Chapter 105

Chapter 105
**Time of Growth (2)**

When dawn broke the following day, Cheon-geuk slowly opened her eyes.

She had spent the hours until daybreak guiding her inner energy, managing only a short rest afterward, yet daylight had already arrived. As she pushed herself into a seated position, Baek So-cheon’s outer coat drifted down from her shoulders.

“You up?”

Not far from where she rested, Baek So-cheon stood tending to a bubbling vessel, the savory scent drifting over and stirring a keen hunger within her.

“What are you making?”

“Just tossed whatever I found into a pot to simmer. The tavern wasn’t serving yet, so I gathered a few simple rations and threw this together. We need a hearty meal in our bellies before jumping into today’s drills.”

“It smells wonderful. Since when do you cook?”

“I wouldn’t call it proper cooking. Just throwing things into the water and letting it boil.”

Out in the theater of war, designated camp attendants occasionally handled meal duties, but most of the time soldiers survived on dried meat, plain rations, or whatever game they could hunt and spit-roast, like rabbits or venison.

“Come and have some.”

“All right.”

Baek So-cheon scooped the hot broth into a dish. He had secured bowls while picking up the ingredients. Taking a small taste, her face brightened with pure delight.

“Wow! This is incredible!”

“Truly?”

“You could run an eatery with this.”

“I’m just glad you like it.”

“I’ll handle the morning meal tomorrow.”

“You might find getting out of bed even harder tomorrow.”

“Ah.”

Remembering the sheer brutality of yesterday’s bouts, she pulled an exaggeratedly miserable expression.

“Take your time and chew well if you plan on living a long life.”

Once they finished eating and worked the stiffness from their limbs, both prepared for the true work of the day.

Today was another practical exchange of blows. Though framed as sparring, their clashes bordered on lethal, desperate confrontations. The only difference now was the razor-thin margin of calculated restraint they maintained.

In truth, it was Baek So-cheon who dictated the flow of these life-and-death exchanges.

To an outside observer, the pace seemed identical to the previous day, but it had fundamentally changed. He had subtly dialed up both the velocity and the weight behind each strike.

Cheon-geuk remained oblivious to the change, yet these microscopic shifts carried immense consequences. Over the span of a full day, the strain mounted steadily.

Because of this hidden escalation, the conclusion of their second day left her utterly broken and motionless.

Had Baek So-cheon not dragged her upright to force her through internal energy cultivation, she likely would not have stirred the following morning.

When she finally forced her heavy limbs to rise, Baek So-cheon once again had a meal laid out. He had warmed up leftovers purchased from the town tavern the previous evening, assembling a respectable breakfast spread.

“I was supposed to handle the cooking today. My apologies.”

Yet it was Baek So-cheon who secretly harbored remorse. He was deliberately driving her to absolute collapse by steadily turning up the pressure.

By the third day, he ratcheted up both the overall tempo and the destructive force beyond what they had faced the day prior.

Normally, her body should have grown more accustomed to the routine with each passing day, but the combat only grew exponentially more suffocating. She simply assumed the crushing difficulty stemmed from sheer exhaustion catching up to her.

Every bit of it, however, was part of Baek So-cheon’s meticulous calculation.

Was he doing this entirely for her benefit? Far from it. This entire ordeal was primarily an exercise for his own advancement.

Maintaining absolute control over an exchange against a high-tier combatant like Cheon-geuk demanded an unimaginable amount of focus. Consequently, Baek So-cheon ended each session completely hollowed out as well, having burned through every scrap of his mental focus and internal reserves.

This dynamic was the true testament to his terrifying depth.

Come the fourth day, Cheon-geuk nearly suffered a critical lapse. A strike from Baek So-cheon’s blade almost pierced her flesh once more.

“Keep your focus sharp!”

Baek So-cheon’s voice cracked across the space like a whip.

“Forgive me!”

Her focus hadn’t actually wavered. Her spirit was wound as tight as a bowstring. Rather, the threshold of their exchanges had reached a plane where a single blink could mean immediate death.

By the end of the session, her sword traced arcs almost purely on instinct, her mind half-shattered from strain. Her fingers barely possessed the grip strength to hold the hilt, yet her body continued to unfold the forms. It stood as another marvel of human endurance.

The fifth day arrived, and the ferocity of the clash climbed another step higher.

Had they attempted this fifth-day tempo directly after the first, she would have recognized the disparity immediately. But much like garments growing drenched in a silent, misty rain, the escalation crept forward so smoothly that she remained unaware. She continued to blame the crushing burden of accumulated fatigue.

She had no choice but to throw every ounce of her soul into the fight. Though the agony was overwhelming, she gritted her teeth and endured it for Baek So-cheon’s progression. Her greatest dread was that she might look back one day and despise herself for failing to be a worthy partner to his training.

‘I should have pushed myself harder alongside him back then.’

