TRAINING

The reason why Mae Jaesun had me enter the sect through the traditional way and insisted that I rise up the standings without his interference was because he wanted to start from the bottom.

He knew that if he associated his name with mine, everyone would look at my every action as a reflection of his which would make his goal of overthrowing Mount Hua Sect's philosophy more difficult.

But if I was allowed to start from the bottom and work my way up while demonstrating to others that there wasn't a need to be so constrained to the tradition and teachings, I could inspire others to do the same.

Basically, I was a parasite he wanted to slowly infect the sect starting from the weak point which was the disciples who hadn't been molded into these one-dimensional thinkers yet.

"Wake up!" said one of the instructors, banging on the door.

He opened it and rays of sunlight blasted into the room. I'd already been awake so I immediately walked out, already dressed in my uniform.

I could see that the instructor took a mental note of what I did.

Kim Taeyang was the next to exit the room and as he was tying the sash of the uniform, he lined up next to me.

One by one, the other boys came out and lined up with me in the middle — ish (there were six people so there was no true middle person).

"Every morning from now on, you shall wake up at this time or earlier. Now follow me. This is where you will head every day," said the instructor.

He led us to this training ground where the four girls from yesterday were already there as well as a hundred-plus other outer disciples from the previous exams or children of preexisting Mount Hua Sect members (that's an automatic entry if your parents are members of the sect aka nepotism).

They were our seniors and were already engaged in their training.

The instructor said to the ten of us, "Because you guys are new, you'll be training separately from the others for the next two weeks. If you learn it quickly, you'll be able to join the others earlier. Don't be discouraged if you fail today. Most of us do."

He began to show us the basics of the Mount Hua martial arts.

In Mount Hua Sect, everyone trains without a weapon first. Only when they've mastered the second book are they allowed to pick a weapon that will become their main weapon for essentially the rest of their lives.

When you pick your weapon, you'll officially be a part of a certain faction that only trains in that specific weapon.

From the books you read, the instructors that teach you, and the facilities you use, all of it will be determined by the weapon of your choice.

The instructor showed us punches and kicks. We copied him and he would correct us one at a time.

I wasn't so talented that I instantly picked up the moves and was able to replicate them perfectly. 

Kan Hyojoo on the other hand was allowed to join the large group an hour in the training.

She looked back at me for a second before heading over to the large crowd where they were practicing the moves in a certain pattern constantly without stopping to rest.

Another hour later, the training stopped.

Our seniors all dispersed to where they needed to be while we stood there in front of the instructors waiting for what they had to say.

"That's all for the day. Every morning, two hours of training. If you're late, you'll be punished. After you're finished, you will need to head to the baths," he said while handing us the first book of the Mount Hua style which had drawings of the moves and the explanations behind them.

The girls and boys were then split up again and were guided to our baths.

We quickly washed and dried ourselves. When we went to get dressed, there were six school uniforms waiting for us.

The school attire was what you would imagine it to look like with its formality mixed with a bit of comfortability so that the students wouldn't pass out during class.

The instructor brought us to a classroom with no other students except for the ten of us.

"Consider this place a testing room. For one month, you'll be going over a multitude of subjects. Don't worry about how well you do. It's just to see where you are in certain aspects of your education. After a month, you'll all receive a personalized schedule with a variety of classes that matches the level you're at at the subject."

Because I was a farmer boy, I couldn't show my true knowledge.

After class ended, we took our books back to our rooms.

We had four hours to ourselves before we had to attend the afternoon training which was a more personalized training session where the instructors would go over our mistakes and answer questions about the martial arts.

The ten of us were assigned to training hall 207 which was missing some of its students because they had just graduated to the next level of the sect which was selecting their weapons of choice as I mentioned earlier.

As we waited for the time to arrive, we were alone in our room.

"Kan Hyojoo is really talented," said one of the boys, shaking his head. "I wish she could give me some of it."

"I thought you'd be the first to pass, Son Youngho."

I shook my head. "I expected her to be the first. But I'm not worried. She may be the first but I'll catch up. Regardless of how far ahead she may get, I'll catch up. We all will."

Everyone nodded their heads, agreeing with me.

I was reading the book that I was handed in order to justify my education skyrocketing soon. Well, one of me was.

I was using my duplication ability to have a clone of me train where no one was looking or could see.

He was busy working on perfecting the moves that we were shown.

I had to time it perfectly though because I didn't know who was the real me. It was useful in that neither of us tried to overthrow the other but now that I didn't know which one of us was going to vanish, we had to be careful.

I kept track of the time by looking at the sun outside and when I deemed that it was getting too close for comfort, I told the boys, "I'm going to walk around the sect for a little bit. Be back in a bit."

They waved me goodbye and after I hid myself in the shower room, I deactivated my ability.

