26 Martial Arts

Jack left the Golden Dragon Store and entered the flowing crowd in the street. In the next half an hour he explored the whole main trading area of Tranquil Lake Town and took note of a few places that he needed to visit in the following days.

After he ended his tour he entered the side alley that led towards the Gravedigger courtyard. Jack turned the first corner that appeared in the maze of alleys, bent down to pick up a few rocks that lay on the ground, and walked towards the end of the blocked off alley.

He calmly reached to the small of his back, lifted his uniform, and took out his slingshot. Putting a stone into the pouch of the slingshot he drew as far as he could and waited.

Around a dozen seconds later a frowning head popped out from behind the corner.

Jack let go of the taught strap and the stone slammed straight into the confused teen's forehead.

His head snapped back with an audible *crack*, and after a second he collapsed down to the ground. He had inconspicuous brown clothes, at least the upper half that Jack could see did, and his greasy hair covered the face from which a line of blood trickled down to the ground.

Two voices shouted in surprise at the same time as the teen collapsed.

Jack's brow furrowed a little as he thought 'Three? Damn, one's stronger than me.' while he loaded a new stone into the slingshot's pouch and pulled it taught.

"I don't want any trouble. Leave and I'll act like nothing happened." Jack shouted towards the end of the alley.

"You've got trouble now, you little rat!" a male voice yelled back. The unconscious teen got dragged out of Jack's line of sight, and after a few seconds the same voice shouted in a concerned tone "What did you do to him?!"

"Nothing that a few nights in bed won't fix." Jack shouted back with confidence in his tone as he thought 'If he doesn't get brain damage.' He continued "We can end it now, just take your friend and go."

Jack heard hushed voices arguing for a few seconds, then all of a sudden a teen almost as large as Kuang Bindun ran out of cover and headed straight for Jack.

As soon as Jack let the stone loose he saw the teen move his arms up to cover his face. He clicked his tongue in annoyance as he loaded another stone and took aim.

The second stone struck the charging teen in the arm covering his nose, but he fought through the pain with a roar as he continued heading straight at Jack. A second after the first teen charged out, a young man with a slim build and a relaxed expression on his face stepped out from the corner. He followed in the burly teen's wake and used his bulk to hide from Jack's stones.

Jack sighed inwardly as he aimed his last shot high at the charging teen's body. Just as the teen moved his hands in an attempt to protect the targeted area, Jack lowered the aim down and released the grip on the slingshot's pouch.

The third stone slammed into the knee on which the charging teen just placed all of his weight. With a soft *pop* his leg bent at a weird angle and he crashed to the ground in a scream of agony.

Jack didn't have enough time for a fourth stone so he tossed his slingshot to the side of the alley and assumed a fighting guard.

The young man charged up to Jack and threw a wide cross. Jack ducked it easily and placed a couple of powerful uppercuts under the young man's ribs.

With an *ugh* the young man backed away a couple of steps and attempted to do a sloppy front kick. Jack dodged to the side and delivered a couple of low kicks to the leg on which the young man stood. This made him wobble and almost fall, but he caught himself and backed a few steps away. He proceeded to circle warily around Jack while he looked for an opening.

"Who are you?" The young man asked with a grim face after a few seconds of finding no weakness. All of the confidence he had when he ran out behind the burly teen had gone up in smoke. He couldn't believe that someone that barely reached his chin and was a grade lower in cultivation could put up a fight against him and his two partners.

Jack furrowed his brows as he retorted with a "Who are you? I don't know, nor did I do anything to you before you started following me." He kept his guard up while his brain worked furiously 'I gave him two full powered punches to the solar plexus and the kicks to his leg should have brought him down to the ground. F*cking cultivation. I might have to do something desperate.'

Just as Jack considered his next step, the young man narrowed his eyes into slits and said "I didn't want to kill you, but you leave me no choice." He charged at Jack with his right arm pulled back for a punch.

Jack's brows rose in surprise as he thought 'That's his trump card? A telegraphed att…' Before he could even finish his thought he saw a slight flicker of spirit energy on the young man's pulled back arm. Jack could only cross his arms in front of his chest and urge all of the available spirit energy into them as the young man's fist moved three times faster than before and struck right in the middle of his crossed arms.

All the air left Jack's lungs as his body flew into the back of the alley and slammed into the wall of an old building. He heard creaks coming from his arms and ribs, but nothing felt broken, only in a lot of pain. As he slumped to the floor he turned to his side and coughed a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

The young man let out a few gasps as he exclaimed in wonder "Still… alive?! You're tougher than… you look." He started walking towards Jack's slumped body as he said "I might let you live if you hand the money that you have on you over."

