Chapter 67 – Martial Realm Path
So Sang-kyu handed me an apple.
Not a special one. Just… an apple. Red, a bit bruised on one side, polished with the edge of his sleeve until it squeaked.
He offered it like it was a greeting.
I stared at it for a second, then at him.
He sat on the stool beside my bed like he'd been carved into it. Broad shoulders, loose clothes, bandages peeking out here and there. Seven mana cores pulsed faintly inside his body like lanterns in a fog, each one beating at its own rhythm, somehow not tearing him apart.
He watched me with that casual dragon gaze of his and said, in very broken Imperial Common:
"You. Burn-big. Sleep-long. Now eat."
His accent murdered half the vowels.
I took the apple anyway.
"Thanks," I said.
He nodded, satisfied, like that was an entire conversation.
Silence settled between us. Outside the window, Ocria groaned and rattled, rebuilding itself. Inside, the room smelled like herbs, alcohol, and too many bandages.
…Right.
Talking.
I chewed a bite of apple and tried to work out how to have a conversation with a man whose Common sounded like it had been beaten with a rock.
In my head, Imperial Common still wanted to be called something else.
English.
Same structure, same sounds, same lazy vowels. Somewhere, some god or developer had gotten tired and hit copy–paste, then slapped "Imperial Common" on the label.
So Sang-kyu hadn't been in this part of the world long. His Common was rough, but there was something familiar in the way he mangled the consonants.
Safon accent.
Eastern.
If Common was just… English with a new name, then Safon's own native languages had to be here too. Just with different stickers.
I remembered hearing Korean before—once, in a life that technically didn't exist anymore. Never spoke it. Just enough to recognize it when it hit my ears.
And Safon was big. If there was Korean, then south of that there could be—
Hindi.
It was a stupid idea.
So, obviously, I tried it.
I swallowed the bite, cleared my throat, and switched languages.
"Do you understand what I'm saying?" {In Hindi: "क्या आप मुझे समझते हैं?"}
So Sang-kyu froze.
His eyes widened, the way a martial artist's eyes do when the person in front of them suddenly pulls out a weapon they're not supposed to have.
"H-how… you know Devanagari?" {In Devanagari: "तुम… देवनागरी कैसे जानते हो?"}
Devanagari.
So that's what they called it here.
Not just script. Language.
Close enough.
Relief ran through me like a clean breath.
"At a guess," I answered in the same language, slow and careful. {In Hindi: "बस… अंदाज़ा लगाया। लगता था यह भाषा यहाँ भी होगी।"}
"I thought it might exist here too."
He stared a second longer, then laughed. Short, delighted, like a kid who'd just seen a new kind of firework.
"Hah. This world very funny." {In Devanagari: "हा। ये दुनिया बहुत मज़ेदार है।"}
"Tell me about it," I muttered.
Switching to Devanagari—fine, Hindi—slid something into place. His words smoothed out. Mine did too. His thoughts came through clearer in that tongue than they ever would in butchered Common.
I sat up a little, wincing as my ribs complained and my core twitched.
"So," I said, wiping apple juice off my thumb, {In Hindi: "तो… आप देवनागरी कैसे जानते हैं?"}
"How did you learn this language?"
He leaned back, folding his arms, gaze drifting to the ceiling as if he were watching old roads redraw themselves above us.
"Martial realm," he said simply. {In Devanagari: "मार्शल क्षेत्र।"}
"I walked. I fought. I begged food. I listened."
His voice warmed as he talked, like this was a story he'd told himself a thousand times just to remember who he was.
"Where I from, Safon, there is mountain, seas, big cities," he went on. {In Hindi: "जहाँ से मैं हूँ, सैफ़ोन में, पहाड़ हैं, समुद्र हैं, बड़े शहर हैं।"}
"Every sect say, 'Our fist is sky, our kick is earth, our master is god.' Boring."
He smiled, faint.
"So I walked," he said. {In Devanagari: "इसलिए मैं चल पड़ा।"}
"North, south, east, west. If someone strong, I asked to learn. If they refused, I watched. If I could not watch, I stole the feeling from their fists."
Of course he did.
"So you just… wandered," I said. {In Hindi: "तो आप बस… चलते रहे?"}
"Yes," he said.
"Villages. Temples. Desert. Then south—different people. Different food. Different gods. They spoke Devanagari there. I did not know the words, but the way they breathe spirit, that I knew."
He tapped his chest.
"Qi. Prana. Life-force. Many names," he said. {In Devanagari: "क़ी, प्राण, जीवन-शक्ति। नाम बहुत हैं।"}
"All same thing, twisted in different mouths."