Eventually, the final day ran its course. Only now did the wisdom behind his seven-day limit become crystal clear. She was completely drained, lacking even the strength to lift a finger.

“That marks the end!”

They were the sweetest syllables she had ever heard in her life.

“Ah! It’s finally done.”

Cheon-geuk collapsed straight onto her back.

Baek So-cheon sank down onto the earth beside her.

“My spine is aching. Help me up.”

“I can’t even twitch.”

“Why does this drain the life out of us so completely?”

“The exhaustion simply stacked up.”

His intention was to keep raising the bar, keeping the truth hidden until she pieced it together through her own intuition.

“At this rate, my own martial path might end up reaching another stage.”

She tossed the words out half in jest, trying to mask her misery, but Baek So-cheon offered a response she never anticipated.

“It really isn’t far away.”

“What?”

“Your next threshold.”

“What did you say?!”

Cheon-geuk bolted straight into an upright posture, stunned.

“Repeat that. You’re telling me my cultivation can genuinely advance right now?”

“If we maintain this momentum. The boundary is right before you.”

The sheer peril of this routine and the immense pressure it exerted on an expert carried undeniable weight.

“Hasn’t it only been a short while since I reached my last breakthrough?”

“Who dictates the interval? Must it take three years? Ten years? Is there a law carved in stone? At the stage you occupy, it could spark tomorrow, or it might elude you for the rest of your days.”

“Even taking that into account, it feels impossibly fast.”

“It differs with every individual. Natural gifts, environment, turning points.”

“And who you cross blades with, wouldn’t you say?”

Baek So-cheon let out a soft laugh.

“Don’t lose your head just yet. It is within your line of sight, but not in your grasp this very second.”

“I understand!”

Despite the surge of excitement, Cheon-geuk privately hoped this entire regime wouldn’t turn out to have served only her own growth in the end.

“What about your own path? Have you glimpsed the next step forward?”

“I cannot tell. Perhaps the direction is flawed, or my effort still falls short. It feels like trying to fill an endless reservoir by carrying drops of water in a tiny thimble.”

“Keep pouring. One day, the vessel will brim and spill over.”

Baek So-cheon silently shared that hope. A day when clarity would strike like lightning: Why did such an obvious truth elude me for so long?

“Shall we pull back for now?”

“Let’s.”

Together, they made their way out of the secluded grounds. They were far too drained to harbor any thoughts of passion, yet the sheer triumph of enduring that living nightmare brought a profound fulfillment that rivaled the deepest intimacy.

At the turn of the corridor, they parted ways.

“We will meet again at the grounds in seven days.”

Following their separation, Baek So-cheon threw himself unhesitatingly into his personal training.

Unforeseen events could disrupt cultivation at any moment. He needed to extract every droplet of value from the time granted to him.

First, he stepped into the Cheon-ryong Secret Realm, subverting his tired body into the depths of the Dragon Spring.

He remained immersed there for a full day, purging the heavy weariness that clung to his bones.

Once completely restored, he stepped back into the world.

From there, he ran. The time had come to refine his mastery of Wind God Movement in earnest.

He had dedicated all his recent efforts toward the Thousand-Handed Asura God Sword, so shifting to this distinct lightness technique served to clear the clutter from his mind.

Across the terrain, Baek So-cheon sprinted without pause.

Though few wanderers roamed such desolate tracks, he kept a cloth across his face as a precaution. Discretion never hurt.

This marked his first dedicated refinement of Wind God Movement since crossing into his current martial realm. He channeled his intent completely, confident that growth would follow.

Having completed his footwork training, he traveled to inspect the Bi-gak warriors. Under the steady direction of Wang-ho, they were immersed in intense drills.

Much like he had done for the members of the Hyun-cheon-dae, he adjusted their stances, rooted out improper habits, and offered tailored guidance attuned to their respective fighting disciplines.

Between the chaos of conflict and his period of wandering, he had lacked the leisure to oversee them; this was his first opportunity to offer genuine instruction.

The fighters of Bi-gak beamed with gratitude at his heartfelt tutelage.

Baek So-cheon despised the concept of demanding blind devotion. Having walked that hollow path himself, he wished a better fate for those who served him—a structure where loyalty earned genuine, tangible recompense.

After instructing them, he refined his inner foundation beside the Dragon Spring before concluding his regimen with the Heavenly Thunder Nine Fists.

Wind God Movement, guiding the Bi-gak, cultivating his internal art, and executing the Heavenly Thunder Nine Fists.

He rotated through this sequence without rest.

When the seventh day arrived, tangible transformation manifested.

His Immovable Wisdom King Heart Method advanced into the seventh realm. Simultaneously, Wind God Movement climbed from the fourth tier to the fifth, and subsequently unlocked the sixth. These foundational pillars flourished swiftly under his focused devotion.

Rather than brand-new enlightenment, it was more a matter of these fundamental arts rising to match the lofty height of his overarching martial realm.

