The ascent to the Demon Peak headquarters was a grim procession. Hyun, now known as Ji-Woon, walked among roughly two thousand children, teens, and young adults—the dispossessed, the orphans, and the debt-ridden from a dozen surrounding villages. The sheer volume of candidates was shocking, a testament to the Crimson Peak Cult's widespread, predatory reach. The air was thin, heavy not with fresh mountain wind, but with the sulfurous scent of the Cult's strange practices.
Hyun kept his face drawn and his eyes downcast, perfectly playing the role of the fearful, resigned orphan. His small frame was deliberately slouched, masking the disproportionate strength coiled beneath his thin robes. He had to be forgettable, weak, and utterly ordinary. The "Devil of the Battlefield" needed to remain buried deep.
As they reached the plateau, a colossal, soot-stained structure came into view—the fortress of the Demon Peak. It was built of dark, roughly hewn stone, looking less like a training center and more like a monstrous mouth carved into the mountainside. The sheer scale of the place was intimidating, designed to crush the spirit before any martial skill was taught.
The column of candidates was funneled into a massive courtyard paved with cold, black slate. The courtyard was surrounded by towering, windowless walls. The two thousand candidates were arranged into a loose, nervous cluster. The air hummed with hushed anxiety, the sound of coughs, and the shuffling of frightened feet.
After a long, tense silence, a figure emerged from a central doorway. He was a Supervisor, wearing the standard crimson robes of the Cult, but his face was hard and scarred, his eyes holding a cold, indifferent calculation. He wasn't overtly terrifying, but the casual efficiency of his cruelty was chilling.
The Supervisor spoke, his voice amplified by internal energy, cutting clearly through the crowd. "Welcome, cattle. You have been selected to potentially serve the glorious Crimson Peak. Your villages think you are lucky. You are not. You are simply raw materials."
He paused, letting his words sink in. "The selection process is simple. We do not care about your past, your family, or your names. We care only about your physical baseline—your potential vessel quality."
He gestured with a cynical flourish toward the vast expanse of the black slate courtyard, which led out into a rugged, unpaved mountain track. "The first test is endurance. A mere formality, meant to weed out the utterly useless."
"The course is a simple two kilometers. It is mostly flat, but includes a mandatory traverse through the rough mountain scree beyond this wall. You will run. Do not stop. Do not cheat. Those who finish in the last half—the last one thousand candidates—will be immediately cut. You will not enter the Training Hall. You will be sent back, but not to your homes."
A collective wave of fear swept through the children. Two kilometers was not a massive distance, but for malnourished, often neglected children, it was a brutal physical challenge. The penalty for failure was clearly terrifying. Hyun's mind, however, immediately began calculating.
His primary objective was to be efficient. He couldn't afford to be last, but he also couldn't afford to be first. Being first would attract immediate, unwanted attention. It would be an act of abnormal strength in his "weak orphan" body. He aimed for the sweet spot: safe passage, minimal notice.
The Supervisor raised a hand, and the atmosphere tightened. "When I drop this signal stone, you run. Failure is permanent. Success is merely the next stage of servitude."
The stone dropped, hitting the slate with a sharp, echoing crack.
Chaos erupted. The two thousand children surged forward in a panic-driven, messy wave. Hyun moved with deliberate, conservative caution. He positioned himself in the middle of the pack, allowing the most desperate and foolhardy to rush ahead and burn their energy.
He started running, his pace slow, almost labored, but perfectly consistent. Internally, he activated the most basic level of his Quiet Heart Meridian Flow. This wasn't to increase his speed, but to manage his body's energy output. His Murim foundation made the run effortlessly easy, but the external show required effort. He had to breathe hard, clutch his side occasionally, and look like he was struggling just enough.
He saw countless other children quickly flagging, their initial burst of panic giving way to exhaustion and tears. The two kilometers felt endless for them.
As they left the courtyard and hit the rough, rocky scree of the mountain path, the pack began to thin dramatically. This was where the test truly began. Loose rock, sharp edges, and uneven terrain demanded ankle stability and coordination—qualities that a lifetime of hunger and fear had stripped from most of the dispossessed children.
Hyun maintained his pace. He passed dozens of stumbling figures. His adult mind was a tireless machine, constantly monitoring his speed against the diminishing crowd. He needed to be in the top fifty percent.
When he entered the final straight, he was running alongside a group of about thirty or forty others. He allowed his pace to accelerate slightly, a believable final push. He passed the finish line, which was marked by two dour-looking Cult members holding a banner, with the satisfying knowledge that he had managed to secure a spot well within the passing group.
The next few hours were spent in a state of tense, anxious waiting. The Supervisors, using some form of internal energy measurement device, or perhaps just a cruel estimation, separated the candidates. A line was drawn. Those who failed were immediately marched away by a secondary group of crimson-robed enforcers. The air filled with the muffled sounds of crying and desperate pleas that were coldly ignored.
