Reincarnation of the Martial Emperor

Chapter 28: About ten people?

I was examining all the challenge letters sent from the Namgung Clan. Tʜe sourcᴇ of thɪs content ɪs novel(ꜰ)ire.net

As expected, this Namgung Sejin bastard was not human.

Three years had passed, so one might forget once in a while, but this damn Namgung bastard had sent this kind of thing exactly on the first day of every month without a single moment's rest.

The first sentence was also always the same.

Not a single particle of dust, not a single stroke of the brush was out of place, always the same content.

For an Orthodox Faction member, he was politely requesting, but in reality, this was coercion, or a threat.

How did this man become more persistent as he got older?

Every time I confirmed the Emperor's Command Seal stamped at the end of the letter, goosebumps rose all over my body.

“……That cold bastard. Still, if you’ve lived to be in your sixties, shouldn’t a person change a little? How is it that this man is the same even when he’s old.”

As I was grinding my teeth, I felt strange gazes looking at me.

Damn it.

For a moment, I had mistaken this place for the grand hall of the Great Murim Alliance.

A person's habits were this frightening.

Whenever I found Namgung Sejin's name in a letter, my eyes would instinctively glaze over.

The Great Young Master, Jaegal Cheon, who had been frozen in bewilderment, carefully opened his mouth.

“……Then what are you going to do? If you ultimately refuse to go, I can’t even begin to fathom what kind of pressure our family will face.”

Hoo, Jaegal Cheon’s gaze had changed.

Did it mean that a prestigious family was still a prestigious family?

He had become quite respectable in just three years.

I waved the challenge letter and smiled.

“Why would I not know that this bast… no, that the Namgung Clan Head is a frightening person? Let's just watch for now. For now, we’ve been using the excuse of closed-door training, right?”

My father nodded his head gravely.

“It wasn't an excuse; it was actually true.”

“Hmm, now, please inform the Namgung Clan Head that I have finished my closed-door training. A reaction will come soon.”

“……Do you mean to continue ignoring the Namgung Clan’s request even after conveying such news?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

Namgung Sejin was not a person who could endure this kind of treatment.

With his fiery temper, he would surely come charging to the Jaegal Clan in a heartbeat.

After that, he would try to find some strange justification or pretext to devour me.

The Old Man of Heavenly Wisdom shook his head gravely.

“That will not do. It is too dangerous a move.”

I smirked.

“Surely he wouldn’t cause a big scene in front of the Old Man of Heavenly Wisdom, who led the war against the Demonic Faction to victory, would he? For now, please handle it as I wish. I’ll say this in advance, I have no intention of harming the family at all.”

“Hoo, do you have a separate plan?”

At the Old Man of Heavenly Wisdom’s question, I smiled cunningly.

He did not know me.

But I knew him all too well.

As long as that Namgung bastard didn't know that I was Jin Gang-cheon, I could predict the outcome without even fighting.

Let me say this in advance, I have never once yielded even an inch of territory to that Namgung bastard.

“If you have a plan, tell us all of it here.”

My father’s meticulous eyes were calmly staring at me.

As expected of the head of a giant family, it meant he would not handle matters carelessly.

But the problem was that I didn't really have a plan.

I had to see that Namgung bastard’s eyes directly to turn his insides out, and I could read his intentions through the words that flowed from his mouth.

My responses were all based on experience.

Naturally, there was no way I had a pre-determined clever move.

How on earth was I supposed to explain that here?

In the end, I had no choice but to give a rough explanation.

“Since they are men with nothing but swords in their heads, their thoughts are obvious. They will undoubtedly pull some sort of trick, like wanting to build a friendship or witness the outstanding martial arts of the Jaegal Clan. If they bring their son or a disciple, the probability of that is close to one hundred percent.”

“And your response?”

“Is there any need to play along? Fighting on the opponent's battlefield is something only an amateur would do.”

In that moment, a sense of disappointment appeared in my father’s eyes.

Hmm, I think I knew the meaning of that expression now.

Whenever a similar situation had arisen in the past, the Jaegal Clan would have always avoided or run away.

They might have gained an advantage through strategies and tricks, and sometimes through information, but the unchanging essence of Jianghu was, no matter what anyone said, martial prowess.

It was the long history of the Jaegal Clan to lower their eyes to the opponent’s stubbornness or to smooth things over with strategies.

‘Umm.’

But deliberately confronting a man who was already angered was not my way.

If you poked a man who was full of poison, only poison would come out.

If you stubbornly endured that poison and had bad luck, only your own body would be harmed.

But looking at those drooping old wrinkles, something in my chest felt ticklish.

Tsk, did I have to make a big scene after all?

But the Namgung Clan was no ordinary opponent.

“Do you trust me?”

At my sudden question, they all froze in a daze.

The first to respond was, as expected, the Old Man of Heavenly Wisdom.

“Of course! I trust you! How could I not trust our grandson!”

As expected, he was my grandfather who could see even the crap I took as gold.

“This isn't a matter of trusting you or not……”

“Haha, he is a man who moved the Black Way of the Yangtze River with just a single word, Clan Head. I understand the Clan Head's concern for the family's well-being, but… trust Hwi-ya. This father will do so as well.”

My father, who had been silent for a long time, soon let out a long sigh.

“Hoo… If anything happens, Father, you must act as a witness.”

“Of course, of course. I will also feel at ease if I do.”

Still, my father’s expression showed that he was not satisfied until the end.

Gaining one person’s trust was this difficult.

If this man had truly been called the reincarnation of Echoing Energy, he would have spent his entire life marveling at my capabilities, yet here we were.

There was no other way.