"So I was the real one," said the one who had been training. I was training in the forest that was beside the building where we were at.

I resumed my training for a bit before returning to the room. I couldn't train until I was tired because I had to attend the afternoon training session.

There were only three people in there.

"Where's Kim Taeyang and Ryong Minjae?" I asked.

"Kim Taeyang went to go train and Ryong Minjae said that he wanted to go talk to someone in the girl's room."

"How does he know where the girl's room is?" I asked.

"I don't know. I think he asked one of them."

It seems like our group of ten was about to have its first couple. Young love. What a beautiful sight to see.

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Instructor Chi Namsun was in charge of us and she was extremely strict. If you kept making the same mistakes even after she already corrected you earlier, she would have you run ten laps around the training hall.

"Great job, Kan Hyojoo. That's perfect form. You just need to work on the speed but that'll come with practice," she said.

She walked over to Kim Taeyang and said, "Just because you look like a stick doesn't mean you have to move like a tree. Come on. Lift that elbow. Bend that knee. Stop using the heel to pivot. Use the ball of your foot as I told you to."

The training hall had thirty people in it. Everyone was in their own stages in their journey with the martial arts but she was able to navigate every student perfectly and gave advice that applied to their proficiency level.

"Excellent work Son Youngho," she told me. "I saw you earlier this morning and you've improved drastically since then."

'That's because I had a second session of training before this,' I thought to myself.

Well now that I think about it — most people probably also trained before they got here during their free time such as Kim Taeyang so that wasn't it.

I was just combining my knowledge from my previous lives and applying it to what I was learning now.

Kan Hyojoo looked at me and nodded as if she expected me to grow at a fast rate.

I rolled my eyes and looked away, continuing what I was doing. 

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That night, as I was sleeping, someone tapped me on the shoulder.

I opened my eyes and there was Mae Jaesun.

He didn't say a word but his eyes told me that he wanted me to follow him.

Carefully, I stood up from my spot without making a sound and made my way out of the room. I followed him into the forest so that the night guards wouldn't encounter us in their paths.

"How's the sect been treating you so far?" asked Mae Jaesun.

I answered truthfully with a shrug. "It's... alright. I'm trying to learn the style as best I can so that I can graduate this part of the training early but... it's frustrating having to copy something perfectly when it's so full of flaws."

"Flaws? Could you care to explain?" he asked.

I began to recall the words that the villain of this story told the female lead when he defeated her in combat.

I explained the flaws of the movements, the holes in the foundation that they were built upon, and how someone could easily counter them with certain responses.

"...Interesting," said Mae Jaesun. "Sorry, but you'll have to suffer a little longer. Keep sticking to the moves for now so that you can satisfy your instructors and continue progressing your way down the line. Then once you've mastered the first book completely, the instructors will grant you a ticket and you'll be able to show everyone an improved version of it during the Outer Grand Tournament."

The Outer Grand Tournament was a large tournament held at the end of every year which was six months from now.

It was a competition between the outer disciples of the Mount Hua Sect and the Hua Shan Sect. The two sects were often rivals in stories like this.

"Won't I get scolded?" I asked.

"Yes but if you win the entire tournament, who will be able to say anything?" he smirked.

"How will I be able to win against disciples who have already advanced to weapons?" I asked. "And that's just people of this sect. Hua Shan Sect will also bring people with years of experience and training."

The stage after weapons was going on missions but since they wouldn't be a part of the tournament, I didn't have to worry about them.

"Trust me Son Youngho, you're talented enough that you'll be worthy of becoming an inner disciple by then, let alone worry about the weapon stage."

He reached for something in his robe.

"But to help you with some confidence, take this," he said, placing a small bag in my hands.

I opened it and it was a bunch of very small pills around the size of a pea.

"Take one of these whenever you're extremely tired. It'll allow you to train for more hours than everyone else."

This was exactly what I wanted especially with my duplication ability in consideration.

"I... h-how much?" I asked.

"Don't worry about the cost. Just focus on the task at hand. You can pay me back in the future by making my dream come true."

I'm in this world to ruin the canonical path but now it seemed like I was also going to start a revolution in the Mount Hua Sect.

How exciting.

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By the way, if you're confused about the stages of being an outer disciple, I'll list it here.

1. No weapons where you train using the two books that show the foundational moves of the Mount Hua Sect martial arts. 

2. Weapons where you'll choose your weapon and you'll be focused on training with it until you've mastered the basics. 

3. Missions. After mastering the basics of your weapon of choice, you'll go on missions to prove your worth as a seasoned outer disciple.

4. After you've completed enough missions, you can either get promoted to inner disciples if you're talented enough, or for those less talented, you can become an instructor at the sect, a sect warrior (they are a part of the sect's army and continue learning more advanced moves of their weapons), a guard, or someone who does missions for money.