Reincarnation of the Fist King Chapter 24

<Kwon Wang, What is Chance?>

Danwoo Seong first wrote a simple introduction to Dokgo Gugeom.

"The Dokgo Nine Swords can be mastered easily, even by beginners. However, mastering them requires time, training, and meditation. Reading the text and embracing the sword are two entirely different things. The ultimate meaning of the Dokgo Nine Swords cannot be grasped without pain and effort. However, if someone can master the Dokgo Nine Swords, they will be able to compete with those considered the best in the world…"

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The Dokgo Gugeom, which Dan Woo-seong made with all his might, has arrived, the failed scholar Joo Ja-ryang has created a place of reconciliation with all his passion, and the youngest, Lee Ja-eon, has finally arrived at Jiuhua Mountain, where Sima Geuk, disguised as an old man with white hair, is fiercely training on his own.

About a hundred days had passed since the idle gangs had begun to plot a conspiracy.

After unpacking her luggage at An Ga, Lee Ja-eon gazed blankly at Guhwasan Mountain, shrouded in a thin fog.

No matter how much I thought about it, this place was filled with a divine energy.

The air is good, the water is clear, and it's quiet.

And that wasn't all? The mountain's terrain was so rugged that it seemed as if it would absolutely not allow the approach of incompetent warriors.

Lee Ja-eon took a deep breath. The fresh air pierced his lungs.

“Good.”

Izaeon thought as she set out for a walk with her backpack on.

"There must be a reason why my eldest brother suddenly became so strong. He must have picked up an elixir somewhere. Or discovered a secret recipe. Or perhaps he learned both martial arts and internal energy from a retired martial artist. If that's the case, wouldn't Guhwasan Mountain already be a distant memory?"

Lee Ja-eon stopped walking.

Come to think of it, I wondered if I had taken a pointless step.

Then I continued walking again.

"No. Guhwasan is just the starting point. I'll search thoroughly, and whether I find an elixir, a secret weapon, or even a retired martial artist, I'll just keep trying. I'll find the destiny before it finds me. And if I'm not feeling it, I'll search every nook and cranny of Sohwasan, Yeosan, Taebaeksan, Jongnamsan, Amisan, Kunlunsan, Dobongsan, Hwangsan, the back mountain, the side mountain, the front mountain, even the mountains in our neighborhood, to find the destiny."

Lee Ja-eon smiled faintly as she looked around the walking path of Guhwasan Mountain.

"I can't lose to my brother. He was a human who was right before me… I'm superior in terms of my abilities. I'm more manly. I'm better with a sword. If I gain the chance, I'll definitely become stronger. This is an undeniable fact. Just wait. I, Ja-eon, will return stronger."

Lee Ja-eon muttered to himself.

“I will investigate everything from Mt. Baekdu to the East Sea.”

The man obsessed with chance looked around and, after making sure that no one was there, sublimated his boiling anger into laughter.

“Hahahahahahahahahahaha······!”

The volcano echoed. It was incredibly noisy.

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Hearing the echoing laughter, the fallen scholar Zhu Ziliang woke up Sima Ji, who was napping with the poisonous sword covering his face.

“Old man, wake up. I think you’re here.”

Sima Ji, disguised as an old man with white hair, answered while handing over the secret book of the Dokgo Nine Swords he was reading.

“You came? Oh, I fell asleep again.”

Joo Ja-ryang tilted his head.

"Why do you always fall asleep when you close your eyes? I told you to disguise yourself as an old man, but now you've become one."

Sima Ji replied while putting the secret items into his bosom one by one.

"Is it because the air is so clear? I'm falling asleep. The air is fine, but the content of the emergency is so strange."

“What’s strange?”

"The content is so profound. Where did you get such a secret?"

“Where did you get that? Our rich friend in the dog car class must have bought it for us.”

"Well, it's something you can't buy with money, but this… is too profound. It's too difficult."

“You crazy bastard, what does that have to do with sleeping while doing something profound?”

Sima Ji came to his senses and replied.

“Hey, what’s the name of this sword technique?”

“It’s called Dokgogugeom.”

“Do you know what a Dokgo Gugeom is?”

“I don’t know.”

"It's called the legendary swordsmanship. The more I read it, the more I think it might be genuine. I'm not making excuses, but when I ponder the secret contents, my stomach starts to churn, and I often fall asleep. When I chew on the contents, I find myself getting tired without even realizing it. I have to delve into it carefully, or I might fall into a state of magic."

“Have you come to practice making excuses?”

“What do you know, you desk-headed bastard?”

Zhu Ziliang didn't know much about martial arts, so he couldn't understand it well, but Sima Ji was sincere.

It can't be helped······.

Because the martial arts of the king were written down.

At first glance, everything was simple and easily explained. However, the more I read, the more I had to infer the meaning, and the deeper I delved, the more I found myself rereading the secrets. Having already read them hundreds of times, it was only natural that I would faint while mulling over the meaning. As a secret left by the King of Fists, its value was on a par with that of the martial arts secrets of the great sects currently in existence.

Sima Ji said.

"Let's get ready. First, I'll accept the youngest as my disciple, and then I'll continue my studies while practicing martial arts. It's a swordsmanship that's difficult to master on your own. It's a practical, combat-oriented discipline."

Zhu Zi Liang took out the crane feather fan, which he had bought with his own money, and blew a breeze through it, then responded in a different tone.

“Okay, let’s go give you a chance, then.”

Sima Ji also responded while stroking his gray beard.

“Priest, if the youngest passes the trap, let’s wait a few days and then go to the inn to get a meal.”

“Haha, that won’t happen. I’ve set up a psychological warfare strategy.”