I just had to show them more.

Soon, I pulled over the Four Treasures of the Study that were neatly arranged on one side of the table and began to write down the application diagrams.

The geniuses of the Jaegal Clan had missed the principle of Separate Gathering, Special Connection.

The mechanism that invigorated the energy of the Yellow Core was simple.

The property of firmly connecting different energies, Separate Gathering, Special Connection.

Only after this became possible could one form the metal of the Five Elements in their dantian.

This was also the reason why a characteristic yellowish light ray flowed out when the Ki Art was materialized.

But here, one had to carve out this characteristic color of the Western Regions Buddhist style.

There was no other way.

Without deliberately overlapping them.

They had to flow in the same direction but separately.

Although metal had the property of trying to bind together.

If you created a constant gap, they would actually move away from each other with a powerful force.

‘I will discard the Yuxu.’

It couldn't be helped.

If I didn't discard the Yuxu, all the properties of metal intertwined in the Eight Extraordinary Meridians would collapse at once.

‘Instead, I will let the Shangwan flow freely.’

And finally, if I connected them at the Zhongji…….

Done.

If I completed one circulation like this, I could discard the Yellow Core but retain its power.

Having completed one circulation formula like that, I drew in all the remaining application diagrams.

Of course, I didn't touch the incantations.

As a rule, incantations were the enlightenment of one who had completed a Ki Art through long training, passed down to later generations through word of mouth.

Even if I tried to forcibly come up with incantations for a Ki Art I hadn't even learned, it would only become an incomplete incantation.

“……W-what is all this?”

At a glance, it would just be a multitude of lines entangled like a spider's web and densely packed characters.

But if you applied the human body to this, and added the ki channels, it would finally become an unparalleled internal Ki Art in the world.

It was a little embarrassing to say, but even the Great Murim Alliance bastards would try all sorts of flattery whenever they wanted to receive an internal art method from me.

At least when it came to internal Ki Arts, I had never seen a martial artist with capabilities like mine.

Brrrrr.

As expected, only my father was trembling.

The internal Ki Art that the Jaegal Clan had completed in over two hundred years based on the Yellow Core Great Luo Art.

I had reinterpreted that internal art method in the Martial Emperor's way.

The principles intertwined in this confusing diagram could only be correctly interpreted by my father, who had learned that clan head's secret art.

“The Yuxu……”

My father traced the circulation formula with a trembling hand.

If my father was a martial artist who had reached the latter half of the Pinnacle, as I had predicted, then thunderbolts must be striking ceaselessly in his head right now.

The Old Man of Heavenly Wisdom looked at me again.

“Are you not going to ask! Could this be……?”

Hmm.

What should I call this.

As such, I contemplated for quite a long time before coming up with a fitting name.

“It is the Mindless Connecting Flower Art. It is a new internal art method that I created based on the Yellow Core Great Luo Art.”

“Mindless Connecting Flower Art……?”

In that moment, my father sat cross-legged on the grand chair.

As tangible waves of ki began to rise and swirl around my father, the Old Man of Heavenly Wisdom let out a thunderous roar.

“Everyone, stand guard!”

The Dark Phantom, who had been guarding the door of the Clan Head’s Hall, slid over like a shadow.

He then stood by my father’s side and glared at the Blood Demon.

It seemed he judged that the only threatening factor in this room right now was that man.

The Old Man of Heavenly Wisdom, who had taken a position to his left, glanced at my father with his eyes full of worry.

He must have been happy that his son had suddenly gained enlightenment and fallen into a state of Self-Forgetting, but he couldn't help but be tense in front of the Blood Demon.

Half a day passed in that suffocating tension.

My father’s gaze, as he slowly surveyed his surroundings with half-opened eyes, calmly turned to me.

“……I cannot believe it.”

There was nothing else to say, so I just smiled.

If it had been the Martial Emperor’s body, I would have offered various pieces of advice, but my current situation was, after all, that of Jaegal Myeong-won’s son.

“Now, what you have to do, Father, is to organize your enlightenment and leave behind the incantations for the family.”

This was the best advice I could give right now.

“It is proper for the creator to leave it behind himself.”

Sigh, I don't want to do that.

You want me to learn an internal art filled with the traces of those dirty Western Regions monks?

“I have already learned a different internal art. If I were to forcibly leave behind the incantations, it would only add to the confusion of later generations. Since it is your True Body Internal Art, Father, you must leave it behind yourself.”

My father, who had been nodding as if my words had a point, suddenly looked at me strangely with even colder eyes.

“Just how strong are you?”

No matter how much he was the clan head leading the strategic Jaegal Clan, he was still a martial artist with one foot in the world of martial arts.

My father had felt it too.

Within the circulation formula I had written down with a single stroke of the brush.

The glimpse of a master, the trace of this Martial Emperor, intricately woven there.

Hmm.

How should I put it.

As I was engrossed in such thoughts, I eventually let out a smirk.

“About, ten people?”

“Ten people……?”

As everyone’s gazes gathered.

I twisted the corners of my mouth even further.

“I mean I can handle about ten of you, Father.”

Jaegal Cheon and the Old Man of Heavenly Wisdom froze in a daze.

This was no bluff.

That Blood Demon could probably handle a hundred.

Me in my prime could handle five hundred, and the Sword Saint, damn it, would it be around a thousand?

The gap between the Pinnacle and the Transcendent Pinnacle was as wide as a great sea.

And.

The gap between that Transcendent Pinnacle and the Transformation Realm was likened to the distance between heaven and earth.

The Seven Revered of Jianghu.

I was patting myself on the back again, but.

The seven strongest martial artists in the world were those kinds of people.