The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 60

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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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The Decline of a Great House — A Limited Lifespan Episode 60

“Yes!”
“If I learn Martial Arts… how strong could I become?”
“If you learn?”
Dan Mok Ryeon closed her eyes, pressed her palm to her forehead, and spoke with theatrical flair.
“Cheon Hwa Ryun. Once you start learning—just learning!—you’ve as good as secured the next position as Greatest Martial Master Under Heaven. Who holds it now, anyway? Grandfather was injured and someone else took the title, didn’t they?”
“The Master of the Martial Alliance?”
“That’s right! The Master of the Martial Alliance. That person will have to step down the moment you turn twenty—or even fifteen, really.”
“What about Dan Mok Bi and my sister?”
“Hmm?”
“Won’t Dan Mok Bi or my sister become the Greatest Martial Master Under Heaven?”
Dan Mok Ryeon didn’t answer with ‘But doesn’t someone have to want to be the Greatest Martial Master Under Heaven?’ Instead, she paused and considered it more seriously.
The accomplishments of Cheon Hwa Ryun, the young master of Ma Cheon Gyo whom she knew, and the achievements that she and Dan Mok Bi would gain going forward.
‘Could I really surpass Hwa Ryun even if I learned more here? If I could master Spirit Energy, I might manage something, but I have no internal energy at all.’
Perhaps there was something she could do with this Spirit Energy, but that wasn’t an immediate concern.
As for herself, so be it—but Dan Mok Bi.
‘Dan Mok Bi’s talent is truly remarkable. Though in other ways….’
Dan Mok Ryeon gazed down at Dan Mok Bi, who lay sleeping peacefully, with tender eyes. Then she held her breath and whispered to Cheon Hwa Ryun.
“Whoever becomes the Greatest Martial Master Under Heaven later, we three should always look out for each other.”
“Pardon?”
“Let’s promise to look out for one another.”
Dan Mok Ryeon emphasized the point. Cheon Hwa Ryun laughed as if amused. A Martial World figure talking about ‘looking out for each other’—it was strange.
“Will you look out for me too, sister?”
His voice held a note of hope.
“Of course!”
With that, Dan Mok Ryeon suddenly pulled him into an embrace and rubbed her cheek against his. Cheon Hwa Ryun’s expression twisted in mock protest as he scrambled backward.
“Ugh! Sister, go read your books.”
“You—where are you going?”
“I need to fetch the brazier.”
“A brazier? We don’t need it. Stay here.”
Dan Mok Ryeon pulled him back toward her as she spoke.
Then she took one of the two outer robes carelessly scattered nearby and draped it over Dan Mok Bi, spread the other wide, and wrapped it around herself and Cheon Hwa Ryun together. Side by side, they opened a scroll.
“See? Being close together like this keeps us warm, doesn’t it?”
Dan Mok Ryeon spoke with a pleased smile. Cheon Hwa Ryun frowned at her while barely mumbling a noncommittal reply, then leaned his body against the table.

* * *

As a martial great house, the Dan Mok Clan possessed at least one scroll concerning the methods of wielding most ordinary weapons, even if not rare ones.
However, since the clan’s primary weapon was the sword, the texts on Saber Techniques were fewer than those on swords, and truly skilled practitioners of the Saber Technique were exceptionally rare within the household.
One of those rare few was Dan Mok Han So, the First Seat of the Yoo Seong Sip Pal Suk.
He had left Hang Zhou, saying he would travel after teaching Dan Mok Ryeon the Beol Mo Se Soo technique. But when he stopped by the clan briefly, he was caught by Dan Mok Cheon Gi and found himself tasked with instructing two young girls.
“Me? Teach the Saber Technique?”
“Well… that’s how it worked out.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi gave an embarrassed nod.
“When I first said I wanted to take up a saber, I ran barefoot across the entire length of this clan’s main courtyard, didn’t I? Because I was afraid of being killed if caught. You remember, don’t you?”
“Ahem.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi coughed awkwardly.
The clan’s tradition leaned so heavily toward the sword family