He laced his fingers together, then slowly pulled them apart for emphasis.
"When I learned all I could from one land, I took boat," he continued. {In Hindi: "जब मैंने एक जगह से जितना सीख सकता था सीख लिया, तो मैं नाव पर चढ़ा।"}
"Across sea. Safon behind, strange west ahead. I thought, 'If fist can reach sky, why not another continent?'"
"And you ended up in Morel," I said. {In Hindi: "और आप मोरेल आ गए।"}
He nodded once.
"Monster in sea. Monsters on land. Monsters in city wearing silk," he said dryly. {In Devanagari: "समुद्र में राक्षस। ज़मीन पर राक्षस। शहर में रेशम पहन कर घूमने वाले राक्षस।"}
"But also good wine. And strong youth with pretty face and foolish fire."
He side-eyed me deliberately.
"Harbard."
I ignored the "pretty face" part.
Barely.
"Can you teach me?" I asked.
No dancing around it. No ceremony. Just the question that had been circling my mind since I'd seen his cores.
"Teach me how you cultivate. The martial realm path. Qi."
He went quiet.
The hospital sounds faded into a distant blur—soft footsteps, the clink of vials, a healer muttering outside. So Sang-kyu watched me like he was weighing not my words, but the space around them.
"Your world already has power," he said at last. {In Hindi: "तुम्हारी दुनिया में पहले से शक्ति है।"}
"Mages. Mana cores. Derivations. You cut sky, burn monsters, make swords scream."
"I know," I said. "That's the problem."
I let my head fall back into the pillow, staring up at the ceiling.
Mana core. Vectors. Derivations. I'd pushed them as far as I reasonably could for now. The S-rank core hummed in my chest, still tired but steady.
But watching him?
Watching seven cores braided through his meridians, his very *veins* acting like channels, his body itself turned into an array?
That was something else.
"In my last run, I never had enough mana," I said quietly. {In Hindi: "पिछली बार, मेरे पास कभी काफ़ी मना नहीं था।"}
"Now I do. But mana doesn't fix everything. My body's still… human. If I want to keep throwing spells like Promethean Inferno without dying at thirty, I need another layer."
Qi.
Life-force.
A second resource, parallel to mana, twined around it.
Dangerous.
Beautiful.
So Sang-kyu scratched his cheek, thinking.
"Where I come from," he said slowly, {In Devanagari: "जहाँ से मैं आता हूँ,"}
"Qi is the soul of breath. Every living thing has it. Fish in river. Tree on mountain. Child in street. It is how you *insist* on existing."
"Cultivation," I murmured. "Training that insistence."
He nodded.
"The more you refine Qi, the harder you are to move," he said. {In Hindi: "जितना ज़्यादा तुम क़ी को शुद्ध करते हो, उतना मुश्किल होता है तुम्हें हिलाना।"}
"Blades do not go as deep. Poisons flow slower. Time walks more gently over your bones."
He paused.
"But…" he added.
There it was.
"But," I echoed. {In Hindi: "लेकिन?"}
He raised a hand and curled his fingers into a fist.
"If you burn Qi too fast, you burn *you*," he said simply. {In Devanagari: "अगर तुम क़ी को बहुत तेज़ जलाओगे, तो अपने आपको जलाओगे।"}
"Mana empties and you faint. Qi empties and your years vanish. Life gets… shorter. Soul gets thin."
Double-edged sword.
Of course.
I thought of my S-rank core, of all the mess it let me power through. If I added another system on top of that—one tied directly to my lifespan—I'd have to be even more cautious than usual.
Which, given my track record, was hilarious.
"So like a second core," I said slowly. {In Hindi: "तो जैसे दूसरा कोर।"}
"Parallel to mana. But paid for in… years."
He shrugged.
"Not only years," he said. {In Devanagari: "सिर्फ़ साल नहीं।"}
"Habits. Attachments. Weakness. To hold more Qi, you let some things die. To push it, you risk more. Some martial artists shine bright and die young. Some go slow, live long, become old monsters. Path is choice."
Melody hummed softly from the corner, amusement threaded through her voice.
"Sounds familiar, Master," she said, only for me. "Burn bright and die or crawl and live. You do love these false choices."
I ignored her.
"How do I start?" I asked. "How do I cultivate at all?"
So Sang-kyu leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, eyes intent.
"First, you must understand this," he said. {In Hindi: "पहले तुम्हें यह समझना होगा।"}
"Qi is not mana. Mana is the ink. Qi is the pressure of your hand on the brush. The will behind the stroke."
Interesting way to put it.
