The Jade Ghost of the Jegal Family - Chapter 4

Creak-

As I opened the door, making an old hinge sound, I entered a training ground roughly sized about 66 square meters. On the worn and cracked marble floor stood four wooden mannequins lined up, under the soft glow of the moonlight above.

“Oh… There’s really no one here at this time.”

-Most go off drinking or meeting women at midnight. They don’t know what’s important.

There was a hint of pride in Sobek’s tone.

-But I am different from those bug-like bastards. That’s why I’ve been chosen even by the Celestial People.

‘Everything’s good, but you really need to fix that way of talking.’

Hyunwoo let out a faint sigh at Sobek’s unsocial way of speaking.

-What’s wrong with my way of speaking?

‘You have no friends, right? That’s the problem.’

At those words, Sobek retorted angrily.

-No friends? I have one! Ajong, that guy is my friend.

‘You mean the one who betrayed you and fed you poisonous plants?’

-……

Sobek closed his mouth like a mute who had eaten honey.

“Anyway, there sure are many kinds of weapons here.”

Hyunwoo’s gaze turned towards the weapons displayed in one corner of the training ground. There were unique weapons rarely seen in Zhongyuan like the bian (鞭), along with daggers, long swords, spears, bows, and even shields.

-The mundane Baekdo bastards use only swords or spears at most, but we are different. We’ll use any weapon to survive.

“For someone who says that, aren’t there no people using bows?”

Hyunwoo looked at the black bow stashed in a corner. It was covered in dust, as if no one had touched it.

-A bow? That’s something only mountain bandits use.

Contrary to his earlier statement of using any weapon to survive, Sobek dismissed the bow, making Hyunwoo tilt his head.

“Your lord uses a bow too, doesn’t he?”

-He masters all weapons, not using the bow specifically more than the others.

Hyunwoo nodded as he spoke,

“Right. Not yet.”

The portrayal of Jin Won-pyeong as a master of the bow came out in the middle of the novel. Until then, his archery skills weren’t known to the world, so it was understandable that Sobek didn’t know.

‘Is there nothing you’d use here?’

-I am a martial artist (拳士).

‘I know. I was just checking.’

Though Hyunwoo shared some of Sobek’s memories, he knew well that Sobek was indeed a martial artist.

‘A Heukdo warrior being a martial artist, huh.’

Unlike the Baekdo, who only pursued upright methods, Heukdo would use any despicable and inferior tactics without hesitation. Most Heukdo warriors preferred using long-reaching or poison-combining weapons. However, Jin Sobek used a unique martial art that didn’t rely on poison or range.

‘Remarkable indeed.’

Despite enduring disadvantages compared to others, he had risen to the position of a candidate for clan successor, which once again made Hyunwoo admire him.

-Celestial being, are you ready to learn the martial art now?

“Yeah, ready.”

Hyunwoo nodded with a tense expression.

Was it when I was about twenty years old? I had a chance to learn boxing for free from an acquaintance. But that opportunity didn’t last long. He quickly gave up on me, saying I had no talent.

‘I’m really bad at this kind of thing. Hope it’ll be okay.’

With worry reaching his throat, Hyunwoo let out a big sigh to clear it away.

“Phew.”

Retracing Sobek’s memories, Hyunwoo assumed a starting stance. It was a unique stance, raising a tightly clenched left fist to chest level, while the lightly clenched right fist was placed beside the pelvis.

-The martial art I learned is called Cheonseong Bungkwon (天星崩拳).

Cheonseong Bungkwon.

A martial art with an arrogant name meaning ‘Fist that topples the stars’, exuding the scent of Baekdo.

‘This must be from the Jegal family as well. If so, Jin Sobek must be Jegal Sobek.’

What was once an assumption that Sobek might not be from the Jegal family was now a certainty.

“How did you come to learn that martial art?”

What martial art Sobek learned and how he came to learn it wasn’t revealed even in ‘The Blood Battle of Sorcery.’ Driven by curiosity, Hyunwoo asked, to which Sobek replied calmly,

-I don’t know either. Both the mental technique and martial arts were in my head since I was young.

“In your head?”

-That’s right.

Having secret manuscripts in one’s head was unusual.

Had the Jegal family forcibly implanted it in him as a child?

-Let me now begin explaining.

Hyunwoo, who was keen to ask more out of curiosity, had his questions preemptively blocked as Sobek started explaining martial arts.

-First, I will teach you about the principles and mysteries of gaining internal strength.

* * *

“Huff… Huff… Let’s take a break for a moment.”

Hyunwoo, gasping for breath, lay sprawled on the floor of the training ground. His black martial attire clung to his body, soaked with sweat, and his hair was drenched as if caught in the rain.

‘I’m going to die. I’m really going to die.’

A modern person who only had experienced archery training went through a 5-hour non-stop workout. It was possible because it was the body of Jin Sobek, not Seo Hyunwoo, but even he managed it barely with mental strength.

“Aigoo, my whole body.”

-For the first time, this is very impressive. I felt it when his internal energy was awakened, but you have an extraordinary talent.

