His eldest brother, Woo Mun-san, was reliable as the eldest should be, and his second brother, Woo Gang-san, had a violent personality, but still cherished his siblings more terribly than anyone.
When Woo Geom-san fought a Martial Duel because of So-ha against Yun Tae-ho, the reckless son of the Yunyo Bang, the one who cheered and took his side more passionately than anyone was precisely Woo Gang-san.
His younger sister So-ha, who had been the cause of the clash with the Yunyo Bang.
His fifth sibling, Woo Gong-hak, and the twins, Woo Seon-myeong and Woo Seon-hye.
He missed them all.
However, he couldn’t return to the Woo Family Manor at this point.
He would return to the Woo Family Manor someday, but it wasn’t now.
Even if he wasn’t there, the Woo Family Manor would be led well by his brother Woo Mun-san, so he didn’t worry.
Leaving the Woo Family Manor to his brothers, he wanted to stay longer in Yunjung Village to practice his Martial Arts.
It was at that moment.
Whoosh!
A wind blew from somewhere and moved the thick mist.
Woo Geom-san silently watched the mist as it surged and rolled back like waves.
As if by magic, the mist that blocked his view vanished, and the Tea Plantation built along the mountain slope appeared.
The sight of the tea leaves holding moisture reflecting the sunlight and sparkling like jewels was incredibly mystical.
Woo Geom-san stopped in his tracks and gazed at the picturesque scenery.
The brilliant sunlight piercing through the blue sky, the mist pushed far away, the tea leaves swaying in the wind.
All those sights gave Woo Geom-san great inspiration.
Woo Geom-san began to pluck tea leaves as he walked along with the wind.
Moving while riding the Smooth Flow, he deployed Chaeuolsu to pluck the tender tea leaves.
Daily life was itself Cultivation Training for Martial Arts, and even every single light movement became a Stance of Martial Arts.
Woo Geom-san quietly hummed.
Smelling the tea fragrance brings homesickness, in my dreams I already walk the path home.
The dew condensed on green leaves is like tears, the mountain wind feels just like the mountain of home.

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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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