After getting off the phone with his sister, Ji Sub was so excited that he jumped up and down while hollering. After spending five minutes to get all the excitement out of his body, he finally returned back to normal. Once he was calm, he began to plan for what he should do for the next month in preparation for the game.
Since his skills in real life could give him an advantage in the game, he decided to train in preparation. As he thought that, he decided to restart training in Tae Kwon Do. Even though he didn’t plan on using bare hands in the game, it would help him regain his reflexes and he thought that there might come a situation where he does has to fight bare handed.
Even with those thoughts, he didn’t immediately run off to train. In his mind, he decided that identifying what type of weapon he would use in the game was first. Through the various articles he had read, he found out that although people wouldn’t be able to choose their class until level ten, they would be able to choose what weapon they would start off at. Since there was a month left until the game came out, he decided to familiarize and train ahead of time with the weapon he wanted to start off with..
With those thoughts, he once again turned back to his laptop and began to research weapons. First off, he eliminated long range weapons and magic staffs. He wasn’t sure yet what class he would choose, but he knew that he wanted to fight melee as he was already familiar with it through Tae Kwon Do. While he was looking through various weapons and weighing their pros and cons, he suddenly thought of a certain weapon. After searching it up and looking at the information, a smile appeared on his face. During the ancient period for Korea and China, many famous figures had used this weapon to rise to fame.
The weapon he had decided upon was a halberd. Even though at first people might think it’s similar to a spear, there was actually many differences. First of all, the halberd had a large one sided blade. Not only could it stab opponents like the spear, it was also very effective for slashing movements. Another difference was that the shaft was built a lot thicker and it weighed several times more than a spear. Although it sacrificed some speed, it was instead replaced by strength and also would be better for defending oneself.
Back in ancient China and Korea, the halberd was the preferred weapon of choice for many influential figures. Even during the times of the warring states in China, some of the most famous kings and generals also used the halberd. With a single swing of the almighty halberd, the user could blow away or kill several enemies at once.
Now that Ji Sub chose what weapon he would use, he needed to figure how to procure one. Not to mention swords and spears, it was forbidden to purchase firearms in Korea. Since he wasn’t able to procure a real one, he decided that the next day he would go to a carpenter and have them carve a staff that had similar dimensions and weight as a halberd.
Once he settled those issues, he stood up. Next was the issue he dreaded the most. To start training in Tae Kwon Do again, he would need to talk to his father about it. His dad had been so angry when he told him that he was going to quit that he threw quite the fit and forbade him from going to the dojo ever again. Although his father would be happy once he found out Ji Sub wanted to start again, with his father’s personality, he would definitely increase the difficulty a lot! Already feeling dread at the upcoming training sessions, he changed into a comfortable set of clothing and headed off to the dojo that his father ran.
When Ji Sub stepped out his house, the sun brightly beamed down on him. The temperature wasn’t too bad but it was very humid out. During the summers in Korea, the country would go through a monsoon season, where throughout late June and early August, it would constantly rain, increasing the humidity.
Today was one of the rare days where the clouds disappeared and the sun was out. Still, due to the heavy rain the previous few days, he already could feel the sweat forming on his body from the humidity. Letting a sigh out and already reminiscing about the cool air condition in his home, he started to walk to the nearest bus stop.
Even though it was three p.m., the streets of Seoul were already crowded with people and cars. After he waited a torturous ten minutes for the next bus, he finally got on. Luckily there weren’t too many people on the bus, so he was able to find an open seat and feel the cool air condition.
After he rode on the bus for ten minutes, Ji Sub finally arrived at his destination and he got off. After walking another five minutes, he now stood in front of a three story building that had several signs on their walls, advertising the businesses inside. Looking at the signs, he saw a familiar small sign on which the following was written.
Tae Gook Tae Kwon Do dojo.
With a small smile on his face, he walked inside the building and walked up the stairs to the third floor. Standing on the floor, Ji Sub saw that on top of one of the double door entrances, there was a large wooden sign with the word Tae Gook Tae Kwon Do written on it. Letting a sigh loose, he walked up to the entrance and entered.
“Wrong! When you see your opponent move like that, you’re supposed to do this!”
As soon as he walked into the room, Ji Sub heard a stern voice yell. In front of him, an old gentlemen with a head full of short gray hair, was demonstrating a movement to a soldier dressed in forest fatigue uniform. As he moved in slow motion, he explained the reason why he was moving like that to the soldier. After completing the movement he turned back to the soldier.
“Do you understand now?”
“Yes, master!”
“Alright then, practice that movement fifty times.”
“Yes, master!”
