The Martial Genius Who Remembers Everything Novel - Chapter 197

Chapter 197
Chapter 197. An Uninvited Guest at the Academy (2)

“How…… how on earth did you execute Lotus…….”

For the first time, Yaryul Geuk displayed a look of bewildered shock that matched his age.

“Lotus?”

I inquired, feigning ignorance.

After all, the version of Lotus I had performed was an Ascendant Form modified via Jegal’s Three Forms.

“Are you referring to the Transplanting Flower and Grafting Tree Art?”

“……You’re telling me that wasn’t Lotus?”

“Correct.”

His eyes narrowed with skepticism, but it didn’t matter; my word stood.

It wasn’t as if the Flowing Cloud Sect held exclusive rights to the Transplanting Flower and Grafting Tree Art.

“Are you finished with your suicide runs? As I mentioned, were you and your brothers truly so incompetent after all?”

“…….”

Resentment flooded Yaryul Geuk’s face once more.

“Why are you the only one…….”

“Hm?”

“Why were you the only one who had all your Junior Brothers follow you?!”

So that was the root of his obsession with me.

“Is that why you despised me?”

We had started in a similar position, yet ended with vastly different outcomes.

The brighter my success, the more oppressive his own failures must have felt.

“Do you genuinely not understand the reason?”

“The reason?”

Yaryul Geuk’s eyes widened.

His expression betrayed a desperate hope that he might receive an answer his own limited perspective couldn’t conjure.

“Because you are pathetic.”

“…….”

I was actually pleased by his inferiority complex.

If he had surrendered entirely to despair, his internal darkness would have hollowed him out, leaving him utterly indifferent.

“Why do you blame others for your own shortcomings?”

The fact that he remained this frustrated proved that a sliver of desire to improve still existed.

“Go ahead, let that wretched, petty spite of yours bleed out, you hopeless fool.”

“Aaaaaaagh!”

That was precisely why I goaded him.

I believed Yaryul Geuk could channel his darkness and misery into something that made him stronger.

Yaryul Geuk mustered every shred of his inner power and charged.

He unleashed the Hard Thunder Fist Art and Downpour Palm Art, but techniques that weren’t even secret arts were never going to threaten me.

Tap, tap, tap.

When I deflected his attacks with just one hand, he realized that wasn’t working and switched to the Snowflower technique of the Flowing Cloud Divine Art.

If Lotus served as a counter-maneuver leveraging the Transplanting Flower and Grafting Tree Art, Snowflower was an offensive technique rooted in the principle of Four Taels Deflecting a Thousand Jin.

It was designed to deal massive impact using minimal force, and yet…….

“Is this it? This isn’t even child’s play.”

His attempt at Snowflower looked like a cheap street performance.

SMACK—

“Aaagh!”

Yaryul Geuk screamed and stumbled back, his wrist twisted.

“Grasping positional force and momentum is the core of Transplanting Flower and Grafting Tree and Four Taels Deflecting a Thousand Jin.”

Yaryul Geuk glared at me, clutching his injured wrist.

I seized his collar and launched him into the air.

“Aaaaaagh!”

Yaryul Geuk scrambled to stabilize himself mid-flight.

I applied more force to my grip.

“An object moving from a height toward the earth—that is positional force.”

THUD.

I slammed him into the ground.

“Ugh.”

Yaryul Geuk, clearly dazed, gnashed his teeth, vaulted up, and swung a fist.

I effortlessly sidestepped and, at the same moment, hooked his ankle while yanking his robes in the direction of his own momentum.

“The energy possessed by a moving object is momentum.”

THUD, THUD, THUD.

After skidding across the dirt and rolling multiple times, he staggered to his feet, clearly in significant pain.

“If your sect’s martial arts rely on the principles of Transplanting Flower and Grafting Tree and Four Taels Deflecting a Thousand Jin, you should have mastered the basics. Did you fail to grasp them entirely?”

“……Huff, huff, huff.”

He just kept panting, my words seemingly failing to penetrate his rage.

The scene was all too familiar.

“Like older brother, like younger brother.”

I muttered to myself.

Yaryul Geuk was exactly like that, and Yaryul Jae’s temperament had been just as volatile.

When using the Transplanting Flower and Grafting Tree Art, they poured in too much force; when using Four Taels Deflecting a Thousand Jin, they became unnecessarily tense.

Because they insisted on striking with the intensity their fiery personalities demanded, they over-exerted themselves.

If they were using a brute-force martial art, it might have worked, but it was fatal for a technique that required borrowing the opponent’s own energy.

Thinking back, Yaryul Jae only perfected the Flowing Cloud Divine Art toward the end of the Great Righteous-Demonic War because he was too exhausted to maintain his internal force, which forced him to relax and let the technique flow naturally. It was deeply ironic.

‘He needs to loosen up.’

And when it came to forced relaxation, what could be better than a good thrashing?