Hyun watched the final count. Roughly one thousand children had made it, exactly half the initial number. His conservative pace had placed him at position 93—safe, unremarkable, and perfectly within his target zone of the top one hundred. He was Ji-Woon, the surprisingly durable, but otherwise forgettable, survivor.
The successful candidates were finally allowed to enter the main fortress, past the intimidating stone entrance and into the relative silence of the interior. They were led through poorly lit corridors with ceilings so high they felt like canyons. The air here was even heavier with the sickening-sweet smell of stale incense and sulfur.
The reward for passing the test was rudimentary housing: a vast network of cramped, modular dormitories. Each dormitory room was designed for four occupants, a small, square space containing four narrow bunks, four tiny locked wooden chests, and a single, grime-covered window overlooking the vast courtyard.
Hyun was assigned a room deep within the maze of halls. He was the first to arrive. He quickly inspected the room, noting the heavy wooden door, the lack of ventilation, and the simple, functional bunks. It was a prison cell disguised as accommodation. He chose the bunk closest to the window—a minor advantage for observation, however useless the view might be.
He carefully secured his father's diary and the small piece of bark with the structural diagrams inside the false bottom of his assigned wooden chest, a secret space he had engineered during his time at the Inn. The compartment was simple, relying on a loose joint that only he knew how to manipulate.
He sat on the bed, practicing his Breath Control—suppressing the tell-tale energy signature of his foundation—waiting for his new roommates.
The first boy to enter was Cho-Rim, a skinny, nervous youth from a village near the forest edge. Cho-Rim seemed to recognize Hyun (as Ji-Woon) from the run. He immediately launched into a flurry of relieved chatter, his voice trembling with residual fear.
"Thank the heavens! I thought I was dead for sure. My lungs burned for half the time," Cho-Rim whispered, claiming the bunk opposite Hyun's. "You were good, Ji-Woon. Kept your rhythm. What village are you from? I'm from the Western Ridge."
Hyun adopted a soft, quiet tone, remembering his cover. "Gong-Eui Village. I just put my head down and ran. I didn't think I'd make it." He asked simple questions about Cho-Rim's journey, painting the picture of a passive, non-threatening figure.
The second arrival was Min-Jun, a boy who looked slightly older than Hyun, with a more robust build and a naturally arrogant demeanor that had clearly been battered by the fear of the last few hours. He tossed his meager bag onto his bunk with a sigh.
"Don't talk about the run, Cho-Rim. It was a waste of energy," Min-Jun grumbled, ignoring the two younger boys. "The real test is the chi assessment, not this animal strength nonsense. My uncle told me everything. He was a cultivator until he... had an incident."
Min-Jun noticed the empty fourth bunk and squinted at Hyun. "Who else is left? Hopefully someone who knows something. I heard the Nobles from the Eight Great Cult Clans get special treatment, but they are stuck in these same four-person rooms to observe the rest of us."
Just as he finished speaking, the fourth roommate entered, and the temperature of the room seemed to drop immediately.
She was a girl named Seol-A, and she carried herself with a quiet, icy confidence that seemed utterly out of place among the terrified dispossessed. She was perhaps the same age as Hyun, but her robes were clean, her hair neatly bound, and her eyes held a detached, almost bored intensity. She barely glanced at the three boys.
She walked straight to the final bunk, carefully placed her small, elegant wooden box on the bed, and sat down with a serene stillness. The action was deliberate, controlled, and spoke volumes. Her stillness was the quiet calm of a trained martial artist, a profound contrast to Hyun's carefully manufactured weakness.
Cho-Rim immediately shrank back. Min-Jun, despite his earlier bravado, quickly lowered his eyes, his robust build seeming to deflate.
"That's one of them," Min-Jun muttered under his breath, barely loud enough for Hyun to hear. "She's from one of the Eight Great Clans for sure. I saw her name tag—it's embroidered with a silver thread. Her family must have powerful connections to the Crimson Peak."
Cho-Rim chimed in fearfully, "Be quiet, Min-Jun. They call them the Nobles of the Factions. They're not really orphans like us. They're sent here for early experience. They won't be friendly. Just leave her be. She probably doesn't even want to breathe the same air as us."
Hyun—Ji-Woon—nodded meekly in agreement with the others, but internally, his mind was already sharp and focused. Seol-A. One of the Eight Great Clans. This was a critical piece of intelligence. His father's diary had mentioned these high-ranking families as the true power brokers of the Unorthodox Faction, the ones most likely to possess knowledge of Joon-Ho's hidden caches.
A girl from a Noble Clan, forced into a dorm with three commoners. This was either a deliberate exercise in humility or a method of observation. Either way, it presented an opportunity for the forgettable orphan, Ji-Woon, to get closer to the center of power and gather the information needed to execute the ultimate theft. He knew the Murim was a world of masks, but Seol-A's stillness was the most compelling mask in the room. Hyun decided he would not leave her alone. He would not give in to the fear that controlled the others. He needed to know her.