"Pung Hyeon. Kneel and sit properly. The time has finally come for me to pass down the great history of our sect's magnificent origins—and the grand undertaking that will change the fate of the entire land."
The foothills of Mount Tai.
A ramshackle thatched cottage perched precariously among jagged rock formations at a dizzying elevation of several thousand feet.
In the middle of a room where the window lattice rattled and shook against the cutting winds howling in from every direction, Pung Hyeon lay flat on the floor, swallowing what felt like tears of blood.
*Here we go again. The old geezer's rambling nonsense.*
At seventeen, Pung Hyeon looked like he'd been through the wringer.
A war orphan who'd drifted from place to place—it had already been seven years since this old man, Cheonbija, the 126th sect master of the Cheonroe Sect, had taken him in.
What Pung Hyeon had experienced in those seven years was nothing like the glorious training of a legendary figure.
It was an endless grind of brutal labor and errand-running dressed up as training.
Even today, he'd been up since dawn—sprinting barefoot to the mountain peak to collect fresh morning dew, splitting a hundred logs, and finishing it all off by scratching his master's back.
And now, in the dead of winter, instead of so much as a warm bowl of rice, he was getting a lecture on sect history he couldn't care less about.
Whether Cheonbija knew what his disciple was thinking or not, he swept the few dozen scraggly strands of his goatee aside with a dramatic flourish of his tattered robe. His eyes, at least, held the distant, grandiose gleam of a sage on the verge of ascending to the heavens.
"Listen well. The founder of our sect is the Daoist Mumu, who commanded the mysteries of the most ancient age!"
Cheonbija spread both arms wide.
"And who was he? A legendary figure who stood shoulder to shoulder with none other than the Great Sage Equal to Heaven himself—Sun Wukong—and called him brother!"
"……Excuse me?"
Pung Hyeon's head snapped up before he could stop himself.
He might have been a mountain orphan who knew nothing of the world, but he at least knew the name of the monkey from *Journey to the West*.
"Master."
"What is it?"
"Isn't that complete nonsense?"
"How dare you speak such blasphemy about the Patriarch's sacred legend, you little—!"
THWACK!
Cheonbija brought his bamboo pipe down squarely on Pung Hyeon's forehead.
While Pung Hyeon clutched his head and groaned, Cheonbija's rambling nonsense burst forth like a dam breaking.
"It is not nonsense! It is truth—it is history!"
"Ow, my head…"
Pung Hyeon whimpered, pressing his hand against the lump already rising from the pipe strike, but his master didn't so much as blink before pressing on.
"Long, long ago, that reckless monkey stole and devoured a precious celestial fruit tended by the heavenly guardians—then ran off with it!"
Cheonbija was already worked up on his own.
"And of all the fruit he could have taken—it happened to be an ancient divine elixir that our Patriarch Mumu had been eyeing for three hundred years, drooling over it the entire time!"
"If he'd been drooling for three hundred years, he'd have died of dehydration halfway through."
"That is not the point!"
THUD!
Cheonbija stomped the floor.
"Naturally, the Patriarch was furious that a monkey had swiped the celestial fruit he'd waited three centuries for, and he set out to catch the beast—but that wretched monkey had an absolutely broken treasure called the Somersault Cloud!"
"The Somersault Cloud could carry Sun Wukong a hundred and eight thousand li in a single leap. As he rode it away taunting our Patriarch, the Founder made a decision."
Cheonbija's eyes flashed.
"He would chase that monkey down with nothing but his own two legs and inner energy—and cave his skull in!"
"And so, agonizing day and night, studying the lightning of the heavens and the winds of the earth, he created a legendary lightness art!"
Cheonbija thumped his chest.
"That is the origin of the Cheonroe Divine Steps—the very root and essence of our Cheonroe Sect!"
Pung Hyeon stared at his master blankly.
The story was so sweeping and so absurd that even his will to argue had been crushed out of him.
"And then?"
"Hm?"
"Did Daoist Mumu catch Sun Wukong?"
"Strictly speaking—no."
Cheonbija answered with complete and shameless confidence.
"The Somersault Cloud was cheating, kid."
"However, it is said that he did manage to yank out three tail hairs."
"And that's something to be proud of?"
