Historically I've been, err, somewhat bad with directions to and around specific places in the city, thanks to not being familiar with anywhere except the area closest to the city center and around my home, of course. That said, finding people and places is a lot easier now that I can fly.

Jasper and I enter the building where his club has its dojo. He splits off to change into his gi, while I go to the room he pointed to as the dojo. I came in fight-worthy clothes, not that I ever really need to change with the Aspect of Clothing. Someone among the shapeshifter group realized that you can change fur and hair, despite it being ‘dead’ matter. Take that a bit further and, well.

I look around in the ‘dojo’ as I enter it. It's fairly typical for what it is, being fairly big with thick mats covering most of the floor. In the middle of the room, there is a square of differently-colored mats, and along one wall is a box of those plates you practice breaking and a rack of wooden practice swords. I bet they do kendo here as well.

I'm assume the middle aged Asian man sitting with his back to the opposing wall is ‘sensei’, so I give a polite 10° bow. He responds with a nod. “Polite, good. You trained martial arts before?”

“A little bit, yes. Tried many hobbies when I was younger. Stuck around in karate for… one and a half years? Later I also tried aikido for a couple months with some friends.”

He looks at me thoughtfully. “Hmm, you are the wolfman, no? Wolfwoman, maybe?”

I sit down a few meters across from him, on my knees (in seiza). “Yes.”

“You will show this magic forest to us, yes?” He asks and I respond with a nod. “But before, you will fight. Why?”

A male and a female sits down at each side of me after exchanging a bow and nod with the sensei. “Fight safely. That’s the trick when practicing, isn’t it? To fight safely?”

“That is so, but you could try this with other people and place. And it does not answer question: Why fight?”

“It’s…” I start, but trail off trying to find the words. The girl next to me helpfully suggests “Complicated?”

“That too, but it’s cliche. More like, it’s… I am strong. Stronger than I have any right to be for how little I exercise. Well, there’s been more of that since the Upheaval, but still. Jasper… At first I was easily stronger than him, but he got stronger as he practiced as well. Now he is much stronger than me unless I actively use magic to increase my strength.”

Speaking of the devil, “You talking ‘bout me?”

“Yeah. Anyway, raw strength isn’t all. If we had a real fight I could wipe the floor with him. Or, more likely, I’d need to wipe him off the floor. Take away that though, and use strength and technique only… I wonder how I would fare against that.”

“Hmm, if it is as you say, you weaker and not very good in fair match. Probably lose.”

“And that’d be good too. To properly know -to feel- that I am not all-powerful. Beat some humility into myself, so to speak.”

The sensei just closes his eyes while the rest of the class files in, leaving our talk like that. He makes me quickly introduce myself, and then starts the lesson, me included. I get knocked and thrown to the floor more than once, but I happily discover that, while a bit rusty, I still remember how to fall properly. Roll, even.

The lesson concludes, apparently earlier than usual, and before I get my ass handed to myself I want to bring up a few things I observed. “Sensei, it looks like everyone here is pretty good. Especially the cultivators. That’s… not how it was the other places. Was this the case before the Upheaval?”

“Ahaha, complimenting the teacher through the students? No, you are right, after Upheaval they improved fast. Especially, as you say, cultivators. I had seen this.”

“Hmm, interesting.” I turn to one of the male cultivators. “And you… do you use wood firing in your house, or have you lived a lot in a hot area, or do you work with hot stuff or fire often?”

He looks surprised at this. “Uhm, no… why?”

“Fire.” I say, raising my magical defences. I spread my arms wide, “Punch me.”

Now he just looks at me stupidly. “I said punch me.” I tap my chest. “Unless you’re stronger than a dragon who doesn’t know her own strength you’re not gonna hurt me. At most just throw me back a few meters.”

He looks from me to sensei, then back. He pauses for a moment, then takes a stance, one side of his lips raising slightly.

I grunt, more in reflex than anything else, as I stagger back a step. “Okay, that was good. Yeah, Fire. When you move and stuff I can sense the Fire aspect in you, especially your punches. I bet you could totally punch flames, Avatar firebending style with ki and some training.”

