ROMH Ch 4

Chapter 4: What’s going on here? (4)

“Six Harmonies Art (六合功).”

It meant for the six harmonies combining into one (合一).

The sky and earth. And the four cardinal directions all refer to the six harmonies.

The six harmonies is the world, the world is the six harmonies.

“Khh.”

It sounds magnificent and incredible.

So, what kind of martial arts is the Six Harmonies Arts?

‘It’s the kind of martial arts sold for five pennies in the middle of the marketplace.’

It’s not cheap for a manual, but cheap for a book. It’s the most inexpensive martial arts in the world, barely returning back the price for the paper. To put it mildly, it’s cheap.

Six Harmonies Arts is the very first book the street wastrels buy from a bookstore when they learn martial arts to become people of the kangho. It’s martial arts for those who don’t want to obey the strict teachings of daoist sects and martial sects to self-study and become a master.

Even back when Chungmyung walked through the kangho, weren’t the Six Harmonies Arts, Six Harmonies Fist, and Three-Way Sword called the three martial arts of the marketplace?

By the time Chungmyung was called one of the three swordsmen, the marketplace’s basic martial arts turned into tai chi, but well, that’s their concern.

But why would he learn such cheap martial arts, you ask?

‘Because it’s not cheap.’

The Six Harmonies Arts is Mount Hua’s introductory martial arts. All those who just entered Mount Hua begin learning martial arts through the Six Harmonies Arts.

The reason the Six Harmonies Arts spread through the marketplace is because one of the founders of Mount Hua boldly declared to the public that cultivation of the body and mind (養生) was done for the sake of everyone in the world, and not just for the practitioners.

But unfortunately, just mastering the Six Harmonies Arts doesn’t make someone strong. It only produces a slight health effect.

Those who were unable to see their desired effect despised the Six Harmonies Arts, saying it’s terrible, and criticized it, that it was an arts that took away from Mount Hua’s core principles.

In the end, it degraded into a widely-recognized, outrageously bad martial arts, to the point that those who first entered Mount Hua complained when learning that the first martial arts they were going to learn was the Six Harmonies Arts.

But Chungmyung knew.

The Six Harmonies wasn’t a bad martial arts. If the Six Harmonies was a trash-like martial arts that perceived the world, then it could never maintain its place as Mount Hua’s foundational martial arts for hundreds of years.

“Everything clearly has its use.”

The Six Harmonies Arts can’t increase one’s strength exponentially. No, to be exact, in terms of efficiently gathering your inner energy, it’s not even a tenth of the sect’s decent, foundational arts.

But the Six Harmonies had a wonderful effect, enough to ignore its weaknesses.

Completely and immediately purifying the body’s yin and yang.

To put it simply,

“Like the word itself, it’s foundational arts.”

Foundation.

Foundational work.

The Six Harmonies was the best martial arts for completely cleaning the dantian and the body. But when others build up their foundations, they only clean the dantian, so its effects weren’t visible to the eye.

What would happen if others were running, but you’re still stuck to the ground?

I’d go crazy.’

In the end, even Mount Hua gave up digging deeper into the Six Harmonies Arts. Because of tradition and history, he only moderately learned it as introductory martial arts, and once he managed to pretty much learn how to do qi arts, he quickly moved on to the Minor Clear Qi Arts (小淸氣功).

The past Chungmyung also didn’t try hard for the inefficient Six Harmonies Arts. Since at the time, he thought it’s a hundred times better to learn a much better mental cultivation arts.

“Instead, I suffered a hundred times more. Damn it!”

It’s what he regretted the most in his past life.

He could’ve been twice as strong if he had started another martial arts after completing (完功) the Six Harmonies Arts without impatiently rushing over to another mental cultivation arts.

But it was impossible to rebuild the foundations after building the tower.

Then, a chance to solve this eternal regret came to him.

This time, he wouldn’t be impatient. He would complete the work with the utmost care. To make the tower he was gonna make bigger and more beautiful.

“Humph.”

In a lotus position, Chungmyung closed his eyes as he slowly remember the contents of the Six Harmonies Arts.

