Master.
So far, while repeating such countless deaths and subsequent lives, Seol-Hwi had never had a master.
And somehow, two old warriors were suddenly now welcoming him. Up until this point, Seol-Hwi took the situation lightly.
‘Well, if something wrong happens, then I will have to die and come back,’ he always thought that way in case he made the wrong choice.
He never thought about it too much, and it was not too difficult to head back to the three choices Earth Demon gave him.
Ask the Earth Demon for the map, select “start from beginning,” and take it from there. So, he was now the first disciple of theirs, and he was determined to understand the ability of his new masters.
Of course, contrary to his thoughts, he heard the conversation of the two warriors and realized that something was a little off.
“Should I teach him from midnight to noon and you from noon to midnight?”
“I need the night. The ice arts are done with Yin energy. At noon there is too much yang energy, both training and the efficiency of learning will decrease.”
“Then let me use him from noon to midnight. Alright?”
Usually, when one says night, it means from the hour of drinking, which means sometime around nine until early midnight.
But these people cut the day in perfect halves from midnight to noon, so this was the practice schedule they were expecting.
So the question naturally came,
When do I go to sleep?
Training was not the only way to raise the efficiency of martial arts. It was said that even with just light training, sleep and food, one’s body would grow.
But now, these people were saying that they would train him for 12 hours each, and there was no break time in between.
The time to rest and eat had been completely abandoned.
Are they really not giving me time to rest? Ehh…
He thought. This was because training without rest made no sense for Seol-Hwi.
“Fine. Let’s do that.”
“Nice. Our negotiations are done.”
So, it was brought to a conclusion without the opinion of Seol-Hwi.
And Seol-Hwi was unaware of what kind of results would come from the lies that he spoke to get this.
“Come on, take a seat.”
Was it already midnight?
Ack Bi, who had been looking above approached for a moment, and he looked at his arm for a moment as he nodded.
“As I thought. Your body is weak. From now, I will start the training. The Ice Moon cultivation is known to be the best in ice arts, and once you learn it, you will have the hard body like that of Buddha.”
“Yes!”
“To reach a level where you have such a strong foundation, we will start to train, come on.”
Seol-Hwi turned his head at the place where ack Bi pointed to, with lumps of rocks taller than himself.
“…Uh?”
So he asked.
“Carry them.”
“…That one?”
When he asked the question again—
Saak
A white ball of ice formed at the fingertips of Ack Bi, and it turned aggressive.
“Take this, disciple.”
It was a warning, not teaching. This was a threat.
Seeing that, Seol-Hwi jumped up and carried the rock of the size of a house on his back.
“Follow me now.”
He stumbled and followed after his master.
Swish!
It was dark outside, but thanks to the snow on the ground, they could barely see ahead.
“Let us head up.”
At Ack Bi’s words, Seol-Hwi just continued to follow him by carrying the rock on his back. He wanted to protest, asking why he had to carry this and whether this was even training, but it did not come out.
“Uhhuh. Your steps are slowing down. If it drops we will start it over. And I am one who keeps my words.”
This made him unable to even protest against what he said.
“Kuaalk…”
The more he carried the rock, the more Seol-Hwi’s body felt like a ball of fire. The reason he could use the martial arts to heat his body was because of his internal energy. However that did not mean he had enough to waste like this.
There was no physical pain now.
Wheeing!
Moreover, outside the cave, the cold which seemed to freeze the entire body was raging on.
“Nice, nice. This kind of cold is what will make you stronger.”
The one called his master was walking ahead, making odd sounds. From that day on, climbing the mountain began.
Naturally, it was hard to carry it all the way, so he dropped the rock many times.
“Staggering. The body is light. Should we get a bigger stone?”
He couldn’t let go of the rock even in the most bizarre situation.
“Huk. Huk…”
By the time the sun would appear, Seol-Hwi would barely manage to move the stone and return to the cave.
And when he stretched out this time—
“Wake up, brat.”
