TSET ~ 03

Chapter ~ 03

Leonard arrived at the grand dining hall in time, his steps quick, and the first thing he did was look up at the flag decorating its entrance.

A sun symbolizing the Empire, with a sword cutting across it.

It was an emblem granted exclusively to the Grand Ducal House of Cardenas, the founding family that had helped establish the Empire.

It was also the emblem behind the claim that only the Sword Duke of Cardenas was permitted to wear a sword even in the presence of the Emperor—a fact the instructor responsible for continental history and ideological education praised until he was hoarse every time he taught it.

‘The family that helped establish the Arcadia Empire, traces its origins to the Empire’s founding ancestor, and has monopolized the title of the strongest swordsmen for hundreds of years, generation after generation.’

It was inevitably an interesting story.

From Mount Wudang and Shaolin, regarded as the two pillars of the Nine Great Sects, to the Heavenly Demon Cult, where people were raised according to the law of survival of the fittest, and even the Imperial Palace, which possessed enough enormous resources to cultivate powerful martial artists with ease—

Nowhere was it possible to produce the greatest martial artist under heaven in every generation.

Even if the title were limited to the field of the sword.

‘There was certainly much to learn from the sword arts of the Wudang Sect, Mount Zhongnan, and the Namgung Family. But in the end, I was the greatest swordsman of my era.’

The Sword Emperor.

Even the Taiji Sword Immortal, the greatest swordsman of Wudang, and Ungeom, the greatest swordsman of Mount Zhongnan, were several moves inferior to him when compared directly.

The only martial artist who had ever overwhelmed him, the Heavenly Demon Danmok Jin, unfortunately did not wield a sword.

Yet Sword Emperor Yeon Mu-hyeok had never received the teachings or support of any prestigious martial sect.

He had merely honed his skills through innate talent, painstaking effort, and a life of struggle lived with death constantly at his back, using a family martial art that was more than half lost.

‘Talent, effort, and resources can take you to a certain level with relative ease. But beyond that point, you need luck.’

He was not talking about some clichéd good fortune, like finding a miraculous opportunity at the bottom of a cliff.

Struggles in which victory could not be guaranteed, or efforts whose rewards might never come—anything whose future remained uncertain could be summed up with a single word: luck.

To reach a transcendent realm, one had to throw oneself into that uncertainty and keep struggling desperately.

“But this family has produced the greatest swordsman under heaven without fail for hundreds of years…?”

There were only two possibilities.

Truth or falsehood.

If it were false, then perhaps the claim had merely been embellished to elevate the family’s prestige, or to make them appear more impressive as the family entrusted with protecting the Empire.

But what if, by even the slightest chance, it were true?

‘There may be some secret hidden within this family—or its bloodline.’

Having reached that thought, Leonard turned his gaze away.

There was no point thinking about it any further for now.

As merely one of the countless collateral members of the family, there were clear limits to the knowledge and information he could access.

Whether through a position within the family or through strength, it was a question he would only be able to solve after climbing higher.

Creak.

Despite its heavy appearance, the door opened surprisingly smoothly.

The moment Leonard stepped through it, hundreds of pairs of eyes turned toward him.

“What? That’s Number 381, isn’t it?”

“I heard he finally came to his senses. Guess it’s true.”

“He got beaten by that weakling Number 403 and stayed unconscious for three days? Just how damn weak is he? If I’d hit him, he probably would’ve died.”

“He couldn’t even break a scarecrow, yet he sure likes to talk big.”

They murmured among themselves for a moment before apparently losing interest. Their attention soon returned to the trays in front of them and the people sitting beside them.

‘Maybe because most of them are collateral relatives, but their appearances are all completely different.’

In particular, the brightly colored hair and eyes were unlike anything he had ever seen, even beyond the borders of the Central Plains, where people with unusual-colored eyes were fairly common.

Gold and brown were understandable, but colors such as red and blue were difficult to occur naturally.

He had only seen such colors a few times in people who had developed them later in life after practicing martial arts that altered their very constitutions and reaching a certain realm.

Perhaps the Lord of the Northern Sea Ice Palace or the Blazing Flame King of the Southern Barbarian Beast Forest?

“Hm.”

