The World’s Greatest Junior Martial Brother - Chapter 10

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Cheonha Jeil Sajae (10)
I’ll teach you later.
“Get up.”
“Mmmph.”
“Come on, get up.”
“Nnngh!”
My junior brother was a demon!
The moment Baekri Unhak could stand on his own two feet, Jin Muok dragged him out of bed at the crack of dawn and suggested they run together.
“W-we’ve done fifteen laps already, Junior Brother!”
They had circled the grass hut no fewer than fifteen times, yet Jin Muok still kept urging Baekri Unhak on.
“And?”
Jin Muok stared at him blankly, the look on his face plainly saying, ‘So what?’ Then he lifted his shoulders and let them drop.
“It’s not like it’s already fifteen. It’s only fifteen, so what?”
Baekri Unhak was utterly spent, sprawled out with his limbs flung wide. Jin Muok came over and plopped down heavily beside him.
“Me, I’m on.”
Gazing at the dawn as it crept up over the horizon, Jin Muok muttered, as casually as anything.
“Forty-five laps, so far.”
“Amazing… ugh, blegh!”
* * *
Teaching and learning grow each other. To teach is no different from learning, so as Jin Muok instructed Baekri Unhak, he trained himself as well. Fortunately, Baekri Unhak regarded Jin Muok as a stand-in master, and he followed his words with surprising willingness.
Of course, the body didn’t always move as the mind wished, and that was the problem.
“The four elements of martial arts are forms, inner power, muscle strength, and experience.”
Once Baekri Unhak had finally managed fifty round trips around the grass hut, Jin Muok launched into a proper lecture on martial arts.
“Even if you possess the mightiest form, it’s useless without the inner power to bring it to life. And even with forms and inner power in hand, you can’t properly unleash them unless your muscles can support the effort.”
Jin Muok counted off his fingers, the index finger joining the thumb and middle finger, and his eyes sparkled.
“Moreover, forms, inner power, and muscle strength only truly shine through real combat experience. Only when all four are in harmony can you become a true master.”
“Huff! Huff! Huff!”
In truth, Baekri Unhak wasn’t really hearing a word Jin Muok said.
He had been racing around the grass hut like a madman since the crack of dawn, so how could his mind possibly be working? Still, his younger junior brother was running twice as much as he was, so he couldn’t even muster a complaint, let alone grumble.
“Are you listening?”
“Huff, huff.”
“I’m not much better, but Senior Brother is really in a bad way.”
He wasn’t like this before.
That wretched Qi Deviation took everything from him.
A bitter emotion gathered in Baekri Unhak’s eyes like morning dew, but Jin Muok pretended not to notice and turned his head away.
There’s no grave without an excuse, and on the battlefield nobody cares about one person’s circumstances. In a fight to the death, there’s no way an opponent suffering from Qi Deviation would have his blade swing any weaker.
Still, something in a corner of his chest ached a deep blue. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Baekri Unhak’s Qi Deviation was of his own making.
‘That’s why I came back.’
Through hell itself.
This time, I’ll impart teachings that no Qi Deviation could ever take root in.
Jin Muok resumed his lecture.
“Forms can be substituted with the martial arts of our school. Experience will accumulate as we go along. Inner power can’t be dealt with right now, so what we should focus on is muscle strength.”
Muscle strength is the foundation of martial arts, yet it’s a quietly despised element. Most people of the Jianghu tend to overlook it, and even when they do give it some attention, the time devoted to training it is negligible compared to forms or inner power.
“Your martial principles are quite different from Master’s, you know.”
Sitting up straight, Baekri Unhak caught his breath before continuing. Only now did his breathing settle; the heaving of his chest subsided, and the familiar wisdom returned to his eyes.
“Master didn’t place much weight on muscle strength. He was so busy imprinting the Bukcheon Sinmun’s martial arts onto my mind that he put everything else off until later.”
In his days as Bukjin Gwangpung, Jin Muok had given young Baekri Unhak lessons that put forms and inner power first.
“So that was a mistake.”
Normally, Baekri Unhak would have scolded Jin Muok for rejecting the teaching methods of a master who was like the heavens to him, but this time he waited for what came next.
There had been a strange regret woven into his junior brother’s words.
That regret was remorse.
