Chapter 153: Field Training (3)

Around the time Il-mok and his classmates were leaving the Hall of the Demonic Way for their practical training, a meeting was taking place deep within a massive building on the cult’s main grounds. On the plaque of the gate read, “Eight Trigrams Hall.” And inside, a middle-aged man and a younger man were in conversation.

"You've worked hard, Chamber Master An."

“Well, it’s all thanks to your order.”

Chamber Master An Jeok-un replied with his signature deadpan expression to the praise from An Hyo-gyun, the Head of the Hall of the Eight Trigrams.

His face was blank, but his reply was more than a little cheeky. An Hyo-gyun didn't seem to mind.

Being from the same An Family lineage, An Jeok-un was An Hyo-gyun's nephew.

“Hahaha, didn’t I tell you before you left? If you don’t fix that damn personality of yours, you’re going to find yourself in some serious trouble one of these days.”

His uncle’s playful advice couldn't crack An Jeok-un's indifferent mask.

"I know. My time as an acting instructor taught me that lesson well.”

"Oh?"

An Hyo-gyun's eyes lit up, thinking his advice had finally gotten through, but his nephew's next words made him sigh.

“It taught me that you really shouldn’t associate with idiots.”

“Look, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but while a few of the warriors, including the Supreme One himself, can hold a decent conversation, most of the people in this cult are impossible to talk to. They’re all suffering from the side effects of their arts, you know?”

“If I don’t have to see them, I don’t have to talk to them.”

“And how exactly do you plan on avoiding them when both the Hall and our clan have such high hopes for you? Whether you take my position in the future or become the head of the clan, you’ll have to deal with them.”

"I'm not interested in being either the Eight Trigrams Hall Master or the family head. Just researching sorcery and formation techniques is enough for me."

Hearing his nephew's hopelessly naive words, An Hyo-gyun sighed inwardly.

The kid’s talent was so extraordinary that he’d become a Chamber Master in his late twenties, but that was the problem—he’d spent his whole life buried in research and training.

You could say he was clueless about how the world works.

That's exactly why he'd sent him to the Hall of the Demonic Way as an acting instructor to deal with relatively manageable young warriors.

‘I’ll have to discuss this with the Family Head later.’

Letting An Jeok-un spend his entire life as a shut-in researcher was simply not an option.

If he wanted that kind of life, he should have refused all the support from the clan and the Hall. They hadn't poured all those resources into his growth just for him to decide he would do whatever he wanted now.

But arguing about it here and now would get them nowhere. An Hyo-gyun decided to change the subject to clear the air.

"So, during your time at the Hall of the Demonic Way, did you see anyone besides a bunch of pathetic fools?”

At An Hyo-gyun's question, An Jeok-un's expression finally showed a subtle change.

"About two. I found a couple of kids who seemed somewhat useful."

"Oh. Two, you say. What kind of kids were they?"

"One was a student named Gwak Sul. His qi sensitivity was average, but he was pretty sharp. I don’t know about sorcery, but he seemed quite interested in formations and mechanical traps. And most importantly, he looked useful.”

"Useful?" An Hyo-gyun asked, looking puzzled.

“He hangs around with the heir of the Dokgo Family, which suggests he knows how to handle simpletons. I thought he might be a useful interpreter for when the Hall or the clan has to get tangled up with warriors.”

“Hoh,” An Hyo-gyun said with a look of interest on his face.

'So he wasn't just wasting his time at the Hall of the Demonic Way after all.'

He was already thinking about subordinates who could serve him when he eventually rose to higher positions.

"So was the other one a similar type?"

An Jeok-un shook his head.

"The other one is probably someone you know too, Hall Master."

With that, An Hyo-gyun could easily guess who he meant.

"Are you talking about the Eighth Young Master?"

"That's right."

"Hmm. I'm quite curious about what aspects caught your interest."

"The Eighth Young Master's qi sensitivity was truly worthy of being called a genius."

"If you're calling him a genius, there's no room for doubt."

“As for his intellect… it was tricky. Compared to what's known publicly, he didn't particularly feel like a genius. Considering his age, I’d say he was very bright, but not more than that.”

At An Jeok-un's assessment, An Hyo-gyun tilted his head.

