The rules were simple.
Start from the thatched hut at the summit of Mount Tai. Cross the old stone marker at the mountain's base. Graduate.
That stone marker was a moss-covered relic that marked the boundary of the Cheonroe Sect's territory.
With one condition.
Get caught by Master Cheonbija along the way, and you fail.
"I don't need to spell out what happens if you fail, do I?"
Cheonbija asked, flashing his yellowed teeth.
A chill ran down Pung Hyeon's spine.
"……You don't mean—"
"I do. You know how many animals are out there."
A parade of horrors marched through Pung Hyeon's mind in an instant.
A boar with tusks like curved blades.
A bear with claws the color of cold steel.
Hawks and eagles splitting the sky.
And things he didn't even have names for.
"……I would rather die than fail."
Pung Hyeon wrapped strips of cloth around his feet with grim resolve.
Shoes were a luxury this mountain had never heard of.
"Good attitude. But let me tell you one thing, boy. This trial will take everything you've learned just to scrape by, so you'd better wipe that look off your face right now—the one begging for mercy. Heh heh heh."
"……You never had any intention of going easy on me."
"Oh, now you're catching on. All right, then. I'll count to a hundred before I come after you."
Cheonbija flicked his fingers lightly.
"Go."
Pung Hyeon launched himself off the cliff like a stone from a sling.
He poured everything he had learned into his legs.
The explosive first stride he'd learned from the rabbit carried him across the rocky ridgeline in a single burst.
The tireless breathing he'd learned from the deer filled his energy center on the inhale and emptied his toes on the exhale.
On steep slopes, the instincts he'd learned from the tiger chose safe footholds before his mind could.
In open air with nothing to stand on, the current-stepping he'd learned from the sparrow let him bleed speed from his fall at will.
Four animals. Four teachings. Woven at last into a single, unbroken flow.
Pung Hyeon's body became a gust of wind and slid down the spine of Mount Tai.
*Good. At this speed.*
*Even the old geezer can't catch—*
Right then.
Every hair on his back stood up.
That sensation—the one that had woken inside the tiger's den.
The cold that crept in when death reached for you from behind.
Pung Hyeon folded sideways without thinking.
Something swept through the space he'd just occupied with a sharp rush of air.
He looked back. The color drained from his face.
Cheonbija.
Tattered robe billowing.
Goatee streaming in the wind.
The old geezer was right on his heels.
And he wasn't even breathing hard.
"Where are you rushing off to, my dear disciple? Leaving your master behind like this—don't you feel even a little bad? Heh heh heh."
"H-how is this possible?! At your age, at that speed!"
Pung Hyeon screamed and pushed himself faster.
But no matter how hard he ran, the footsteps behind him refused to fall away.
When Pung Hyeon took the left cliff face, Cheonbija took the left cliff face.
When Pung Hyeon dove into the ravine, Cheonbija dove into the ravine.
It was like his own shadow had come to life.
What made it even more maddening was that the old man's mouth never stopped for a single second.
"Your footwork has improved, I'll give you that. But if you're going to imitate the deer, you need to stretch your breathing out longer. Gasping like that, you won't make it another hundred steps."
"Would you please—just—stop—talking!"
"My, my. Your master offers careful instruction and this is the tone you take. Even the sparrows down below can hear you."
While his disciple fled at full tilt, the old man strolled along behind him like he was out for an afternoon walk, dispensing criticism without a care in the world.
*This can't be real. Has he…… never once been serious until now?*
It hit Pung Hyeon then.
All those days of training.
That old geezer, sprawled on a sun-warmed rock, peeling roasted sweet potatoes—Pung Hyeon had never once seen him actually run. Not for real.
As if to prove the thought right, Cheonbija flipped his body in a swallow's arc, turned to face Pung Hyeon, and began running *backward*.
At the exact same pace as before.
"Even running like this, I can see the back of your head just fine."
"……Are you kidding me."
The words slipped out of Pung Hyeon's mouth before he could stop them.
The man who flies through heaven—Cheonbija.
Only now did Pung Hyeon understand what that name truly meant, down to his bones.
*Head-on, there's no way I shake him. Not a chance.*
Pung Hyeon's mind kicked into overdrive.
