"What?"
"No, why?"
"How come?"
The three people questioned him with expressions of complete incomprehension.
But Dan Ak-seon’s next answer left them at a loss for words.
"If I choose one of you, the other two will feel left out. I don’t like that. I prefer things just as they are now, with all of us together."
The three couldn’t believe it.
If they were to declare publicly that they were accepting a disciple, all the most promising talents in the martial world would rush to them without hesitation. Each of them possessed skills so remarkable that any disciple, through hard training, could easily become the best in the world.
But Dan Ak-seon rejected them instantly.
They were simply too taken aback.
It was then that Han Seol-hwa's eyes sparkled. Dan Ak-seon looked at Han Seol-hwa with a puzzled expression.
"Hmm? You mean I can learn without becoming a disciple?"
Cho Ak-ryang and Beom Gye-wi's faces hardened at once. They realized Han Seol-hwa had sent a voice transmission.
"Hold on!"
"Yeah, me too, hold on!"
Beom Gye-wi glared at Han Seol-hwa.
"What's with this trickery?"
Cho Ak-ryang also frowned deeply.
"Are you out of your mind? Teaching someone who isn't even a disciple?"
Han Seol-hwa responded coolly.
"What’s the problem? If I want to teach someone the martial arts I created, I will."
Beom Gye-wi tilted his head, bewildered.
"Huh? Now that I think about it...?"
Then, as if it wasn’t a big deal, he nodded.
"Come to think of it, you’re right. I don’t really need to take on a disciple, do I?"
Cho Ak-ryang straightened up, looking serious.
"What kind of nonsense is that? Aren’t you even a bit sorry toward your master?"
"Why should I be sorry? After all, my master only wanted one thing—to fully complete his martial arts. Doctor Dan can definitely make that happen. Master in the afterlife would be pleased, too."
At a loss for words, Cho Ak-ryang felt cornered.
Han Seol-hwa seized the moment, pressing him further.
"You call him your benefactor, don't you? So what if it’s just martial arts?"
"‘Just’ martial arts! It’s as important as my own life!"
"And who was it that saved that life of yours?"
"...!"
Beom Gye-wi chimed in, piling on.
"Now that I hear it, you’re right. Cho hyung, I never saw it that way before, but you’re acting a bit petty, huh?"
Now, Cho Ak-ryang suddenly found himself cast as a petty person and was at a loss for words. In that silence, Beom Gye-wi grinned and called out excitedly.
"So who would you rather learn from, me or the witch? You don’t even need to be a disciple."
Cho Ak-ryang clenched his teeth.
"Fine, I don’t need a disciple either!"
In the end, Cho Ak-ryang gave up his stubbornness. Somehow, he felt that clinging to the master-disciple bond here was making him feel thoroughly misguided.
For now, the priority was to keep Dan Ak-seon around.
"How about we do this, then?"
Realizing that this wouldn’t work as it was, Dan Ak-seon offered a compromise.
"I’ll make the decision a bit later, and carefully. So please, give me some time to think. This is about my future, after all."
It wasn’t exactly the answer they wanted, but the three of them reluctantly nodded. It was, at least, better than the initial answer, when he’d said he didn’t want to learn martial arts at all.
Besides, they were slightly embarrassed.
They were, after all, renowned masters in the martial arts world.
Yet, here they were, bickering in front of a child, a sight that seemed to undermine their reputations.
Meanwhile, Dan Ak-seon was inwardly stifling a laugh. Now, he could make the decision whenever he wanted—ten years from now, or even a hundred years later.
He thought they’d be able to maintain this favorable relationship until then.
But that was a naive thought.
Dan Ak-seon overlooked the fact that these people were hardened villains, worn down by the ruthless world of martial arts.
In reality, the three of them were thinking something entirely different from Dan Ak-seon.
And so, each of the four continued to dream their own separate dreams.
* * *
That night.
As he slept, Dan Ak-seon was stirred by a strange sensation, and opened his eyes.
A peculiar heat seemed to surge inside him, and then, all of a sudden, his whole body began to burn up.
“Huh?”
It was then that he noticed a giant shadow looming over him.
He stared for a long time, relying on the faint moonlight filtering through the window.
"Uncle Beom?"
Beom Gye-wi nodded with a sly grin.
“Yes, Doctor Dan. It’s me.”
