I come to, napping in the training grounds behind the West Wing. Sunlight cuts through cherry blossoms.

At the edge of my vision, the Coral Eldarian bristles with spires.

I honed my skills in a corner of this castle. Feels like a lifetime ago.

I sit up. My master, clad in a black changpao, works a wooden dummy. His forms are meticulous, every movement precise.

I could watch his handwork, his positioning, all day.

People think Eightfold Soulfist is all one-hit kills.

They’re wrong. It’s about layers. Small strikes, subtle contact, stacking the damage.

Master picked up elements of Wing Chun on a warrior’s pilgrimage.

Baji Quan, our root, is a hard style. Wing Chun is soft. He says they’re flawless together.

His philosophy, not mine.

By the end, I thought he was just being greedy.

You can’t master everything. Life is finite. Time is precious. There’s a limit.

You can’t be a mathematician, a musician, a pro boxer, a pro ball player, an aquarium director, and an astronaut all at once.

“Master, why don’t you just give up?”

“Haha. You never change. Going to call me greedy again?”

“You know it. Ten divine techniques beat a thousand mediocre ones.”

“But a hundred divine techniques beat ten. And a thousand beat a hundred. Besides, for a purist, you’ve chased plenty of skills yourself.”

“Must have picked up my master’s bad habits.”

“Hmph. Your tongue’s as sharp as your fists now. How about this? A technique’s principles aren’t islands… they’re all part of the same continent.Train the spear, you learn the sword. Master footwork, you see the secrets of the strike. Practice marksmanship, you find the flow of force.Every martial art is just body control. Even walking is a martial art.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“You know it’s true. Good grief. Is this your rebellious phase?”

Amused, he strikes the dummy again and again, the crisp, dry thwacks echoing across the grounds.

“Mastering one thing is fine, but your Ikaku Style is overkill. ‘No second strike needed.’ That’s the core, I get it.But a Cannon Strike, then a Twin-Seismic Cannon Strike? Not enough, so you add a Threefold Cannon Strike?You’re the one who’s too greedy. Planning on beating a high-rank Demon to death?”

“You can never have too much power.”

“Being prepared is one thing, but there are limits. Speed lets you escape danger.But no matter how much you train, you can’t outrun a car. That’s just a fact.High-rank Demons are out of our league. Only nobles can kill them. Or a bomb dropped from the sky. That’s the kind of enemy they are.We run into one, we do one thing: run. We don’t fight battles we can’t win.”

He stops striking the dummy.

“—But that… that’s what an ordinary man would say.”

He walks over to my side and turns his head. I follow his gaze.

A pile of charcoal. A corpse. Right next to me.

It glows with orange embers, still hot, wisps of acrid smoke sputtering from it. 

Bodies are scattered everywhere. People. Demons. The Demon cultists we cut down in the night.

My master’s lips press into a thin line. His mouth trembles.

He nods, again and again. “Magnificent. Ikaku Akamuro, truly magnificent.”

“…But it was like you said, Master. I had to grab the thinnest thread, bend luck my way, and put my own life on the line just to pull it off. It was a monster.”

“But you defeated it. Even with no mana, your pure Kung Fu destroyed a high-rank Demon. You brought divine punishment down on those heretics. A magnificent battle.”

He smiles, serene, and puts a hand on my shoulder. Pride swells in my chest.

He saw it. The whole fight and the result.

I did it. It’s over.

“Where are the others? I need to thank my senior brothers.”

“Still half-asleep?”

Master laughs, then with a small Seismic Stomp, drives a Surge strike into my solar plexus.

Bile burns my throat. My blood turns to ice, heart seizing in my chest.

I hit the ground, hard.

“Your journey has only just begun. It’s too soon for you to be here.”

Consciousness fades.

Everything goes white.

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