After tending to the wounded and clearing the battlefield we found there were 3 causalities in total, the villagers held a brief funeral before moving on to the Qingming Festival.
The villagers led by Genji thanked me for my help and asked to see my abilities. After turning to mist a doing loop de loops I fly high into the sky to above the clouds I turn back to normal and begin to fall back down.
As I plummet back down I lie flat and turn my fingertips and soles of my feet to mist to leave a blood-red trail, right before I hit the ground I transform into mist and impact the ground spreading in all directions.
I pull all my mist back to the center and reform myself and get a grand applause from the crowd, I see Jia off to the side and excuse myself to join her.
"Thanks for getting Genji to believe me" I say to start "And for helping yourself, your fighting style was awesome"
"Indeed the Way of the Protector's power is worthy of awe" Jia responds.
"Soooo I was wondering if I could learn the Way of the Protector" I say.
She narrows her eyes "I heard your proclamation when you first arrived, if you wish to learn you must get the permission of the Great Protector"
"Cool I'll ask for permission later are there any rules about jumping in the water?" I ask not wanting to piss these guys off.
"No you may swim in the water just don't approach the portal on the other end" Jia tells me and walks off.
I stand among myself for a bit before a cute village girl approaches me, she's one of the initial villagers I saved.
"Yang the way you fought earlier was amazing I'm Dai Yu I'd like to get the chance to get to know you more" the girl called Dai Yu said as she grabs my arm.
She looks about 16 or 17 and is more cute than beautiful, I'm happy to let her show her appreciation, but before I can respond I hear.
"That will have to wait for later me and Yang need to talk" Genji says stepping in.
I give him a death glare and say "Seriously bro"
He just laughs and just drags me away, I look back at Dai Yu.
"See you later" Dai Yu says to me.
I smile and salute before going with Genji willingly. I turn to him and start telling him my story of how I got here from Fu Chou and of my ability to know the future.
"That is quite the story Yang but I believe your ambition to take down this Xu Wenwu, if you get the Great Protector's permission, then you're free to remain here" Genji says.
"For now enjoy the party, here drink up" He said handing me a cup and making me drink. I decide to enjoy myself and try to will my RES poison resist to not affect the alcohol.
After a couple of drinks and performing more tricks for the locals I decided to head to the lake for some air.
I look down at the lake and had a stupid idea what if instead of making the dragon come out to talk I can go in and get permission directly?
I swim into the lake towards the center and once I think I have made it far enough I take a deep breath and dive down to where the dragon lies.
I start running out of breath, I turn my lungs into mist forgoing my need to breathe and keep going deeper down.
I start seeing movement all around me, the dragon seems to coiling in a radius around my body, and The Great Protectors' head and face came into view ahead of me.
I go to say something but realize I can't talk, it looks me up and down and I swear it's making a mocking look. I try to mime out the need to learn to fight like charades.
It moves its head under me and begins a rapid ascent to the surface, I try to keep my balance as our surfacing causes a loud crash in the water.
I reform my lungs and say "Sorry about disturbing you I was just wondering if you'd let me learn the Way of You and stuff, I promise its for a good cause I'll save the world, plus one day I could come back and kill the dweller of darkness so you could rest or something" I ramble off.
While I was talking he flew us back to shore where all the villagers stood watching us.
"Sorry to interrupt the party guys just wanted to introduce myself to the Great Protector, he's really nice" I say still quite drunk.
The Great Protector looked back at me blew a small gust of air into my face gave a small nod and then flew back to the lake and submerged back to the bottom.
"Byeee" I say while waving.
Jia comes up to me and says "That means yes"
"Awesome let's Party!!!" I shout and the party resumes.
The next day I woke up in Dai Yu's bed shes still asleep, I can't see my clothes before I remember I stored them in my inventory.
I turn to mist and fly out the window then reform outside and put my clothes back on. I turn to the right and see Jia looking at me with a smirk.
"Hope you had fun last night because I'm going to put you through hell with my training, follow me" Jia said as she walked away.
Jia lend me to a clearing outside the village a makeshift arena was made by surrounding a circular space with bamboo fences.
"Let's fight" Jia stated bringing up her fighting stance. She has her open palms facing up and a wide graceful stance.
As I get in my Kung Fu stance she makes a quick graceful spin as the wind and leaves follow her movements.
I rush in to punch her but she effortlessly deflects and redirects my blows away, her movements seem faster than normal as if aided by the wind.
I duck down to sweep her legs, Jia jumps and kicks me in the face her movement continues through and she does flip landing behind me.
I look at her and decide to try my mist against her, I fly towards her aiming to get behind her. Jia does a graceful spin and thrusts her hand forward and a gust of wind blows me away.
I'm undamaged but she knocked me meters away, it seems my mist form is vulnerable to wind. I try to approach her several more times as mist but I just don't have the weight to get near her.
I stay away from her turn physical and start creating a teleportation smoke ring around me, this is an ability that only Genji knows of so it should surprise her. Just before the ring is complete I wind up for a powerful kick. She looks at me expectantly.
Instantly I appear next to her in a puff of smoke with my leg already in the air going directly into her face, the blow lands true though when she flies back her landing seems softened by the air.
After a few seconds of thought, she stands to say "Good job that was a strong attack, though now that I know you can do that you'll never hit me again"
"Come here ill start showing you the movements for the Way of the Protector" Jia told me.
For the next few hours, I learn the movements of the style, when attacking physically the Way of the Protector seems to favor fast close-to-the-body attacks, but when manipulating the wind the style prefers wide graceful movements.
Either way, it's completely different from Shaolin Fung Fu, I have managed to control the wind but only small breezes.
Jia seems impressed by my progress, my almost superhuman WIS lets me pick up and master skills far faster than normal people, unless she's a genius like me I'm probably learning faster than she did.
Though Shang Chi has me beat he learned this shit quick in like a day then beat his dad so he probably has crazy WIS.
After training is over I head off to find Genji so he can take me to the blacksmith so I can learn to make weapons and armor out of dragon scales, not long until I find him.
"Genji, my man can show me where I can go to learn blacksmithing I want cool dragon gear" I say, but he looks at me worried and says.
"Yang, you want to learn to smith?" Genji continues "That's going to be hard the only smith in the village is Peng Yu father of Dai Yu"
"And let me tell you, you were not sly or stealthy last night everyone in the village knows" Genji finished.
Oh, I was quite drunk last night and happy… and chatty, didn't think it would come back to bite me.
"Umm, how bout we go ask him anyway maybe he's over it?" I say I refuse to not get dragon merch.
Genji takes me to the front door of the smith saying this is my mess, it's right next to the house I woke up in this morning which makes sense. I open the door and stick my head inside.
"Hello, I'm Yang I was wondering if you could teach m" before I could finish I turned my head to mist as a hammer sailed through the spot that once held my head.
Damn this is gonna be hard.
—----------------------------------------------------------
Qingming Festival plus training start
The next chapter is training and time skip before entering Yang VS Xu Wenwu and the Ten Rings arc