Genius Martial Arts Trainer

Chapter 125:

Escape (3)

While Mu-yul was busy playing with the monkey.

The other four had already gathered at the agreed-upon location.

“Why isn’t Mu-yul here?”

“Did he get lost?”

“Where would he get lost? He just needs to use qinggong to reach the visible mountain peak.”

“Hmm. Maybe he didn’t get lost, but forgot he was supposed to return?”

“……”

“……”

“Hahaha. No way, even so, that couldn’t be the case.”

Except for Cheongsu Dojang.

For some reason, everyone felt more certain after hearing Cheongsu Dojang’s words.

It was lucky that Mu-jin ran into him while returning at the promised time; otherwise, Cheongsu Dojang might have also been distracted, admiring flowers and trees.

“It’s definitely that.”

“Ugh. From tomorrow, I’ll have to take him with me.”

“Then what about Cheongsu Dojang?”

“Cheongsu Dojang, you should take him with you, Mu-gyeong.”

“Let’s decide that later, we need to find Mu-yul first, right?”

“Yeah. Let’s move.”

After deciding, the four moved in the direction Mu-yul had originally headed.

Mu-jin tracked the traces Mu-yul had left behind, continuously blowing his whistle along the way.

If they got close enough, Mu-yul might hear the whistle and come looking for them.

How long had they been scouring the mountains like that?

As the sky began to be painted with crimson hues of sunset, Mu-jin worried that the surroundings would soon turn dark due to the mountains’ nature of bringing nightfall early.

“!!!”

He felt a faint clash of qi from somewhere.

Mu-jin, feeling uneasy, dashed in the direction of the clash of qi.

As they started to get closer, Cheongsu Dojang, Mu-gyeong, and Mu-gung also sensed the anomaly and their faces turned urgent.

What they saw as they ran at full speed using qinggong.

“…Why is he fighting a wild boar?”

“…Look over there, isn’t the monkey fighting too?”

It was an undeniably bizarre scene.

However, the strangest thing wasn’t that he was fighting a wild boar, nor that the monkey was also fighting alongside him.

“Why are they so in sync…”

The most baffling thing was that Mu-yul and the monkey’s coordination was impeccable.

They demonstrated perfect harmony as if they were one entity.

It wasn’t just that they alternated positions or executed well-coordinated attacks.

Both the monkey, an animal, and Mu-yul, who was close to being an animal himself, moved based on instinct rather than structured coordination, yet they somehow worked together seamlessly.

Moreover,

“The monkey seems to be mimicking Mu-yul’s moves?”

The monkey clumsily imitated Mu-yul, trying to perform Crane Fist, Snake Fist, and Leopard Fist.

“Then what Mu-yul is doing must be Monkey Fist?”

Mu-yul was also occasionally mimicking the monkey’s movements.

‘If this continues, the final form of the Shaolin Five Fists might change from Dragon Fist to Monkey Fist.’

For a brief moment, an idle thought crossed his mind.

“Let’s go. Mu-yul seems to be getting tired.”

With Mu-jin in the lead, the four who joined belatedly charged into the battlefield.

He wasn’t sure when the fight started, but Mu-yul, whose inner strength was waning, was gradually slowing down.

Whoosh!

Mu-jin, using his extreme Fast Ascent Step, tore through the foliage on the ground as he rushed forward.

In an instant, Mu-jin reached the battlefield and, channeling his inner strength, shouted.

“Move!!”

Even while busy fighting the wild boar, both Mu-yul and the monkey reacted to the shout and stepped aside.

A path to the wild boar quickly opened, and Mu-jin’s fist struck the boar’s forehead directly.

Bang!

At that moment, a thunderous sound akin to an explosion echoed, and the massive body of the boar was flung backward, unable to withstand the impact.

The flower bed, unable to bear the weight of the boar, had furrows like those plowed by an ox.

It was overwhelming violence.

If this had been an ordinary boar, its body wouldn’t have merely been pushed back but would have exploded entirely.

“Indeed, it must be a spiritual beast.”

The boar was merely knocked unconscious with a huge lump on its forehead.

Seeing the boar overwhelm Mu-yul, who was using martial arts, Mu-jin had swung his fist with full force, assuming it might be a spiritual beast.

‘Wait a minute. If it’s a spiritual beast, wouldn’t it have an inner core?’

As Mu-jin thought about this and rejoiced inwardly, Mu-yul approached and spoke.

“Mu-jin! When did you get here?”

At that bright question, Mu-jin sighed and replied.

“We came to find you since you didn’t come back. Why were you fighting here instead of returning?”

