Ultimate Martial Venerable - Chapter 44

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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 44. The Ilwon Dao Jue
A few hours later, a new house stood in the courtyard of Ilwon Academy.
A Thousand Year Iron Tree—

a single specimen had been used in its entirety. The sturdy trunk became pillars and beams, while the remaining timber was fashioned into a bed, table, and chairs. A faint metallic scent of iron-wood filled the interior. Since the wood was harder than stone, it seemed unlikely that even strong winds or ordinary impacts would leave a mark.

Cho Cheon spoke with an axe slung across his shoulder.

“From now on, this is your home. If our place collapses again, let us impose on your hospitality for a bit.”
“Whenever you wish, please come.”

Yuk Beom slowly traced his hand along the doorframe.
He had always thought that a place to stay was all he needed. Yet his senior brothers had endured a siege in another academy’s branch before building this house for him.
It was nothing like the small room where he had lived in Ganglim Castle.
That old room had been merely a shelter from wind and rain, a space for solitary cultivation. When he closed the door, no one came looking, and no one wondered what he was doing inside.
The new bed bore the marks of Cho Cheon’s own handiwork, and the table’s edges had been cut straight by Cho Haeng’s sword. Han Pung had boasted the most about driving in a single nail, though that same nail had gone in crooked and was now removed and lying beside the hole.
Yuk Beom pressed his fingertip against even that mark.
This house had been built by people who were waiting for him.

“Master Cho Cheon.”

Mu Su approached, patting his belly.

“Might you expand my room a little? My cultivation has grown over these years, and now the space feels cramped.”

Han Pung looked him up and down.

“Senior brother, that’s not cultivation growing—that’s your waistline expanding, isn’t it?”
“My cultivation accumulates in the flesh.”
“Am I supposed to believe that?”

Mu Su merely smiled.
As the sun began to set, Kkamangi laid out the meal. When Do Gwang and Mu Su caught sight of the wild beast carrying a tray balanced on its enormous head, their eyes widened in unison. A Wild Beast preparing human food was apparently a first for them both.

The moment Mu Su took his first bite of meat, he went rigid.
Tears streamed from both eyes.

“Five years.”
“Five years what?”
“It’s been five years since I’ve had a proper meal.”

He didn’t bother wiping the tears away, just kept shoving meat into his mouth. For someone of his bulk, his hands moved with surprising speed. Half the plate vanished in an instant.
Han Pung let out a cry.

“Senior brother is even using the Thousand Shadow Hand! Everyone grab what you can! If we’re slow, there won’t be any broth left!”

His words were a signal. Chopsticks and fingers tangled across the table. Even Il Cheong and Do Gwang rolled up their sleeves and beards, plunging into the fray. Cho Cheon pulled an entire plate toward himself, while Cho Haeng plucked only the choicest morsels with precision.
The instant Yuk Beom secured a single piece of meat, Mu Su’s hand came at him.
Their chopsticks clashed in midair.

“You should show respect to your elders, youngest brother.”
“Senior brother, you’ve already eaten the most.”
“A large body requires large amounts of food.”
“Then perhaps you should reduce your weight.”

A piece of meat contested between them shot upward.
A black shadow swept across the table.
Kkamangi caught the meat in his mouth and retreated a distance, cradling his large bowl of portions with his front paws while regarding the two men with an expression of utter disdain.
Mu Su marveled aloud.

“Clever, even. If you come with me from today onward, I’ll make you the finest beast under heaven.”

Kkamangi turned his head away.
Do Gwang rushed in with an offer of his own.

“Yuk Beom. What if we made Kkamangi the guardian beast of Ilwonwon? If he carries dragon blood, there’s a chance he could become a true dragon when properly fed and raised. I’ll care for him personally.”

Yuk Beom studied Kkamangi.
The creature lay curled before his new den, licking his bowl clean. It was clear he had taken to this place.

“That’s not a decision for me to make.”
“Isn’t he your beast?”
“Kkamangi isn’t an object. He should decide for himself whether to stay or leave.”

Do Gwang’s gaze shifted for a moment.

“A fine answer.”

Kkamangi seemed to understand, wagging his tail once.
When the meal ended, Do Gwang stroked his beard into order.

