"Wake up, trash!"
The door to Jihun's shed slammed open, hitting the wall with a crack that made him jolt upright. His body screamed in protest—every muscle still ached from yesterday's beating.
Outer Disciple Han stood in the doorway, his nose wrinkled in disgust.
"Elder Jin wants the old basement cleaned out. Today. Get moving."
"The... the old basement?" Jihun's voice came out as a croak.
"Are you deaf as well as useless? The storage basement beneath the old archive hall. It hasn't been touched in decades, and Elder Jin wants it cleared before the Sect Inspection next month." Han tossed a ring of rusty keys at Jihun's feet. "You have one week. Don't bother coming back if it's not done."
The disciple left without waiting for a response, slamming the door behind him.
Jihun sat on his sleeping mat, staring at the keys. His entire body felt like one massive bruise. His throat was still raw. The taste of yesterday's humiliation lingered in his mouth no matter how many times he'd rinsed it.
The old basement. Of course they'd send me.
No one had been down there in living memory. It would be filled with decades of accumulated garbage, broken equipment, and who knew what else. A week of crawling through filth and dust.
Perfect work for the sect's trash.
Jihun forced himself to stand. His vision swam for a moment—he hadn't eaten since yesterday morning. But complaining about hunger was pointless. Food was a privilege earned through status, and he had none.
He changed into his other set of robes—the even more patched and worn set—and stepped outside. Dawn was just breaking over the sect grounds. Most disciples were still asleep. The few who were awake ignored him completely.
Jihun made his way to the kitchens and waited outside until the morning cook arrived. The man—a servant named Old Chen who'd always been kind—slipped him a bowl of cold rice porridge left over from the previous night.
"Heard what happened yesterday," Chen said quietly, not meeting Jihun's eyes. "I'm sorry, Jihun."
"It's fine," Jihun lied.
"No, it's not. But..." Chen trailed off, then sighed. "Eat quickly before someone sees."
Jihun ate standing in the shadows behind the kitchen. The porridge was cold and tasteless, but it was food. When he finished, he returned the bowl and headed toward the old archive hall.
The building sat at the far eastern edge of the sect grounds, near the outer wall. It had been abandoned twenty years ago when the new archive complex was built. Now it stood empty, windows shuttered, doors sealed.
Jihun found the basement entrance around the back—a heavy wooden door set into the ground at an angle, like a storm cellar. Rust covered the iron reinforcement bands. Weeds grew around the frame.
He inserted the largest key and turned. The lock resisted, then gave with a grinding screech.
Jihun pulled open the door. It was heavier than expected, the hinges screaming in protest after years of disuse. Stone steps descended into absolute darkness. The air that wafted up was thick and stale, carrying the smell of old paper, mildew, and something else. Something ancient.
Jihun lit the lantern he'd brought and began his descent.
The steps were worn smooth in the center from centuries of use. Some were cracked. Others were missing chunks. He moved carefully, testing each step before putting his full weight on it.
Twenty steps down. Thirty. Forty.
How deep does this go?
Finally, at what must have been fifty steps, the stairway opened into a vast basement.
Jihun raised his lantern, and his breath caught.
The space was enormous. Easily fifty paces wide and twice that long. The ceiling arched overhead, supported by thick stone pillars carved with faded symbols. Along the walls, row after row of shelves stretched into the darkness beyond his lantern's reach.
And everything was covered in dust.
Thick, gray dust that had accumulated over decades. It coated every surface like a burial shroud. The air was so still that his breath seemed to disturb particles that had been floating undisturbed for years.
"This is going to take more than a week," Jihun muttered.
He set down his lantern and began exploring. Most of the shelves held exactly what he'd expected—broken training equipment, cracked weapons, torn manuals too damaged to read. Wooden practice swords with split handles. Rusted metal blades. Armor with missing pieces.
The refuse of centuries, dumped down here and forgotten.
Jihun worked methodically, starting from the entrance. Broken items went into one pile. Anything that might still be salvageable went into another. Most of it was just trash.