“What are you doing…?”
"Shh. Now's not the time to speak. Just relax and focus on the flow of energy."
In that instant, the heat swirling within him stirred and began to flow rapidly through his energy pathways.
For quite some time, Beom Gye-wi carefully guided the energy of Dobansamyanggong that he had transferred into Dan Ak-seon. Once the energy had completed a full circuit, it settled in Dan Ak-seon’s core.
Confirming this, Beom Gye-wi asked Dan Ak-seon, "How was it? Do you think you can remember the sequence of the flow?"
What he thought would be challenging turned out differently as Dan Ak-seon nodded in response.
Beom Gye-wi, surprised, asked again, "Really? You only did it once!"
Dan Ak-seon began to slowly practice Dobansamyanggong (Dao Companion Three Yang Technique). His energy was faint compared to Beom Gye-wi’s, but his flow followed the exact path smoothly, without any blockage.
“Our Doctor Dan, you’re a real genius, aren’t you? Even I, who was called a genius, took more than five tries to memorize it...”
Beom Gye-wi looked at Dan Ak-seon with pride-filled eyes.
"Starting tomorrow, I’ll teach you other martial arts techniques as time allows."
With those words, Beom Gye-wi turned and walked away with an unusually cautious air, wary of being noticed by anyone.
As a result, Dan Ak-seon missed the chance to mention the two people who had visited earlier.
The next morning.
The three of them began breakfast with the medicinal herbs Dan Ak-seon had brought. However, the atmosphere was distinctly different from the day before. They radiated a calmness that was hard to associate with people who’d fought fiercely just a day prior.
In particular, Beom Gye-wi seemed to be in a notably good mood.
“Cho hyung, try this one. This is one of the more edible ones, at least.”
Though Cho Ak-ryang was suspicious, he accepted the herbs with a smile.
"Thank you, you should eat plenty too."
"You seem to be in a good mood today. I thought you’d just brush me off like usual."
"Well, there should be days like this."
Cho Ak-ryang replied with a smile.
He secretly felt a little guilty about teaching martial arts to Dan Ak-seon last night without the others knowing.
But Beom Gye-wi felt the same way.
"By the way, what’s with that pale face? You look like someone who didn’t get a wink of sleep."
Cho Ak-ryang flinched at that comment. But Beom Gye-wi didn’t pay it much mind.
Instead, he turned to Han Seol-hwa with a grin.
"Witch, should I give you one too?"
"Sure, if you want."
Surprisingly, Han Seol-hwa readily took the herb that Beom Gye-wi offered. Seeing this, Beom Gye-wi tilted his head, puzzled.
"What’s going on? Something feels off today."
The other two shared the same sentiment.
They couldn’t pinpoint it, but the way they were treating each other seemed unusually suspicious and out of character.
An awkward silence enveloped the group.
The one to break it was none other than Dan Ak-seon.
Dan Ak-seon, who had been watching Cho Ak-ryang closely, sighed and finally spoke up.
"I told you last night, didn’t I? You’ve barely recovered your internal energy, but you still went too far."
"…!"
Cho Ak-ryang flinched again.
"Right now, you’re only at the stage of circulating your energy on your own, but using force to channel true energy… uh!"
Dan Ak-seon couldn’t finish his sentence.
Cho Ak-ryang had covered his mouth with his hand.
“No way?”
“Could it be?”
Beom Gye-wi and Han Seol-hwa asked, their faces showing shock.
Cho Ak-ryang gave a wry smile as he glanced at the two, uncertain how to respond to the questions that would surely follow.
Finally, Cho Ak-ryang let out a sigh.
"I’m afraid I owe both of you an apology."
But what could he do? The rice had already been cooked into a meal.
Last night, Cho Ak-ryang had passed his Honwon Muguk Jinki (Primordial Limitless True Energy) to Dan Ak-seon.
And he did so by directly transferring true energy through internal guidance.
Moreover, he had even confirmed that Doctor Dan completed his energy circulation according to the process without any issues.
Now, all that remained was to practice and refine it.
But then, an odd feeling crept over him.
He’d expected the two to be angry and to reprimand him, yet they sat there silently, saying nothing.
On top of that, their pupils were quivering as if an earthquake had struck.
Cho Ak-ryang was suddenly filled with a sense of foreboding.
