Chapter 40

Chapter 40

On the way back to my quarters, I spoke to Ma Jintian.
“You said it was a demon soldier of Blood Heaven, right?”
“Yes, a killing machine powerful enough to be called a demon soldier.”
“Then how did you recognize it?”
I shot Ma Jintian a hard look, and he smirked.
“I just skimmed over it. I’ve been interested in the Blood Heaven for a long time, so I know a lot about their characteristics.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. By the way, you’re quite the fighter. Even though I told you I could beat you, you still came at me with such internal injuries.”
“That’s…….”
In retrospect, that was pretty reckless.
I may have cured the wound with a single pill, but it was only temporary.
Besides, I didn’t have that much strength back then.
I’m almost back to my original strength now.
“By the way, are you sure you don’t know?”
“Yes, I really don’t know. It could be the Blood Sky, or it could be something else. My guess is something else. The Blood Sky was completely destroyed back then, Lian Zhu was killed by a sword pierced through his heart by a master of the Volcano Sect, and the rest of the Three Ways were killed by the Shaolin, the shaman, and the master of divination. There’s no reason for them to come back to life.”
“I see…….”
“By the way, we’ll be parting ways tomorrow, do you have anything to prepare?”
“I have.”
“You go ahead, I have some things to do…….”
I waved and headed to my quarters.
Ma Jintian’s words, the mysterious force, and the masked people.
A joint training exercise that only raised questions.
I tucked it away in my heart and prepared to leave.
Suddenly, someone spoke up.
“Now that I think about it, Mr. Mo left in a huff the day after the masked men attacked…….”
At the time, I believed him when he said that he didn’t want to get involved in the affairs between the sects.
But now, after hearing Elder Wen Hu’s words, I feel differently.
“He said that my injuries and the fight with the masked man were due to personal matters…….”
But since he’s already gone, I have questions, but there’s no way to resolve them.
“I’ll have to ask him when I see him someday.”
I tucked one more question away in the back of my mind.
Chapter 6 Premonitions (1)
A month.
That’s how long it took to return home.
Elder Wenhu was a bit late, as he had sent a telegram to Zhang Wenyin in a non-selling manner, and checked to see if the telegram had come through the sect or marker set up by the inner disciple of the volcano.
By the time we reached the last village of Yanhua, the telegram had not arrived, so we arrived at the volcano without incident.
Of course, there were incidents along the way.
The late exponents of the other volcanic factions.
It was their sudden interest.
The status of Land Swordsman and Sun Swordsman, dedicated to the martial arts and extremely interested in them.
As they were rushing towards the Plum Blossom Sword School, they had many questions about my status.
I told them a rough version of the story, but it was sometimes dangerous.
Especially Yuhyeok’s execution.
They didn’t say much to me, who had suddenly gotten stronger since Bimu’s death half a year ago, but there were times when I flinched from unspoken pressure or the occasional quiet word.
But I managed to get through it without incident.
It’s not time to tell them yet.
It’s not the time to tell them, and I can’t tell them because there are many things I don’t know.
I was sorry for Yeonhwa.
The transformation of the Plum Blade.
I’d been lying to her about the Plum Blossom Sword by changing Jiang Tianxu’s diet, so imagine how shocked she was.
But luckily, Yan Hua took it in her stride.
“I’ll let it slide this time. But next time you try to trick me like this, I won’t let you get away with it.”
she threatened.
Volcano.
The entire mountain is made of rock, and a powerful atmosphere fills the entire mountain.
Monolithic rock formations pierce the sky.
Sheer cliffs.
It was refreshing to see them after a long time.
I felt like I was back home.
And then there’s Master Mujin, who I see as soon as I arrive at Volcanic Wave.
My heart leapt with joy at the sight of him.
However, the stares from the other disciples are troubling.
The plum blossom swordsmen and the elders were giving us glances of pride that we had fought enemies strong enough to defeat Elder Wen Hu and Elder Ying Feng of the Sect of the South, and that we had survived, but not the others.
The Sokka disciples, and even the Boping disciples, gave us pathetic glances.
We were even told.
“I heard that there are some dead people? That’s pathetic. If it were me, I wouldn’t have died…….”
Said one of the inner circle disciples.
An ordinary disciple who couldn’t even pass through the gateway on land?
Words that disrespect the dignity of those who died to defend themselves, to defend their comrades.
The swordsman exploded, but was restrained by the Elders and nearby disciples.
But even I cringed, so what of the others?
They stopped him, but rightfully so, and gave the acolyte a stern glare.
The other elders were rumored to have given him a stern warning after our passage.
I remember laughing heartily with Yeonhwa, of course.
It was a week after our return to the Volcano Wave.
Time had flown by.
Checkpoints and gates.
The world knows it as a gate, but its origin is a door.
The Elders of the Dao Family in the Senate and the Jinn who are active in the Volcanic Sect’s checkpoints.
The battle for the power of the Volcanic Sect has begun.
An unspoken battle had begun among the elders, though it was not a long one.
The volcano’s stabbing momentum was still in full force, and it was as strong as ever, but for some reason, the volcano’s energy was dwindling.
However, Plum Blossom Sword Sect Master Zhang Chuiyi’s sect’s operation was the talk of the town.