The Heavenly Thunder Nine Fists, which he previously wielded with mastery up through the fifth sequence—Ten Thousand Li Vast Sky—now stepped across the threshold into the sixth form: Clear Moon Light Wind.

With the advent of this sixth form, the fundamental nature of the power underwent a dramatic shift. The fist’s trajectory began to sweep across vast swathes of enemies simultaneously, breaking the normal constraints of bare-handed martial arts.

When he drove his internal reserves to their absolute ceiling, the tempest generated by his striking fist obliterated the landscape before him. Enormous stone crags shattered to dust under the shockwaves. Common combatants, particularly those lacking protective energy barriers, could never hope to endure such force—flesh and skeletal structure alike would instantly disintegrate.

Seven days concluded, and the second series of spars alongside Cheon-geuk got underway.

Baek So-cheon resumed his practice of escalating the stakes with each passing day, using the peak intensity of their previous week as his baseline. The training turned drastically harsher than before.

Even stepping onto the dirt with her reserves fully refreshed, Cheon-geuk recognized the shift immediately. Yet she attributed the escalating pressure to his natural development rather than a calculated, deliberate increase in difficulty.

She assumed that his pace of cultivation was simply leaving hers behind, creating a widening gap between them.

As the violence of their clashes surged higher, the strain on both reached a fever pitch. He found himself forced to shield her from fatal harm while simultaneously maintaining the torrential madness of the duel.

At dawn on the seventh day, just following their sixth intense exchange, Baek So-cheon’s eyes snapped open during his meditation.

A brilliant spark of clarity flashed across his thoughts.

He sprang to his feet in an instant, sword sweeping through the air.

Drawn out of her meditation by the sudden shift, Cheon-geuk abruptly halted her inner circulation. Recognizing that he had been seized by an epiphany, she remained utterly motionless, watching him with held breath.

Baek So-cheon unleashed the forms of the Thousand-Handed Asura God Sword.

Silver arcs traced through the emptiness, blazing from the initial movement straight through to the fifth in the span of an exhale.

Then came the turning point.

Another clean trail of light carved through the void. Though the prior remnants had dissolved, this trajectory was undeniably fresh.

It was the sixth movement: Heaven Extinguishing Form.

He had finally unlocked the long-stagnant barrier blocking this form.

Thinking back to his brutal spar with Cheon-geuk earlier that day, the pieces suddenly fell into alignment. What had seemed completely disconnected at the time now interlocked perfectly with the structural snag that had held him back.

‘Could it really be this simple?’

Against all odds, the realization held true. He was now capable of executing the sixth form.

A booming laugh tore from Baek So-cheon’s chest, pure exhilaration pouring out of him.

“Hahaha!”

Cheon-geuk rose to her feet, eyes wide.

“You managed to break through?”

“I did. Only a single form remains.”

“That is wonderful news!”

She closed the distance rapidly, throwing her arms around him in an embrace.

“Thank you. This came to pass because of you.”

“Ah, hearing that makes me so happy.”

She beamed with as much radiant joy as if the breakthrough were her own—perhaps even more than she celebrated her own advancements.

“Keep this momentum going and conquer the final movement!”

There was nothing greater she could possibly wish for him.

Yet the seventh and ultimate sequence of the Thousand-Handed Asura God Sword still loomed before him.

Could such a pinnacle technique truly be mastered with ease?

Starting the very next morning, Baek So-cheon shifted his entire focus.

He set aside every peripheral matter—even his sparring sessions with Cheon-geuk—choosing instead to dedicate his waking hours to chaining the newly unlocked sixth form together in the isolation of the grounds.

His aim was to link the first through the sixth movements without a single pause.

Yet he could not yet link the twenty-three intricate variations of the sixth movement itself into a flawless sequence.

Even so, no bitterness touched his heart. When compared to the hopeless wall he had faced when first attempting to comprehend it, this level of progression was already nothing short of miraculous, outright defying conventional limits. Mastering the complete sixth sequence would simply be a matter of persistence.

Baek So-cheon threw himself into the grind without a second of hesitation.

The biting chill of winter faded away, yielding to the arrival of spring.

On the afternoon that the season’s initial rainfall began to fall, he successfully unleashed the entire sixth sequence in an unbroken chain.

All twenty-three variations belonging to the Heaven Extinguishing Form blazed across the air with dazzling brilliance. The final stroke cut across the expanse before the afterglow of the initial strike had even faded from sight.

All that remained was to meld the initial five movements smoothly into this sixth.

He was one step closer to the summit.

Carrying the highest spirits he had experienced in ages, Baek So-cheon pushed open the door to his quarters, only to freeze where he stood.

A silhouette stood by the window, watching the rain outside. The sheer breadth of the broad back removed any doubt of the intruder’s identity.

“You have arrived.”

Yeom Hwa-sin turned around, a broad smirk playing across his features.

“You certainly appear to be in high spirits.”

Baek So-cheon released a weary breath.

“I was. Right up until you showed up to spoil it.”