The Wind Qi he had absorbed thanks to Phantom Archer was now his to command. He had reached a state where he could generate and control it on his own.

The third stage of the Five-Elemental Cultivation Art.

But he did not stop there. He simultaneously drew upon his Wind and Fire Qi, channeling them into his fist and unleashing a straight punch. The energy that began in his danjeon coalesced at his knuckles. At first, the two energies remained separate, like oil and water, but the moment his fist struck the tree, they erupted.

KWAANG!

Flames engulfed the massive trunk. It was an explosive force that could not be achieved with Fire or Wind Qi alone; their combination had created a destructive power far greater than the sum of its parts.

In the distance, passing pavilion members stared in shock at the point of impact. Jin Cheon-hee paid them no mind, dusting off his hands and muttering to himself.

“Safety is an issue. A real issue.”

Despite his caution, the back of his hand was covered in burns. A superficial second-degree burn, it seemed. The damage had likely reached the dermis.

“Visually, this should be within the range of self-healing.”

He winced, the pain more intense than anticipated. If he neglected it, a large blister—a telltale sign of a second-degree burn—would soon appear. Drawing his Water Qi and Wood Qi into his fist, he grasped the greatest advantage of the Five-Elemental Cultivation Art: the absence of bacterial infection. While first aid was essential for any trauma, it was especially crucial for burns. Utilizing Water Qi, he swiftly drew the heat from the wound, and with Wood Qi, he commenced the restoration of the flesh. However, complete healing would not occur instantaneously.

He looked down at the injury, debating whether to offer it up as a practice subject for Yoo Ho, his nurse-in-training. It would be a good teaching tool, but a novice was still a novice. He pulled out a pre-prepared bandage and some gauze.

“I’d rather die than suffer through that.”

The silver lining was that, having fully mastered the third stage of his art, the wound would likely heal completely in two days. Furthermore, since Water and Wood Qi were his specialty, focused on healing, controlling them was effortless. After tending to his hand, he turned his attention to the tree he had just blasted.

“Now, it’s your turn.”

The ancient tree was already covered in countless scars. A warrior’s training ends with destruction. They cleave a giant tree or a block of granite with a single strike, then declare, ‘Hah! Through a fortuitous encounter, I have achieved great mastery of this divine art!’ before marching out into the Gangho.

But for a physician, the work had only just begun.

“Wow, what kind of monster did this? Oh, right. That was me.”

His job wasn’t finished until the tree he had sundered was made whole again. With his bandaged hand, he grasped the charred tree trunk.

***

At that same time, a young girl was circulating her Qi in bed. She had the short-cropped hair of a boy, a neat forehead, and a strong, straight brow.

Wang Gak-yeon.

The daughter of the Phantom Archer. In the story, she was little more than a tragic device. A loving daughter, at times more mature than anyone, whose death at the hands of her father’s enemies served as the catalyst for his awakening. As a result, a reader had no way of knowing her past, or anything about her as a person. She was just a common narrative ornament.

But now, that girl had broken free from the flow of the story and taken her first step. A step into a future that Jin Cheon-hee, the reader, could not possibly know.

This is so frustrating.

She stopped her breathing exercises and let out a deep sigh. Her body still ached. Even with the superhuman regenerative abilities granted by internal energy, her injuries had been beyond all common sense. Until she was fully healed, she was forbidden from using her martial arts and had to focus on recovery, circulating a special healing art the pavilion had taught her.

This girl, who had always acted so kind and gentle for her family and those around her, uttered a single, unexpected word.

“Damn it.”

Two pure syllables to express her current emotion.

“Son of a bitch.”

When she was alone, there was no need to play the part of the good daughter. She stared down at the floor, her eyes dark with melancholy. Her world had collapsed. She had nearly been killed by mysterious assailants, and the great hero her father had pretended to be was just an ordinary man.

Not that it mattered to her. Her father was just her father. He didn’t need to be great. He didn’t need to be a figure of reverence. Just to walk with him hand-in-hand, to share a delicious meal, to bask in the sun together—that, she knew, was happiness. A good, loving daughter who understood her father’s heart. She was precocious for her age, her understanding of him too deep to allow for childish complaints.

“So who are the bastards who did this to me?”

But that didn’t mean the anger just disappeared. She was no Buddha. Though the martial art she practiced was born of Buddhist principles, if liberation were so easy to attain, she would have already become enlightened.

She wanted to grind those bastards to dust. The memory of the attack was a blur, shrouded in the fog of trauma. And they had worn masks, making them impossible to identify. She felt an overwhelming urge to hunt them down, to chew on their livers until nothing was left.

Right. This is why they say the grudges of the Gangho are so terrifying.

A heavy weight settled in her chest.

I need some air.

A wild, aimless rage clawed at her from the inside. She felt she had to do something, anything.

The moment she stepped outside, her senses were flooded. Was it because the depth of her internal energy had been refined? The sounds of the pavilion rushed in all at once: the cries of patients being treated, the pleas for salvation, the bubbling of medicinal tonics. It was a new world to Wang Gak-yeon, and it made her heart ache. She had lived, but here, others were dying.

