Three Years of Blacksmithing, Achieving Divine Martial Arts - Chapter 3

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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 3. What the Night Fishing Caught
The river was quieter than he’d expected. Moonlight stretched long across the dark water’s surface, and the sound of grass insects drifted ceaselessly from between the reeds.
So Won held the fishing rod suspended, barely moving. Even someone who talked much at other times fell silent once seated by the water’s edge.
After a full evening meal, his body had improved noticeably. When he’d finished training in the forest, his thighs had trembled with fatigue; now strength returned to them, and raising his arms no longer made his shoulders sag.
That wasn’t all. As he drew a long breath, something deep within his body felt warmer than before. Each time he repeated the Basic Training Method, his blood had raced, but now that heat lingered faintly in his lower abdomen.
So Chul

flexed his fingers gently, then opened them again.

‘My strength’s grown a little.’

It was certain. One meal hadn’t completely restored him, but compared to before training, the strength that gathered in his fingertips was different.
The problem was that there was no way to know exactly what this change represented. From Master Jin’s Memory Fragment, he’d gained only the form, the way to exert force, the sensation of handling a hammer. No explanation of the training stages remained.

‘I can ask about it in four days.’

There was no point in naming things on his own without cause.
So Chul quieted his mind without lifting his gaze from the bobber. The familiar Bronze Cauldron rose in his thoughts.
The groove where the old apprentice hammer was embedded still gave off a faint light. Beside it, text he hadn’t seen before was floating.

[Conditions for Opening Second Equipment Slot]

[Gold: Four Taels]

[Refined Iron: Forty Catties]

[Silver: Four Nyang]

[Brass: Sixty Catties]

[Tin: Eighty Catties]

So Chul read through line by line, then pressed the bridge of his nose.

“Ridiculous.”

It was barely a murmur.
So Won simply turned his head from beside him.

“What is?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Not a single bite yet and you’re already cursing?”
“I’m not so impatient as that.”
“That’s the spirit. Show your temper in front of the fish and you’ve lost.”

So Won turned his attention back to the bobber.
So Chul, lips sealed, tallied the sum in his mind. The quantities of refined iron, brass, and tin alone were not trivial. Add gold and silver to that. Even without generous estimates on the exchange rate, he’d need to prepare around twenty nyang in silver.
The sum his uncle had gathered over several years to get him into the Blacksmith Guild

had been fifteen nyang. He needed more than that.

‘Twenty nyang just to open one more slot.’

He couldn’t even laugh.
A single first hammer alone had transformed his Bone and Muscle and Forging Talent, and he’d gained Master Jin’s Memory Fragment besides. If he could open a second Equipment Slot, there would certainly be value enough to justify the cost.
The problem was the money he had on hand. Here he was, a man thinking to earn a few days’ worth of rice by catching catfish, calculating for twenty nyang.
The gap was too wide. For now, he had to gather meat and medicine money just to sustain his training.
So Chul turned his gaze back to the black river.
That was when So Won’s fishing rod bent sharply at the end.

“He’s here.”

His voice had changed.
So Won gripped the Fishing Rod with both hands. The bent shaft trembled as if it might snap in half at any moment, the line wound around it pulled taut, and the bamboo reel spun rapidly.

“Is it a big one?”
“Large.”

Sinews stood out along So Won’s forearms.

“No, this feels oddly large.”

The line cut across the water’s surface, racing to one side. So Won didn’t simply pull. He alternated between loosening and tightening his grip, yielding just enough to keep the line from snapping—a dance of exhaustion rather than brute force. It was the way to tire your prey.
So Chul set down his own Fishing Rod and stepped closer.

“Shall I help?”
“Not yet. If we pull together now, the line goes.”

So Won clenched his teeth and retreated a step.

“I need to drain its strength first.”

A man who made his living on the river had steady hands. Wherever the line ran, he never met force head-on—he let it flow through, the way Master used to study the placement of his hammer when watching heated iron glow in the Blacksmith Shop.
But this time, the catch was too large.
The line suddenly jerked hard. The rod bent deeper, and So Won’s feet slid half a span across the mud.

