Dragon’s Road
Chapter 1
The Strongest Man in the World
In a large arena in a grand hall stood two men. The first was well built middle aged man who still held the body of one in his prime. The second was a younger, larger man with muscles that rippled over his entire form. The audience favorite was the latter, his body belonged on magazines and in Mr. Universe contests, women swooned over his perfect physique.
The arena’s crowd remained silent in anticipation, it was the finals of the World Martial Arts Grand Tournament. Entering required a world rank and sponsorship from an accredited martial school. Winner received $100 thousand, 2nd place took home $50k, and 3rd $25k. The tournament took place every two years and only accepted thirty-two out of the two hundred or so applicants who took part in the preliminary.
The hand of the judge went down and the match begun. The heavy muscled one stepped forward while maintaining his stance. The middle aged one stayed put and waited patiently. As soon as they were within range the exchange began. Elbow thrust, high knee, spiral roundhouse kick, the man with the bulging biceps threw a rapid flurry of powerful blows strong enough to pierce a brick wall. And the smaller man blocked, dodged, and diverted every one of them. He held the attacker at bay without using any great movements, giving any openings, or striking back.
Richard Smith, the man avoiding the previous tournament champion’s barrage of attacks was not underestimating or looking down on his opponent. He was simply fighting in a way that had the highest chance of victory. Using minimal movements to avoid damage while using the smallest amount of energy, he intended to draw out the fight and exhaust his opponent. Not that such a thing was easy. The champ was in excellent condition and full of energy, it would take longer than the set limit of the match’s length to tire him out in normal conditions. Thus to succeed he left his body at the champ’s best range and made himself seem to be open for the champ’s strongest attacks.
From an outsider’s perspective it appeared that Smith was dodging by the barest of margins and the champ had him completely suppressed, but that was not the case.
When the champ paused to back away and take a breath, Smith moved forward and struck the diaphragm. The champ’s armor of muscle softened the blow enough to avoid breathing paralysis, but not enough to protect the air in his lungs. The blow interrupted the breath and Smith took the opportunity to deal a fierce barrage of his own, targeting the diaphragm each time.
It was thanks to that armor of muscle he had emerged victorious in the last two tournaments, the champ could take any attack without problem and most couldn’t take a single one of his own attacks. But he was still human and needed to breath so he had little choice but to either move or block Smith’s attack. Without being able to take in air as needed his fatigue increased at more than triple the rate.
With a two finger fist and precise aim, Smith struck the champ’s blocking forearms along the nerves. The champ finally got in a few breaths while defending so he started his attack again.
Instead of dodging, Smith grasped the champ’s hand mid-punch and twisted it. Before he even realized his fist lacked the strength to pull out due to his damaged nerves, the champion’s tendons automatically followed the twist of his arm, turning the whole of his body back, with his arm extended behind him.
Like a fisherman reeling in his catch, Smith firmly held the champ’s twisted hand and turned it against whatever direction he was trying to go to block all avenues of escape. Smith then casually twisted and pushed against the arm and shoulder to walk him to the edge of the ring, where he unceremoniously forced him to step off, thus winning the match by ring out.
The hall filled with applause, but less than there had been for the champ. Smith’s victory looked cheap and undeserved compared the effort they saw the champ show. They had no idea what had taken place in the ring, and couldn’t appreciate it.
Richard took the towel offered to him by his second as he left the ring. The victory was as unsatisfying as it looked, despite the effort he put into it. Although the point of the tournament had been to spread his style’s name across the world, he secretly hoped he would find someone who could push him to his limits and give him a thrilling fight. He looked at the belt with the words ‘World’s Strongest’ written in gold and could only feel disappointed as he was told to put it on and smile for the cameras.
Next he had to stand before television crews for an interview.
An anchor woman said, “How does it feel to be the world’s strongest man?”
Smith answered honestly, “Strength is not measured so easily, and winning this tournament does not mean I am the strongest, only that my style and skill is superior to the ones I defeated.”