“Being strong in martial arts doesn’t make someone a good master. On the contrary, for a superb teacher, formidable power is more of a burden than a boon.”
Just because someone is the strongest under heaven doesn’t mean they’ll make the finest teacher under heaven. In fact, many who made their names as teachers were not at the peak of their powers.
Those who dominated the martial world were warriors gazing toward perfection, so they could never grasp the hardships of the greenhorns beneath them.
The so-called “it’s easy, isn’t it?” sickness.
That is why masters at the summit cannot understand why their disciples fail to follow their teachings.
“Bukjin Gwangpung rolled around the battlefield for nearly twenty years, so his muscles were solid by default. That’s probably why he assumed muscle would simply come along if you just kept at it roughly.”
Puff! Jin Muok burst out laughing.
“Ridiculous, isn’t it? Muscle strength is the very foundation that holds up martial arts.”
Jin Muok turned his body toward Baekri Unhak.
“Do you want to get stronger?”
At Jin Muok’s sudden question, Baekri Unhak nodded without thinking.
Trying to reinterpret the Byeonggi Cheonsang, the internal method of his sect, in order to grow stronger, he had met the worst possible outcome: Qi Deviation.
The secret behind his master’s death had been within his grasp, so close he could almost touch it.
As regret and rage stiffened Baekri Unhak’s shoulders, Jin Muok muttered with resolve.
“Then start by building your physical strength.”
“Hah! Hah!”
Jin Muok ran a hundred laps around the thatched cottage before dropping to the ground with a thump. Without even wiping the sweat that streamed down him like rain, he gasped for breath.
“Your cardiopulmonary endurance is pitiful. Isn’t it?”
Baekri Unhak still did not answer. Or rather, he couldn’t.
Thousands of stars were swirling in front of his eyes. What kind of answer did he expect?
Fundamentally, muscular strength is proportional to stamina. Those who have trained their physical endurance steadily also have sound muscle strength. Conversely, if stamina is wretched, muscle strength is wretched too.
“Right now, we both have problems with muscular strength and cardiopulmonary endurance.”
With a grunt, Jin Muok got to his feet, then dropped straight down and began doing push-ups.
“One, two. Three…”
At first, he couldn’t manage even thirty push-ups. Once he passed twenty, his arms quivered like aspen leaves, and he had no choice but to press his belly to the ground.
Dusk was still far off, yet the sky was already turning yellow.
“Starting tomorrow, I’d better scatter some broken pottery shards on the floor.”
So that his belly wouldn’t touch the ground.
* * *
Bang!
Jin Muok pressed both palms against Baekri Unhak’s back and fed in his Inner Power, and the younger man’s upper body arched like a bow.
And from the corners of Baekri Unhak’s mouth leaked a groan.
“Gkh… Aaagh!”
Train by day, heal by night.
Jin Muok, who did both every single day, and Baekri Unhak, who followed him through it, were both a pair of hardheaded fools.
“Bear with it a little.”
Jin Muok clenched his teeth.
Forcibly expelling the Turbid Qi accumulated in the body was practically impossible, which was why Baekri Unhak had given up on it. Yet Jin Muok was attempting something absurd.
“This isn’t Turbid Qi, it’s nearly Poison Qi. Poison Qi, I tell you.”
Lifting his hands from Baekri Unhak’s back, Jin Muok grumbled.
No wonder. The palms of Jin Muok’s hands had been stained a deep green.
“Junior brother! Are you all right?”
Startled, Baekri Unhak seized Jin Muok’s hand.
“Ah, I’m fine, so stop fussing.”
Pushing Baekri Unhak away, Jin Muok muttered in an offhand tone.
“It’s this bad because it’s six whole months of built-up Turbid Qi, but it’s ridiculously toxic.”
Still grumbling, Jin Muok closed his eyes.
“Hup!”
As he sent the Poison Qi gathered in his palms flying through the Microcosmic Orbit, Baekri Unhak wore an expression of disbelief.
His junior brother was circulating Qi without even sitting in lotus position. On top of that, he had shaken off the Poison Qi that had seeped into his palms with such ease, it was nearly miraculous.
“Junior brother, that Inner Power…!”
When Baekri Unhak looked at him with awe, Jin Muok waved a hand.
“That isn’t done with Inner Power.”
Then what?
“It’s knack.”
