Chapter 18.
The seventh day of my time in Ta Lo began with the low, resonant sound of a gong rolling through the entire dojo. By now I had grown accustomed to the new schedule and settled into the rhythm of local life. So my eyes opened almost immediately — the external alarm was reliable. I got up, washed my face with the icy water from a wooden barrel in the corner of the room, ran through a short, nearly automatic series of exercises to loosen my muscles, put on the grey beginner's uniform — loose trousers and a shirt, simple sandals on my feet — and went out.
The corridor was already alive with activity. A handful of boys of about eight ran past, chattering in a language I couldn't understand. I nodded silently in response to their quick, perfunctory bows. They were "grey" like me — beginners who hadn't yet felt qi. I had already noticed that everything here was strictly ranked by the color of one's uniform. Children up to about ten years of age, those who hadn't awakened their energy, wore grey and occupied the very bottom of the hierarchy. Adolescents who had awakened received blue. And the senior students — young people roughly my own age who were seriously studying the martial arts and the control of qi — wore red. I passed one of these red-clad seniors on my way to the dining hall. He watched me go by with an impassive expression and said nothing.
The dojo itself was a severe, almost spartan complex. The living conditions for beginners were consistent with that — something resembling barracks, where children slept several to a room. Only through a special arrangement by Pai Mei did I have the privilege of my own quarters — modest as they were — and I was enormously grateful for it. Without that, I would have been sharing space with children.
Daily life here was austere: bathing once a week in communal baths with a change of clean clothing afterward, three simple but filling meals a day. Every aspect of life served a single purpose — exhausting training.
Since the conversation over tea, I hadn't seen Pai Mei. Evidently he truly did have matters more pressing than tending to one green beginner.
My days were strictly structured. The first half, after breakfast, I devoted to meditation using the techniques set out in the notes from Master Pai. I sat either in my room or in the quiet hall allocated for the purpose, trying to still my mind and sense that "nothing" from which, according to the notes, the first experience of qi is born. My only achievement so far was the ability to sit with a straight spine for a couple of hours without falling asleep, and to endure the mild numbness in my legs.
After lunch came group training. It was here that I came face to face with my complete and total inadequacy, with painful clarity. Even the local children surpassed me in flexibility, coordination, and endurance. If before arriving here I had thought I had accomplished something during six months of brutal training, I was now being shown, vividly and concretely, that all my efforts amounted to a child's game by comparison.
My weakness and clumsiness were visible to everyone, and I was driven harder for it than the others. The senior students in red, serving as instructors, watched coldly and issued short commands. I didn't understand the words, but the meaning came through clearly enough in their gestures and in the mockery in the eyes of the local boys. "Keep your back straight!" "Bend your knees!" "Stop shuffling your feet!" — that was approximately how it translated in my head.
These sessions were no lighter than those with Sly — perhaps heavier, given the constant mockery and contempt in the eyes of people half my age. The only things keeping me afloat were the toughness Sly had trained into me and my own stubbornness.
I tried with everything I had to understand — copying the movements, studying the stances — but it was futile. They had been learning to feel qi from early childhood, drilling these fluid, unusual postures that, according to Pai Mei's notes, improved its flow. I was nothing more than a monkey repeating actions without understanding or feeling their point. Yes, the notes said understanding would come with time — but that was not enough for me.
On the evening of the seventh day, lying on my firm bed after yet another fruitless attempt at meditation, I finally allowed myself to think clearly and without emotion. A week had passed. I had grown somewhat accustomed to local customs and could now view things with a degree of objectivity. And lying there looking at the ceiling, I began to turn events over in my mind.
Time — that was my greatest asset and my greatest problem simultaneously. Fury, of course, wouldn't rush. He wasn't someone who charged recklessly. HYDRA inside SHIELD was like a malignant tumor: cutting it out required precision and care, so as not to kill the patient or trigger civil war. A purge like that would take months, years, perhaps longer. Which meant that, in theory, I had at least a year.
But — this was Marvel. Here, if something can go wrong, it will go wrong, and at the worst possible moment. The fact that I had warned Fury about HYDRA would probably not eliminate the conflict, only delay it. Project Insight would still happen — the hope was simply that SHIELD would be better prepared when it did. But hoping for that was naive. Which meant I had to prepare myself. As quickly as possible.
And here, in Ta Lo, one simple but deeply unpleasant thing was holding me back. All these children around me — chattering away in a language I couldn't follow, moving through stances with an ease that cost me enormous effort and sweat — they had been learning this from practically infancy. Their bodies had been tuned from birth to these fluid, flowing movements. Their muscles and tendons had been stretched and conditioned. They had an intuitive sense of how the body should move to enhance qi's flow. And naturally, they shared the philosophical foundation of this world. I was an awkward outsider, battering against years of ingrained habits, trying to absorb a wisdom I had no native foundation in.
