Martial Arts Ain't Anything Special-Chapter 40: On Realms

Time flew by surprisingly quickly, and soon it was the registration day for the martial arts tournament.

They didn’t end up visiting Mount Hua.

Though Chunbong said it would be fine, Seojun had no intention of gambling with her safety, regardless of the odds.

Not now, nor in the future.

“Wow, there are so many damn people.”

Seojun grimaced at the crowd swarming like ants in Huayin’s vast square where the registration desks were set up.

No joke, his hands were trembling with the urge to cut the population in half.

“You crazy bastard!”

Chunbong panicked when she noticed his trembling hands and slapped them away.

She sighed from the depths of her dantian and grabbed Seojun’s hand.

“Don’t. You. Dare. Let. Go.”

“Ooh, how romantic.”

“Please stop with the bullshit.”

The Mount Hua Sect seemed to have anticipated such crowds and set up multiple registration desks.

Seojun joined the shortest looking line and clicked his tongue as he looked around.

“These can’t all be participants, right?”

“Probably not. But if you gathered all the participants, it might be about this many?”

“Seriously?”

How is that possible? How many days will it take to hold the tournament then?

As Seojun was grumbling, his eyes suddenly lit up.

During the boring wait time, a kind guest caught his eye who would helpfully create an incident to entertain him.

Seojun quickly ran over.

“Hey asshole! No cutting in line!”

“I have urgent business, so I will be going ahead.”

“Is your urgent business a heart-pounding date with the Grim Reaper?”

“Y-You bastard! Do you know who I am!?”

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After beating up and chasing away the line-cutter, some of his built-up stress was relieved.

“Ah, that feels good.”

Seojun nodded with satisfaction. As Chunbong sighed, he spotted another person trying to cut in line.

“Oh come on, another bastard!”

Seojun eagerly dashed over to uphold justice once again.

After beating up about a dozen or so line-cutters like that, the long line had shortened quite a bit.

“Why are there so many people trying to cut in line?”

“This is actually pretty few compared to normal.”

“Seriously?”

Seojun let out a bitter laugh.

These damned martial artists, I swear.

“By the way, it looks like there’s some kind of test?”

There was a large log placed next to the registration desk, and martial artists could be seen swinging weapons at it.

He guessed the test was probably to cut through that log.

“Of course there is. If they accepted everyone, the tournament would take months.”

“Oh, that’s true.”

After waiting another hour or so, it was finally Seojun’s turn.

Well, technically it was Chunbong’s turn.

“Huh? What? You’re entering too?”

“Why? Got a problem with that?”

“No, just... I thought you weren’t going to.”

Chunbong snorted listening to him and then told her name to the person sitting at the registration desk.

“Chunbong.”

“Alright, if you can cut through that log over there, you pass.”

The exhausted registrar pointed at the log lifelessly.

Now that he looked, there were even people clearing away the remains of cut logs.

Woah, this martial arts tournament is no joke.

As Seojun was sticking out his tongue, Chunbong drew her sword.

Swish—

Her sword, without a trace of sword qi, effortlessly sliced through the log.

“Eh?”

Seojun was taken aback.

When Chunbong pushed the top part of the log with her hand, it revealed a cleanly cut surface as it fell over.

“Wait, you can do that without sword qi?”

“What are you talking about? You can do it too, you know.”

“For real?”

The log is thicker than a person’s waist. Is it really possible to cut through that with just a sword?

While Seojun was lost in thought, Chunbong received a token from the registrar and tapped Seojun’s waist.

“Hey, it’s your turn.”

“Oh, right.”

After giving his name to the registrar, Seojun stood in front of the log and stroked his chin.

Let’s not gamble for now.

Honestly, he wasn’t quite sure how to do it.

Seojun coated his sword with sword qi and cleanly cut through the log before receiving a token from the registrar.

“Next.”

Leaving behind the soulless registrar continuing his work, Seojun left the square while fiddling with the sword at his waist with a serious expression.

“Chunbong.”

“Yeah?”

“Before we go back to the inn, let’s stop by somewhere for a bit.”

Chunbong chuckled.

“Want to try cutting some trees?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s really nothing special. Anyone at Peak Realm can do it.”

“Hold on, I swear this doesn’t make sense.”

Of course, in a world where qi is actually manipulated, there’s no reason one couldn’t cut a tree.

But cutting a tree without externally releasing qi and without any particular movement of qi internally was a different story.

In modern society, if you gave a kendo practitioner a real sword and told them to cut a log, could they do it?

At least as far as Seojun’s common sense told him, it seemed impossible.

“This should do.”

On the outskirts of Huayin, Seojun looked at a decently large tree in front of him in a secluded area.

No need to hesitate.

Shwing—

Seojun drew his sword and swung it horizontally with full force.

Crack!

The sword cut about halfway through the tree and got stuck.

“What the.”

Seojun blinked in surprise. It cut better than he expected.

And Chunbong also blinked in surprise.

“What the hell are you doing?”

At Seojun’s level, not being able to cut a mere tree like this made no sense.

Chunbong had no confidence in beating Seojun if they were to fight to the death.

Yet he couldn’t cut through a tree that she could easily slice?

The two looked at each other and tilted their heads curiously.

“Chunbong.”

“Yeah?”

“You said realms are based on how well one can manipulate qi, right?”

“That’s right. Hmm... Is that why?”

