A Fist is a Good Motivator

The most peaceful hell one can live in, that is where I am.

An underground garden seemingly built from a dream stretched in front of me as I sat with my father at the edge of the grassy plain. The next ten weeks of my life would be spent in this underground garden, but a garden is no hell, so why do I say I'm in hell?

Because of my training.

Ten weeks of nothing but cultivation, ten weeks of becoming the exact thing I loathe, ten weeks of time where the only human interaction I'll have is with my oaf of a father. Normally this wouldn't be so bad, but I can't stand martial artists, let alone martial artists who get excited for fighting strong people.

I learned my father was one of those types of martial artists when I first awoke in this body. After I had tried to kill my father out of anger, only to be stopped by his unrelenting internal energy, my mother had to step in to prevent him from trying to fight me.

He's the only one in this life that knows about my Sword Unification so far, and I'm sure he's not going to make things easy for me. I won't find out until he starts training me, but I'm sure he has something in mind.

Lee Seok cleared his throat before opening his eyes and looking at me. He must have been thinking or waiting for me to get used to the underground environment.

"Haneul, before we begin, what are the three family rules?"

What? Why is he asking something like that when we're supposed to be cultivating? What kind of martial artist is he?

I reply begrudgingly.

"No use of martial arts against regular citizens, treat everyone with respect until they disrespect you, and protect the family at all costs."

These rules dictate everything in the family, as they were set by Lee Seok, it's that rule that lets sister Eun-Kyung get away with beating Kyu-Bong senseless. Eun-Kyung hasn't learned martial arts, and she's a member of our family, so she has two rules protecting her.

"Good, you remember them dutifully. Now forget them."

Huh? He wants me to forget the rules of the family that he set?

"May I ask why, father?"

Lee Seok stood up and began walking in a circle around me, is this how he taught my brothers?

"You will forget these rules only when in the cultivation center and in the Ironwood Splitter Grounds. Do you understand?"

There it is again, the damn Ironwood Splitters, who the hell are they?

"I do, but what is the Ironwood Splitter Grounds?"

"That is the name of the external arts clearing. It's called that because of the training our family does there. Now, are you ready to begin training?"

Fuck no, I don't want to be here in the first place. 

Sigh… Being the Crazed Unifier was better than this, at least I didn't have to do things I didn't want to do in my previous life. But this oaf can block my Formless Sword Unification with just his energy, so there's no point in resisting.

"I am."

That doesn't mean I'm not tempted to do it when he's not looking. But I doubt even Guan Yu could devise a strategy to stab him.

Though, not having to deal with those damn hallucinations and their incessant blabbering is quite pleasant, not being the Crazed Unifier isn't so bad.

"Follow me Haneul, I'll explain as we walk."

Why can't you just explain now? You make no sense sometimes you overgrown oaf. 

Yet I stood up and followed Lee Seok across the underground garden. I'm not going to risk my free time by disobeying him.

As we approached a lone tree at the center of the underground garden, I calmly questioned Lee Seok about my training.

"You said I will be down here for ten weeks cultivating, but I don't know any cultivation methods. How will I cultivate?"

Without a single pause in his pace, my father dished out a light punch to my gut. I say light, but it was only light to Lee Seok. I didn't even register that I got punched until my head was on the ground and my agonized screams filled the underground garden.

I can't feel anything but the searing pain in my stomach now, my ears are ringing just loud enough so the only other thing I can hear are my screams. Not even that damn drink the old bastard in my previous life gave me pained my stomach this badly.

"Get up, I didn't even punch you that hard."

Is someone speaking? This damn ringing is making it hard to tell… No! Those damn voices better not be coming back! Anything but those rambling fuckers! Maybe moving will keep those voices away, I have to stand up!

While the pain in my stomach slowly numbed and the ringing in my ears died out, the struggle of crawling up off the ground made even the grass under my palms feel hotter than the hottest flames.

Finally I managed to stand up, but nothing was the same. The whole world around me was spinning randomly, but a single tree stood still behind my father. Finally I heard my father speak over the now faded ringing in my ears.

"How will you cultivate? You moronic brat, do you think I have ten weeks spare to teach you how to use our family qi breath technique? You'll have one hour a day max with me to learn the qi breath technique easily, after that hour is up you will study on your own."

So I'll have one hour per day to train and the rest of the day to do whatever I want? He's severely underestimating my motivation to train, I'll only be training for an hour a day for ten weeks, such a bliss.

My throat is still shaking from that punch earlier, but thankfully I can speak a little bit. If I don't act interested after taking such a punch he'll watch over me even more to make sure I didn't get any internal injuries.

"H-how much longer do you have today?"

Though I definitely had internal injuries, that oaf doesn't know how to hold back his strength.

But even horrified can't describe how I felt after hearing the next words my father spoke.

"Today is special, I'll be here all day."