“Oh, right! Sorry. I forgot. Hehe.”

“I thought as much. But how did you find this place?”

Mu-jin asked, glancing around. The moment he arrived at this place, Mu-jin immediately recognized it.

This was the very place that appeared in the novel.

“Huh? Why? This is Ling-ling’s home.”

“Ling-ling?”

When Mu-jin asked, tilting his head in confusion, Mu-yul lifted the monkey he had been fighting alongside and presented it.

“Ook?”

As the small monkey cried, tilting its head, Mu-jin looked at it with an incredulous expression and asked.

“This is that monkey’s home? Then what about the boar?”

“He took Ling-ling’s home. And he even ate Ling-ling’s mother! So I tried to punish him instead, but he was stronger than I thought. Hehe.”

“Right?” Mu-yul asked, to which the monkey responded with, “Ukki! Ukki!”

Mu-jin, who had been staring at them with a bewildered expression, suddenly had a flash of insight.

‘Wait a minute. Seeing how it fought that boar, isn’t this monkey a spiritual beast too?’

The thought that the monkey might have an internal elixir in its belly crossed his mind.

“Ukki!!”

Suddenly, the monkey let out a scream as if having a fit and hid behind Mu-yul.

“Ukki? Ukkikki?”

Then, Mu-yul, mimicking the monkey’s cries, spoke to Ling-ling as if it was the most natural thing.

Mu-jin watched this confusing scene unfold for a moment.

After finishing their conversation in monkey language, Mu-yul looked at Mu-jin with a displeased expression.

“Ling-ling is scared.”

“Huh? Scared of what?”

“Ling-ling thinks you’re trying to eat him.”

Mu-jin involuntarily flinched at Ling-ling’s accurate assessment.

Just then, Mu-gung, Mu-gyeong, and Cheongsu Dojang arrived and joined the conversation.

“Mu-yul, you must have misunderstood.”

“Right. No matter how much it’s Mu-jin, he’s still a Shaolin disciple. He wouldn’t do something like that.”

“Hahaha. How could Master Mu-jin possibly cut open Ling-ling’s belly when he’s perfectly fine? Amitabha.”

“……”

The moment he suggested cutting open Ling-ling’s belly, he felt like he would become the worst villain in the world.

“Ahem. Of course! Ling-ling must have misunderstood. Tell him not to worry.”

Mu-jin forced an awkward smile and looked at Ling-ling as if seeking reconciliation.

‘This is why perceptive kids are a problem.’

There was a strange sense of regret in his eyes.

“Ahem. Enough with the nonsense. Let’s deal with that boar first.”

Ignoring Ling-ling’s suspicious gaze, Mu-jin pointed at the boar.

“Huh? Deal with the boar?”

“Are we just going to leave it there?”

“We’ve punished it enough, so shouldn’t we just drive it away?”

“But after we leave, that Ling-ling or whatever will lose its home again.”

“Oh…”

Mu-yul, who usually seemed thoughtless, now had a complicated expression on his face.

“But killing a perfectly fine creature…”

“Amitabha. It’s best to avoid killing whenever possible, Master Mu-jin.”

Even the three onlookers started to dissuade Mu-jin.

Unlike Mu-jin, who was a fake monk thoroughly corrupted by the secular world, the other four were relatively innocent monks and taoists.

Of course, Mu-jin found their words frustrating to the point of madness.

“If you’re going to say such things, you shouldn’t have interfered in the first place. You should have let nature take its course and let Ling-ling be eaten by this creature. Nature operates on the principle of survival of the fittest. So, if you’re going to interfere, do it properly. Ling-ling probably doesn’t want to end his revenge on his mother’s death with just a beating.”

“Ukki! Ukki!!”

Ling-ling barked in agreement, shaking his head vigorously up and down.

With Ling-ling siding with Mu-jin, the other four found it hard to refuse.

‘Well done, Ling-ling. I won’t target your internal elixir. Hehe.’

Judging by size and strength, the boar’s internal elixir was bound to be much larger than Ling-ling’s.

Thanks to Ling-ling’s support, Mu-jin could easily acquire the boar’s internal elixir.

Even finding this location was thanks to Ling-ling, making it a stroke of good luck.

Ultimately, under the pretext of avenging Ling-ling’s mother, Mu-jin focused his energy and crushed the boar’s head with a single blow.

Then, he used his energy to cut open the boar’s belly and find the internal elixir.

“Phew.”

Mu-jin finally succeeded in extracting a round, bead-like object from the boar’s belly.

