Dark Mage Vol 1 Chapter 7

It is widely known outside of the Shaolin temple that the holy Shaolin monk was very stubborn.

“No one is born evil.  Even if he is Dachshund Sr. child, he can train at the headquarters and inherit our scriptures.  I’m sure he would be born as a Buddhist.

“Ha, with due deference.”

“I do not have any idea of training him in any martial arts. I will only teach him scriptures so do not worry.”

However, Jindo could not be easily dismissed.

“With due deference, great Buddhist master Harrier.  This situation isn’t easily solved by master’s guarantee.  The Bae-sect, who has lost their sect leader, will try everything to steal back that child.  One cannot discount the possibility that he could become an unimaginably great demon and show up later. He is of the Dachshund Sr.’s bloodline and his talent may be unrivalled.  If the Bae-sect’s queer and different evil(TLN:기괴막측(mean queer + gives off bad feeling) and 사이한 (direct translation is different evil) martial arts is combined with him then what would you do.”

“That is correct.  Elder Jindo is quite right.”

Almost all of the experts agreed with Jindo’s meaning.  After observing them, the Shaolin monk could only breathe out a long sigh.

‘Why are you trying to end that young child’s life?’

The Shaolin monk’s gaze headed toward the child in an instant.
The child should be at an age where he was still innocent, but he couldn’t find any cuteness from this figure.  His eyes were thin and had an upward slant.  He had an unsightly pug nose and his back was severely bent. He must have been naturally deformed.  It was an unsightly appearance that one wouldn’t even want to see in a dream.  He was unique in that he hadn’t blinked his eyes once while staring daggers at them.  The Shaolin monk could feel something akin to murderous energy from the child’s gaze.

“He must be a child born with natural murderous energy.”

After he finally decided in his heart, he put forth one foot.

“What are you going to do if I do this?”

“….”

“I will personally apply a seal on him.  As everyone may have heard, our Shaolin temple has a forbidden technique that could be applied on an evil person.  If I use this immutable law in this place then would you spare this child’s life?”

From Jindo’s mouth, a sound like a scream leaked out.

“Seven, Seven Column Forbidden Technique.”(TLN:direct translation with some liberties taken)

There was big wave caused amongst the main force of the Peach sect, who were all surprised.

Seven Column Forbidden Technique. It is a high level Shaolin secret forbidden technique where the blood pract.i.tioner’s desire to kill is destroyed from the source.  It is on par with the edict that forbids killing of life.  According to rumors, it was known that the person who receives this technique may never kill again.  The Seven Column Forbidden Technique connects directly with the soul of the blood pract.i.tioner, and when he decides to kill someone, he would be forced to endure pain that a human could not tolerate.  If the blood pract.i.tioner ignores the pain and kills a person then the blood vessels in his brain would all burst.  He would meet a terrible death.  The temple was in a position to prohibit the taking of life so they had no choice but to come up with this forbidden technique.  However, there had only been a handful of people who inherited the Seven Column Forbidden Technique in the thousand-year history of the Shaolin temple…  There was a proper reason for this.

“Ho, holy monk.  If you perform the Seven Column Forbidden Technique then most of the inner qi you have stored will be used.  Is there a need for this?”

The Shaolin holy monk Harrier shook his head.

“I’ve already lived most of my life.  In death, my body will return to being a handful of dirt, so I should spare no cost.  So don’t worry about it and could you please bring that child?”

The reason as to why the Seven Column Forbidden Technique isn’t widely used is because of this.  At the very least the Inner-qi expert(TLN:내가고수 ) has to have 200 years worth of inner qi.  The immutable law can only be performed when the user has to gather all the qi in his body.  The effectiveness of the sealing rites is increased when the strength of the pract.i.tioner is higher.  However a fixed amount of qi that the pract.i.tioner has gathered all his life is taken as a cost.  Currently this holy monk was considered the top Shaolin qi master and he was going to use up his inner qi for this demon sp.a.w.n.(TLN: 마두 Ma-du: in Buddhist h.e.l.l, there are two gatekeepers, one of them is red with the head of a horse-usually you call someone who is evil reincarnate-I used demon sp.a.w.n instead of MaDu’s child)  In the eyes of the Murim experts, this act was very nonsensical.  Still they couldn’t dissuade the holy monk any more.  It has been acknowledged in the Murim that the holy Shaolin monk is very stubborn.  Moreover they had no reason to stop one of the Shaolin expert who was touted as the best from voluntarily giving up his strength.  If the other faction’s strength decreases then it returns a chance for one’s own party to take over.  For a brief moment, Jindo considered the pros and cons and then he smiled.

