The Tower of Emnu

Sylus was already waiting for him when Aaron approached his cell and he held out his hand impatiently.

“Lets get this started, hand over 3 memory cores and then demonstrate the Rejuvenating Fist kata to the best of your abilities.”

Aaron nodded, gave him the cores and then settled into the familiar stance. The kata was something he was relatively confident about. Slowly he went through the set of movements, punched, ducked, weaved in and out of imaginary combat, never stopping, always moving to an ever shifting rhythm. The punches as unpredictable and strong as the first time he had done the technique. When he was done he felt the relaxation settle in, but he was used to it by now and did not collapse. He turned to Sylus expectantly.

Sylus actually groaned and shook his head in dismay.

“What are you? Some kind of puppet? Is doing the kata this way the only thing you can do? It is a kata, don’t you understand what it means? No, no, shut up. Clearly you don’t.” he sighed.

“I suppose the easiest way is to show you how to do the Unceasing Palm kata and how the two combine. But in short your progress is atrocious. Sit down and think about what a kata is and what you can learn from it!”

Aaron felt reminded of his time in the Army and the various training instructors and boot camp sergeants he had. Compared to them, Sylus was patience and good will personified. Still he was not sure what the man wanted from him. He sat down with a glare and then did exactly what he wanted him to do. He thought about what a kata actually meant. If he understood it correctly, a kata was there to teach him certain moves, a combat art or style of some sort. The sequence of the moves usually corresponded to another kata that did the opposite to simulate combat, while retaining the essence of the combat art the technique wants to instill. Aaron really was no expert on martial arts, philosophy or theory for most things in general. He had practical experience, had done things instead of thought about them usually. He knew how to hack into almost anything on the market before he had been caught. But that did not mean he could program properly. Most of his hacks were ways to design situations that he could take advantage of and extract information to crack passwords or other things. It did not mean he could actually design malware himself, nor did he know how it worked exactly. It had never been important to him. Just that it worked and how to use it. All of these things, martial techniques, hacking, gun play, close quarter combat techniques had been tools to him.

But the more he got into the whole Cultivation thing, the more he realized that was shallow thinking here. He was not just accumulating tools to fight, to escape, to survive. He was integrating them into his very being. Not just using them. Each technique affected him on a base level, subconsciously as much as physically. His current physique was not the result of months or years of dedicated training, like his muscles would indicate. But instead had been created by the fiend-god art and the Rejuvenating Fist kata. These were not simple techniques, they were fundamentally part of him and as such the Rejuvenating Fist kata could not be as simple as it looked. But it was difficult to guess what exactly Sylus meant, what he wanted. Then again, this was a puzzle and Aaron was really good at puzzles. His eyebrows creased as he really thought about what Sylus had said.

He had complained about how he had used the kata, not his mastery over the kata itself. He did not have flaws in them, but did not do what? Enough? Was there something he had left out? No, unlikely. The rejuvenating effect would not have set in otherwise. So what could it be?

Was there a different way to use the kata? Was that it?

Aaron stood up and Sylus barely looked up, too focused on doing whatever cultivators did to memory cores to store memories on them. Aaron stretched a bit, just some basic stretches, not Mei’s art of a stretch kata and then settled into the first stance of the Rejuvenating Fist kata.

Slowly he went through the kata again. Tried to analyze and dissect each and every move until he reached the end with a deep frown. There was something there, he knew it, he could feel it. And then he had an idea. What if the kata did not have to be done in the same sequence? As long as he kept each individual part it should still work and give the mystical effect of relaxing his muscles. Aaron’s eyes widened and he started doing the kata again, but this time he tried to find the pieces that formed it. A kata was a set of movements chained in a row after all. The sequence was only of minor importance if he got the underlying techniques right. Slowly he found different parts that felt like sections and his head hurt as he tried to desperately find different combinations. But the kata was the way it was for a reason. There were movements that would follow naturally after each strike, covering the enemies moves. But the more he concentrated, the more he realized that there were actually parts that should be able to be moved.

He finished the set and then started from the top again. After the first three punches he was almost back into the original stance, but instead of turning and defending against someone behind him, he chained a different part of the kata after the section. He ducked low, moved in an uppercut and his feet barely wavered or stopped while doing so. The next section he left alone until he came to the part of the kata he had used earlier and put in the section of turning back and defending against enemies behind him now. It was a minor alteration of the kata, but when he finished the rest perfectly, he once again got the feeling of relaxation, much to his surprise and joy.

“Good, that did not take too long. Did you really think that a kata designed by my clan, a kata so advanced and ancient it has no equals was a simple set of movements? Fool. Each movement can be broken down into modules, into sets of combat arts, into individual techniques and they can be freely combined with very few restrictions.” Sylus said having finished enchanting the memory cores.