“I’ll believe it.”

The two immortals moved to the prepared location.

Their nicknames were the Nine Flower Twin Immortals (九華雙仙), Sima Ji's nickname was Jianxian (劍仙), and Zhu Ziliang's nickname was Xuexian (學仙).

After analyzing the walking path from various angles, the master, who studied geomancy, set up traps that could lead to the lucky spot. The youngest child followed the traps and reached the Byeolcheonji (別天地) waterfall, which could be said to be the core of the lucky spot.

In fact, if this method failed, the two of them were just going to go find the youngest. They were going to accept him as their disciple anyway, even if it meant wasting all the preparation they'd made.

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Lee Ja-eon, who was out for a walk, stopped in his tracks as soon as he saw something.

“What is this… out of the blue.”

I thought it was a natural walking trail, but suddenly a small sign was erected.

"Rockfall Warning"

This was even more strange because, even when Lee Ja-eon looked around, she couldn't see any steep cliffs where rocks might fall. Usually, warning signs for falling rocks are written roughly, but the person who wrote this one seemed to have studied the language for quite some time.

The handwriting was elegant and had a grand charm.

It was a handwriting that was filled with the loneliness and superficiality of a failed scholar, and Lee Ja-eon accepted it like this.

Anyway, this is a volcano.

As she rustled around, Izaeon heard someone's voice and moved toward it. Before she could even walk a little, another sign appeared, but this time the writing was incredibly small.

“What on earth did you write?”

As Lee Ja-eon approached and barely managed to read the "Caution: Falling" sign, her foot slipped and she fell to the ground. Had she stepped on ordinary mud, she wouldn't have fallen so badly, but the mud was seriously slippery, as if something had been added. With a squeak, her body sank slightly, and then, as if sliding down a slide, her new body began to rapidly descend.

“Ughh …

As Izaeon tried to slow down by placing both feet on the left and right, the poorly made slide broke and spun around for a moment before flying through the air.

Swaaa …

It was a place where a waterfall fell.

Izaeon, flying in a curve, fell into the waterfall. Was the glimpse of an old man in white near the waterfall a hallucination? Izaeon poked her head above the water, her heart pounding with an inexplicable thrill.

An old man with gray hair and white clothes was sitting cross-legged near the waterfall.

Izaeon looked up at the place where she had fallen.

'Parallelism?'

When Yi Ja-eon looked at the old man again, the swordsman of the Guhwasangseon sighed deeply with his eyes closed. It was a sigh mixed with reproach, asking who had interfered with his training.

When Lee Ja-eon turned her head with surprised eyes, a middle-aged man with a fluttering school uniform was walking towards her from not far away.

“What kind of person are you? Interfering with the training of the death penalty.”

The only words that came to mind in Izaeon's soaking wet mind were "death penalty" and "training." He quickly jumped out of the water.

Hakseon asked again.

“I asked who it was.”

Lee Ja-eon shook off the water and answered politely.

“Oh, yes. This is Izaeon from the upper reaches of the galaxy.”

“What is the Confucius above doing in this rugged mountain?”

"ah······."

Lee Ja-eon's eyes moved here and there, then looked at the middle-aged man in bachelor's attire and answered.

“I came to practice.”

“Training? Are you talking about martial arts, or academics?”

“It’s a martial art.”

He made a strange expression as if he was sorry about the school, then shook his head and trailed off.

“What kind of martial arts is that?”

As Hak-seon stepped aside with a displeased expression, Geom-seon Sima-geuk opened his eyes with a smile on his lips.

“You came here to practice martial arts?”

Lee Ja-eon's head suddenly turned.

“Oh, yes!”

Hakseon, who seemed to be watching from one side, intervened again.

"I'd like the death penalty. Aren't all those obsessed with martial arts the successors of the death penalty?"

The swordsman smiled kindly.

"In martial arts, where are there seniors and juniors? It's the same in academics and martial arts. There's only diligence."

Lee Ja-eon looked at the two gods from side to side and then knelt down.

“The juniors of the last semester meet their seniors.”

Geomseon smiled happily and nodded several times.

And then, at the same time, Sima Ji and Zhu Xiang fell silent. Having run out of lines they'd roughly rehearsed, they had nothing else to say. From now on, they planned to respond according to the youngest's every word.

Sima Ji, the swordsman who had nothing to say, stroked his long beard and laughed heartily.

Then, the scholar-official Ju Ja-ryang also had nothing to say, so he just flapped his scholar-official hat around and coughed in vain.

In this sunny weather, two fake gods are meeting a cornered gangster······.

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Dan Woo-seong, sitting at his desk, rested his chin on his hand with a serious expression.

On the desk Danwoo-seong was looking at was a gift that had arrived from outside after a hundred days.

It was a very small medicine bottle.

How on earth should we take this?

In reality, he had created a coincidence and sent it to Guhwasan to raise the youngest child to be strong, but the real coincidence had come to Danwoo Sung.

That's why Danwoo Sung was seriously contemplating what a proper chance was.

I had a feeling that nothing was a fluke.

Next to the bottle was a brief note. It was a letter Lee Seong-min had given to his son to read.

"This is a gift for the trust you have shown me and for our long-standing friendship."

It was a letter from a great merchant his father respected. He said he was a merchant who could compete for the title of the wealthiest man in the Central Plains. If Lee Seong-min had spent his life deceiving others and exploiting them, this gift would never have arrived. It was because he had maintained trust and loyalty throughout his life that this opportunity had come to Dan Woo-seong.

The bottle that Danwoo-seong was staring at blankly contained empty stone milk.

<The King of Fist, What is Chance> End

ⓒ Eugene Sung

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