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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 16
Chapter Title: Operation: Bone for Flesh
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"Train here for eight weeks."
Before beginning our training, he had led me to the outer forest of Cheonsubakryeonsa, where a waterfall cascaded down.
Pahwanggun didn't bother asking how I had observed and replicated the Phantom Great God Step.
Nor did he inquire about the origins or paths of the two techniques I had demonstrated.
It was a mystery—and a relief—to me, whose head felt like it might burst from trying to come up with excuses.
Instead, he said this:
"I've seen two geniuses in the past with eyes as sharp as yours. They could mimic most things after just one or two viewings. So your talent isn't entirely unfamiliar to me."
On the surface, they might seem similar, but I was fundamentally different from those people Pahwanggun had seen before.
They were true geniuses who understood and pierced through the essence of techniques to replicate them, while I simply copied the root entirely.
But I didn't argue and stayed silent.
"What do you think is your greatest strength?"
My strength?
I stammered.
"My eyesight… is good?"
"No."
Pahwanggun cut my opinion short.
"Eyesight? That's part of it, sure. But that's secondary. I've observed two innate strengths in you that set you completely apart from ordinary people."
Pahwanggun held up one finger.
"First, when executing a movement, you have none of the 'instant hesitation' that normal people do. I found that baffling at first, but you usually see it in battle-hardened assassins, or…"
Pahwanggun trailed off.
"…veterans who've already tasted psychological hell on the battlefield. For now, I'll chalk it up to something you were born with. It's not a bad trait. Especially in the jianghu."
I knew the pebble he'd just casually tossed held no deeper meaning.
Even so, it pierced my heart with a chill.
"Second is your body. Your physique is so perfectly optimized for muscle and bone development, and for cultivating martial arts, that I'd believe it if someone said you'd shed your mortal form. Any average master would drool at the chance to drill everything they know into you."
I considered myself decent at reading situations, but I couldn't fathom what was going through his mind.
"Pahwanggun, one of the strengths you just listed is about my personality or behavior, and the only one I can improve is the second."
"You understand well."
"…Pardon?"
A sense of unease crept up.
"There are only eight weeks left until the Chunmu Hall promotion exam, so time is tight. And the Chunmu Hall promotion exams have always been absolute—no exceptions—measuring individual skill against set standards rather than relative comparisons between participants."
Climbing Golden Peak Mountain, holding a rock and standing for hours, swimming upstream against the Great River—he rattled off countless past exam examples I couldn't even comprehend.
"That's why the answer to what we need to do next is simple. Build a body strong enough to pass any standard they throw at you without issue. The problem is, you don't have a shred of internal energy to support your strength. So you'll have to put in twice the blood and sweat as everyone else. Understood?"
"Yes!"
Pahwanggun slapped his knee and barked.
"That's why our eight-week operation is this: 'Offer bone to seize flesh!'"
I blinked.
"Doesn't that feel backwards? Usually it's 'offer flesh to seize bone'…"
"No, this is right. You're mistaken."
That's when I should have realized.
No, I should have stopped him.
***
"Just kill me instead!"
-Splash!
I couldn't withstand the waterfall even twelve climbs in and tumbled down.
I had to grab the moss-slick rocks and climb against the cascading water.
Breathing was difficult under the pounding streams.
Each massive torrent crushed my body like a thousand-catty weight.
Even climbing barehanded was tough, but going against the current was pure hellish torment.
"Is this barbaric nonsense even proper training?!"
"Yeah, but you're third-rate, so I can't hear you. Lunchtime. Quit yapping and climb."
Pahwanggun held out the green porridge that the Haseo Physician had boiled in a pot and handed over.
"There's plenty of porridge, so eat your fill. Five times a day, between training sessions, you eat this on an empty stomach instead of meals. That's the key."
I had no idea what ingredients were in it, but the taste was revolting.
Eating it on an empty stomach felt like it was gnawing at my guts—pure agony.
