Algraves woke up a few hours before sunrise, needing less sleep as his cultivation increased. The sky outside his window still held that deep bluish-black hue that came just before dawn, the kind that made the world feel suspended between breaths. He sat there on the edge of the simple sleeping mat for a moment, stretching his back and rolling his shoulders, marveling that he felt… well, awake. Not groggy, not sore, not stiff. Just awake.

  He was fairly certain that once he reached the next realm, he would not need to sleep at all and could simply meditate. He wasn’t sure if he liked that idea or not. Sleep was one of the best things in life. A soft bed, the gentle drift into unconsciousness, the simple act of closing your eyes and letting the world go away for a while. If done correctly, sleep was… bliss. Why would anyone want to lose that? He hoped that even if his cultivation replaced the need for sleep, it didn’t remove his ability to choose it.

  “Please don’t take one of the few joys an old man has left,” he muttered, rubbing his face.

  Getting up and dressing in a clean set of clothes provided by the Cai merchants, for which he was infinitely grateful. He reminded himself that he really needed to get them something as a thank you. Something meaningful. Something not stupid. Something that wouldn’t blow his meager savings. That last part was important.

  The courtyard was quiet when he stepped out, with only a few guards already awake, leaning on spears or cleaning gear in that slow, methodical way that only people comfortable with routine could manage. The air was cool, and the faint smell of last night’s embers still lingered.

  He chatted with them for a bit, asking after the contest. They told him that yes, the tournament was still happening, but it had been delayed for a few days to allow participants from the Steppes and the Badlands to arrive. Three days, maybe a little more.

  Good, he thought. That was good news. He was still on the fence about joining, still unsure whether he wanted to put himself out there for everyone to see. Watching would be educational. Joining would be educational and humiliating. Possibly fatal. Hard to say.

  His style wasn’t bad, not really. It just felt incomplete, the way a half-built chair looked sturdy until you tried sitting on it. It was understandable, considering the way he was cobbling everything together. If he had Gordon Liu or Jackie Chan or Bruce Lee standing next to him, teaching him properly, he’d have no doubts at all. But he didn’t have any of them. He had training, instincts, military experience, and a perfect memory filled with the wild chaos of seventies and eighties martial arts movies.

  Still, it was better than nothing.

  And it was finally starting to come together. There were moments, tiny slivers of clarity during practice where everything aligned for just a heartbeat,… footwork, balance, instinct, flow… and he could almost feel what a finished style might look like. Almost.

  But then it would slip away again, and he’d be left with that vague sense of needing… something. Something more. Something he hadn’t quite put his finger on yet.

  So he practiced.

  He trained until sweat dripped down his back, until his breath clouded the air, until his muscles protested in that satisfying way that meant they’d done their job. When he finally paused to meditate, Hu Bo strolled by on patrol, caught sight of him mid stutter-step, and barked out a laugh.

  The mercenary captain nudged one of the other guards with an elbow.

  “Look at him. He fights uglier every day.”

  The guard snorted. “At this point, Captain, I think it’s a talent.”

  Algraves sighed through his nose, cracked a small smile, and said, “It’s a work in progress.”

  Hu Bo rolled his eyes but smiled back. “If that’s progress, I’d hate to see regression.”

  He kept walking, shaking his head, and the guard with him whispered, “I swear he does it on purpose.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Nope,” Hu Bo said, without breaking stride. “That’s the problem.”

  Algraves tried not to laugh out loud. His “style” truly was hideous. He knew that. Half the time he felt like a drunken scarecrow trying to fight a stiff breeze. The other half, he felt like a lunatic. But he pressed on because instinct insisted he should.

  As he sank back into meditation, the thought hit him so hard it snapped him upright.

  Wait.

  Chuck Norris.

  That might be exactly what I need.

  He had branched out from just the movies themselves and started focusing on the actors. Gordon Liu with adaptability, improvisation, odd angles, and unorthodox footwork. Jackie Chan with fluid chaos, sways and feints, weird timing. Bruce Lee with his philosophy-driven efficiency, intercepting strikes, and adaptability.

  But those were all Eastern styles. And his mind kept nagging at him, something was missing. Something more grounded. Something more… blunt-force-trauma-like.

  Pure American hybrid karate.

