"Wu Fen! You are late to morning training. You will have your lunch on the mountaintop today. If you are also late to afternoon worship, you will have a meeting with the abbot after dinner. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Great Master."

"Get into line." Wu Fen had been awake for a long time practicing his butterfly knife forms, but because he had gone to his customary secluded area, he had missed his fellow students heading to the training area. It was only once he heard their kiais that he realised he was missing out.

Today's training was going over the Eagle forms, and Wu Fen had a long and painful relationship with them. His body just didn't seem to conform to the stances.

He'd thought coming to the temple would be a great way of avoiding hard work, but it was more gruelling than he would have ever guessed.

Great Master Bai Xu whacked his leg with a stick.

"Concentrate. Weight in the correct foot." Wu Fen winced inwardly and corrected his mistake. Another whack came to his hand.

"Keep hand shape." Wu Fen pushed his thumb back up to meet his fingers, only to be whacked once more in the floating rib.

"Correct posture." Finally, the Great Master moved on to another student as they all proceeded to the next move.

Wu Fen was battered and bruised by the time they paired off for sparring, and he had the additional misfortune to be approached by his best friend, Zhen Dongzhao. Dongzhao was a master of the snake style and Wu Fen could never land a hit on him. The shifting stance left no openings, and it was the Eagle style that was supposed to create those openings.

Wu Fen dropped into a low dragon stance. Better to at least use something he was familiar with. To his surprise, Dongzhao settled into a tiger stance.

Dongzhao leapt forwards with a splitting palm strike, which Wu Fen sidestepped with a rotational palm strike to Dongzhao's hip.

"Where's the snake?" Wu Fen asked him. Zhen Dongzhao chuckled.

"The snake is patient. Lulls me into a defensive strategy. I have been instructed to use tiger and leopard until I have learned when to strike."

"You know, of course, that the dragon fares far better against the cats than it does the snake."

"Well then, you just might have a chance at matching me blow-for-blow." Wu Fen chortled and stepped around Dongzhao's leopard punch into another rotational palm strike to Dongzhao's dantien centre. From there he brought it up into another palm strike to the chin. Wu Fen performed an acrobatic pointing kick to Dongzhao's chest to create some distance between them. Dropping back down into his stance, he beckoned with his front hand. Zhen Dongzhao picked himself up and snarled.

"I must be unfamiliar with the tiger. You are picking me apart."

"As long as you are giving up your defense to attack me, I can attack you without fear. Simultaneous attack and defense is the dragon's specialty. Without the snake's tempered nature, you walk straight into my strikes."

"But when I use the snake, I don't land a hit because I'm too cautious. What is the balance?"

"Try observing how a snake fights in nature. You will see how it determines when the best time to strike is, and how it only strikes when such a time comes."

"I'll take that advice on board. In the meantime, I'm gonna figure out a way to pound you into the ground with tiger." He lunged at Wu Fen once more and attempted to pursue him with various combinations. Each strike was dodged and countered, except for the last two. Dongzhao feinted a strike, caught Wu Fen's in the crook of his elbow, stepped into his stance, and thrust his palm into Wu Fen's chin. As Wu Fen fell backwards, Dongzhao collapsed into another palm strike to his chin, just as Great Master Bai Xu called for a halt to the day's sparring. After wrapping up the training session, Zhen Dongzhao waved to Wu Fen.

"Come to supplemental training with us!" He shouted.

"I am sorry, but I do not have time. If I am to eat my lunch on top of the mountain, I will need some extra time set aside if I am to return in time for worship." Zhen Dongzhao understood, and took his friends to a secluded training area. Wu Fen began his arduous run to the top of the mountain. He reached a plateau and sighed.

"I can never tell how far up this is. Is it halfway? Is it three-quarters? Or is it barely even a step? All I know is that there is a couple more of them."

Eventually, he reached the top. Taking the lunchbox out of his heavy running pack, he readied his phone in one hand and a pair of chopsticks in the other. Bai Xu always had them take a selfie at the top to prove that they had actually got there. Today he also needed to prove that he had brought his lunch with him. As he sat to eat, he spotted a turtle squaring off against a viper. The snake clearly wanted to eat the turtle, but the turtle was not backing down. Intrigued, he set his lunch aside for a while.

'Perhaps this little one can give me a hint to deal with the snake.' He thought. The turtle was edging closer to the snake's head, bobbing its own around. It lifted its head high, and the snake came crashing down on top, only to close its jaws on a hard shell. In Wu Fen's head, he could see a strong warrior pushing into his opponen't guard.

As the turtle's head snapped out to bite at the snake's soft tissue, so too did the warrior release a powerful punch to his opponent's kidney. The snake reeled back in pain, and the turtle jumped forward to bite its tail. The snake tried desperately to free itself, but lost a huge amount of tough flesh in the process. The turtle stomped on the snake's body one last time before letting it slither off.

'This turtle is me. I fight using defense and offense simultaneously also, but it has the method to create an opening that my style lacks. I should strive to become more like this turtle.'

Wu Fen finished his lunch while contemplating the fight he had just witnessed, and tried to figure out how he could use the same strategies it had used in his own training.

He ended up discarding his lunch and instead practicing a new form of his own design, based on what he had seen the Turtle do.