Wudang Sacred Scriptures Chapter 44

When Kwak Yeon asked in confusion, Cheongmu replied.

"I’m not exactly sure either, but they say the pine needles around here don’t hold much spiritual energy. The soil’s been dirtied by wild animals."

"The soil was dirtied by wild animals?"

"Yeah. You know... at-eating—what was it called? Wild animals eat the weak ones and poop all over the place."

"You an survival of the fittest?"

"That’s it! That one. Hey, Kwak Yeon! You’re really smart."

Kwak Yeon wasn’t so sure that counted as smart.

And it was only natural for wild animals to prey on smaller ones—he couldn’t understand why that would contaminate spiritual energy.

So then why did Cheongmu suddenly look so downcast?

"Cheongmu hyung, what’s wrong?"

"I’m worried because you’re smart."

"...?"

"All the smart ones left. That’s why I’m the only ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) one left here."

Ah.

Enduring life as a Daoist Attendant in the Three Spirits Palace must’ve been rough—no matter what reason brought soone here.

It was clear now. The Wudang Sect sent disciples who couldn’t adapt to martial arts to the Three Spirits Palace, hoping they would eventually give up and choose the Daoist cultivation path instead.

They couldn't expel them outright, so they let the harsh lifestyle wear them down until they left on their own.

"Kwak Yeon, I won’t stop you if you decide to leave too. Just... at least tell before you go."

Kwak Yeon understood at once what Cheongmu was feeling.

He couldn’t bear it when soone disappeared without a word.

For soone as sincere as Cheongmu, that absence might have felt like death itself. The pain of loss would have been the sa.

Kwak Yeon said,

"Don’t worry, Cheongmu hyung. I won’t leave. This is my ho."

Cheongmu’s face lit up—then imdiately dimd.

"They all said that. And then the next day, they were gone."

They probably all said it.

And could Kwak Yeon really promise he wouldn’t?

But for now, this was the truth.

"I an it, right now. But if I ever do leave, I’ll make sure to tell you first, Cheongmu hyung."

"You promised! Hehehe!"

As he watched Cheongmu’s naive smile, Kwak Yeon suddenly grew curious about his past.

"Cheongmu hyung, how did you end up in the Three Spirits Palace?"

"I don’t really rember."

"..."

"One morning, I just woke up and my head was spinning, the whole world was dark. I got acupuncture, took dicine, and got better, but... I couldn’t rember anything from before. And when people shouted, my whole body would shake, and these threadlike lines would flash in my eyes—like nets wrapping around , then catching fire..."

"You don’t have to keep going, Cheongmu hyung."

Kwak Yeon grabbed him as he began to tremble uncontrollably, as if reliving a trauma.

"I’m sorry! I’m sorry!"

After a long breath, Cheongmu cald down and spoke again.

"I’m okay now. Ever since I ca to the Three Spirits Palace, I haven’t seen those hallucinations anymore. That’s why I like it here."

Kwak Yeon imdiately thought of deviation—Qi Deviation (Juhwaipma).

It was clear he’d suffered from it while circulating energy.

Cheongmu must have been a disciple who once trained in martial arts, just like him.

Which made Kwak Yeon suddenly wonder:

How far had Cheongmu progressed before it happened?

To fall into Qi Deviation ant he had reached a fairly high stage. The more Internal Energy Pressure one built up, the worse the damage when it backfired.

Then doesn’t that an Cheongmu hyung was even more desperate than I am?

Kwak Yeon had only just begun to dream of cultivating Internal Energy Pressure, and already he felt consud by longing.

Cheongmu had already tasted that level—so how deep must his desire have once been?

Yet there was no trace of it left in Cheongmu’s deanor.

Maybe Qi Deviation dulled his mind... simplified his thoughts.

Cheongmu only ever focused on the imdiate task in front of him.

He got excited when they gathered more firewood than usual—honestly, even Kwak Yeon had been happy about that huge pile at the ti.

