The Master of Cards Chapter 4: Servant

At school, Luke looked at Alex who looked pale.

"Bro, what's wrong?" Luke asked.

"Nothing. I didn't sleep too well." Alex replied perfunctorily.

"Well brother. You need to take care of your health. Tell me, how has your training been?" Luke continued.

"Training? I can't sense anything at all." Alex shook his head. "I saw you yesterday already sensed your inner world?"

Luke had a prideful look. "Yes. The inner world is a wonderful place, it's like an entire universe inside your head."

"Good for you." Alex patted Luke's shoulder.

Several others from class had begun to sense their inner world by the next day. Alex felt like his talent might really be very terrible and put all hopes on the Smiling Dojo.

After school, Alex returned and saw the old man sitting on the doorway. "Oh, you've returned. Good, you can begin by cleaning the floors of the dojo. They haven't been cleaned for a while."

Alex had a dead eyed look, but did not complain. He took up cleaning to floor, while the old man headed out. The dojo was empty and there seemed to be no visitors at all during the day. Cleaning the floor was a tiring and mentally exhausting task. The Dojo was actually quite big, and the place not cleaned for a while. It took a herculean effort on Alex's part as well as the entire post lunch period till late evening to get it done.

At dinner time, the old man returned with some food. The food looked very colorful and smelled great, but when Alex ate it he had no taste at all. Tasteless food is very hard to eat and Alex quietly gulped the food without chewing much. However, he could feel that the food was very heavy and filled his stomach.

The old man looked around the dojo. "You did a good job. Come, let us now play five in a row."

"Five... in a row?" Alex shook his head. He wondered if the old man was so childish to play a children's game?

After an hour of 'playing', Alex who was tired, went back to his room and tried to practice finding his inner world for an hour. He couldn't find it and fell asleep with regret.

The next day the cycle began again.Waking up very early, running for two hours, going to school, returning to servant chores. Eating terribly bland food or food that had no smell. Over two weeks, Alex had no progress in finding his inner world, while several students had already reached the point of sensing the special energy of the world.

In these two weeks, Alex had cleaned the insides and the outside of the dojo, removed all hoarded waste, repainted the exterior, washed clothes and repaired any wooden damage. In these two weeks, not a single person had come to visit the dojo.

One day, exasperated, Alex asked the old man during the morning run. "What is up with the dojo? Why aren't there any visitors?"

The old man looked sad. "In the age of technology and cards, who has time to visit dojos? You can purchase a one time use card to automatically give your body cells the effect of an exercise. Dojos are a dying business. Luckily I am retired and just use the Dojo as a home now."

Alex shook his head. What exactly was his mom's intention to send him here as a servant.

After over two weeks, the old man nodded. "The dojo has been cleaned and repaired. You are now ready."

"Ready for what?" Alex asked.

"Ready to begin training." The old man said.

"So till now... wasn't all this part of training?" Alex asked with shock.

The old man made a look as if he were looking at a fool. "How will cleaning an old wooden house train you?"

Alex almost teared up in frustration. However, he collected himself and asked old man Ren. "So what do I do?"

"Handstands." The old man said.

Alex sighed. "How will doing handstands help?"

"You are the teacher or I am the teacher?" Old man Ren snapped back.

Alex let out a sigh of breath. "Okay."

The next week, Alex spent most of his time running in the morning, at school, doing basic chores and then handstands, while trying to find his inner world at night.

Alex was an ordinary young man, and had never done handstands before. For two whole days he struggled before he could even find the form. Another couple of days passed before he could maintain his balance for over five minutes. Then the old man told him to start doing handstands with his eyes closed.

Alex didn't think much of it, until he actually tried it. It was an almost impossible feat to keep balance for beyond a second. After another week, he was finally able to hold for five minutes with his eyes closed, all the while trembling hard.

Four weeks had thus passed. His friends in school had mostly begun sensing the special energy by now, and some, like Kale had begun to employ the Fundamental Training Formula to slowly absorb hints of energy in the process of forming a seed.

Alex had not had a hint of sense of the inner world, yet tonight, after a tiring session of blind hand standing and blankly playing five in a row, after returning to his room, Alex tried to sense his inner world by closing of his senses.

He tried to calm his mind as his eyes closed. After five minutes, Alex suddenly felt like he was inside a dark world of black smoke. He couldn't see anything beyond this black smoke, but he was glad he could see something.

"Is this the inner world?" Alex wondered, but that very thought suddenly caused that black smoke to disappear. Alex tried to find the world inner world again but failed. He slowly went to sleep, but this time, he had a tinge of gladness within the slight smile that formed on his face.

Chapter end