Sara, who had fallen asleep with the command of the Heavenly Yin Flame.
While waiting for Sara to wake up, life continued at Podalap Palace.
Black Cat and Rano Jingbu sparred every day.
We performed at Rasa about once a week.
Outside of that, we honed our martial arts skills. Since the Podalap Palace was a place for monks and practitioners to train, it was a wonderfully peaceful environment to perfect martial arts.
I, too, was enjoying this environment, practicing my martial arts while learning the art of blacksmithing from Tang So-yeol and continuing my sword training.
That’s why today, I was hammering away in the forge.
Bang!!
The sound of the hammering was now quite clear, but I wasn’t satisfied.
Qi flows through all things. It was a fact I had known instinctively, yet seeing the Black Armored Dragon clad in black armor brought the thought of [Qi flows] back to my mind.
How does Qi flow? Within living beings, Qi flows through the meridians. The Flame Wheel Flower depicted a wheel of fire within its petals to harbor immense fiery energy.
But what about inanimate objects?
How does Qi flow in a sword?
I looked at the sword I was hammering. My skills were still lacking to be called a seasoned blacksmith, but after months of focusing solely on sword-making, the sword caught in my tongs and hammering was presenting a pretty elegant posture.
With just a bit more finishing, it would be a sword that anyone would recognize as having been made by a blacksmith.
If it had been yesterday, I would have smiled proudly and nodded my head, thinking I’d worked hard today.
Yet today, something about the sword in the tongs felt not like a sword… but rather like a chunk of metal just pretending to be a sword.
What should I say about this?
Should I say I needed to make a human model but ended up creating a mannequin? For some reason, what I had made felt like an empty shell.
It was clearly a solid piece of metal that I had painstakingly forged.
Frustrated and unable to articulate my feelings, I threw the sword back into the furnace. I was just a few adjustments away from nearly perfecting the slight bends and sword shape, yet I kept heating the sword.
Bang! Bang!
I continued to hammer away, but for some reason, I still wasn’t satisfied. What should I say? Really, what should I even say about this?
In my frustration, I set the hammer down and glanced to the side. A spare harpoon I had made during Spirit Beast Hunting was rolling around on the floor.
In just a matter of days, Tang So-yeol had made hundreds of feet of iron chain. He had also crafted both the harpoon and a saw blade alongside it.
It can’t be said that they were made roughly, but it was a fact that they were produced in a short time.
Yet, the harpoon Tang So-yeol made felt… “alive” compared to the sword I had made.
“Have you realized your shortcomings?”
When I came to my senses, Tang So-yeol, who was making a ho-joebi to send to the Tang Clan, was standing beside me.
“Do you feel something akin to a ‘whoosh’ or a ‘paap’ from your equipment? Like something going ‘tok’ in your mind?”
… However, Tang So-yeol’s eloquence had not improved at all. Feeling both irritated and flustered, my brows furrowed as I listened to his absurd analogy.
Bang.
It seemed Tang So-yeol realized that words wouldn’t suffice, placing a bar on my anvil.
“You’ve lived long as a martial artist, so you must have experience repairing weapons that are worn or have seen long use, right?”
“Yes.”
“Blacksmiths will tell you that these items are beyond repair, so you must melt them down and make new ones. Well, while one can’t say there’s no business acumen in that, have you ever considered why they must be remade? If we talk about the difficulty of the technique, adding more metal isn’t that hard.”
Could this be a question from Tang So-yeol? While pondering that, he confiscated the sword lying on my anvil.
“Think about that point while making. Start over from the beginning.”
With Tang So-yeol’s order, I placed the bar into the furnace.
Whoosh!!
Having become quite skilled at working the bellows, the color of the bar quickly changed. However, I deliberately took my time heating the bar to gather my thoughts.
After glancing at the sword Tang So-yeol had seized, I looked at the bar again, then the harpoon.
They were all made of iron.
Though the bar currently in the heat was made from the same material, my sword somehow felt fake while the bar felt ordinary.
However, the harpoon Tang So-yeol crafted seemed to somehow be breathing.
I placed the adequately heated bar on the anvil and struck it down.
Why is it that weapons suffering damage or wear must be melted down instead of reinforced with new steel?
Naturally, the old weapon must have impurities on the surface and undergone oxidation, but is that truly the fundamental reason?
It breathes.
It covers.
Two ideas spun around in my mind, like a giant Taiji in my head.
What is a sword?
No, what is a weapon? It is a tool for manifesting martial power.
Then, were the swords I had made thus far truly fit for manifesting my martial power?
I had paid attention to the structure and strength of the sword, but could they be rightly called weapons?
The answer was no.
Because I had not considered the flow of Qi, the very essence of martial power.
Now I understood why Tang So-yeol’s harpoon felt alive—it was because he was considered one of the best blacksmiths in this Martial World, and he had accounted for the flow of Qi even when making such a harpoon.
I don’t know what kind of techniques were used to instill a sense of vitality into the weapon, but… that’s the gap between a master artisan and a novice blacksmith.
Bang!!
I realized why Tang So-yeol had handed me the bar. I felt bad for the sword I had just made, but that was already a piece of dead metal. Unless I breathed new life into it through forging, it would be hard to bring it back to life.
I widened my eyes and focused my senses.
They say you see as much as you know.
I barely grasped the flow of Qi in an object through the thought of black reflecting sky stone. To be honest, I’m not sure if the term flow of Qi even fits here.
But I also discovered something.
Everything that communicates with Qi has channels (脈) to convey it.