This is why experience matters. Whether it’s practical fighting or theory.
Having succeeded in expelling part of the Poison Qi lodged in Baekri Unhak’s body, Jin Muok drew a deep breath.
Little by little, he was growing to dislike someone.
“If you were going to teach, you should have taught properly, shouldn’t you?”
Exhaling forcefully the breath he had drawn in, Jin Muok continued.
“Why do you think Senior Brother fell into Qi Deviation? It happened because he forced the circulation of the Byeonggi Cheonsang (Weapon Qi of Heaven) beyond its limits, that’s why.”
The self of ten years ago.
“If that Bukjin Gwangpung fellow had stayed by his side and at least demonstrated it once, this would never have happened.”
Damn you, Sipman Daesan.
The reason great martial families are powerful is not only because of the formidable secret manuals passed down through generations, but above all because of the systematic guidance and discipline of an excellent master.
This is the true power of tradition.
But at the crucial moment when Baekri Unhak needed to lay the foundation of his martial studies, he was left without a teacher, and so he relied only on oral formulas and manuals, learning his martial arts by rough guesswork.
Such haphazard, seat-of-the-pants training caused no trouble through the basic stages, but once he reached the advanced level, it ultimately brought about the tragedy of Qi Deviation.
“Our master chose to perish together with the Demonic Cult to save the martial world of Zhongyuan. What can one do?”
Is that so?
No matter how you dress it up, didn’t he simply act on his own will? If he had been mindful of the young disciple, he should have found some way to escape.
Those damned traitors inside the Murim Alliance.
“And since the problem arose from interpreting Byeonggi Cheonsang on his own, we can’t entirely blame Master.”
“You’ve got nerve. Still defending Bukjin Gwangpung, I see.”
Jin Muok raised his voice on purpose, hoping to hide what he really felt, and quietly pushed his Inner Power higher.
“I’m going harder this time.”
Rumble… rumble…
“Gah!”
* * *
“Strength training doesn’t actually build muscle. It’s a process where you keep inflicting tiny tears in the muscle, and while it heals naturally, your strength grows.”
“Junior brother, you! Now you’re lecturing me too!”
Jin Muok circulated his Microcosmic Orbit without sitting in full lotus again, and this time he went even further, following his upright Qi Circulation with a lecture. No wonder Baekri Unhak was speechless.
Baekri Unhak pointed at Jin Muok, his mouth hanging open.
A monster. The real monster, the one he calls his own junior brother, is the true thing.
“What? Want me to explain?”
Baekri Unhak widened his eyes as if he couldn’t believe it, and Jin Muok grinned, full of mischief.
“I’ll teach you later.”
Jin Muok chuckled and went on with his lecture.
“Like I said, strength training is…”
“Right.”
Baekri Unhak nodded eagerly, fully agreeing with Jin Muok’s lecture.
“Just as strength training paradoxically strengthens muscle by constantly stimulating it, cultivation doesn’t increase Inner Power itself. It shocks the meridians that carry Inner Qi and widens the channels!”
Huh?
People actually hold that view?
A new interpretation that overturns everything anyone has believed so far.
“Did you go Qi Deviation while circulating Byeonggi Cheonsang with that idea in mind?”
“Of course not.”
Baekri Unhak laughed like the sunset. Jin Muok sighed in relief, at least it wasn’t that.
But with Baekri Unhak’s next words, Jin Muok’s relief froze solid, like icicles in the deep of winter.
“I only thought of it after I’d already gone into Qi Deviation.”
“Wait, why do you keep coming up with such absurd ideas?”
Jin Muok spread his arms wide.
“The ultimate end of a variant is pure devotion, I tell you.”
For a moment, Baekri Unhak stared straight at Jin Muok.
“You.”
Baekri Unhak had stepped quietly into the far side of memory, but a sudden breeze blew in from somewhere and startled him back into the present.
A lingering memory, down a winding path of the past.
“You really do resemble Master, you know.”
The melancholy in Baekri Unhak’s voice reached Jin Muok as well, and he quickly changed the subject.
“So what’s this grand reinterpretation you’ve made of Byeonggi Cheonsang?”
Hee-hee…
Baekri Unhak wore a smile just as childishly mischievous as Jin Muok’s.
“I’ll teach you later.”
Later.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————