‘The kid who brought so much change to the cult is only ‘very bright’?’

It felt somewhat contradictory, but he decided to hear the rest first.

After all, the kind of intelligence needed for sorcery and the kind needed for efficient management were two different things.

"So you became interested because of his outstanding qi sensitivity?"

"That's what initially caught my interest, but there's a bigger reason."

"A bigger reason?"

"The Eighth Young Master was interested in sorcery and formation techniques. Quite significantly so."

"!!!"

While An Hyo-gyun reacted with shock, An Jeok-un calmly told him about what happened with the Eighth Young Master.

How he showed enthusiasm during Formation classes, how An Jeok-un had interviewed Il-mok after recognizing his talent. The passionate attitude he showed at the beginning of the interview and the words Il-mok spoke at the end.

After hearing the whole story, An Hyo-gyun had a strange look on his face.

"As the disciple of the Supreme One, completing the Soul-Severing Emotionless Sword comes first... That's certainly reasonable, but couldn't it also be an excuse to politely refuse your offer?"

"I thought so at first, but now I've changed my mind."

An Jeok-un added with a confident tone.

"The Eighth Young Master definitely wants to become a member of our Eight Trigrams Hall. Otherwise, why would he bother coming to me asking to learn sorcery?"

"So you taught the Eighth Young Master a spell?"

"That's right."

“I did,” An Jyeok-un nodded, then added a strange remark. “Though I have no idea why he insisted I teach him that specific spell, and only that one.”

***

"Phew."

Taking a deep breath, Il-mok closed his eyes and focused his qi perception. He was about to use the one and only spell he had managed to swindle out of An Jeok-un during his brief tenure as a temporary instructor.

But since only about two weeks remained, he hadn't reached the level of handling it freely.

That's why he had to close his eyes to block his vision. He concentrated on his qi perception and gradually blocked his other senses.

And when he could feel it all, his hands began to move, slowly forming a series of hand seals.

Swoosh!

'Hand seals are just a means to clearly draw the flow.'

Il-mok recalled the advice he'd heard from An Jeok-un. Ultimately, what mattered was that the qi released through his hands communicated with the qi of the world.

Following that advice, the qi released through Il-mok's hands began to interfere with the flow of qi around him.

Swoosh!

As the hand seals changed continuously, the flow of qi around him was altered according to Il-mok's will several times.

Gradually, the qi in the surroundings gathered around Il-mok, and when that flow reached its peak.

Swoosh!

With a final hand sign, the spell was complete.

The one spell he’d gotten by pretending he might join the Hall of the Eight Trigrams was deployed.

At the same time.

Drip drip drip.

A strange sound echoed as a stream of water formed in front of his hands and flowed down toward a small container he'd prepared in advance.

It was called the Dew Condensation Spell, the most basic sorcery for handling water qi. As the name suggested, it was a spell that gathered the water qi spread in the air and converted it into water.

Looking at the water accumulating in the container, Il-mok frowned slightly.

It wasn’t because he thought he’d learned a useless spell.

'Damn it. It’s way drier here than in the mountains. There wasn't enough water qi.'

It was simply because the amount of water in the container was disappointing.

Meanwhile, the expressions of the Hall of the Demonic Way’s students and White Sparrow Corps members who had gathered to watch Il-mok perform sorcery were strange in various ways.

They had been expecting something incredible since it was the famous Eighth Young Master.

'Is... is that all?'

While most were disappointed by the result, a few were thinking differently.

"Ahem. Eighth Young Master. No, Disciple Il-mok. For what purpose did you perform that spell?”

A person from the White Sparrow stepped forward to ask Il-mok. He assumed that the Eighth Young Master had a grander purpose in mind.

And just as they expected, Il-mok did have a purpose.

"It's water for bathing."

It was to solve his hygiene obsession.

Il-mok answered with a look that said, Isn’t it obvious?, which only seemed to confuse the man who had asked.

The man asked with a sour face.

"Bathing?"

"That's right."

"...You're going to get dirty sleeping outdoors anyway, and you'll get dirty again running from early morning tomorrow, so why bother?"

Il-mok looked at him like he was asking the stupidest question in the world.