Steam rose in white wisps from my back as the water evaporated against my body heat after being dunked.
My heart pounded so fast and hard that I could feel my pulse at my wrist, and when I lay down to sleep, the throbbing kept me tossing and turning.
"What you're eating now is Pahwan Dokryeonmin, made from a mix of seventeen medicinal herbs. It maximizes blood circulation while promoting muscle strength and physical development to the utmost."
Pahwanggun said, legs crossed.
"For kids with normal bodies, one bite would feel like their heart's about to explode—they'd roll on the floor in agony. But if your body can endure this猛毒-like medicine, it guarantees incredible effects."
"That sounds like sophistry."
Grand words, but it boiled down to feeding me poison. Was I misunderstanding?
"I don't know what the promotion exam will be in eight weeks. They randomize it every time for fairness. But if your basic physical abilities are solid, you should at least survive no matter what type it is."
-Drip, drip.
The muscles in my forearms writhed as I clawed up the waterfall.
My fingertips burst open, blood flowing out only to be washed away by the falls.
My throbbing pulse was so violent that blood welled up at my fingertips with each heartbeat, oozed out, and got rinsed away in a cycle.
It was hell.
Pahwanggun's words continued.
"You have three types of training, including waterfall climbing. You'll do nothing but these until you drop. Want to pass the upcoming exam? Cling to them."
I lost count of how many times I climbed, fell, and repeated.
Drifting limply in the water, I asked him weakly.
"How long do I have to do this?"
"See this?"
Pahwanggun waved something in front of me—a spring painting.
"The day I can look at this without taking my eyes off you is graduation day."
He divided the day into three parts.
I thought the morning waterfall climb was hell.
But the next phase was true hell.
"Urk!"
The green pig slop from breakfast and lunch—Pahwan Dokryeonmin—mixed with stomach acid and spewed out in chunks.
My mind went blank.
Sweat dripped from my chin.
The waterfall climb was child's play by comparison.
The hellish pain of this simple action was beyond imagination.
"You dropped it on the sixteenth rep. Start over from the beginning! I said drop only after twenty full reps without resting? No breaks!"
With trembling hands, I hugged the rounded boulder the size of a torso.
Not carrying it on my back.
Like a father lifting a baby with his arms, I wrapped my upper body around the rock, bent at the waist, braced it with my fingers to keep it from rolling, sat down, stood up.
The motion ended with standing on tiptoes.
"Huff, huff…"
My legs felt like they'd burst.
Sweat poured down my body like rain.
I'd already exhausted all my upper body strength on the waterfall beforehand.
Thud!
I vomited and collapsed.
"Again."
"P-Pahwanggun."
I crawled on the ground, shivering.
My calves cramped stiff from the constant tiptoes.
"My lower body's struggling, but my upper body just can't hold. All my strength's gone from the waterfall. Can't I at least carry it on my back? It's still sitting and standing the same."
Pahwanggun glared.
"No! Every motion in this training has meaning. You can't add or subtract anything! Endure it."
After the red twilight faded, the third training began.
The first two were so brutal that this phase actually felt easier by comparison.
Relatively easier, of course—it was never easy.
"Roll it! No leaning! Don't use your legs!"
Roll a massive log.
Using almost no lower body, roll it one full turn with upper body strength—that was one rep.
Dozens of reps.
By the end, the moon always hung over the mountain ridge.
Then I circulated the one internal art Pahwanggun had taught me.
One Wheel Three Seals Mind Method.
It was simple enough that I could learn it without the Heavenly Demon's technique.
Pahwanggun said it focused on recovery and circulation rather than rapid internal energy growth—a foundational method.
In the end, every daily training targeted extreme physical development.
Afterward, I'd collapse and pass out, only to wake in the morning to the pain of my body tearing apart, repeating the cycle.
I fainted dozens of times mid-training.