Hours passed. The lantern oil burned lower. Jihun's hands were soon filthy, his lungs irritated from the dust. He'd cleared maybe a tenth of the nearest shelf when he had to stop and refill his lantern from the spare oil he'd brought.
At this rate, I'll be down here for a month.
But what choice did he have? This was his job. His only job.
He continued working as the day wore on. No one came to check on him. No one brought him food or water. He was alone in the darkness with decades of forgotten things.
By late afternoon, Jihun had cleared three shelves. His back ached from bending over. His throat was parched. His stomach had stopped growling hours ago, having given up hope of being fed.
He moved to the fourth shelf, deeper into the basement. Here, the dust was even thicker. His footprints were the first to disturb the floor in possibly half a century.
Behind the fourth shelf, something caught his eye.
A shape that didn't quite match the others. Jihun moved closer, bringing his lantern.
It was a collapsed bookcase. Old, heavy, made of dark wood that had partially rotted. It had fallen forward at some point, probably decades ago, and no one had bothered to lift it.
But behind where the bookcase had stood, Jihun could see something else. A section of the wall that looked different from the rest.
He set down his lantern and tried to move the bookcase. It was heavier than it looked, waterlogged and swollen. He had to brace his feet and pull with all his strength.
The bookcase shifted an inch. Then another. Finally, with a groan of protesting wood, it toppled over, crashing to the floor and raising a massive cloud of dust that made Jihun cough for a solid minute.
When the dust settled, he raised his lantern and looked at what the bookcase had been hiding.
An altar.
Small, maybe three feet tall, carved from a single piece of black stone. It sat in a recessed alcove that had been cut into the wall. The stone was covered in symbols—not the decorative kind that adorned the pillars, but something else. Something that made Jihun's eyes hurt when he tried to focus on them.
And in the center of the altar, sitting in a shallow depression, was an object.
An hourglass.
Jihun stepped closer, fascinated despite himself. The hourglass was small, maybe the length of his hand. The frame was made of dark bronze that seemed to swallow the lantern light rather than reflect it. Symbols covered every inch of the metal—the same incomprehensible symbols that marked the altar.
But the strangest part was the sand inside.
It was silver. Not gray, but actual silver—like liquid metal suspended in glass. And despite the hourglass being turned on its side, the sand didn't fall. It hung perfectly still, as if frozen in time.
Jihun reached out, then hesitated.
This is probably valuable. Maybe even important. I should report this to an elder.
But even as the thought formed, he knew what would happen. They'd take it. Give him no credit. Probably punish him for disturbing something he shouldn't have touched.
Besides, another part of his mind whispered, if it was that important, why was it hidden down here for decades? Why did no one mention it?
His fingers touched the bronze frame.
The moment his skin made contact, everything changed.
The silver sand moved.
Not falling—swirling. Like a miniature tornado contained in glass. The symbols on the bronze frame ignited with pale blue light that cast strange shadows across the basement walls.
Jihun tried to pull his hand back. He couldn't. His fingers were stuck to the bronze, or the bronze was stuck to his fingers—he couldn't tell which. Panic surged through him.
"Let go!" he shouted, pulling harder.
The swirling sand began to glow. First a soft silver, then brighter, then blinding. The light spread from the hourglass up his arm, across his chest, consuming his entire body.
The symbols on the altar flared to life, matching the blue glow. The entire alcove became a maelstrom of light and shadow.
Jihun felt the world lurch. The basement began to blur, the walls stretching and twisting like melting wax. Reality itself seemed to crack, revealing something vast and incomprehensible beyond.
"What's happening?!" His voice sounded distant, as if someone else was screaming.
The light became absolute. All-consuming. Jihun felt himself being pulled—not physically, but something deeper. Like his very existence was being unraveled and stretched across an impossible distance.
Then everything went white.
Seol Jihun hit the ground hard.
The impact drove the air from his lungs. He rolled instinctively, years of being beaten teaching his body to protect itself. When no attack came, he slowly pushed himself up.
And froze.
