HSM 15

Chapter 15

Worry my ass.

This is definitely a new form of harassment.

A servant girl should just do servant work, so why should I have to practice martial arts?

“Bend your knees more and lower your stance. You need to put strength all the way to your toes so your lower body doesn’t shake. It’ll be easier if you think of putting down roots in the ground.”

Am I a plant?

What roots am I supposed to put down!

I was truly dying from the horse stance training that had been going on for a full hour already.

As if to prove yesterday’s words weren’t empty talk, Eok I-geon ordered me to train when I brought his lunch.

They say unlucky people break their noses even when falling backward, and I was exactly that type.

It was just the day before yesterday that I was taken hostage by a Martial Arts Alliance spy and barely saved my life, but that became shackles causing this mess.

He says he’s making me do this because he’s worried about me, but ha! Who’s he trying to fool!

All of this was for Eok I-geon’s own sake.

A fairly useful servant girl had finally been assigned exclusively to him, but didn’t she almost die in just one day?

Probably what flashed through Eok I-geon’s mind at that moment was knife-cut noodles and rice balls.

He must have thought upgrading my abilities was essential to continue receiving high-quality service.

Eok I-geon wasn’t the type to worry about anyone.

He only cared about usefulness.

Though my throat was parched, I endured and focused on the horse stance.

Sweat was already pouring down like rain. I was gradually losing sensation in my lower body.

If I’d known this would happen, I should have broken my leg last night.

“…!”

Wow, why am I only thinking of this brilliant method now?

If I had done it that day when I received orders from Lady Gwak, I wouldn’t have reached this disaster in the first place.

I was disappointed in myself for not being bold enough.

“How can you train with so many idle thoughts? Abandoning distracting thoughts is also a form of training.”

Damn, now I can’t even think as I please?

As a martial arts novel enthusiast, I knew that horse stance was the most basic of basic training.

But there should be limits – making a beginner like me do it for over an hour on the first day is too much, isn’t it?

It’s fortunate I learned some martial arts from grandmother, otherwise I would have collapsed on the floor long ago.

“Um, Young Master. How about stopping here for today?”

Perhaps feeling sorry for my struggling state, Cheon-gang carefully asked Eok I-geon.

“She’s already tired lately, and I’m worried she might get sick from this.”

“Sick?”

“Yes, isn’t Seolha an ordinary person who doesn’t know martial arts? Look at her legs. They’ve been trembling since earlier – she’s already far past her limit.”

Ah, that was truly a statement worthy of my favorite character.

To give advice to that scary Eok I-geon for the sake of me, a mere servant girl.

I’m so grateful I could cry.

“You seem quite close to my servant girl.”

“…Pardon?”

“How many times have you met to be calling her by name?”

“Ah, that’s because there’s no proper way to address her….”

Isn’t a name there to be called?

Why is he nitpicking over something so trivial?

“Since we’re on the topic, let me ask you a question too, Cheon-gang.”

“Please ask.”

“In your opinion, how long do you think a woman who doesn’t know martial arts could maintain a horse stance?”

“Well, that would depend on individual physical condition, but at most about fifteen minutes, wouldn’t it?”

“Then how long has it been here?”

“Seolha has… already been at it for over an hour.”

Puzzlement appeared in Cheon-gang’s eyes as he looked at me.

And only then did I grasp Eok I-geon’s scheme.

I understood why he had me start with horse stance so brutally, and what he ultimately wanted to hear from me.

What a cunning bastard.

Oh, forget it!

Since I was going to confess anyway, I gave up on the horse stance and plopped down on the floor.

Besides the flowing sweat, my entire lower body from waist to soles ached as if it would break.

“Will you still make excuses that you’ve never learned martial arts?”

The way he asked while narrowing his handsome eyes looked like I was seeing an evil demon.

“Actually, I did learn just a little bit.”

“Is that so?”

“But the level is so insignificant that I couldn’t dare say anywhere that I had learned it. You could call it some self-defense techniques. I never intended to deceive you, Young Master.”

“For someone saying that, the energy in your body is far from insignificant.”

I was curious about his intention in saying strange things since yesterday.

Is he trying to provoke me when I have barely any internal energy to use with my tiny dantian?

“Since you truly seem unaware, I’ll tell you. The energy spread through your entire meridian system is easily worth sixty years or more. I don’t know why that energy is spread throughout your body instead of your dantian, but if this situation continues with your current physical state, it will surely become a disaster. So you must quickly gather that energy into your dantian.”