When I did, the Haseo Physician treated me, and Pahwanggun would slip away during that moment to give personal instruction to the other two disciples in our group.
Even among them, he spent the vast majority of his time on me.
He watched me relentlessly, berated me ceaselessly, and pushed me without mercy.
'It's because I'm third-rate. My skills are so bottom-tier he can't go easy.'
I believed there were no shortcuts.
It was grueling.
Agonizing.
But I endured.
Vomiting brought death-like misery each time, and morning's arrival filled me with dread and terror.
But.
'I'm definitely improving.'
It was the first time.
The first time receiving proper guidance from someone and feeling myself grow.
How long had I craved such instruction?
And I could feel it clearly.
Even through the hellish pain, each day I lasted longer.
The rock felt lighter.
That gave me the strength to keep going.
I was growing.
Something that hadn't existed in my hopeless past.
"Whew, even with your natural frame, pushing you like this every day—do you really not die from it? Feels like it."
It was the Haseo Physician's mutter, heard as I groaned awake at dawn.
"You and Pahwanggun ordering it—you're both out of your minds. What are you trying to prove, kid? What fire burns so deep in your chest?"
He tsked while applying warm moxibustion to my sleeping body.
'Prove…?'
In a daze, I felt the faint, pleasant smoky scent of moxa tickling my nose.
'What I want to prove.'
I tried to think, but exhaustion claimed me that night.
Humans are animals of adaptation.
I still vomited and writhed, but my body seemed to choose rapid growth over necrosis at the crossroads.
Of course, the foul burps were still wretched, and it remained overwhelming.
But I began mechanically digesting the ingrained training routine.
It was the day the seventh week ended and the eighth began.
"Uh-heh-heh."
"…?"
I turned at the strange sound behind me.
Pahwanggun sat crookedly on a tree branch, chuckling oddly while looking at his spring painting.
***
As the Haseo Physician dumped finely chopped herbs into the pot, he said,
"About those so-called geniuses Pahwanggun saw in the past."
"Ah, the ones with sharp eyes?"
Pahwanggun moistened his finger and turned the page of the spring painting.
"Yeah, I figured you'd know who, since they were with you from way back. True, they were geniuses who never forgot a technique after seeing it once. But."
The Haseo Physician fanned the flames under the pot.
"Their eyes didn't turn red like Moyong Bi's. You should say it straight."
"…"
Pahwanggun stared blankly at the spring painting and said,
"Keep that up, and you'll die."
"Oh, of course I know. In the jianghu, types like me…"
Pahwanggun turned to the next page.
"Have short lifespans."
"Exactly. Faking stupidity is the best. Like always. Acting thoughtless, empty-headed. That's why I'm just quietly fanning here."
-Fwoosh.
The Haseo Physician fanned the pot once more.
Pahwanggun held the spring painting.
But his eyes weren't on it.
His gaze stayed fixed on Moyong Bi's back, clinging tirelessly to the waterfall for four hours straight.
"Soon, a silent hell of killing will unfold beneath Cheonsubakryeonsa's surface. With the Moyong Family's power struggle crashing into this little training hall, plus the Nine Great Sects and One Gang's Shinsinwi swarming in—it'll be chaos like no other."
Pahwanggun tucked the spring painting into his belt.
"At the very least, we need to hide that fact until that kid grows a bit. Now I get why the Alliance Leader pushed a sapa bastard like me into Cheonsubakryeonsa, against everyone's opposition."
-Fwoosh, fwoosh.
The flames under the cauldron flared and grew with the fanning.
"I've been in the same boat as you from way back, so I won't vomit complaints. But Pahwanggun."
The Haseo Physician said seriously.
"You've seen the whole spring painting—hand it back. It's mine. Why try to sneak it away?"
"…Damn, your instincts have been filthy sharp since the Great Orthodox-Demonic War."
Pahwanggun clicked his tongue, pulled the spring painting from his belt, and tossed it over.