“No way…?”
He looked at Dan Ak-seon.
“Isn’t that right?”
“Huh?”
Facing Dan Ak-seon, who had a puzzled expression, Cho Ak-ryang asked again.
“Did those two also come looking for you last night?”
Dan Ak-seon nodded calmly.
“First, Aunt Han came to see me, then Uncle Cho, and finally, Uncle Beom.”
“…!”
Cho Ak-ryang, taken aback, sputtered before exclaiming.
“Are these crazy people serious? Are they trying to exhaust you to death? What if you end up with a mental breakdown?”
In response to Cho Ak-ryang's reprimand, a dangerous glint appeared in the eyes of Han Seol-hwa and Beom Gye-wi. The three of them began to stand up simultaneously.
“Don’t fight. I’m nowhere near the level where I’d fall into a mental collapse,” Dan Ak-seon calmly stopped them.
“Now that I’ve learned this cultivation method, I feel I can see each of your physical conditions more clearly. It should help with healing as well.”
“Whew…”
Cho Ak-ryang sighed as he sat back down.
“Just be sure not to attempt operating the three internal energy techniques at the same time. Your energy channels will surely get twisted if you do.”
“Don’t worry. I’m a doctor, remember? Do you think I’d do something to harm my own body? Actually, I just thought of something fun.”
The other two finally sat down as well.
“How about we study this together?”
“Study? You mean study martial arts together?”
“Yes, exactly.”
Dan Ak-seon’s eyes sparkled with excitement.
"Aunt Han has extreme yin, while Uncle Beom is the exact opposite, extreme yang. This has disrupted the balance of yin and yang. Uncle Cho, on the other hand, has nothing to do with either of them, as his inner technique is well-centered and stable. Studying those three martial arts together would not only aid in treating each of them, but would undoubtedly enhance their martial skills as well."
The three of them remained silent for a long time.
It was a method they had never considered before.
The reason was obvious. After all, who in the martial arts world would freely share their secret techniques with others? If they did, there wouldn’t be such rigid divisions between martial arts schools and factions in the first place.
From the beginning, what Dan Ak-seon proposed was absurd.
"Doctor Dan, you…."
Dan Ak-seon interrupted Cho Ak-ryang.
"My mother and father were the same way. While they acknowledged each other’s skills, they never tried to exchange medical knowledge. Their paths were just too different. Then, one day, they encountered a patient who couldn’t be cured."
"A patient that even the Divine Doctor and the Demonic Doctor couldn’t heal?"
"Yes, the patient’s chronic illness was severe, and they were also poisoned. When they tried to push the poison out forcefully, the patient ended up going into a qi deviation."
"That would be difficult to handle."
"But they saved the patient. It was the first time the two of them worked together to cure someone."
"Oh!"
"They argued a lot, but they managed to treat the patient by discussing and sharing their experiences. The patient ended up surviving as well."
They understood very well what Dan Ak-seon was trying to say.
Who wouldn’t understand? But they also knew that in the end, it would break down the moment someone felt they were losing out, even a little.
In the end, it was a matter of trust and acceptance...
‘Neither of them may be normal, but their martial arts are quite remarkable.’
‘Both are out of their minds, but their martial arts are something else.’
‘They’re both fools, but…’
The first to agree was Beom Gye-wi.
“If Doctor Dan says to do it, then we must!”
After a brief moment of consideration, Han Seol-hwa agreed.
“If it will help, I’ll do it that way.”
Although Cho Ak-ryang had the most doubts, he couldn’t dismiss Dan Ak-seon’s opinion either.
“So, now we’ll be researching martial arts together!”
Hearing the joy in Dan Ak-seon’s voice, Cho Ak-ryang quietly smiled as well. Then, a question came to him.
“Are you planning to study and master the best martial arts techniques through research?”
“No,” Dan Ak-seon replied with a smile.
“I’m going to master the technique we create together.”
The three fell silent for a moment.
“That’s not just research; that means you want to create a new martial arts technique?”
“With your level of expertise, wouldn’t it be possible? I’ll be able to help, too.”
Dan Ak-seon’s expression showed not a hint of doubt.
“And if we fail to create it...?”
For the first time, Dan Ak-seon replied firmly.
“Then I won’t master any martial arts at all.”
Hmm
ReplyDelete