Martial Arts Ain't That Big of a Deal-Chapter 268: The Cosmic Bumpkin Who Understands the Truth of Samsara and Illusions

Low-level martial artists often misunderstand what “realm” truly means.

Transcendence Realm? I don’t know exactly, but aren’t those the kinds of people who can break mountains, split seas, and do all kinds of crazy powerful stuff?

Not entirely wrong, but in most cases, that’s what people call “scratching the surface.”

The Transcendence Realm isn’t just about being strong or being the nice uncle next door with insane strength.

They are something beyond human. Not quite gods, not yet—but far too alien to still be called human.

To give a simple example, once someone reaches full mastery of the Extreme Peak stage, they can pull off something like this.

“Hm.”

Seo-jun, silently surveying the terrain, suddenly threw the porcelain cup he’d been holding.

Clink—!

Porcelain shards scattered in every direction. But in the center, one large fragment remained, and Chunbong’s eyes lit up when she saw it.

“Ooooh...!”

She dashed over and picked up the shard, holding it high in the air.

“It’s a porcelain dinosaur!”

In her hand was a surprisingly vivid fragment shaped just like a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

And this wasn’t some trick done using internal energy—this was a genuine, naturally occurring porcelain dinosaur.

What does that mean, exactly? It means that once you reach a certain level, you can predict the exact shape in which a glass will shatter.

“Try it too, Chunbooi.”

“Take this!”

Clink—!

Shards flew out randomly, and Chunbong flailed in the chaos.

“Gyaaah...!”

Ordinary people think of a shattering cup as something random and unpredictable.

In other words, they chalk it up to coincidence.

But once you reach a certain level, you can easily predict exactly how the glass will break—without even trying that hard.

The grain of the glass, the shape of the ground, the speed of the fall, the wind’s direction and force, the point of impact and how the force spreads from it...

It’s not like they calculate all that consciously, but somehow, just a glance is enough to grasp the future shape.

To them, the way a cup shatters isn’t chance—it’s inevitability.

Naturally, martial artists who’ve reached that level of mastery play mind games on an entirely different plane.

Regardless of intelligence, in their world, even the slightest movement can lead to tens or hundreds of thousands of variations.

In a single fleeting moment, martial artists of the Transcendence Realm can process those variations—instinctively or rationally—at a level that would let them slap a supercomputer silly back and forth at 300,000 kilometers per second.

“...What.”

For someone like Lee Seo-jun, it means being able to completely control the color, shape, and movements of his qi to create a puppet that looks exactly like himself.

“There’s... two of you?!”

Chunbong stared slack-jawed, poking and squishing the puppet’s arm.

“No way, it’s really the same.”

“Hey, Geum Chunbong. It’s way too early to be surprised.”

“What...!”

Fueled by Chunbong’s over-the-top reaction, Seo-jun reached into his own mental landscape and plucked down the sky, embedding it within the puppet.

“How about now?”

This time, the puppet was the one who spoke.

Its subtle facial expressions, habitual gestures, muscle movements—everything Chunbong instinctively used to recognize Seo-jun—was mimicked perfectly.

“This is...”

Chunbong froze in place, staring at the puppet as if she were looking at something uncanny.

Seo-jun, too, studied his creation closely. The puppet looked back at him. Their eyes locked.

At first, I had to maintain the shape consciously, but after giving it my mental imprint, it stabilizes on its own.

As mentioned earlier, the consciousness of someone in the Transcendence Realm goes beyond imagination. Multithreaded thinking isn’t even a challenge.

The puppet before him is a semi-sentient being—and yet, it’s also Seo-jun himself.

What would happen if he withdrew his consciousness from it?

Even without testing, the answer was obvious.

It would scatter, of course.

After all, the mental imprint is a part of Seo-jun. His mind is what animates it, so that puppet is, in essence, a piece of Seo-jun himself.

That means this thing is a living being born from Seo-jun’s own Primordial Chaos.

And yet, it’s not something separate from him. That puppet is Lee Seo-jun.

Even the self-awareness it seems to possess is just a fragment of Seo-jun’s mental imprint—nothing more than his own.

Just as everything born from the Primordial Chaos is fundamentally the same as the Chaos itself...

Enough.

Seo-jun turned his gaze to Chunbong, who was still inspecting the puppet with that strange expression.

Her round, squishy cheeks looked full and soft.

When he poked them—boop—Chunbong jumped.

“Hey—! You scared me...!”

Watching her react like that made Seo-jun laugh. But he couldn’t laugh like that on the inside.

This won’t do...

Primordial Chaos, the origin of all things. At this point, Seo-jun could make a puppet in Chunbong’s form too.

But he couldn’t recreate her heart.

That would only make a Seo-jun shaped like Chunbong—not Chunbong herself.

But what about after that?

As Lee Seo-jun climbs ever closer to godhood, the boundaries will inevitably blur.

All things in this world originate from the Chaos. In the end, everything is just a fragment of it.

