Chapter 44 - Mount Tai Bears Down

He realized with absolute clarity just how powerless he still was. He had thought he had grown much stronger, but he still had a long way to go. Apparently, being a special existence—a game character—had unwittingly planted a fatal weakness in him: complacency.

In some ways, martial arts were far more overpowered than game Skills. The people of Murim practiced those arts, and he had let his guard down in a place teeming with such people.

Once again, he drilled it into himself: never let your guard down.

He had to become stronger. If only to survive, he had to become stronger.

Leveling up was a given, but he resolved to work hard at learning martial arts as well.

From what Dong Bongsu had felt, Gosangong's movements and swordsmanship had been disciplined within their established patterns. Though Gosangong had failed to put those movements to effective use, the Heavenly Wind Sword Art he had performed was leagues beyond Dong Bongsu's flailing or the swordsmanship he had learned at a gym in Korea.

That earlier battle had made Dong Bongsu keenly aware of why people here spoke of martial arts rather than mere fighting techniques. Martial arts were not simply techniques that made the body faster and attacks stronger.

Even when making the same cut, Gosangong, who had trained in martial arts, was far more precise and natural than he was.

He had to learn martial arts to survive.

As these thoughts passed through his mind, Dong Bongsu finished retracing the entire battle.

POP! WHOOSH!

Yet he continued his dance without pausing for even a moment. The thought that he needed to learn martial arts had naturally set his body moving that way.

Before he knew it, Dong Bongsu had become Gosangong, performing the Heavenly Wind Sword Art himself.

In the dance he had just performed to review the battle, he had faced Gosangong as the level-seven Dong Bongsu. Now he was Gosangong, attacking the level-seven Dong Bongsu.

The Heavenly Wind Sword Art reproduced by his hands had only its outward forms, without the mental cultivation method behind them, but those forms bore an astonishing resemblance to Gosangong's.

Reconstructing the forms. His perfect recollection of the battle made it possible.

WHOOOSH! WHOOSH!

Heavenly Wind Flowing Cloud, Heavenly Wind Thunderbolt, Heavenly Wind Opening Heaven.

Dong Bongsu imitated the three forms of the Heavenly Wind Sword Art over and over, cutting down his imagined self without even knowing their names. Once again, he understood how lucky he had been in last night's battle. Had he been the one properly wielding the Heavenly Wind Sword Art, the “level-seven Dong Bongsu” could never have reached level ten.

WHIRRR!

Strangely, the longer he continued moving, the further his imitation strayed from Gosangong's Heavenly Wind Sword Art. At the same time, the sound of wind from his hands was gradually fading.

What was happening?

His movements were clearly growing fiercer. Even so, the “sword wind” he stirred grew ever weaker. That wind was very different from Gosangong's sharp “heavenly wind.” This was certainly not a matter of whether it carried internal energy.

Dong Bongsu's sword wind was simply, strangely, gentle and unhurried. No, more precisely, it was changing to resemble him, taking on a sense of “nothingness.” Perhaps the Heavenly Wind Sword Art unfolding in his hands, and its sword wind, were naturally becoming his own.

Even if someone of elder rank or higher from the Namgung Clan were to see his dance now, they probably would not recognize it as the Heavenly Wind Sword Art. In fact, even in form, Dong Bongsu's swordsmanship was no longer the Heavenly Wind Sword Art. If one had to give it a name, perhaps the Windless Sword Art would fit.

WHIRRRR!

WHIRRR...

WHIR...

...

Dong Bongsu's dance finally came to an end when the morning sun rose. It was just as the meeting in the King's Hall ended, though of course he had no way of knowing that.

“Whew...”

Dong Bongsu slowly opened his eyes, letting out a deep breath. His body was soaked in sweat from the vigorous dance, but his eyes had grown deeper and more ordinary than before.

Today, he had not only reached level ten, but unexpectedly gained a “taste” for the sword. His thrusts would no longer be mere thrusts, nor his slashes mere slashes. The thrusts and slashes executed by his hands had finally crossed from swinging a sword into the realm of sword technique. But the realms of a true art or the Way... were they not still unimaginably far away? Without instruction, reaching them would probably take a very long time.

“Huff, huff.”

Dong Bongsu was breathing so hard that even repeated deep breaths did little to steady him. He had not noticed while dancing in his trance, but the moment he emerged from it, exhaustion flooded his whole body.

But he could not rest yet. He still had work to do. Perhaps what came next was even more important than the sword dance he had performed all night.

The changes brought by leveling up.

He needed to check them. Normally, he would have done that first thing upon returning to his room, but he had put it off because he had felt compelled to reconstruct yesterday's battle immediately.