"When you move mana, you move outside," he continued. {In Devanagari: "जब तुम मना को चलाते हो, तुम बाहर की चीज़ें चलाते हो।"}
"Air, fire, stone, lightning. When you move Qi, you move *self.* Bone. Blood. Thought. Instinct."
He tapped his chest again.
"In my land, we say there are many stages," he said. {In Hindi: "मेरे देश में हम कहते हैं कि कई स्तर होते हैं।"}
"Body-refining, meridian-opening, Yuan Qi, True Qi… names pile up. But all of them are just this: breathing on purpose until the world must admit you are hard to kill."
I snorted.
"That's one way to sell it," I said.
He grinned.
"You heal from big burn faster than you should," he pointed out. {In Devanagari: "तुम इतने बड़े जलने से जितनी जल्दी उभरे, वो सामान्य नहीं है।"}
"You already walked half a step onto this path just by refusing to die. Your life-force is stubborn. Good seed."
"For a weed, maybe," I muttered.
He sat back, considering.
Then he nodded once, as if coming to a decision.
"I can teach you beginning," he said. {In Hindi: "मैं तुम्हें शुरुआत सिखा सकता हूँ।"}
"How to feel Qi, how to breathe without wasting it, how to let body and mana core stop fighting like stupid children."
He raised a finger.
"But," he added again.
"Another but," I said. Of course.
"If you walk martial path and mage path together," he said quietly, {In Devanagari: "अगर तुम मार्शल रास्ता और मेज का रास्ता दोनों साथ चलोगे,"}
"Everything in you will be asked to grow. Fast. Wrong. Right. If you are greedy, you will snap. If you are lazy, you will stagnate. Qi punishes fools faster than mana."
"Good thing I'm only half a fool," I said.
Melody snickered.
"That's… optimistic math, Master."
I stared at my hands.
Mana circuits. Sword callouses. The faint tremor still lurking under the skin after burning a whole district.
I didn't have the luxury of stagnation.
If the Outer was already nibbling at the edges of this world, sitting still was just a slower way to die.
"How do I grow stronger Qi?" I asked. {In Hindi: "क़ी को मज़बूत कैसे करूँ?"}
"Breathe," So Sang-kyu said.
I blinked.
"That's it?" I said.
He smiled.
"Breathe correctly," he amended. {In Devanagari: "सही तरह से साँस लेना।"}
"Stand correctly. Hit correctly. Eat correctly. Refuse to stay down correctly. All those boring things no one wants to hear when they ask for secret technique."
Of course.
Foundations.
The thing every genius wanted to skip and every monster had carved into their bones.
"Will you teach me properly?" I asked. "Not just words."
He nodded once.
"Yes," he said simply. {In Hindi: "हाँ।"}
"But first, you feed me."
I blinked.
"What?"
He planted a hand on his own stomach.
It growled loud enough to make the healer outside the door jump.
"These people," he said, jerking his chin toward the hall, {In Devanagari: "ये लोग,"}
"speak your Common. I speak badly. If I try to ask for food, they bring me soup. Always soup. Or soft rice. I am tired of soup."
He pulled a face like someone had suggested he cultivate by drinking lukewarm bathwater.
"I fought big monster," he added, almost petulant. "You blew up half a city. I carried you here like sack of flour. Now I am hungry. If you want lessons, you buy meat."
I stared at him for a second.
Then I started laughing.
It hurt. My ribs complained. My core twitched. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes.
Still laughed.
"Alright," I wheezed eventually, wiping my face. "Fine. First lesson cost: one ridiculous meat-heavy meal."
He brightened instantly.
"Good," he said. {In Hindi: "अच्छा।"}
"After we eat, I make you regret asking."
"Comforting," I said.
He stood, stretching, joints popping. For a moment, the bandages and tiredness fell away, and I could see the outline of what he really was.
A man whose body had become his cultivation manual.
A fist that had learned how to argue with the world and win.
He glanced back over his shoulder at me on his way to the door.
"Remember," he said. {In Devanagari: "याद रखना,"}
"Qi is not trick. Not spell. It is you deciding, every breath, not to die yet. You sure you want more of that weight?"
I met his gaze.
"Someone has to carry it," I said quietly. {In Hindi: "किसी न किसी को तो उठाना ही होगा।"}
"Might as well be someone who already made a habit of it."
He studied me for another beat, then grinned.
"Then hurry," he said. "Before soup comes again."
He stepped out into the hall.
His stomach growled a second time, even louder.
I sighed, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and started figuring out how to walk with a body that still felt half-cooked.
Martial path, huh.
Breathing on purpose until the world gave up trying to bury me.
Sounded exhausting.
And exactly like what I needed.