By the time he realized it, his other master, Cho Ah-ran, was getting ready.
Half time. Regardless of her real age, when he saw the young looking girl, he thought she was cute, but the moment he saw what was in her hand, those thoughts vanished.
“W-what is that?”
It was a whip.
At first glance, it was solidly made and held in her hand.
“Shut it and follow me.”
She took Seol-Hwi into the cave.
The cave was deep. How far did she take him? While they were walking, Seol-Hwi found pots.
“Here.”
She pointed to a pot and continued.
“In order to learn the Blood Demon Hand, the first step is to train your hands. At least, the start can be seen as similar to the broom holding in Kangho.”
“Yes…”
“But, training is much more difficult with the Blood Demon Hand. In particular, the process of making your hands seep with poison is quite troubling.”
“Uh? Poison seeing into hands?”
When something absurd came out during the explanation, Seol-Hwi asked right away to which she nodded.
“It is nothing. Just stick your hand in and let it boil for a month. There will be some pain, but what of it? This is poison which will make you strong.”
At those words, Seol-Hwi looked at the pot.
Shhh
“Ah…”
There were black edges, and seeing the rust build up, it was clear that this was poison.
Shhh
There seemed to be these strange insects living in the pots which made Seol-Hwi go pale.
“There is a cure so do not worry. Ah and…”
She had a grin on her face as she said,
“The pain will make you want death. Even I pulled my hand out without realizing so let me help you.”
“Help in the sense…”
“You take your hand out and I’ll whip you right then. You will forget the pain of poison quickly that way.”
In other words, it means that she will force him to get accustomed to the poison.
“Now. Into it.”
“Ah…”
Seol-Hwi’s forehead began to sweat. He wanted to run.
“Put it in, bastard.”
But seeing her eyes glimmering with madness, he had no other choice but to put his hands in.
Chiiik!
“Kwaaak!”
His flesh was burning because of the terrible poison. He screamed, but Cho Ah-ran did not even flinch.
Flinch! Tremble!
The poison was bad. And Seol-Hwi was struggling with pain before he fainted.
Chak!
He was whipped back into consciousness though and then fainted again.
Chak!
This continued to happen.
He was not even sure how the day was going.
After the frantic physical training from night to morning, then came the training with the Blood Demon Hand.
Humans were known to be tough, so over time he got used to the poison, and he continued to practice.
“You have to hold the right amount of weight.”
Cho Ah-rang showed it to him.
Puak! Shhh.
She took a jar of sand in her hand and set it down. The weight was constant, so was the size. At first he wondered if such a thing could be done.
He was stunned but the woman went a step further and scooped out the sand and even showed what grain of sand matched.
“Now, try it.”
Pat!
Then came the turn of Seol-Hwi. Of course he failed and this made her raise her eyebrows.
“One per grain. Let’s hit two hundred first.”
“Ah…”
This woman was closer to beating him into shape than to training him.
So as to not damage the skin, she would select the part which would not be exposed. Sometimes, just a slight touch would cause pain.
“Now, again.”
And the training began.
He was not sure if he would stay sane, but he would continue to struggle through the pain.
Seol-Hwi, realizing that passing out would be a break, finally thought,
Will I die today?
“Kuaaakl!”
But each time he collapsed, Cho Ah-ran would use her hand and obviously, the Blood energy would boil into his body, and as he would fall unconscious, his consciousness would be recovered.
So he finished the training.
“What!? You made progress already?”
Ack Bi seemed surprised. While asking about Cho Ah-ran’s training method, he frowned.
“We also need to do it. Starting today, rock climbing.”
“…”
They moved to another training course, but Ack Bi was not the kind to do simple things.
“Kuak, huk.”
Seol-Hwi had climbed the cliff but hesitated a bit before reaching the destination. Ack Bi was standing at the top and smiling.
“Master, that…”
“Uh. A gift.”
Beside him were loads of stones that he had gotten.
And they were tangled along the path.
Tuk
He grabbed one of the ropes attached to the stone.
