15 YEARS LATER
"I raised him myself and named him Yeong means falcon or hawk, y'know? Birds that soar all free and high up in the sky, with eyes sharp enough to spot a single grain of rice from a mile away!"
I puffed out my chest, beaming with pride. "I am a certified genius when it comes to picking names. In Fact."
Then it hit me the name my own father gave me: Danbak Seo.
"Danbak means 'lame' or 'crippled,' and Seo is sparrow. Dad always said sparrows were humble, ordinary little guys acted like he'd won some kind of naming award when he came up with it. Never once crossed his mind his 'ordinary sparrow' would grow up to be a master!"
Mom though? She was all for it from day one. Gave him a big thumbs up, then declared we needed to celebrate by catching a bird that could actually fly properly.
But here's the kicker when Dad spotted a bigger bird than the rest, he started throwing stones at it until it couldn't fly as well as the others. Then he shoved it into my hands with a grin.
"Look, Danbak! One crippled bird wasn't enough, right? Now you've got two so you'll never be bored!
Every time I think about my past in the murim world, frustration bubbles up inside me even now, years later, the memory still gets under my skin. But that annoyance fades the moment I look at Yeong, watching him move through his forms with focus and drive.
He has the same kind of raw potential I had when I was his age, and it fills me with genuine relief. At last, there will be someone to carry on my legacy as a martial artist, to build on everything I've worked for.
I started my journey with martial arts when I was barely seven years old. Growing up in a small village on the edge of the murim territories, there were no skilled masters nearby to guide me. Determined to become strong, I began experimenting on my own watching travelers practice in the town square, reading old scrolls I'd find in the local temple, and piecing together techniques to create my own rough style.
When I turned fifteen, I heard about the "Iron Fist Sect" a group that claimed to train warriors with unbreakable strikes and unwavering discipline. They weren't one of the great clans, but they had a reputation for producing solid fighters. I walked for three days to reach their compound, only to be turned away at the gate.
The sect elders looked me up and down, scoffed at my makeshift training, and said I was "too unrefined" to be worthy of their teachings. After that rejection, I felt completely alone I thought I'd never be able to rely on anyone to help me master the arts.
Then one night, my father sat me down by our kitchen fire and pulled out a worn leather-bound manual. He'd never spoken of his past before, but he told me he'd once trained with a wandering master in his youth.
"My style isn't flashy or powerful enough to make me famous,"
he said, his voice quiet but steady.
"but every technique I know was built to keep you safe and to give you a foundation you can trust."
I was overjoyed. Every morning before dawn, we'd practice in the clearing behind our house he taught me how to breathe properly, how to ground my stance, how to read an opponent's movements, and all the principles of balance and control that no scroll could ever fully explain.
Even though his martial art wasn't meant for grand battles or sect rivalries, he shared every bit of knowledge he had with me, and that was more than enough to set me on the right path.
Not long after I'd mastered everything my father could teach me, word spread through the murim that the Iron Fist Sect had been wiped out. It turned out their arrogance had finally caught up with them they'd become so strict about selecting only "perfect" candidates that they'd insulted and turned away the younger brother of a prominent master from the Northern Blade Clan.
But that was just the last straw. For years, they'd looked down on other sects, mocked those who practiced different styles, and even publicly humiliated warriors who came to them seeking guidance.
They'd embarrassed the entire murim community, and many had grown to despise what the name "Iron Fist" stood for. In the end, a coalition of smaller sects banded together to confront them, and the once-feared group crumbled within days.
...
Now, as I watch Yeong perfect the techniques I've passed down mixing what my father taught me with everything I've learned since I know I'm doing what no one did for me giving a young warrior the guidance and support they need to grow strong.
Yeong's footsteps crunched softly on the packed earth of the training grounds as he crossed to where I stood, his brow furrowed with confusion. He'd clearly noticed the faraway look in my eyes after years of training together, he could read my moods as easily as I read his forms.
"Father? What were you thinking about just now?" he asked, his voice steady but gentle.
I blinked, shaking off the haze of memory and forcing my focus back to the present. The morning sun was climbing higher now, burning away the last of the mist.
"Oh it was nothing, son,"
I said, waving a hand as if to brush the thought aside.
"Tell me did you practice the technique I showed you yesterday?"
Yeong's face lit up with the quiet pride I'd come to know so well. He'd always taken his training seriously, but what still amazed me was how quickly he absorbed everything I taught him. When I'd first started showing him the foundations of my style starting with the most basic stances, breaking down each movement into its smallest parts he'd watched with an intensity that never wavered.
He'd observe every shift of my weight, every turn of my wrist, every subtle adjustment of my breathing. Even before I could finish explaining a technique, he'd already begun to understand how it fit into the larger flow of the art. More than that, he could read my movements mid-practice, anticipating shifts I hadn't even consciously planned.
There was no other word for it he was a genius. I'd taught him everything I knew, from the raw building blocks I'd cobbled together as a boy to the refined, polished forms I'd spent decades perfecting.
"I practiced it all, father every single step and every transition between forms,"
he said, straightening his shoulders.
"I went through the entire sequence three times before dawn. I still can't believe how powerful your martial arts are… and 'The Unbroken Stance' it's such an amazing name for it. It feels like every movement is rooted in something solid, like the mountain itself."
[Unbroken Iron Stance.]
