Chapter 169 — Let Me See Your Sword for a Moment
Baek Ingyeom looked at Youngwoo, who was standing there awkwardly, and spoke.
"Let me see your sword for a moment."
Thoughtless as ever, Youngwoo loosened his belt cord and handed it over.
Truly, he was a thoughtless fellow.
Baek Ingyeom smiled faintly.
"I meant, show me your sword practice."
Youngwoo blinked blankly and grumbled.
"Ah! Yes! Then you should have said so."
He drew his sword and unfolded the forms of the sword method with precision.
He did not rush.
He did not gloss over anything.
He gathered his whole mind and laid energy upon each movement.
As he moved his sword toward the boundless space before him, he recalled in his mind the names that each movement pointed to.
It was the Twenty-Four Forms of Joseon Sword Method.
They were called twenty-four forms, yet their character differed from other sword methods.
Each form joined with two or three others to become a single technique.
Counted by number, it did not end at twenty-four.
In truth, close to sixty forms overlapped within it.
The first form was Geojongse, the Cauldron-Lifting Form.
Then came Pyeongdaese, the Level-Raising Form, and it ended with Toebo Gunranse, the Retreating Skirt-Barrier Form.
Three forms joined together to create one complete technique.
If one were to compare it to writing, a form was close to a single character, and a technique was like a word made from two or three characters.
In actual combat, one exchanged a single bout with one such technique.
With Geojong, he locked the opponent's upper line.
With Pyeongdae, he cut across the neck.
With Gunran, he swept the waist.
Gunran: A posture that blocks the lower body or forward space with the sword, like a skirt or railing. It is usually performed while retreating, deflecting or stopping the opponent's attack. The characters refer to a skirt and a railing, and the technique creates a defensive barrier by swinging the sword low and horizontally.
Nearly sixty forms loosened from his fingertips and flowed into one current.
Upon the set path, one form called the next, and one technique lifted the next into motion.
As the blade slid forward, silver sword-light flashed first.
The energy that followed stretched outward, cutting through the air and opening a path.
A light that had spread barely an inch began to take shape as a line.
That line stabbed, cut, and struck downward, splitting into thirty-six branches before weaving back into one.
The space filled with that light.
Sword-light spread in every direction, overlapping and entangling until it opened like a single curtain.
As the movements grew larger, his robe followed and rose.
Its folds seemed to hold the wind, spreading softly as his waist became the axis of turning, opening wide in every direction.
Like a fan bursting open in an instant, that shape flowed together with the sword's path.
Silver lines and the sweep of his clothing intertwined to form a single pattern.
The sword continued without rest.
The flow continued without break.
The movement widened little by little until it wrapped around the whole space.
Within it, the movements pushed and pulled one another, joining together.
At last, the gathered force became one, then spread outward again.
From within the sword-light, a faint energy began to seep out, almost visible and almost hidden.
It was sword qi.
The milky light extending about an inch from the sword tip was precisely that.
Youngwoo did not know it.
He only felt that his sword had become more solid.
He understood it as Chunggeom, Filling the Sword.
Chunggeom is the method of filling the sword with energy and sending that energy all the way to the tip.
It is not a matter of adding more strength separately.
It refers to the state in which the force arising from the body continues without break all the way to the sword tip.
The force begins in the feet.
It passes through the knees and rises to the waist.
The waist takes direction and pushes the shoulder forward.
That force passes through the arm and reaches the hand.
It does not stop at the hand.
It extends to the sword tip.
When this flow joins into one, the sword does not move separately.
It advances exactly as the body moves.
Therefore, even a short touch is not light.
Even without a long swing, it enters deeply.
Chunggeom is not a technique of wide, grand swinging.
It is the method of sending force in, short and solid.
Its core lies in two things.
Sending force forward without breaking it.
Filling it all the way to the sword tip.
Because the sword was full of energy, ordinary things broke when struck and were cut with ease.
It was the result of training in which he gave strength, placed weight behind the blade, focused his mind, and cut through in a single breath.
What Master Baek Ingyeom saw in his sword was the first threshold of sword qi manifestation.
Sword qi manifestation is the state in which energy appears at the tip of the blade.
A force that had been unseen spreads outward.
Energy that had remained inside the body flows along the sword and emerges.
The force begins in the feet.
The waist takes direction.
It passes through the shoulders and arms into the hand.
That flow reaches the sword tip without break.
At that moment, energy spreads from the sword tip.
The air is pushed aside.
The space before contact trembles first.
The sword does not merely cut an object.
It cuts the space before it as well.
Speed gathers.
Power concentrates into a single point.
It shoots straight toward the place the sword tip indicates.
Sword qi manifestation is not a visible light.
It is a state in which energy reveals itself outwardly.
When movements continue and breath falls into harmony, that energy naturally spreads outside.
It is not made by force.
Accumulated power reveals itself.
Soon, it would take form.
A visible sword qi, larger and longer than the sword itself, would overturn the world.
He had entered the path of a true master.