Aaron shrugged and did not know what to say.

“To be honest I have not really thought about the Rejuvenating Fist Kata that way.”

“Obviously not. You also have barely used it in combat or you would have realized the modularity of the kata already.”

“I had to struggle to survive. My fists can’t kill as easily as an enchanted dagger now can they?” Aaron tried to defend himself. He would not handicap himself against enemies. That felt like pure folly to him.

“Your fists are not enough now, but in a few minor cultivation ranks you will outclass many in the lower sections of the tower in physical attributes alone. Against unarmored enemies your fist should be more than sufficient and against armored ones as well if used correctly. These techniques are not simple. But enough, I think you will understand it better and will use the katas more in actual combat once you learn the Unceasing Palm Kata.” Sylus opened his hand and showed him the three memory cores he had stored memories in.

“Do not learn the Piercing Finger Kata until you notice that every movement you do, every step, every punch, how you lead a spoon to your lips. Only once every single movement is part of a kata, an afterimage of the techniques you should think of the third Kata. Once you have mastered all three you will be ready to climb up to Ambition, no matter your cultivation rank.”

Aaron blinked in surprise and looked up at Sylus who nodded seriously.

“Once you have mastered all three techniques you will be unrivaled in hand to hand combat, will be able to parry and even shatter spells. You will only be vulnerable to attacks you can’t defend against, which are exceedingly rare in the lower levels of the tower. It will not make you invincible though, but mastery of techniques is the true measure of your abilities. Cultivation will make you stronger, faster, more resilient and every major rank will be a qualitative upgrade that has no equals. I am not saying cultivation is not useful, far from it, but cultivation alone will not lead you to climb the tower, will not make you strong. Mastery of techniques will though, especially if you have the cultivation and Qi to back it up.”

“And I assume there is no easy way to gain mastery?” Aaron asked, knowing the likely answer already.

“There is not.” Sylus said with a smirk as he juggled the memory cores in one hand.

“The only path to mastery is experience, hard work and insight. You will have to work hard every single day on it. Not just work on it though, work on it with purpose. Think about it, try to understand the techniques secrets and I assure you there are plenty of those.” Sylus winked and his smirk grew broader.

“Insight is really the only thing I can help you with. But don’t expect me to force feed you answers. That will sadly not work either. I can set you on the right path, I can steer you in the right direction, I can even give hints. But you need to understand the technique on your own. Your own comprehension is paramount in how far you will go with this technique or if you will stagnate and never reach its full potential.”

“I get it, work on it, don’t slack of, think about it and keep at it.” Aaron said, but he could only think about the day when a friend of his Dad’s had shown how to shoot a gun for the first time. He had been a terrible shot, of course. But back then he was only 12 years old and obsessed with weapons of all kinds. As crazy about guns as he had been, the real thing had been so much more difficult than he had expected. Shooting had been a challenge for him at first and once he realized how bad he really was he had gone for help. He had asked the proprietor of the gun range how he could learn how to shoot and the man’s answer had been as simple as it had been truthful. ‘Come back every week for a year and shoot 200 rounds every time you come here. You’ll get the hang of it eventually.’

Aaron had done exactly that and kept going to the range for years until he could hit the bullseye on any range with every single gun he had access to. From hunting rifles to his mother’s revolver. His mom had been none too pleased about his hobby though and Aaron had to smile to himself when he thought about the scolding he had gotten for stealing money from her purse to buy rounds to shoot at the range. Back then he had idolized his dad, even though he had barely any memories of him left. Shooting and weapons of all kinds had been a way to connect with the image he had in his mind of his father. The image of a solider, of a smiling face and a funeral with gun salutes. The whole memory of that time was bittersweet to Aaron now, because his young self had not known what his father really did. What he had not gotten medals for. But in the end he had made peace with it and had moved on. With a small sigh Aaron nodded to Sylus with a smile.

“I’ll put in the work. I promise.”

“Well alright then. On the Piercing Finger kata is a lock, a test of some sort of the other two katas, so don’t worry if you ‘slip up’ and accidentally take a peek.” He said with a knowing smirk and placed the three cores into Aaron’s waiting hand. Aaron inspected them intently. They looked exactly like marbles now. Carved marbles that had very complicated patterns engraved on them. The material it was made out of felt strangely like bone, not like glass even though it did look smooth and glassy. There was no difference to them as they all radiated Qi and had the same markings on them, the same intricate patterns. They had different colors though, One was dark, one a reddish hue and the last had a hint of blue in it.

“You are not going to teach me the Unceasing Palm kata yourself?” he asked after he had finished his cursory inspection of the cores.