He was the only person I felt the actual aspect from, but for two others I got a vague feeling of them being… like an aspect. It’s one of those faint intuition things, and it’s frustratingly vague. Well, I can test it with them in the forest. Priority one is setting fireguy on fire, err, giving him the Fire aspect and see what happens.

“But that’s for later, let’s fight. First, though: Rules. Lose conditions are the same as in most martial arts; you’re out if you are knocked out of the ring, stay on the ground for more than a moment, yield by double tapping the other person or ground, shouting, or are unable to continue.

There’ll be a judge for each match who has full authoritative power to pause or end the match. In terms of other rules, no active magic or mystical abilities, except to avoid injury to self or others, mind your power to avoid injury and no head blows on someone’s main body.”

I’m pretty sure that was all of them? Probably. “So yeah. These are just general rules I came up with, and can be changed by circumstance or if everyone involved agrees. Any suggestions? Questions?”

“Main body?”

“Oh yeah.” I summon my ‘budget phoenix’ fire falcon. “[Aspect Magic] lets you shapeshift, but also summon extra forms. Having one die kinda sucks, but all other injuries can be healed. I’m gonna fight with my main body here, but might use a puppet in the forest since we can use more power there.” Fenix, return!

“You want to fight us twice?”

“Well yeah, but I’m not gonna force you. But the deal is that I won’t bring you there unless you fight -or pay- me, so…”

There are no objections, so we get on with it. True to his nature fireguy wants to go first (he definitely has fire-y traits), and so we take stances in the ‘ring’.

Sensei acts as the judge, and starts the fight with a chopping motion. Fireguy steps closer while I simply keep my relaxed stance. He steps to the side then goes in for a attack. I rotate to follow him, sweeping his foremost hand to the side while stepping back.

He grabs my overextended arm and bends in, and I do a sloppy roll to get away. He comes after me as I stagger to my feet so I sweep one arms high then step in and slightly to the side to slap his stomach.

He goes for another grab with a step back, so I chop at his upper arm with my high arm while brining the other in. I take a hop towards him just as he mirrors his guard and shoves him in the chest. He staggers a bit and I follow up by grabbing his arm and yanking him down and to the side.

He does a much better roll than I did and spring back up in a tackle. As I reach around and start twisting to deflect him, sensei shouts us to stop. Oh, I was pushed outside the ring.

The next fight I am a bit more aggressive, and by the time I register what’s going on, the opposing cultivator has me pinned on the ground. “Wow, that was fast and also holy crap you’re strong.”

After that, I'm against the sole female, a (not very trained) magician, and the fight ends with me grabbing her in a bear hug and throwing her backwards out of the ring.

After that is the one I’ve been waiting for, the one against Jasper. “Use your taekwondo as well,” I say as we do the customary short bow.

We step into range and immediately he launches a low side kick. I crouch to catch it, but he instead slams his foot down and transitions into a punch towards my opposing side shoulder. By reflex I duck, and instead he grabs me by my clothes and my hand, twisting to throw me.

I manage to grab his gi at his side and pull him after me and, for the first time during these fights, start using [Water Bending] techniques, without mana, of course. I go with the flow and manage to disengage from him, moving to a position closer to the center of the ring.

He had a similar idea, so we size each other up a moment and I notice my grin probably matches his before I make a movement as if kicking, instead taking a step and then, using the momentum, a proper middle-high kick.

There’s a fleshy *thuck* as my shin colliders with his blocking arm, but I ignore the mild pain and kick off with my other foot. By plan or surprise, he lets go and my plan to pull him down comes down with myself.

He makes use of my unsteadiness and initiate what I recognize as the seventh movement of the Water Temple dance, but not having practiced against it I soon find myself on my back. “Ahh, full kicks and punches makes for more interesting fights, yeah.”

“Or you can just let the enemy open themself up and push them over.”

“You say that as if you planned for it.”

