After asking around for where the non-cultivators did their eating and drinking, Dario finally found his way to a seedier part of the city where they served real drinks. He found the people there to be a whole lot more normal and easier to talk to; he even got the names of two reputable sects which he could approach, hoping to learn their cultivation secrets.

  So it was that Dario set out looking for one of the two sects that were apparently the best at getting cultivators to Coral quickly. The first would be the Brothers of Yoke. His plan was basically to march up to their sect head and offer him a decent bribe if necessary to learn about their secret shortcuts.

  The Brothers of Yoke had a large compound in the center of Veinora, which unfortunately meant that he had to endure the hawkers while searching for it.

  “Psst, hey, aniki, over here.”

  “Hmm?” Dario looked over at a shirtless cultivator standing in front of a dojo that had ‘The Best Personal Trainer’ written in large letters over the entrance.

  “Do you want to know this one little trick to speed up your muscle growth?”

  “Nope.”

  “But it’s not what you think!”

  He did his best to ignore the shouting men and women, but sometimes, if they got in his face, it became necessary to discourage them.

  “Aah! My eyes! I’m blind!” a cultivator screamed after taking a flash of light to the face. The others started leaving him alone after that. Until he reached a new street and the scenario repeated.

  Dario walked on, whistling happily, until he came to the gates of the sect compound. The outer gates were open, leading to a wide courtyard of packed dirt where a few cultivators were doing physical training. He walked up to the second gate, which was closed and had a guard in front of it.

  “Hello, I’d like to speak to the head of the sect, please.”

  “Welcome to the mighty sect of the Brothers of Yoke! The next entrance trial will start in four hours. You’re free to use the outer courtyard to warm up and wait.”

  “Err, no, I don’t want to join your sect. I’m just trying to talk to-”

  “Everybody wants to join our mighty sect, aniki. You know why? Because we have the biggest muscles.” The guard smiled proudly at him as he flexed his biceps. Dario blinked at him.

  “No, see, I don’t care about the muscles-”

  “Not yet convinced? Take a look at these quads. They were half the size before I joined the mighty Brothers of Yoke! Half!” The guard lifted his shorts and flexed his legs so that the muscles popped.

  “Listen, uhh, aniki. What I want is to walk through this door,” Dario said slowly, gesturing at the door with his hand, “and talk to your boss, alright?”

  The guard nodded happily. “Hah, I knew it! Of course, aniki. Everyone wants to join our mighty sect so that they may walk through these doors. The next entrance trial will start in-”

  “I don’t want to join your stupid sect!” Dario snapped.

  The guard’s expression darkened. “Stupid? The Brothers of Yoke?”

  Dario sighed, scratching his head. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you, I apologize for that, so if you’ll just let me through…”

  “Nobody insults the Brothers of Yoke. There will be no entrance trial for you. I challenge you to a match!”

  He held up his hands. “I don’t want to fight you, I’m just trying to talk to someone higher up-”

  “The only way in is through me, aniki,” the guard said, already beginning to limber up and perform some stretches. Dario channeled some Ki into his eyes, looking the man over. He was big and muscular, but the amount of Ki in his body was not too impressive. From its color and the concentration in his right arm, he was an earth user with an arm Kaku. He had some experience with that from dealing with the Contadino brothers.

  “You’re saying you’ll let me through if I beat you in a spar?”

  The guard nodded. “If you can defeat me in a Muscle Match, you may enter.”

  “If that’s the only way, I guess we’ll have to do it. What rules do you-”

  “Muscle Maaatch!” the guard roared suddenly, and his cry was answered by other burly guards who were spread around the courtyard. They moved almost in sync, more sect members coming out of doorways and houses to stand side by side on a section of cleared dirt, forming a neat circle in an impressive amount of time.

