Chapter 16 - A Third-Rate Warrior Saving a Girl (3)

Back at the Iron Sword Sect.

Seong Cheonwol, who had rejected everyone else's requests for instruction but could not ignore the Chief Strategist of the Murim Alliance, saw Zhuge Somyeong off with a rotten expression before seeking out Seong Mohyeon, who had been causing a ruckus in the Golden Jade Prison for days.

"You little punk! Do you think you can keep your life after doing this?! Who will inherit the Iron Sword Sect in the future?!"

Despite being the culprit who caused their founder's sword to be taken away, Seong Mohyeon remained defiant.

"Grandfather! You cannot do this! It is certain that he learned the Great Star-Absorbing Art. You must call the Murim Alliance's Inspection Pavilion..."

"Shut your mouth, you bastard! Are you trying to uproot the very pillars of the Iron Sword Sect?!"

"I am absolutely certain. My forms would not connect, and..."

"You stupid..."

Iron Sword Sect Leader Seong Cheonwol thought that if he entrusted the Iron Sword Sect to this stupid grandson any longer, it would lead to a massive disaster.

"Bring Moran here."

"Pardon?"

"Seong Mohyeon. If you can last fifty moves against Moran, I will forgive you for everything you've done."

"... What does that."

At Seong Cheonwol's sudden words, Seong Mohyeon, Seong Jutak, and the other warriors of the Iron Sword Sect all wore bewildered expressions.

"Moran, unleash everything you have."

"..."

"Do not even think about holding back. As you have seen, the very survival of the Iron Sword Sect is already hanging by a thread over a cliff. In this situation, do you think that punk Seong Mohyeon can take over the Iron Sword Sect?"

"... Understood."

The others listening to Seong Cheonwol and Seong Moran's conversation could not understand the current situation at all.

"Grandfather! You cannot do this! Excluding the eldest son!"

"You stupid..."

"I did my best for the Iron Sword Sect."

Seong Mohyeon's undirected anger naturally turned toward Seong Moran. After taking such good care of her all this time, it turned out she was also a rival aiming for the succession.

"Moran! How dare you!"

"Shut up and attack."

A greater anger surged within Seong Mohyeon than when he had been defeated by Jin Sowoon.

The sense of betrayal toward the blood relative he had naturally spent his entire life with morphed into a hatred that stirred up murderous intent.

"Someone like you...!"

The Mountain-Shattering Sword Technique, unleashed at ten-star power right from the start.

He executed a lethal move right from the opening.

As if representing his state of mind, the movements of his sword were ferocious and unstoppable.

However.

"...!"

CRASH!

The thunderous clashing of metal could not even last for three strikes.

Seong Mohyeon was struck by the flat of Seong Moran's blade and sent flying three zhang before tumbling across the floor.

"What in the...!"

"Get up, Brother."

*CRASH! * *CRASH! * *CRASH! *

A completely different sound from his battle with Jin Sowoon.

The clash between the Mountain-Shattering Sword Technique and the Mountain-Shattering Sword Technique scattered deafening explosions in all directions.

While Seong Moran's expression remained unchanged, Seong Mohyeon's face was already filled with desperation and astonishment.

He wanted to use his strength, but he felt as though he couldn't put any power into it.

Even though his internal energy and mastery of the forms were definitely higher, he felt a sense of powerlessness.

BANG!

Sent flying four zhang this time, Seong Mohyeon couldn't even abruptly stand up, but rather stared blankly at Seong Moran.

He had definitely considered her beneath him.

There had been a few sharp counterattacks in the past, but he had always overwhelmed her.

What was this?

It was as if his forms were abruptly being cut off, and his strength was draining away.

His normally functioning hands and feet were moving crossways, as if they weren't his own.

"This is..."

A heavy, interrogating voice pierced the dazed Seong Mohyeon.

"Did Moran also learn the Great Star-Absorbing Art?"

"..."

Seong Mohyeon could not continue speaking.

"Drag him away."

The Iron Sword Sect warriors roughly grabbed their once-favored Seong Mohyeon like a high-treason criminal and began dragging him to the prison.

DRAG.

In too great a shock to walk on his own, Seong Mohyeon was dragged away.

'But, when that guy's hand touched me, it definitely...'

Doubt still lingered in his mind, but Seong Mohyeon could not bring himself to spit it out.

Because it had already been proven through Seong Moran just how great a mistake he had made, he had now become terrified to even open his mouth.