“I would love to, but as I mentioned before the Unceasing Palm kata is best taught with a training partner. The one thing that I can’t give you.” He pointed at the bars of his cell. “These cores will be more than enough to teach it to you though. But you need to learn how to properly use the cores first. Once you are capable of overlaying the images of cores and display them for you as illusions, that is when you really start to learn. But for now you can just learn the techniques basics by touching the right core to your head.”

Aaron took the first core, the red one and inspected it. He could sense Sylus Qi, could sense something solid and distinct, now that he concentrated on the core alone. He paused and guessed this was the Rejuvenating Fist kata and put it to his head anyways.

Aaron stood in a massive courtyard surrounded by hundreds of kids. They were young too, around 7 or 8 years old if he had to guess. Everyone was standing still and looked up towards a small stage. There where whispers in the air, but it was uncharacteristically silent for a giant group of kids. A man stepped out in front of them and climbed the platform with a single effortless jump. The man had an imposing physique and strong, sharp features that vaguely reminded Aaron of Sylus himself. The man clapped once and the wave of sound rolled over them like a physical blow. The entire courtyard grew silent instantly and every single kid looked straight in front towards the platform.

“The first Kata.” the man said haughtily and got into the stance of the Rejuvenating Fist.

He demonstrated the whole kata in a blurring display of martial might. It actually looked slightly different to the kata Aaron was used to, but that was probably because the man’s range of movement was absurdly high. Once the demonstration was done, the man repeated each step, each strike slowly and everyone in the courtyard did the kata in unison with the demonstration. Aaron could feel the crowd, could feel how they stayed in sync like an orchestra and for a moment it felt like it would stay that way forever But then slowly but surely people made mistakes. Underneath each kid that failed in Aaron’s line of sight the courtyards floor began to dim and Aaron now realized that the bright white marble tiles of the floor marked a small arena for each kid to absolve the kata in.

One after another the kids made mistakes and stopped the display. But Sylus did not make any mistakes. He kept going, slowly, meticulously until he had finished the kata and felt the Rejuvenating aspect of the kata kick in. It made him stumble and Aaron felt the flash of fear mixed in with relaxation. Aaron could remember vividly how that first time had felt for himself and it felt even more euphoric now. Mixed with emotions of elation and absolute triumph as he looked around and stood in a sea of deactivated tiles. Only Sylus had finished the kata perfectly that day.

The scene shifted and Aaron found himself in an Arena, facing three adolescents. Sylus stance was sure, his confidence absolute. He started with the first strike and Aaron almost stumbled out of the memory. Because the first strike was layered. When Sylus punched the images around him overlapped, they changed in complexity and it was like the world warped around him. The fight in front of him skipped along like a video edited and it gave Aaron a headache until he understood what the hell was going on. This was the modularity of the kata displayed. Instead of focusing on the kata, he focused on the fight itself and the image became clear. It was still the rejuvenating fist kata. Each step, each sequence, but it was used in accordance of the situation, it’s chain ever changing, never repeating itself. Aaron watched fascinated how Sylus beat the hell out of his teenage rivals while a crowd cheered raucously. When the scene was done and the kata finished he found himself back at the first strike.

Aaron more and more realized that his will dictated what was happening and the first dizzying strike was many strikes at once. He chose another surrounding, another scene and watched Sylus fight with monsters, the fist kata entirely differently used against beasts compared to people. Evasion and strong precise attacks were the main focus and although he did use the attacks meant to block and counter, he used them in a way to take advantage of them in the situation. It was a fluid flawless and ridiculously highly skilled performance that seemed as natural as breathing.

But Aaron realized there weren’t just a few dozen variants, but hundreds, thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands variations. He could feel them all, waiting, each sequence he watched opened up more avenues of different approaches. Aaron watched a flurry of fights so vibrant and in depth, he could feel himself beating everything from enemy cultivators over vicious beasts to sparring partners until he had a pounding headache. He had enough, he could not take any more of this. But he had no idea how to get out. He tried to struggle, tried to wish himself out of the memory and with a gasp Aaron left the memory. He panted and held his head for a moment and he half expected to be still trapped in the memory, but luckily he found himself standing in front of Sylus cage once again. Wishing himself out of the memory had actually worked to his relief.

Once his headache receded his mind was awash with insights, with knowledge, with the pure and undistilled memory and experience of two dozens fights. Fought and won with the simple technique Aaron had learned but never used like that before. Never truly understood that it could be used this way.

“Packs quite a punch, huh?” Sylus asked with a broad grin.

Aaron panted and was tempted to sit his ass down, but instead he just nodded. After a while he found his voice and said:

“I knew that my mastery was shallow, but all of these variations...how does anyone learn all of them.”

“Why would you? You already know what you need to train and if you don’t, see it as a riddle to solve.” Sylus said while he leaned against the iron bars.

“Now go on, the Unceasing palm kata is even more amazing.”