All week I had trained almost without rest, pushing myself to exhaustion and meditating even at night, stealing time from sleep. But my stubbornness ran into a simple fact: I was trying to catch people who had been running this road since birth. And they ran it not through force of will and clear understanding, but through intuitive feeling. The path to grasping qi here, it seemed, came not through logic or drilling, but through an inner breakthrough — a kind of revelation. Becoming a proper student and earning the blue uniform required feeling qi. Without that, you stayed in grey indefinitely, at the absolute bottom of this place's hierarchy.
It was becoming obvious that simply repeating movements and sitting in meditation with a straight back was a dead end for me. I needed a different approach. And I had one. My System.
Yes, I understood perfectly well that I could have achieved something without it, given enough time. But "achieving something" was too little for me. I needed more — far more. And unlocking even a couple of traits to the next level could substantially shorten the road.
That was when I remembered how things had gone with Sly. In the beginning, in that hangar, things had moved at a reasonable pace — hard training, pain, progress, the system producing WP for overcoming. But after the move to the bunker, everything changed. The circumstances were so pressing that simply pushing to the edge wasn't enough anymore. I had to learn, and learn quickly. That was when I spent the WP on "Critical Eye" and "Motion Analyzer." They had pulled me through, allowing me to grasp in days what would have taken others months.
And the upgrade of "Iron Discipline" to Level 2 — that had been a qualitatively different order of existence. Not simply the absence of fear — a core of steel inside that refused to let me break.
The situation here in Ta Lo was painfully familiar: the same wall, the same dead end. Only instead of Sly's techniques — these fluid, opaque stances; instead of survival tactics — the mysterious qi. I had tried approaching it the way I approached programming, trying to break everything into components and understand the underlying logic. But qi didn't yield to dry logic. It was precisely that "revelation" I didn't yet have.
Since I couldn't reach qi through their path — through intuition and feeling — the answer was to strengthen what I already possessed: my mind, my Traits. "Structural Thinking" and "Motion Analyzer" were already helping me see patterns in movements and anticipate attacks. At Level 2, they should produce a qualitatively new effect. I might be able not just to copy movements, but to see the actual mechanics of how qi moved through the bodies of these local students. And "Still Mind" — it was simply necessary. All these days my head had been filled with noise from unfamiliar voices in an unfamiliar language. How was I supposed to find "emptiness" in meditation when my own mind resembled a gridlocked road at rush hour? Correctly: I wasn't.
The plan formed largely on its own: spend WP on "Still Mind" and upgrade both analytical Traits to Level 2. Yes, this would slow the growth of Perception even further — I understood that perfectly. Traits that enhanced characteristics slowed their natural progress. But I saw no other path. I was not a chosen hero for whom a mysterious old man in a cave revealed all secrets out of sheer regard. My road was stubbornness and calculation. And my primary instrument was the System.
I pulled up my status:
---
*[Characteristics:*
*Strength: 5*
*Agility: 7*
*Endurance: 6*
*Perception: 5*
*Will Points: 6*
*Traits:*
*"Iron Discipline" — Level 2.*
*"Structural Thinking" — Level 1.*
*"Motion Analyzer" — Level 1.*
*"Nerves of Steel" — Level 1.*
*"Critical Eye" — Level 1.]*
---
My results over six months were, in my estimation, reasonably respectable. Then I shifted my attention to the specific Traits I was interested in:
---
*["Still Mind"*
*Level I: Improves the capacity for concentration, reducing the influence of external distractions.*
*"Motion Analyzer"*
*Level II: The ability to accurately replicate simple physical techniques after brief observation.*
*"Structural Thinking"*
*Level II: Intuitive understanding of how complex mechanisms and systems function.]*
---
But then I looked at the requirements and swore mentally. "Still Mind" required Perception 4, which I had. But Level 2 of "Motion Analyzer" and "Structural Thinking" both required Perception 6. My gaze shifted automatically to the Perception progress bar. It was nearly full — just a little further. Apparently the last several days of determined meditation and attempts to "listen" to the world around me hadn't been entirely wasted.
*All right — then I'll have to approach it in stages. First, what's available right now. "Still Mind," Level I,* I decided, directing one Will Point toward it.
The effect was interesting and reminded me somewhat of "Nerves of Steel" and "Iron Discipline," but operating in a different register. The background noise of thoughts — the perpetual threat analysis, memories, the endless internal monologue — quieted. Became less intrusive. I could think just as clearly, possibly more so, but now with full intentionality. Thoughts stopped galloping, instead forming a clear, ordered queue subject to my will. I could now focus completely on one thing, while everything else receded to a quiet background hum.