  For some reason, the guard took his shirt off, moving to the center of the circle and beginning to flex his muscles in different poses as the other sect members cheered him on. Dario followed, shaking his head. He went to stand opposite from the burly guard, taking his stave from its loop. A quick blinding flash to the face and a few good hits over the head should be enough to-

  “This is a Muscle Match!” another guard barked as he walked up and took the stave from a baffled Dario. “No weapons, and no external use of Ki! Any techniques lead to immediate disqualification.”

  “Huh? Wait, hold on a second, that’s not what I-”

  “Begin!”

  Dario turned back around just in time to see the other guard barreling straight into him.

  “Oof!”

  The air was knocked out of him as he was thrown to the ground, trying to twist out from underneath the huge guard. But this had clearly not been the man’s first Muscle Match. The burly guard took a knee to the stomach without flinching, scrabbling to stay on top of Dario, pinning him to the ground.

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  Dario’s breath came in heavy gulps as he tried to push the man off, but failed to get leverage. His head jerked to the side just in time to dodge a punch, which hit the ground instead, a dull thud right next to his ear, bits of dirt tickling his neck. He gathered his Ki to blast the man in the face, but broke off at the last second. That would get him disqualified, and he still needed to get into this damn place.

  With Ki in his eyes instead, he spotted the next punch before it came and dodged again. What he’d really like to do is shove a few vine seeds in this knucklehead’s mouth, then push them full of plant Ki. That’d teach the big bastard. But that would almost certainly count as external Ki usage.

  But this wasn’t Dario’s first wrestling match either, and he’d learned from the best. He rocked his hips and pushed his feet in closer, trying to lift his hips up off the ground.

  Fat Leo, the five year running champion of the mud wrestling tournament back in the Belt, had taught him some tricks. First thing you had to do if you were pinned, was to create some space to move. But this bastard was heavy.

  After he dodged another two punches, the guard growled and settled for pushing his forearm into Dario’s throat, leaning down with all of his weight. He threw a few punches into the man’s ribs, but he didn’t have the leverage to do any real damage. The guard’s hairy forearm dug deeper into his soft throat and he let out a choked sound as his airflow was cut off.

  The other guards in the crowd were clapping and cheering. “Yeah, you got him Yoke-aniki! Show him the strength of our yoked shoulders!”

  With the guard’s center of gravity tilted slightly forward as he focused on cutting off his air supply, Dario finally had some space to move his hips and legs around, so he pushed his seams full of green plant Ki and took strength from the aspect of pliancy as he slowly lifted the heavy man up. He twisted his hips slightly to the right, shuffling his left foot back as his knee pushed up. The guard tried to push him back down, but while the toughness of pliancy did not give sudden boosts in power, it did provide a lasting endurance.

  Like the inevitable growth of a weed through a crack, his left leg inched slowly upwards. His lungs were burning and he began to press his chin down as well, but the guard refused to give him an inch.

  He thought back to one of his many chats with Fat Leo in the local bar after the man had won yet another mud wrestling tournament. There were countless lessons to be learned from the champion, but his best advice was always whispered conspiratorially after he was at least five ales in. Dario thought back to one tip in particular the bearded man had entrusted him with: ‘if you’re in a tight spot, don’t be scared to fight dirty.’

  A final push with his left knee brought the guard’s hips high enough that he could move his right leg freely, so without hesitation, a Ki-empowered knee flashed up and hit him square in the nuts. The guard let out a gurgling grunt and the force behind his strangling push loosened, so that Dario could dig his chin under it and bite down hard on the man’s forearm.

  The guard roared with pain as Dario tasted salty sweat and blood, twisting his right side up to punch the man in the throat. Finally, the guard fell off and Dario scrambled to his feet and spat on the ground. The other guards were booing and shouting, but still he kicked at the man’s supporting arm as he tried to get up. Unfortunately, the arm was fortified with earth Ki, so the guard managed to get back to his feet, clutching at his stomach as he glared at Dario.

  “What the fuck, aniki?”

  “What? I’m following your dumb rules, aren’t I? No weapons, no external use of Ki.”

