A Sage's Journey (Original Xianxia)

You make do with a quick wash, to clean the sweat and dirt off, put on a clean pair of clothes, tie your hair back with a handy strip of cloth, and then head out into the Bakery to be the dutiful daughter and help your parents. You had almost decided to meditate, but really, what does meditate do for you? Does it help you parents? Does it further your goals of doing...something. Does it help with your new learnings of face punching?

You do not know. Why would you? You have not read further into the book, and you have not meditated. The benefits and drawbacks are hidden from you, for now.

Ah well, you have been kind of neglecting the bakery since that first fight, when you found that odd book on Sage’s. You are only half certain the book is for you though. Why would you be a Sage? You’re a baker’s daughter. Not...not a learned person. Not a martial ar- oh, you kind of are one of those now.

Hunh. Right, helping with the bakery. It’s not exactly hard work, or intellectually stimulating. Go here, carry that there. That sort of thing. Father in the back, making things, and mother in the front, selling things, and you in the middle running back and forth between back and front, front and back, carrying trays of freshly cooked foodstuffs, or empty trays to be refilled.

As you dart here, there, and everywhere, you pick up snippets of conversation:

“...did you see her....fight….it was hilarious….”

“...did you see…fire….”

“...they...back...endangered...all....”

Well.

Well.

You seem the talk of the town, block, whatever, and you are not sure if it is in a good way, or a bad way. No one mentions if there has been any action taken against the gangs’ hideout, which...kind of worries you. Or maybe they are taking their time? Doing it all quiet like so as not to give away anything?

Or...or is the subprefect in league with the...with the...filth?

You hate that thought, you do. For one, he was...nice, and for another, it would totally shatter your belief in a just and fair society. For yet another, it means you are back to square one and will have to find the gang boss and punch his face in.

And...and you are still not very good at face punching!

It’s only father’s sharp rebuke that reminds you that you have things you still need to do, that gets you moving from the spot you had stopped at as your thoughts all collided and, well, caused you to stop in the first place. You’re not...you still do not know what to do, but as your eyes are open to the potentially bad fates that can happen, you notice a few things now. Like father’s heavy wok, which he never uses for cooking because the thing is just too heavy to cook with. Mother clutches the broom handle a bit too oddly, for someone just sweeping up, and when she is doing other things, it is never far away.

Some of the customers are carrying truncheons, or blades, or have a new, wary step to their gait now. The district is geared up, ready for a fight, you think...no, you know. Now that you are paying attention to it, you can feel the tension in the air. The ripples of minor grievances being poked and prodded and brought out to blame someone for the way the district is unrestful.

When they are not blaming you in whispers, that is.

You hear tales of a monkey man -what is that even you do not- sighted sitting, kneeling, in the pond in the park. You hear tell of a lady of silk seen floating through the district beside yours. You hear that Sages of all stripes have been sighted, more and more in the countryside. In the city.

And all through this, you can feel the Tao tingle in...you think it is excitement. With purpose. And you feel your own , burgeoning Way start to nudge you. Nudge you where you do not know, but you must trust that it has your interests at heart. That you will not lose yourself, that you will not lose your family, in all this.

Maybe...just maybe….you really are a Sage.

So, what do you want to do now? You don’t have a lot of time, since Resplendent Lotus will be sleeping shortly.
[X] Go the the public bathhouse to soak
[X] Go sleep
[X] Read book
[X] Meditate

---

Of the options, only meditate is the subpar one. You just do not have the time needed to properly meditate, until you fall asleep.

Also, just to say, meditate is how you rank up your Sage-ness. Like, it is not a quick rank up, and it won’t put you above a letter grade everytime it you take it, but it does help you be more awesome. It lets you..digest what you have learned, in books, in practice, and in thought.

Just saying. ;P

 

With not a lot of time to really get into the whole meditation thing, although you would love to give it a shot, you instead grab the book that had started this mess, or not started, but certainly helped along, and lay back in your bed to read a bit.

First thing’s first, is to check what to do after you buy some maps, because you had let it slip past you in the your quest for teaching in the proper art of face punching. What you found hurt your brain:

You’re sure that means..something, but you’re not sure what. You’re starting to get the idea, well, more of an idea, that everything in this book is doublespeak. Some sort of ‘wise’ sayings. Of course, just when you have that thought solidify, you run across passages like the following, which totally throw you off:

It’s just...it’s there and it is in black and white...well, ink and paper, but still. Your poor head hurts sometimes at the sheer what the fuckness that occurs regularly with the book. Still, there is some...good advice, and some strange advice, and some advice you wish you had before you set out, and even some advice that makes you resigned to just having a book that likes to tease you.

Which describes the martial art style you settled on after reading about badness of the other two in this bleeding book. You’re highly suspect that this Sun Wukong person who wrote the book is a trickster, and likes to fuck with people. Also, definitely not a Sage. No way would someone so irrelevant be a Sage.

That’s...that’s not to say the advice is all bad, or irrelevant, some of it is just flippant, too.

And that is really, all there is to it. Little bits of ‘advice’, wrapped up in weird not really relevant koans that, in the end, makes your head hurt. Still, you feel...better about yourself, and your path after you finish reading the book for the night. You’re not done it, not by a long shot, but you are feeling better, and more stuffed in the head, so hopefully, something good will come of it.

