Lunch break.
Because Arin's dad had said that and left, I couldn't cluelessly say, "I'm going to eat with my family~," and head out.
I had already decided to have dinner with Grandpa and Father, so for now I headed to the academy dining hall.
As soon as I entered, Sanghyeok sprang up and waved his hand.
"Hey! Over here, over here!"
"Wait. I'll order something too. Let's eat first."
Arin nodded.
Despite being a place frequented by young masters, the academy dining hall required you to do everything yourself.
You had to go order the food yourself, and when it came out on a tray, you had to carry it yourself as well.
It was a way of fostering independence.
On the battlefield, no one brought food to you or cleaned up after you.
Especially with tableware—if you didn't keep track of it properly, you'd end up regretting it soon enough.
I ordered a bowl of soup and rice, brought it over, and sat across from Sanghyeok.
After glancing around, Sanghyeok asked,
"Seriously, nothing happened?"
"Nothing happened."
"If you were alone together until sunset, something had to have happened. Come on, tell me."
When men get together, the topics usually fall into three categories.
Martial arts, immortals, and women.
"I said nothing happened."
"Tch. You're nothing special either. I thought you were an adult."
"..."
A mere fifteen-year-old dared to poke at my pride.
In my previous life, it wasn't like I had no experience—I'd dated plenty. A romance loser? No, a master.
...
But thinking about it, nothing really happened in that regard.
Still, I couldn't back down here.
Time to bluff a little.
"You think nothing happened? Things way beyond what you're imagining happened."
That wasn't a lie.
Yin energy rampaging, cutting down the Baekdu Sword Ghost along with his weapon—
You couldn't exactly call that nothing.
It just wasn't that kind of thing.
"Ooh~ sounds like something really did happen? Tell me."
"Kids don't need to know."
"Kids? We're the same age."
"Same age, different experience. Like I said, I experienced something incredible."
"Won't you share that incredible experience with your friend?"
That was when it happened.
Someone pulled out the chair next to me and sat down.
It was Yoo Arin.
Arin smiled faintly, brushed back the hair at her temple, and asked me,
"Is that good?"
"Huh?"
Sanghyeok stared at me like, what is this supposed to be?
For the past three months, Arin hadn't spoken to anyone without a specific reason.
"Uh, it's okay…."
"Should I try that next time?"
Sanghyeok looked at me and nodded as if acknowledging something.
What's wrong with him now?
And so, the ordinary days began again.
The Body Path Mind Method.
A mind method created by gathering only the strengths of all internal cultivation methods that exist in the world.
The starting point of this method is perfectly understanding one's own body.
As always, after absorbing Arin's yin energy, I sat her down in front of me.
It was time to properly teach the Body Path Mind Method.
Of course, Sanghyeok would be learning alongside her.
"So I finally get to learn that mysterious power of yours."
"It won't be easy. This is just a foundational mind method. Learning it won't make you strong. It just makes your body healthier and teaches you how to circulate energy."
You could call it a prerequisite for becoming strong.
In any case, if you firmly establish the foundation, it will help later when learning new mind methods.
"First, we start with the Illuminated Path. Compress your energy into something small and make it as sensitive as possible. Sensitive enough to feel everything. Got it?"
Sanghyeok and Arin closed their eyes at the same time and began to focus.
"Tell me when you've formed it. It'll take a while."
"I've got it."
Sanghyeok spoke first.
How many seconds has it been? That talented bastard.
Then—
"Me too."
Arin had formed it as well.
What?
Did it really take me days just to make that?
"Are you sure you did it properly? It's not just clumping energy together. It should feel like that energy has eyes—like you can sense everything."
Arin and Sanghyeok nodded as if asking why I was even asking.
These crazy bastards.
If you get jealous, you lose.
And after my regression, it took me less than a second too.
I didn't lose.
"Good. Now use that to travel through all the meridians in your body. Slowly, sensing everything. Don't skip any side paths."
Without answering, the two of them focused.
This was bound to take some time.
While they were illuminating their paths, I decided to train the Strengthened Path.
The Strengthened Path was similar to the Illuminated Path.
You compress your energy as large and sharp as possible, then temper your meridians.
Even after I completed a full circuit and opened my eyes, Arin and Sanghyeok were still diligently training the Illuminated Path.
As expected, this takes a long time.
There was no helping it when first training the Illuminated Path.
It was like exploring a maze with nothing but a single torch—unless you were extraordinarily talented, it would take a long time.
After making several more rounds with the Strengthened Path, I clapped my hands.
"All right, that's enough for today. The first full circuit will be very difficult. There are many meridians that have been tightly closed from lack of use. Your first goal is to train the Illuminated Path every day and open all of them. It'll take quite a while."
Sanghyeok said, looking dejected,
"This is hard. I don't think I even got halfway."
"..."
Was that bastard planning to complete a full circuit in a single day?
How long did it take me again?
Right. Three months.
...All geniuses should just die.
Just as I was thinking that, Arin said in a subdued voice,
"I only got about halfway too. Sorry."
Sorry for what, exactly?
For not meeting expectations?
If so, that was true.
I wanted to see these two geniuses struggle.
You didn't meet my expectations.
"...The Illuminated Path is just repetition. Keep training it, thinking of it as paving a road. If you repeat it about a thousand times, everything will open cleanly."
From here on, talent didn't matter.
Just repetition.
But these kids were geniuses even when it came to effort, so they'd finish quickly.
"If you do it ten times a day, you'll be done in a hundred days."
Of course, even getting to ten times a day would take a while.
Right now, a single circuit of the meridians would probably take them a full day.
