Volcanic Age - Chapter 3.2

Editor: Summerstood

But the basic training was still not over.

For a while, he would still have to suffer in the Hell of Nakan and also do co-training at the training center.

However, that’s not the main problem, until they all have studied and completed the Plum Blossom Qi Art they cannot study and practice another Qi Art.

“You can now put what you have learned for the past year into action.”

A deep smile formed on Ju Seo-Cheon’s mouth after hearing these words.

In the future, sixty-six years from the present.

At that time, a genius emerged who had excellent knowledge and an abundance of talent in martial arts since the day he was born. And the genius one day revealed a secret of the Plum Blossom Qi Art.

‘Nobody could have imagined it’

It was the achievement of the decade!

Everyone in the Hua Sect came to know about it. If you wanted to achieve even higher stages, you needed to learn this refined martial art.

There was no other Art better than this.

In fact, hundreds of years have passed since the foundations were laid of the Hua Sect and its name became known throughout the Martial Alliance, but still, no one could guess this enormous secret of theirs.

Ju Seo-Cheon, like everyone else, was just a part of the time that went by. He was also among the part of the people who just went with the flow.

Thus he was very shocked to see the secret of the Plum Blossom Qi Art to have been revealed.

“It’s really scary to have a fixed and inflexible mind because once you have set in stone about something in your mind, you cannot change it. And you cannot see the real intentions or purposes behind those things.”

The Plum Blossom Qi Art is just a basic Art to build the foundations and a path. It’s just kind of a stepping stone.

This was an established notion  about the Plum Blossom Qi Art that everyone had accepted.

The Plum Blossom Qi Art was one of the better Qi arts in the Martial Alliance, and it was also a foundational Art which everyone in the Hua sect started with.

By the time, everyone was focused on achieving even greater military exploits, only one person was able to find the secret of the Plum Blossom Qi Art.

After thinking about the past, Ju Seo-Cheon sat in front of a Plum tree that was near him after confirming that no one was near him.

What entered his sight was a white flower. A white plum.

‘We have been together forever.’

The symbol of Mount Hua was the blade and the plum flower.

It was called ‘winter plum’ because it bloomed in cold weather and also had another name which was ‘plum that blossoms in the snow’.

He had grown up looking at the plum blossom, even when the Murim fell in chaos and when the Hua Sect fell into a crisis.

He saw the plum blossom when he was young when he became one of the Five Elders, and even when he was on his deathbed.

And now, he was planning to bloom the secret of that plum.

‘Whew.’

He sat cross-legged and straightened his back.

He raised his chin and closed his eyes.

He then took in a deep breath and exhaled it.

Suuuup, Haaaa.

Inhaling and exhaling. He controlled it constantly and repeated it.

But it wasn’t that he was simply breathing.

Even though it was a little, he moved the warm energy starting from his dantian.

At first, it was the normal Plum Blossom Qi Art but it started to change in the middle. It was a secret circulating method that got revealed in the future.

‘Plum Flower Life Arts!’

For reference, this secret got shared with the disciples of Mount Hua Sect as soon as it got revealed.

Although the times of war had ended by that time and peace was all around, this so-called peace was quite unstable.

Murim suffered countless damages due to the war that continued for dozens of years and suffered in its aftermath.

The forces they had were merely a third compared to when they were at their prime and that was the same for Hua Sect.

They found the need to nurture future scholars to find stability once again and they discovered the Plum Flower Life Arts at that time.

In the case of Ju Seo Cheon, he was in a position to confirm the safety of the Plum Flower Life Arts and transmit it to others and so he had to memorize it.

‘It’s faint but it is entering.’

A smile formed on its own.’

‘The energy of the plum blossom!’

This was the secret of the Plum Blossom Qi Arts. The reason it would be called as Life Arts in the future.

It was because of the vitality contained in the plum blossom.

Qi training was referred to as accumulating qi that circulated in nature through a particular type of breathing and storing it in one’s abdomen.

That was the most basic and fundamental principle.