The next question came from another anchorman, a young one who smiled as he asked, “Do you feel that there is a need for martial artists in this day and age? With modern weapons and tactics, no battlefield requires its soldiers to train for years to fight.”
Smith answered, “Fighting is a large part of martial arts but not all of it. Martial arts strengthens the body and promotes health and longevity. As for battlefields, there will always be some things that a true martial artist can do that no government trained soldier can imitate.” He was speaking not from pride, but experience, though that was not a story for their ears.
The newscaster seemed to smirk and replied, “You mean fanciful concepts like shooting energy from your hands or attacking faster than a person can see?” A few people chuckled lightly at the sarcastic remark.
Smith backed up a step and said, “You’d be surprised what can be done with the right amount of training. By the way, did you know there is something on your shirt?” After that he turned and left the group. The people who chuckled before suddenly burst out laughing hysterically when they saw that the anchorman’s shirt had a neat shoe print on it, the exact size of Smith’s shoe, and made in the dust that covered the ring.
“When did he..?” In front of a dozen witnesses and three cameras, not a single person had seen when Smith made the mark. It would only be later when the footage was examined closely that they saw that had Smith lightly kicked the shirt as he stepped back without the interviewer even noticing the impact.
“How’d it go?” asked his second, a junior who joined the dojo five years beforehand.
“I think I made an impression,” he answered.
“What kind?” he asked hopefully.
“Shoe.”
“...”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
The pair left straight for the airport, he was not one for sightseeing or souvenirs. He spent the next 48 hours sitting on planes, waiting at airports, and sleeping in hotels before making it to the state of Colorado. There he took a ninety minute cab ride into the rocky mountains only to be dropped off at a gravel trail too narrow for cars to pass through. After twenty minutes of walking, Richard made it to the place he called home, the Temple of the Mind and Body. The Temple head’s family bought the land and even had the name on the map officially changed to Temple of the Mind and Body fifteen years prior.
Within was a living space and a dojo whose features borrowed heavily from the shaolin temple. Of course since the dojo’s style also borrowed heavily from American Shaolin as well as many other styles, it made sense for the architecture to do so as well.
It was thirty years prior when eight martial artist of varying backgrounds and disciplines joined together to form a style that used the best of the strongest while being both flexible and practical, Xiao Xiang kung fu, the formless style. The foundation of the style was to start with kyusho-jitsu, pressure point fighting and build up from there. This caused some unexpected consequences though. Practitioners under other styles who wished to learn Xiao Xiang kung fu were told by other masters they would be dropped should they do so. This was because when students of the same level in other systems started learning Xiao Xiang kung fu, and applied it to his sparring with students of the same level, they would have an ‘unfair’ advantage. Pressure points were not taught until the master deemed the person ready to learn them, and long after receiving a blackbelt. But if the students learned it from another style, the prior masters could have no say.
Of course the screening process for accepting new members to the temple was very rigorous. One could not even apply unless they were above 18 and had a high school diploma or equivalent. After being accepted as a student you could choose to live and train on grounds, though most chose to live off site.
When Richard approached, he saw another student in formal attire running up to him from the hall. He thought it was to greet him or congratulate him for the tournament, but the look on the student’s face was bleak.
“Sensei, it is master Horren. He is bedridden.”
Richard dropped his pack and ran like the wind to his master’s chambers.
“Master!”
“Ah, Ricky, you’ve returned.” An aged man who had accumulated over ninety years under his belt, seventy-five of which were spent in constant practice of about two dozen different martial arts, sat up in his bed to greet Smith. He was attended by two doctors, and several expensive looking pieces of medical equipment were stationed around him.
Richard bowed first before approaching and asked, “Are you alright?”
He smiled lightly and said, “As well as an old man can be. Time seems to have caught up to me. No one can outrun it forever of course, not even us.” Smith was well aware of what he was talking about. His teacher was born with a heart condition that made it seem unlikely he would live past thirty. Thanks to martial arts, he prospered and beat it. But the condition re-emerged in his old age, and no one knew when his heart would give out.