A joint exercise between the Sect of the South and the Volcano Sect.
The raid revealed the problems of the Volcano Sect.
A problem that Liu Hyuk, Wan Chengfeng, Yan Hua, and I all have in common.
The land swordsmen are only aiming for the top, not the bottom.
Some of the people in the Swords of the Sun are content and complacent.
The difference between the Plum Blade and the Seon Sword is vast.
It was said that Liu Hyuk was approaching the Plum Blade Sword.
You don’t know, that was only in comparison to the other Good Swordsmen, but in comparison to the Plum Blade Swordsmen, he was only a little closer.
When we returned to the Volcanic Sect, we were greeted by three plum blades.
One, one, one.
We were overwhelmed and unable to move as they emitted culminating prayers.
The leader of the Masked People, strong?
But they are also strong.
If there were only two of them, there would not have been so much damage done there.
The Late Exponents are in their mid-twenties to early thirties.
However, there are powerful Unmanned that have surpassed the limits of the Late Elders.
These were men whose power alone rivaled that of the elders.
Elders who had spent at least forty years training in martial arts.
For someone in their mid-twenties to possess such a level of martial prowess came as a tremendous shock to us.
Elders are old. So it’s easy to attribute their strength to their age and experience.
But they are young. They are only about ten years older than us.
Their similar age makes their powerlessness seem real.
Judging from their age and experience, the elders would naturally win in a real fight, but they would not be able to easily defeat them with something like a secret weapon.
Furthermore, they had heard that this Plum Blossom Sword was incomparably stronger than the previous ones.
It seemed to be true.
That was why the problem was even worse this time.
Jiang Wenyin had taken action.
A year after we returned to the Volcanic Sect, he created the position of Plain Swordsman as a consolation prize for the Good Swordsman.
The rank of swordsman included Liu Hyuk and Man Qingfeng, as well as Zhang Il, who was not much different from Liu Hyuk.
Yan Hua is not as good as Liu Hyuk and Man Qingfeng, so she is not yet ready for this position. She’s stuck in the preliminary examination.
The same goes for the others.
Zhang Wenyin said that those with the same skills as Liu Hyuk, Zhang Il, and Man Qingfeng could become plain swordsmen.
However, it would be unreasonable to judge them based on their skills alone.
What you need to be a strong swordsman is powerful force and intelligence.
And one more thing is indispensable.
Practical experience.
Just as land was necessary to become a land swordsman, and the seven wisdoms were necessary to become a seon swordsman, so too was actual practice to become a plain swordsman.
Not the simple delivery of goods as a seon swordsman, but real-world experience, such as working for a marksman in a marking station or protecting an important person.
And there was another change.
There was also another change: the boping disciples, the inner disciples, and the immediate disciples.
Boping disciples, the lowest level of disciples, consisting of children.
The number of children received was doubled in order to increase the size of the sect.
Sokka disciples, who take children from the Sokka family, but not all of them, only the children of the mu family. The Huashan School does not run on money. But they do run on talent.
Therefore, whereas the Boping disciples increased quantity, the Sokga disciples increased quality.
The number of immediate disciples, and even before that, the number of elders, was limited.
However, since the number of complementary disciples has increased, the probability of becoming an immediate disciple has decreased even further.
Therefore, the Bopyeonggak was enlarged to accommodate all but the immediate disciples.
And it was decided that all disciples would be trained in the same place, whether they were immediate disciples or Bopyeong disciples.
The training of the immediate disciples was changed to after they had completed their training in the Volcano School.
It is natural that the immediate disciples, who are trained directly by the elders after they have risen to the rank of land swordsman or higher, would be stronger than the companion disciples who train together, but in the beginning there was little difference.
These are the two major changes.
There are other minor changes.
But none of them made much of an impression.
Three years is a short time for a sect, but the Volcano Sect has accomplished a lot.
The Volcanic Sect’s best generator.
At the end of its development, it will be on the same level as the old sect.
I became a prefectural swordsman.
One day, three years later.
“I wonder what happened now? Are you okay?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“This mission, are you sure you’re okay with it?”
“Uh, it’s not a very dangerous mission. You know the Sword Sect, right? The Sword Sect, one of the Five Great Sects of Shanxi Province.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“They’re fighting an emerging sect called the Iron Sword Sect, and I’m just going on a support mission there. It’s a formality. Elder Mu Jin is your master, so you don’t have to worry.”
“That’s why I’m more worried. Elder Mu Zhen, Yu Hyuk, and Zhang Il. Aren’t they all going together?”
“It’s Elder Mu Jin, Elder, and Yoo Hyuk and Zhang Il, they’re all plain swordsmen. There are only three of them with cold-bloodedness. Aside from Plum Blade, who’s out in the open, they’re the best late-stage swordsmen in the Volcano Sect. They’re the ones you don’t have to worry about.”
Yan Hua’s words were pointed.
But how can she know this feeling?
This uneasy feeling.
This feeling of being drifting away.
“But…….”
“Stop. It’s already been decided. You’re not even a child, why are you so worried? Are you afraid to be alone?”
“I’ll be nineteen after winter, I have nothing to be afraid of.”
“Then just be quiet and trust. It’s your job to trust.”
“Okay…….”
I nodded reluctantly.
Yanhua smiled broadly.