He smiled when they picked a good haul of stone mushrooms.

One day, he even got stung on the nose by a bee while sniffing an early-blooming flower and just laughed about it.

Cheongmu never once showed any tornt or longing for martial arts.

Kwak Yeon found himself wondering: maybe, to be happy... you have to beco that simple.

“Oh, we’re here.”

A dark cliff rose before them.

More precisely, it wasn’t just dark—it looked like a sheer wall of black iron.

The contrast with the surrounding white granite cliffs made it seem like exposed flesh under a blanket.

"Kwak Yeon, doesn’t this look like a black waterlon?"

It kind of did. The way it looked freshly exposed—likely from a granite wall that had collapsed.

Does that an the whole inside of Three Spirits Peak is made of black iron-colored rock?

Kwak Yeon looked up at the cliff, gauging it.

From the route they’d taken and the terrain, he realized they were now on the far side of the mountain where the Three Spirits Palace stood.

Even on the pitch-black rock face, pine trees were growing, clinging stubbornly in places.

"We climb up and pick needles from those trees."

"Why those needles specifically?"

"They say this black rock gives off spiritual energy."

Kwak Yeon was dumbfounded.

Spiritual energy from a rock?

"Long ago, there was an immortal nad Celestial Martial God. They say he was born from this rock and ascended to the heavens from here. That’s why they built the Three Spirits Palace in this spot. Master says that makes us the root of the Wudang Sect. Sotis he tells not to worry about what the lower palaces are doing. And if he’s saying that much, then the Three Spirits Palace must really be the highest authority on Mount Wudang."

Kwak Yeon found himself even more curious about Cheongmu’s master—Daoist Hyehae.

"Kwak Yeon, stay here. It’s dangerous up there."

Then Cheongmu began scaling the nearly vertical black cliff with ease.

Despite its smooth surface, he had no trouble climbing.

That’s an incredible movent technique. Could it be... Ladder-Cloud Steps—Jeounjong, the Wudang Sect’s highest-level movent art?

Even if he couldn’t rember it consciously, it must have been so ingrained in his body that he used it instinctively.

To move like that unconsciously—just how much training had he endured?

Kwak Yeon suddenly rembered what Cheongmu had said on the first day they t.

"Your movents are really strange."

Maybe that’s why he recognized Kwak Yeon’s Moving ditation at a glance.

Now halfway up the cliff, Cheongmu began filling the basket with pine needles.

Preparing the fasting pills required more care and sincerity than Kwak Yeon had expected.

After soaking the rice, they dried it and ground it into powder. The pine needles were also crushed and made into powder. Several types of mushrooms had been dried in advance and were also ground into powder. It was a strict rule that not a trace of fire or heat could be used in the process.

“Kwak Yeon. Watch carefully and learn. You have to asure the amounts really precisely. Otherwise, it turns out either too bitter or too sweet to use.”

Cheongmu said this while gauging the weight of stone mushroom powder in his thick palm.

“Since they only eat spiritual fasting pills, their stomachs are really sensitive. We can’t disturb their seated ditation, right?”

Kwak Yeon was astonished to see Cheongmu asuring weight just by holding it in his hand.

“Cheongmu hyung, wouldn’t using a scale be more accurate? Or... do we not have one?”

“We’ve got a scale.”

“Then...?”

“I just prefer this. I’ve never been wrong.”

Kwak Yeon couldn’t understand it. No, he couldn’t even begin to guess how that worked.

“How is that even possible?”

“I dunno.”

Just like when Kwak Yeon had asked how he climbed the cliff, Cheongmu’s answer echoed again with perfect consistency.

“I don’t know... I don’t know...”

So again, Kwak Yeon could only assu it was a skill obtained through martial training.

Wow... just how far had he reached in his cultivation?

