I Kidnapped the Youngest Daughter of the Sichuan Tang Clan

“Could you perhaps tell me the weakness of the Diamond Vajra Body?”

“…Did Shaolin do something wrong to the benefactor??”

Abbot Jeong Hyeon’s complexion turned deathly pale. I couldn’t tell exactly what he was thinking, but I could roughly guess.

He must have imagined me swinging my sword at a Shaolin warrior or something.

“It’s a misunderstanding.”

“Then why are you suddenly asking about something like the weakness of the Diamond Vajra Body?”

“Well…”

The reason was simple. I might soon have to cut down a martial artist who had achieved the Diamond Vajra Body.

But I couldn’t say that outright.

Shaolin was also a member of the Murim Alliance, so they had sent several warriors there, and among them, a powerful martial artist—strong enough to hold an elder’s seat—would one day suddenly achieve the Diamond Vajra Body, then, as if becoming a different person, spew curses at everyone around him and unleash indiscriminate slaughter… How was I supposed to say something like that?

It hadn’t even happened yet, and it was too unbelievable to persuade anyone.

And the moment I brought up the time before the regression, I would be caught by the mental restrictions and wouldn’t be able to so much as part my lips.

Still, I couldn’t just let it go.

I didn’t know exactly what had happened or why he had suddenly gone mad.

He was someone with an excellent reputation in ordinary times, and the Murim Alliance had hushed it up, saying it wasn’t a case of qi deviation and that there had been a plausible reason.

In fact, it was only when even the Orthodox and Unorthodox Alliance was half-collapsed that I heard it secondhand from surviving Murim Alliance members. That said it all.

There had to have been a reason they’d needed to bury it so thoroughly.

But what mattered to me wasn’t what circumstances lay behind it.

What mattered was only that it might happen around this time.

The Heavenly Demon had implied that some kind of incident would erupt inside the Murim Alliance. Naturally, I’d assumed it meant an infiltrator from the Demonic Cult was hidden within.

Normally, that would be the correct response.

The problem was that the Heavenly Demon was also a regressor.

I knew well from having navigated many events using knowledge from before the regression.

A regressor’s moves didn’t have convincing cause and effect. They already knew the answer and then forced the process to fit it, so it inevitably looked contrived.

If I were the Heavenly Demon, planting an infiltrator inside the Murim Alliance would be a last resort.

It could be exposed, might fail to rise to a high position, or one day change its mind and stand with the Murim Alliance instead.

It was risky, full of variables, and impossible to control. You didn’t call that a plan—it was closer to a wish.

So if it were me, rather than directly causing an incident, I’d use an incident that was going to happen anyway.

I’d take a disturbance that should end small and blow it up, or strike amid the confusion.

No—considering the schemes the Heavenly Demon had shown so far, maybe it could be both.

In any case, the important thing was that I might soon have to cross blades with someone who had achieved the Diamond Vajra Body.

I chose only what I could say and spoke slowly, careful not to trigger the mental restrictions.

“I think I may have to cut something that doesn’t break.”

“Hoh.”

Perhaps because he already knew about my mental restrictions, Abbot Jeong Hyeon realized this was the best answer I could give. After some deliberation, he spoke.

“I truly have no idea what Benefactor White Moon Sword Lord has realized, nor what you are planning.”

“I won’t ask you to trust me.”

“Are you going to tell me to trust Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, who placed the mental restrictions upon you? You have a rather audacious side.”

With a hollow chuckle, Abbot Jeong Hyeon toyed with his prayer beads, then nodded.

“Very well. I will tell you the weakness of the Diamond Vajra Body. However, it is neither because I blindly trust Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, nor because I find it troublesome that your sword might turn toward Shaolin. I am simply trusting the deeds of the man called Cheon Hwi that I have seen until now… and the way you did not become ruled by the killing intent within you, even though it rivaled Heaven-Slaughter Star.”

“Thank you.”

I bowed deeply to Abbot Jeong Hyeon.

I had met many martial artists who, even after reaching the Flowering Stage, had diligently trained their external arts.

Not only the Red Sand Gang’s fortress lord I had faced recently, but even Sangwan Geuk had achieved considerable attainment in external arts, and among the orthodox sects, the head of the Hebei Peng Family was also famous for exceptional bones and muscles and for external arts that had perfectly blossomed from them.

At the time, I had been a Sub-Perfection master, so I couldn’t precisely gauge how strong the Saber King’s external arts were, but compared to the Red Sand Gang’s fortress lord or Sangwan Geuk, it wouldn’t have been lacking.

There were quite a few who had achieved great things not only in inner energy but also in external arts, yet among them none had truly reached the Diamond Vajra Body.

And for good reason. The Diamond Vajra Body referred to those who could block sword energy even without protective energy—never a realm to be taken lightly.

In the history of Murim, there had been a handful who achieved the Diamond Vajra Body, but most of them were from Shaolin.

And the one who would run rampant after achieving the Diamond Vajra Body this time was also from Shaolin, so Shaolin must know something.

With my eyes sharpened to miss not a single word, I watched Abbot Jeong Hyeon slowly open his mouth.

“The Diamond Vajra Body certainly has a weakness. That is…”

“That is?”

“That the Diamond Vajra Body has only not broken yet.”

…What?

I blinked in confusion, and Abbot Jeong Hyeon continued with an awkward expression.

“It is the truth. The Diamond Vajra Body is not invincible as the rumors in Murim claim. It is simply that one has attained external arts so hard that no one of the current age can easily pierce it.”

“So… you mean if I just hit harder, it breaks?”

“Yes. To begin with, do you know that not all Diamond Vajra Bodies are the same? This is not a realm.”