Chunbong, Sua, his father-in-law, the Namgung Clan—all of them are just pieces of the Chaos.

And in a world like that, what meaning could anything possibly have?

As if some devil whispered in his heart, Seo-jun punched that thought square in the skull.

BAM—!

The devil, who had been just sitting there, flinched and bared its teeth in protest.

Hiss—!

“Urgh...!”

With practiced ease, Seo-jun coughed up a bit of blood and hoisted Chunbong into his arms.

“Hey, hey! You’re bleeding!”

“I’m fine. Our new friend just threw a little tantrum, that’s all.”

Holding her tight, Seo-jun embraced Chunbong and grounded himself in her presence. With that, the shift in perspective came easily.

This warmth. That worried gaze. Her squishy cheeks. Even if all of it is just a part of the Primordial Chaos—

The time they’ve spent together is real, and the connection they share is not a lie.

There’s no need to overthink it. He simply chose to believe. And if he believed it, then that alone makes it ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) the one unshakable truth in this world.

The Chunbong puppet could never replace the real Chunbong.

He chose to believe.

So that the self called “me” wouldn’t fall apart.

He turned his eyes away from a truth he wasn’t ready to accept, and instead focused on every little fidget coming from the Chunbong in his arms.

And then Chunbong spoke.

“But hey, that thing... feels kinda off.”

“Huh? What does? The puppet?”

“Yeah. It looks exactly like you, but... it’s not really you.”

“That can’t be right.”

Seo-jun’s brow twitched, and Chunbong let out a snort.

“I’m telling you—it’s easy to tell.”

Even if it was Chunbong saying it, it wasn’t something he could believe that easily. That puppet was exactly like him. It was designed that way.

Its body was made of qi, but it was still a creation crafted by Seo-jun, who had awakened to the Primordial Chaos.

At Chunbong’s level, she shouldn’t be able to perceive the difference.

“I mean, this is a puppet.”

And yet, after countless repeated tests, she proved her claim to be true.

Even when Seo-jun transferred most of his mental imprint to the puppet, even when it stood in silence, even when they split the imprint evenly—

Chunbong always recognized the real Lee Seo-jun.

“...You’re right.”

Seo-jun stared at her, as if struck in the head.

Everything he’d dismissed as wishful thinking, as self-consolation... Chunbong had just proven it wasn’t all in his head.

Every human being is shaped by their parents and the conditions they’re born into. A newborn has nothing of their own—just a body and soul inherited from others.

Everything in the world comes from the Primordial Chaos. The Chaos already contains all things. At the root of everything is the Chaos, and no matter how much something changes, it’s still just a part of the Chaos.

But humans, born into this world, grow and strive toward their own wholeness. And the things they cultivate along the way aren’t inherited—they’re created.

Their past, their connections, every mark they leave behind—all of it builds a self that can no longer be lumped together under the word “human.”

And the Primordial Chaos...

“...Ah.”

The strength drained from Seo-jun’s hand. But Chunbong, still held in his arms, didn’t fall. Her warm arms tightened around his neck just a little more.

“What’s that face for, huh?”

“This thing works better than I thought.”

“What?”

The inner demon is like a complication—once it takes root, a martial artist becomes buried in the infinite spawn of that very demon and loses their mind.

Even if it’s not technically a mental illness, the outcome is the same.

It’s the intrusion of a foreign element into the heart—something beyond one’s control.

That alien thing disturbs the mind, and eventually transforms into a full-blown inner demon.

But Seo-jun had an external-type inner demon suppressor—namely, Geum Chunbong.

The budding seed of his inner demon had been completely yanked out by the roots.

“Even if everything comes from the Chaos, we’re the ones who give meaning to what’s been made.”

“...What? Hey, are you sure you’re okay? That inner demon thing really didn’t mess you up?”

“Oh, totally. Bow before the cosmic Chunbong, master of all truths in the universe.”

“...Shit. Did we lose him?”

Even if Seo-jun could recreate Chunbong’s cheeks through the Chaos, that wouldn’t make them her real cheeks.

Those cheeks only mean something because they’re hers. Squishy cheeks by themselves mean nothing.

What the world thinks, what its laws are—none of that matters.

Because he decided so.

“Geum Chunbong is absolute...”

“Unnie! Unnie, come here quick! This idiot’s seriously lost it!”

“HAHAHAHA!!”

Seo-jun galloped around the Namgung estate with Chunbong riding on his shoulders.

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He still hadn’t exorcised the demon lurking in his heart, and he’d still cough up blood every time he used the Chaos—but none of that mattered anymore.

Because Geum Chunbong was by his side.

“Oh, right.”

Lee Seo-jun—currently the cousin of a goldfish rather than the Grand Preceptor—suddenly remembered something he’d forgotten.

Now that he thought about it, there was a reason for all this chaos he’d stirred up.

I’m at the Namgung Clan, so... can I just send the puppet to the Martial Alliance instead?

He needed to do some more testing on the puppet.

A few days later, four Transcendence Realm masters gathered at the Martial Alliance.