When it came to survival, his brain moved faster than anyone else's in the world.
*If speed won't work, use your head.*
He deliberately veered into a narrow gorge.
The moment Cheonbija followed him in—
Pung Hyeon used the air-stepping he'd drilled during sparrow hunts to kick off both walls of the gorge and launch himself upward.
Then, with Cheonbija ahead of him, he reversed direction and sprinted back the way he'd come.
"Ha!"
For the first time, the old man running backward let out a startled laugh.
"Well, look at this kid."
In the half-breath it took Cheonbija to redirect his momentum, Pung Hyeon opened up precious distance.
*There it is. Use your head and you find the gaps.*
He didn't stop there.
Up ahead.
A sheer drop appeared where the path simply ended at a cliff's edge.
Any ordinary fugitive would have stopped, thinking the way was cut off.
But Pung Hyeon's eyes saw the warm thermal current rising from below that cliff as a clear and obvious *road*.
Without hesitation, he threw himself off the edge into open air.
His body, which had seemed to be falling, caught the updraft surging along the cliff face with the tips of his feet and skimmed sideways.
Completely off the straight-line trajectory Cheonbija had anticipated.
For the first time, something flickered in the old man's eyes.
"……You read the current."
That brief flash of admiration created another gap.
When a waterfall appeared, Pung Hyeon plunged into the mist and erased the sound of his footsteps.
The roar of the falling water swallowed every trace of him whole.
On a slope buried in thick fallen leaves, he deliberately scrambled his tracks in every direction—
then slipped away somewhere else entirely.
Clever tricks.
Misdirection.
Deception.
Nothing remotely honorable about any of it.
But Pung Hyeon felt no shame.
*The great hero's code of honor? No idea what that is. I just need…… to not get caught. That's it.*
And that, in truth, was exactly what Cheonbija had been trying to teach him through every brutal day of training.
Win without fighting.
Run before the fight starts, and survive.
Without realizing it, Pung Hyeon was learning in his body what his master had always wanted him to understand—the Way of Escape.
But that was as far as it went.
The moment he broke through the waterfall mist—
that cold, relentless presence was back on his heels.
Every bit of distance his cleverness had bought him collapsed in an instant.
*He won't let go. No matter what I try, in the end……*
Desperation burned in Pung Hyeon's chest.
And then.
The memory of that night in the tiger's den surfaced without warning.
The pale blue flame that had bloomed at his toes in the depths of absolute terror.
*Right…… if I had that. If I could use that lightning, even this old man might……*
Pung Hyeon dug into the deepest part of his energy center and wrenched the power there past its limit.
A tingle shot through his toes.
*Crackle—*
A pale blue flame flickered at his feet for just a moment, then guttered out.
"……Ugh!"
His legs buckled.
The forced surge of energy nearly shattered his balance instead of helping it.
The lightning that had erupted on its own in the tiger's den refused to come when he reached for it deliberately.
As if it was telling him: *not yet.*
Cheonbija's voice drifted up from behind him, curious and unhurried.
"Oh? Trying to draw out the lightning, are you? But boy, that's not something you wring out by force. Let greed lead the way, and it won't be your toes that burn—it'll be you."
*……I know. The problem is it's not working!*
He didn't have the breath to spare on a reply.
Pung Hyeon let go of the lightning without a second thought.
The most reliable weapon he had right now wasn't thunder.
It was one single thought:
*I am not getting caught.*
And then, far ahead—
a moss-covered stone marker appeared at the base of the mountain.
Only a few hundred steps to the boundary.
Pung Hyeon's heart hammered like it was trying to break free.
*I'm crossing it. I can cross it.*
*Graduation. Warm food. A soft bed. A town with actual people in it.*
*Just a little more—*
And then.
The footsteps behind him.
Stopped.
Pung Hyeon's heart dropped.
The footsteps that had clung to him so relentlessly, without a single break—gone. Like they'd never existed.
A trap?
Or—
*……Don't tell me he actually gave up?*
He couldn't look back.
He couldn't stop.
The boundary marker was right there in front of him.
With no idea what was happening, Pung Hyeon wrung out the last of his strength and hurled himself toward that stone.