He could imagine how deeply disappointed the elders of the Wudang Sect must have been. All the acupuncture and miracle dicine—Cheongmu had called them "dicine," but it was obvious they were elixirs—had been used in hopes of healing him.

Even then, in the end, they had no choice but to send him up to the Three Spirits Palace. That sense of defeat must have been overwhelming.

Kwak Yeon suddenly asked:

“Cheongmu hyung, unlike —a Daoist Attendant—you’re a second-generation disciple of the Three Spirits Palace, right?”

“Yeah, I am.”

“Then why don’t you do seated ditation or study the Daoist scriptures?”

Cheongmu’s daily routine was no different from Kwak Yeon’s. They worked all day and fell asleep at night.

“Apparently, I’ve already achieved Collective Awakening, so I don’t need to study anymore.”

“Collective Awakening? What’s that?”

“I don’t know.”

There it was again—an echo. Kwak Yeon felt a pang of frustration.

“Ask Master when you et him later.”

There was no winning against soone who deployed I don’t know like a martial technique.

All he could do was wait for Daoist Hyehae to finish his ditation.

“Ah! It’s done.”

Clapping his hands, Cheongmu looked pleased as he finished putting all the ingredients into a wooden tub.

“Now we shape them into fasting pills. This is my favorite part!”

“But Cheongmu hyung... it’s all just powder. How do you make them into pills?”

“There’s a thod for that, too.”

Cheongmu brought out a bowl filled with pine resin he had set aside earlier.

“Wait—you’re not seriously going to use resin to bind the pills, are you?”

“Kwak Yeon, you sound dumb right now. Pine resin’s sticky and slls awful. How could you eat that?”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“Obviously, I’m just using the water from the resin. I squeeze it out and throw away the gunk. Like this.”

Grabbing a handful of resin, Cheongmu squeezed it hard, and tiny droplets began to seep through his fist.

“Hrrgh!”

With a final push, a few drops of clear liquid dripped into the wooden tub.

“Perfect amount!”

Kwak Yeon was stunned—he had just squeezed liquid from resin using sheer grip strength.

“Do you want to learn how to do it, Kwak Yeon?”

“I an... I do, but I probably can’t.”

“It’s not that hard. Why not?”

Tilting his head, Cheongmu added:

“Ohhh, you think I’ll make you do all the hard stuff. Hey, that’s not how I saw you.”

Kwak Yeon could only sigh inwardly.

Even though he poured everything into Taiji Internal Arts, he still couldn’t sense a shred of Internal Energy Pressure. How could he explain the sheer uselessness of his own body?

On the day when new sprouts began to bud, Daoist Hyeonin summoned Cheongmu and Kwak Yeon.

“Cheongmu. Starting today, you’ll begin gathering dicinal herbs. Take Kwak Yeon with you and teach him as you go.”

“Master Hyeonin... should I really bring Kwak Yeon up the mountain?”

“He’ll just loaf around otherwise. Why? You don’t want to bring him?”

“No! It’s not that. I’m happy to. Really, I am!”

“Since it’s the two of you now, I expect you’ll gather twice as much as before.”

“Master, don’t worry at all!”

As Cheongmu led the way, Kwak Yeon followed close behind. Watching this, Daoist Hyeonin frowned.

“I thought he’d run away before a month passed...”

He was annoyed that the boy had managed to last through the whole winter. Daoist Attendants were nothing but trouble—tedious and irritating. And this one in particular rubbed him the wrong way.

It was because Kwak Yeon did everything he was told. Without a single complaint.

He was dangerous.

When the senior brother returned from his retreat, he would surely be told to take that kid as a disciple.

And that would ruin everything—his dream of finally quitting this accursed Daoist life would vanish.

Damn it. Would’ve been nice if the brat just left on his own.

To Daoist Hyeonin, Kwak Yeon was incomprehensible.

He’d scolded him, overworked him, driven him with pointless chores—and yet the boy still clung to this dead-end temple as if his future depended on it.