Chunbong picked up a branch. Come to think of it, she hadn’t explained the concept of realms to him in detail before.

“What do you think a Third-Rate martial artist is?”

“Trash?”

“Well, you’re not wrong...”

She scratched her head and wrote on the ground with the branch.

Third-Rate.

“Third-Rate refers to those who have just begun learning martial arts. They’ve formed a dantian and have inner qi dwelling in their body, but they don’t yet know how to use it.”

“Aha?”

Second-Rate.

“Second-Rate is when practitioners have figured out how to use inner qi. They can employ it to strengthen their body.”

Third-Rate.

“First-Rate is when you can release inner qi externally as well as internally. This results in things like sword qi and fist qi.”

Peak.

“And Peak Realm is when you can freely manipulate the qi you release externally to some extent. Of course, you can’t control qi that’s completely separated from your body, but you can make it separate.”

“Like the Finger Bullet Technique?”

“Yeah. But you’re a bit different. Normally when Peak Realm martial artists fire sword qi or qi bullets, the power isn’t that strong. Much of the inner qi disperses as it travels, weakening its potency.”

While the concept of realms existing means that lower-realm martial artists couldn’t easily withstand such attacks, for martial artists of the same Peak Realm, it served as nothing more than a deterrent.

Seojun nodded at her explanation.

“That’s true. I just compress it well so it doesn’t disperse as much when I fire it.”

“That’s not normal at all, you idiot.”

“These days I pour all my inner qi into it when I shoot, so the power is pretty good.”

“Haah...”

Chunbong shook her head.

Say something that makes sense, will you?

The fact that he could use most of his inner qi in a single attack didn’t make sense in the first place.

No matter how experienced you were with inner qi, there was a limit to how much you could pour out at once.

If you made a hole in a large container, wouldn’t water gush out? It was the same principle.

The bigger the hole, the more water you could pour out at once, but at that point it wasn’t even called a water container anymore.

“Well, it’s not the first time you’ve done weird things. Anyways, moving on.”

Transcendent.

“To be honest, I don’t know much from here on. I only know the theory.”

“That’s something at least.”

“I suppose so.”

Chunbong coated the branch in her hand with platinum qi.

“Remember what I said before? When a star dwells in sword qi, it’s called sword force.”

“Right.”

“Do you also remember when I said qi is imbued with spirit?”

“Yeah. You said it’s when the state of one’s mind wells in inner qi.”

Chunbong nodded.

“Usually around Peak Realm, the balance between body and qi is roughly achieved. It’s when the balance between essence and qi in essence-qi-spirit is achieved.”

“So to use reinforced qi, you need to balance spirit on top of that?”

“Yeah. When essence-qi-spirit is balanced like that, and your state of mind dwells in your inner qi, manipulating it becomes much easier than before. Vice-versa, you need that level of skill in manipulating inner qi to reach Transcendent Realm.”

That was why you needed to break through the Life and Death Entrance. Only by breaking through the Conception and Governing Vessels to receive heaven and earth qi and achieving the Greater Heavenly Circulation could one reach such heights.

Yet herein lay the paradox that to achieve this breakthrough, one needed to have already attained the ability to do so.

This is precisely why it’s called the Transcendent Realm. It’s a domain that can only be reached by surpassing the Peak, the very limit of human potential.

After pondering her words, Seojun asked.

“Then Transcendent isn’t a realm you can reach just by being good at manipulating qi?”

“That’s right. At least, that’s what I think. Anyways, back to the original topic.”

Chunbong pointed at Seojun with the branch.

“Your swordsmanship has changed from before. Rather than regressing, it seems like its purpose has completely changed.”

Seojun blinked at her sharp observation.

He had strongly felt that the sword was merely a brush to unleash the Primordial Divine Art.

“Is that not okay?”

“No, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s your path after all. It’s just a shame...”

Sigh, Chunbong exhaled and sat down on the ground.

“Have you heard of the Fist King?”

“Fist King? I know Ralph1...”

“Stop with the bullshit.”

Chunbong swung her fist. It was her rapid-fire punch.

As he stared at it, she continued.

“The Fist King is at the Second-Rate Realm.”

“What?”

A mere Second-Rate is the Fist King?

Thinking it must be nonsense, he stared at Chunbong.

“He doesn’t release inner qi externally. He only circulates it internally to strengthen his body to the extreme.”

“And?”

“Combined with his outer arts trained to the max, it’s said his fists don’t even get scratched when clashing with reinforced qi. So while he’s technically Second-Rate in terms of realm, in terms of strength he’s among the stronger Transcendent Realm martial artists.”

Their eyes met.

Seojun seemed to have a rough idea of what she wanted to say.

Realms aren’t absolute. They’re just a general standard.

Seojun had similar thoughts.

What you can do with inner qi actually varies depending on the martial arts you’ve learned.

If you learn martial arts focused solely on firing sword qi, even a First-Rate martial artist could probably fire sword qi.

“Interesting.”

Seojun grinned.

“Then what’s above that?”

“Unrestrained Realm?”

“Is there nothing higher than that?”

His body heated up.

The Realm Beyond the Heavens. A realm beyond humanity that even he could not be certain of reaching someday.

Are there already those who have reached that realm?

Seojun’s eyes glowed golden from the anticipation tingling through his body.

1. In Korean Wreck-It Ralph is called Fist King Ralph.