“I saw on the internet you won the tournament. I’m sorry you didn’t find what you were looking for though.”
The teacher was not being sarcastic, he knew of Smith’s desire for a great fight, and if he saw the video he understood that Smith left the ring empty handed.
“At least our temple has become well known.” Smith replied.
The old man smiled a bit before saying, “Yes. And no. I’ve had some time to look through the internet while in bed, so I know what is known and unknown. Look at this.”
He took out a laptop and opened to a video sharing site. He typed in a search and showed Smith a video of the finals for the tournament. “See this number?” He pointed to the number below the video, 319 views. He then typed in another search and opened another video, this one was of a kitten trying to fight a dog who didn’t seem to care. The number was 6,477, over twenty times the number of views, and it seemed that both videos came out the same day.
“This is what it means to be well known it seems. I know you did your best and entered the tournament for the sake of the temple, but it seems there is little point now a days. People are just not interested in the martial arts. Too bad.” He closed the lid of the laptop and sighed. "I have something else I would like to speak with you about. Kyle does not wish to take up my place when I go. We have talked and agreed that it will be you."
Master Horren was a 10th degree blackbelt of Xiao Xiang kung fu, Kyle was the 9th, and Richard the 8th. It wasn't that either of them knew more than he did, but only one person could hold each of the three highest ranks, and the other two would not ascend until the death of the third.
Smith said, "But it is master Kyle's place to take, not mine."
"Yes. And no. Kyle has the rights to the position, but not the desire to take it. You know him as well as I do, he can't stand staying in one place for very long. You on the other hand have made this temple your home, the position fits you as well as a custom made leather shoe."
Smith understood. In truth he wished he would never reach the 10th degree simply because of what that would mean, but it was a child's wish, unbecoming of a martial artist. "Very well. The temple is in good hands. But I swear to you, I will make the name of this temple and the martial arts you helped create known throughout the world."
Master Horren smiled and said, "I know you will."
After two weeks, master Horren died, and after a solemn funeral attended by every person who ever trained with Horren, over two hundred and fifty people, Smith became the next master of the Temple of the Mind and Body.
One day, a young student knocked on Smith’s door.
“Master. Master! I have to show you this.”
Smith opened the door to see his student carrying a laptop. Smith was never unkind to students, so he asked, “What is it Jeremiah?”
The young man opened the laptop to a video, it was on a different site, but the layout looked the same as the other video sharing site. The video was the first person perspective of a swordsman fighting against several others in a large room. The fight was impressive, quick reflexes, high skill, and much practice would be required to fight as they did.
“Cool huh?” asked the student.
Smith smiled, “Yes, it is very interesting. What is it? A movie or something?”
“What? No, it is Bard Ray’s fight in the tower of Heroes in Royal Road.”
“Royal what?”
“Royal Road, it is a full immersion virtual reality video game. I use to play it before I started here.”
Smith was behind the times a bit but he knew what a full immersion game was. They used capsules to inject the player’s mind directly into the game, where hours sped by four times faster, four days in game was one day in the real world.
His eyes naturally drifted to the view number on the bottom of the video.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“... Seven. Seven million views?”
The student looked confused for a moment before he realized what Smith was talking about. “Oh yeah. His videos are really popular. This only came out a few weeks ago.”
An idea came to Smith. He told his student, “Please sit down. I want you to tell me everything you can about Royal Road.” Real world tournaments were not the way to go to spread the name of his martial art. This was.
After two weeks for overseas delivery, the capsule Smith ordered from Unicorn Inc, the company that ran Royal Road, had arrived. Six students volunteered to carry the capsule, a coffin sized box through the pass from the delivery truck parked on the road to the temple. Although it had no cable or tvs, the temple did have electricity, phone service, and of course internet, so setting it up on site was not a problem.
After setting up a membership, Smith laid down in the capsule.
Connect to Royal Road?
Yes | No
At first he almost got up to see who was speaking, then he realized the woman’s voice was from the capsule.
“Yes.” he answered.
