“The first step of the way of martial arts is learning to control ki and use it to amplify your physical abilities” Shouted Claw-sensei. His emerald green robes flowed elegantly around him as he deftly swivelled to pick up a steel ingot lying on a bench behind him. “Once you have mastered this ability, your body will become a formidable weapon” to demonstrate his words, he proceeded to concentrate ki in his fist and pulverise the ingot into nothingness. “All of you must awaken your ki in time for the trials, you will have a chance to prove yourselves martial artists!” the fist of the instructor, shimmering with the power of his ki, rose above his head as he continued in a roar “The worthy will become disciples of Blazing Cloud City's Cloud sect! The others will be forgotten by all and remain mortals!”

Shura felt a sharp nudge in his ribs. The offending elbow belonged to Bull, the 3rd son of the golden leaf clan. “Haha I can’t wait for you to eat my dust peasant!” sneered Bull, spittle flying with the vehemence of his arrogance “ki-less weaklings will grovel under my heel when I become a disciple of the sect!”.

Shura sighed slightly, he had always thought Bull looked more like a pig than anything else… He then proceeded to ignore the arrogant and angry child. This always infuriated Bull, and all the other bullies that always thought Shura was easy pickings. Shura never spoke, that, coupled with his gentle kindness, the slight smile his lips seemed to always form and the rags that he wore as clothes, made him a prime target for bullying in a competitive environment such as the “Flying fist” martial arts pre-school of Blazing Cloud city. However most kids gave up trying to pick on Shura. For one thing, beneath his quiet demeanour, was a body stronger than any other kid’s, for another he never got upset or reacted to their, more or less wicked, attempts at flaunting their strength on him. He would always simply keep smiling quietly and walk away. Bull however never gave up his attacks. They became more vicious when he started being able to control his ki. It gave him an edge over Shura that could still not, to the bafflement of the instructors, call up the smallest hint of ki. The Golden Leaf clan also controlled the lands where Shura’s orphanage was as well as controlled the fields they worked. Thus Bull felt an unquenchable urge to kick in the dirt the peasant kid unworthy of being his, a noble's son, classmate.

“You aren’t ignoring me this time you shit!” screamed Bull. Claw sensei having finished his class for the day, and not thinking much of Shura anyway, simply smiled and started biting into an apple that seemed to apparate out of nowhere. “I wonder how many bones Bull’ll break this time” the instructor thought to himself.

The other kids of the class made room for Bull and soon Shura was in a ring of his classmates, he turned to face the advancing Bull. “Eat this” Bull stepped up close to Shura his body crouched, then raised himself like a spring unloading a powerful ki filled uppercut into Shura’s abdomen. Shura’s body seemed to fold in two as he was lifted of the ground and flung several feet away. Most of the kids watching the beating winced expecting Shura to puke, or flinched feeling the pain from such a punch. All present were amazed when Shura simply hopped back up from the ground and brushed off dust from his rags. The smiling ragged teenager bowed “thank you for the lesson” and started walking away. Bull recovered from shock just in time to stop Shura from leaving the makeshift arena. “I ain’t done with you scum! You dodged the first blow but you won't be able to dodge anymore!” yelled Bull as he dashed forward and grabbing Shura by the collar over the shoulder tossed him back in the center of the circle of gawping pupils. Shura landed seemingly effortlessly on his feet, spun around and with his unmoving smile faced the onslaught of Bull’s attacks. First came a sweeping low kick, with a thud it hit an immovable right leg, Bull, using his closeness to the ground, propulsed himself in the air by the strength of his arms. Charging his foot with chi he unleashed a powerful axe kick as he descended on Shura. Shura lifted his crossed arms to parry the blow, the blow exploded in a small shockwave that blew a cloud of dust into the ring of pupils. By the time they had coughed away the sight impairing cloud they were faced with an incredible sight. Bull was showing off a great use of ki manipulation as he charged blow after blow with spiritual strength, gathering speed as he unleashed attack after attack. However, resembling a practice post of incredible toughness, Shura simply stood there seemingly unaffected by the attacks, sometimes moving his arms to stop some of the more vicious blows. Beside himself with anger Bull felt himself tire from such an extended use of his ki and concentration, after his right elbow failed to meet Shura’s nose he jumped back a few feet and crouched. Ki gathered around him in a higher density, meticulously he stepped forward tracing arcs in the air in front of him with his arms as he approached his target. Claw sensei’s apple had disappeared once more, he was looking at the fight with amazement. Bull was even further advanced than he thought, truly a fighter from a noble clan, but… How was this dirty kid facing him unflinching ? And what now ? Bull new a spiritual art ? This was undoubtedly-