Of course, I didn’t intend to just pummel him mindlessly like Ak Ju-pyeong.

My motives were far more calculated.

If I utilized Palace-Pushing and Acupoint-Passing while relentlessly harrying him so he couldn’t recover his inner energy, wouldn’t the realization eventually dawn on him?

Plus, a teacher of my caliber provided direct guidance.

Where else could he find such personalized instruction?

‘Those brothers are truly exhausting.’

Yaryul Geuk’s breathing remained jagged.

“Tired already?”

He lunged at me again, eyes looking ready to roll back in his head.

He was incredibly predictable.

Tap, tap, tap, BOOM.

A familiar chain of the Hard Thunder Fist Art and Downpour Palm Art.

I had seen Yaryul Jae use it so often it had become tedious.

If I just added a subtle counter-maneuver here—

Grab.

Predictably, he tried to force the Flowing Cloud Divine Art.

“Tsk, tsk. I told you, it won’t work.”

I redirected his Lotus right back at him and pinned him to the floor.

THUD, THUD.

“Ughhh…….”

This time, the impact was severe enough to make his body contort.

“Softness Can Overcome Hardness. Reconsider what that truly implies. Transplanting Flower and Grafting Tree and Four Taels Deflecting a Thousand Jin aren’t just parlor tricks. If you don’t understand the underlying principles, you’ll never complete your sect’s martial arts, even if you spend a lifetime at it.”

Even flattened on the floor, Yaryul Geuk glared at me with pure venom.

“…….”

His angry hissing was almost comical.

Regardless, I had provided him with the keys to understanding Lotus and Snowflower, so he likely wouldn’t be giving up anytime soon.

I threw one last jab and walked away.

“D-damn you! Jin So-un! Watch your back!”

Ha…… the idiot was still lying there obsessed with the back of my head.

—

The following morning, as I exited the pavilion, I sensed movement above me.

“Really…….”

Yaryul Geuk leaped from the roof, holding one of his signature sharp stones.

“Wouldn’t the sword you got from the Academy be a more practical ambush tool?”

I truly couldn’t fathom what was going on in that brain.

I hadn’t understood Yaryul Jae’s personality either, so trying to decode his brother’s behavior was a lost cause.

‘Does he have some illness that kills him if he fails to keep a promise?’

Still, the fact that he only ever targeted the back of my head was bizarre.

I sidestepped slightly and landed a roundhouse kick to his gut—a move often dismissed as the specialty of bottom-tier fighters.

THUD.

Yaryul Geuk sailed nearly three jang across the private training yard and began retching, as if his stomach were turning inside out.

Instead of food, only yellow bile spilled out.

“Tsk……. Didn’t even eat breakfast?”

I had intended to track him down anyway, so I was grateful he saved me the trouble, though I wasn’t about to go easy on him.

“I was hoping for a peaceful morning, yet here you are, ruining my routine.”

I unleashed the Ten Thousand Transformations Invincible Fist and engaged in Palace-Pushing and Acupoint-Passing across his entire torso.

Essentially, I gave him a thorough beating that left no muscle untouched.

“Guhk.”

He flew another jang and tried to spring up, but suddenly froze, likely sensing something shifting internally, and started retching again.

This time, it wasn’t bile—it was dark red blood.

Stagnant blood, built up over years, was finally purging from his entrails.

“Damn it…….”

A typical warrior might have panicked, fearing permanent internal damage.

But Yaryul Geuk just wiped the blood from his lips—and immediately assumed his Opening Stance.

Then he rushed me like a bolt of lightning.

‘Oh, he managed to recover that much in one day?’

Perhaps my work with Palace-Pushing and Acupoint-Passing yesterday had cleared his blockages.

His footwork was noticeably faster and more fluid.

But──.

“Softness Can Overcome Hardness! Softness Can Overcome Hardness! You dimwit! Did you already forget yesterday’s lesson?!”

His movement was purely aggressive, completely ignoring the Flowing Cloud Sect’s core principles.

Suppressing a sigh, I channeled the Ascendant Form of Lotus from the Flowing Cloud Divine Art with one hand and slammed him into the marble floor.

“Ugh…….”

The pain of the hard surface striking his body caused him to squirm like an earthworm.

I pressed my foot firmly onto him.

“If you’re going to charge like a brute, use a different style. If you’re going to use your sect’s martial art, embody its philosophy. Can’t you do at least one of those things?”

“Huff── Huff──.”

Yaryul Geuk glared up at me, gasping for air.

I beckoned him with my finger.

“Come. You won’t manage to crack my skull just by staring.”

“Aaaaaagh!”

Yaryul Geuk screamed and charged again.

Within thirty minutes, I had drained him of all his energy.

“Haa, haa, haa.”

Yaryul Geuk lay sprawled on the ground, breathing raggedly.

I intentionally twisted my lips into a smirk.

“Giving up?”

“……Y-you. Once I…… fully master the Flowing Cloud Divine Art…….”

