5 Cripple the Great

[{Village Fist}] was an interesting martial art. There were no set stances, no set moves, and no rigidity involved in any of the combats with it. It was a fluid martial art. There was no formal training in it besides teaching.

[{Village Fist}] got stronger the more people you taught it to. It did by using little bits of karma that attaches to the person by practitioner teaching the art to strengthen your own comprehension of martial arts and combat.

Alastar was puzzled though, how was he supposed to get anyone to listen to him, to want to work with him, o. He kept on thinking about this problem as he crawled into bed.

He was awoken by daylight streaming through the cracks in the wall. He wiped off the traces of sleep from his eyes, cracked his knuckles and start walking into the day. The Jamison's were already at the table eating bowls of thin porridge.

Alastar sat down and looked at the bowl that was left for him. Mr Jamison was looking at the bowl in front of him while taking his spoon and maneuvering as much porridge into one spoonful as possible.

"Sweety your going to be working down at the fields with Stone here, he'll show you the works." Stone was a strange name but a relatively common one in the mortal villages. It was normal practice to name the child after the first object it pointed to. There were plenty of stones, rivers, and mountains but less common were, prostitute and sword.

Alastar just nodded and ate his porridge, he was still stunned from his days at sea. Soon the porridge was gone and Alastar was still hungry but such was mortal life.

Stone led him round the outside of the house, behind it was a small shed built into a hill. In the shed were the tools of trade for farmers, teenagers, and now Alastar, the scythe. With their tools in hand Stone grunted at Alastar to follow him.

They went through the small paths in the town until they arrived at fields upon fields of strawberries. They were not just normal strawberries, they were massive strawberries almost the size of a persons head and instead of normal green stems, the stems were blue.

They were the most ridiculous looking strawberries Alastar had ever seen. He almost couldn't contain his laughter, Stone looked at him looking like he had never smiled in his life.

"After you have your heart attack cut down some of these strawberries. Don't bother picking them up just cut. If you have a problem ask one of the other farm hands." And with that he left Alastar alone.

It was surprisingly easy work thanks to Alastar Level 12 Tempered Body. Occasionally his scythe would get stuck on a vine but he could easily get it out by pulling slightly harder. The only problem Alastar had were the other farm hands.

One time when Alastar had found a giant bug in one of the strawberries he called the closest one over. He was younger then Alastar but he made up for it with his cursing. He was crippled in many ways but was physically crippled in one, his lack of a leg. This could've been a problem for anyone besides him but he had surprisingly good balance.

Those were not the worst things about him, he never shut up, even when someone was talking he would be constantly muttering something inane and profane.

"Hey new guy?"

"Bushy brows fuck."

"Did you just fucking cut that vine off with your hand, I wanna do that." Alastar was done.

"Ok you wanna learn martial arts cause I can fucking teach you, great heavens above do you ever shut up. What even is your name, your life, never mind I don't even care just leave me alone for the love of God."

"My name? I don't have one." The cripple said. Alastar was stunned, a man with no name only meant one thing in mortal villages, orphans. Alastar had never known an orphan, he had never even met an adult with dead parents, immortality does things like that.

"I'm so sorry." Alastar said quietly embarrassed about his previous outburst.

"What don't be sorry, my parents are the ones that should be fucking sorry, they're the ones who died." And with that he laughed, though it sounded a tiny bit forced. Alastar chuckled a little unsure of what to say.

"Well are you going to teach me that martial art?" Alastar looked at the scythe in his hand, then looked back at the cripple. Martial arts was more fun then farming.

"What should I call you even?" Alastar asked. The cripple put his hand on Alastar's back, Alastar pulled away a bit, he wasn't in the mood to be touched by anyone.

"Call me fucking, Cripple the Great." And on that Alastar laughed, that was truly funny.

"I'm not calling you that how about just Cripple." Cripple gave a look of fake disgust.

"Fine just teach me that fucking martial art!" And so Alastar taught him the basics and philosophy of [{Village Fist}]. It was relatively easy to learn and didn't involve any cultivation jargon but still for a martial noobie like Cripple. The martial art seemed to evolve in Alastar's mind to fit a cripple like Cripple.

Even Alastar was making up tactics like faking an attack using the peg leg. By the end of the day Cripple had learned the basics of the art and with that they both left with Alastar telling Cripple not to tell anyone that he told Alastar the art. With that final line the mantra of [{Village Fist}] had been finished and the piece of karma was secured in Alastar's dantian.