"The Unbroken Stance" isn't just built from what my father taught me and the skills I forged on my own it's a fusion of both, blended with techniques I developed through years of trial and combat. I spent countless nights refining every movement, weaving together the grounded stability of my father's style and the adaptive ingenuity of my self-taught forms until they flowed as one. What started as separate pieces became a single, cohesive art that drew strength from both roots.
But it was during the Great War between the Demonic Sect and the Murim Alliance that I truly put this combined style to the test and honed it into what it is today. When conflict erupted across the territories, villages burned, and warriors from every corner of the murim were called to fight, I knew I couldn't rely on half-finished techniques or untested forms. In the chaos of battle, I adapted my style further: adding swift, evasive maneuvers to counter the Demonic Sect's aggressive, unpredictable attacks, and strengthening my striking power to match their brute force.
Every skirmish taught me something new how to shift from a defensive stance to an offensive one in the blink of an eye, how to use my opponent's momentum against them, how to maintain my balance even when surrounded. I pushed the limits of what "The Unbroken Stance" could do, merging what I'd learned from both my past and the harsh realities of war. By the time the fighting ended, the style had been tempered like steel in fire refined, proven, and truly my own.
Even now, at forty years old, the memory still tugs at me I wasn't always just Yeong's teacher. Back when the war between the Demonic Sect and the Murim Alliance raged across the lands, I took in another disciple. I'd almost forgotten his name until just now: Do Gyeol.
The name suited him perfectly. Unlike Yeong, Do Gyeol had no natural talent for martial arts his movements were clumsy at first, he struggled to grasp even basic stances, and many in the alliance told me I was wasting my time training him. They'd laugh when they saw him stumbling through forms, or mutter that a farm boy like him belonged in the fields, not on the battlefield.
But he never once considered giving up. When others would have abandoned the arts entirely, he'd stay up late into the night practicing the same form hundreds of times, his hands blistered and his muscles aching, until every movement felt natural to him.
Even in the chaos of war with battles breaking out around us and supplies running thin I kept teaching him what I could, fitting lessons into moments between skirmishes, using broken branches as practice weapons and drawing stances in the dirt with my finger.
He focused most on the mental techniques I'd developed learning to read an opponent's intentions in the slightest shift of weight, to stay calm under pressure even when swords were clashing around him, to turn their strength against them like water redirecting a rock.
I taught him The Unbroken Stance's core principle: that true strength comes not from how hard you strike, but from how firmly you stand your ground. As the war dragged on, he began to apply these lessons beyond combat organizing supply runs for our wounded, keeping morale high among younger warriors, and even mediating disputes between rival sect members with the same steady resolve he brought to his training.
And when the final battle against the Demonic Sect's commander arrived, he put it all to use. The commander, known as "Blood Blade" Mun, was a fearsome warrior with decades of training and a style so brutal it had earned him infamy across the murim. Do Gyeol was barely more than a young man with calloused hands and a stubborn heart, armed with nothing but a worn blade and the techniques we'd refined together.
Yet he held his ground, moving with a patience and precision that surprised even me. He let Mun strike first, using his opponent's arrogance against him dodging blows that would have shattered stone, waiting for the exact moment when the commander's stance wavered. In the end, he managed to strike the killing blow, driving his blade through a gap in Mun's armor that only careful observation could have revealed.
He turned the tide of the fight and claimed victory on his own, standing bloodied but unbowed on the battlefield as our side cheered. I stood watching from the edge, my chest swelling with pride I'd known his hard work would pay off, but seeing him triumph like that… it was more than I could have hoped for.
That was seven years ago, long before I met Yeong. After the war ended, Do Gyeol left to start his own school in the northern provinces teaching The Unbroken Stance to other warriors who'd been told they weren't "talented enough" for the arts. He writes to me twice a year, telling me about his students, how they struggle and persist just as he did.
The two could not be more different Do Gyeol, the man who achieved greatness through sheer perseverance; Yeong, the monstrous genius who can master even the most complex techniques in barely a minute. Just last week, I showed him the Heaven's Unbowed Strike a move that took me five years to perfect and he had it down perfectly after watching me demonstrate it once.
His eyes light up with understanding before I can even finish explaining the breathing patterns, and he can anticipate how each technique connects to the next as if he'd been practicing it his whole life.
How splendid it is to have been able to teach two such remarkable warriors. There are days I wish I could take in more disciples, share everything I've learned with as many as possible… but the world doesn't always allow for that. War left the murim in shambles, villages burned to the ground, and many young people are too busy rebuilding their lives to dedicate themselves to years of training.
Even so, I hold onto the hope that Do Gyeol's school will grow, that Yeong will one day take on students of his own, and that The Unbroken Stance will spread far beyond what I could ever achieve alone.
I look over at Yeong now, where he's practicing the Indomitable Guard form near the edge of the training grounds. His movements are sharp and clean, every stance solid as granite.
I know that one day, he'll have to choose his own path whether to become a warrior who protects the murim, a teacher who passes on our art, or something else entirely. Whatever he decides, I know he'll carry forward the same spirit that drove Do Gyeol all those years ago: the unshakeable belief that giving up is never an option.
....
"Now that I think about it why did I tell Yeong he's the one I'm passing my martial arts down to? Do Gyeol was my first disciple; I taught him during the war."
"I was overjoyed to find someone new to teach, but I still feel sorry for Do Gyeol. I can't believe I forgot about him."
.....