The scan on your iris and vein has determined that you are an unregistered user. Do you want to create a new account?
“Yes.”
Select the Name of your Avatar.
“Ryuu.” It was his master’s nickname in japan, it meant Dragon.
Select your gender from Male, Female, or Neutral.
“Male”
Royal Road has forty-nine races. You may select your race from the primary thirty that are currently available.
The physical characteristics of fantasy races interested him a bit, but there was no point in displaying a martial art made by humans as any other race. “Human.”
You may alter your appearance using the Index provided.
“No change.”
You Account has been activated. Your stats and class shall be determined while you are playing Royal Road.Select a city and kingdom you wish to start in.
A map of the continent with several blinking points representing the available starting cities was shown.
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After a bit of online research his students assisted him with, Smith had decided on a large city in the eastern frontier that had just recently been discovered.
“Brent Kingdom, the capital city of Varhales”
Welcome to Royal Road.
With a flash of light, Ryuu found himself in a large, lively city with many stone and wooden buildings and many more people. It took a moment to remember that he was actually in a video game, it was only upon close inspection could he could see the details were just graphics. But objects at a distance, like the enormous castle the city was built around, seemed as real and grand as anything he had seen in the real world.
The first thing he did was find a secluded spot so he could punch a wall. It took little time to find an alley, and there he proceeded to hit the wall as fast and as hard as he could. While doing so he noticed two things; the first being that pain was substantially muffled in this game, the impact of the wall against his fist did not hurt nearly as much as it should considering how hard he was hitting it. The second was that he was slow. Although his muscle memory and reflexes were higher, by far, than an ordinary player due to the strengthened nerves years of training gave him, he could not move as fast as his true body could.
“Open Status Window” After using the voice command his student told him about, the menu that showed his physical stats appeared before him.
Status WindowExitAvatarRyuuAlignmentNeutralTitleNoneLevel1ClassNoneFameNoneInfamyNoneHealth100Mana100Strength10Agility10Wisdom10Intellect10Leadership0Luck0Vitality10Attack2Defense0Magic ResistanceNone
Each stat number represented the strength of that characteristic. Each race started out with specific stats which fifty points were initially distributed among. When a character got enough experience points to gain a level, five additional stat points were provided to distribute as the player pleased. However, according to Jeremiah, physical training within the game could increase the physical stats and even generate new ones. If Ryuu wanted to become at least as strong and fast as his real body was, he had to train.
Ryuu walked through a crowd of people to a nearby city guard and asked, “Where can I find a place to train?”
The guard looked over him and said, “Get lost, I have no time for you.”
The guard’s attitude reminded Ryuu about what his student had also told him about Non-Player-Characters, intimacy levels, and fame. How an NPC treated a character was determined by initial interactions, previous interactions with that NPC or ones close to him, and the total fame of the player. As a starting player, Ryuu had no fame or intimacy.
“Excuse me sir, you’re new right?”
Ryuu turned around and saw a young man in brown clothes who seemed to overhear the guard turning him down.
The man continued, “See that over there? That’s the map of the city, it’ll tell you where everything is.”
He pointed to a bulletin board that was next to the area Ryuu had first emerged in game.
Ryuu said, “Thankyou.”
The young man smiled and continued on his way.
Ryuu looked over the map. It had street names, stores, restaurants, and even a church. He found a large building with the words, ‘Training Hall,’ on it, and made a note of its position from the ‘You are here’ point.
The building he found reminded him of the temple, he was glad there was a place like that in this city.
The sign board in front of the building said, ‘Beginner Class training.’ Ryuu walked in and saw a large area with at least a hundred indoor trees. He found a heavily built man wearing instructor’s robes and said to him, “I wish to train here.”
The barbarian looked over Ryuu and frowned before saying, “Sorry, you cannot take the beginner class before completing the basic class, and you don't have the look of one who has done so.”
Ryuu asked in return, “Ok, can I take the Basic training class?”
The barbarian shook his head. “No, this hall is for beginner training, you must go to a basic training hall. There is one in the city of Sandor a four day ride northwest of here.”