While Leonard briefly became lost in memories of the past, his tray had somehow become piled high with food.

He simply sat down at an empty table and picked up his spoon.

Back in the Central Plains, he had survived each meal on either Bìgǔ pills or simple noodles and spring rolls at inns.

Even after inheriting all of this body’s memories, a tray piled generously with meat, bread, and eggs still felt strangely unfamiliar.

Slurp.

He began with several spoonfuls of warm soup, then chewed his way through the meat, bread, and eggs without discrimination.

Adequate nutrition was essential for properly developing a growing body.

Until he regained the level of Hwagyeong—which was apparently called Master here—where he could maintain his physical condition on minimal food, he could not afford to neglect his meals.

“…It tastes better than I expected.”

Leonard stared at his empty tray, feeling a little embarrassed.

He had experienced a pleasure he had forgotten for decades because he had always considered even the time spent eating a waste.

It had been a time when both his body and mind felt completely satisfied.

His body, which had gone without food for three days, rapidly absorbed the nutrients, and even his previously pale complexion became flushed as blood returned to his face.

“What’s this, Number 381? Guess sleeping so soundly brought your appetite back?”

It happened then.

A trainee nearly twice the size of the other children plopped down beside him without asking permission and spoke to him.

Leonard recognized the face.

“You were Number 8… weren’t you?”

“No, I’m Number 7. I beat someone down the other day.”

A proud smile spread across his youthful face, which seemed almost too young for such a large body.

He casually displayed the Number 7 badge on his chest.

In this facility, the numbers assigned to trainees represented their respective positions.

For now, the benefits amounted to things like larger rooms and cleaner, nicer clothes, but apparently, as time passed, those with higher numbers—or rather, better rankings—would receive increasingly greater benefits from the family.

‘Making children compete from such a young age is similar to what I saw in the demonic path… but compared to that, this is almost embarrassingly tame. They don’t seem to be ordering them to kill one another until only a certain number remain.’

Leonard looked at Number 8—no, Number 7.

“What do you want?”

“Your way of speaking seems a little different.”

Number 7 stared at him with a puzzled expression for a moment before saying,

“No, never mind. That doesn’t matter. I came to tell you something you probably don’t know.”

“Something I don’t know?”

“Yeah. Keep quiet and listen carefully.”

Number 7 leaned close to Leonard’s ear and whispered.

“While you were out cold for three days, almost all the higher-ranked numbers started gathering their own factions. You know, right? Numbers 1, 2, and 4 are—”

“Direct descendants?”

“Shh! You’re too loud, idiot!”

Startled by Leonard’s question, Number 7 reflexively swung his hand.

There was no way Leonard would allow himself to be struck by such a clumsy slap.

He merely tilted his head once and effortlessly avoided the palm flying toward the back of his head.

“Huh? Wha—?”

“Stop playing around with your hands and continue explaining. What about Numbers 1, 2, and 4?”

“Uh, yeah, anyway, those three have formed a faction. More than half of the five hundred trainees have already joined them. But there isn’t any rule saying you can’t form a faction without a direct descendant, right? So Number 3, Number 9, and I are thinking about joining forces.”

No matter how cleverly they schemed, it was still nothing more than a childish ploy.

Leonard immediately realized why Number 7 had approached him and cut him off.

“Forget it. I have no intention of joining any faction.”

“Huh?”

“Thanks for telling me. I’ll repay you sometime.”

With Number 7 left speechless and dumbfounded, Leonard stood up, returned his tray, and immediately left the dining hall.

In his previous life, Yeon Mu-hyeok had refused to belong to any group because it meant fewer enemies to fight and less time to train.

Having inherited that very same personality, there was no chance Leonard would find childish gang fights interesting.

‘If the direct descendants are taught some exclusive martial art, I might be interested in fighting them. But that will probably take a few more years.’

What could children who had only just turned fourteen have possibly learned?

Therefore, Leonard decided to focus on his own body first.

‘I’ll put internal energy cultivation off for now. If I’m discovered, I’ll only arouse unnecessary suspicion, and I might even be prevented from learning this family’s martial arts.’

If so, what he needed to do was obvious.

“External cultivation.”

It was the very next day.

Leonard woke before dawn and immediately began twisting his body in bizarre ways on his bed.