“Indeed, you are magnanimous enough to be called a holy monk. Great Buddhist master.”

“The great master will forever become the Shaolin temple’s incarnation of Buddha.”

The Shaolin monk could only smile bitterly after watching the false smiles on the experts.  He could only quietly walk forward.  The child was already taken from the warrior and he was moved in front of the Shaolin monk.

“Child.  What is your name?”

The child didn’t give any answers after the holy monk asked for his name.  His eyes sparkled and it was filled with malice.

“This child’s murderous energy pierces the sky.  I’m not sure I made the right decision.  However everything is judged by the Buddha.  This old man is going use an immutable law to get rid of the murderous energy from your base nature. ”

After sighing, the holy monk clapped his hand together and gathered his qi.  As advertised he was the Shaolin expert with the most inner qi.  He emitted a formless but incredible energy that started spreading away from him.  The child didn’t even blink while staring daggers at the Shaolin holy monk’s face.  Indeterminate time had pa.s.sed.

“Go!”

The shaolin monk gave a shout of concentration and put forth the hands that were together as if in prayer.  His two bony hands suddenly grasped the head of the child.  The child’s eyes that was slanted upwards suddenly opened wide.  It was because an unimaginable amount of pain was rising inside his head.  The mouth that was resolutely shut before opened and he let out a terrible scream.

“AHHHHHHHK.”

This young child had lost his father this day and even as if that wasn’t enough, the child had to receive an infernal procedure.
His fate was very unlucky and his name was Dachshund.

“Huk”

Dachshund rose up immediately.  Even if it was a dream, the pain he felt in it was strong enough to banish his sleep.  The voice that was locked away suddenly squeezed out of his mouth.

“D, d.a.m.n it. I’ve always experienced it, but I can’t get used to that d.a.m.n pain.”

Dachshund was in a hazy state since he was half asleep, but he started swearing profusely.  It was a past that he didn’t even like to think about so after he had dreamed about the past, his mood was very foul.  When he used to be the absolute being in the Bae-sect, he had taken out his anger on the numerous underlings or guards, who had to suffer through the bitter insult.

“Where is this place?”

Dachshund opened his eyes and blinked.  Light was leaking hazily through his eyelids, but he couldn’t differentiate objects.  His whole body was throbbing with pain, and a headache rose up as if his head would break.  He complained while frowning.

“I guess I’m not in the afterlife since I can still feel pain. ”

He determined that he was still alive since the wounds and pain wouldn’t carry over after death.  Then Dachshund’s brain suddenly thought about the condition of his body.

“Wait…”

Dachshund’s complexion suddenly turned white.  After waking up, he remember the exit from the Bae-sect headquarters. The Righteous and Evil sects.  Moreover the traitorous Bae-sect hunting party and the terrible fight that lasted until moments ago all rose up in his mind clearly.  The problem existed there.  In the last desperate moments, he had to explode all his inner energy to get rid of the Demon sect’s elder Double Hand Devil Wichung and his underlings.  Thinking of this, Dachshund’s complexion became very white.

“At that time, the core(TLN: Danjeon – where qi is stored- it’s located a little below your belly b.u.t.ton – i’ll just say core ) was half destroyed by Shiba’s a.s.sa.s.sination attempt.  In that state, I had exploded my inner energy.”

Dachshund hurriedly tried to gather his inner qi.  However from the start, the attempt went nowhere.  The most important organ in the body that helps the inner qi circulate had disappeared completely.

“G, gone. I cannot feel my core. ”

The core’s existence could not even be felt.  It had been ripped into pieces after being repeatedly exploited.  It didn’t respond one bit through his meridians or pressure points.  When his inner energy had exploded, his pressure points and meridians had opened wide and then closed.  They had been clogged and then hardened.  In other words, Dachshund’s body may never have inner qi again.

