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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Shrine
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Based on the original work, the Westerners had a relatively lower amount of aura compared to in the martial arts world.
To be precise, the amount of aura was lower compared to the level of mastery of skill.
There could be many reasons, but the biggest reason was that Europe had been playing war games under the name of crusades for over a hundred years.
You have some talent?
Conscription.
The son of a noble? You’re not going on a crusade? Can you still call yourself a noble?
Conscription.
To regain the glory of the great Roman Empire or something.
Conscription.
They gathered talents from all over Europe in various ways, made them do menial tasks under the name of beeing trainees, trained them, and if they showed promise, they were made apprentice knights and properly nurtured.
And in actual combat… they were relentlessly deployed, whether they died or not.
The survival rate was roughly around 30%… if I remember correctly.
That was the current knight training method in Europe.
If you ask if it’s inefficient… it may be inefficient, but the fact that the madness called crusades doesn’t end in reality is largely because it’s actually showing results.
As the number of knights increased, overall combat power also grew stronger. The surviving knights became harder to kill and gradually stronger as they went through more battlefields.
The knights of the current generation were raised in a way that was even more extreme than in the demon cult.
Anyway, since they were raised in such a way, the meditation techniques also developed in a direction that increased stability rather than the efficiency of aura accumulation.
There was too much difference in the level of knights when they were trained in an rushed manner.
If you put together some random guy from the countryside and the son of a noble knight family, there’s no point in meditation techniques that require a good understanding. What if they get possessed by demons?
By the way…
“The effect of the hundred-year-old Polygonatum odoratum is really good.”
Seeing my meager mana core filled with aura, I understood why martial artists were obsessed with elixirs. With one elixir, there is more aura accumulated than I’ve accumulated in my entire life by meditating day after day.
Of course, if you consume it incorrectly, you might end up getting possessed by a demon instead of gaining aura… but my meditation technique was unnecessarily stable, so it accepted the energy of the hundred-year-old Polygonatum odoratum without any problem.
It would take a few more days to fully digest it, though.
“Thank you very much.”
“It’s a natural reward, so don’t worry about it. Rather… it’s about time we talked about the demon cult. Do you think the forces of Haenam Island can stop the demon cult?”
“I don’t know the extent of the demon cult’s power, but… if the rumors are true, it will be difficult for the Haenam Sword Sect to completely block the attack. The government troops that can help… I heard they don’t get involved in the affairs of the martial arts world.”
I don’t even know if proper government troops exist in this world in the first place. There should be at least one instance in the original work where government troops played a role other than being doorkeepers. At least the country itself seems to exist.
“There aren’t even any decent government troops on this island at the moment.”
“There isn’t any?”
“Originally, this place was used as an exile island, so which ruler would pay attention to it? They just mark it as their land and neglect it.”
An exile island. Was Haenam Island originally such an island?
Well, that’s not important, so let’s move on. What’s important now is to stop the demon cult’s attack.
We strengthened the defenses, but it wasn’t something to be set aside just by guarding.
“Sect Leader, I heard that the main ports have entered a state of war preparedness… but are there no ways to sneak in?”
“Hmm. It’s not that there are no places for stowaways… but those places are already under surveillance. Those are places that can only be found by those who are well-versed in the geography of Haenam Island, so the demon cult bastards won’t be able to come that way.”
How would the demon cult bastards try to enter?
In the original work, the process of the demon cult annihilating the Haenam Sword Sect and occupying Haenam Island was omitted, so it was a pity that I couldn’t know the process.
If I knew the entry route, I could just wait there and turn them all into water ghosts. No, they would have learned water techniques, so they wouldn’t die due to something like that, right?
“The demon cult bastards are causing a lot of trouble.”
“It’s not just a day or two that they’ve been attacking, trying to unify the Central Plains, so don’t worry.”
Despite saying that, the Sect Leader’s face was filled with worry. He told me not to worry, but he himself looked like he was having a very hard time.
It was only natural.
With the Haenam Sword Sect suffering significant damage from the Japanese pirates’ attack, they now had to stop the demon cult.
If I were the Sect Leader, I would have vented my anger, complaining that there’s no misfortune like this.
“Have you sent a letter to the Wulin Alliance by any chance?”
“It will take a while for them to come. In the first place, even if the letter arrives as quickly as possible, it will take at least a month…”
“Even if they send reinforcements, it will take another month, no, roughly two months or so.”
Is this why they were chosen as the number one target for attack?
Is it because the distance between the Central Plains and Haenam Island is not negligible?