* * *

To clear the Gyeryong Merchant Group out of the Taiyi Sect, I first needed to reorganize the Taiyi Sect's finances.

There were supposed to be several ways to solve the Taiyi Sect's chronic financial deficit.

I could raise money by selling the spiritual elixirs listed in the Jianghu Spiritual Elixir Book, or there could be a way to extract treasures from undiscovered treasure troves or tombs.

However, I had to consume all the spiritual elixirs myself, and most of the treasures were in distant provinces, so I couldn't obtain them immediately.

"Even if I were to find them, bringing back and processing the treasures would be another problem."

It was the same for both spiritual elixirs and treasures. If rumors spread that something had appeared somewhere, jackal-like figures from all over Jianghu would swarm in, sparking a war.

Because this type of war caused just as much damage as the war against the Underworld and the Demonic Cult, the Murim Alliance strove to prevent bloodshed over spiritual elixirs or treasures by mobilizing faster than any other report.

Thanks to that, whenever horse thieves or bandits swarmed a village, people would often report that a spiritual elixir had appeared rather than reporting a bandit raid.

Anyway, ultimately, bringing in a sponsor like the Gyeryong Merchant Group, even as a temporary measure, was the best method.

If I were to look for a merchant group capable of replacing the Gyeryong Merchant Group, I could find quite a few even within Anhui Province.

With Nanjing, Jiangsu Province nearby, and Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province as well, Anhui Province had favorable location conditions for merchants and escort agencies to expand their influence, and there were correspondingly many wealthy tycoons.

The problem was that those with tremendous financial power had no interest in the Taiyi Sect.

To those who strictly weighed their interests and losses, the Taiyi Sect had nothing to offer.

If that was the case, I didn't need a give-and-take relationship, but rather sponsorship that stemmed from a heart of gratitude.

And a person with great wealth possesses a sufficiently great heart of gratitude as well.

"I heard the Wangga Manor was so vast that they ended up establishing an entire village, right?"

"Just how many employees and dependents are attached to them? I heard even neighboring provinces offered them free land if they moved their residence there."

"I'm the one who built that very Wangga Village. The Wang Estate!"

"Do you work for the Wangga Manor?"

"I said I built the Wang Estate. I laid all the roof tiles and hoisted the crossbeams."

"... Are you joking? Mr. Gwak. Shut up and eat your snacks."

The Wangga Manor was a deeply historical family that had amassed massive wealth over ten generations, starting as the Wang Family Drapery.

Beginning with the Wangga Bank, they operated countless businesses such as the Wangga Merchant Group, Wangga Escort Agency, and Wangga Guest House. They had also acquired the qualifications of salt merchants, a monopolized right granted by the state, thereby amassing an enormous fortune that ranked within the top three in the entire world, far beyond just Anhui Province.

Of course, there was no reason for such a monumental family to deal with the Taiyi Sect.

"But it would be different if his precious daughter were involved."

Wang Soso, the precious only daughter whom the current Lord, Wang Geumsan, had had in his twilight years.

He treasured her so much that Wang Soso had never roamed outside until she was fifteen, fulfilling all her studies and hobbies within their massive, whale-backed mansion.

Even her outings consisted of riding a carriage around the mansion's courtyard, so one could easily tell just how incredible Wang Geumsan's financial power was, and how deeply he pampered his daughter with that wealth.

"I heard Wang Soso's beauty is so extraordinary that one glance bewitches anyone, and a second glance strikes them ill. They say she's kept hidden because he's worried the Emperor will take her."

"I heard she already entered the palace and isn't even at the Wang Estate anymore?"

There was an incident in my past life where she went missing and disappeared forever.

Wang Geumsan spent his entire family fortune, accumulated over ten generations, to find the missing Wang Soso, but in the end, she was never found anywhere.

And I knew who the culprit was—the one Wang Geumsan couldn't find even after squandering his entire fortune.

"I almost fainted when I first learned this fact. To think... that they were the ones behind it..."

The Murim Alliance was a place where information from all over Jianghu gathered before spreading out again.

As such, there was a vast variety of it, from trivial details to highly classified information that absolutely could not be leaked to the world, and the Mantong Bureau categorized and graded that information.

Most of the information in the Mantong Bureau never strayed outside Grade A (갑(甲)).

Because every single document was filled with information crucial enough to flip the entire landscape of Jianghu, the management of that information was equally thorough.

However, there was a place that made even the Mantong Bureau's information look pitiful.