He was still in a basement, but it was completely, utterly different.
The walls were pristine white stone that seemed to generate its own soft light. Instead of rotting shelves and broken equipment, there were organized rows of what looked like archive cases—transparent crystal containers holding scrolls and books. Floating orbs of golden light drifted through the air like lazy fireflies, providing illumination without flame or smoke.
The ceiling soared overhead, carved with intricate patterns that seemed to shift and flow when he looked at them. The floor was polished marble inlaid with lines of silver that formed complex geometric patterns.
And in the center of the room, sitting at a desk made of jade that seemed to float without support, was a man.
Old didn't even begin to describe him. Ancient was closer. His hair was white as fresh snow, flowing down to his waist. His beard reached his chest, braided with silver thread. His robes were midnight blue, embroidered with silver stars that actually twinkled, as if someone had captured pieces of the night sky and woven them into fabric.
But it was his eyes that made Jihun's breath catch.
They were open, staring directly at him, and they glowed. Not metaphorically—actually glowed with golden light, like twin suns set in a wrinkled face.
The aura that radiated from the old man was overwhelming. It pressed down on Jihun like a physical weight, making it hard to breathe. Every instinct screamed at him to kowtow, to press his forehead to the floor, to acknowledge the vast gulf between their existences.
Jihun dropped to his knees and slammed his forehead against the marble floor.
"This lowly one greets the senior! This disciple has disturbed your cultivation! Please forgive this one's offense!"
Silence.
Jihun kept his forehead pressed to the cold floor, his heart hammering. Had he just stumbled into some elder's secret cultivation chamber? Was he about to be killed for trespassing?
"Raise your head, Young man"
The voice was strong despite the speaker's apparent age. It carried a weight that made the air itself tremble.
Jihun lifted his head but remained kneeling. To stand would be disrespectful beyond measure.
The old man studied him with those glowing golden eyes. "Tell me, what year is it?"
"Year?" Jihun's voice came out as barely a whisper. "It's... it's the 847th year of the Martial Calendar, senior."
The old man's eyes widened. Then, impossibly, he smiled. It was not a kind smile. It was the smile of someone who'd just confirmed something incredible and terrifying.
"847," the old man repeated. "Then I am speaking to someone four thousand years in my past."
Jihun's mind went blank. "Four... four thousand..."
"Years. Four millennia." The old man stood, and despite his apparent age, the movement was perfectly fluid. Graceful. The motion of someone who'd transcended the normal limits of flesh. "I am Archive Keeper Cheon Mujin. And you, young one, are either the luckiest person in history or the most desperate."
"I don't... I don't understand. How am I here? Where is here? What—"
"Questions. So many questions." Cheon Mujin descended from the platform his desk rested on, walking across the air as if invisible steps existed. He landed on the marble floor without a sound. "Let me answer them in order. You are here because you activated the Temporal Hourglass. Where is here? The Grand Archive Vault of the Blazing Sun Sect, four thousand years in your future. As for what's happening..."
The old man gestured, and two chairs materialized from nothing—solid, real, made of wood that smelled faintly of incense.
"Sit. This explanation will take time, and I imagine you have many more questions coming."
Jihun sat because his legs were shaking too much to keep kneeling. The chair was comfortable, more comfortable than anything he'd ever sat on in his life.
Cheon Mujin took the other chair, and despite the vast difference in their power, he sat casually, like an old man settling in to tell a story.
"Four thousand years ago—in your time—the Blazing Sun Sect was very different," he began. "Smaller. Weaker. Crueler, in many ways. Tell me, do they still treat the weak like dogs?"
Jihun's face flushed. The memory of yesterday flashed through his mind—his face in the latrine, the laughter, the memory stones recording his humiliation.
"Yes," he said quietly.
"I thought as much. Some things take a long time to change." Cheon Mujin's expression darkened. "The founder of this sect—the true founder, not the name written in your history books—was a servant disciple named Baek Shinhwa."
The name meant nothing to Jihun.
