Chapter 2: The First Death

I continued my bleak life as usual today.

When I opened my eyes in the morning, my throat was sore. I wanted to eat a bowl of porridge, and after quenching my thirst, an immeasurable emptiness stung sharply. Then, after a while, I walked outside and started practicing the Six Harmonies Sword Technique, which had become a habit.

Six Harmonies Sword Technique.

It is the most common sword technique in the martial world, and the Six Harmonies Mountain Opening Technique, considered the most basic form in the martial world, is a move where you twist your body halfway to the left and then slash upwards to the right with reverse force. Simply put, it is just a diagonal slash. Even a child can figure it out after following it two or three times.

What is the form of one sequence, the Six Harmonies Sword, that includes the Six Harmonies Mountain Opening Technique?

It consists of a total of 32 movements and 8 basic forms, and it typically takes an ordinary person about a month to master the Six Harmonies Sword. Even lower-level bodyguards in the market need a month of training to master the Six Harmonies Sword.

Moreover, it takes at least five years of practical experience to use these movements seamlessly in real combat. To reach the delicate mastery of a true expert, one must also have a supporting internal energy, so it is safe to say it takes more than 40 years to reach the top level.

And this year marks the 45th year since I started learning martial arts.

However, without even dreaming of reaching the top level, I was training the Six Harmonies Sword Technique every day in a shabby hut. In the martial world, my level, no matter how generous the assessment, would be considered second-rate, an ordinary class that can be seen anywhere.

How did it come to this?

“……”

Whish, whish!

I kept my mouth shut tightly and swung my sword because I felt that if I opened my mouth, curses would come out.

No matter how much I curse, my life isn’t going to change, so I just keep quiet.

It was the minimal comfort I had learned from living a trashy life for a long time.

The reason I don’t train in sword techniques other than the Six Harmonies Sword Technique?

It’s not that I don’t train, I can’t train.

I only know the Six Harmonies Sword Technique for swordsmanship and the Three Talents Heart Technique for internal energy!

I stopped swinging my sword.

And no matter how much I thought about it, it was so wretched that I eventually cursed.

“Damn…”

I was an aspiring master.

I wasn’t from a prestigious martial arts family from the beginning, nor had I received teachings from a renowned master. Despite having no inherent conditions to become a great martial artist, the only reason I forced myself to learn martial arts and cling to martial arts while working as an escort in the security bureau was because of one reason.

I thought it was the only way I could succeed.

I was ugly. So ugly that ever since I was young, women would frown and pass by when they saw my face, and mean girls would spit on me. Among men, the disgust was no different, and a few handsome ones would make fun of me or pull down my pants.

Even so, my family wasn’t well-off, so I hovered between being ordinary and poor. At the age of twelve, both of my parents passed away, and I was taken in by the village chief nearby. The chief treated me like a servant, and I had to live as the servant of the chief’s son. After gaining independence as a bodyguard in the escort bureau, things got a bit better, but the psychological scars from that time remain to this day.

Yes, as soon as I reached an age where I could properly wield a sword, I applied to become an escort guard and worked in the bureau for decades. Since basic martial arts training was provided to guards, I thought that if I trained diligently, I too could succeed. I believed that having the power of martial arts would somehow change my ugly, low-born, crappy life.

And now, I realize that was a delusion.

The escort bureau I worked for was destroyed two years ago by just one top martial artist. The Blood Luminous Hand, known throughout the Central Plains, attacked our bureau under another escort bureau’s commission. Our guards were helplessly killed by him, and though our master eventually managed to kill the Blood Luminous Hand, the damage was irreparable.

In the end, the master declared the disbandment of the bureau, and I was thrown out into the world with the money I had saved until then. I say thrown out because the money I had was only fifty taels, which was far from enough to live on until old age. In the end, I had no choice but to live as a tenant farmer, akin to a commoner.

But with one last stubbornness in life, I refused to live as a tenant farmer.

I had been training in martial arts since my late teens. Although it was only the Six Harmonies Sword Technique and the Three Talents Heart Technique, I thought maybe I could suddenly achieve great success! With that thought, I built a hut in the mountains and began endless training in the realm of the sword.

“… Ah-choo!!”

And in the second year of training, my stamina failed me, and I couldn’t swing my sword any longer. I huddled in a corner of the hut, trembling. It was unbearably cold.

‘Is it… a cold…?’

