Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 54: Dragon Fist

Laz decided to not think about it, or at least that's what he told himself. It was more like he had no idea what she meant and thinking about it would only cause his head to hurt. Instead, he would just roll with it. In the past, he has always been someone who wanted to be like air, there, but completely disregarded as though he didn't matter. He never took the time to meet anyone nor to get to know them. He just was.

As such, he was pretty bad at actually figuring out people. Although he had traveled around a lot as a kid with his parents, he was younger and didn't really pay attention to certain things. Once you brought that together with his innate disinterest for others and you basically got a kid who was so amazingly dense, he would probably be fine if he was tossed into a black hole.

The only redeeming trait he had towards this was that the people who he did interact with were good people and since they comprised the whole of his normal world, he took after them in most aspects. With the independence of living by himself and the connection potential of the internet, he wasn't exactly a shut in youth with no idea of the world or others, but watching through a screen and coming face to face with things were two totally different concepts.

Laz had always been a spectator and not a participant. Now that he was living his own life, he basically felt like he had no clue about others.

And this included Kennedy. He wasn't dumb enough to think that he knew everything about her nor was he dumb enough to think that everything on the surface was as simple as it seemed, but since he didn't know and couldn't read between the lines, he just had to take things at face value and move on. This is how it is and he could only try to be smarter in the future.

As it was already late, Laz had to walk past the Golden Panda on his way home. As he was a little absent minded, he failed to notice the door open and slightly wrinkled hand pop out, latch on to his wrist and drag him inside. By the time he came to, he was staring at a rather grim but familiar face.

"Grandpa Chu?" Laz asked, still a bit awkward.

"Laz... Sit down, we need to talk," The old man said back as he locked the door and sat down. From the sounds coming from the kitchen, Laz could tell his uncle was still cleaning up in back.

"Laz, you know you are digging yourself a hole that could bury you right?" The stern faced old man asked.

"Uh...what?" Laz was a bit surprised by the question.

"I'm talking about you showing off your abilities," Grandpa Chu responded while looking Laz in the eyes.

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"Grandpa Chu... you?" Laz was shocked. To the best of his knowledge, he couldn't feel anything coming from this old man in front of him. Even if he knew Laz had power since obviously his grandpa and Bill knew, he couldn't figure out why the old man was talking to him about it tonight.

"Yes. I have gained a bit of something myself, although it isn't anywhere near what you can do." Grandpa Chu proceeded to remove the strange stone bracelet from his wrist before setting it down on the table.

It was only after it had left his hand that Laz finally felt the weird resonance coming from him. Before that, he couldn't sense a thing. It was only at this moment that Laz activated his sense ability and saw the weird energy coming from the old man. Obviously, Grandpa Chu was like him and Laz just didn't know it.

"But how? How can you hide it? That bracelet?" Laz asked, stumbling to get the question out. If he was able to hide himself, he knew he would be much safer in the future.

"Yeah, it's nothing special really and I won't get into a long winded explanation. Instead, you just need to make sure you wear one at all times. I wasn't going to say anything at first because I wasn't sure about it, but after testing it out, it works pretty well." Grandpa Chu reach into his pocket and pulled out a red stone bracelet that was pretty similar to what he had taken off.

"Here. Make sure to wear this at all times. I haven't done much to test it, but it seems like it works as long as your not using your energy. Once you start though, it will be like it's not even there so don't think that you are invisible with it on," Grandpa Chu lectured while handing it over to Laz.

Laz accepted the bracelet with a thanks and started to play around with it. The red stone beads were cool to the touch and although it didn't show signs of being anything amazing, it seemed like it could restrain the energy that was naturally coming off of Laz's body.

"What is it?" Laz couldn't help but ask.

"Red Jade. It's a type of stone. Jade in generally is pretty popular from where i come from but it's not so big over here. The red jade is suppose to be a stone that brings forth the power of a warrior, but it seems as though it actually is able to block the strange power that we all seem to have. Pretty useful really," Grandpa Chu said as he nodded his head as though agreeing to what he just voiced.

"Uh... Do you happen to have another one?" An idea flashed in his mind and he couldn't help but ask..

"Hmm? You really only need one. A second one isn't going to do any good," the old man responded back, looking at the young man.

"Uh.. well... it's not for me but a friend of mine. It would be really helpful for her.." Laz couldn't help but stammer out.

"OH? Ha Ha Ha. For a girl huh? Well, giving a girl jade can have many meanings, but I guess in this case it's just for protection huh?" The old man looked at Laz with a sly sparkle in his eye.