"Then senior, why do you bother eating when it's just going to be digested and disappear anyway?"

Il-mok had tried to phrase it politely since he was talking to a senior.

'You're going to die anyway, so why don't you just cut your throat and die instead of living?'

His true feelings were closer to this.

After finishing the pointless exchange with the White Sparrow Corps member, Il-mok turned around and walked somewhere.

"Hey, where are you going?" someone shouted as he began heading away from the main camp by himself.

"I need to bathe, and I can't strip here, can I?"

The answer that came back was, as expected, completely indifferent.

He couldn’t help it. After running all day, his hygiene obsession had already reached its limit.

Actually, this spell wasn't the only thing Il-mok had prepared for his hygiene obsession.

He had a flask of rubbing alcohol for emergencies, of course, plus soap, a change of clothes, and even a gauze wrap to cover his face while he slept.

'The wastelands of Xinjiang mean one thing, dust storms.'

It was a makeshift dust mask prepared for dust storms.

Knowledge is power, they say.

It’s usually meant to be a positive thing, but for Il-mok, it was a curse.

‘If it weren’t for this stupid Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword…’

For Il-mok, with his modern understanding of basic science, that martial art was the absolute worst-case scenario.

If someone from this era learned the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword and developed a hygiene obsession, that’s fine. How bad could it get compared to him?

But for someone who knew about germs and airborne dust particles, the resulting hygiene obsession was a full-blown catastrophe.

'Getting grilled by Master and Eldest Brother is tiring enough as it is. Damn it.'

On top of that, whenever Master or Eldest Brother asked him anything, he kept systematically organizing things based on modern knowledge.

His irritation about his situation naturally transformed into irritation toward the ignorant masses.

'Tsk. Dirty bastards. How can they even think of sleeping in this state?'

A soft click of his tongue echoed in the quiet air.

Whoosh.

An awkward silence instantly fell over the White Sparrow Corps's campsite.

As they watched Il-mok’s silhouette disappear into the moonlit darkness, the White Sparrow members all came to a similar conclusion.

'...Is that really the Eighth Young Master?'

'...No matter how I look at it, he just seems like a crazy bastard?'

***

“Hmm. The Dew Condensation Spell…”

After hearing the name of the spell Il-mok had learned, An Hyo-gyun stroked his chin a few times.

“Isn’t that a spell that even ten-year-olds in our family can perform?”

"That's right."

“Hmm. And he spent two weeks on such a basic spell…” An Hyo-gyun muttered, sounding a bit underwhelmed.

An Jeok-un corrected him. “It only took him a single day to understand the spell.”

"Oh. At that level, he's not slow compared to our family's children either. Hmm. Well, considering his age, as you said, I suppose you’re right, it’s a bit strange. Just very bright. But then why did he spend two weeks practicing it?”

An Jeok-un answered with a face that was hard to read.

“It’s difficult to describe accurately. I don’t know if I should say he was increasing its precision, or increasing its size…”

“Precision? Size?”

"To put it simply, on the last day of the two weeks, the Eighth Young Master filled an entire jar using the spell."

"An entire jar... Wait! Did you just say he filled an entire jar?"

"That's right."

“…But you said the spell you taught him was the Dew Condensation Spell, did you not?”

"That's right."

"......"

The Dew Condensation Spell, as its name implied, was a spell to make dew condense. It wasn't a spell that summoned a waterfall to fill a jar.

A brief silence hung between the flustered An Hyo-gyun and the expressionless An Jeok-un.

An Jeok-un was the first to speak.

"That's why I told you, didn't I? When it comes to handling qi, he's a genius."

"Ha. Hahaha. What an absurd story. Wait! Didn't you say the Eighth Young Master was interested in formation techniques and sorcery?"

"Seeing you keep asking me things I already said, it seems like it's time for you to retire, Hall Master."

Even in the face of his nephew’s polite way of asking if he was getting senile, An Hyo-gyun just laughed heartily.

“Hahaha! If a talent like that were to roll into the Eight Trigrams Hall, things would get very interesting indeed!”

"It would be a great help to my research as well, Hall Master."

While the aforementioned person had no such thoughts, the two of them laughed together, imagining when Il-mok might come to the Eight Trigrams Hall.