"Baek Shinhwa was talentless. Worthless. He had the narrowest meridians ever recorded, a fractured dantian, and a body so weak he could barely lift a practice sword. The other disciples called him 'the waste beneath waste.' They beat him daily. Forced him to eat scraps from the garbage. Made him clean latrines with his bare hands."
Each word felt like a knife. Jihun knew that life intimately.
"But Baek Shinhwa refused to die," Cheon Mujin continued. "Refused to give up. Refused to accept his fate. He searched for power everywhere—in ruins, in forbidden texts, in places no sane person would venture. And in the deepest chamber of an ancient tomb, sealed for ten thousand years, he found something impossible."
The old man waved his hand. An illusion formed in the air—an image of a young man holding a bronze hourglass.
The same hourglass Jihun had touched.
"The Temporal Hourglass. An artifact from before the Great Cataclysm, created by immortal craftsmen using principles we still don't fully understand. It has one function: it allows someone from the past to temporarily visit the future."
"But why?" Jihun asked. "Why would anyone create such a thing?"
"Because the greatest treasure isn't gold or weapons or even cultivation techniques." Cheon Mujin's golden eyes gleamed. "It's knowledge. Accumulated wisdom. The insights gained from centuries of trial and error."
He stood and walked to the nearest archive case. Inside, protected by crystal, was a scroll that radiated faint power even through the barrier.
"Baek Shinhwa used the hourglass to visit the future—two hundred years ahead of his time. He spent years learning techniques that didn't exist yet. Cultivation methods that wouldn't be invented for centuries. Secret arts that were lost in his era but preserved in the future."
"Years?" Jihun interrupted. "But wouldn't he age? Wouldn't people notice he was gone?"
"That's the hourglass's true power. Time flows differently during your visits. In your world, only a fraction of a second passes for every hour you spend here. You could train for years and return to find mere moments have elapsed."
Jihun's breath caught. "That's..."
"Impossible? No. Just beyond current understanding." Cheon Mujin turned back to face him. "Baek Shinhwa mastered the techniques he learned. When he returned to his own time, he became unstoppable. Within twenty years, he'd transformed from worthless trash to the most powerful martial artist in the sect. Within fifty years, he'd conquered the entire Murim Alliance. Within eighty years, he'd transcended mortality and ascended to the Heavenly Realm."
The old man's expression grew distant, remembering.
"Before he ascended, Baek Shinhwa did three things. First, he reformed the Blazing Sun Sect, making it into the foundation of what would eventually become the greatest martial power in history. Second, he hid the Temporal Hourglass in the old basement, sealing it with a formation that would only activate for someone who resonated with his own past—someone desperate, broken, but refusing to give up. And third..."
Cheon Mujin smiled.
"He left instructions for his successors. He told us that one day, someone from his past would activate the hourglass. And when that happened, we were to give them everything. Every technique the sect had accumulated. Every secret art. Every cultivation method. Four thousand years of accumulated knowledge."
He swept his arm around the vast archive.
"This is that knowledge, Seol Jihun. Every scroll, every manual, every text in this vault contains techniques that won't exist in your time for centuries. Some are basic foundation methods. Others are advanced arts that only peak masters can use. And a few..."
He walked to a specific section, where a black scroll sealed with chains of silver light rested.
"A few are techniques so powerful they were forbidden even here. Arts that can reshape reality, defy the heavens, and transcend the limits of mortality itself."
Jihun's hands trembled. This couldn't be real. It was too impossible. Too much like a story from a children's tale.
"I can see doubt in your eyes," Cheon Mujin said. "You think this is a dream. Or a trick. Or that you've finally gone insane from the abuse."
He walked back to Jihun and placed a hand on his shoulder. The touch was warm, solid, undeniably real.
"Let me be clear, Seol Jihun. This is not a dream. This is opportunity. The same opportunity Baek Shinhwa wished he'd had. The chance to learn from the future, to become something no one in your time can imagine."
