INTRUDER

"Uhm... hello?" I said as I cautiously sat up and moved backward to create more room between me and the intruder.

A strange old man was standing at the foot of my bed (which was just a bunch of hay and a big itchy rough cloth on top). 

I knew who the old man was obviously but I had to pretend to be oblivious since he was applying gi to certain pressure points in his face to change how it looked.

"Is it true?" he asked me. "Is it true that you came up with the martial arts you demonstrated yesterday?"

"Why are you in my home?" I asked, ignoring his question while glaring at the old man like an intruder which he was.

My muscles tensed up and I gave this look that I was ready to go down in a fight if I had to.

"Answer my question. Did you invent it?" he asked. 

"If... if I answer your question, will you answer why you're here?" I asked, showing him that although I was scared by his sudden presence, I also had heart and bravery.

There was no bitch in me.

Doesn't matter how old, large, or powerful you are. 

It's not about the size of the dog in the fight. It's about the size of the fight in the dog.

"Yes," he responded. "I'll answer your question if you answer mine. That's a fair deal."

He seemed amused by my reactions and the way I was conducting myself.

I took a second to gather myself before answering, "That's right. I came up with the martial arts I was using yesterday."

"How did you do that?" he asked. This was a question I already answered yesterday, which he most definitely heard, but I guess he wanted to hear it face to face.

"I... I can't say," I responded, shaking my head.

"Why?" he asked.

"Because... because I was told by someone that I'd get in trouble for saying it."

"Are you talking about the fact that you saw the Mount Hua Sect disciples training and decided to copy them?" he asked.

"...I-I... I...." I pretended to be baffled by the fact that he already knew. 

"Let it be known that I do not care about that. It is indeed illegal for someone who's not a disciple to use the moves but I'm not going to scold you or report you. Just answer my question truthfully."

At his reassurance, I let out this quiet sigh of relief.

"...Okay. Yes, as you said I saw the disciples training so I just... I copied their moves. Did what they did as best as I could. But as I was doing it, I realized that I was unable to replicate it at all since I watched them from afar and... didn't know the proper steps and order the moves had to be done in," I explained my fake train of thought I had.

Call me an author because I'm coming up with a story on the spot.

Oh, wait.

I am an author. Hahaha.

"So you decided to do whatever came to your mind?" he inquired, an eyebrow slightly raised in intrigue.

"Eh.... kind of," I said, confirming that he was correct but not a hundred percent right.

"Kind of? What do you mean by that?" he asked, his eyes more interested than before because this was information that he hadn't heard before.

If it feels like he was interrogating me to you then that was because he was trying to pry the truth from me.

His real character was far nicer and patient with his words and questions.

"I did what came to my mind. Yes," I nodded. "But more importantly, I noticed that the moves I saw were... I... I don't know if I'm allowed to say this."

Nervous sweat trickled down my face.

"Go ahead. I won't tell anyone," he reassured me.

"I noticed that the moves were soft," I responded.

"Soft?" he asked, his eyes lighting up even more. "Care to elaborate?"

I nodded my head. "The moves... they were powerful and cool but it felt like they were intended to protect people. The moves were soft in that they didn't have that... I guess killer aspect to it. I wanted moves that were more on the offensive than defensive so I created something that felt sharp and... dangerous, I guess."

I made sure to make myself sound like I was embarrassed to say what I was saying like a child showing off their food art to a professional painter.

Mae Jaesun was quiet after that.

He just stood there, looking at me with these greedy eyes.

If he wasn't so good at controlling his emotions then I could see him licking his lips.

"Could you show your martial arts to me?" he asked.

"Uh... there's not a lot of room here," I said, rubbing the back of my neck in embarrassment.

"No worries. Let's just do it outside," he said as he opened the door and held it open for me.

I got up from the bed and walked out.

"Go ahead."

"What do you want me to demonstrate?"

He shrugged and said, "Just do whatever comes to your mind."

"...Okay."

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"That's enough," he said, a hand over his mouth. He tried to hide it from me but I could tell by the rest of his face that he was smiling.

I lowered my leg back down to the ground and exhaled.

"I agreed to tell you what I was doing in your home in exchange for you answering my question."

I nodded in surprise, pretending as if I had forgotten about the deal we had made earlier.

"Nice to meet you, Son Youngho," he said as he turned off his gi and his face began morphing back to normal.

"Master Jaesun," I said with complete shock on my face. I quickly gave him a full 90-degree bow to show my respect.

"Lift your head," he said to which I quickly obliged. He revealed his smile to me. He stroked his beard with his fingers while looking up and down at my body as if analyzing it.

