Oi! There is something wrong with the world. Just two years ago I gave Meifen a talk about morals, heroism and coexistence. She did not really learn the lesson I wanted her to learn, though.

She instead learned how to become popular. Everyone in the village knows her as the kind, generous, wise and powerful Sister Meifen. That's...not right. They're even saying I'm just her hanger-on, who is leeching off of her because I have no friends. Only Meifen is nice enough to be my friend.

This is the girl who slams fox corpses around. I mean she didn't kill it that time, but is a total psychopath. A year ago, Dugu flipped me off and declared he was going off to the nearby city of Chenai to make his fortune. He also mentioned something about how lazy I'd gotten just settling into a tiny anthill out here. Bah. He doesn't realize how badly my family needs me.

Anyway, Meifen suggested we go at night and take off an arm or two for his disrespect. Normally we only beat people to a pulp but avoid permanent injury, Meifen. In her words, “he's a martial artist and cultivator too, though. He ought to be able to take responsibility.”

For the sake of my rival, I restrained Meifen, but from then on I realized Meifen has twisted my lesson into simpler terms. 'Those who do not practice martial arts are babies who need to be taken care of to bring out their full potential. Those who practice martial arts live in a world of conflict that weeds out people with poor potential.'

She's not wrong, I guess, but I think her standards for decent potential are a little skewed. My sister was three, I found Meifen trying to teach her to meditate. In her words, “it is important that Master's little sister grows up to become strong. If she is too weak she could be held hostage, or people might not believe she is master's sister.”

I think she was still a little too young, but by the time she was three Meifen shocked me by showing that she had indeed taught little Huang to meditate. Then she encouraged me to take her with us on our training trip.

NO! I was not going to throw her to the wolves like that. Only, people like me and apparently Meifen can handle that.

The other trial to arrive in my life was the new Alchemist, Mr. Faraday. When he arrived, he immediately began criticizing my potions. He even opened a competing shop right next door. How does he expect to make a profit? Anyway, I undercut his prices and that made him mad since people still kept buying from me.

Fortunately for him, alchemy isn't the only art he knows. He also knows a bit of magic. Magic is an art from Lorraine based on channeling the natural forces of this world through mediums. It also requires taking in a small amount of magic to operate as a catalyst in the form of a magic core. Particularly gifted magicians may even pass on their magical core into their offspring as an inheritable feature. Thus, his failed alchemy shop became the “Magic Lessons Night School,” which angered my uncle and mom. In the end, the dojo went back to the level of popularity it enjoyed before the Assault during the unexpected migration.

Dugu also found out he had a natural aptitude for magic and didn't even need any procedures to implant a magic core. He had an inherited one that just needed a bit of practice that Mr. Faraday was happy to give for a price. That is until Dugu felt Mr. Faraday had reached his limits and took off for the city. I hear he's made a bit of a name for himself already as a black market pill dealer.

I confess to having a bit of interest in magic myself, but I refuse to learn it from that jerk. I will probably pick it up later in my life when I meet an infinitely better teacher.

The night of my 10th birthday I went to bed with a sore head. Earlier in the day I'd been in a heated match with Meifan and her favorite student, Spear-guy. She brought him on to help us when we needed to practice fighting multiple enemies from multiple avenues of attack.

That particular day I'd been distracted by thoughts of a new mixture I'd been brewing and Meifan had landed a sharp blow to my head from behind. We called off practice and let everyone go early.

When I closed my eyes, I was greeted by a curious memory.

***

I was in a bright room. There were no sconces, lamps or torches. The white walls themselves seemed illuminated from within. In the center of the room was a bed fit for a king, and upon it was a grumbling 12-year old boy.

“Hah, I've just caught a Black red-eyes Dragon. Now to add my spell card...oh, you're here.” He said as he stashed something under a pillow.

“Welcome to heaven. Don't get comfortable. You won't be here long.”

“This is heaven? But I'm buddhist.”

“Well if you check out the garden in the back you can see Buddha, but he's turned into a rock for the last several hundred years. He was aiming for the next level as a Boddhisatva, you know. Pretty sure he just wound up as a Sokushinbutsu again.”