"Yes. Just for protection. Of course. What else could it mean?" Laz was a bit flustered. Having known and worked with his Grandpa Chu for a few years, he knew a bit about things relating to different cultures. As such, he knew that giving a girl jade could have an entirely different meaning. He just didn't think about it when he asked for it.

"Alright. Let's go with that." Grandpa Chu stood up and walked into the back. He was gone for a few moments before coming back with a different bracelet that was inside a nice, blue box.

"If your going to give a girl a gift, then you have to make sure you do it right, no matter what the reason." Grandpa Chu passed the box over to Laz who opened it to look at what was inside. He was fairly amazed by the sight that greeted him.

The bracelet was still similar to the one he received, but the difference was with the beads themselves. Instead of being just stone beads on a band, they were actually carved little butterflies that looked incredibly life-like. Laz couldn't help but stare at it over and over again and touch them as though they were real.

"Thanks Grandpa Chu!!" Laz said with conviction.

"You are very welcome. I'm sure she will love it," The old man responded back with a gentle nod.

"But that doesn't change anything." Grandpa Chu followed up with while looking at Laz.

"You have no idea how to fight, do you?"

"I uh... don't really need to do anything other than hit them and avoid getting hit myself... wait. How do you know I got into a fight?" Laz asked while looking questioningly at the old man.

"That's not important. The important thing is that wailing your strength around like a monkey is fine when you are just fighting monkeys. But what happens when you come across someone who is trained? Then what? If you can't even hit them, what use is all the strength in the world?"

The old man had taken on a rather forceful tone, as though he was trying to get this really important point into Laz's thick skull.

"Now, I know that Bill is teaching you a bit about survival and he will probably show you how to fight a bit as well, but to be blunt, he's old. He can only teach you so much by himself. On top of that, what he will show you is just basically military self defense training that is good, but it only relies on physical strength. Although you have plenty of that from what I hear, it isn't going to be enough."

Grandpa Chu informed Laz before reaching into his back pocket and pulling out a white piece of paper. He unfolded it and slide it across the table for Laz to look it.

Curiously, Laz looked at the piece of paper and found it contained three illustrations and some characters that he had no idea how to read.

"What's this?" He couldn't help but ask.

"It's called the Dragon Fist," Grandpa Chu responded back without any other explanation.

"What does it say?" Laz again probed, hoping for something more.

"That doesn't matter," the old man responded rather bluntly.

Laz's eye couldn't help but twitch at this response. How was he suppose to learn something if he couldn't read it.

The old man, seeing Laz's reaction, couldn't help but laugh out loud at the young, confused man's face.

"Grandpa Chu..."

"Look, I know what you are going to say so I shall explain a little bit. Look at the drawings. They are the three steps on using the Dragon Fist. Notice how the first picture is a step forward and the dragons come out of the leg. This shows that the energy is suppose to explode from the leg. In the second illustration, the other leg comes forward and the dragons are shooting out from the entire body, although they are really small compared to the first picture. In the last picture, the man throws a punch and you can see the dragons circulate around his whole body before exploding from his fist."

Laz just nodded while looking at the pictures and thinking through the explanation that he had just been told. There was nothing really profound about it as it was just a basic summery about what each picture was. If he was going to describe the picture without having the picture, that would be exactly how it would sound.

"The important point here is that the dragons show the flow of energy. The characters that you can't read tell how to circulate the chi in your body to get the desired result. But then ask yourself, are you going to be using chi?" The old man asked.

Laz was stumped at his meaning for a few breaths of time before it dawned on him. Obviously he wasn't going to be using chi, but the energy inside his body. So no matter what was written, it would be of no help to him. He couldn't help but smile at the intelligence of this old grandpa of his.

"Ah. You do understand eh? There is no point in learning how to do this wrong. Actually, it might hurt you more than help you. Instead, look at the pictures and feel the energy inside you and figure out how you can make it happen. Take this as a guide, not a given. At least this gives you an idea about how you can start moving the energy in your body." Grandpa Chu explained.

"I see. I see. So is this like some mystic martial art?" Laz asked, feeling really excited inside.

"Something like that." Grandpa Chu responded while laughing a bit.

"Ohhh.. So this is a copy of an old scroll or something?" Laz asked while looking at the amused old man.

"What? No. I found it on the internet and printed it off. I didn't even have to buy the book it came from. Google is a wonderful thing, isn't it?"