Damn it, why couldn't he have just given me a manual on the qi breath technique and let me learn in the shitter? I'll complain all day if it means I don't have to join the Jianghu again.

I opened my mouth to speak, but was quickly cut off by Lee Seok.

"Enough questions you brat, sit in a lotus position and take off your upper robes too. I'll be forcing the energy flow into you, so make sure to memorize it well."

I only felt a shiver down my spine as I dropped to the ground and sat in a lotus position, I don't want to be punched by that monster again. Taking off my upper robes and letting out a stressed sigh, I could only wait for the process to begin.

Lee Seok's hands soon were placed on my back, the skin on his hands was ferociously hot from the internal energy flowing through them. It wasn't like heat from a flame, or the burning sensation of sliding on ice without clothes, it was a soothing heat, as if it was trying to put me to sleep despite its ferocity.

Amidst relaxing in the heat being applied to my back, I overheard Lee Seok speak to me.

"Have fun screaming, Haneul."

What felt like hundreds of hot needles pierced my back and began to spread through my whole body, causing a rampage through my qi vessels as they broke through any impurities that laid in my qi vessels.

If I scream, I will lose focus. If I lose focus, I won't memorize the path in which the qi flows. If I don't grasp that path in one try, I'll get beat. Screaming is not an option.

Slowly the qi coursing through my qi vessels took hold in my lower stomach, where my dantian will be formed. But this qi feels weird, the way it rages and burns throughout my qi vessels akin to a wild flame is weirdly empowering.

"You learn quite fast brat, who taught you to learn this quick?"

I didn't have the time to listen to Lee Seok speak, I had to deal with this qi running through my body.

Like a flame being sucked around a pillar of wind, the qi coursing through my meridians flowed into my stomach and began to spiral and compress around what felt like a small pit in my stomach.

I couldn't feel this pit for ten years, why is it showing up now? But as the qi spiraled around that small pit, more of my father's qi rampaged into my body, an infinite cycle of pain and spirals.

It's hard for me to think, this qi is messing with my body in a weird way…No, it's not the qi messing with me, it's the pit in my stomach that's stirring up trouble.

It's like I have an unused elixir or spirit pill in my stomach, just waiting to be used for cultivation. But I haven't used any elixirs of spirit pills in this life.

Like a whirlpool slowly draining into an empty lake, the qi circling the pit in my stomach condensed and drained into the pit. Leaving only a bigger, flaming pit to deal with. If I didn't control the flames, it could very well destroy my body.

The only problem, the pit put out the flames in an instant.

Like the calm tide of the ocean under a half full moon, the pit in my stomach swallowed the flames and let the qi flow peacefully into the center. A rampage of flames being soothed by the liquid-like pit in my stomach, one side cannot exist while the other still exists in my qi vessels.

A tree survives off of water, but cannot exist without the destruction of flames. My body is a tree living on a flaming mountain with a single pool of water at the top.

Just like that tree I sat under before I died…

From that thought onward the only thing I could think of was the sight I saw before my death. The deep orange and purple sunset that stretched over the horizon as far as I could see.

The calm pit in my stomach flared up and through my qi vessels, swallowing the qi being pumped into my body by Lee Seok and returning to my dantian. Though I could only think of that blissful sunset, I understood it all, the flow in which qi entered my meridians from my breath, from the environment around me, and how it flowed through every meridian in my body.

"..... Up brat."

I remember this feeling… Inner qi running freely through my body as everything around me became quiet, it's just like the first time I formed a dantian, back in my previous life.

".... Brat, get up."

That oaf is talking to me, isn't he? I'll deal with him once I get used to this dantian, it feels so weird compared to my previous one…

"Haneul! Get up you greedy brat!"

I've had enough of him, I'm going to speak my mind.

"Fuck off old man! I'm getting used to my dantian!"

That felt nice. If you can't kill a man, you have to insult him to release your anger.

I forgot how good it feels to have a dantian, if only martial arts hadn't corrupted the purpose of the dantian. Dantians originally brought peace to the body, its purpose is to help the body live longer, but martial artists corrupted the dantians' purpose and used its power to corrupt martial arts for their own selfish purposes.

Power, greed, politics, freedom from the government, such corrupt purposes for such a useful part of the body. If I'm being forced to become a martial artist, I'll make it my mission to restore the beauty of martial arts.

Finally I stood up and turned around to face Lee Seok. I have ten weeks in this garden, I can get used to a dantian in that time.

Now to deal with Lee Seok, he's probably mad about me yelling at him…

I opened my mouth to speak, but the only thing I felt was grass and dirt against the roof of my mouth, and the painful sensation of my face being slammed into the ground.

The ringing in my ears was back, and all I could feel was the ground, and what felt like the back of my skull splitting open.

"Who told you to be so greedy you damn brat!?"

Punching me for no reason… Fuck you… Lee Seok…