Oh. Well, I was a non-practicing Buddhist. He'd probably be pretty disappointed in me if he saw me.

“After dumping his responsibilities on me, I've decided that the population has gotten a little too large and cumbersome so we're going to be doing some trimming. You have been chosen as plague number 5—Zombie Apocalypse.”

Trimming? If he meant what I think he meant then he had another thing coming. I may not be a good buddhist, but now that I know he's kind of real I wasn't going to slaughter a bunch of people.

“By the way, you can call me the Introvert, but some people like to call me god.”

Okay...this might require a bit more thinking. Perhaps I could side-step things by suggesting how ill-suited I was for this dubious honor.

“Excuse me. Chimera Martial Arts isn't really meant to be used to create zombies or zombified puppets. Are you sure there isn't someone else you could use?”

He frowned and I saw a hand twitching towards his pillow. “You're right. I've already released one Eons old necromancer from hell for this task, and he's just been wasting the last 100 years fortifying his city and seeding the earth with his phylacteries.”

Right. I obviously wasn't his first choice.

“But you White Tiger, can just create a bunch of chimeras and call them zombies. Most people won't even be able to tell the difference.”

I decided not to correct him about the translation of my name. “Exalted one-”

He interrupted. “I prefer all-knowing and omnipresent one, but continue.”

“All-knowing and omnipresent one,” I said with more of an edge, “I spent my life preparing humanity to take up my legacy. Now you want me to turn it into a vile curse that will be tainted with everlasting infamy.”

“Actually, you spent about 760 years living in a hedonistic lifestyle centered around your own powers. 50 years in depression over your wife, and 120 years hunting immortality. You only started seriously raising disciples and that tombstone when you'd exhausted all other options. Plus, you're not even going to get 100 years of infamy. Regular people have a really short memory nowdays. By the way, you do realize under my system you'd be going to hell or it's more productive equivalent if I didn't have a special mission for you. ”

I felt a droplet of sweat form on the back of my neck. God drove a hard bargain. “Nevertheless, I'd suffer an even worse punishment for my wrongdoing after I finished spreading this plague of yours.”

“Now that's where you're wrong. You see here is a super secret, ultra exclusive get out of a hell free card.” He said as he pulled out a shining gold card from behind his back. “Granted, technically it's not called hell anymore. I just make you do some community service as a gold farmer for me, but with this I'd give you a clean slate after you get done.”

Huh? This sounds too good to be true.

“Now you're questioning whether I'm really the real deal or if this is all some sort of trick, right? Check my omniscience then. Ask me anything.”

“Where is the ring I got for my 400th birthday buried?”

“You gave it to your fifth disciple and lost track of it.”

“Who was the second love of my life.”

“Your first wife. She always had an inferiority complex because she knew she came 2nd after martial arts. I suggest you see a therapist and rearrange your priorities in your next life.”

“How could I complete the 720 Hip sweep wheel so it won't be countered by Varan?”

“Alright now you're just trying to get me to help you with your martial arts. End of Q&A.”

He surprisingly has dealt with all of my counter-arguments as if he knew them before I'd even make them. This might be the real deal. Still, “I don't feel comfortable with staining the work I spent my while lifetime on like this. I know you said you'll send me to hell, but in some ways destroying my life's work sounds even worse than that.”

He tapped his chin and then strode up to me and turned me to face a mirror that I hadn't noticed. Then I realized why I hadn't noticed it. It was growing out of and taking over one of the walls.

“Look into that mirror. I'm going to show you what's become of your tomb in the 82 years since you've died.”

“What? I just died yesterday.”

“Time means nothing here. Now, no more questions.”

I watched as the tomb lay...empty. Utterly empty. Then some bandits settled into the first rooms and used it as a bandit hideout for a year before officers of the law came with a group of adventurers and flushed them out. They left the corpses in there and collapsed the entrance to the tomb on top of them. Then over a number of years the soil and rock covering the entrance to the tomb was coverd by vegetation.

“It's gone. Completely forgotten.”

“Yes, the year after you died your Xiang clan sent a team of elite martial artists and they harvested 6 of the 9 treasures. Then they told everyone that they'd conquered the tomb and claimed all the treasures. Some people tried to check, but they couldn't make it farther than the Xiang Clan's experts. After that no one felt it was worth their time to enter an empty tomb.”