Jin Sobek clicked his tongue in awe at Hyunwoo’s remarkable talent for absorbing whatever was taught to him as if soaking up water.

“Really? Was it okay?”

-It’s not just okay. At this level, it’s no exaggeration to say it’s a god-given talent.

“Really?”

Hyunwoo scratched the back of his head in response to Jin Sobek’s praise.

‘Is it because it isn’t my own mind and body, but Jin Sobek’s? It’s way easier than I thought.’

It was different from when he tried learning boxing with his own body. The essence of the martial art unfolded as naturally as breathing, and everything was incredibly easy to understand. What should I call this feeling?

Yeah, it felt like having a quantum computer in my head.

“It’s good. Thanks to the training, I quickly got accustomed to the body.”

Wiping the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve, Hyunwoo took a deep breath.

Indeed, having a warrior’s physique, his breathing was stabilizing very quickly.

-I will slowly undo my grudge, so there’s no need to rush, Celestial Being.

“Thank you. I was planning to proceed carefully anyway.”

Through conversations with Sobek and Sobek’s memories, I found out that this was early in ‘The Blood Battle of Sorcery’. The first episode hadn’t even started yet, so there was no need to rush or worry. It was important to advance steadily, yet firmly, day by day.

“But I might take revenge soon. Once I get used to martial arts to some extent, I was planning to start, but I’ve already gotten used to it.”

-Good. I shall wait.

Hyunwoo nodded at Sobek’s calm tone.

“Ugh. Let’s stop here and rest for today.”

-Good idea. Resting is as important as training.

Feeling physically exhausted, Hyunwoo raised his heavy body from the ground.

Whoosh-

The bitter winter wind grazed his face. The weather, which made the tip of his nose cold, quickly dried Hyunwoo’s soaked martial attire.

‘I should do some shooting practice before resting.’

No matter how tired his body was, he couldn’t skip bow practice. Because he cherished it even more, thinking he wouldn’t be able to do it again.

“Ugh.”

Just as Hyunwoo was picking up an old bow from one side of the training ground.

“Aigo, Sobek. How did this happen?”

A short-statured boy opened the half-open training ground door and approached Sobek.

-That’s him. The one in white, that’s Ajong.

As soon as he appeared, Sobek’s voice boiled over with anger.

-That damn bastard dares to come to me on his own?

Hyunwoo turned his head to the right. Looking at Ajong’s appearance, which properly expressed his servile nature, Hyunwoo smirked. A glimmer flashed across his blue eyes.

“You’re here?”

Hyunwoo greeted him, reflecting Sobek’s original attitude as if genuinely friendly.

“Yeah, Sobek… I heard what happened. I’m really sorry. I didn’t know it was a poison.”

Ajong feigned a sympathetic expression and placed his hand on Hyunwoo’s shoulder.

“Are you alright? Your dantian… I mean, are you hurt anywhere?”

“Well, I’m fine.”

The moment Ajong touched him, Sobek started to run rampant inside Hyunwoo’s head.

-This damn bastard dares to deceive me!

‘Calm down.’

-How can I be calm when the one who betrayed me is now sniffing around my injuries?

‘That’s why you need to calm down. We need to use this.’

The reason Ajong came at this late hour was clear without even looking.

‘To check the extent of the injury.’

Was the dantian really lost as planned? If not, to what extent was the injury?

And also,

‘When would it be fine to kill him?’

For someone like Hyunwoo, who had rolled and rolled in the modern world, such shallow sneaky tactics didn’t even register emotions.

‘I should match it for now.’

As Sobek’s noisy voice in his head suggested, there was a way to immediately beat this small servant boy. But that would only bring momentary pleasure, not the right approach.

To truly screw him over, a bigger picture was needed, and it required a period of patience and time.

And now was that time.

“Is it… really painful?”

Facing the sparrow-like eyes of Ajong, Hyunwoo nodded.

“I lost my dantian. I’ve become a body that cannot use internal energy anymore.”

“Oh… Sobek.”

Ajong clicked his tongue, feigning sympathy.

“What will you do from now on? Have you found anyone to help you?”

“No. You know there’s no one around me to help.”

“Well… No one would put up with your personality.”

Feigning regret, Ajong shook his head and smiled above his lips.

“So why didn’t you live better, huh?”

“… What?”

“Relying on that petty strength of yours, prancing around like that, isn’t that why this happened?”

Ajong smirked and pointed at Hyunwoo.

“Tut tut. It’s because you live like that that you experience this. If you had built up good karma in your everyday life, huh? Would you have lost your dantian and all? By now, you’d have eaten spiritual grasses and be flying high.”

“Huh!”

Hyunwoo laughed in disbelief at Ajong’s words, feeling both ridiculous and outright absurd.

Having taken poison and gotten injured because of him, and yet he has the nerve to say such things. What a shameless bastard, indeed.

“What are you going to do? Are you planning to just die?”

While pondering how to answer Ajong’s question, Hyunwoo let out the words spoken by Jin Sobek within his head.

“I’m going to learn external arts.”