“d.a.m.n it all…”

From ancient times, if one asked a martial artist to pick what was most important to him, then every single time he would pick his martial arts that he had trained until now.  For a martial artist, his martial arts is more important than his parents, siblings or children.  Of course in the case of Dachshund, this was more evident for him.  He had received only contempt from other people since his childhood because of his ugly looks.  The only way he had to overcome his reality was to train in martial arts.  Therefore he learned it as if his life was on the line.  He had pa.s.sed his important childhood training in martial arts in the Shaolin temple and it was quite pathetic. He had trained at a later age so his path was all the more difficult.  He had overcome his disability but now his martial arts was all gone… He felt as if the sky had dimmed.  He was at a crossroad between life and death before, so he forcefully tried to cheer himself up. Before he knew it tears of blood were streaming down. Afterwards, he continued to cry.

“Uh-huhuhu.” (TLN: dudes bawlin)

Dachshund cried and then cried some more.  However the lost martial arts weren’t coming back, but this was the only way to resolve his inner feelings.  He looked all around with puffy eyes.

“Where is this place?”

Gradually the objects could be differentiated now. The place he was at was a big room that was decorated very luxuriously.  He was laid on top of a big bed where 10 people would have plenty s.p.a.ce lying down on it.
In a moment, Dachshunds eyes was aroused with suspicion.

“The decoration is very unfamiliar.  The shape of the room and the shape of the bed is very…”

When Dachshund was the Bae-sect sect leader, he had lived a luxurious life.  However, his past bedrooms were like hovel compared to this room.  This room was just too luxurious.  Also, he had a weird feeling that this place was very different from Zhongyuan.
Dachshund’s gaze fell on the steel person that was placed in the corner of the room.

“Where would one use such item? He has nothing to do. I guess someone made a human figure out of refined steel.”

This was the armor that knights wore.  Dachshund shook his head since he couldn’t even guess in his dream that this was a full plate mail.
At that moment, the door opened. Instinctively he was about to take a defensive posture, but Dachshund just laughed bitterly.  In the current condition of his body, a.s.sa.s.sination nay even a normal person could beat him up with a club, and he wouldn’t be able to overcome it.
Dachshund had learned the Emperor’s Blood Demon Art.  There weren’t any profound forms or elaborate techniques that was needed for this martial art.
It was am inner-art that thoroughly followed supremacy.  It relied on a powerful inner-qi to hit and destroy everything.   It was a demonic art that was very violent.  However he had lost his martial arts now.  Now he realized that he was more suited for third-rate martial arts that was learned by low-level warriors.  He had chosen this attribute to become strong, but from the outset, he didn’t have time to learn the basics. (TLN: little bit confusing since we still don’t know his whole back story, I think it implies that he took some shortcuts to get strong before-since he started when he was older, he didn’t have time to learn the basics thoroughly-even if he tried to relearn third-rate martial arts it would go poorly)

The person that entered through the door was a white bearded old man. Dachshund realized he wasn’t from Zhongyuan when he saw the pale green irises and the strange shape of his face.  First the flame pattern that was drawn on a robe was different from anything that was from Zhongyuan.  Dachshund’s head was churning trying to figure out the old man’s ident.i.ty.

‘A foreigner with a flame pattern on his robe… Is he a member of the far distant sister sect of the main sect, Zoroastrianists?’

The old man who had entered was none other than Shrekheimer.

“Oh!  You have woken up.  You must have slept well.”

Shrekhimer gave a hearty greeting, but there was no way Dachshund could have understood it.
The other person’s face had a queer expression, and Shrekhimer could only laugh bitterly when he realized his mistake.

“First I have to solve the communication.  I’m not sure if the translation magic would work.”

The strange foreigner that had entered the room started mumbling a spell, and Dachshund became nervous.  He had mastered all of Bae-sect’s mysterious dark arts and since he was an advanced pract.i.tioner, he could tell how powerful this was.  However Dachshund could not use any of the his abundant black arts.  One needed to have a certain amount of qi to deploy the black arts. He could not use a single drop of inner-qi, so he was basically a prisoner.  So he waited nervously for the other to finish his spell.  After finishing the spell, the old man looked at me again.  Then the language of Zhongyuan started coming out his mouth.

“Have you slept well?”

Dachshund’s eyes became very wide.  At one glance, he knew that this person was not a person from Zhongyuan, yet this foreigner suddenly spoke the language of Zhongyuan eloquently.  Even his accent was perfect.