Just as you are about to close the book and douse the light though, you see:

This, now, you know this. You’ve had a couple of days like this. You get that feeling with every different passage of the book itself. Frowning, you flip to the last page:

Fuck it. Put out the light, go to sleep. Do not think about it. Do not think about it at all.

So, what do you wish to do in the morning?
[X] Help in the Bakery
(After morning chores, help with the bakery some more)

[X] Learn from Sifu
(Northern Long Fist)

[X] Meditate

[X] Practice Face-Punching

[X] Read more of the Book

[X] Visit Friends
(You have some, but it has never been the right time to introduce them, because things have been going on. Now though, you can see some friends, if you wish)

---

Like last time, a thank you to TotalAbsolutism for the passages in The Book. HIs koans have made it easier for me to do this stuff (I suck at koans).

 

Well, this was quicker than the couple of hours I expected, but hey, it helps that I had most of the sequence plotted out in my head because of a dream, I guess.

---

Punch. Kick. Punch.

“Again!”

Punch. Kick. Punch.

“Again.”

Punch. Misstep. Flail blindly.

“Pick yourself up and do it again! Only don’t fall like a flummoxed ox. You fall like this.”

“Yes Sifu,” you say, smiling through gritted teeth as you pick yourself up off the packed dirt and reset yourself in the default stance that Sifu had shown you yesterday, when you started this odyssey of face punching. At least all he is doing is watching you punch and kick in this little area of the main practice yard as he walks class after class of students through punches and kicks of their own. You, he relegates to an out of the way corner, to repeat the two techniques -a straight punch forward, and a kick to the stomach- repeatedly.

There is no give in the elder man. No smile and well done. Just being told to do it again and again and again and again and- you get stuck in repeat like that for a while, and eventually, you realise the sun has risen to about mid-day. Sifu does not call for a rest. He does not seem to care that you are kind of hungry right now. Although, he is nice enough to bring you a bucket of water to drink from and douse yourself with.

“Resplendent Lotus,” Sifu says, after you have set the bucket down, he dropping to kneel in the ground and motioning for you to do the same. “You have proven you are willing to work for what you asked for. You have shown me that you can and will pick up what I teach. When you are not re-enacting a newborn horse trying to stand on its own legs for the first time, that is.”

“I had a cramp in my leg, Sifu,” you explain stiffly as you kneel in the hard dirt, ignoring the sounds of students practicing their own drills in the background. You can see the point at which he starts getting annoyed at your comment and continue smoothly, “this is not an excuse. It is a reason. I should have made you aware of the cramp and stopped to see to it, I know. There is no reason to push me hard if all I am going to do is injure myself.”

“Just so,” Sifu says, squaring himself before he looks you in the eye and starts teaching. “Between yesterday and today so far, you have done well, young one. You have learned the proper way of punching and kicking. More importantly, you have learned how to breath properly, how to stand so you are less likely to be knocked down, and you have learned, at last, how to fall and not hurt yourself in the process.”

“Thank you, Sifu,” you say, bowing your head low to him. “It is only through your teaching that I have learned what I have learned. I told you when we started that I would be your perfect student, and I do not wish to make a liar of myself.”

“So you did, so you did,” the elderly man says after a moment, stroking his chin as he looks you over. “Go to the building on the far side. It is myself, and you will find my wife there. Ask her for a bowl of rice, for lunch. After, you are to come back here and practice your punches and kicks, until I have a chance to instruct you in the basic blocks. Now go.”

“Yes Sifu, thank you Sifu.”

* * * * *

Punch. Kick. Punch.

Your lunch, which consisted of a bowl of fried rice, mixed with some onion, bits of chicken, and an egg, was adequate. Not as...well, as satisfying as lunch at home would be, but you live in a bakery, so that is a wash. Lunch will always be ‘better’ at home, if only because of the variety. The bowl of rice was filling though, filling just enough for you to continue your practice without making you get sick or anything of the like.

Punch. Kick. Punch.

So you practice what Sifu has taught you so far. Not a lot, honestly, but it’s only been a day and a half, roughly, since you started, so hey, any progress you make is good progress. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see that Sifu is leading a class through some sort of sequence of moves and though you are so very tempted to watch, it would mean stopping, or slowing down your own ‘sequence’ of punch, kick, punch.

Punch. Kick. Punch.

Punch. Kick. Punch.

So you give up on the watching, and just focus on your own moves. Which, you suspect, is a test by Sifu. It’s an evil test though, tempting you like this. In fact, it is so evil, you are tempted to fail it purposefully, just to...no, stop.. That way of thinking is bad. Bad thinking. Thinking like that would make The Book make sense, and you have not lost enough sense to think that is a good thing. Yet.

Punch. Kick. Punch. Punch. Kick. Pu- Blocked.

“At rest, student,” Sifu suddenly says, after appearing in front of you and effortlessly blocking your last punch in sequence. “We will finish today’s lesson with instruction on proper blocking.”

“Teach me, Sifu,” you say, smiling slightly, as you focus yourself, and learn.



So, it is early afternoon. What do you do now?
[X] Continue your Instruction
[X] Help your Parents Out
[X] Meditate on all you have learned
[X] Read The Book
[X] See to your friends
[X] Soak in the Public Baths

---

You have learned enough of Northern Long Fist Style that Sifu will teach you a proper form (or Kata, if you are a weebo) in the next training montage. You do still need to meditate at some point if you wish your Sageness to rise, even if it will not be a complete rank up (it will get you closer to ranking up however, which not meditating is not doing).