That was the Simhyeon Pavilion, the secret department of the Mantong Bureau.

Most of the information in the Simhyeon Pavilion is rated as Beyond Grade A (갑(甲)외).

The information here could only be viewed by the manager of the Simhyeon Pavilion, the Chief Strategist of the Mantong Bureau, and the Murim Alliance Leader. Once information was deemed classified and sealed, even the Alliance Leader could absolutely never open it.

What kind of information was so important?

It mostly consisted of the weaknesses and dirty secrets of the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Noble Clans.

The files in the Simhyeon Pavilion had been gathered to tighten the leashes around the necks of the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Noble Clans, who had grown into giant, towering trees within Jianghu.

"I suppose my life and death were already decided the moment they made me memorize the Simhyeon Pavilion files in the first place."

Briefly recalling the final moments of my past life, I quickly shook my head.

Anyway, it was in this Simhyeon Pavilion that I discovered the culprit behind the 'Wang Soso Disappearance Incident' that had thrown the entire world into an uproar.

It was a place completely unexpected at the time.

"The Cangqiong Merchant Group..."

At that time, there were three sects implicated in Wang Soso's disappearance incident.

The Underworld sects identified as suspects, the Gyeonsa Sect and Hyeolju Fortress, were exterminated, and the Orthodox sect, Tanghyeon Sect, could not avoid extermination either.

Despite that, absolutely no trace of Wang Soso was found, and Wang Geumsan, who had recklessly pushed the matter forward, was forced to pay massive compensation to the Murim Alliance and the Underworld Alliance.

"Since he was dancing on the board the Cangqiong Merchant Group had set up from the beginning, he couldn't have found Wang Soso even if it killed him."

The Cangqiong Merchant Group was a newly established merchant group created by the Namgung Clan.

The Cangqiong Merchant Group's biggest concern at this time was that their history and traditions were not as deep as the Wangga Manor's.

To resolve this, they bid for the rights of salt merchants, but they could not surpass the Wangga Manor, which had held onto the salt merchant rights without a single issue for over a hundred years.

Namgung Sangwon, the head of the Namgung Clan's branch line and the actual owner of the Cangqiong Merchant Group, judged that they had no choice but to trample over the Wangga Manor in order for the Cangqiong Merchant Group to grow, and he orchestrated the incident for that very purpose.

"And this time, I intend to throw a wrench into that operation of yours."

It wasn't as if there were no other useful matters in my past life's memories right now. Even so, I deliberately chose the Cangqiong Merchant Group's matter.

I didn't pick the difficult-to-deal-with Cangqiong Merchant Group out of some petty sense of chivalry or justice.

"At the Iron Sword Sect, they acted as if it had nothing to do with them."

The bloody duel with Seong Mohyeon. The 'Golden Palace' incident, where even the Murim Alliance's Chief Strategist stepped in. In the midst of all that, Namgung Sangwon was yawning as if bored on the platform.

Knowing that the Iron Sword Sect's tyranny within Anhui Province was all thanks to the tacit approval of the Namgung Clan, combined with the influence of the Cangqiong Merchant Group, there was no way that sight sat well with me.

That attitude of acting like it had nothing to do with them, even after pushing others' lives to the edge of a cliff.

"In that case, there shouldn't be any major problems if I throw a wrench into your affairs, right?"

Even if the opponent was the Namgung Clan's Cangqiong Merchant Group, I wasn't that afraid.

If they were warriors of the Cangqiong Merchant Group, they naturally would have learned the Cangqiong Boundless Sword Technique, and since I knew the kidnapping process in minute detail, there were many things I could prepare for.

Above all.

"Perhaps Seong Moran isn't such a bad woman after all."

The spiritual pill that Seong Moran had handed over was none other than the Steel Protection Pill.

Though it couldn't be compared to the Mount Hua Sect's Snow Plum Pill, it was a precious spiritual elixir that couldn't even be compared to something like an Iron Heart Pill.

She had readily given me that spiritual pill, which only the most direct of the direct descendants could consume even within the Iron Sword Sect.

Having digested the Iron Heart Pill and the Steel Protection Pill, my internal energy was suddenly approaching forty-five years' worth.

"Let's see your clothes get soiled by the very shitwater you splashed."

I would have to face the Demonic Cult and the entire Murim Alliance in the future anyway.

The final boss was far too massive a presence to be afraid of something like the branch line of the Namgung Clan.