His qi moved the moment he felt it.

External qi (外氣) quickly entered his body through breathing. Those who just entered, focusing on foundational arts, would spend nearly a month to sense external qi for the first time, but Chungmyung didn’t need to do that.

Following the Six Harmonies Arts’ lead, the energy quickly entering slowly went up his body, rotated, and settled at the edge of his lower abdomen.

‘It all starts here.’

Naturally, Chungmyung didn’t intend to learn just the Six Harmonies Arts. It’s not a bad idea to follow the path the founders laid out, but a man who’s already walked the same path cannot be satisfied with walking down the same path.

‘I’ll refine it even more.’

Concentrating his mind, filtering out the impurities mixed in with the gathering energy.

Like looking at every thread of each strand from a huge fabric and minutely filtering out every thread that’s out of place, he repeatedly filtered out energy that wasn’t perfectly pure.

The beginning has to be perfect.

The size of the gathered energy was pointless. What he needs right now isn’t sudden, impure neigong but a perfect grain of energy.

Energy was cut off. The energy the size of millet seeds grew smaller, and even smaller, being cut off. After more than half a day, all that was left was an extremely small energy that was really tiny.

The energy settled in his lower abdomen, and created a small space that would be embarrassing to call his dantian.

Open.

Chungmyung opened his eyes.

“Huuuuuuu.”

His face was covered in sweat. Even the rags he wore were soiled with the sweat and impurities from his body. It used to be dirty, but now it was even dirtier.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever concentrated on ungong like this.”

But it was rather refreshing than hard. And he really liked the result.

He quietly patted his lower abdomen. Calling it his dantian was too much, but he somehow succeeded in taking the first step towards the perfect foundation.

It was extremely weak right now.

Even looking through all of kangho’s history, none of those who succeeded on their first ungong had created a much weaker dantian than Chungmyung.

But Chungmyung knew.

This small dantian would lead him to another world. When this small, yet perfect energy constantly rolls like a snowball, it’ll soon create an avalanche that no one in the world can stop.

That’s right. Just like…

‘That darn Heavenly Demon.’

Chungmyung’s body trembled.

Just thinking of the Heavenly Demon gave him the chills all over.

‘He’s not human.’

He was overwhelming.

No, he was an existence that couldn’t be described with just those words.

The suicide squad that gathered all the elites of the sects that looked down on the world. The aim of that suicide squad wasn’t the entirety of the Demonic Sect. They attacked the Heavenly Demon alone.

The result was both sides were hurt, no one benefitting.

To exaggerate a bit, it’s safe to say that the Heavenly Demon fought equally with the entirety of the kangho.

‘Maybe…’

He might be able to reach him this time.

If he accomplishes the things he could do one by one.

Chungmyung jumped to his feet.

“Now then…”

Stumble.

Half-standing, Chungmyung’s body weakly tumbled forward.

“Ugh…”

What the? Did I get too dizzy from doing too much ungong?

“Aghhh!”

He put strength into his arms, raising his body. No, more like he tried to. But his arms weren’t listening to him.

“Huh?”

Tremble.

He could see his arms shaking as if they were hit by lightning. It was extremely pitiful seeing his skinny, twig-like arms trembling.

“W-What’s wrong with my arms?”

It shouldn’t be, right? When doing ungong, there should still be strength in…

“H-Hold on.”

Chungmyung’s gaze lowered on the ground headed towards his lower abdomen.

Gathered there was the purest energy in the world that was really the size of an ant.

An ant…

The energy’s purity was so amazing that it even made Chungmyun, the Plum Blossom Sword Master, happy, but… it was so ridiculously small that it would burn out with just a single refreshing punch from a child.

Which means?

“Agh, damn it! That means it’s not gonna be any help to my body right now!”

Chungmyung gripped his head, and rolled on the ground.

I should have thought about it! I should have! The thought did pass through my head, but why didn’t I think about it!? Why!?

He could hear senior brother Sect Leader’s voice in his ear.

-Please, use your big head a bit! Just think for once! Why would you do something first without thinking about it!? Why!? Don’t use your head like a headscarf, and think!