“Damn. Is that even fish strength?”

So Chul was wondering the same thing. Each time something moved in the water, the surface lurched widely. It didn’t look like a single great catfish thrashing about. The current split in one direction, then rushed back.
In that moment, beneath the moonlight, two points of luminescence flared.
So Chul’s eyes narrowed.

‘Eyes?’

Two glints near the water’s surface. The spacing was far too wide for a fish’s eyes.
Something in the water was watching So Won.

“Uncle.”
“What.”
“Release the line.”
“What?”
“It’s not a fish.”

The strength drained from So Won’s face. In that instant, the water erupted.

Splash!

So Won reflexively pulled on the Fishing Rod.

Crack!

The bamboo snapped in the middle. As the resistance vanished in an instant, So Won’s body pitched backward. The mud beneath his feet had soaked up water all night long. One foot slid, and his body turned toward the river.

“Uncle!”

The water split before So Chul could reach out.
An enormous head rose above the surface. A gaping mouth split wide, thick scales that caught the moonlight, teeth thicker than a man’s fingers—all exposed at once.
A crocodile.
And one nothing like anything So Chul had ever encountered. From the head and back exposed above the water alone, the body looked to be at least three lengths of a man. If the tail fully extended, it would be longer than two grown men laid end to end.
So Won’s face went ashen.

“Wh-what is that doing here……?”

The crocodile’s jaws snapped shut toward So Won’s leg.
So Chul had no time to think. He grabbed the Spear he’d leaned against his side and stepped forward.
His foot pressed into the mud. His hips rotated, his shoulders following through. The same sequence as when he brought down the Hammer.
The Spear’s tip drove straight toward the crocodile’s eye.

Thunk!

After a brief resistance, his hands sank deep. The tip pierced through.
The crocodile convulsed.

Shriek!

A scream tore from its throat and black blood sprayed. The creature, one eye ruptured, released So Won and thrashed its head wildly.

“Move back!”

So Chul wrenched the Spear free and shouted. So Won crawled backward, putting distance between himself and the water’s edge.
In that moment, the crocodile’s body torqued half a turn. So Chul saw the tail first.

‘It’s coming.’

The tail, thicker than a forearm, whipped through the water and flew at him sideways. So Chul raised the Spear to block.

Bang!

The impact drove through his wrist and into his shoulder all at once. His feet scraped the ground twice, three times. So Chul was driven back nearly ten paces before he finally stopped. Deep gouges marked each footfall in the mud.
His arm had gone numb. Inside, heat surged through his blood all at once, burning.
But he was still standing.

‘In my old body, I would’ve been thrown clear.’

The stance he’d learned from the Basic Training Method hadn’t dissipated all the shock. Still, his hips hadn’t buckled, and both legs had held firm until the end.
So Chul gripped the Spear again. This was the first time he’d confirmed it in real combat. He truly was different now.
The crocodile, one eye gone, didn’t slow. It lowered its head and turned its body toward So Chul. Its remaining eye gleamed beneath the faint moonlight.
No longer the eye of a beast hunting fish. Now it fixed on So Chul alone.

“So Chul!”

So Won shouted from behind.

“Drop it and run! Let’s get people!”

He was right. There was no reason to die here.
But So Chul glanced behind the crocodile. Only a few paces to the river. If he fled now, the creature would slip back into the water. An animal that had lost one eye and tasted human scent—next time, there was no telling which fisherman it might attack.
His uncle still couldn’t even stand properly. If So Chul turned his back first, it was obvious whom the crocodile would go for.
The crocodile lunged. So Chul moved to meet it.
He thrust the Spear forward. Its head twisted aside, the thick scales sliding the tip off course. So Chul twisted his wrist and thrust again, but the crocodile’s tail came first.
This time he didn’t dodge. He gripped the Spear’s shaft with both hands and braced for the impact.

Bang!

Wood screamed.
Crack.
The Spear in his hands split down the middle.

“So Chul!”