that whenever someone spoke of taking up a saber, he would nearly faint in shock.
“I came only briefly because I heard that the Great Master Tae Heo Jin In was visiting, hoping I might have the chance to pay my respects. I was planning to leave again.”
“So put that departure on hold for now.”
“And delay that to teach children the Saber Technique?”
At Dan Mok Han So’s words, Dan Mok Cheon Gi swallowed a groan of distress.
Dan Mok Han So owed him a debt, and that weighed on his heart.
“One of them you’ll come to regard more seriously. So I’m asking you to teach—are you saying that because the Saber Technique was hard for you to master, you’ll make it hard for your successor too?”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi recalled what Ryeon had said: that Dan Mok Seong possessed greater talent with the saber than with the sword, and wouldn’t it be worth cultivating that now?
Dan Mok Cheon Gi knew better than anyone how keen Ryeon’s eye for talent was.
“One of them? Is the other one merely for amusement, then?”
“It’s no amusement.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi furrowed his brow.
The one who would benefit most from Ryeon teaching that class was neither Ryeon nor Dan Mok Seong—it was Dan Mok Han So himself.
Ryeon knew exactly who Dan Mok Han So was.
The foremost member of the Yoo Seong Sip Pal Suk, the clan’s most formidable strike force, yet a man who had burned away his own internal energy to perform the Beol Mo Se Soo for her.
He had voluntarily stepped down from his position in the Yoo Seong Sip Pal Suk because he had lost his strength. For a single performance of the Beol Mo Se Soo for Ryeon, Dan Mok Han So had surrendered nearly everything.
Solely because Dan Mok Ryeon was Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s granddaughter.
Ryeon had told Dan Mok Cheon Gi: if it were possible, she wanted to return what he had lost.
Dan Mok Cheon Gi had not dismissed that lightly. Ryeon had paid an exorbitant price for the Ten-Thousand-Year Extreme Blood Treasure he had given her—it had healed his wounds and elevated him to a new realm.
Then shouldn’t the same apply to Dan Mok Han So?
“If you command it, I shall obey.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi’s brow creased. Truthfully, since the Beol Mo Se Soo, he had felt deeply indebted to Dan Mok Han So and had no desire to command him in anything.
‘This isn’t even punishment. Why is it so hard just to extend an offer of kindness?’
Yet he couldn’t simply say that this young Dan Mok Ryeon might help with his achievements.
If he were in Dan Mok Han So’s position, he would think the Grand Patriarch had gone senile in his twilight years, gazing at his granddaughter’s face.
In truth, the only reason Dan Mok Han So wasn’t responding with “Are you trying to have me burn away my internal energy and my very lifespan for you?” was that he was like a living Buddha.
“Ah, very well! I command it. The Martial Contest is in one month. See that you teach her well in that time.”
“You’re aware that my teaching methods are rather rough, aren’t you?”
“I know, I know. Do as you see fit.”
“After the Martial Contest in one month, I intend to depart again. This time I’m heading to Sichuan Province, so the road ahead is long indeed. Have you ever tried Sichuan cuisine? I’ve heard they make this dish called Mapo Tofu—boiled pork stir-fried with doubanjiang—that’s fiercely spicy. I absolutely must go and taste it myself.”
“Eat it all. Eat every bit.”

* * *

“…Will you be joining in too?”
Before entering the training ground, Dan Mok Seong took a light breath and looked toward Ryeon standing beside her, asking the question.
“Yes!”
Dan Mok Seong’s expression was taut, difficult to read.
“You’ll only take the lessons with me. I’m the one who’ll spar with that man.”
“Right, yes!”
Ryeon smiled and nodded. She wasn’t doing this because she wanted another bout with Geum Jong Ha either.
Simply watching a saber wielded by someone of Dan Mok Han So’s caliber would surely sharpen her Discerning Eye—how could she pass up such an opportunity?
“Good. Let’s go.”
“Yes, let’s.”
“And I’ll learn everything and finish it all off.”
When Dan Mok Seong spoke with her brows raised, her expression cold and resolute, it carried striking force despite her youth.
“Right! Let’s take it all on!”
Not long after the two girls walked hand in hand into the training ground, a man appeared with hair beginning to streak with grey, left to fall as it would.
“Heh heh. I travel the world a little and return to find two people in the clan taking up the saber. I never dreamed such a day would come.”
Dan Mok Han So tapped his sword hilt lightly as he laughed, and with him came Dan Mok Hyeon Yo, who fixed him with a stern gaze.
“Our Seong will only be sparring with the Geum boy.”
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo harbored particular hopes for her daughter.
When her daughter was born, she had named her Seong, taking it from her brother Hyeon Seong’s name.
He had been the most brilliant talent she had ever seen.
So Dan Mok Seong too would lift the clan as he had with his sword. She would become a Martial World master worthy of the clan’s epithet—”Sword Wind” Dan Mok.
“Well, what comes after isn’t for us to know, is it?”
Dan Mok Han So spoke with ease.
He was a cadet branch member who had risen to master the saber in the Dan Mok Clan, and he bore himself with such confidence that, save for the Grand Patriarch whom he served, there was no one before whom he need bow.
Dan Mok Hyeon Yo did not press the matter further with Dan Mok Han So and withdrew from the training ground.
With the others gone and only the three remaining in the training ground, Dan Mok Han So looked down at the two girls and smiled broadly.
“Then let us begin.”

Watching the two girls leap and run and roll and stop as he directed, Dan Mok Han So’s expression at first mixed some concern with indifference. This was especially so when he observed Ryeon.
She was the clan’s eldest grandchild and had burned his internal energy for the Beol Mo Se Soo, but the facts were still the facts.
Dan Mok Seong was somewhat better. Her frame was more compact than Ryeon’s, and her enthusiasm overflowed abundantly.
Still, Ryeon paid little mind to whatever expression Dan Mok Han So wore. It would have made no difference to her if he’d looked at her as he might a dog or cat.

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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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