Of course, it was also a forced march for the demon cult to come all the way down here from Xinjiang, but strategically, it made sense to target the Haenam Sword Sect, which was practically isolated.
In fact, that’s how it was.
Even in the original work, it was quite some time after the Haenam Sword Sect was annihilated that the news reached the martial arts community.
“You should go in and rest for now. You haven’t cleaned up yet, right?”
The Sect Leader, seeming to have a lot on his mind, suggested that I go back.
I quietly got up from my seat and bowed my head to him.
“Sect Leader. Don’t worry too much. I’ll also try to find a way.”
“…Thank you.”
“Compared to the favor of saving my life, this much is nothing.”
Then shall I go back?
I closed the door of the hall and left the main building.
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“Uncle, you’ve been working hard on training these days!”
“I need to practice how to handle aura, I mean, internal energy.”
“I see…”
The amount of aura accumulated in my mana core was more than what I had accumulated in 2 years, so if I didn’t adapt quickly, it was certain that there would be problems in actual combat.
I rarely used aura unless it was really necessary because of my premature ejaculation-like aura amount. This time, it wouldn’t be bad to test how far I could go.
I gripped the wooden sword and slowly drew out the aura.
It is the process of generating what is commonly known as sword energy. I slowly loaded the aura transferred through the mana channels onto the sword.
Until the wooden sword was on the verge of breaking. The wooden sword began to tremble and be enveloped in a blue light.
“Amazing! Sword energy! No matter how much internal energy I put into the sword, it doesn’t even glow blue!”
“You need to reach a certain level first to create it.”
“But even if I train hard, my skills don’t improve much. How did you become a supreme expert in just 2 years of learning, Uncle?”
When I withdrew the aura and looked at Hye-ryeong in response to her question, Hye-ryeong looked up at me with sparkling eyes, looking like she was dying of curiosity.
“Kill about 2,000 people.”
The number of people I killed on the battlefield seemed to be roughly that much. The battlefields I roamed were all at the level of suicidal charges.
In a single battle, the number I cut down was close to 100 at most, so it might not be a joke, and I might have really cut down about 2,000 people.
“2,000 people? Don’t make such a joke!”
Hye-ryeong flapped her arms in shock. To this innocent child who doesn’t know the ways of the world, my words must have sounded like a joke to tease her.
But what can I do?
It’s the truth.
“The job of a soldier on the front lines is to kill people to the point of being sick of it.”
Fighting in the name of crusades. Killing with meaningless hatred. Killing without any thought.
My 2 years were filled with nothing but slaughter.
At first, I would vomit just by seeing a corpse and couldn’t even have a meal that day, but now I could calmly joke and eat even if someone’s head was cut off right in front of me.
…It’s a past that is over now.
Sigh.
What’s the point of thinking about a needlessly dark past?
I finally came to a relatively peaceful Central Plains, so I should worry about stopping the demon cult.
If we can just stop the demon cult here, it will remain peaceful.
“Uncle? Are you okay?”
“What?”
“The wooden sword… it’s broken…”
Hye-ryeong’s worried voice entered my ears. I lowered my gaze that had been looking ahead and looked at the wooden sword.
The wooden sword, which failed to handle the aura injection, was miserably broken from the middle. It was as if a small bomb had exploded inside.
“I must have been lost in thought too much.”
I set the wooden sword aside and took out a new one.
“It’s good to work hard, but you need to rest at times like this!”
“Aren’t you resting too much?”
You’re also a martial artist of the Haenam Sword Sect. At my words, Hye-ryeong avoided eye contact and answered.
“Anyway, Big Uncle, I mean, the Sect Leader will probably stick me somewhere and tell me not to fight…”
There was an undisguisable sense of disappointment in her voice.
But, Big Uncle…?
Was she the Sect Leader’s niece?
Only then did I realize to some extent why Hye-ryeong was not sternly stopped even when she moved around as she pleased.
So that’s how it was.
Well, that’s the Sect Leader’s business, and from my standpoint…
“Hye-ryeong. Pick up a wooden sword.”
“Yes?”
“Let’s have a light spar.”
I can’t just mess around with someone who becomes a supreme expert in the original work.
I decided to take care of Hye-ryeong a bit in my own way.
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Realized that Heanan Island is Hainan Island in real life. That big island south of China that’s not Taiwan, near the border of northern Vietnam
Yeah, you can Google provinces of china to see their names, quiet useful in murims with China as the setting since you can easily see which places they are talking about