Covered in blood from rummaging through the boar’s abdomen, Mu-jin held the elixir and moved towards the flower field.

Inside the flower field, where a cliff towered overhead like a roof, water flowed down the cliff, creating a pond over the ages.

Mu-jin washed his arms and face in the pond’s water and surveyed the area.

The terrain suggested that natural energy would be concentrated here, but the pond’s water was not a miraculous elixir—just somewhat beneficial spring water.

This was because creatures that thrived on the natural energy accumulated in the pond existed here.

‘There it is!’

Mu-jin’s eyes shone as he spotted blue leaves growing near the pond.

Several blue leaves were growing along the pond’s edge, just as Mu-jin had hoped.

‘But why are there so few…?’

There should be more, right?

The thought barely formed before Mu-jin came up with a hypothesis.

‘Could that boar have eaten some of them earlier?’

Of course, there was no way to confirm this theory.

After all, when Dao Yuetian discovered this place in the novel, such a boar didn’t even exist.

But the reason didn’t matter much. What was important now was that an even greater opportunity awaited them than expected.

“Look. Do you see those blue leaves around here?”

“Yes.”

“Start picking them one by one. That’s the miraculous elixir I mentioned.”

“Really?”

“Seriously?”

With surprised expressions, the four of them dug around the blue leaves and soon found the main body, which resembled ginseng, rooted in the ground.

Even though they avoided the smaller, almost grass-like ones and only pulled out the larger ginsengs, they managed to gather six in total.

‘Dao Yuetian only managed to get three!’

This was an incredible success in many ways.

Even though, if they divided them among the five of them, each would get only one and one would be left over, Mu-jin was willing to give up his share. Moreover…

“Cheongsu Dojang, I’m sorry, but could you let Mu-yul, Mu-gyeong, and Mu-gung have these ginsengs? After all, I have the Great Restoration Pill, and you have Taecheongdan, so we already have plenty of internal energy and won’t benefit as much.”

Mu-jin was reluctant to give one to Cheongsu Dojang, who only had an obsession with swords and didn’t care much about anything else.

“Hahaha. Since you were the one who knew about the elixir here, Mu-jin Doin, you should decide as you wish.”

Cheongsu Dojang, who had no attachments other than to swords, didn’t mind at all.

Thanks to this, the distribution was easily settled, and Mu-jin handed two ginsengs each to the three members of the Muja Trio.

‘In any case, eating multiple of the same elixir only builds resistance and diminishes its effect. Two is the proper amount.’

Dao Yuetian had eaten three ginsengs, but by the time he ate the third one, it only increased his power by about five years.

Compared to the twenty-five years of power gained from the first one and ten years from the second, the efficiency of the third was quite disappointing.

At that moment, Mu-gung, holding two ginsengs, asked hopefully,

“But, could those flowers also be elixirs?”

Looking at the spot Mu-gung pointed to, they saw Ling-ling, who had reclaimed his home, happily eating the red flowers growing from the ground.

“You’re half right and half wrong.”

Mu-jin explained with a grin.

“Those flowers can only be eaten if you have the ginseng. They are poisonous otherwise.”

In the novel, Dao Yuetian had almost crossed the river of death because of his greed for the flowers.

He had barely survived by hastily eating the ginseng after consuming the flowers first.

The forty years of internal energy Dao Yuetian gained included the energy obtained from those red flowers.

“It’s probably because of the relationship between the ginseng and the flowers. The place where natural energy is most concentrated is this pond.”

Mu-jin pointed at the pond as he spoke.

“But this water has almost no elixir effect. The ginseng and flowers around it have absorbed all the natural energy. Probably, the flowers with poison first emerged to monopolize the natural energy, and then the ginseng, which can neutralize the poison, grew around the pond, absorbing the energy that would go to the flowers.”

“Oh.”

“Mu-jin, how do you know all this?”

“As expected, your family is known for its medical knowledge. You seem to know everything about this.”

“Ah! So that’s how you knew there was an elixir here!”

Although Mu-jin was merely recounting Dao Yuetian’s reasoning from the novel, he felt no need to correct the children’s misunderstanding.

After that, each member of the Muja Trio picked a few red flower petals and began to consume them along with the ginseng.

Meanwhile, the sky, which had turned orange at sunset, darkened, and the moonlight and starlight softly illuminated the flower field where they were.

About an hour passed. The first to open his eyes was Mu-gyeong.

Thanks to his outstanding comprehension, he had the deepest understanding of the internal energy technique among the three.

After another quarter-hour, Mu-gung opened his eyes, and another quarter-hour later, Mu-yul did as well.