- Slip-Ups, One After Another
Because people were waking, he could not keep practicing.
The day’s work was starting, and he could not keep doing his own “important business” on the side.
He could not clearly remember what he had done the night before.
Wrapped in a strange heat, he had swung the blade until he could not stop.
It had not been deliberate.
He had not set out to do that.
It felt as if, following the flow of the sword-form—like a blade riding the wind—his body had moved on its own without him realizing.
Thinking of the form moved the body, but that did not feel like the whole of it.
Before the thought that shaped the form, the breath itself seemed to have driven his body that way.
When he practiced the sword, he breathed—
and because he breathed, the sword seemed to move by itself.
This was not “no-self” in some neat, staged meaning that the phrase suggests.
It was the kind of natural phenomenon that appears in training.
But he had no teacher to tell him what it was.
So he could only tilt his head and call it strange, and move on—using that small gesture to cover what he could not explain.
He cooled the heat that still would not fade with the morning wind and settled his breathing.
That blazing time felt short, as if not even a quarter-hour had passed.
He still did not know what that unknown heat was, the one that flared and swayed with every breath—
but he could feel it now “present” inside his breathing, like something that had become current in him.
He laughed to himself, thinking he might end up striking some passerby for no reason.
Then he realized he had not slept a single moment.
He thought about taking even half a watch’s worth of sleep—then gave up.
A little, awkward sleep was worse than none.
That, however, became the problem.
Soun practiced again that evening.
And he stayed up again.
And the next day, he did it again.
By the third day, he fought a wave of drowsiness all daylight long and made mistake after mistake.
He could not tell whether he was asleep or working.
While checking the ambush line, it happened often that he failed to follow the party when they turned back and, without thinking, kept riding forward alone.
The group would loop behind a rock, but the horse he followed would keep going straight, and he would ride on by himself for a long while.
Even when everyone had already stopped, hidden themselves, and started watching the enemy, he would absentmindedly lurch forward and expose himself.
One man grabbed him, another stopped him—
he only smiled sheepishly and looked sorry, while the foolish behavior continued.
Whether it was drowsiness or an obsession with the blade-form, he could not tell.
Half-asleep, he would nod and drift while replaying the movements in his mind, and then suddenly find himself standing alone in the center of an empty basin, separated from the group.
He was studying without sleep and sinking too deep.
If Sosam had not happened to keep an eye on him, Soun might have walked straight across the open plain and into the enemy.
Sosam caught the reins of Soun’s horse as it ambled toward the heart of the enemy line.
“Where are you going, Yusaengwon?”
“Ah—yes. A mistake. Ahahaha…”
During meal prep, he poured water into the pot and added grain powder—then added far too much.
Even as he watched it spill, his mind was elsewhere, and he kept dumping it in until the porridge turned nearly into a lump of dough.
Only then did Park Cheongyun stop him.
They poured in water until it could be eaten, but everything had become a mess.
By the third day he was close to collapsing.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
He had not slept at all—of course it would be like this.
When night came—when everyone slept and only the sentries stayed awake—he would go out into the wild beyond the camp, wake like a wolf under moonlight, and swing his sword like a sleepwalker.
Not sleeping let him push forward farther, faster.
He did not understand that.
He had done it for one thing only: he had poured everything into the sword.
And without knowing it, he was climbing over a high ridge of his own.
Gyeongpil found it strange enough to step into Yi Hui’s tent on the fourth day.
Nothing had happened yet, but it could.
And Yi Hui, for his part, had taken an unusual interest in “Yusaengwon,” giving what care he could within a campaign camp.
Even without seeing it, he would know.
If someone like that started acting oddly, it had to be reported.
“Yusaengwon is… off.”
Knowing Yi Hui was personally looking after that soldier, Gyeongpil reported it.
Yi Hui propped his chin on his fingertips and asked with open curiosity,
“How so?”
“He practices the blade method all night without sleeping.
That itself is a good thing, but without sleep, by the third day he wandered off-route and nearly walked into the enemy.
He turned the rice into a rice-cake.
While stacking hay for the horses he just stood there blankly and got smacked in the back of the head by a pole…
It’s a bit severe.
Earlier he was walking and just—collapsed.
Then he got up again, vacant, and started walking as if nothing happened.
That can happen, sure.
But then he simply gets up and keeps walking forward.
He tripped over tent ropes and brought down three tents.
He looks like a man whose spirit has fallen out of him.
Sometimes he mutters to himself.
He’s… become an idiot.”
Yi Hui listened with a flicker of concern, then—after hearing it all—let a small smile show.
“Then today is the fourth day.”
“Yes.”
“From today onward, he’ll probably be fine.
No—maybe tomorrow or the day after will be the hard point again.
He has no time, so he’s using the nights…”
Yi Hui understood.
Soun was driving himself forward without sleep.
If you’ve ever gone without sleep, you know.
Drowsiness comes in waves, but there are several “passes” you hit—
a few hard thresholds.
The first night.
The third night.