With her hands clasped behind her back, the young girl walked for a long time. Then, in the distance, she saw a strikingly handsome boy her own age.

It was Jin Cheon-hee.

It wasn’t love at first sight, or anything of the sort. It was too early for such feelings, and in her current state, she was numb to them. It was simply that in her entire life, she had never seen a boy her age who was so handsome, and so she found herself staring at him.

Jin Cheon-hee was so busy that he didn’t even notice her gaze. From a distance, Wang Gak-yeon watched him, following his path. In the time she observed him, he trained relentlessly and helped with the pavilion’s work. And before he helped anyone, he would always smile. A bright, almost irritatingly confident smile.

Watching him, Wang Gak-yeon found herself whispering the words.

“I want to be his friend.”

It wasn’t just because she had never seen such a handsome face. That was a factor, of course, but this was something different. He was a boy her age, yet he had learned things so entirely different from her. A boy so exceptional that her own father had willingly declared himself his servant.

She looked down at her own hands. They were wrapped in bandages.

How do you make a friend?

She realized then that in her entire life, she had never had one. It made sense. Her days began and ended with martial arts. She had played the part of the good daughter for her father, but in reality, she was a loner who pushed herself to her limits every single day. Always pretending she had friends. Always pretending she was having fun when her father wasn’t around.

The thought made her spirit shrink.

I am…

If she weren’t so mature, perhaps she might have found more courage. The girl turned and went back to her room.

***

Jin Cheon-hee finished his morning routine and headed to his next task: checking on Wang Gak-yeon. Her father, Phantom Archer Wang Chae-baek, was already working himself to the bone with the pavilion’s endless chores. His master, Zhuge Rin, showed no mercy, though he could have at least let the man rest until his daughter was healed. Wang Gak-yeon, on the other hand, spent her days alone, recovering and circulating her Qi.

She must be pretty bored. For a child, there could be no day more tedious.

When he reached her room, she was sitting on the bed. He had already heard that she had taken a short walk outside. An awkward silence flowed between the two children. She greeted him with formal etiquette.

“Benefactor, you have come.”

The thought of having to navigate the complex hierarchies of address with someone his own age was exhausting.

“Please, speak comfortably, Young Lady Wang.” He, too, returned the gesture with a formal fist-and-palm salute.

“…”

The silence became even more awkward.

We’re both just little kids, can’t we just talk normally?

Jin Cheon-hee felt like his limbs were twisting from the sheer awkwardness. Wang Gak-yeon’s eyes darted back and forth.

“But you are my benefactor, how could I possibly…”

“Frankly, it’s suffocating for me.”

“…”

Awkward again. The girl dredged up the etiquette lessons she had learned from adults. When someone offers you something, you must refuse three times before accepting. Did this count? Should she refuse three times? Did his last statement count as one time or two? Where did the rules begin and end? The lessons pressed down on her.

Jin Cheon-hee spoke first. “What would you like to do, Young Lady Wang? For my sake, at least, I would appreciate it if you could speak comfortably.”

He, on the other hand, was growing curious to see how she would respond. The Gongsun sisters called him little junior. The little Heavenly Demon called him brother. What would she choose?

She fidgeted with her hands, hesitating for a long time. The mature, good daughter and the ordinary little girl were having a fierce battle inside her.

“…What about… friends?” she asked carefully, her voice filled with a desperate wish.

At those words, Jin Cheon-hee, who had been in the middle of taking her pulse, looked up at her. Wang Gak-yeon’s face was beet red. The mature Wang Gak-yeon was screaming at the little girl Wang Gak-yeon, Are you crazy? All thoughts of etiquette had vanished. Heat rushed to her ears.

“Friends?” Jin Cheon-hee asked.

“Yes, well… um… this is a secret from my dad, but…” She leaned in, her voice a tiny whisper. “…it’s my dream to make a friend.”

She had always acted as though she had many friends. But in reality, it was difficult for a child who practiced martial arts to make any. Her training required her to wake up early for meditation, which was followed by training in internal arts, footwork, and in her case, archery. A child from a martial family might befriend other children from similar families, but her father was Phantom Archer, a man who walked the Gangho alone. Far from interacting with other martial families, she had spent her life in hiding. Still, she was human, and she wanted a friend. A real friend her own age, not an adult guard or a servant.

Jin Cheon-hee thought, Wow, she must have been so lonely. This… this is Phantom Archer’s fault. Was it because he came from an era where people thought children would just grow up on their own? Still, among the fathers he’d seen in Wuxia novels, Phantom Archer was one of the better ones. At least he hadn’t dumped his kid on his wife and then run off to wander the land in the name of some greater cause. He had also earned good money and raised her with a gold spoon in her mouth. But from the perspective of Jin Cheon-hee, a South Korean doctor who had seen plenty of rich kids with ruined personalities, this just wasn’t right.