However, the Plum Blossom Life Arts went step beyond that fundamental principle and that was the vitality of the plum tree.

It was impossible to do it with other trees, but you could absorb the energy near the plum tree if you circulated it while reciting a chant.

At first glance, it might look like some Evil Art, but that wasn’t the case at all. It wasn’t taking the life energy of the plum to store it one’s dantian.

If that was the case, the plum tree would wither in no time and wouldn’t be able to blossom any flowers again. If that were the case, It wouldn’t have been called a Life Art. It would be an Evil Art.

‘It’s not taking or borrowing its vitality. I’m just inhaling what the plants exhale, and as such the plum tree inhales what I exhale.’

Qi wasn’t something only humans had. It was present in animals and even the weeds that were widely spread everywhere also had it.

And if they were a creature, they would breathe.

It was the same for the plum tree.

And the Plum Flower Life Arts let him suck in the vitality that got released along with some qi to slowly pile it up in his dantian.

‘Plum Blossom Unity.’

He recited a verse of the Plum Flower Life Arts that would be revealed in the future.

‘Become one with the Plum Blossom and breathe.’

‘I feel a bit sorry.’

Originally, all of this glory and fame should go to one person.

He had a guilty conscience while thinking that he unraveled the secrets before the scholar that wasn’t even born yet.

That’s why he was only planning to seal the secret that he knew the Plum Blossom Life Arts to himself in consideration of that scholar.

‘Good, it’s done.’

The biggest reason one could only remain at the stage of the Plum Blossom Qi Arts was because of the energy condensation.

The other things were fine but if you only saw the speed in which it accumulated internal energy it was so slow it was considered as being third rated in Kang Ho.

That’s why people judged that this was the only flaw this art had.

But that wasn’t the case anymore after the secret got revealed. It wasn’t to the point it could be called a divine art but it was still a peak first-rate art.

The reason there was a problem with the condensation of the energy was because they couldn’t reveal the secret behind it in the first place. But it now became perfect after having solved it.

‘It’s not at the level of a low ranked divine art but it won’t lose out when compared to other Peak internal energy arts.’

He was currently nine years old after having created his dantian and started condensing energy at the age of eight. He had just accumulated one year’s worth of energy.

But if he utilized the Plum Flower Life Arts he would be able to accumulate a great amount of energy after only a short time.

At the moment, even if his master would examine his pulse to check he would be able to hide it. He could only say that it was perfect.

The effect of the newly discovered secret was to improve the speed at which the energy was refined; this helped further the expansion of the dantian.

‘But most of all, the thing that makes me the happiest….’

He couldn’t hold back the smile forming on its own.

He focused his mind and executed the Plum Blossom Qi Arts in an instant just as if he was letting go of all of his accumulated frustration.

‘It means that I won’t have to hold back anymore!’

Even though he had the knowledge to complete the Plum Blossom Qi Arts long ago, he had to suppress himself because his master felt his pulse every day.

But that wasn’t the case anymore. He didn’t have to do that anymore.

It didn’t mean that your boundary would increase in an instant just because you completed the Plum Blossom Qi Arts.

That’s why instructors or other disciples wouldn’t be able to notice if they didn’t intervene directly and also, being able to feel the pulse of a young disciple and teach him was the authority of the teacher.

No one felt the pulses of others except for special cases, and if they do feel something special they tell that to the disciple’s master.

Ju Seo-Cheon was relieved because of these circumstances and circulated the Plum Blossom Qi Arts quickly without holding back anymore.

The insight that was tied up with chains broke and exploded like a flowing dam and harmonized in his mind and body. His will, that rode on the passage where qi was flowing, reached his dantian and created a change.

The five stars Plum Blossom Qi Arts reached ten stars in an instant.

The completion of an art was achieved at twelve stars but he couldn’t advance to the next stage because he lacked internal energy.

But that was also a problem time would solve. He just had to utilize the Plum Flower Qi Arts to condense his energy quickly.

‘I have barely taken a step into the future.’