  Brutal linear power. Direct, no-nonsense strikes. Roundhouses meant for ending fights decisively. The exact opposite of finesse… and yet incredibly effective.

  Chuck Norris, the man, the myth, the Meme himself.

  He had watched his movies too. Breaker! Breaker!, A Force of One, The Octagon. All those gloriously cheesy slow-motion kicks and dramatic stances that were half martial arts, half cowboy swagger.

  He sat still for a long moment, breathing.

  Gordon Liu teaches footwork. Jackie teaches creativity. Bruce teaches philosophy and momentum.

  But sometimes you just need a roundhouse to the damn face.

  “Yep,” he whispered. “Yep. I think this will work.”

  So he sank deeper into meditation, rifling through every Chuck Norris movie in his memory. He studied each fight, each choreographed strike, each stance — stripping away the cinematic flair to get at the real movement beneath.

  He practiced mentally first, shaping the outlines of the moves in his mind. Then physically, slowly adding the others back in, one by one. Chuck’s power layered over Gordon’s strange angles. Jackie’s unpredictability blending with Bruce’s precision.

  And it was ugly.

  Oh, it was hideous.

  But it was his.

  He stood, went through motions, tore them apart, rebuilt them. Again and again.

  Improvise structure. Unusual angles. Footwork. Creativity. Unpredictability. Disruptions. Feints. Principles. Interceptions. Adaptability. Stability. Power. Finishing strikes.

  His instincts added their own flavor — a Corvid’s darting, sudden shifts and erratic pulses of movement. His military background added brutality where finesse failed.

  Yep… yep, this is it. This is what I’m gonna do. This is going to be epic… Or it’s going to get me killed. Either way, epic.

  He spent the next three and a half days in a blur of training and meditation, drifting between focused practice and deep internal review. His perfect recall helped in ways he hadn’t expected, failures were just as valuable as successes. Every time he botched a move, he could replay it instantly, analyze it, understand why it had failed, and adjust.

  He figured out how to make a Gordon Liu pivot flow into a Chuck Norris side kick ...after twenty-seven failed attempts where he nearly kicked over a water barrel.

  A Jackie Chan–style improvised movement using a clothesline pole sent him spinning too far, straight into a stack of firewood. Hu Bo found him there. Laughed for a solid minute. Walked away wheezing.

  He discovered he could merge Bruce’s intercepting strike with a Corvid-instinct feint, resulting in an unexpectedly smooth disruption that even he didn’t hate.

  Once, during a burst of improvisation, a guard watching said, “Hey… that part looked good.”

  Algraves was so shocked he missed his next step and fell on his ass.

  An attempted spinning back kick ended with him kicking himself in the supporting leg.

  A Chuck Norris, inspired forward rush sent him crashing into a wall when he forgot to stop.

  A Bruce Lee finger jab went wide and poked a passing merchant in the shoulder. He apologized for ten minutes.

  Hu Bo, upon seeing one particularly chaotic sequence, genuinely asked, “Are you… are you trying to cast a spell?”

  Still, by the end, he felt more confident than he had during the fight with the robed man or the bandit leader. He wasn’t a master, nowhere close. But he was no longer flailing blindly. He had a beginning. A foundation. Something that would grow.

  And it was only when Cai Yue broke his fugue, appearing with that eerie stillness of hers by saying, in her soft, emotionless tone, “The tournament will start tomorrow. You should get some rest and decide if you will participate or not,” that he jolted fully back into the real world.

  He spun, almost stumbled from the abrupt stop of motion. He smiled at her, not quite comfortably, but far more calmly than before. She still creeped him out a little, but not in a bad way. Just… uncanny. A reminder. A shadow of something he had once loved but could not afford to dwell on.

  She wasn’t Theresa. But the resemblance could serve as something gentle, not something painful. Something to accept without poking at it.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll clean myself up first and then get some rest.”

  She nodded, her expression unreadable. “I put a hot pot of water and some bathing cloth in your dwelling.”

  Then she walked away.

  He stared after her, baffled all over again.

  Why is she doing things like that for me?

  After a long pause, he sighed helplessly and muttered,

  “I don’t get anything. I just don’t understand what the hell is going on here sometimes.”

  Then he trudged toward his dwelling, exhausted, sore, strangely proud, and nowhere near ready for the next day.

  But getting there.