Now that he had more or less finished, it was time to see what changes gaining three levels had brought.

As usual, Dong Bongsu opened his stats window first.

His stats had increased by their usual fixed amounts. Nothing was different here: they had risen by exactly three levels' worth. Judging by his experience so far, that much growth was more than enough to equal the difference between a middle schooler and a high schooler. Dong Bongsu knew very well that this was no small difference.

Next, he opened his Inventory window.

Nothing had changed.

He looked through it carefully once more, just in case, but there were no newly granted weapons, gear, or Items.

Strictly speaking, there were additions to his Inventory: the corpses of Gosangong and his squad members. He had swept up every scrap of their bodies left over after writing the warning and brought them with him. Of course, there was no longer any way to tell which was Gosangong and which were his men. It was hard to recognize the original shape of a rag once it had been torn to shreds.

Dong Bongsu scanned his entire Inventory one final time. He had reached level ten, but New Murim Online had bestowed no special gift upon him.

It was less that he had hoped for one than that he had assumed there would be one. Ten was not inherently more special than any other number, but modern Earth, at least, was a world built on the decimal system. People found it strange if something significant did not change at intervals of ten. Money was denominated in powers of ten as a matter of course, and dividing ages into decades was commonplace. Games like this, in particular, usually introduced some meaningful change every ten levels to satisfy their players' expectations. But there were always exceptions.

He was not disappointed. He had not checked all the changes yet.

Dong Bongsu steadied his ragged breathing once more and closed the Inventory window.

CLICK!

Next came the Equipment window. At last, Dong Bongsu found an unusual change that had not been there before.

'Hmm?'

A small, round button had appeared in the upper right corner of the Equipment window. The words “Divine Beast” were clearly printed at its center.

Dong Bongsu pressed it without hesitation. Accompanied by a familiar electronic sound, a strange window opened that looked like a combination of the stats and Equipment windows. Besides combining the two, it differed from his own windows in another way.

The character slot—the place for the owner of the Equipment and stats—was empty.

Though he had never seen this window before and was unfamiliar with games, Dong Bongsu could easily infer why the character slot was empty.

It had to be because he had not recruited a Divine Beast yet.

He did not need to try it to understand that much. As its name suggested, the owner of this Divine Beast window would obviously be a Divine Beast.

The problem was that Dong Bongsu had no way of guessing exactly what a Divine Beast was. Whether it referred to something like the mercenaries common in games, or literally meant an animal or object imbued with spiritual power, was something he would have to discover later.

He examined the Divine Beast window briefly, then closed it. Looking any longer would tell him nothing, and there were no Divine Beasts here for him to recruit anyway.

He could not be certain, but if he encountered a Divine Beast he could acquire or equip, the system would probably notify him somehow. There was no need to dwell on this now.

Outside, it was nearly full daylight, and he did not have much time. Before long, the Namgung Clan would probably be thrown into an uproar over what he had done yesterday. Once that happened, he would no longer have the leisure to sit here checking things like the Divine Beast window.

He moved straight on to the Skill window.

CLICK!

When he opened the Skill window, he found one new Skill.

[Three Forces Sword Art, Third Form: Mount Tai Bears Down Lv.1 Proficiency: 0%]

Mount Tai Bears Down is an enhanced downward strike.

Vertical Strike Range Bonus: 1%

Vertical Strike Attack Power Bonus: 1%

Vertical Strike Execution Speed Bonus: 0%

Following Sweep Away a Thousand Armies and Direct Strike Yellow Dragon came the third form of the Three Forces Sword Art: Mount Tai Bears Down. Given the “Three” in its name, this was probably its final form.

It suddenly occurred to him that fighting Gosangong would have been much easier if he had possessed Mount Tai Bears Down then. Since he had relied mainly on Direct Strike Yellow Dragon for thrusts and Sweep Away a Thousand Armies for horizontal slashes, his swordplay had inevitably been repetitive.

Now he could receive Skill bonuses for all the basic sword movements: Horizontal Slash, Vertical Strike, and Thrust. He possessed both an active Skill—the Three Forces Sword Art—and passive Skills for every one of them.

Still, to be honest, the active Skill, Three Forces Sword Art, was less a set of forms than enhanced versions of basic movements. From now on, the true foundation of Dong Bongsu's swordsmanship would probably be the Windless Swordsmanship born from his earlier imitation of the Heavenly Wind Sword Art. If the abilities of passive Skills such as Thrust and Cut, along with the active Skill Three Forces Sword Art, were layered over that Windless Swordsmanship, his sword strikes might perhaps become far superior to the Heavenly Wind Sword Art Gosangong had wielded.