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Chapter 7. Trapped in the Mirror
Enraged, Yeon Jeokha reached out, but the mirror stopped him.
“Damn monster! Give me back my things!”
Yeon Jeokha thought he had been tricked by a monster. The monster that had been trapped in the mirror had swapped places with him.
However, the monster paid him no mind and continued to happily romp around the warehouse.
Locked inside the mirror, Yeon Jeokha gritted his teeth, but he had no way to escape.
“Damn it! To be trapped by a monster!”
Desperate, he pulled at his hair and, without realizing it, kicked a "Xiaoxue" book, sending it flying.
Curiously, the world inside the mirror was no different from the outside warehouse.
Yeon Jeokha, breathing heavily, began to walk around the mirror.
It didn't take long for him to realize that he could only move within the same size as the warehouse.
“Damn idiot...”
The curses escaped him automatically.
He had been tricked and trapped in a confined space!
Frustrated and indignant, he kicked the mirror, but only managed to hurt his toes.
Thus, after five years of living in the warehouse, Yeon Jeokha began his life trapped in the mirror.
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Inside the mirror, Yeon Jeokha spent his days observing the monster.
The monster repeated everything he used to do.
It received food through the small hole, relieved itself in a container, and lazed around.
The only difference was that the monster always seemed happy, laughing all the time.
At first, Yeon Jeokha was furious, but over time, he began to see the monster as a pathetic creature.
Didn't it resemble a pig or a dog?
Yeon Jeokha cursed the monster, calling it 'stupid'.
One day, as he watched the monster eat his beloved bread, he couldn't contain himself.
“Stop eating! It's mine!”
Breathing heavily, Yeon Jeokha noticed the bread basket.
Even inside the mirror, there was a bread basket.
Although he wasn't hungry, he approached the basket out of curiosity.
The bread was dry and stale, but when he tasted it, it melted in his mouth, savory and soft like never before.
He immediately ate three pieces of bread and then looked around.
He noticed a container of water.
If the bread was like this, what would the water be like?
Yeon Jeokha took some water with a ladle.
The water in the outside warehouse should have smelled bad, but inside the mirror, it was different. Just by smelling it, he felt freshness.
He took a sip, and his heart raced at the sweet, refreshing taste. He drank eagerly until he was full.
“Inside the mirror, it seems better than outside,” he thought, satisfied.
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Inside the mirror, there was no way to know the passage of time.
Yeon Jeokha missed the fresh breeze that came through the small window.
Even the trees and grass outside the food hole were now a cherished memory.
One day, Yeon Jeokha realized he was just eating, relieving himself, and lazing around, just like the monster.
He decided to do something. He took a stick.
The monster outside the mirror wasn't himself, but it was proof that the movements he had learned weren't imaginary.
He clearly remembered the "Nine Heavens Swordsmanship" and the nine additional movements.
He stood up and began practicing the movements.
Suddenly, he felt a gaze on him.
The monster outside the mirror was watching him curiously.
‘Maybe I can attract the monster towards me, just as he did with me.’
Yeon Jeokha recalled the movements the monster had made.
He repeated the "Nine Heavens Swordsmanship" and the nine movements without rest.
But the monster just watched him without approaching.
Frustrated, Yeon Jeokha hit the mirror with the stick and shouted.
“Hey, monster! Show some interest!”
He surprised himself with his own voice.
He had never shouted at anyone like that before.
He felt a mix of fear and euphoria.
‘This is how my brothers must have felt cursing,’ he thought.
“Damn bastard!”
“Miserable!”
“Idiot! Come here!”
Since no one was listening, he used all the curses he had learned from his brothers.
After venting, Yeon Jeokha returned to his original place.
If he wanted to get out of the mirror, he had to attract the monster.
In that confined space, he could only repeat the movements over and over again.
Eventually, Yeon Jeokha noticed that the eighteen movements had a connection.
The "Nine Heavens Swordsmanship" had nine movements.
What were the other nine?
The eighteen movements flowed together as one swordsmanship technique.
How did the monster know those nine movements that even his father didn't know?
Yeon Jeokha thought the monster might be a distant ancestor of the Yeon Family.
That would explain why it looked so much like him.
‘Then, could it have a face similar to mine?’
Thinking that an ancestral spirit of the Yeon Family was trapped in the mirror made Yeon Jeokha feel guilty for having cursed at it. But upon further reflection, that didn't seem possible.
That monster hadn't been like that from the beginning. The first time he saw it, it looked exactly like him when he was six years old. An ancestral spirit wouldn't age the same way.
“What is this?”
Yeon Jeokha scratched his head, confused, and then looked towards the mirror. Suddenly, he met the monster's gaze. Upon closer observation, the monster resembled him, but there were also differences.
The monster's face was lit up, as if it had never known sadness. Yeon Jeokha had never had such an expression in his life.
Finally, he understood something for sure. That wasn't an ancestral spirit, much less himself.