“Hey, it worked!”

Yeah, yeah. The next few battles have similarly mixed results, and when it’s finally time to fight sensei manage to hold on until I decide to actually attack, at which point he immediately pins me.

“…I feel like I was repeatedly beat up.”

“You were! You had terrible form and was only a little beaten. Even won by being strong man and lucky!” Sensei says with mirth.

“Yeah, yeah, rub it in. Also my victories was at least thirty percent skill.”

With sparring and subsequent verbal sparring done, we decide on how to handle the trip to the magical forest. The first thing agreed upon is that the class in split in two, cultivators and magicians separately. Then, to get the most out of the trip, both groups decide they want to do it on a weekend so they can be there longer.

We decide on the details like which group gets which day (saturday→magicians, sunday→cultivators), and when and where to meet up, and then they file out to go home. I stay behind and talk to sensei, specifically about what he thinks about integrating New World powers with martial arts.

He agrees that it will probably happen one way or another, and states that the abilities gained from the Water Temple are a bit unnatural. Or, as I suggest, perhaps supernatural. Of course, as soon as you bring in more power to fighting, the chance of injury increases. He goes on a minor, but heartfelt, rant about aikido is not really about fighting, but about wellbeing, both physical and mental.

So I bring up the topic of protective gear, which I have already given some thought, but I kinda assume he has actual experience. I have already concluded that some kind of helmet is needed, as well as some torso armor. With enchantments they can disperse the force of impact and be tougher than they would otherwise be.

After hearing more details and seeing one example, he points out that it should be possible to turn slightly thicker than usual clothes into viable protection with enchantments, and that it would be prudent do so when possible.

I thank him for the chat and head out, having heard of a couple stores that sell martial arts gear I can browse for examples and inspiration.

Saturday comes around and I wait at the appointed place in full mk1 protective robes, a bag with miscellaneous props over my shoulder, and -for effect- staff in hand. The first to show up comments that I look like a mage and gets a thanks, but when the last person to arrive says the same, I've heard it four times already and get right down to business.

“Okay, is there anyone who does not have the two basic mana abilities?”

No response? Good, at this point in time that'd be a rather shamefur dispray. “Anyone who knows how to make a mana link?”

…oh well. That just means I have to form it one by one. It still doesn't take long, and we soon take to the skies. Two others have experienced levitation before, and I have no idea if that's a large portion or not. It's pretty clear some them not entirely comfortable with this mode of transport, but with air being moved with us, I can distract them by talking only slightly louder than normal. Well, other's normal. Usually I try to not speak this loudly.

“As mentioned, don't hesitate to tell me it something is wrong. I quite literally hold your lives, after all.” Oops, that made him more uncomfortable.

“Hey, how fast are we going?”

“Quite fast.”

“That's not…”

“I know, but I don’t know how fast we’re going. I know I can pretty easily reach about two-fifty in a flight form, but I’ve never measured my speed with [Force Magic: Levitation]. You can check with your phone’s GPS or something, but it should be around eighty to a hundred, I think.”

“Eighty to a hundred what?”

“Kilometers per hour.”

“Shit, that’s fast!” He exclaims and, perhaps unwittingly, pull himself closer to me.

I just shrug. “Would go faster without you guys, and my sense of speed is pretty messed up. I’ve actually almost broken the sound barrier a couple times. In proper flight forms, mind you.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, but at that speed I simply can’t displace air fast enough to lower drag, so my terminal velocity isn’t that high.”

“Isn’t that high? No kidding, your sense of speed is messed up…”

“Told ya. I have a decent sense of self awareness. I think. I feel like that statement will only be said if it’s true or very, very wrong. Everyone else doing fine?”

I get various affirmatives, though one sounds about the same as that speaker looks. And he looks a bit green. Well, if he says it’s fine, it probably is. The trip doesn’t take that long, and by the time I put us, down everyone has [Force Magic: Levitation] and [Mana Manipulation: Mana Link]. Except Mr.Green who staggers over to a tree and collapses.