*This is a perfect tool for meditation,* came the immediate realization.
That "emptiness" Pai Mei had written about suddenly felt not quite so unattainable.
For the next six days I pushed everything I had toward raising Perception to the threshold of six. I trained with doubled intensity, making myself notice every detail: the spiraling of dust in a beam of sunlight, the slow movement of a tree's shadow outside the window, the breathing rhythm of the boy beside me during a stance. I didn't simply look — I absorbed, trying to filter out everything extraneous and hold my focus on particulars. During meditation I no longer fought my thoughts — I simply watched my breathing and heartbeat, and this had become surprisingly natural.
And then, on the morning of the seventh day, sitting in my room with a straight spine and an emptied mind, I heard the long-awaited notification sound.
---
*[Perception: 6]*
---
*Yes! Finally!* — something nearly pulled me off the mat with joy, but the synergy of "Still Mind" and "Iron Discipline" extinguished the surge immediately, returning me to practical focus. Time for emotions later. Right now — what mattered.
Without rising from the mat, I called up the interface in my mind. The moment had finally arrived.
I directed two WP toward "Motion Analyzer," then another two toward "Structural Thinking," activating both at Level 2.
And the world — shifted again.
It wasn't simply "seeing more." It felt as though I had spent my whole life watching a black-and-white film through a blurred lens, and someone had just handed me a modern 4K display.
"Motion Analyzer" no longer simply broke actions down into sequences. It showed me — causal relationships. I looked at a leaf trembling outside the window in a small breeze and saw not just the movement, but the initiating impulse, the transfer of energy, its aerodynamics.
And "Structural Thinking" — damn. I was no longer simply analyzing information — I was constructing multilevel models. Receiving input from "Motion Analyzer," my mind began building hypotheses almost simultaneously.
All of this passed through my head in fractions of a second. Not as laborious conclusions, but as instant, almost intuitive comprehension.
My heart beat faster now — not from joy, but from anticipation. I had the tools. Now I could learn not just by blind copying, but genuinely, with real understanding.
I rose from the mat feeling as though someone had handed me a treasure map after long wandering in the dark. There was no time to waste — lunch first, then training.
Stepping out into the corridor, I felt as though the world had been switched to a different mode of perception. Everything was simultaneously simpler and more complex. Simpler, because now I saw not just the surrounding environment but clear, precise algorithms. More complex, because there were an overwhelming number of those algorithms, and my brain was working at capacity trying to process the flow.
I still couldn't see qi. No glow, no auras. But now I could see with sharp clarity how it manifested in movement. Before, I had vaguely sensed some quality in the people here that I couldn't quite grasp. Now it was obvious.
The beginner children, those in grey, moved — normally. Yes, they were flexible and coordinated, their movements refined — but they followed the ordinary laws of biomechanics. Muscles contracted, joints worked — just like mine, only better.
The students in blue were different. Their movements were smoother. Smooth to the point where they seemed to conserve every drop of energy. When a blue student placed a foot, it met the ground at a perfect angle with minimal effort, as though the foot were not bone and flesh but something fluid. And the older and more experienced the student, the more pronounced this quality was. It was almost imperceptible to the ordinary eye — simply a sensation of unnatural, perfect grace. But to my newly sharpened perception, it was a glaring contrast. Their bodies functioned as perfect mechanisms with no wasted vibration, no micro-movements.
The senior students in red were something else again. Their fluidity was so complete that they seemed to expend no effort whatsoever. They simply — moved, strange as that sounds.
Walking to the dining hall, a model began taking shape in my head. It was becoming apparent that qi, at least at the foundational level, didn't grant supernatural strength. Instead it optimized — transformed the body into a perfect conductor of itself, eliminating all interference, all noise, all inefficiency. Those stances and sequences we had been drilling — they weren't combat techniques in the pure sense. They were more like exercises that trained the body to move along those precisely efficient trajectories. You weren't just swinging your arm — you were directing it so that qi could flow without obstruction. That was their entire purpose.
In the dining hall I picked up chopsticks, a bowl of rice and chicken. Sitting at the common table, I noticed that my hands had almost of their own accord found the correct grip on the chopsticks. I'd managed to use them passably over the past two weeks, but that was nothing compared to how the locals handled them. Now, though, my fingers adjusted the grip several times and found the optimal position on their own. I tried to pick up a piece of rice. Not perfect — but already better. I shifted a finger by a millimeter, and the small cluster of rice traveled confidently to my mouth. I repeated it, and again, and each time it came more naturally. Within a couple of minutes I was eating at nearly the same speed as the people around me.