At that, Ajong’s eyebrows twitched briefly.

“Isn’t it better to leave? What if other candidates target you?”

“I’ll fight. Whether it becomes porridge or rice.”

Ajong sneered and looked at Hyunwoo with a distorted face as if seeing a bug.

“You idiot. You still can’t grasp the reality. Well, whether you end up dead or not is none of my business.”

“……”

“Tsk. Pathetic fool.”

Despite Ajong’s provocation, Hyunwoo didn’t react. Neither retaliating nor glaring at him with a murderous gaze.

‘Falling for this kind of provocation is for amateurs.’

Hyunwoo simply looked at Ajong with an easygoing expression.

“You’re right.”

“Huh?”

“You’re absolutely right.”

Unexpectedly, noticing his provocation didn’t work, Ajong’s pupils shook with confusion.

‘Why is this guy acting this way? This isn’t right… There’s no way then, I guess.’

Decided, Ajong’s eyes glinted with murderous intent momentarily.

“I don’t want to personally dispose of a trash’s body, so be gone within three days.”

Leaving behind this warning, Ajong departed, leaving Hyunwoo alone. Looking at the back of the boy in white robes, Hyunwoo clicked his tongue lightly.

‘Tsk. So clumsy. So inexperienced.’

Perhaps because he hadn’t even reached adulthood, every emotion was visible in his expression. What he intended to do, what plans he had, were evident.

‘Back where I was, smiling and greeting while stabbing in the back was an everyday occurrence.’

Retracing memories of his days at the pharmaceutical company, Hyunwoo dusted off the bow accumulating dust.

“Let’s shoot some arrows.”

After brushing off the dust on the surface, the old bow turned into a stylishly brown wooden bow.

“Thankfully, it looks similar to the traditional Korean bow.”

Though he could manage various bows, Hyunwoo’s mainstay was the Korean bow.

-It seems Celestial Being is quite proficient with the bow.

“Well, I aspired to be an athlete.”

Hyunwoo took out ten arrows and spaced them on the ground, maintaining a proper distance from the wooden mannequin.

“Phew.”

Taking in the chilling winter air that made one’s lungs cold, Hyunwoo placed an arrow on the string.

How long had it been? Since this right hand pulling the string felt free of pain. Since it hadn’t trembled.

“Ha.”

Complex emotions tangled in Hyunwoo’s eyes as he looked at the bow in his hand. Amidst those emotions, the most radiant one was joy.

“It’s so… good.”

Since arriving in this unfamiliar world of martial novels, anxiety, worry, and various emotions had stormed his heart, but at this exact moment, no such thoughts arose.

He heard no sounds, smelled no scents. Only the target and himself were visible.

“Phew.”

Exhaling a deep breath, Hyunwoo awakened his focus.

Archery is the symbol of a mind clear and still as a reflecting pool.

From the moment the arrow nestles in the thumb ring, one lets go of distracting thoughts.

From the moment the bowstring is drawn back, focuses all attention on hitting the target with that single shot.

With each shot fired, distracting thoughts disappear one by one until only the bow, and oneself remain.

Twong- Twong-

Each time an arrow left his fingertips, stray thoughts vanished from Hyunwoo’s mind.

Neither the Blood Battle of Sorcery, Jin Heuk-gae, Dokgo Mu-geuk, nor Jin Sobek.

In the place where everything had faded, only the brown wooden bow and himself, as the arrowhead soaring towards the target, remained.

* * *

Jin Won-pyeong, the leader of the Hwayeon Clan (火雲宗家).

Known as the unrivaled “King of All Weapons” for mastering every existing weapon, he grapples with a certain misunderstanding.

“All weapons…”

That misunderstanding is precisely that he could wield all weapons at an equal level.

“Did it appear that way?”

He was an archer. He lived his entire life as an archer and never once forgot his true nature.

“……”

His black eyes, deep as a dark ocean, were fixated on piercing the moonlit night.

Touching his square chin as he looked at the moon, Jin Won-pyeong pulled out the black staff strapped to his back and held it in his left hand.

The staff had tiny holes at both ends, presenting a unique design.

“So it’s already been over thirty years since I arrived in Zhongyuan,” he mused.

Jin Won-pyeong was not originally from Zhongyuan.

He hailed from lands utterly distinct from Zhongyuan and lived half his life accompanied by blood and war.

The sole reason he came to this Zhongyuan was to find a successor to transfer the archery he mastered alone throughout his life.

Tap-

He unraveled the black thread tied around his arm and intricately knotted it at one end of the staff.

Then, bending the staff massively till it was on the verge of breaking, tied the thread to the opposite end.

Consequently, a wooden bow emerged with a considerably thicker bow arm than usual.

“I must find a disciple worthy of bequeathing to… Alas, there are no talents.”

While he was looking at the black wooden bow with an odd light, lly,

Twong! Twong!

A familiar sound from not so far away reached him.

‘A bow?’

It was the clear sound of an arrow being released.

‘Hmm.’

As if possessed by a ghost, Jin Won-pyeong set out toward the source of the bow sound.