So Won’s voice cracked.
The weapon vanished. The crocodile’s jaws gaped open again.
So Chul hurled the broken spear and emptied his hand. His consciousness reached for the groove in the bronze cauldron.

‘Come.’

His palm suddenly grew heavy.
An old hammer that had rested in the groove of the bronze cauldron was now in his grip.
Behind him, So Won’s breath caught. There was no time to hope the darkness had hidden what he’d just seen.
The moment the crocodile twisted its body, So Chul drove sideways. He planted his feet on the creature’s lowered spine and launched himself upward, clamping both legs around its neck.
The crocodile thrashed like a thing possessed. So Chul’s thighs scraped against the rough scales. His pants tore, and he felt his skin split open with them.
It hurt.
But if he let go, it was over.
So Chul locked his legs deeper. He lowered his center the way one does when establishing a proper stance, pressing down through his hips. His waist swayed with each convulsion of the crocodile’s back, but he kept his upper body rigid.
He raised the hammer.
This time, it wasn’t iron. He could see exactly where to strike.

Thwack!

The hammer found the space beside the already-burst eye.
The crocodile flipped violently.
The second hammer fell.

Thwack!

Scales shattered. Blood sprayed.
As he raised the hammer for a third time, So Chul suddenly understood.
It was different from practicing alone in the forest. The movements in Master Jin’s memories always repeated from the same place along the same predetermined arc. The thing thrashing beneath him never offered the same angle twice.
When his footing shifted, he had to adjust his hips. When his hips twisted, he had to compensate with his shoulders. It wasn’t simply following the memory.
As his opponent moved, so too did the path along which his force could flow.

‘So this is how you use it.’

So Chul’s hammer fell again.

Bang!

This time the impact felt different even on impact. The shock traveled through to the bone beneath, and the sensation returned through his palms.
The crocodile’s thrashing visibly weakened.
So Chul drew a breath. His wrists and elbows, shoulders and hips, feet—none of them worked independently. Balanced atop the heaving crocodile’s spine, he found in a single moment the path through which his power should flow.
What Master Jin had given him was memory. Now, hammer in hand, his body was using that memory for the first time in its own way.
The crocodile twisted one last time.
So Chul rotated his torso with the movement and hauled the hammer up over his head.

“End this.”

The hammer fell.

Crunch!

The crocodile’s skull drove into the mud. The body shuddered once, hard, then slowly went slack.
So Chul didn’t dismount immediately. He stood astride the corpse, breathing heavily, hammer still in hand. Only when he was certain the tail no longer twitched did he release the tension from his legs.
The moment his feet touched ground, his thighs burned. Blood ran from beneath his torn pants. The wounds weren’t deep, but both his thighs were a ruin of claw marks.

“So Chul!”

So Won rushed toward him.

“Your legs—your legs—”
“It’s nothing. Just some scraped skin.”
“Does that look all right to you?”

So Won looked ready to snap at him, then thought better of it. His hands moved first, probing So Chul’s arms and shoulders, checking for breaks in the bone.
Then his gaze stopped.
It was the old hammer held in So Chul’s hand.
So Won’s expression shifted—he wanted to ask something. He would surely remember that his nephew hadn’t been carrying this thing before.
So Chul caught that look. But now was not the moment to start explaining.
He steadied his ragged breathing and gazed down at the dead crocodile.
Up close, it was even larger. With its tail fully stretched, it exceeded three meters by a good margin. The scales were hard as knife-steel, and its skull had required multiple strikes from an eight-pound hammer to crack.
This was no ordinary beast. There was no way the hide and meat of something like this would sell at common fish prices.
Then So Won’s words from moments before came back to him.
He’d said that if even one big catch hooked itself, tonight’s labor would be worth the effort.
So Chul wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. His legs ached and his breath still came hard, but what lay before him now was not just a catfish to sustain the household for a few days.

“Uncle.”
“Why—why are you smiling?”

So Chul pointed to the massive crocodile at his feet.

“This much won’t just cover a few days of meals.”

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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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