  Dario rushed in from the side and snapped out a kick, but the guard blocked it and countered with a jab, which he easily dodged. The man lumbered forward as he threw heavy punches, Dario dancing in between them, using bits of light Ki where needed to dodge with sudden, jerky movements.

  Clearly, he was a lot faster than the guard, who only had an advantage in strength. The only problem was, he never really trained in hand to hand combat. He snapped out a quick counter which landed on the man’s cheek, but there was not enough force to knock the man out. His gleaming eyes could see brown earth Ki glowing in the guard’s neck, probably to reinforce the muscles and make it harder to knock him out.

  The dance continued for a while with neither man gaining an advantage. Dario was the only one landing punches, but they were not heavy enough to knock the man out. Every now and then, the guard would throw a feint and try to drag Dario to the ground again, but his eyes never failed to catch the swirling Ki and twitching muscles, allowing him to get out of the way in time.

  Not being allowed to use Ki was annoying. But then, did he really need the light to blind him?

  Feeling sick of the constant exchanges, Dario waited until the guard rushed in low again, then kicked a footful of dirt right into the man’s face, before pivoting and landing a heavy elbow to the man’s temple. The crowd jeered as the man went down, but still it wasn’t enough, so he leapt on top and pinned him down.

  Before the man could get his bearings, he began to rain down punches. Dario drove light Ki into his arms as they punched down, the jittery energy making his one-two combos transform into an endless barrage of punches. His arms and shoulders burned, but still he pushed on, clenching his teeth and growling as he moved one arm after the other, pushing ever more light energy into the muscles until his arms turned into a blur.

  The guard’s dirt-covered head shook wildly as the dull slap of knuckles on flesh sped up, faster and faster, until it sounded like a desperate one-man applause.

  Dario roared as he pushed to his limit, recalling Fat Leo’s most-often repeated piece of advice: always put on a show.

  “Raaaah! Flicker Barrage!”

  When his arms felt like they were on fire and began to jerk uncontrollably, his punches finally slowed down, until he looked down with a fist pressed into the guard’s cheek to find that the man had lost consciousness.

  He was panting as he got to his feet, noticing that the booing and jeering from the other guards had stopped. They were all staring at him, some looking shocked while he thought others looked impressed.

  “Alright,” he breathed as he got up and retrieved his stave from a gaping guard. “I can go in now, right?”

  A few of the guards hesitantly approached him as he walked up to the door. He looked back, ready to argue in case they wanted to stop him, but to his surprise, they gave him hungry looks as they fired off questions.

  “Aniki… What training methods do you use for your arms and shoulders?”

  “What’s your secret? It’s ultra-high repetitions, isn’t it?”

  “Aniki! Teach me your Flicker Barrage!”

  He chuckled as he turned to move deeper into the complex, looking for the head of the sect. “Sorry, boys. Trade secret.”

  But he didn’t get far before three guards in slightly fancier clothes than the previous ones came up and stopped him.

  “Hello gentlemen. I beat up the guard and apparently that gives me the right to go and meet your boss. So if you don’t mind, I’ll just slide past and-”

  The guards shook their heads.

  “Aniki… Winning a Muscle Match got you past the first door, but it doesn’t get you access to the boss. Imagine if it was that easy?”

  The three men laughed.

  “You gained passage into this inner courtyard, where you may train with us. If you want to pass into the mansion proper, you will have to gather things of value for the sect. There is a list here,” the guard said, pointing to a scroll that had been nailed to a wall. “Hundred points minimum to pass into the mansion.”

  Dario groaned as he looked over the list, which was mostly a bunch of plants and herbs he didn’t recognize. “What about a shortcut? Another Muscle Match? I’ll show you my Flicker Barrage.”

  But the guards shook their heads. “If you want to speak to the boss, you’ll have to find your way to the Fogbreaker Boglands and bring back a nice fat bag of herbs, aniki.”

  He felt resigned as he looked over the list again, wondering if this wouldn’t be a waste of his time. But if the alternative was starting on an intensive training course… He was prepared to do far worse than just looking for herbs for a chance at finding a shortcut.