“NO. Those assholes!”

“I think they were upset that you didn't leave your belongings to the Clan and felt they were just collecting their rightful inheritance.” He shared with me gleefully as I began hyperventilating.

“By the way, Chimera style Martial Arts is no longer their primary style. It requires too much work from seniors and elders to capture strong beasts for each of their students. Since personalized instruction has fallen out of style the new preference is to teach Hurricane Revolution Martial Arts and when they become masters if they want they can experiment with the archaic style of one of their advisors.”

“Advisors? I'm the founder!”

“Not according to the history books. You started the Xiong Library and their lower level school. Your Student, the Lightbringer expanded it into a sect, national level organization, and completed their most famous style of martial arts that is totally orthodox. Hint: Your work might have been a bit too dark for them when they wanted to enter the mainstream about 120 years ago. They've been taking baby steps in revisionist history since then.”

I could see what he was doing. He was probably only telling me half of the story to rile me up so I'd do what he wants. And it was working.

"You really should have studied more public relations, White Tiger. Even the name of your martial arts could have been so much better. Something that invokes heroic connotations like Justice Sword Style or the Compassionate Fist." Him pantomiming movements from my own style as he made his suggestions was an uncalled for low blow.

“Fine. They're ungrateful, unfilial slimeballs, but they may have had a point. So my legacy is in the hands of a-holes and being forgotten.” I threw back my head and laughed. The one who called himself god said nothing as my laughter echoed off of the empty halls. “Even if I went back there I still wouldn't be able to reverse this. No one will want to learn an art that eliminated half of society.” I said waving my hand at his mirror.

“Not true. Not true at all, Mr. White Tiger. Your style may not live forever among the hallowed halls of the Orthodox Martial Arts organizations, but when you achieve great infamy those who hunger and thirst for power will do anything and everything to preserve and uncover lost secrets about your work. The question, therefore, is whether you'd like to be forgotten or remembered by people who would cross any and every line for the sake of martial arts.”

He was right. There were generally two camps and I suppose the darker, unorthodox schools would like to incorporate my teachings into their own. I would probably not get full credit, but it would at least live on in more than dusty libraries or tombs.

“Also, don't flatter yourself. You wouldn't be able to destroy half of humanity. You'd barely be able to knock off a tenth of it if you went all out.”

I narrowed my eyes, but in truth there were plenty of deep mysteries and old secrets that could very well stop me prematurely. He may be right, or he may be wrong.

“Let's not do this as a mission. A challenge—how about that? You don't really need me to slaughter humanity so much as slow their rate of growth. If I can make the world's population rate fall by more than a tenth then I'll have won and you'll give me that “get out of hell free” card.”

“Oh, interesting. You want to make things harder for yourself. Fine. That's even better for me. But what will I get if you fail?”

I crossed my arms and replied. “What do you want?”

“You'll be my personal assistant for a century, no a millenia.”

What? That doesn't sound worse than going to hell or new hell for that amount of time. “What's the catch? Is there a job description, perhaps?”

“No job description. I'll make it up as I go along. Nice doing business with you.” He said, and suddenly I realized without me thinking I'd somehow uncrossed my arms and was now shaking his hand. Did he just force me into accepting his terms?

“Good luck. Try not to live that long of a life this time.”

***

I awoke in the dark. The thin winter walls had let in a chill, but I was positively steamy underneath my comforter even with the dying bed stove.

What a crazy dream. I turned over and saw my left a note and a package. I leapt out of bed. No one should have been able to sneak in and drop that off.

I grabbed a handkerchief and opened the note without directly touching it.

To White Tiger:

I think you're ready to begin our bet. Remember you have until you die, and your goal is to reduce the human population growth rate by half. If you can deal with the other races, especially those randy Mermaids and Sirens, then I'll give you...extra thanks.

Wish Everything Goes Smoothly,

The Introvert

P.S. This stone will begin to crack as you get closer to accomplishing your goal. When it finally will completely shatter if you accomplish your side of the bet.

I dropped the note and the moved the stone over. This was too much to take in all at once. I turned over and went back to bed.