I made my way over to the platform, turning down a slightly winding path to get there. My friend jumped down from the platform to come greet me and made it look effortless, as if it was normal to jump down from what looked like at least 5m.

  He greeted me with a massive bear hug that caught me off guard, “Duyi!! You are all better now?”, I could only respond with a little grunt, doing my best to breathe in his tight clutches.

  “Oh, sorry I got a little excited”, he finally let go of me and I put my hands on my knees recovering my breath as he coughed awkwardly.

  I waved his concern off, “no problem no problem.”. Man, I’m weak, or rather what sort of strength does this freak have?

  My friend put his hand on my shoulder, clearly this was his go to move, he spoke with a calmer tone now.

  “So, what brings you here? shouldn’t you still be recovering?”. He made a good point, I probably should be resting, but there was just too much to do.

  “I was on my way to the library and noticed you guys here, so I came over.”. For some strange reason this brought a sparkle to his eye.

  His excitement couldn’t be concealed in his voice, “Does that mean you finally have some interest in Martial Arts?”.

  That mean I previously wasn’t interested. To me this was surprising, but maybe my perspective was different since I wasn’t from this world.

  “Yes.” I simply stated. This caused him to burst out in joyful laughter.

  “Good! Good! It’s about time you finally came around to it. Come, I, Li Tian will personally ensure your training will be fulfilling!”.

  Something about this guy’s enthusiasm was scary. Something told me this guy didn’t have a normal idea of what would be fulfilling. Nevertheless, I followed him to the side where he picked up two wooden swords.

  He thew one to me, which I pathetically tried to catch, I missed it slightly, but my reflexes were just enough to catch it on the way down.

  “Ah, sorry I forgot to ask what you would prefer. Are you okay with a sword?”, I nodded. Who didn’t used to dream of wielding a sword when they were younger? I didn’t admit to myself that my dreams of doing so didn’t end when I was young.

  “Perfect, lets start with the basics.” He guided my up the platform from a set of steps and led me to a more secluded corner.

  “The three fundamental movements are as follows, the slash,” He moved to perform an almost perfect slash of the sword, forming an arc from above and coming down to strike at lightning speed.

  “The next is the thrust,” again he demonstrated for me, he moved so fast it was hard to see, he struck out from his mid-section with extreme force, I could hear the swoosh in the air as it passed through.

  If that struck someone, even with a wooden sword it would be devastating, perhaps fatal.

  “And lastly, the parry,” For this he looked around and saw a man resting for a moment, “Jiao, can you help me for a moment?”. The resting man was topless, exposing incredible muscles that rippled with every move.

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  The big man simply nodded and said “Of course.”, he walked over with powerful steps, Li Tian just smiled slightly and asked him to just attack him three times.

  I started to focus with extreme concentration, these people moved fast, too fast for me to learn from a casual viewing.

  The man moved with speed he shouldn’t have. He moved in close to Li Tian before I could even blink, he slashed his wooden sword from out wide, from his his right side and used both hands to swing towards his ribs.

  Li Tian didn’t panic in the slightest in the face of the powerful attack, he stood firm, he didn’t move to dodge and simply moved his sword in front of the attack and angled the sword down to the ground.

  When the two swords made contact, the big man’s attack was completely ruined, it followed the angle of Li Tian’s sword and struck the ground, Li Tian possessed incredible strength, much more than he appeared to have.

  Such an impact would’ve killed my hands, but it showed no signs of affect on for the big man.

  Without missing a beat, the big man darted back, he wasn’t surprised the move didn’t work, but clearly he wasn’t finished yet.

  He once again moved in, this time from the left side, perhaps Li Tian’s weaker side?

  Nope.

  Once again, the seemingly powerful blow was completely defeated in the same way.

  This time however, the Jiao clearly anticipated the same kind of deflection, he put less power into the blow at last second and used to momentum to power his next move.

  Before the sword reached the ground he pulled the sword back, twisting his left side all the way back.

  He twisted forward with extreme might to thrust forward, using his entire body and whipped his arm like a snake to form a dangerous attack.

  I felt my mouth go dry; this was dangerous.

  Li Tian had no such worries. He moved in a way I hadn’t seen before, again his feet didn’t move even an inch. He used only one hand to control his sword into a swirling motion, he seemed to flow smooth like water.

  His move didn’t feel super-fast or anything, but he worked with extreme control, as the thrust reached him, his sword almost wrapped around the incoming sword.

  He didn’t use much force, just a constant pressure as it was coming in, and guided it away from his body. As the attack missed him, the big man couldn’t control the momentum and tumbled forward and into Li Tian.

  For the first time Li Tian moved out of the way and flicked his sword slightly, I didn’t see quite what happened, and Li Tian quickly moved to stable the man from falling over.

  I noticed that the Jiao’s sword was laying on the ground a few steps away from them, clearly the flick of the sword was to disarm him. The display of prowess was incredible from both sides.

  Jiao sighed and said, “Thank you, young master. I have a lot to learn” and gave a slight bow, I was now used to the bowing a little.

  Li Tian nodded and gave his thanks for helping. He returned to me and asked, “So, what do you think?”. What do I think? What can I think of this inhuman shit? Clearly this guy wasn’t the best teacher, but I still appreciated the help he is clearly willing to give.

  “It’s amazing, you think I can do that though?”, I asked sceptically. It still felt a little unreal, but I was coming to terms with things slowly.

  “Of course! Although your father never showed it, he was an extremely powerful man. It’s in your blood.”. I internally sighed.

  He was? How can I bring up what happened without arousing suspicion?

  I couldn’t go forever just ignore the issue, so I made a quick decision and decided to just go with the memory loss route.

  “About that… My memory is still messed up, what exactly happened?”. Instantly Li Tians face dropped; he was visibly upset for a moment.

  He sighed deeply, “come, lets sit down for this”. We went back down the platform and to some benches where I saw some others resting and we found an empty bench and sat down together.

  “First of all, how are you feeling? I’m worried about this memory issue.” His concern was totally valid, but there was nothing else I could use, so I had to be direct.

  “I feel totally fine. It’s just the memory, everything else is good.”, He looked down and spoke softly. “I see.”, we sat in silence for a moment before he spoke again.

  “How much do you remember?”, he asked. I sheepishly replied, “Pretty much nothing…”. This caused him to rub his temples a little, a clear sign of some stress.

  “Right, where to start… Your father was a great man, his name was Song Guang. He was good man, and our fathers were good friends, your father was a skilled blacksmith who was renowned for his skill and quality.”.