Young Master Gart

"Sit down, everyone!" Young Master Gart shouted loud enough to ensure that the trainees paid attention to him. He added a harsh tone to his voice for the benefit of the younger trainees who usually took a little longer to pay attention to his instruction.

As one belonging to the first class of disciples who started their training under Master Tszarek in 973, Young Master Gart was a senior disciple of the Ragha Martial Arts Academy.

Upon their graduation from the academy after ten years of being personally trained by Master Tszarek, disciples of the academy took on the title of young master, to distinguish them from the original master, Master Tszarek himself. They are distinguished by their black robes which bore a badge with the seal of the Ragha Martial Arts Academy, a field of wooden board with a fist breaking through.

As a young master, Gart had to teach martial arts to younger practitioners for ten years. After ten years he would be called Master Gart. By then, Young Master Gart may accept personal disciples and charge them fees for imparting his knowledge in martial arts.

For the moment, he and the other young masters had to train younger practitioners in accordance to Master Tszarek's instructions.

The elite disciples were required to stay in the academy to train the disciples and apprentices there. The rest were sent to the cities and big towns to establish training centers for aspiring recruits. This started over three years ago from the story's present setting.

The present setting is 991, the 22nd day of Samaya, or the fifth month of the year. Just like on Earth, the world in our story has twelve months, but every month has exactly thirty days. At the end of each month, the bigger of their world's two moons, named Ganawil, blocks the smaller moon, named Bulan. This monthly event is called Rahang Nimgan, which means blocking the younger sister. Ganawil and Bulan are regarded as goddesses.

Every three Rahang Nimgans, the young masters teaching outside the academy had to report back to the academy for a two-week expert-level training and assessment. The assessment was actually a comprehensive sparring competition to determine which three among the regular senior disciples may challenge for a spot among the elite young masters.

Whoever among the elite young masters was defeated would have to relinquish his slot to the regular young master who had beaten him. The defeated elite young master would, in turn, lose his elite status and be relegated to the status of a regular young master. As such, the elite young masters would give their all to the challengers even as the challengers would strain every sinew to try to match them blow by blow.

So far, after thirteen assessments, only one successful challenge was recorded in the annals of the Ragha Martial Arts Academy.

The defeated elite young master apparently could not handle the psychological stress and lost his sanity. He was last seen running away from a group of kids whom he thought were a pack of wolves. He ran over a ravine and died from a fifty-meter plunge.

From then on the elite disciples never let up on their training. They even organized sparring sessions among themselves after training their juniors. They were sure they too would lose their mind should a fellow young master from the regular ranks trounce them during the assessment.

As one of the best among the regular young masters, Young Master Gart had earned the privilege to challenge an elite every assessment. Unfortunately, he also always fell short at snatching a spot among the elites.

The memory of the last assessment was specially painful to him. He was on the verge of winning over his opponent, but he got distracted by his own excited thoughts of impending victory. The next thing he knew he woke up at the infirmary with a throbbing head that felt like a huge rock had descended upon it.

The falling short during huge moments had been a common theme in Young Master Gart's martial arts journey. What is more tragic, however, was that this was always caused by a tendency to get distracted at a crucial moment. He could have easily been one of the elite disciples if he could have only learned how to rein in his emotions.

Considering his status, Young Master Gart was supposed to have been assigned at one of the cities or towns closest to the Ragha Martial Arts Academy. However, because of the special case of Kasgar as the home village of Blink who emerged as the top disciple among the second class, Master Tszarek felt it was only proper that the best non-elite young master should be the one to train the prospective talents over there.

In so many ways, the presence of a martial arts training center in Kasgar was an anomaly in the entire kingdom of Ragha. Though it had a vast territory that was bigger than many towns in terms of land area, the fact was Kasgar was still a mere village with a very small population of only about five thousand. The nearby town of Calandra had a population of over thirty thousand but did not have a martial arts training center.

With the establishment of the training center, the nearby villages welcomed the opportunity to send their children to Kasgar to receive martial arts instruction. For those villages a little farther off, the more affluent families paid for the board and lodging of their children in Kasgar. Their families were very clear about this point: this was a rare opportunity for their families they could not afford to miss.

A martial artist in the family would give the family a certain prestige that would grant them certain privileges and open up opportunities for them within their community. It was really nothing more than power generating influence. And in the world they lived in, martial strength was the greatest source of power.

The families from the farthest villages could have sent their children to a city or town that was closer to them than Kasgar. However, from prior experiences, the children from the cities and towns made life miserable for the children from the villages whom they bullied constantly. Their parents would rather have their children endure in a faraway village than suffer in a nearby town.

Being a town, the residents of Calandra scoffed at the idea of sending their children to learn Master Tszarek's martial arts at a mere village, notwithstanding that it was very close. They would rather send their children to Shramez, which was a distance of at least three days on foot.

At the time Master Tszarek's martial arts was the best in all of Ragha. It wasn't even worth discussing it. A disciple of the academy who had been training for five years could easily beat a young master from the big families who had been practicing the family martial arts for more than ten years. The best part about it was anybody could learn Master Tszarek's martial arts for free for as long as one could endure the harsh training and become strong enough to stay in the academy for ten years.