He walked over to me and laid his hand down on my shoulder. I didn't turn my head to look at it but moved my eyes to see it from my peripheral view. 

"Stop being so nervous," he said while laughing. "You were much braver before."

"Th-that w-was before I knew you were a master at the sect," I explained my behavior change.

"Makes sense," he laughed even louder, placing another hand on my other shoulder. "Now, I'll tell you my answer."

He took a deep breath as if he was about to tell me something life-changing (he is — to Son Youngho that is).

"I came here today because I see something you. In terms of talent, there are five more like you in this sect alone. But what I was... change."

I looked confused. What did he mean by that?

"I see in you the potential to bring great change to this sect. I see you in... a future Mount Hua Sect, one that is far different than the one we have today."

Then he shook his head. "I misspoke. Yes, there are others as talented as you when it comes to your gi but when it comes to martial arts, I think you are a once-in-a-lifetime talent."

I looked at him as if I couldn't even believe the words that were coming out of his mouth.

"B-but I'm just a worker. I'm just... someone who tends to the fields. I... talent, I think you're mistaken," I said, shaking my head.

"Are you saying that I'm wrong?" he asked.

"!..."

"I'm not offended. I understand that you've spent most of your life thinking that you were nothing and were going to grow up to continue being nothing."

For someone kind, that's a very offensive thing to say (lmao).

"But trust me, Son Youngho, you can be more than that. You will be more than that. I'll make sure of it," he declared to me. "Your talent of creativity and not being restrained by the books we read, the ability to create a martial art that is grounded with proper fundamentals while also being something the world has never seen before... it's a talent that the sect needs."

I understood why he was saying this.

This is because although the Mount Hua Sect was still regarded as an extremely powerful sect, over the years because of the philosophy of respecting the ancestors, no one has dared try to improve on the techniques. After all, according to them, it was already perfect.

"What do you say, Son Youngho? Will you come with me and help not only change the sect forever but change your life?" he asked.

Without a moment of hesitation, I gathered the strength to say, "I will."

"...Great."

Mae Jaesun looked like he had just acquired a treasure chest that a pirate king had left for the world to search for before being executed.

Now let's skip forward in time a little bit. All you need to know is that Mae Jaesun began explaining to me the process of making me an official disciple at the sect.

It required me to pay the entrance exam fee and then pass the exam.

Simple.

"But I have no money," I said.

"Did you forget who I am?" he chuckled.

So now we're skipping to a week after he came to my home.

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I'm currently standing in a crowd of a hundred children of both genders, ages ranging from 7 to 17.

6 or below was too young for the sect.

17 or older was too late for the sect because, at that point, your career was already over before it even began.

Son Youngho at this time was only 14 so I passed the first criteria.

There were three tests in total that you need to take to get accepted into the sect as a disciple.

Rather than needing to pass all three tests, it was like they took the average of all three, and the ten people who had the highest averages got accepted.

The first test was about knowledge and wisdom.

After the crowd was split into 4 lines, we were made to wait outside of the building and one by one, people in the lines would enter the building where someone would be waiting for them inside.

They would be asked a question and have to answer it as best as they can.

I was candidate #97 so I was near the very end of the lines.

Two hours later, it was finally my turn. 

The man at the desk asked for the wooden tag I was carrying around. He marked my number down on a piece of paper and then proceeded to ask me his question.

"A boulder is coming down the mountain. It's about to hit five people in its way. You have the option to push the boulder and divert it to another path but there's one person there who is stuck in a steel trap. What do you do, and why?"

'Is this the fantasy version of the runaway train dilemma?' I wondered.

Both answers were bad in their respective rights.

So I just told them the truth about how I thought but first I needed some context.

"Are these five people innocent people?" I asked.

"Uhm... yes."

"What about the guy stuck in a trap? Is he a good person?" 

"Yes. He's also a good person. Everyone in this scenario are good innocent people."

"Then it's simple. I'd just destroy the boulder."

"...That's not part of the question."

I shrugged." It doesn't matter. I'm not choosing any answer that places the responsibility of taking an innocent person's life in my hands. I'd rather die trying something new than choose an option that was set by fate."

If you couldn't tell, I was making an analogy to my situation and the fact that I chose to stray from my set path to break free from the curse.

The person in front of me looked baffled but he wrote my answer down and told me to return to the crowd outside.

I rejoined them and after the last few people answered their questions, it was time to move on to the next test.

This was the test of dedication.

  We were meant to sit in front of a fire and endure the heat. That was the whole test.

'You think this is going to get me?' I scoffed. 'I've already died three times. A little heat isn't going to scare me away.'

I lasted in my spot until the test was ended by the instructor because seven of the candidates weren't failing any time soon.