Three Years of Blacksmithing, Achieving Divine Martial Arts - Chapter 16

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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 16. The Moment Three Lines Converge
Even though the first Gi-mun had taken shape, Son Cheol-shim did not declare the work finished.

“Keep the hammer in your hand.”

So Cheol steadied his breathing and looked up.

“Should I continue?”
“Is one Gi-mun a weapon?”

It was not.
To forge a 1st-grade Common Weapon required three Gi-mun.
So Shim-hwan spoke from beside him.

“The apprentice robes are already yours. You can stop now if you want.”
“Are you worried about wasting money on me, older brother?”
“I’m worried about your arms.”

So Shim-hwan’s tone carried unexpected gravity.

“One Gi-mun on your first day—that’s already insane speed. If you injure yourself pushing too hard, the Master will have our heads too.”

Son Cheol-shim did not argue.

“You decide.”

He looked at So Cheol.

“You’ve already done more than enough.”

So Cheol gazed down at the materials on the workbench. A single, delicate Gi-mun remained etched into the red metal. His arms felt heavy. His palms throbbed. Yet strength still lingered in his body—and more than anything, the sensation of that moment when the first Gi-mun had emerged remained vivid in his mind. He did not want to lose it.

“I’ll continue.”

Son Cheol-shim smiled.

“Good.”

So Shim-hwan exhaled deeply. Gwak Geo moved a water bucket and Gi-hyeol Dan closer to So Cheol.

“Tell me if you’re about to collapse.”
“If I’m collapsing, I won’t be able to speak, will I?”

Gwak Geo went rigid for a moment. So Shim-hwan burst out laughing.

“The youngest has already learned how to handle his older brother.”

The tension eased slightly. So Cheol lifted the hammer again.
* * *

The second hundred strikes took far longer than the first.
It wasn’t a matter of lacking strength.
The difficulty lay in sustaining the same force with each blow.

Bang!

If a single strike wavered even slightly, greed crept in on the next one.
Trying to compensate by pouring in more power only shattered the flow.
Son Cheol-shim kept repeating the same instruction.

“Forget what you struck before!”

Bang!

“Focus only on this one strike!”

So Cheol had stopped counting.
He no longer saw the Gi-mun pattern.
He felt only the soles of his feet pressing into the earth.
The waist turns.
The shoulders open.
The hammer falls.
He doesn’t fully arrest the descending force.
He lifts it again.

Whoosh—!

Bang!

The flow of the Great Saint’s Yeol-seok-chu Method grew smoother with each repetition.
At first, it had felt like forcing the Yeol-seok-chu Method into the Cheon-dan Method.
Past a hundred strikes, that boundary dissolved.
Striking iron became martial training itself.
Each time the hammer met the material, the Qi-blood within his body resonated in turn.
A second Gi-mun pattern surfaced in his mind.
Someone let out a low exclamation.
So Cheol didn’t hear it.
He moved into the third hundred strikes.
His arms had grown heavy.
His fingers had dulled to the point where he could scarcely tell if he still gripped the handle.
His mouth had gone dry.
Gwak Geo hurled a Gi-hyeol Dan toward him.
So Cheol caught it with his left hand and swallowed.
The medicinal potency bloomed through his belly.
The depleted Qi-blood stirred back to life.

“Now it begins.”

Son Cheol-shim spoke.

“The path to Won-man Completion is drawing one more strike from yourself when your body begs to stop.”

So Cheol clenched his teeth.
He lifted the hammer.

Bang!

His shoulders sagged with the weight.
Again.

Bang!

His thigh trembled.
The half-stone stance was collapsing.
So Cheol grabbed the ground with his toes.

‘Once more.’

Bang!

In that instant, the strength drained away strangely.
Not from exhaustion.
The force he’d been forcing into place simply released.
His shoulders dropped and his wrists loosened.
Yet the hammer did not grow heavier.
Rather, it lightened.
Until now, he had tried to ‘forge’ his maximum strength each time anew.
Gathering power from his feet to his waist, from his waist to his shoulders, then pouring it into the hammer.
This time was different.
His entire body connected like a single cord.
The moment he pressed his feet, the force already reached the hammer.
So Cheol’s eyes flew open.

Whooosh—!

The hammer rose.

Bang!

The impact tone deepened.
The anvil rang out.
Son Cheol-shim’s face changed.

“Continue!”

