Today, I lay on my side and watched the waterfall pour down.

“......”

I didn’t know before that a waterfall could help with spiritual cultivation. Maybe it's because if you put the burning Zaha Guest House under that stream, the fire would go out instantly.

It felt refreshing.

When I looked up to the top of the waterfall, the Three Calamities were looking down at me, and just beneath them stood masters like Im Sobaek, the White-Robed Scholar, the Sword Judge, and the Fist King on protruding rocks.

But no matter how hard I looked, there were never more than ten above me.

When I added a little imagination, someone suddenly barged in where the Sword Judge stood and knocked him off the cliff with their shoulder.

I wondered who such a brute could be—it was Gwangseung.

Of course, the hierarchy in my mind and the actual order of the masters scattered around the waterfall would be different.

What if Gwangseung had actually fought the Three Calamities when he wandered Jianghu in his past life?

It didn’t happen, so even I don’t know. Predicting fights between people on a level higher than me is difficult and presumptuous.

I sat up, crossed my legs, and stared at the waterfall endlessly.

How many days have I stayed here?

After around forty days passed, I stopped counting. I even stopped wondering why we were eating mostly chicken for almost every meal.

At this Steel Mountain Lodge, I wasn’t just training external martial arts.

I practiced energy circulation longer than ever before, slept more deeply with my mind completely blank, and fought more fiercely than ever.

Usually, the White-Robed Scholar and I would team up against Cheonak, but sometimes Cheonak, who seemed to be researching something, would assign us individual roles.

For example, he'd engage me in an internal energy clash with his left hand...

...and spar with the White-Robed Scholar using only his right.

We applied imaginary battles—things impossible to train alone—by using each other as live opponents.

Sometimes we’d sit in a triangle and engage in a battle of force. During those sessions, the White-Robed Scholar would sometimes make specific demands of us as if conducting an experiment.

Cheonak and I are quick to understand, so we usually caught on fast to whatever the Scholar was aiming at.

So we weren’t training alone...

We were helping one another research and develop while also training individually.

If I were to summarize the three of our martial paths:

Cheonak, with a mix of internal and external power, could soar up from the base of the waterfall, cutting through the raging current and reaching the summit. From our brief conversations, I gathered this: even if Cheonak hadn’t become Heukseon’s disciple, he would’ve still become a powerful man. That’s because Heukseon roamed far and wide to find a child with the innate qualities to endure the harshest training imaginable—and that child was Cheonak.

When they said he used to be a slave, that’s what they meant.

He’s like something out of myth—a creature of another order altogether.

Watching him up close...

I began to believe those unbelievable stories of ancient generals who rode alone through enemy armies of thousands or tens of thousands.

It becomes possible when you’re built differently.

The foot soldiers must have looked like seven- or eight-year-olds. The cavalry, like boys in their early teens. No matter how many enemies there were, if you had a single spear and a horse, you could break through like descending a backyard hill.

That’s the kind of man Cheonak is.

From what I observed, even a hundred or two hundred high-level masters wouldn’t be enough to handle him.

So despite Cheonak’s past massacres within Heukseon’s faction, the Martial Alliance was right not to strike him down—even while placing him at the top of the public enemy list.

Meanwhile, I came to better understand the true value of the White-Robed Scholar.

As Cheonak had said, he had no interest in combining internal and external energy.

You could say he had already chosen his path long ago.

What he pursued was complete control over gravity and weight.

It was as if he were refining and specializing the Cloud Ladder Ascension technique to the extreme.

Using this control, he was researching martial arts that could momentarily absorb the opponent’s power or internal energy, store it, then reflect or redirect it in an instant.

In terms of ambition, what the Scholar was striving for was just as lofty as Cheonak’s ideal of the ultimate body.

There are many ways to walk the path.

At first, the Scholar just babbled theories without any direction...

But Cheonak advised him, I occasionally polished the thoughts with nonsense...

And as we carried out his requested patterns of attack and defense, the Scholar began forming his system and solidifying it into a real martial art.

Even Cheonak, observing from the side...