"But I'm..." Jihun's voice cracked. "I'm trash. Talentless. My meridians are narrow, my dantian is weak, my body is broken. Four years of training and I've barely reached the bottom of third-rate. What could I possibly—"
"Everything," Cheon Mujin interrupted. "You could become everything. Because the techniques here aren't for natural geniuses. They're for people like you. Like Baek Shinhwa. People who started with nothing but refused to stay there."
He pulled out a scroll—not black like the forbidden one, but deep red, sealed with silver thread.
"This is the Essence Reconstruction Method. The first technique Baek Shinhwa mastered. It completely rebuilds your cultivation foundation from scratch. Yes, it's painful. Yes, it will feel like dying. But when it's complete, your narrow meridians will be perfect channels. Your weak dantian will be a reservoir of infinite potential. Your broken body will be reforged into a weapon."
Cheon Mujin pressed the scroll into Jihun's hands.
"It will take you approximately one year to master the first stage of this technique. One year of constant, agonizing training. But in your world? Less than two hours will pass."
"One year?" Jihun stared at the scroll. "How is that possible?"
"Time compression. The hourglass's greatest gift. One hour in your world equals five hundred hours here. Sleep for eight hours, and you'll have over thirteen years to train." The old man's golden eyes burned with intensity. "Most people would kill for one extra day to train. You've been given the equivalent of lifetimes."
Jihun's mind reeled. Thirteen years every night. If he trained for just one month in his world, that would be...
"Five thousand years," Cheon Mujin said, reading his thoughts. "In one month of your time, you could train for five thousand years here. But be warned—the techniques here will break you. Reform you. Push you past limits you thought were absolute. Many would crack under the pressure. Some would go mad. A few would simply give up."
"What's the cost?" Jihun asked. There had to be a cost. Power like this didn't come free.
"The cost?" Cheon Mujin considered. "The cost is everything you were. You cannot be the weak, broken boy who lets others abuse him and go back to that life. You cannot learn these techniques and remain a dog. Once you step on this path, you must see it through. You must become someone who can wield this power without destroying yourself."
He leaned closer, his presence overwhelming.
"But there's one more thing you must understand. You cannot tell anyone about this place. Not your friends, not your family, not even if they torture you. The hourglass's existence must remain secret. If the wrong people learned about it..." He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.
"I understand," Jihun said.
"Do you?" Cheon Mujin studied him. "Do you truly understand what I'm offering? This isn't just power. This is revenge. This is the ability to make everyone who hurt you, mocked you, humiliated you—to make them all regret the day they called you trash."
Yesterday flashed through Jihun's mind. The latrine. The laughter. The memory stones. Senior Brother Kang's face as he ground Jihun's head into the filth.
That's what you get for looking at Senior Sister Yuna. A worm like you doesn't deserve to even glance at an inner disciple.
"Yes," Jihun said, his voice steady for the first time. "I understand exactly what you're offering."
Cheon Mujin smiled—that same predatory expression from before.
"Good. Then let's begin your real education." He stood and walked toward the archives. "You'll start with the Essence Reconstruction Method. Master the first stage, then return to your time. Come back tomorrow night—which will be years from now for you—and continue."
"Wait," Jihun stood. "You said Baek Shinhwa became the strongest in the Murim. What happened to you? How did you become the Archive Keeper?"
Cheon Mujin paused. For a moment, something flickered across his ancient face—an emotion Jihun couldn't quite read.
"I was Baek Shinhwa's final disciple. He took me in when I was even lower than you—a slave, not even a servant disciple. He taught me everything he'd learned from the future. And when he ascended to the Heavenly Realm, he left me here to wait. To guide the one person who would someday activate the hourglass."
"You've been waiting four thousand years?"
"Not exactly. I died three thousand years ago. What stands before you is a remnant—a ghost given form through Baek Shinhwa's final technique. I exist only to fulfill his last wish: to give you the same chance he had."
The weight of that settled over Jihun. This ancient ghost had waited millennia. Just for him.
"Thank you," Jihun said, bowing deeply. "I won't waste this opportunity."
The ghost's smile at him.
[End of Chapter 2]