So Cheol did not answer.
The next hammer was already falling.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

His breath did not falter.
The Qi-blood in his body surged as though it were striking his very bones.
With each hammer stroke, a deep resonance lingered in his arm bones, shoulder blades, and spine.
It did not hurt.
It was the sensation of something solid awakening from within.
So Cheol knew it instinctively.
The Yeol-seok-chu Method.
Perfect Completion.
At the same moment, the barrier that had held him at the peak of 1st Grade shattered.
The Qi-blood no longer remained merely in flesh and muscle.
It began seeping into the marrow of his bones.
Early 2nd Grade.
The foundation threshold that Son Cheol-shim had spoken of.
With that transformation, the final hammer fell.

Bang—!

Above the heated metal, a third Gi-mun pattern materialized.
The three lines did not push against one another.
They overlaid like a single knot.
Jangshimdang fell silent.
So Cheol set down the hammer at last.
The handle nearly slipped from his grip.
Gwak Geo caught it at once.

“Sit down.”
“But the tempering still needs—”
“I’ll take it from here.”

Son Cheol-shim lifted the material.
He shaped the form, refined the edge one final time, then plunged it into water.

Hisssss—!

Steam rose in a billowing cloud.
So Cheol sat on the ground, breathing hard.
Moments later, Son Cheol-shim lifted the finished Bak-do into the light.
Even before sharpening the edge, its weight felt transformed.
Three faint Gi-mun lines remained visible along the blade.
Son Cheol-shim retrieved an ordinary iron fragment from nearby and struck the two together.

Clang!

A deep gouge appeared in the common iron.
The Bak-do remained pristine.

“1st-grade Common Weapon.”

The moment those words left his lips, So Shim-hwan clutched his head in his hands.

“On the first day?”

Gwak Geo burst out laughing.

“Outstanding, I tell you.”
“Why do you grin like you made the thing yourself?”
“Because the youngest made it, that’s why.”

Son Cheol-shim paid them no mind.
He examined the Bak-do for a long moment, then approached So Cheol.

“You there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’re absolutely certain this is your first time making one?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You haven’t stolen knowledge of the Cheon-dan Method from somewhere else?”
“I saw it for the first time today, sir.”

Son Cheol-shim scratched his head.

“This is driving me mad.”

It sounded like a curse, but his face was smiling.

“Your Yeol-seok-chu Method improved as well?”

So Cheol paused to collect himself.
There was no hiding it at this point.

“I seem to have touched Perfect Completion.”

The people of Jangshimdang fell silent again.
So Shim-hwan tilted his head back.

“It’s not about the price of the clothes anymore.”

Son Cheol-shim burst out laughing instead.

“Excellent! That’s more than enough.”

He reached out to pat So Cheol’s shoulder but stopped himself.
Seeing how exhausted the boy was, he held back his strength this time.

“Spend the next four or five days solidifying this sensation. After that, I’ll teach you the Jeol-cho of Jinsan Gong.”

So Cheol’s tired eyes brightened immediately.

“Jeol-cho?”
“Teaching it to someone who hasn’t even reached Perfect Completion will just wreck their body. Now you’ve earned the right.”

In a single day, he had gained much.
A 1st-grade Common Weapon.
Perfect Completion of the Yeol-seok-chu Method.
Early 2nd Grade.
And the promise of Jeol-cho next.
So Cheol glanced at the Bak-do.

“What should I do with this?”
“Sell it at Cheoljangbang.”

Son Cheol-shim continued.

“Normally a first-forged 1st-grade Common Weapon fetches about twenty taels of silver. Yours has a stable Qi-pattern and fine finishing, so I’ll take thirty taels for it.”

Thirty taels of silver.
So Cheol’s eyes flickered slightly.
He thought of the materials for his third Selection order.
More money was always better.
But there was something else before his eyes that caught his attention even more.
The fifty-pound hammer that Son Cheol-shim had set down.
The bronze cauldron had been responding to it faintly all this while.
So Cheol asked.

“Master.”
“Yes?”
“Could I have that hammer instead of the money?”

Son Cheol-shim looked behind him.

“This one?”
“Yes.”
“It’s worn.”
“Isn’t it something you used, Master?”

Son Cheol-shim looked at the hammer for a moment, then smiled.

“All right, then take it.”

The consent had come far too easily.
So Cheol blinked in surprise.

“Truly, sir?”
“I’m using something heavier now. If you want it, take it.”

The fifty-pound hammer passed into So Cheol’s hands.
The moment his palm took its weight, his arm dipped slightly downward.
The difference was stark compared to the fifteen-pound hammer he’d hefted during the test. Though he could manage it now that his Yeol-seok-chu Method had reached Perfect Completion and broken into 2nd Grade, wielding it for any length of time would require adjustment.
Son Cheol-shim spoke.