Told him that if he completed it, he would be worthy of being called a Great Master.

The White-Robed Scholar said it was the first time he’d heard such praise from Cheonak, so it seems even Cheonak acknowledged the validity of his path.

Still, this was not a martial art he could create alone, so Cheonak and I had to act as his puppets again and again—it was troublesome.

Sometimes, while sparring one-on-one with the Scholar, I would even think:

This martial art feels like it was invented just to deflect Cheonak’s relentless attacks. Without Cheonak, he probably wouldn’t have thought of it at all.

Back to the subject of the waterfall—

The White-Robed Scholar is the kind of mutant who would want to change the very current of that fierce cascade.

His entire approach to martial arts is completely different from Cheonak’s.

At some point, the Scholar stopped sparring, spent an entire day meditating, and finally said:

He might never be able to fully complete this martial art.

In Jianghu, it’s common for people to fall into inner deviation when they become too obsessed...

But the Scholar, whenever that happened, would simply stop thinking, drink, or follow Cheonak in external training—he was smart like that.

In that sense...

...I just liked watching the waterfall.

These unexpected forty-something days were a kind of rest for me.

My martial path now is very different from Cheonak’s or the Scholar’s. Honestly, if I got up right now and unleashed Heaven-Piercing Sun-Moon Radiance, I could obliterate the waterfall and the surrounding cliffs.

But just because I can do that, does that mean I’m at the same level as the Three Calamities?

That’s hard to say.

Because those kinds of masters would never give me a chance to try in the first place.

“......”

I heard footsteps and turned my head—Cheonak and the White-Robed Scholar, dripping with sweat, approached the waterfall.

Since we each trained in our own way, whether one practiced external techniques or simply watched the waterfall, we didn’t bother each other.

Cheonak dipped into the pool and asked,

“Master, do you think you could climb the waterfall just by staring at it?”

I nodded.

“I think I’m close.”

“In your own way?”

“In my own way.”

Cheonak looked at the Scholar.

“Baekja, you show him.”

“Shall I?”

Is this the same White-Robed Scholar I used to know? He seemed several levels beneath Cheonak when they spoke.

The Scholar stepped into the center of the waterfall, crouched, then sprang up. His speed and power were clearly lacking, but at the peak of his leap, he released a blast of energy that tore the waterfall apart at its middle. Using the rebound, he shot upward and reached the summit, then looked down at us with an infuriatingly smug expression.

“Did you see that?”

Cheonak muttered,

“You always cheat.”

“As long as I made it up, that’s what matters.”

The Scholar snorted, sat cross-legged, and closed his eyes. Whether he was starting energy circulation or organizing his thoughts, I couldn’t tell.

Cheonak then entered the waterfall and, as always, shot up through it in a single burst, settling across from the Scholar and closing his eyes.

Watching those two men, seated cross-legged atop the white stream of the waterfall...

...they looked like gods.

Of course, evil gods.

After watching how those two men, so different in nature, trained and thought, I began to objectively reflect on myself.

Truth is, I can break through the waterfall now.

Forty-something days is long if long, short if short. I didn’t achieve this in forty days—it’s just that forty days were added to the lifetime of training I’ve already endured.

I found the answer.

It’s Internal Detonation.

I created the concept myself. I’ve never seen it in any martial manual or scroll, so it doesn’t even have a proper name.

Training in this place, with the help of high-level warriors and the environment, I grow stronger by the day.

I was once the Master of Haomun, but now I feel like a monkey in Wall-Facing Meditation.

The outside world worried me...

...but I decided to trust my eldest brother. If anything serious happened, he’d come himself or send someone. So I convinced myself that the Four Villains were buying time for my training.

Only by thinking that did my uneasy heart calm.

I contemplated the name of Internal Detonation, refined its theory, and studied carefully to avoid destroying myself.

If Zaha Divine Art is the Zaha Guest House engulfed in flames...

...then Internal Detonation is the first spark leaping from the torch to the house. In a way, it’s the principle of severing the explosive force of Zaha Divine Art and applying it to movement arts.