It was ridiculous.

A master in martial arts novels lives in seclusion in the mountains, training diligently with strong health, don’t they? But I quickly realized this was natural. After two years of eating wild animals, roots, and mushrooms near the mountains due to lack of money, my aging body in its mid to late fifties could not withstand the strain.

And a cold is dangerous. It’s not just a simple illness; I have no way to recover my strength and fight off the cold. At this rate, I would be found as a common corpse in the mountains. With that thought, I hurriedly packed up my belongings in the hut and prepared to descend the mountain.

As I gathered my household items and put them in a bundle, tears suddenly came to my eyes.

“Ah-choo! Cough… cough… sob…”

Even amidst the feverish delirium from the cold, a flood of sorrow overwhelmed me.

How did it come to this?

When I descended the mountain, wasn’t it to master swordsmanship and achieve greatness in the world?

But now, descending the mountain to survive due to malnutrition and a cold was simply absurd.

Nevertheless, I had to live, so I forcibly wiped my tears, strapped the bundle to my back, and started descending the mountain path. It would take about four hours to reach the village, so I carefully navigated the treacherous underbrush.

I had been walking for quite some time.

“Ugh, ugh!”

Thud!

Suddenly, I felt the ground give way beneath my feet, and it seemed like my body was being pulled underground. Before I fell, I hurriedly grabbed onto a tree branch and held on. Dangling there, I saw a cliff more than nine feet deep below me.

Fear overwhelmed me. A martial arts master could easily land safely from such a height using their body techniques, but I was not such a master. My internal energy was so weak that I couldn’t even fend off a cold; falling would surely mean death or serious injury. As the branch seemed about to break, I quickly threw my bundle to the ground below.

I heard the sound of everything shattering with a clang. However, at least I avoided immediate death. Carefully, I moved my hands and feet along the side of the cliff, looking for a place to step. After some fumbling, I managed to find a foothold and let go of the branch, successfully standing on the cliffside.

Now, I had to either climb down or up. Imagining what would be easier, I decided descending would be better. The cliff had more footholds and crevices, and falling while climbing up would be disastrous. I moved with all my might, momentarily forgetting about my cold.

Trembling!

Finally, after sweating profusely, I succeeded in finding a place where I could properly stand with both feet. As I caught my breath, I noticed a cave beside the cliff. A cave in the middle of a cliff was clearly artificial, and curiosity got the better of me, so I moved towards it. I couldn’t stay on the cliff forever, so I had no other choice.

Entering the cave, I felt as if I might survive. Although I wanted to collapse and sleep, I needed to check what kind of place this cave was. So, I decided to walk deeper inside. The pitch-dark cave was quite deep, and I had to feel my way along the walls for some time.

Thunk!

I bumped into a stalactite and got a lump on my head. Holding back a scream from the pain, I sat down. Then, I noticed a light in the distance and cautiously crawled towards it.

The light was coming from a room with a glowing orb embedded in it. A clearly man-made place! Seeing this, I felt like I was going crazy with joy.

“Hooray!”

Is this a stroke of fortune?

Is something I’ve only read about in novels happening for real?

Overjoyed, I felt a hot sensation well up in my throat. I started moving closer to the orb.

At that moment,

Whoosh – Thud

“……”

What just happened?

I felt an excruciating pain wash over me, and my vision started to blur. Then, through the momentary lapse in memory, I realized what had happened. Suddenly, an iron stake had flown straight at me from the front, piercing my abdomen. With my intestines skewered, an overwhelming pain was inevitable.

Blood poured out. Blood gushed from my mouth.

“Ugh, ugh… ugh…”

I knelt down, waiting for the imminent death.

And I regretted it bitterly. If I hadn’t entered this cave, I wouldn’t be dying…

It was only natural for there to be a mechanism guarding a stroke of fortune…

How could my life be so stupid and unlucky!

… Dying?

Am I going to die like this?

“Argh… ugh…”

No, I can’t accept this.

Even if I die, I must at least find out what’s inside that box!

With my last bit of strength, I crawled toward the box. The copper box was designed to be opened even with my dying strength. No, it would be more accurate to say that it was meant to open as soon as it was touched.

“This… this is…”

Just before dying, I reached my right hand into the box and grabbed a book.

At the same time, I lost consciousness from excessive blood loss.

Now, I was dying.

This was my first death.