Before Master Tszarek established the Ragha Martial Arts Academy eighteen years ago, learning martial arts was a privilege reserved only for the wealthy and powerful.

When Master Tszarek went around Ragha in 972 to recruit prospective disciples, the established martial families scoffed at the idea of learning martial arts from an unknown foreigner. They also looked down at the idea of being mixed in with children of commoners.

They had since regretted their arrogance and did all they could ten years later to get their children into the academy by all means, including bribery, another regrettable action that put them into shame in the eyes of the virtuous Master Tszarek.

Like all his fellow young masters, Young Master Gart hailed from a commoner's background and was rather mighty proud of it. He felt that the assignment to Kasgar was a godsend as he was very sure he would have hated having to deal with the rich families of the cities or towns he should have been rightfully assigned to.

At Kasgar nobody put on airs before him. It would not have been the same elsewhere. He was sure he would have run off several rich kids from the training center.

"Especially because they are rich," he thought with a laugh.

Young Master Gart had a feeling that his luck had not been good as of late. Since his last failure in the assessment, a lot of unfortunate incidents had happened in his life. Just a month ago, his father had died after years of suffering from a debilitating disease. On top of that, the girl he thought he loved married his most ardent rival for her hand. Then, just recently, he had an unfortunate incident with a bunch of bandits that resulted in a broken leg.

What was unfortunate about the girl he sought to marry for several years was not that she married someone else. As far as Young Master Gart was concerned, he didn't feel bad at all that she married that pathetic spoiled brat. He was merely lamenting the fact that, had he learned sooner that he only loved the girl in his mind, he could have spent those wasted hours doing something more productive.

Young Master Gart was already twenty-nine and his parents had exerted no small amount of pressure to force him to marry and father grandchildren for them. Once, he retorted jokingly, "Why do I need to marry somebody when I can always give you all the grandchildren you want without having to get married?"

His parents didn't take the joke kindly and prayed fervently for a full night to Kamina, the goddess of enlightenment, that their son's mind would be cleansed of such evil thoughts and live a virtuous life. They never forgot to add that he be blessed with a faithful, loving wife and a dozen children, of course.

His misfortune at the hands of the bandits was actually a laughable occurrence that could have been totally avoided.

Six days ago, Young Master Gart went after a gang of bandits. The ruffians had set up a trap that ended up surprising him enough for them to gain the chance to smash his lower right leg. Fortunately, while he was wincing in pain, the bandits made the mistake of thinking he had lost the ability to fight and took the time to taunt him.

When the leader walked up to Young Master Gart to talk trash in his face, the latter jabbed at the bandit's throat. The jab nearly choked the life out of the poor idiot as he passed out.

Every disciple of the Ragha Martial Arts Academy received training in fighting with a handicap. The reason for this was that, in a real fight, a lot of things could happen including getting blinded temporarily or breaking a limb, among many other possibilities. Among these situational trainings was fighting on one good leg.

It was a little troublesome, but the young master violently struck down the bandits. However, he was so mad over his injured right foot he decided to permanently disable the gang leader and two others before his anger could be appeased.

When he inspected his right foot, Young Master Gart realized that he had a fracture on his shin. While he could be fully recovered after seven to ten days more, this was still a troublesome development for him. He would miss a considerable number of days of training and just might, as a consequence, miss the privilege of challenging for a spot among the elites for the very first time.

His luck was definitely bad.

However, just the day before, he felt as if his luck was about to take a one hundred eighty degree turn. The very reason for the young master's designation to Kasgar himself happened to visit the training center that had been built in his honor. Blink turned up at the center dressed in an immaculate white robe like a scholar. Yet, a fine-looking sword also dangled by his side as if to warn people that he was also a warrior. The visage fitted him perfectly.

While Young Master Gart wondered why Blink turned up in Kasgar instead of training intensively at the academy, he didn't really want to bother too much with such particulars. What matters most was that Blink was here just when he needed some help. And if his luck could hold up, he might heal up in time and have a few more days to exchange pointers with the most gifted fighter among his juniors.

Blink held a respectful notoriety among the young masters.

A year ago, one of the young masters wanted to show off in front of the junior disciples and apprentices and tapped Blink for a round of sparring.

While it appeared that Blink lost the bout after going down with a kick to the midsection, the more discerning young masters saw clearly that Blink was merely saving his senior's face. Had he really gone all out against his senior, Blink could have struck him down with a punch to the nose, a side kick to the floating rib, an elbow to the throat and a whirling kick to the temple. Anyone of those could have taken out the young master.

As for that kick to the midsection that ended the fight in favor of the senior disciple, it was actually clearly blocked but that Blink simply had an enormous disadvantage in power and, thus, ended up sitting on his butt and declared the loser.

During the succeeding assessment, Master Tszarek caught the young masters talking about the sparring bout with Blink. The headmaster mildly chastised the young master in question for his lack of sense and warned the others not to do the same.

"You are very lucky that Blink didn't want you to lose your face in front of your juniors otherwise I would have banished you from the academy on the spot," Master Tszarek berated the erring young master.

He then sternly warned them as a group to avoid situations wherein they have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

At this very moment, Blink himself was standing beside him ready to take his place, even if only for a few days.

Young Master Gart cleared his throat.

"Listen up!" he bellowed. "I would like to introduce to you a very special person!"