CHAPTER-002
The morning sun stretched over the worn courtyard of the Mu Clan Sword Manor, painting the cracked tiles in pale gold.
Once a respected sect in the southern reaches of Murim, the Mu Clan had long since fallen into obscurity.
The forge was silent, the training grounds empty — except for one boy..
Swish. Thud.
Swish. Thud.
Seven-year-old Mu Jin gritted his teeth as he raised the wooden sword again.
The blade was almost as tall as he was, its weight dragging his thin arms down with every swing.
Sweat clung to his back; blisters lined his palms. Yet he didn't stop.
He didn't even know why he couldn't stop.
Each morning, before dawn, something inside him whispered. A pulse. A voice without words.
Stronger. Faster. More.
He didn't understand where it came from — only that it was unbearable when he ignored it.
When he trained, the ache eased, as if the world itself exhaled in relief.
From the veranda, the old sect leader Mu Haryun watched quietly. His grandson's swordsmanship was crude, his form unrefined — but his eyes were wrong.
Too sharp. Too steady. Too old.
"Jin," the old man said gently, "your body will break before your sword does."
Mu Jin paused, panting, his chest rising and falling like a bellows.
He glanced at his hands, shaking from exhaustion… yet burning with that same, unexplainable fire.
"…Then I'll make it stronger."
A low chuckle escaped Mu Haryun.
"You sound just like your father."
"My father?" the boy murmured, tilting his head.
The name felt foreign — and yet, familiar. Like an echo from a dream he couldn't recall.
Mu Haryun smiled faintly, looking toward the horizon.
"Never mind, child. Keep swinging. The sword remembers what we cannot."
The boy nodded.
He gripped the wooden sword again and raised it high, the sunlight catching in his brown eyes.
Swish. Thud.
Swish. Thud.
The courtyard rang with the rhythm of steel and will.
And deep within that fragile young body, something ancient — some energy slightly began to stir once more.
two years earlier, tragedy had already hollowed out the Mu Clan.
During the war between the Orthodox and Unorthodox factions, his father, Mu Ha-jin, had fought under the Orthodox banner.
He was valiant, fierce — the kind of man stories are built around.
But even heroes fall. He never returned home.
When the news reached the manor, Mu Jin's mother, Seo Ran, collapsed.
Her grief festered into a silent madness; she stopped speaking, stopped eating, and within months… she followed her husband into the afterlife.
Mu Jin was five.
From then on, only his grandfather remained — old, tired, and too aware that the Mu Clan's light was fading.
He poured everything into teaching the boy: swordsmanship, breathing forms, the discipline of a warrior.
And Mu Jin, as if driven by something deeper than will, absorbed it all.
Ten years passed quietly in the forgotten halls of the Mu Clan Sword Manor.
Under the worn banners and the patient eyes of his grandfather, Mu Jin learned every basic form, stance, and breathing technique the clan had to offer.
He memorized each swing until his body moved without thought.
He practiced until his palms hardened, his shoulders scarred, and his sword became a part of his being.
And yet, when he turned seventeen, he finally accepted the truth — he wasn't gifted.
His swordsmanship was solid, but unremarkable. His internal energy was shallow, barely reaching the first stage of Qi refinement.
In a world where geniuses grasped sword auras before adulthood, Mu Jin was simply ordinary.
But perhaps that was why he worked harder than anyone else.
Because deep within him, there was something missing — a quiet emptiness that refused to fade.
His grandfather once told him,
"You had a twin brother, Jin. He was supposed to grow with you… but the heavens took him before his first breath."
Mu Jin had no memories of him, yet sometimes, when he looked into still water, he thought he saw another reflection beside his own —
a faint outline, familiar but unreachable.
It was a strange feeling. As if part of him was living somewhere else… or waiting to.
That winter, when his grandfather passed away peacefully in his sleep, Mu Jin buried him beside the family shrine.
He bowed deeply, sheathed his dull sword, and left the manor behind.
He had nothing left — no family, no sect, no destiny.
A year later, he joined the Murim Alliance — not as a prodigy or hero, but as a nameless soldier.
A third-rate swordsman assigned to border patrol, just another blade among thousands.
"Hey, Mu Jin," a fellow soldier joked, "why'd you join up? Looking to die young?"
Mu Jin smiled faintly.
"No. Just trying to find what I lost."
The man laughed, thinking it was a joke.
But Mu Jin's eyes didn't waver.
He didn't know what he had lost — only that it was out there, somewhere, pulling at his soul.
He turned his gaze to the horizon, where distant clouds churned like a storm waiting to break.
That old whisper echoed again in the depths of his mind.
Stronger.
Faster.
Further.
Mu Jin exhaled slowly, gripping his sword tighter.
He looked up at the sky, eyes burning with quiet resolve.
"If danger comes," he murmured, "then all I can do… is become stronger."