“I had meant to set you multiple trials.”

Han Pung set down an empty plate, his attention sharpening.

“But I’ve shared Kkamangi’s food and seen your character. I’ll give you just one test.”

Do Gwang’s gaze swept across Yuk Beom and his three senior brothers in turn.

Within one month from today, enter the first stage of the Ilwon Dao Jue.

Not just you, but Cho Cheon, Cho Haeng, and Han Pung as well. To those who succeed, I will teach the next stage.”
“How will you determine whether we’ve truly entered the practice?”

Do Gwang smiled meaningfully at Yuk Beom’s question.

“If you can use it, that’s enough.”

With only those words, he and Il Cheong returned to their room.
As night deepened, five brothers gathered in Yuk Beom’s new den.
They had planned to study in Mu Su’s quarters, but the moment he entered, all available space vanished. In the end, they had to move to the largest and most sturdy den.
Mu Su, occupying half the sleeping platform with a single hip, rubbed his drowsy eyes.

“Ask any questions you have quickly. After midnight, I fall asleep without meaning to.”

Han Pung raised his hand first.

How far have you progressed in the Ilwon Dao Jue?”

“Two stages.”
“Only two stages?”
“Only, you say? The Ilwon Dao Jue manifests entirely differently from person to person. With compatible fortune, it surpasses even heaven-grade martial theory; without it, no amount of forced study yields any use. I’ve been told my nature is too loose-minded to ever reach the third stage.”

Cho Haeng asked.

“Then what sort of power does the Ilwon Dao Jue

of the elder possess?”

Mu Su patted his belly.

“It’s here.”
“You’ve absorbed the Heart Method into your flesh?”

Han Pung, doubt written across his face, struck his own belly with his palm.
Golden light flashed.
Bang!
Han Pung’s body shot through the door and carved a deep crater in the empty ground beyond.
Mu Su shook his head as though disappointed.

“I was about to warn you not to touch it, but it seems I was too late.”

A single finger of Han Pung’s rose from the pit.
Mu Su pretended not to notice and rummaged behind him, producing a sheet of paper.
On the paper was written a single large character.
One.

Nothing else—no recitation formula, no breathing technique.

“This is the Heart Method of the first stage.”

Cho Cheon turned the paper over.

“Is that truly all?”
“Look at it slowly. What you gain from it is up to each of you.”

Mu Su stood as though his duty were done and patted the shoulder of Han Pung, who was crawling in from beyond the doorway.

“I’ll retire now. Don’t forget to expand the room tomorrow.”

The moment he vanished, Han Pung snatched the paper.

“This has to be revenge. We once stole the elder’s trousers and turned them into a fishing net.”
“Why on earth would you do such a thing?”

At Yuk Beom’s question, Han Pung answered with confidence.

“The size was just right.”

Cho Cheon snatched the paper back.

“The elder is not a man to deceive through such pranks.”

Held up to the light, a faint luminescence seeped from within the ordinary paper. When Yuk Beom fixed his gaze upon the character, his consciousness was slowly drawn into the paper itself.
In the fathomless darkness, a force crystalline and pure appeared.
It was neither Strong Energy nor Original Qi.
The moment his awareness drew near, the force stirred.
Crack!
A shock like his mind shattering struck him down.
Yuk Beom’s eyes snapped open, cold sweat dripping from his face. The three seniors beside him trembled almost in unison.
That night, the four of them entered the character again and again—dozens of times.

Each impact felt different. The first was like a hammer strike to the skull, and by the tenth, his vision bloomed red. The moment his consciousness wavered, tremors shot through his fingertips and his stomach churned.
With every collision, Yuk Beom tried to read the crystalline flow of force. The power wasn’t mindlessly shattering his awareness—it pushed back against the approaching will, growing fiercer the closer it drew. Yet how to evade it, how to handle it, remained utterly obscured.
Cho Haeng fell first. After surpassing a dozen collisions, he was drenched as if pulled from water, and slumped beside the bed into sleep.
Cho Cheon lasted just past twenty before his strength failed. His eyes blazed crimson with burst vessels, and when he tried to rise, he simply crumpled where he stood.
Only Yuk Beom and Han Pung remained to the end.