Then the seventh, and after that the twenty-first.
Yi Hui did not think Yusaengwon would try to cross all of them.
If you pass one threshold, you can keep going and still look fine—
but the mind grows razor-straight and the continuity does not break.
Then the depth changes, and you can even reach a deeper breakthrough.
If there were time, you could keep at it for three days, a week, even twenty-one.
But in a camp poised for battle, it would be hard.
Yi Hui expected that at some point they would find Yusaengwon collapsed in sleep.
“I don’t understand what you mean…”
“I told you earlier.
It’s that ‘palace martial art’—I handed him a page.
He’s practicing it.
I copied it out first, then gave it to him.
He’s not a desk-bound scholar for nothing—he can read the characters…
but it won’t be easy.
So if he’s staying up all night…”
Yi Hui chuckled.
“Why don’t you help him a little?”
“Me? I don’t know palace martial arts.”
“Just because it came from the palace doesn’t mean it’s gilded nonsense.
Martial paths don’t work that way.”
“No. I’m in no position to teach anyone.”
“Why not?
Are you lacking in martial skill? Lacking in study?
What is it you lack…
You’re the Daeju of the First Company of the White Dragon Unit.”
“Even so—people say they saw him once.
It wasn’t ordinary.
The way it cut through the air—
it looked like sword qi, and yet not—
he was wrapped in some strange heat.”
“Sword qi? Heat?
Say something that makes sense.
It’s been only three days since I gave it to him.
Sword qi is nonsense.
Even men who train for decades don’t produce sword qi.
That’s the kind of thing that belongs in fiction.”
Yi Hui shook his head.
“Anyway, he’s studying all night.
His mind is sunk into it.
He’s drowning in sleep, so he’s moving half-dreaming.
Make sure nothing big happens.
Keep an eye on him.
If you can’t help his training, then at least don’t stop him.
Just make sure he doesn’t wander somewhere stupid and break his neck.
He’s probably not eating either…
I’ll go see him.
Tonight, I suppose.
Where is it?
Where does he train?”
Gyeongpil turned and pointed with his hand.
“Beyond that ridge—there’s a small hollow basin.
Lots of dry scrub.
It doesn’t catch the eye.”
“Good.
If you’re curious, come out tonight as well.”
“Yes, General.”
“And the ambush detachments—no word. Why?”
As the topic shifted, Yi Hui’s gentle gaze sharpened again.
It felt like he could stab with his eyes.
“They seem to be in a standoff.
Neither side can touch first, because the one who moves first loses…”
“Right.
It’ll become a full-scale battle in the end.
How’s the Ordos River? Still frozen?”
“Yes. Still…
It’s brutally cold there.
They say the wind is especially vicious this year.”
“Take troops out and run a drill.
First and Second Company together.
The main force stays here; Sixth and Seventh will join soon.
Go, maneuver, come back—no engagement.”
“Yes. We do that daily.”
“What about provoking them—closer?”
“Gat’erip won’t budge inside his palisade.”
“And Mongroe?”
“That one’s thinking, or he got scolded once.
Even when we show impatience, he doesn’t bite.”
“Fine.
If they won’t move, we’ll have to.”
“Why… not keep waiting?”
They were close in age; the honorific slipped out, then he hurriedly added it back in.
“If we delay too long, their numbers swell.
If the forces that went toward Henan and Shaanxi join up, we won’t be able to stop them.
We’ll have to let them go.
Then all this holding means nothing.
Provoke them harder.
One day or another, they’ll surge out.
Then we draw them toward the shield infantry position, swing around, and cut their rear.”
“Understood.”
Yi Hui sent Gyeongpil out and fell into thought.
He had expected Soun to work hard, but not to that extent.
Not merely to survive—
Yi Hui began to think the boy might actually have a role to play in the coming fight, and that thought filled him with a quiet anticipation.
Soun already knew a Confucian sword method, so he might learn faster.
Still—only three days.
Yi Hui suspected Gyeongpil was exaggerating.
But if it was true—if Yusaengwon really was crossing a threshold—then another warrior was being born.
The final height of that achievement was unknown, but it could produce a fighter whose force was beyond ordinary soldiers.
A single commander’s presence in battle was immense.
One man breaking a corner could become the opening that collapses an entire defense.
One enemy leader’s head could decide the whole outcome.
If Soun could play that kind of role…
Yi Hui wanted to hope.
He did not expect the boy to perfect the art.
If he could only reach the edge of a master’s heel—
with an army behind him, that was enough to become tremendous strength.
Yi Hui knew that well.
Making constant mistakes in everything else meant he was sinking deep.
If he had no chores, the training would progress faster.
But Yi Hui had no intention of excusing him from duty.
If Soun was turning daily life itself into an extension of practice, it was better to let it continue.
It was regrettable that Yi Hui could not stand at his side and watch the progress.
But a “perfect condition for study” could not be expected in a war camp.
There were no such days, and there could not be.
What mattered was to turn the present lack into a foothold—
and use it to step higher.