‘It's just a prank of an unknown monster.’
It was pathetic to have confused that monster with himself or even an ancestral spirit. Yeon Jeokha repressed his fear and anger towards the monster and considered it a mountain to overcome, an enemy to defeat.
‘I need to change my approach.’
The Nine Heavens Swordsmanship didn't attract the monster's attention. Suddenly, he remembered the book the monster had been reading. The monster had flipped through it, touching its body and hitting its head.
‘It's definitely Xiaoxue...’
Yeon Jeokha took the book, willing to try his luck. Sure enough, the letters on the cover said: Xiaoxue.
‘Damn.’
Thinking that the monster had tricked him infuriated him.
“Damn bastard!”
With a curse, he flipped through the pages of the book violently.
The Mirror of the Mysterious Woman.
‘Huh?’
On the inside page of Xiaoxue, three words were inscribed: The Mirror of the Mysterious Woman. The elders of the family always talked about how the ancestors had lost The Mirror of the Mysterious Woman.
‘How is this in the mirror?’
If the Yeon Family knew this, they would faint.
“Ha! How wonderful!”
Everyone in the Yeon Family, from children to elders, had despised and mistreated him. They said he was the son of a slave brought by his stepmother from the Baek Family's house. They blamed his mother and him for his father's retirement from Murim.
He now understood why his father had retired. He knew she was going to die soon and wanted to spend her last days with his mother. After his mother's death, his father also died, and the Yeon Family locked him in the warehouse.
Yeon Jeokha, holding The Mirror of the Mysterious Woman, shouted:
“If I ever speak to the Yeon Family again, I won't be human!”
He almost gave up the Yeon surname out of disgust, but decided to endure it for his father's sake. However, he decided to have nothing to do with the Yeon Family for the rest of his life.
And what would he do with The Mirror of the Mysterious Woman?
Of course, he wouldn't share it. If anyone asked, he would say he had acquired the knowledge while trapped in the warehouse. Just imagining it made him feel good.
For that, he first needed to learn The Mirror of the Mysterious Woman and get out of this oppressive mirror. The monster had been pondering a lot over The Mirror of the Mysterious Woman. That meant it hadn't mastered it completely.
If he showed the monster a new sword technique and the mysteries of The Mirror of the Mysterious Woman, it would surely pique its curiosity.
Yeon Jeokha began reading The Mirror of the Mysterious Woman, just as the monster had done before. At the beginning, there was an introduction about the immortal, the Mysterious Woman of the Nine Heavens.
As he continued reading, a breathing technique called The True Classic of the Nine Heavens as One appeared. The Mysterious Woman of the Nine Heavens had created it, and according to the text, if trained according to this true classic, a fish would transform into a roc.
And that wasn't all. The second half of the book continued with explanations about the eighteen movements he had learned so far. The nine familiar movements were clearly the Nine Heavens Swordsmanship.
After that, the names of the nine movements he had learned from the monster appeared.
The Nine Heavens Supreme Swordsmanship.
A Swordsmanship that reached beyond the heavens?
Now he saw that the Yeon Family had only learned the first nine movements and called them the Nine Heavens Swordsmanship.
First, Yeon Jeokha memorized the nine hundred characters of the true classic, The True Classic of the Nine Heavens as One.
Then, following the instructions of The True Classic of the Nine Heavens as One, he took a deep breath, gathered his breath, and slowly exhaled, repeating the process over and over.
Countless time passed.
When the nine hundred characters of the true classic were deeply engraved in his bones, finally, in his Dantian (the energy field in his abdomen), a small seed of vital energy, the size of a grain of rice, appeared.
Inside the mirror, Yeon Jeokha didn't know hunger or sleep and was outside the flow of time.
When the seed of vital energy grew to the size of an acorn, the top of his head opened, and his Baihui Point (on the crown of his head) began to accumulate pre-heaven energy.
Yeon Jeokha was immersed in the ecstasy of breathing and energy circulation for the first time in his life and did not open his eyes.
After a hundred days, the overflowing pre-heaven energy from the Baihui Point flowed through his central channel and accumulated in his Dantian.
When the pre-heaven energy met the vital energy in his Dantian, the two energies merged like a Taichi (yin-yang symbol), forming a single energy.
Finally, the Nine Heavens Energy was generated, as described in The True Classic of the Nine Heavens as One.
Although he didn't know it, this was the same thing the boy in the mirror had done, sitting motionless for a long time, just breathing.
Once the Nine Heavens Energy was generated in his Dantian, Yeon Jeokha opened his eyes abruptly.
He didn't have much to do, so he focused and ended up obtaining the Nine Heavens Energy. Although he had only acquired the seed of this energy, he felt that his body was different.
Yeon Jeokha murmured with an uncertain expression.
“The Nine Heavens Energy comes from nothing, so I must wait with an empty mind…”
The problem was that he still didn't fully understand what terms like 'nothing' or 'empty mind' meant.