True Solution of the Sword Dao-Chapter 49 - 45 Invasion Part One
Chapter 49: Chapter 45 Invasion Part One
Chapter 49 -45 Invasion Part One
(It’s my fault that certain parts of the narrative were not well crafted, leading to the unintended reputation of pandering to foreign cultures… Here, I’ve made some modifications, adding Lin Fei’s perspective on South Korea, so as not to be wrongly accused! After all, I may not be a nationalist zealot, but I am definitely not an admirer of all things foreign~~~)
Learning English and Korean as the first foreign languages was actually essential. Shueisha Ping City Branch mainly handled two directions: the United Kingdom and South Korea. The public missions concerning these two directions were mandatory for the Ping City Branch to participate in.
This was also why Lin Fei chose to learn Korean first.
Moreover, this year’s public missions had already been delegated from the upper levels.
Lin Fei calmly closed the textbook.
Actually, a language encompasses the entire culture, customs, traditions, and lifestyle habits of the nation that developed it. To master it completely is rather difficult, but to reach a level of basic communication is quite easy for Lin Fei.
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He moved away from the Korean textbooks. Outside, the sky had turned orange, and the afternoon sun tilted, transforming into a column of light that shone on the floor behind Lin Fei’s chair.
“Before this year’s public missions, one must completely master the conversational fluency of two foreign languages.” Although Lu Jun, the person in charge, had suggested that Lin Fei need not take part in this year’s missions—considering that a youngster with his potential was entitled to seclude himself for a year to enhance his abilities—Lin Fei had refused this option. It seemed he had plenty of time, but he knew that his remaining time was not much.
In recent years, South Korea began to claim loudly that many of Hua Nation’s ethnic traditions and historical figures had so-called Great Minjok South Korean ancestry. But in Lin Fei’s view, this was like a slave who had been oppressed by Hua Nation for a long time, and having gained a bit of capital one day, ran to show off in front of their former master due to an inferiority complex.
This mentality clearly stemmed from a sense of inferiority evolving into arrogance. Because for thousands of years in history, Hua Nation was the master, so this inglorious history, like a stain of shame, weighed heavily upon South Korea. Therefore, they resorted to distorting history in an attempt to dilute or contort their past humiliations—just like how many people today enjoy watching films about resistance heroes of the war against Japan, which in fact reflects a profound sense of helplessness and sadness. The stigma left by history is hard to erase.
That’s why South Korea resorted to this tactic: to muddle history and confuse others. Japan, as a defeated nation, announced its unconditional surrender, which is also an indelible shame and a source of sorrow. As long as their nation exists in this world for even a day, this stigma will forever be upon them. Apart from fomenting chaos in history, they have no other choice. They only use the falsification and confusion of history to make the new generations doubtful; as soon as everyone assumes that both sides are unreliable, that’s the moment their goal is achieved.
When Lin Fei occasionally thought about these two nations, he felt more pity for South Korea and more indifference towards Japan. No matter how hard they tried, their innate deficiencies made their efforts only half as effective.
“Actually, apart from strength, everything else is illusory,” Lin Fei said, turning his chair around, his gaze landing on the longsword resting on the sword rack to one side.
Every time he recalled the moment just before his death in his previous life, Lin Fei felt an extraordinary calmness.
“This mission will involve collaboration with personnel from other branches heading to South Korea. A batch of national relics has been smuggled to South Korea as a transit point by a Japanese spy within the country, in order to avoid our country’s surveillance of the secret passages between Hua Nation and Japan. Your task is not to retrieve the relics but to guard our intelligence officers who have already found them, ensuring the secured relics are returned to the country. Prior to this, we will conduct bullet evasion drills to familiarize you with sufficient understanding of firearms,” Lin Fei recollected the verbal mission briefing given by an internal staff member. Official documents would not be issued, though the security department kept a record.
This mission had sparked Lin Fei’s interest in learning Korean. Since he was destined to make a trip to an unfamiliar country, it made sense to acquire as much relevant information and skills as possible.
After all, language is but a tool, requiring extensive memory—and for Lin Fei now, remembering things was the easiest task.
As for his strength, having already stepped into the upper echelons of F-class—if he held a longsword in hand and executed the Sword Heart Chain—he was confident that his combat power would not fall short of an F-class peak and might even surpass it. In other words, Lin Fei’s true strength had reached the peak of F-class. So far, the pace of his strength increase was already fast. It was highly unlikely to improve greatly in a short period.
Moving from F-class to D-class was supposed to be a qualitative change. According to the information obtained from the notes last time, at D-class, one would preliminarily have the power to resist firearms—note here the word is “resist,” not “dodge.” That is, D-class practitioners could face firearms with a certain degree of power.
And such levels of strength, in Lin Fei’s view, already belonged to a non-human category. Yet, up to now, he hasn’t seen any information regarding this sort of comparison in the “Sword Dao True Solution”.
But what concerned him wasn’t just this. There was another issue.
“Above F-class, why isn’t there an E-class? It goes straight to D-class? According to the normal sequence, after D comes E, and then F,” Lin Fei pondered silently.
**********
In a spacious office of the Rainbow Hotel.
An old man wearing thick glasses worth a thousand-degree prescription sank deeply into a plush leather chair. He adjusted his glasses and looked at the young man in front of him.
“E-class?” the old man’s voice trembled, “That question, your guarantor Lu Jun also asked me once, as did many of the old club members. It’s not exactly a secret. Since you want to know, I’ll tell you,” he indicated for the young man to find a place to sit.
He coughed once, picked up a cup of chrysanthemum tea from the desk, gently blew on it, and took a sip. Then he began to speak slowly.
“E-class, that was a level that once belonged only to us martial artists,” the old man clearly fell into reminiscence.
“A level that belonged only to martial artists?” A glint of blue flashed in the young man’s eyes. Although he didn’t notice it himself, the old man swept a very keen look at him.
“F-class combat power represents the limit of ordinary humans. E-class represents the limit of martial artists. D-class is the level of the transcendents. There are less than a hundred D-class experts in the entire Hua Nation.”
“Mr. Zhao, you’re a D-class expert. Could you please talk about your concrete views on each level?” the young man asked respectfully.
“Although I am a D-class expert, in reality, I have just barely stepped through the doorway of D-class,” the old man sighed. “E-class is actually a special level carved out for those martial artists who are at the peak of ordinary people and between the combat power of the Inner World. We martial artists aren’t very afraid of firearms because we can avoid them before the trigger is pulled. But in reality, we don’t have the strength to withstand firearms head-on like a D-class does. So we were classified as E-class, a level between ordinary humans and transcendents.”
“Then why is it gone now?” the young man asked, puzzled.
“Because, martial artists have lost their strongest essence,” the old man heaved a long sigh.
“Is it Inner Qi?” the young man, that is, Lin Fei, asked thoughtfully. He had previously heard of the existence of Internal Qi Gong. In some of the club’s materials, he also found many such obscure descriptions.
“Yes, the disappearance of Inner Qi means martial artists no longer have the qualifications to transcend F-class and reach E-class. Today’s martial artists, or rather the top fighters, can only compete with F-class peak without falling short. If Inner Qi still existed, not to mention F-class peak, our strongest martial artists back then could even face D-class directly and survive. I know what it takes to be D-class; I understand the level that can withstand D-class the most.”
“Now that Inner Qi is gone, martial artists no longer have the qualifications to reach E-class. And for those who are not martial artists, of course, they are either F-class or D-class. Hence, this level has been gradually sidelined and fallen into disuse.”