Jack let out a coughing laugh as he pushed himself back up to his feet and gave the young man a bloody grin. "I might let you live if you hand the money that you have on you over." Jack parroted as he looked into the furious eyes that stared at him.

The young man opened his mouth to say something, but before he could Jack charged at him while copying the same pose that the young man performed previously.

His eyes widened in disbelief as he took a step back and rose his arms up in a guard.

Just as Jack came into range of his fist he lowered his arm and did a double foot slide into the opposite party's legs. The young man gave out a surprised yelp as they both slammed down to the ground in a heap.

Jack quickly caught him in a leg lock and pulled as hard as he could. He had to push as much spirit energy as he could through his body before he heard the satisfying *snap* of ligaments breaking, and the accompanying scream from the young man.

Without giving him a chance to recover Jack moved to sit on top of the young man's chest and used his fists to pound the young man's head into the ground until he stopped resisting.

With greedy gulps of air, Jack looked down at his handiwork.

The young man's head lulled to the side as a mixture of saliva, blood, and teeth oozed out of his mouth.

Jack stared down at his opponent's neck for a few long seconds before shaking his head and turning him to the side so he wouldn't drown in his own fluids. After that, he carefully went over the young man's body with his hands.

He found a pouch with a few silvers in it and a nice looking knife. Jack took both, picked up his slingshot, and moved over to the large teen that was in the middle of an attempted getaway via crawling.

Jack walked up to his back and stepped on his damaged knee.

After a few seconds of shrieking, Jack said "Shut up or I'll do worse to the other one." as he stomped the other knee. When the teen continued to whimper he added in a cold voice "Do you want to walk in the future?" which finally quieted the teen down.

Jack's small frame loomed over the large teen as he said "Now, why did you try to rob me." Before the teen could open his mouth he added "If you lie to me I'll do worse things to you than what I did to your friend."

The teen looked over at the drooling young man and spilled his guts out to Jack.

A few minutes later Jack left the knocked out and looted body of the first robber as he thought 'Elder Long, eh? Interesting.'

When he passed through the back doors of the Gravedigger courtyard, both Kuang Bindun and Shi Furui scurried to him from the bunch of resting youths as soon as they saw his bloody clothes.

Kuang Bindun acted like a young mother as he bombarded Jack with questions like "Are you alright? What happened? Who did this?"

Jack walked over to the fresh water and washed out the pieces of teeth from his battered knuckles as he started to explain what happened to him on his trip.

"All in all, we might have found a nice surprise, and we even earned a few extra silver coins." Jack concluded as he looked up at the disbelieving faces of his two friends.

After a couple seconds of silence, Jack furrowed his brows in thought and said "After this incident, I've concluded that most people here suck in fights. That guy seemed like the most experienced of that group, but even he telegraphed all of his attacks. We might have to start working on that even before I planned it."

Kuang Bindun and Shi Furui exchanged glances; they learned to ignore the few strange words that Jack threw out every now and then. A quiet conversation happened between their eyes and in the end, Shi Furui asked "When? Our schedule doesn't allow for much free time as is. And now you want to add even more?"

Jack looked at the lazing figures of everyone else around the courtyard for a few seconds and said "We're free now. Might as well use the time."

Disbelief filled Shi Furui's face as he spluttered "Now? In front of everyone? You're hurt."

Jack looked back at him with a frown and said "We don't have time to pussyfoot around this. The sooner we start, the sooner we can do something about this situation."

He walked out of their small circle to a sufficiently open area and waved for Kuang Bindun to join him.

Kuang Bindun walked over with a confused look in his eyes as he asked "What now, Tanda?"

Jack looked up at him with an evil smirk and said "Try to hit me." After a few seconds of just staring at each other, Jack shot a glare at Kuang Bindun and growled "If you don't try to hit me in the next breath I'll stop teaching you."

Kuang Bindun stood stunned for a second before he roared and threw a fierce punch at the small boy that stood in front of him with his hands on his hips.

Jack looked at the incoming punch with disappointment as he sidestepped it and punched Kuang Bindun in the balls.

He shook and blew at his injured hand a little before he turned to look down at the squirming bulk of Kuang Bindun. He tried, and failed, to hold in his sobs as he covered his jewels with both hands in a vain attempt at protection from the stabbing pain.

Jack glanced at the pale-faced Shi Furui and sighed as he said "A lot of work…"