“Raging horns of the beast!” yelled Bull as he had finished his movements, the ki being condensed around his arms was then thrust forward in a double spear shaped shockwave, the attack creating a noise like a charging beast. Shura had been watching with attention. He jumped back to the edge of the arena and mimicked Bull’s movements, before he could finish though Claw sensei darted between the two students and with a shout “Enough!” he flicked away the power of Bull’s attack. The loud bang that resonated from the spiritual attack being absorbed by what seemed to be a shimmering wall of gold pierced through Bull’s pride. He had been robbed of his show of strength, how was Shura still standing ? He had even started monkeying around trying to copy the spiritual art he had spent years practicing ? Before anything more could be said however Claw-sensei roared out “Today’s lesson is over! Everyone go home!” the ground rumbled form the roar making it impossible to refuse the order. All the kids dumbstruck by what happened turned and started leaving the school grounds. Shura simply bowed to Bull and Claw-sensei and left, his kindly smile having never once flinched. Bull bit his lower lip so hard it tore and bled as he walked to his clan’s mansion. “You will regret that Shura…”.

Blazing cloud city was unimaginatively named thus for the blinding sight of the sunrise upon it. Though it is called a city the name describes all the human settlements across the heaven peaks, towering green mountains lush with vitality. Plant and animal life thrive in the sun bathed mountainous pillars. It is unsure what lies at the foot of the mountains for humans live only on the peaks, surrounded by a veritable ocean of impenetrable white clouds. Thus every day the sun rises and it’s powerful light blazes, reflected across the clouds. The greatest concentration of human activity is on a strangely flat plateau, legends speak of a god level martial artist that destroyed the top of one of the mountains. However it was formed it was a perfect place to develop a city and so one did. Shura was now walking through the eastern part of Flat city (simplicity in naming was a major characteristic of the people of Blazing Cloud City). Away from the Flying fist school and towards one of the numerous massive bridges that span around the city. Imbued with strengthening demon cores these massive suspended contraptions connected the city to the other peaks and settlements. Shura would ignore snide remarks or derogatory sniggers aimed at him whenever he bowed before each and every one of the supporting pillars spanning the length of the bridges. Sensing the power of the cores residing in the pillars, carved to represent the beasts slain aeons ago, he felt impelled to show respect towards them. Bowing and praying a thank-you for their sacrifice seemed to be the least he could do. So the boy made his way across the 7 Feathered bridge. Named after the 7 pillars built with bird type spiritual beasts as cores. The eighth pillar had been broken some time now out of memory, Shura would bow to the broken stump out of respect anyway. This bridge led to a more remote peak of Could City, mainly used for agricultural purposes. There he worked morning and evening when not at school. Though exhausting, Shura took the work as an opportunity to train his mind and body. And the harder he worked, the more he could bring back to the orphanage to help out his younger brothers and sisters. The other farmers took kindly to the young man, not only for his incredible strength that, within only a year, was unbeatable by anyone, or even anything, as they had had some amusing days challenging Shura to cart pulling against earth-oxen (a pseudo demon creature. As young they very much resemble cattle but as they age and naturally absorb the ki of the mountains they grow heavy muscles and thick stony hides). His smile and gentle nature were also a breath of fresh air in a poor community without any affinities with martial arts. Here was a young warrior, an entity to them beyond comprehension, that sweated and toiled the same earth as them, he respected their lives like no martial artist ever did.