“So this is the price for making a fishing net from the senior brother’s pants.”

Han Pung cursed even as he glanced back at the paper countless times. By the moment dawn broke, he staggered from the room cradling his skull.
Yuk Beom’s temples throbbed as if they might split.
His Fusion Strong Energy hadn’t diminished in the slightest, but his body and mind were exhausted as though he’d fought a desperate battle.
When dawn light began to flood the courtyard, Do Gwang and Il Cheong emerged from the room.
Both men looked through the open window at their fallen disciples.
Il Cheong laughed softly.

“They held up well enough on the first day.”
Within that paper is Divine Soul Force

left behind by the Ilwon Mujon.

Do Gwang’s voice dropped.

“The two of us grasped the principle of wielding Strong Energy through Divine Soul Force and thus sidestepped that power. Mu Su endured three thousand unbroken collisions until the lingering Divine Soul Force withdrew first.”
Both of them learned the Ilwon Dao Jue,

but neither received the complete transmission.

Il Cheong nodded.

“Through technique or through will—either way, they can use the first stage. But to obtain the very essence of the power the Patriarch left behind, they must discover for themselves how to transform Strong Energy into Divine Soul Force.”

Do Gwang gazed toward the room where Yuk Beom sat.

“In a million years, no one has reached that threshold. Not us, not Mu Su. So the true transmission of Ilwon Academy has yet to find its master.”

Yuk Beom, inside the room, did not hear that conversation.
He simply took up the paper again.
A fortnight passed.
When Han Pung heard that Mu Su had endured three thousand consecutive impacts upon entering the first stage, he abandoned the attempt first.

“Rather than shatter my skull for ten years, I’ll perfect the martial arts I already possess.”

Cho Haeng and Cho Cheon held on a few days longer before setting the paper aside. They judged it wiser to deepen the skills they’d already mastered than to squander time on a path that didn’t suit them.
Only Yuk Beom remained.
Each day he unfolded the paper before dawn and repeated the practice until his mind could bear no more. When he woke after collapsing into sleep, he began again. Even when Kkamangi brought food and nudged his shoulder with her forepaw, he swallowed only a few mouthfuls before his gaze returned to the character. Even when his senior brothers urged him to stop.
His senior brothers did not forbid it. Instead, Cho Cheon kept watch outside the door each night, and Cho Haeng checked his meridians whenever Yuk Beom lost consciousness. Han Pung grumbled about his own surrender while bringing towels soaked in all manner of medicinal herbs to ease the pain. They had no effect, but Yuk Beom accepted them in silence.
The continuous collisions that numbered mere tens at first had now climbed to seventy. Yet three thousand remained impossibly distant. Half a month had elapsed, and he hadn’t even touched a fraction of the goal.
Do Gwang would not extend the deadline.
Failure to achieve entry within a month meant the transmission ended.
Yuk Beom took the paper and climbed alone to the summit of Unsan. He didn’t even bring Kkamangi. This time, no one could discover he was a Flame Practitioner.
On a boulder shrouded by clouds, he pinned down the paper bearing the character.

“The way of a martial artist alone won’t be fast enough.”

When he withdrew the Munhwa Cauldron

from his family vessel, the small pot swelled to the size of a man.
Yuk Beom spread out the remaining medicinal ingredients one by one.
Most of the good materials had been used before leaving Ganglim Castle. What remained before him were ingredients of weak potency or those that seemed poorly matched. But O Jin had always taught him to look first at what the materials themselves truly possessed, not merely at the names written in the formula.
A cool medicinal property to sharpen the mind, a technique to soothe the pain of meridians and the brain, a faint warmth to prevent the medicine from becoming too cold. Yuk Beom divided the materials into three heaps, then began combining them one by one.
If he failed, there were no more ingredients to gather, and no time left.
Among the countless formulas O Jin had taught him, only one was needed now.
The Myeong Jeong Dan
.
.
A fourth-grade elixir that cleared the head and suppressed spiritual agony. With this, he could endure the shock of Divine Soul Force far longer.
The problem was that he had materials for only one attempt.
Flames rose quietly beneath the cauldron.
​
“Once will be enough.”

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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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