“N-no, right?”
Seol-Hwi wanted to deny what he was seeing. He would die if the stones would started falling down and moving oddly
“Do not worry, because there is nothing better for external training…”
Shhh
As soon as one of the ropes were released, the stones began to pour down.
“Ack… You bastardddddd!”
Seeing that, Seol-Hwi cursed for the first time.
“Such a natural reaction.”
Ack Bi did not care though.
Even though Seol-Hwi was alive, he also was not alive. The training continued for a month with the intensity of it increasing with these crazy masters competing with each other.
Kill me. Just kill me already.
Aside from his body, Seol-Hwi had reached his limit in his mind. A few times he could not stand it and tried killing himself.
“Until there.”
“Kuak!”
But every time he did that, these ghost-like masters would recognize it and prevent it from happening.
“Now now, be patient. Even if you die, die when I want to. Let Ack Bi know his martial arts are weak and die,”
Cho Ah-ran spoke.
“Cho Ah-ran. Not until I show that her martial arts are fake. Your eternal rest comes then.”
“UHHHH!”
Ack Bi was not too far behind her. They were masters who were idiots. But not everything was for the worst.
Does this make sense?
Rather, during the training he was surprised and shocked at the same time. Especially this sand grabbing thing.
At first, rather than holding a certain amount, he was not doing it right, but after a month he seemed better.
He had not done anything other than getting beaten around.
No… does this work?
At this point, Seol-Hwi went blind for the whip of Cho Ah-ran.
At first he thought it was something done to inflict pain on him, but with time, he realized it was not that.
After fainting from poison each time, if he woke up from being hit, his body was recovering like it had never before.
Normally, he should have died a long time ago, be it from being beaten to death or the poison from the training and the torture under the guise of it.
However, far from dying, he began to make progress instead.
It stimulated the acupoints in his body and maximized the flow of energy…
This whip, there was something about it. Possibly it was being used as a medium.
During the training, he tried to understand the energy and confirmed that the movement of the middle dantian was faster.
The external training too.
Just carrying the rock without knowing why and hanging on ropes, such random training must have some meaning.
“Nice. Fine. You feel a little better now.”
Thud!
After being hit so hard, he learned to balance his body and not lose his balance from external force.
“Sleepy? Hmm. Seems it is light. Should we try something heavier?”
He started to feel this bizarre change of recovering his stamina without even sleeping. He was not sure how he was doing it, but this felt like some form of recovery method.
“Now. Try this.”
The time was now past noon when physical training was done. And when the period of Cho Ah-ran’s training came, she came out of the cave for the first time and in front of Seol-Hwi put six jars.
“You want me to put a hand in and hold the sand?”
Since they were all the same, Seol-Hwi thought so.
“Right. But this time… hold the sand without reaching into the jar.”
“Uh?”
Seol-Hwi doubted his ears.
Grab sand without reaching in?
“The senses in your fingers, feel them and practice the Blood Demon cultivation I taught you a few days back.”
He wondered what nonsense it was but soon shook his head. From his experience, although she was a bit nasty, she did not lie. There was no way she would do this without a reason.
Swish
So Seol-Hwi focused his mind.
The Blood Demon Hand’s cultivation, the technique was one which could be used when one concentrated on their fingertips and their heart.
Shhhh
Despite it being the middle of the day, the fierce wind brushed his robes, but Seol-Hwi did not move.
Swish
He turned around and stretched out his hand. He did not even touch the jar like she asked and just reached out to rotate it.
And—
Ruk
Seol-Hwi stopped. There was shock in his eyes.
“Master…?”
Seeing that, Cho Ah-ran nodded.
Tyk tuk tuk
The sand flowing from under the hand of Seol-Hwi, even though he did not touch it, the sand was now in his hand.
“This is the basics of the arts.”
Cho Ah-ran smiled at Seol-Hwa for the first time.
One month and five days—
It was the first day since being beaten like a dog that he was able to use the Blood Demon Hand.
