Chapter – 04
The Joy of Walking.
Today, I realized the happiness of something so simple for the first time.
“Ugh… I can finally go to the bathroom on my own!”
The humiliating memories flashed through my mind…
Because I couldn’t walk, I always had to relieve myself while lying down. And every single time, it was my father who silently helped me.
It was through handling that that I truly recognized him as my father.
“My dantian and internal organs are fine… The lower dantian shrunk so much… it’s amazing you survived a whole year.”
As time went by, my dantian gradually stabilized.
The clash of the external martial art’s (Oewon Gong) energy with my mid-dantian still caused excruciating pain, but it was bearable.
After all, during Cheon Ki-rin’s peak training days, he endured pain many times worse than this every day.
After roughly checking my body, Mo Yong-jin sat cross-legged again and began channeling energy into my dantian to confirm the insight I had just gained.
A faint yet perfectly pure inner energy.
This was the advantage of external martial arts—it stores energy directly inside the body without flowing through the meridians.
Because of this, there was almost no taint, and I could store perfectly pure energy in my dantian.
“Huuh…”
As he released the energy in my dantian, like unraveling a spool of thread, something astonishing happened.
Even though it didn’t pass through the meridians, the energy moved at incredible speed toward my skin.
It pierced through the flesh and gathered in front of Mo Yong-jin as glowing specks of light.
“Haha…”
Mo Yong-jin couldn’t help but chuckle.
A barrier even the body of the Mad Demon Cheon Ki-rin could not surpass, yet this child’s body had achieved the insight.
Or rather, it was because it was Mo Yong-jin’s body that the realization was possible.
“If I could control this freely… a completely new world would open. But what level should I even call this?”
Historically, there were no martial artists above Hyeon-gyeong.
Even Hyeon-gyeong himself was ambiguous—most were just rumors, and Cheon Ki-rin only assumed he was on par after achieving two insights.
In fact, Cheon Ki-rin himself didn’t fully understand either insight.
Both were gained by accident—after hitting someone, he suddenly thought, “Ah!”
Though he didn’t know the details, his body responded with a massive leap in ability.
So, having received two insights, he merely assumed he was on par with Hyeon-gyeong.
“I’ve heard of something above Hyeon-gyeong—like the Life-and-Death Realm or the Realm of Nature… messing with life and harnessing the power of nature freely… nonsense. Whatever, I’m probably the first to reach this anyway. I might as well name it whatever: ‘Adult Realm,’ ‘Nine Realms,’ ‘Open Realm,’ ‘Supreme Realm,’ ‘Realm Realm Realm Realm’—whatever. Not important, let’s move on.”
Despite breaking new ground, he casually brushed it off.
“Even if I gained this insight in this body… so what? I can just channel energy through the meridians. It’ll all be solved once the Nine Yang Veins heal. I just did it a little faster.”
But what he considered trivial was actually extraordinary.
His reasoning made sense though—no matter how high an insight is, it’s useless without a solid foundation.
His body was still weak, the energy in his dantian negligible, and the collision of energies in his internal organs was painful.
“Why do I always forget what I realize when I gain insight? My mind lights up… and then… uh? My… inside and outside… uh? Ah, damn it. What is it?”
Whenever he gained insight, he couldn’t explain it, and he wasn’t even sure he truly understood.
But his body did.
It knew what to do.
“I think others are the same. That’s probably why teachers give vague advice about realms. Yeah, that must be it. I’m not stupid, it’s just impossible to explain.”
As Mo Yong-jin muttered to himself, trying to convince himself,
The door burst open violently, and a torrent of sounds poured in.
“Jin…ah…”
Mo Yong-hyuk slowly entered, stepping on spilled porridge, tears and snot streaming down his face.
“Finally, the moment has come.”
Mo Yong-jin let out a deep sigh, gesturing to Mo Yong-hyuk.
“I’ve been preparing mentally for this for six months… come on! I’m ready!”
“Waaaaah!”
Less than a minute later, Mo Yong-jin realized: he hadn’t prepared enough.
Mo Yong-hyuk was crying his heart out, and the force gap was so huge that he couldn’t even move.
What could he do?