Controlling Zaha Divine Art was already difficult...

So I returned to the source: the moment when extreme yin and extreme yang collide—when, in my terms, a flame is born—and used that as the basis for explosive power.

Ironically, this is the first stage of Zaha Divine Art. Some sects might call it the “First Sound.”

Arms crossed, I watched the two villains—Cheonak and the Scholar—and pondered what to name Internal Detonation.

I couldn’t use the word “evil” in the name, since I was doing all this to ensure my disciple becomes a different kind of warrior. But I had created this technique by scraping together clues while surrounded by these dark men. And so the first word that came to mind was...

Dark.

I believe even these dark villains have their uses. Still, the White-Robed Scholar isn’t someone who should lead a martial sect.

Not because he’s too small-minded—but because he’s made for something else entirely.

He only treats people like humans if they’re on Cheonak’s level. He’s a self-important bastard. If his disciple is only smart, their personalities would clash. Only someone with rare inner purity could fully learn his martial art.

Someone like the departed Makgunja would’ve been ideal.

So he’s still a villain, but he’s the kind of man who could open his heart to someone truly noble.

Not pure evil, but... perhaps a man with a fragrance of his own.

I suddenly stopped thinking, stood up, crossed the pool, and let the torrent crash directly onto my head.

Above me, the two dark-scented men sat in meditation.

I prepared Internal Detonation in my own way.

To combine Heaven-Piercing Sun-Moon Radiance, I had to draw two types of internal energy from my core.

In terms of order or distance:

Internal Detonation → Zaha Divine Art → Heaven-Piercing Sun-Moon Radiance.

But being the weirdo I am, I developed them in reverse.

I crouched...

...then soared up, unleashing Internal Detonation as I envisioned. I pierced through the falling water like a storm wind.

SPLAAAAAASH!

I was clearly breaking through the waterfall, but I felt like I was being slammed into deep water. Then, suddenly, the sensation vanished—and clean air hit me.

As I exhaled...

...I wasn’t sure how high I had climbed, but I could see Cheonak and the Scholar meditating below.

This was my own Internal Detonation.

I landed on a rock between the two of them and looked out over the scenery beneath the waterfall. It was the first time in over forty days that I’d seen it.

“......”

The White-Robed Scholar opened his eyes and asked,

“You climbed in your own way?”

I nodded. Cheonak opened his eyes as well, curious.

“You’ve been struggling with it for days. Did you figure it out? A new martial art?”

“It is.”

“What’s it called?”

Combining the image of my storm-like leap with Internal Detonation, I gave them the name of my new movement art:

Dark Fragrance Drifting.

The White-Robed Scholar looked at Cheonak and said,

“Somehow, the ‘dark’ part sounds like it refers to us. Or is that just me?”

Cheonak didn’t answer and instead asked me,

“Master, does darkness also have a fragrance?”

I sat on the rock and nodded.

“It did.”

“Why the past tense?”

I looked at Cheonak.

“Because Jinhyang had a fragrance.”

Then at the Scholar.

“And so did our youngest disciple—the fragrance of a gentleman.”

I crossed my arms and said to them both,

“It’s a fragrance we must not forget. If even a trace of Jinhyang’s or our disciple’s fragrance hadn’t remained in you both, I’d have been killed long ago. By the Unrivaled or our senior. Don’t you think?”

They looked at me in silence.

“......”

I looked at them and redefined Dark Fragrance Drifting.

“‘Drifting’ can mean storm wind, but it also means to float or flutter. It’s not a good name for a movement art or footwork, but I’m not picky. I never met them, but I intend to remember Jinhyang and Makgunja. The fragrance from that dark time fluttered and saved me. So Dark Fragrance Drifting will become a martial art that saves others, too.”

Truthfully, I was able to create Dark Fragrance Drifting because of Cheonak and the Scholar.

But {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} more than that, the reason I’m still alive...

Is because of Jinhyang and Makgunja.

Because they left behind a faint fragrance of humanity... even in these villains.

“......”

For a long while, the villainous pair said nothing.