Living beings are born with a natural meridian, while spirit herbs like Flame Wheel Flower that gather Qi have new meridians to handle that Qi, such as its flower wheel.
Now, I could finally be sure.
The reason my recently made sword felt lifeless, the reason it felt hollow.
My sword had no meridian.
Bang!
I strike the bar and carefully monitor its reactions.
How do I create a meridian in the bar?
I was in a state of knowing neither the principles nor the techniques. However, I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.
Thus, I observed.
I observed how the naturally generated meridian of the iron bar, which had absorbed immense heat, changes.
Bang!
Some strikes rendered the meridian dead.
Bang!
Some didn’t change the meridian at all.
Bang!!!
Yet, very rarely, my strikes revived the meridian.
Now, I understood why damaged or worn weapons had to be melted down. Adding new metal is equivalent to covering the meridian. New steel being coated over the original meridian meant that it would all be obstructed.
That was the fate of the weapon I had just made—[a dead weapon].
I kept struck the bar blindly, watching its reactions.
Shiiing!
Whether tempering.
Whoosh!
Each time I heated the bar into a sword shape, I felt the meridian change. I was nothing more than a rookie, played with by these changes.
I hammered away without being able to predict the outcomes of most hammer strikes, simply leaving it to chance.
Bang!
I stopped hammering. The sword shape still wasn’t perfectly formed. I hadn’t even made anything near perfect until yesterday, but unlike before, the sword shape felt especially unstable, the center of gravity seemed doubtful, and the blade’s straightness was lackluster.
The sword in my hand was an incomplete sword.
However, I had a feeling that going any further would just result in killing the meridian.
As I set down my hammer, Tang So-yeol, who had been observing my work, picked up the sword. With skilled hands, he quickly carved wood, applied glue, and inserted fasteners. In the blink of an eye, leather was wrapped around the handle, and soon the completed sword was resting atop the whetstone.
Swoosh. Swish.
Tang So-yeol sharpened the blade of my sword without hesitation and said.
“It’s an inadequate sword.”
“….Yes.”
“It’s merely a result of being toyed with rather than really crafted. It was barely preserved, let alone ‘alive.’”
I understood that the topic Tang So-yeol was discussing was [the meridian]. That’s true; I had merely hammered away in hope of not ruining it while making it.
“Yes.”
“But still, since coming into my tutelage, you’ve finally made a weapon.”
Tang So-yeol lifted my sword. His finger touched the sharpened blade.
“Have you understood the sword energy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then test it. You rookie disciple.”
A rookie, huh.
From being a foolish disciple, I had merely become a disciple, and now I was a rookie disciple.
Having managed to create at least one weapon accepted by Tang So-yeol, did this mean I had become a blacksmith?
I accepted the sword Tang So-yeol extended.
I gradually pushed my internal energy into my palm. I had reached the peak quite a while ago, and since then had been steadily training in how to handle the internal energy, so the energy flowed out smoothly from my palm.
That’s right, it simply flowed out.
Squeeze.
I grasped the handle tighter. As I expelled my energy, I felt for the sword’s meridian.
Truthfully, considering that I had merely hammered it without paying attention to knitting the meridian, I wondered if I could even claim any part of the sword originated from my work.
Yet.
I could not help but draw the meridian of the sword, which I had felt while making it, in my mind. I imagined that it connected through my palm. I wriggled my fingers, aligning my Qi meridian with the sword’s meridian.
While my grip had changed utterly compared to actually holding the sword, for now, I brushed that fact aside in my mind.
It connects.
The sword’s meridian and my Qi meridian are connecting. I just assumed it to be so. Ignoring the grip, I held onto the sword tightly, envisioning that the sword’s meridian and my meridian merged into one.
Little by little.
Very slowly. My internal energy began to seep into the sword. Sword-body unity? That was nonsense. It was merely a portion of the energy I had thought to nudge into the presumed meridian beginning to flow into the sword.
Ssss.
Thus, bit by bit. Slowly, I began to grasp the meridian of the sword. As the energy that had seeped in solidified the structure I had just imagined, it settled firmly within my mind.
Layer by layer, I ignited the sword’s meridian and breathed the internal energy into it.
I certainly began to understand why the members of the Tang Clan learn how to inject energy while crafting weapons. To imbue energy into various forms and small hidden weapons, it’s indeed vital to grasp the fundamental principles as I was experiencing now.
Following the meridian I had mistakenly severed and the occasionally widened one, I infused my energy. I picked up skills as I injected energy following along. When I sought out the meridian connecting the handle to the center of the sword, my whole energy instantly spread into the sword’s body.
Sssssss!
“Ah….”
Finally.
The energy began to seep out from the sword. I could now truly call it sword energy, able to release my internal energy through this weapon, the sword.
“Congratulations, Senior.”
“Congratulations, Honorable Person.”
“Well done, rookie disciple.”
“Congratulations on your achievement, Instructor!”
“Well done, Senior Ho.”
Suddenly coming to my senses, I found the members who had accompanied me at the front were surrounding me. It was morning when I entered the forge, but now it was already midnight outside.
How had time passed so quickly? Did they all gather in the forge, having come looking for me this afternoon?
I wasn’t sure how they had come together, but being surrounded by my party to celebrate didn’t feel too bad.
I raised my hand high and presented the sword.
Ssssss!
Unlike Qi, that the unperceptive couldn’t see, the sword energy was invisible to those without Qi perception. Yet, all those here sensed its vibrancy. My party silently gazed at the vibrant red sword energy surging up.
I, Ho Cheon-an.
Awoken the sword energy from the forge at the Podalap Palace, under the leadership of the clan.
