"…Black Plum Blossom?"

"Did Mount Hua have something like that?"

"I remember Mount Hua’s plum blossoms being bright red…"

It was not the Plum-Heart True Method.

They were plum blossoms born of inner power built through the Mixed Transformation Realm.

The thick plum fragrance tickled the noses of all present.

Cheon Soyak felt the Black Qilin racing through all her meridians.

The raging surge of a divine beast’s force.

Now, no matter how she stirred her inner power, her body suffered no strain.

Soyak lightly turned her sword and slid it back into its sheath.

At once, all the manifested illusions—inner power meeting intention to give shape—dissolved away.

Within the shattering plum-petals, Cheongyu looked up at Soyak, who held out her hand.

"Stand up, Senior."

"…You…"

His words caught in his throat.

To bloom plum blossoms with the Sprouting Flower Sword—and not even with its ultimate form, but with a basic form—was staggering enough.

But black plum blossoms?

And what was this dense, sweet fragrance?

Even atop Mount Hua where plum blossoms carpet the peaks, this scent was unmistakably vivid…

"It was a good bout. Truly."

A spar doesn’t judge only the height of cultivation.

It decides victory.

So he had no thought of belittling the match simply because he hadn’t used the Sprouting Flower Sword to its fullest.

If anything, one should commend the decision to gauge the level precisely and choose another method.

Cheongyu scratched the back of his head, embarrassed, then sighed deeply.

And he clasped Soyak’s small hand.

****

Demon-Warding Plum Sword, Eun Jong.

He had been a man with a fiercely sharp pride.

Yes.

He had been that sort of man.

Now he was not.

Senior Eun Byeok had surpassed him long ago to reach Transcendent Apex.

While he still crashed against that wall, bruising his head.

How pathetic.

They had learned under the same master—how could the gap be this wide?

He could not accept it.

That was why he had tried to raise his disciples as best he could.

Senior Eun Byeok’s disciples, Cheonju and Cheonhwa, were still only first-rate.

Eunsong’s disciples—Cheongak, Cheongu, Cheonjeong—were also merely first-rate.

A wall is a gate that judges innate talent.

Just as he was held back his whole life at the wall to Transcendent Apex…

They too might spend their whole lives blocked at the wall to Apex.

Thus he gave everything teaching them.

Not only martial arts.

His pride did not consist only of faults.

He’d worn Mount Hua’s Plum Blossom Pattern on his chest for a long time.

He could not let naked thunder-thieves run wild.

If one is human, one must know human decency.

So he taught what propriety was, what chivalry was.

He didn’t want his disciples to repeat his near-fall into deviation.

Thus he taught the way to accept one’s own shortcomings.

But now, Eun Jong felt a jealousy he could not possibly restrain.

Jealousy toward that tiny girl whom his junior Eunsong had taken in.

"…To have such a disciple—one feels jealousy. And for her to achieve that at such an age—how it stings with envy…"

His voice was almost a sigh.

He had failed to break past the wall of Transcendent Apex.

His master, Myeongjeok, had in truth cast him aside long ago.

Eun Jong inhaled slowly.

He must not fall into deviation again.

This time it would not end neatly like before.

…Master Myeongjeok would not come to save him this time.

"Master. Your unworthy disciple has returned. Haha, I lost."

When he lifted his gaze, Cheongyu was standing there, sheepishly scratching his head.

Pure, clear eyes.

Eyes that were not caught in defeat, not flailing in inferiority.

"…How was it?"

"How else? She’s insanely strong. Ha… even when I sparred Cheongak at the training grounds, it wasn’t like this."

"Cheongak is a genius, but…"

He is not a monster.

A monster.

He barely stopped those awful two syllables from spilling out.

That is not something one should say to a talented disciple.

As someone walking the Dao, one should not let such words cross the lips.

"…That girl seems above even that."

"Right. Cheongak can’t even manifest Sword Light."

"An expert at Apex… at fourteen…"

Eun Jong stared blankly at Soyak as she descended from the stage.

Cheongyu shrugged and added:

"Master."

"Speak."

"I don’t think I’ll ever be as strong as those monsters over there…"

His master’s gaze turned to him.

Cheongyu flashed a bright grin and raised his thumb.