“What? No, what do you mean….”

At Eok I-geon’s serious explanation, not only I but even Cheon-gang beside us was shocked.

Sixty years means exactly that – sixty years.

Simply put, it was like saying I had sixty years’ worth of internal energy in my body.

“Have you eaten any spiritual medicine recently?”

“No. Spiritual medicine would naturally be expensive, so how could I….”

I’m someone who’s never even been near spiritual medicine in my life.

Isn’t that usually something novel protagonists only get through fortuitous encounters?

“Then you must have eaten it unknowingly.”

“My staple food is rice balls, as you’ve seen before.”

I haven’t even eaten that today because of training.

“Think carefully. If not you, then someone fed it to you.”

The servant girls’ meals in the Palace are prepared from leftover ingredients from Jami-gwan.

Naturally, there wouldn’t be spiritual medicine in there.

Then all I have left are the foods grandmother prepares for me, but those are mostly just noodles or dumplings.

Could grandmother have put spiritual medicine in the noodles?

Without telling me?

This possibility was also almost zero.

“Hah, interesting. Consuming spiritual medicine without the person knowing at all. First, let’s look into that matter later, and for now, sit in lotus position.”

“…Here?”

“I’ll leave protection to you.”

At Eok I-geon’s command, Cheon-gang stepped back a few paces while surveying the surroundings.

“I’ll open the path, so follow me.”

Without even understanding where I was supposed to follow, I sat in lotus position, unable to offer any resistance under Eok I-geon’s piercing gaze.

“I’m going to open your Baihui acupoint now. Though I’m helping, this is something you must do entirely on your own. You need to gather the energy spread through your entire meridian system into your dantian and make it completely yours. Can you do it?”

“Su-surely that’s not the opening of Ren and Du meridians or something like that?”

“What we’re about to do is work that goes beyond the Ren and Du meridians to open the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.”

Skipping the Small Heavenly Circuit and going straight to the Great Heavenly Circuit?

“Gasp! That’s the shortcut to becoming a master!”

“Why, don’t you want to?”

Don’t want to? I totally want to!

“Since you didn’t open it yourself, consider it just the beginning. Your future studies depend on your own efforts, and when those studies are thorough, you’ll be able to open the Baihui acupoint yourself, communicate with the energy of heaven and earth, and even achieve complete transformation.”

Wow, is this for real?

I underwent a complete transformation!

A complete transformation meant, in other words, reaching the level of a master who had attained the realm of transcendence or the mysterious realm.

How much I had admired the masters of the Martial Arts World whenever I read novels.

What I most wanted to try was moving long distances in an instant using lightness skills.

But that’s really possible?

And Eok I-geon would do that for me?

For me?

Were the foods I offered really that impressive?

“You seem to have calmed down, so let’s begin now.”

Was I going crazy if Eok I-geon’s hand touching my back felt particularly warm?

Just as I began to doubt my mental state, an unfamiliar energy penetrated into my body.

It was an energy that was cold yet sharp and somehow eerie.

The tickling, strange feeling was exactly like insects crawling around inside my body.

When I flinched at this, a sharp command fell.

“Do you want to live the rest of your life as a crippled invalid! Get your mind straight!”

N-no, that can’t happen!

I could tell without asking that this was an extremely important moment for me.

I corrected my posture and concentrated my mind while reciting the incantations of the internal energy cultivation method my grandmother had taught me.

This is the path.

Surprisingly, as I practiced breathing and energy circulation, I could feel the path I needed to take like a compass. I followed that path smoothly for a while.

Then at some point, I was blocked by an invisible wall.

It was the Jang-gang Acupoint, the first pressure point of the Independent Meridian.

‘I have to break through this.’

Following the whisper of instinct, I concentrated my energy there.

Unlike my tense expectations, the beginning wasn’t too difficult.

Pop!

I passed through easily, as if tearing through paper.

After breaking through Jang-gang, then Yo-su and Yo-yang-gwan, when I reached the Myeong-mun Acupoint, Eok I-geon’s energy was waiting.

As if the time had come, he seized my energy and began racing through the Independent Meridian like a storm.

Ugh.

I gritted my teeth and endured the groan that was about to escape.

I felt tremendous pain, but if I lost consciousness here, it would immediately lead to qi deviation.