“I used that one for a good while. The hammer head is heavy with black iron, and the shaft has a reinforced core driven through it—it’s weightier than it looks.”
“Is it called O-sip because it weighs fifty pounds?”
“That’s right.”
“Simple enough.”
“Do we compose poetry for our hammer names?”

So Shim-hwan laughed from the side.

“Master has never been skilled at naming things. The Baek-geun-chu that the eldest senior brother used later was called that because it actually weighed a hundred pounds—”
“That never happened.”
“I must have remembered wrongly.”

So Cheol suppressed his smile and stood the O-sip upright once.
The bronze cauldron’s response grew sharper.
It was similar to when he’d first received the Direct Disciple Seal. There would be no reason for such a reaction if it were merely an old hammer.
An object that Son Cheol-shim had wielded directly for a long time.
There was a high chance something lingered within it still.
So Cheol did not investigate further just then.
They stood in the middle of Jangshimdang.

“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”

Son Cheol-shim picked up the Bak-do once more.

“I’ll pass this to Naemuhdang, but I’m recording your name alongside it. A first weapon is a fairly significant thing for a craftsman.”
“Why is that?”
“When you eventually craft weapons of higher grades, there are times you’ll want to look back on what you made first.”

At those words, So Cheol looked again at the finished Bak-do.
What had been unremarkable material this morning had passed through his hands and become a weapon.
The three remaining Gi-mun patterns looked strangely unfamiliar to him.

“Then shouldn’t I sell it?”
“The one who took a hammer instead of money, and now has second thoughts?”

Son Cheol-shim let out a dry laugh.

“You can always forge another weapon. The true craftsman is the one who learns to make the second better than the one obsessed with the first.”

So Cheol nodded.
Those words sat well with him.
So Shim-hwan flicked his fingers from behind.

“Oh, and youngest.”
“Yes?”
“I’ll send someone tomorrow to measure you for clothes, so don’t run off.”

So Cheol laughed.

“You’re really going to do this for me.”
“If a man loses a wager, he has to pay his debt.”
“I suppose I’ll have to skip Hongdeung-ga a couple of times.”

So Shim-hwan’s expression went rigid in an instant.
Gwak Geo began calculating seriously from the side.

“You’ll need to cut it by three times.”
“Elder, how do you know the price?”
“I heard about it when you asked to borrow money last time.”

Laughter erupted throughout Jangshimdang.
So Cheol hoisted the O-sip onto his shoulder.
His body was exhausted to its limit, yet his steps felt light.
* * *
That evening, So Cheol returned to Naemuhdang.
He presented a list itemizing the requirements for the third Selection.
Two measures of pure gold.
Twenty pounds of black iron.
Two ounces of pure silver.
Thirty pounds of pure bronze.
Forty pounds of pure stone.
The clerk examined the list and tapped an abacus.

“Forging practice materials again?”
“Yes.”
“Direct Disciples certainly spend differently.”

The pure gold and pure silver were modest in quantity but steep in price. Black iron, pure bronze, and pure stone posed a weight problem—items difficult to procure all at once from an ordinary market, yet the warehouse of Naemuhdang at Cheoljangbang held them in stock.
So Cheol felt the difference anew.
When he’d opened the second Selection, too, he’d benefited from his status as a Direct Disciple. Had he bought outside, someone would have questioned what he needed such metals for. Here, he only had to fill in his name and purpose on a receipt slip.

“Personal forging research.”

The clerk read what was written and nodded.

“Press your Direct Disciple Seal.”

So Cheol pressed the seal.
In that moment, he felt once more that the Direct Disciple Seal was far more than merely a key to doors.
Identity itself determined the scope of resources one could access.
He had the cash he’d brought from Hwang Tae-gon’s annex and what remained of his stipend.
So Cheol paid the price.
Silver coins vanished at a rapid pace.
Still, he had not touched the house documents whose origin was dangerous, managing so far with only the cash he’d brought. He had not even touched the money left with his family.
As he watched the materials piled onto the cart, it sounded as though money were flowing away.
Yet he felt no regret.
He already knew how much his body had transformed when the second Selection opened.
When he returned to the western room of the Jangshim Compound, the sun had fully set.
On the table lay Son Cheol-shim’s old hammer, the O-sip.
On the floor were stacked the materials for opening the third Selection.
So Cheol locked the door.
From the O-sip on the table, the response of the bronze cauldron continued to emanate faintly. The materials on the floor were ready.
Of everything he had gained today, these two were the only things he had yet to examine.
So Cheol placed his hand on the handle of the O-sip first.

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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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