Once all the paths were opened and the map of the body was complete, true training could begin.
"Then we're done for today. See you tomorrow."
After Sanghyeok and Arin returned to their dorms, I stayed alone in the training grounds and began the next stage of training.
"It's about time to really begin."
The Falling Moon Sword Art.
Everything so far had been nothing more than preparation for training this art.
Thanks to Arin, my proficiency in the Extreme Yang Divine Art had increased significantly.
During the day, I repeatedly separated and mixed yang and yin energy, and at night I trained to convert yin energy into yang.
After three months of repetition, I could finally separate yin energy and convert it into yang fast enough to use in real combat.
"If I prepare it in advance, I might really die before forty, so I have to generate it in real time."
Storing yang energy in advance shortened one's lifespan.
That's why I had to practice converting yin into yang in real time and replenishing it immediately.
"Just thinking about it makes me want to puke."
In actual combat, where a single mistake meant death, I'd have to separate yin and yang, then send that yin energy to my heart and convert it into yang—all at once.
It was like drawing two different pictures with both hands at the same time.
"But I have to do it."
If I didn't want my body to collapse and die before forty, I had no choice.
I wasn't attached to my lifespan, but if I died young in my forties, who would stop the Rakshasa?
The war dragged on for a long time.
It took decades before all the eastern kingdoms fell, and considering the western nations as well, the war would continue until I was at least eighty.
I couldn't die at forty.
"If you just keep training, there's nothing you can't do."
It was a truth I'd learned by living long.
It was only a matter of time.
There was nothing humans couldn't accomplish.
Thinking that, I circulated the yang energy I had converted.
My entire body glowed with a golden light, and an indescribable sense of elation washed over me.
This was where the Falling Moon Sword Art truly began.
"Hup."
To keep myself from getting carried away, I took a deep breath and slowly moved my body.
Every movement of the Falling Moon Sword Art demanded superhuman flexibility, strength, and balance.
Unless one was in a state of yang energy rampage, they were movements no human could continuously perform.
The motions were so bizarre they were almost like those of a Rakshasa.
The saying that extremes converge applied here as well.
Even while continuing these incomprehensible movements, I never stopped generating yang energy.
As my concentration split in two, the precision of the technique began to drop.
'Focus. Focus.'
I had to handle two things at once—and do both perfectly.
Maintaining maximum concentration, I completed all the movements and let out a deep breath.
I was so exhausted my mind went blank.
"I'll get used to it."
But would I get used to it in three months?
"No matter how much I prepare, it still feels like it's not enough."
Unless something unexpected happened, Arin would go berserk during summer break three months from now.
I had to do everything I possibly could before then.
"When the special elixir exhibition happens, I'll have to sweep the auction house clean. This is wrecking my body. It really is."
It felt like it was time to start borrowing the power of money.
After several days of both training myself and instructing Sanghyeok and Arin,
the long-awaited class finally began.
It was Pharmacist Seon's class.
'I studied pharmacology from Pharmacist Seon's books.'
Before my regression, I tried to learn everything I could.
From the moment I realized regression was possible, my previous life became nothing more than a preparation period for after my return, and I memorized knowledge from every field I could.
My only real talent was my memory.
Still, there was one regret.
I had no teacher to ask questions.
There were many parts that were hard to understand through books alone, and since I couldn't ask anyone, I just memorized everything wholesale and hoped for the next life.
And now, finally, I had the chance to ask.
'I couldn't visit in person because I was busy.'
I couldn't bother Pharmacist Seon for no reason.
If I'd known earlier that Arin was taking his class, I might've gone along under the pretense of visiting her.
As we waited for Pharmacist Seon, Sanghyeok spoke up beside me.
"It takes four hours just to do one circuit. When am I supposed to do it a thousand times?"
"That's actually fast."
"After doing all the other training, it's hard to even manage one circuit a day."
"For most people, it takes a week, not a day. That's why it takes about three years to do it perfectly. You'll get faster over time. Eventually, half an hour or even fifteen minutes will be enough."
"I want to get there fast. Three years is kind of…."
"In the span of an entire life, it's not that long. Don't rush it."
Spending three years just on a foundational mind method would naturally make anyone impatient.
But if you thought of those three years as determining the next sixty, it wasn't so unreasonable.
Besides, at Sanghyeok's pace, he'd probably graduate in a year, not three.
"I don't get the herbal studies class. No matter how much I study, they all look the same to me."
"Focus. It's a class you won't be able to take even if you want to later."
"Then you can listen for both of us and explain it to me later."
"...Then just do the Illuminated Path one more time."
"Good idea."
Sanghyeok wasn't as smart as you might expect.
The typical muscle-brain type—good with his body, bad with his head.
The truly flawless genius was Arin.
"Arin, you're taking Pharmacist Seon's class, right?"
"Yeah. I'm learning the Yin-Yang Harmony Divine Art."
A divine art that balanced yin and yang.
It was exactly what the name suggested.
It made sense for Arin to learn it.
But it would probably be useless.
I felt bad for Pharmacist Seon, but the Body Path Mind Method had already extracted only the best parts of the Yin-Yang Harmony Divine Art.
Still, I couldn't help but feel envious that she was being taught directly by Pharmacist Seon.
"That's nice. Classes with Pharmacist Seon. What kind of person is he?"
"...."
Arin blinked.
To me, he was one of the greatest figures.
How many insights and how much help had I gained from reading his books?
He was my benefactor and a great teacher.
I wanted to know even one more thing about him.
Arin muttered quietly, so softly it was hard to hear,
"…a foul-mouthed old man."
"Huh?"
I didn't catch that. What did you just say?