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There was no concept of seasons in Blazing Cloud city. Some scholars theorized on them from ancient fragments of decaying scrolls, speaking of a time before living on the peaks. It sounded preposterous to humans now that it was possible for the land to become warmer or colder with the passage of time. Here in Blazing Cloud City the land was always comfortably warm, bathing in the benevolent rays of the sun. As they lived above the clouds it did not rain either, so the main work for farmers was water management. When ploughing fields farmers would also dig the trenches for irrigation, atop the agricultural peaks of Could City were built massive water cisterns and Shura out of ploughing season spent most of his time working by being a water carrier. Around most mountain peaks, at the shores of the cloud ocean, spirit masters had developed runes of condensing. Engraved upon beast crystals and infused into carved tablets their energy would absorb surrounding clouds and convert them into pools of water. Thus Shura would help the farmers carry buckets of water filled from the many pools around the various mountain peaks and bring them up to fill the water cisterns of the agricultural peaks. Tedious and hard work, like the ploughing of the tough mountainous soil, Shura enjoyed the tasks for he had the strength to excel at them and so help the unfortunate people with no martial art capabilities, but also because they made great ki and body tempering training. Shura had no idea why he could not manipulate ki like everyone else at the Flying Fist, he had however started realizing that ki was in fact gathering inside him. He inherently understood that his body was constantly improving as the ki in him accumulated, condensed, further accumulated and so on. In fact only a couple of days ago his body had gone into some kind of trauma. Even though he had suffered from a beating from some of Bull's goons earlier that day, he had pushed his physical limits by carrying more buckets up the hill at a time than ever before. He had continued to do so that day ignoring the raging pain of his muscles until collapsing unconscious on the side of the road late at night. Though unconscious, oblivion did not prove a blissful end of the pain from overexertion for Shura that night. In fact, as he lay there, his mind drifted in a never ending swirl of toil and fire. He felt as though his mind was being tempered by the hammering of a fire beast he could never quite see. Whilst his mind was thus being pummelled his body was going through a grinder, bones breaking and reforming, muscles snapping, coiling, unravelling then rebinding themselves. Were his thoughts that night to be heard, the quiet fields would have been filled with unbelievable screams, instead only the quiet rustle of his convulsing body in the overgrowth by the road could be heard. When finally the hellish torture had ended Shura rose in the midst of sweat and filth. His body ached and he had an awful headache, but dashing to a pool he discovered his body had transformed. His skin had fewer blemishes, his untidy hair had grown and from dull brown become dark scarlet, his eyes were brighter and he had grown taller. His clothes were ruined, torn by his larger muscles and saturated from some kind of filth that seemed to have oozed out of him during the ordeal. So he had to change to an older tunic of his, clothes being a precious commodity in the poor orphanage, but in exchange he discovered the evolution of his strength and resilience. Somehow pushing past his limits had broken his ki core, forcing it to evolve and grow in capacity and purity. This evolution of his core had provoked the modifying of his body too. The last few days replayed in Shura’s mind that evening as he went up and down a mountain peak, carrying water. He stopped suddenly vividly re-visualizing the movements of Bull right before the end of their combat, the sudden martial inspiration he had had at that moment grew once more and the buckets of water, completely forgotten, clattered to the ground spreading water around, that quickly trickled back down the mountain. Shura closed his eyes and simply let the ki within him swirl and dictate the movements of his body. Slide right leg around and forward, as you lean in putting your weight on that leg slide the left leg straight forward whilst crossing your arms forward then pulling them back at your sides gathering ki toward them then, BLAM like a whip unleash all the pent up energy into a double forward punch. Birds screeched in terror as the tree they had been rousting in was pulverised and crashed to the ground, a tree some 5 meters in front of Shura. The young man, panting, looked with amazement at his fists and back to the tree. He also felt uncomfortably tired, like he had been carrying a boulder up the mountain not buckets of water… Maybe this wasn’t a bad idea for training thinking about it. He mused on a new training regimen for himself as he also pondered how come the tree had and been hit by his move, for no ki had left his body... Then with a start he remembered his work, picked up the buckets around him and returned to his duty.