“Don’t get your hopes up. From what I’ve seen, you lack the talent for it.”

“Grr!”

He glared with burning intensity, but what could he actually do?

He was stuck on the ground, unable to even catch his breath.

“Master Jin So-un.”

At that moment, the Head Maidservant emerged from the pavilion.

“It is breakfast time. Will you be dining with your guest?”

I looked down at Yaryul Geuk and asked,

“You’re eating, right? The food at the Representative’s dormitory is quite famous.”

“……I-I’m not hungry!”

For some reason, Yaryul Geuk flushed bright red.

What was that about?

“He says he doesn’t want to come inside to eat.”

The Head Maidservant nodded.

“Then I shall bring the food out here.”

“Please do.”

When the Head Maidservant relayed this and returned inside, Yaryul Geuk raised his voice.

“I-I said I’m not eating!”

Why was he so passionate about refusing a meal?

His temper was truly something.

“Eat. I’d love to keep beating you, but hitting a man while he’s collapsed isn’t my style.”

“……Son of a bitch!”

Shortly after, the Head Maidservant led three other maids out, each carrying trays of easy-to-digest food, which they set before us.

The boy who had so stubbornly refused eventually took a spoonful when the maids didn’t leave.

“!!!”

After one bite, Yaryul Geuk’s eyes widened like a rabbit’s.

“It’s good, isn’t it?”

“……I can have food like this whenever I want once I become a Representative!”

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

“Ha ha ha! With that level of skill?”

“……!!!”

Yaryul Geuk clamped his mouth shut, glaring at me with trembling rage.

“The Flowing Cloud Sect’s Flowing Cloud Divine Art is the ultimate counter to any style! Don’t think you won’t eventually get caught by it?!”

Only now did it all click.

The reason he’d refused help for so long.

The reason he kept charging back into battle despite being humiliated by Ak Ju-pyeong daily.

The reason he had armored himself with such sharp, defensive pride.

‘This kid…….’

He was fighting to preserve a sense of noble dignity.

His rejection of others stemmed from a pride that he required no assistance beyond his brothers’.

The fact that he persisted, knowing he would be pummeled into the dust, was his final struggle to avoid shaming the brothers who had sacrificed for him.

To safeguard those memories, he had pushed himself to the brink of death.

A hollow laugh escaped me at his sheer stubbornness.

‘……He was even more insane than I imagined.’

Yaryul Geuk shoveled the food down, still glaring at me.

He kept his gaze locked on me, moving his utensils frantically to ensure he ate as fast as I did.

CLACK.

“Th-thank you for the meal.”

He gave an awkward bow to the maids and turned his fierce glare back to me.

“How long do you intend to eat?”

This brat…….

Why did he have that hateful look only when he turned his eyes to me?

I was the one who had provided the food.

It was clear he needed an education in many things.

“You’re dead.”

Training was important, but fixing his attitude came first.

After all, once Yaryul Jae had been beaten enough times, hadn’t he eventually mellowed out?

It was a proven method, after all.

—

After feeding Yaryul Geuk three full meals, then promptly forcing him to vomit everything back up immediately after, I concluded the day and changed for my evening meeting.

I needed to prepare for the formation of the Representative Delegation before the academic schedule resumed.

‘First, Jang Woo-jae.’

Of the four available seats, one was filled, leaving three.

One of those remaining spots had been occupied quite unexpectedly.

‘Nam Hwa-seong, huh…….’

I hadn’t anticipated his involvement.

If they wanted intelligence on my internal affairs, I assumed Cheol Sun-jik would have handled it himself.

‘The idea of that man trusting anyone with such a task is illogical.’

Regardless, Nam Hwa-seong had applied for the Representative Delegation.

I’d grilled him about his motives, but the bastard just shrugged it off, saying things like, “I just felt like it. Is there a problem?” and “Why? Don’t you think I’m fit to be an executive officer? I’m not that slow.”

“It’s suspicious, but I expected complications the moment I started forming this delegation.”

Even if I had to keep a close eye on him, as long as he provided the bare minimum cooperation, it wasn’t a total loss.

“Once I fill the last two positions, the Representative Delegation can formally commence.”

With that thought, I headed toward the rendezvous point.

Compared to entertainment districts in other territories, Wuhan’s was densely packed with martial artists brandishing weapons.

Naturally, that meant constant potential for conflict.

I effortlessly employed the principles of the Taeul Eighty-Thousand Divine Steps to glide through the throngs of people.

‘Huh?’

I was forced to stop.

I had clearly used afterimages to slip into empty space, yet somehow, a man had blocked my path.

The obstruction was clearly intentional.

I looked up to see a massive man with intense eyes looming over me.

“Are you Jin So-un?”

‘Just as I thought…….’

The man continued before I could even reply.

“I am from the Execution Pavilion. Come with me.”

He grabbed my shoulder with a rough, heavy hand.