I looked up and noticed I was being watched. Several beginners, a couple of blue students, and even one red senior — the same one who had observed me that morning — were all throwing odd glances my way. I felt slightly self-conscious but didn't show it. And then I remembered: recently someone had spilled water and, apologizing to a senior student, had used a particular word. From context it seemed to mean something like "pardon me."
Deciding to try, I glanced casually in the direction of the red senior and said quietly:
"Duìbuqǐ." That was roughly how it had sounded.
A brief silence fell around me, then came suppressed laughter. But there was no mockery in it — more surprise. The senior student said something to me in a questioning rather than annoyed tone. I shook my head to indicate I hadn't understood. He called out something to the others, and they glanced at me once more before returning to their food. But I caught his look — there was interest in it. Something in it said he had seen something new and unexpected.
After lunch I made my way to the training ground at an unhurried pace. It was time to put the System's power to genuine use.
---
⁂
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Sly sat in the far corner of a bar, away from the main traffic, slowly nursing a Jack Daniel's on the rocks. His gaze was slightly unfocused, fixed on the old television mounted on the wall behind the bar.
The news cycled through. First came a piece about a group of robbers caught attempting a bank robbery overnight in Hell's Kitchen. The anchor mentioned that, according to preliminary reports, some "mysterious masked hero" had assisted the police. Then came news that scientists from Roxxon Corporation had announced the discovery of a new species of arctic bacteria with unique properties, promising a breakthrough in bioenergy. After that, the anchor reported that Stark Industries had filed a patent application for a new regenerative compound based on "revolutionary nanotechnology." The report said it could significantly accelerate wound healing and might even have applications against certain forms of cancer. The compound was currently in pre-clinical trials.
*Stark doesn't waste time,* Sly noted to himself, taking a sip. *After that whole business with Killian and the Mandarin, apparently decided to redirect his talents toward something peaceful again. Or just trying to quiet his conscience.*
The door of the run-down bar creaked open, and Nick Fury entered. He paused for a moment on the threshold, running a quick, professional eye over the room, then made his way to Sly's corner table.
"Buy me a drink?" Fury asked, settling into the chair across from him.
"Always," Sly replied, taking a swallow of whiskey. "But you'll say no."
"You're right," Fury leaned back in his chair, hands folded on the table. "I got the report. Brief, as expected. So — where is he?"
Sly set his glass down slowly. A barely perceptible smirk crossed his face.
"Ta Lo."
Fury's eyebrow climbed. He was quiet for a few seconds, sorting through what he knew — and what was legend.
"Ta Lo," he finally said, and in his voice was something rare: genuine surprise. "If I'm not mistaken, that's a separate dimension. The dwelling of mythical creatures and masters of ancient martial arts. Are you confident everything was thought through?"
"Personally delivered him into the hands of one such master," Sly confirmed, enjoying the effect.
Fury shook his head, and his expression carried a mixture of disbelief and grudging respect.
"Well — I suppose it will be genuinely difficult to reach him now. For practically anyone."
"That was the calculation," Sly said with a satisfied smirk. "But you can stop worrying, Nik."
"Stop worrying?" Fury leaned forward, and his voice dropped lower and sharpened.
"The kid — he's not the type who hides forever," Sly took another sip. "I spent enough time with him. His stubbornness and his will are something beyond ordinary. The moment he reaches some level he considers acceptable — he'll come back on his own. My instincts rarely fail me."
Fury leaned back again in his chair.
"Your instincts? As far as I can see, this kid is a walking magnet for trouble. Take those Hand ninja, and what else has been happening. And I'm certain Ta Lo is giving him its share of complications too."
Sly glanced at Fury and decided to elaborate:
"No, Nik, I'm serious — don't worry about it. That place is too safe and too removed from everything, for him. The foreign culture, the different rules — he won't settle there. His return is only a matter of time. You might want to start thinking about where he fits on the Avengers roster."
"He's too small-time and too weak for that," Fury said flatly.
"You're underestimating him, Nik," Sly replied without heat. "Natasha and Steve saw in him what I saw. And you — you spent too little time with him to see what's behind the surface. Time will tell. I believe in him."
"I hope your belief is warranted," Fury said, with limited enthusiasm. "If he actually becomes what all of you seem to think he will — that benefits humanity. And SHIELD in particular."
He was quiet for a few seconds, then reached inside his coat and produced a thin black envelope bearing no markings, placed it on the table, and slowly slid it toward Sly.
"Your next assignment. Terms and price — as agreed."
Sly nodded without looking at the envelope.
"Understood."
Fury, without further words, rose and walked out of the bar just as quietly as he had entered, disappearing into the evening shadows beyond the door.
Sly sat without moving for another minute before his eyes finally dropped to the black rectangle on the table. He reached out, picked it up, and opened it.
*Well then. Another interesting piece of work,* he thought.