At first Ryuu was disappointed that he would have to travel to another city just to train, but then he remembered of the restriction his student told him was placed on all new players.
“Sorry to say, but I have only recently arrived, I cannot go beyond the walls of this city for one month.”
The barbarian thought on this for a moment and said, “Why is it you want to train so badly?”
“Because I am weak, and I need to be stronger.”
“A good answer. Very well. If training is what you want, then there is another way. Go to the outer ring of the city and find the house of an old hermit named Kame. He occasionally gives people training and his regimen is better than what you’ll receive from the Basic class training. Complete that and I’ll let you try your hand the Beginner class training.”
Ryuu successfully gained a bit of respect from the man and gained valuable information from him. He thanked the instructor and left.
Cities built around castles were often built in rings, each enclosed by a wall. The outermost wall of Varhales surrounded hundreds of acres of farmland and small homes. It took an hour but Ryuu found the home of the man named Kame by the wall. He knocked at the door and waited. After a few minutes, a bald old man with a white beard and mustache came out.
“Yes? Hello. What can I do for you?” he asked.
The man looked fragile but Ryuu knew looks were deceiving when it came to old martial artists. Ryuu bowed before him as he would a master and said, “My name is Ryuu. I have heard you occasionally give people training, and have come to request it.”
“Oh ho. Quite respectful you are. It is a shame, but I quit giving my training to others many years ago. The trials are not for the weak willed, and all but too few had their spirits broken by it. I’m sorry but you’ve wasted your time.”
“Please sir, I am a martial artist who has recently come to Versailles. I find myself weak and I need to be strong. Please sir, I’ll do anything.”
“Well, you do seem to have the conviction for it. Very well, I’ll give you a task. If you pass, I’ll give you the basics of my training. If not, then you must swear to never return.”
The Hermit’s Task
Rank E
Kame will not train you unless you pass his trial. Succeed and you will be given training superior the Basic Training Program.
Accept?YesNo
Ryuu had been tested many times and was certain his resolve would guide him through the test and the trials the training required, no matter how difficult.
“I’ll do it.”
You have accepted the quest.
The hermit nodded and said, “Very well. Your task is, to tell me a joke to make me laugh.”
“...... A joke?”
“Make it a good one. I’ve heard many jokes in my time but it has been awhile since I’ve had a good laugh.”
“But, a joke?”
“You don’t know any? A martial artist without a sense of humor is not a martial artist worth training.”
“Wait, I know some, just give me a moment.”
“Alright.”
“Ok, what did the fish say after swimming head first into a wall?”
“What?”
“Dam.”
“Hmm, clever, but not good enough.”
“Umm. Two cannibals are eating a clown, one turns to the other and says, ‘Does this taste funny to you?’”
“Not bad, but I’ve heard that one before.”
Ryuu tried several other jokes, but none managed to make more than a one sided grin appear on his face. The hermit said, “Well, you tried your best, but I did not laugh, you can go now.”
“Wait, just wait.. Can I tell a dirty joke?”
“Hmm, sure.”
“A pig jumped into the mud.”
The hermit’s eyes shot up for a moment and he remained silent. Then he burst into laughter. “Ah hahaha! That was a good one.”
Ding*
Quest Complete: The Hermit’s Task
Ryuu sighed with relief.
After calming down from laughing so hard, the old man said, “Haa, Alright. Wait here a moment.”
The hermit returned to his home, and after five minutes, came back with some thick black clothes.
“Put these on.”
You have obtained Hermit Training Gi
After placing them into his inventory, he set the clothes to equip.
Movement speed reduced by 40%
Stamina consumption rate has increased.
The clothes were thick, and probably inlaid steel thread. They weighed over 120 lbs and severely reduced his ability to move.
Kame said, “As I said, I will give you the basics of my training. How far you go with it is up to you. Return when you can move around in them easily and you can move onto the next training.” and with that, he closed the door.
?Chapter 2 Ki Conditioning in Royal Road
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