The sound of bones cracking continuously came from his ankles, knees, waist, and shoulders, but he did not stop.

He stretched and twisted his body to the very limits of its range of motion.

These bizarre movements were the basic stages of Yoga, a technique he had happened to learn long ago at the Potala Palace in Tianzhu.

—Heh heh. Bones and muscles shouldn’t merely be strong. How many techniques can you execute freely with a body that’s stiff as a board? If there’s one regrettable thing, it’s that you’re too old. This Yoga is most effective when the body hasn’t finished growing.

Leonard continued stretching and twisting his body precisely to the point where his muscles and ligaments would not be injured.

It took a full hour before he finally stopped.

His clothes were soaked with sweat from the pain and tension, but the progress he could feel—far more obvious than when he had trained as an adult in his previous life—made him forget even that discomfort.

‘More than twice as fast as in my previous life. If I’m progressing this much from the introductory stage, I should be able to complete it within three months.’

Flexibility beyond common sense could become a variable, a weapon capable of toying with opponents trapped within conventional movements.

There was a reason the martial arts practiced by the masters of the Potala Palace had been revered and feared as unorthodox techniques.

The boxing and palm techniques themselves were ordinary.

It was the bodies of the people using them that were extraordinary.

Those who had practiced Yoga continuously from childhood could move as though there were no bones inside their bodies.

“…Was morning training at seven?”

When the bell rang, the trainees would gather in the training room beneath the dormitory and perform physical conditioning under the instructors’ guidance.

But Leonard had been granted a week’s rest.

‘The way they train the body here is quite impressive. In some respects, it’s even more systematic than Shaolin.’

Recalling the morning training from his memories, Leonard nodded in satisfaction.

There was much to learn from the training methods using precisely measured weights, bars, and iron balls.

The reason the children’s bodies had all been so thoroughly conditioned was probably thanks to this.

‘They said the training room can be used at any time. I’ll have to visit when no one else is there.’

Leonard climbed down from the bed and changed his clothes.

It was another plain training uniform, no different from the clothes he had discarded.

He put the Number 381 badge onto the grayish-white tunic, and he was ready to go out.

Before heading to breakfast, he decided to explore the training facility, which still felt unfamiliar to him.

“Ah, I need to bring the wooden sword, too.”

Trainees were required to carry a wooden sword at all times whenever they were outside their dormitories.

No one had said anything yesterday, perhaps because he had just been discharged from the infirmary, but today someone might find an excuse to hassle him.

With the wooden sword attached to the belt around his waist, Leonard left his room.

‘I went to the dining hall and infirmary yesterday. The training room will be occupied soon, so I’ll go there later. Then what places are there for me to look around…?’

Leonard mentally mapped out the interior of the training facility.

Eventually, he stopped walking.

It wasn’t because he had chosen a destination.

Rather, a reason to stop had appeared in front of him.

“Do you have some business with me? Morning training is about to start.”

As though responding to Leonard’s call, three boys emerged from behind a pillar.

They had apparently been trying to intimidate him, but from the perspective of the Sword Emperor, who had even killed Hwagyeong-level assassins, their appearance was simply laughable.

“Not bad, Number 381. We’re from Number 1’s faction.”

One of them began speaking, and the others followed.

“You may not know this, but Number 1 is practically at the top even among the direct descendants. There’s nothing wrong with pledging your loyalty to him.”

“And the fact that you didn’t fall for that idiot Number 7’s invitation is another point in your favor.”

Leonard snorted at that.

Apparently, Number 1’s faction knew even about the collateral relatives’ little attempt at rebellion.

‘This is surprisingly interesting for a children’s gang fight.’

But it was nowhere near interesting enough to steal his time.

“I have absolutely no interest in factional disputes. So move.”

When Leonard firmly refused, the three boys blocking his path all distorted their faces.

They apparently considered it an insult that a mere Number 381 had rejected the ‘mercy’ they had offered him.

The lowest-ranked of the three, Number 157, smoothly drew the wooden sword from his waist.

The boy, whose eyes were slightly narrow and sly-looking, said,

“You should’ve listened while we were asking nicely, huh? Acting tough when you’re so damn weak.”

The two behind him chuckled and joined in.