"But still—I’m confident I’ll be a disciple you won’t be ashamed of, wherever I go!"

Eun Jong quietly met Cheongyu’s eyes.

How could a soul be this clear?

In terms of character, no amount of cultivation could match the transparency of such a child.

Eunsong quietly embraced his young disciple.

Patting his back, nodding.

He had been discarded for lacking talent.

When he fell into deviation, his master had saved him—yet despised him.

He would not do the same.

He would not be that kind of master.

"You are… forever a disciple better than I."

****

"How was it?"

Eunsong asked with a smile.

Cheonjeong had already gone pale.

The Sprouting Flower Sword’s ultimate form, “Fully Bloomed Raging Hope,” was said to bloom plum blossoms when brought to perfection.

But what Soyak had used was the First Form—

Branch Toward the Rising Sun.

"It was a fine move."

"A compliment, is it?"

"Yes. It was a move I could neither conceive nor perform."

It was true.

And if she had not been an expert of Apex who could draw up Sword Light…

The fight would have been much harder.

"How did you do it, Soyak? That was clearly Branch Toward the Rising Sun."

Unable to bear his curiosity, Cheonjeong finally spoke.

Soyak thought for a moment, then gave an unexpected answer.

"Who ever said the Sprouting Flower wasn’t a blossomed flower?"

"…Huh?"

"You can call it a bud, but—"

Soyak gently brushed back her hair, disheveled from the spar.

She swept all the stray strands behind her small ears and tied them tight with a white cord.

Her appearance resembled a single small blossom.

"—you can also read it as a small flower."

It was an insight.

A vision she had “felt,” seeing someone before her who resembled a plum blossom more than anything.

A young plum blossom.

A small flower.

One cannot draw an insight one has not realized upon a sword’s tip.

But Cheonjeong understood, in that moment, what Soyak’s blade had been sketching.

Why her Sprouting Flower Sword differed from theirs…

"Ah… ah."

"Head Senior?"

"…I see. That’s it. That’s what it was…"

From his scalp to his toes, goosebumps rose.

His fingertips trembled with electric thrill.

While all of them—everyone in Mount Hua—drew immature flower buds…

That child alone drew a small plum blossom blooming of its own will.

—Srrrng.

Cheonjeong involuntarily drew the sword at his waist.

Eunsong, amused, pulled Soyak aside toward the corner of the tent.

Soon, Cheonjeong’s blade traced the arc of the Sprouting Flower Sword.

At each end of the arc, small, delicate petals bloomed.

Much smaller petals than the Fully Bloomed Plum Blossoms of the Nine Heavens Plum Blossom Sword.

But that is why they were “young” plum blossoms.

An immature blossom, blooming in its immaturity through sheer will.

The tent filled with pink plum blossoms.

Eunsong smiled at the sight.

He patted Soyak’s head fondly.

"You helped your Senior."

"That isn’t so."

Soyak shook her head quietly.

Then she watched her Head Senior dance his sword.

When he finished, he collapsed to the ground, panting.

The scent of plum blossoms spread thick through the tent.

"Head Senior has always struggled."

Soyak stepped out of Eunsong’s arms and stood before Cheonjeong.

She extended her small hand.

"To bloom a single plum blossom at your blade’s tip—how you have toiled."

Cheonjeong quietly took her hand.

Soyak pulled on his hand.

He let out a little laugh.

Her hand was too small to pull up even his own body.

When she imbued it with inner power, it could perform miracles—shattering great strength with ethereal brilliance…

But in essence, the sword was held in a hand this small and delicate.

"Thank you."

But Cheonjeong rose, holding the offered hand.

Ignoring the kindness of a fellow disciple would not be right.

The inside of Soyak’s small hand was covered with calluses.

From gripping the bucket rope. And from gripping the sword.

Cheonjeong realized he had finally reached the edge of first-rate.

The road toward Apex.

He could feel the threshold.

In his fingertips, he felt the texture of a wall that seemed it would never crumble.

"…It’ll be hard to cross."

Soyak’s eyes were on him.

Black and hollow as always.

An empty abyss.

"A word from someone experienced."

Cheonjeong chuckled and stroked her head.

The warmth under his palm was not unwelcome.

Chapter 20

Comments