“No. Until now, I thought the Diamond Vajra Body was a kind of realm. Just as there are realms defined by the unity of mind, energy, and body—like first-rate or Peak Stage—and realms reached through enlightenment—like Divine Sword Unity—wasn’t the realm reached through physical tempering the Diamond Vajra Body?”

“The knack of moving the body can change with a single insight, but pure physical strength can only advance through long and grueling training. The only thing that suddenly strengthens the flesh as if stepping over a stair is, at most, body refinement. And even that, strictly speaking, is not a realm of the flesh.”

That was right. Body refinement was when mind, energy, and body became one, and the body was recalibrated so it could fully contain lofty enlightenment and inner energy.

It didn’t make one stronger—it made one able to wield the strength one already possessed better.

“You look flustered.”

“It’s just… it’s not what I expected, so my mind is still spinning.”

“Heh heh. Then I will give you an easier example. Last time, it seemed Sangwan Geuk took quite a liking to you… did you know? If it were three hundred years ago, Sangwan Geuk’s external arts would have been called the Diamond Vajra Body.”

“…Pardon?”

“Just as those living today can build a taller tower than those three hundred years ago, martial arts have naturally developed with the passage of time.”

“I suppose so, but… to that extent?”

“You must look at the larger picture. Not only external arts—martial arts overall have risen in level.”

“Ah.”

If the Diamond Vajra Body meant external arts so difficult to deal with by the standards of the era, then the Diamond Vajra Body of the past wouldn’t have needed to be as hard as what I imagined now.

“Think of it. When describing the amount of inner energy, people speak in terms of years, do they not? Once it exceeds sixty years, they call it a ‘gapja.’ But is that truly inner energy built by training a heart method for exactly those years?”

“Not at all.”

In my case, upon reaching the Flowering Stage, I had become capable of holding more than three gapja of inner energy in my dantian.

But that didn’t mean I had truly accumulated one hundred eighty-odd years of training.

Even excluding the inner energy I had filled with spirit medicines along the way, it was an amount that would require nearly a hundred years of heart-method cultivation alone.

This inflated measure of inner energy wasn’t just a martial artist’s bravado—it was because the standard was based on the Three Talents Heart Method.

The most widely spread heart method, and the first martial art to be distributed.

Now it was basic practice hardly worth calling a third-rate art, sold for a few coins in the marketplace, but in the distant past, countless martial artists would have devoted their lives to the Three Talents Heart Method alone, because there weren’t many kinds of martial arts at all.

As those martial artists endured trial and error and began organizing various things, a custom naturally took root: defining inner-energy quantity using the Three Talents Heart Method as the baseline.

“To give another example, there is Tai Chi Fist and Six Harmonies Fist. Both long predate the Daoist sects of today. In the past, when Quanzhen Sect still stood strong, they were judged as peerless, world-class martial arts. But what are they considered now?”

“Not as poorly treated as the Three Talents Heart Method, but they’re regarded as third-rate to second-rate martial arts—things you learn before moving on to the next art.”

“Exactly. And this applies to external arts as well… even to the Diamond Vajra Body that people so revere.”

As time passed, the energy of heaven and earth diminished, yet the martial arts of those who handled it advanced beyond that.

So perhaps today’s Diamond Vajra Body, too, might in the future be no more than a decent external art.

“I understand. But can this really be called the Diamond Vajra Body’s weakness?”

“The swift is easy to break, the heavy is easy to avoid, and the dazzling is easy to scatter. But is there any way to deal with one who is merely ordinary and solid?”

Unlike the subtle principles of speed, weight, and change, a body made hard through simple time and conditioning had no particular weakness.

Honestly, it made sense. If it had no distinctive feature, where would the weakness be?

I was about to feel disappointed, but Abbot Jeong Hyeon wasn’t finished.

“Therefore, benefactor, you should face it in an ordinary way as well.”

“Ordinary… you say?”

“How do you usually break something hard?”

“By striking harder, of course.”

“We have returned to the beginning. Not bad. But if striking harder doesn’t work, what then?”

“Then I strike again.”

“And if it still does not break??”

“If there’s any method other than striking until it breaks, I don’t know it.”

At my words, Abbot Jeong Hyeon pulled the corner of his mouth into a grin.

“That is the correct answer.”

Only then did I understand what he had been getting at.

The weakness of the Diamond Vajra Body: not panicking just because it was called the Diamond Vajra Body and searching for some other path, but swinging one’s sword with the belief that it could be broken.

It sounded like mere mindset, as though changing one’s heart wouldn’t change anything, yet surprisingly, it changed quite a lot.

Willpower was the force that dragged the impossible into the realm of the possible. The moment my willpower surpassed the accumulated history of training that the Diamond Vajra Body’s flesh had built, the Diamond Vajra Body would no longer be the Diamond Vajra Body.

“Thank you for the teaching.”

When I bowed again, Abbot Jeong Hyeon shook his head with a bitter smile.

“I spoke grandly, but in the end, as Benefactor White Moon Sword Lord said, it’s not truly something you’d call a ‘weakness.’ Still, if you feel grateful, will you grant me one request?”

“Please, speak.”

“Do you truly have no particular feelings toward Shaolin? If not, then at least for today’s sake, I would like you to speak first before you draw your sword.”

“Just what do you take me for, Abbot…???”

“If you had not met a young lady of the Tang Family, a once-in-an-age talent who would have seized the position of next leader of the Black Lotus Sect by now?”

Since, before the regression, I had received similar treatment, I had nothing to say.

To read people this well…

It seemed not just anyone could become Shaolin’s abbot.