1 Awaken

Amidst a dark and empty void silence reined. In this place Its existence was eternal yet ephemeral, until suddenly a single thought disturbed this endless empty space.

"Where am I?"

This singular thought like a single drop of water falling onto the smooth even surface of a still lake caused ripples to form which soon elicited a second thought....then a third, a fourth and so on. Soon theses thoughts like sparks of electricity began to jump from one thought to another, growing stronger which each consecutive jump until suddenly a final spark jumped, which like the last piece in a jigsaw puzzle caused sentiency to coalesced as a joyful shout suddenly rang out.

"I remember now! I remember everything!"The consciousness shouted happily as it began to recall its entire life.

I was born in a small seaside villa along the east coast of America. As a child I fell in love with martial arts and was fortunate enough to have a grandfather with the same passion. When I turned six he introduced me to his best friend, Grandmaster Long, who accepted me as his legacy disciple of the (龙) Long school of martial arts. Grandmaster Long says the word Long is a illustrious word from his country that means Dragon.

Grandmaster Long said that most people in Asia, the birthplace of martial arts believed martial arts was divided into two different schools, inner and outer. Although both schools each had their own unique fighting techniques their core foundations were quite different. Inner martial arts focused on building and purifyingthe Ki or life energy within the body, while outer martial arts focused on the physical aspect of the human body, such as building muscles, stamina and strengthening the skin and resilience of various parts of the body.

However the school Grandmaster Long belonged two believed that both schools were right and that a combination of a strong physical foundations coupled with a robust and pure inner Ki would make one the strongest martial artist. However it was because of this taboo like belief which conformed with neither of the two mainstream schools which caused Grandmaster Long to have to leave Asia with his own Grandmaster when he was just a boy to come to America.

Every day I would wake early in the morning before the rise of the sun and perform an hour of foundational building exercises, then would meditate for another hour as the sun rose facing the coast using Grandmaster Long's secret Ki breathing technique [Dragon Breath]. Grandmaster Long said that the purest Ki one could absorb was called the purple Ki from the east, which was a tiny burst of purple color which appeared just as the morning sun rose.

Having finished my morning training I would then get ready for school. When school was over I would hurry home to finish my homework so I could begin my afternoon training. More foundation building exercises followed by several hours of peaceful meditation. On the weekends I would spend my time with Grandmaster Long, who would answer questions I had and check my progress, correcting any flaws I had made.

Summer vacation was my favorite for I would spend the entire two months with Grandmaster Long exercising and meditating. However, just like me and grandpa, Grandmaster Long was also a diehard fan of everything martial arts, and had a large collection of goods, books and movies about martial arts, especially anime. Grandmaster Long despite his ascetic exterior was a hardcore battle manga otaku and had one of the largest collection's of manga and anime I had ever seen.

Even the most obscure of battle manga's or anime's which had even the slightest amount of martial arts in it could be found in Grandmaster Long's extensive library. Yet despite the numerous choices, I surprisingly discovered that Grandmaster Long's was a even more hardcore fan of my absolutely favorite battle manga series Dragon Ball than me, which could clearly be seen by the vast number of collectible Dragon Ball items he had prominently displayed as the centerpiece of his collection.

Even are schools Gi or "Training Clothes" was the same classic orange and blue one that Son Goku and friends wear with the small exception of the symbol changing from the (龟) for turtle to the (龙) symbol of are "Long" or "Dragon" school.

The first summer I spent with Grandmaster Long before we even started training he suddenly declared that we would have a Dragon Ball weekend-long marathon in which we would not stop until we had watched the entire series.

As we watched the many adventure's of Son Goku and friends Grandmaster Long's usually ascetic facade was replaced with that of a diehard Dragon Ball fan, his face lighting up like a young school boy while he excitedly lectured on the various flaws made by characters during fights and various other ways the Ki techniques each character had could be used more efficiently saying repeatedly that Dragon Ball was a decent reference for a martial artist so pay close attention..etc.

After we had finished the entire series he actually gave me a 1,000 question test which fortunately was multiple choice.