"Even that monkey broke into a cold sweat when our Patriarch kept coming without rest—and promised he would never mock him again."
"That's… actually kind of epic."
"Isn't it?"
"The epic feeling isn't in my chest, though. It's in my stomach."
Pung Hyeon added the rest silently.
*I'm about to pass out from hunger, you old geezer.*
Then he asked something he was genuinely curious about.
"If this is such a great sect that passes down a legendary lightness art as fast as the Somersault Cloud—why are you and your one and only successor starving in this dirt-poor mountain corner, digging up kudzu roots to survive?"
"Silence!"
Cheonbija barked.
"A disciple of the Cheonroe Sect must hold worldly wealth in contempt!"
"Sorry?"
"If I set my mind to it, I could slip into the Alliance Lord's bedchamber and shave off his beard—or walk in and out of an unorthodox faction's thousand-year treasury like it was my own living room!"
"Then why don't you?"
"Because a great hero keeps his pride by staying free of greed!"
Pung Hyeon nodded slowly.
*He can't do it.*
Cheonbija cleared his throat loudly.
"Ahem! Now. Let me tell you what actually matters."
The atmosphere shifted in that instant.
Pung Hyeon straightened up without thinking.
Cheonbija was a nonsense machine most of the time—but whenever he talked about martial arts, there was something strangely convincing about him.
"Inner energy is not a matter of trapping the breath within the energy center."
Cheonbija's voice dropped to a low resonance.
"It is a matter of commanding the wind that flows through the eight meridian channels of the entire body. Even if you didn't know it, that is what you have been doing, as naturally as breathing, for the past seven years."
"The moment the tip of your foot touches a blade of grass, your body's weight must become lighter than a feather."
"You must move forward as though the earth itself is pushing you."
Something shifted in Pung Hyeon's eyes.
"This is the core teaching."
A brief silence settled over the room.
Then Cheonbija asked, out of nowhere—
"Pung Hyeon."
"Yes."
"Do you want to build your strength and rule the world?"
"No."
"Do you want to take bloody revenge on the enemies who destroyed your family?"
"Not even a little."
Pung Hyeon shook his head without a moment's hesitation.
"I just want to not get stabbed, not get caught up in anything dangerous, have plenty of money, live somewhere comfortable, eat delicious food until I'm stuffed, and live a long, long life."
"Oh?"
"Isn't not dying and living easy the best thing there is?"
Cheonbija laughed—a quiet, hollow sound.
At the time, Pung Hyeon had no idea what that laugh meant.
"Yes."
Cheonbija nodded.
"That is an excellent quality."
"What?"
"To win without fighting is the highest ideal."
"To flee before the fight even begins and survive—that is the true pride of our Cheonroe Sect."
Pung Hyeon's eyes went wide.
Cheonbija was dead serious.
"If you don't want to be cut by a blade, all you need is to be faster than anyone in the world."
"If no master alive can lay a hand on you—"
Cheonbija's eyes gleamed.
"Is that not the same as being the greatest under heaven?"
For a moment, the air in the room trembled strangely.
Then Cheonbija declared:
"Everything up to now has been good foundational training—but starting tomorrow, the real work begins."
"You will suffer like you've never suffered before. Be ready."
Pung Hyeon's expression went rigid.
"Master, I'm already doing that every single day."
Cheonbija smiled pleasantly.
"That was just errand-boy stuff, kid."
That night, Pung Hyeon dreamed.
A massive monkey riding the Somersault Cloud, swinging a staff, chasing him down.
And himself—screaming, sprinting across the tips of grass blades in a desperate, frantic run.
The next morning.
When Pung Hyeon opened his eyes, Cheonbija was standing over him, grinning from ear to ear.
In his hands was a large bamboo basket.
Pung Hyeon's bad feeling proved exactly right.
Inside the basket, dozens of wild rabbits sat with their ears perked up, staring at him.
"Alright, Pung Hyeon."
Cheonbija beamed.
"This is your breakfast."
"Catch one—bare-handed, no injuries—and bring it to me."
"And if you can't catch one?"
Cheonbija shrugged.
"You go hungry. Obviously."
The world tilted in front of Pung Hyeon's eyes.
For the sole purpose of surviving.
Of not starving to death.
The hellish training that demanded he run—
Had finally begun.