Mo Yong-hyuk was his father.
Even Cheon Ki-rin would have recognized such devotion.
Yes, he could endure this… because he was his father.
“No way I can take this!”
Despite screaming and begging, Mo Yong-hyuk’s cries were twice as loud as Mo Yong-jin’s voice, and he fainted.
Mo Yong-hyuk realized something was wrong only after Mo Yong-jin collapsed. He hurriedly laid him down and wiped his face.
“I’m sorry… I was just too happy… our Jin-ah… standing on his own… sniff…”
Mo Yong-hyuk almost cried again but stopped himself when he noticed his son had fainted from it.
“Phew… our son…”
He wiped Mo Yong-jin’s face and ruffled his hair.
But something was strange.
Mo Yong-jin’s body radiated an energy it had never shown before.
“What… what’s happening? My son… has energy in his body?”
Thinking something might be wrong, Mo Yong-hyuk examined him but found his color improved and his ashen skin regained life.
Though Mo Yong-jin could use his inner energy, it wasn’t at a level that allowed any further diagnosis.
“I need to fetch the physician.”
When I awoke, a familiar face was in front of me.
Not my father, but my usual doctor, Han Tang-hae.
I always knew he was a quack, though still a doctor.
This time, his quackery worked in my favor—I could hide my suspicion.
“Your Nine Yang Veins are gradually healing naturally. Very good news.”
“Really, sir? Thank you! Thank you so much!”
Natural healing my foot. I worked hard for this result! And why was he taking credit?
…but I held back. Stirring suspicion would only cause trouble.
I decided to pretend I was still asleep.
But my overly observant father caught me sooner than expected, and the festival of tears began.
“Stop it! We’re all going to die!”
From that day on, I dubbed Mo Yong-hyuk Nu-eup-gok-ma (淚泣哭魔)—“the crying, wailing demon.”
In the future, I would jokingly say, “I’ve met blood demons, sword demons, heavenly demons… but Nu-eup-gok-ma is the strongest.”
So, the Mad Demon Cheon Ki-rin lived as the son of the crying demon, Mo Yong-hyuk.
Even though I could walk, I could barely move around. So I still stayed at home.
But I didn’t just sit there gathering energy.
Now able to move, I gradually started exercising.
A strong body was necessary to cultivate inner energy and martial arts, so I trained relentlessly.
Through exercise, external martial arts, and Jeol-ak-myeong’s formulas, I spent my days.
One year later, I had transformed.
Though still young, flesh and muscle had grown. My body, once fragile, had become that of a normal child.
I could run, wield a branch to practice the Samjae Sword Method (Three Talents Sword)—a basic sword technique consisting of horizontal, vertical, and thrust strikes.
Some considered it trash, unnecessary for learning, but I loved simplicity.
For Cheon Ki-rin, simplicity was supreme.
It wasn’t like this method conquered the martial world—it was just practical.
Fast, strong, and precise were all that mattered.
And from this practice, I began using a new inner energy method alongside Oewon Gong: the Reign of Fire Technique (Yeolhwa Shingong, 熱火神功).
It was derived from the extreme fire technique Separation Fire Technique (Ihwa Shingong, 離火神功), newly created by Cheon Ki-rin and mastered by me in about a year.
“Who knew taking Ihwa Shingong from the Hwasan Sect would be so useful.”
Technically, I “took” it—Cheon Ki-rin had beaten the sect leader and seized the technique out of curiosity.
The technique’s core, Fire Dragon Breathing, relied on breath infused with heat. I used it to expel excess energy, and it worked.
The technique forcibly converts energy to heat and expels it through the breath—this was Reign of Fire Technique.
Even with severed meridians, I manipulated energy through the skin using the insights I had gained, turning excess energy into heat and enduring the pain.
Energy accumulation increased slightly, and the clash with external martial art energy lessened dramatically, improving my body rapidly.
Another year. And another.
At eleven, I still had the Nine Yang Veins but was strong enough to climb cliffs with my bare hands.
Without taking a single breath, I scaled a high cliff, hair whipping in the wind like a painting.
In that moment, I shouted:
“Damn it, this hurts so much!”