Making the words ‘big head’ and ‘headscarf’ come out of the noble practitioner’s mouth, it felt like Chungmyung’s rash personality made trouble once more.

If I knew this would happen, I would’ve made it slightly bigger!

“Can I even make it to Mount Hua with this body?”

How far is it from Wuhan to Mount Hua? So, pretty much…

“T-Two thousand li?

His eyes turned.

Two thousand li?

A normal person who hadn’t learned martial arts would also find it difficult to travel a hundred li in a day. But you’re saying the body of this child who can’t even eat a bit of gruel needs to traverse two thousand li? The entire two thousand li?

“Mmghh!”

Chungmyung recklessly rubbed his face with both hands.

“Aye. This damn guy’s life!”

But what else can he do? He already made it.

Actually, even if he knew, it’s not like he could particularly make his dantian bigger. Since he actually realized what kind of hurdles would get in his way in the future for taking shortcuts to make things easier for him.

He could no longer do anything to abandon the future for the present!

…Though this problem wasn’t a simple one.

“Knnnghhh.”

Chungmyung staggered to a stand.

“…That’s how life is, I guess.”

In the end, all of these were nothing more than hardships Chungmyung had to endure.

Hardships make a hero!

“If there’s a will, there’s a way!”

Chungmyung gritted his teeth, and began to walk down the road.

* * *

Plop!

“Khh…”

Legs weakening, Chungmyung fell down.

‘Guess will can only get you so far.’

Such sudden realization at this age.

Chungmyung realized again that there were things beyond his control in this world.

He could endure the pain in his legs. And he could also somewhat endure the screaming from his body.

But there was one thing he could never endure.

‘I’m gonna die from hunger.’

Nothing could fix the hunger scratching his stomach.

The past him thought he was used to hunger. Training sometimes required strict, self-restraint. Eating something would mean accepting outside qi, but naturally, you would also accept impure things.

Therefore, those who did it were strictly forbidden from cooked food. In the midst of difficult training, they would even completely refrain from eating. Chungmyung was also a disciple of the daoist sect, Mount Hua, and was someone immune to hunger.

Well, he thought he was.

But Chungmyung didn’t realize.

The big difference between being unable to without it, and not doing it despite having it!

Enduring even with food and starving without food was as different as heaven and earth. Extreme hunger wasn’t something you could overcome with patience. It felt like those horse-headed demons* were cutting the inside of his stomach.

With great will, he managed to leave the road and enter the city, but he had no energy to do anything else. Since he crawled almost all the way to the marketplace.

‘Would the first deathly crisis I’ll experience after being born again be dying from hunger?’

That was extremely absurd.

Who was Chungmyung?

One of the Greatest Third-Generation… Ah, I’m tired. I’m gonna die from hunger.

Feeling that the word, ‘die’ had become a real threat, and not just a simple exaggeration, Chungmyung groaned.

He wasn’t joking, he really was going to starve to death.

He did try catching a mountain animal, but probably because of how much that Jongpal or whatever beggar brat beat him up, he couldn’t properly run and move his body.

Well, before he reaches Wuhan, this body’s so close to dying from hunger. Maybe he’s already starved to death.

And now, for the second time, he’s in danger from dying from hunger.

‘What should I do?’

He’d need money to go find something to eat, but he had to work to get money. But it’d be impossible for this body to work.

Then what…

It was at that moment.

Clink.

There was the clear sound of metal coming from somewhere.

---

• ungong – Ungong is basically injecting qi into a certain part of a body.
• horse-headed demons – basically the jailors/guards of hell with the body of a human, and head of a horse.
• li – about 500 meters.
• the road mentioned here (관도) is more of a road managed by the state, so official road? Not sure.

I’ll be honest, when I saw Jongpal, I forgot that was the guy’s name, the one who beat up Chungmyung. So I looked it up and got results about the eighteen ranks in the Joseon Dynasty, and I’m like ?????? What’s that gotta do with it? Then I had a big brain moment, and realized it’s a name lol. Also, poor Chungmyung. Boy’s so hungry.

< Previous | ToC | Next >