Hearing the soldier shout loudly, the old gentleman nodded his head in approval and as he turned around, he finally caught sight of Ji Sub. At first, a hint of pleasant surprise appeared on the man’s face before it quickly changed back to its usual sternness.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“What is a person who said that he would never come back here ever again doing here?”
A dejected smile appeared on Ji Sub’s face when he heard his father’s comment. He had expected this type of reaction from his father. After releasing a sigh, he stood up firm and looked at his father in his eyes.
“Father, I have seen the error in my past ways. I humbly request to once again train in Tae Gook Tae Kwon Do.”
Tae Gook Tae Kwon Do. Not only was that the name of the dojo his father ran, it was also the name of a specific Tae Kwon Do. Several decades ago, the Korean Government spent a lot of money into researching Tae Kwon Do and making it more combat oriented for soldiers to use during times of war. After years of research and experimentation, they finally came up with Tae Gook Tae Kwon Do. Even though the basis was still the same, the attacks and movements were specialized for close quarter combat during war time. It even made its shining debut during the Vietnam War, where many Vietcong soldiers feared to approach the South Korean army because of their fierce melee fighting.
“Ho…. you sure do have guts to say that to me after the mess you caused last time.”
Ji Sub felt his body shiver a little at the cold words from his father. Not only was his father an instructor for Tae Gook Tae Kwon Do, Yim Seung Goo was one of the leading figures in the field and the Korean Government even sent some of their top soldiers to train under him. One can just imagine how frightening of a figure he was, let alone when he became cold. Still, Ji Sub knew that it was all over if he backed down now, so he struggled to stay in an upright position and stare at his dad with unwavering eyes. After a few moments passed during the stare down, his father’s expression finally relaxed a little.
“….Are you sure you want to start over again? If you do, even if you beg me to quit, you know I won’t let you, right?”
Cold sweats started to appear on Ji Sub’s forehead at his father’s slight threat. After getting his bearing a little he replied with a confidence voice.
“Yes, master!”
When his father heard Ji Sub’s response, he nodded his head in approval. When Ji Sub used to train previously, he had made him call him master instead of father at the dojo so that they would maintain the master-disciple relationship during his training. Actually, he pushed his son even more than his students or the soldiers the government sent.
“Since you’ve wasted four months of training, you’re going to have to work twice as hard to make up for it. Hu hu hu… the future indeed looks bright.”
-----
One month quickly flew back. During that time, Ji Sub spent two hours every morning training Tae Kwon Do while he spent the majority of the afternoon familiarizing himself with the staff. With only articles and videos on the internet to go off of, he trained on each stance and movement he could find diligently. Although he couldn’t be considered a master, he now felt as though he was quite accustomed to the halberd and would be able to use proficiently.
The day before Path to Immortality was supposed to officially launch, the Neuro gear finally arrived. Taking the box excitedly back into his room, he immediately opened the box. Inside the box, was a large helmet, cords, a case for Path to Immortality, and a manual.
After looking at the all the items in the box, he decided to read the manual first. After getting a concise idea of how to work the Neuro gear, he took the rest of the items out and began to install the system. The helmet reminded Ji Sub of a black motorcycle helmet except that the Neuro gear didn’t have an opened front and was completely sealed except for where one would put their head through. The cables themselves were easy to tell as they were the power source for the Neuro gear.
After he finished inspecting the two items, he finally began to calibrate the Neuro gear. For the calibration process, he had to put the helmet on so that it would scan his face and neuron readings. After roughly ten minutes, the system concluded its scan and was now fully calibrated. Afterwards, Ji Sub put the small disk for Path to Immortality into a small disk drive piece at the side of the Neuro Gear. The game itself took a lot longer to download. Even with how ridiculously fast computers have become, it was shocking to think that all the information in the game took over an hour to install. After everything was completed, Ji sub looked up to see it was only eight p.m.
Since he had to wait for four more hours before the game officially opened, Ji Sub did a little exercise in his room before he ate and took a warm. After wasting so much, the time finally reached eleven fifty p.m. and he excitedly put the Neuro gear on and started up the game.
As the game loaded up, numerous scenes of highly chaotic battles appeared. As the video went on, a theme song played in the background, sounding just like the ancient Chinese songs. As he heard the song, a smile crept up onto his head. The singer was his older sister, after all. After the beginning film was finally complete, a scene of mountains and forests appeared on the main screen with the words Path to Immortality at the top. After his Neuro gear had been verified by the system, his account was automatically set up. Still there was a couple of minutes left until the game started so he had to patiently wait for the game to launch to create his character.
Even though the wait was only for a few minutes, it felt like hours to Ji Sub, as he eagerly awaited for the clock to hit midnight. Just at that moment when he was looking at the clock on the top right hand sign, he finally saw it change to zero hundred hours and a voice rang out in his ears.
“Welcome to the Path to Immortality!”