That was not the last tournament Leo, and his friends would participate in the next 16 years. Unsurprisingly, after Leo's defeat against Lenny, his determination of getting stronger only grew until one could say that he was addicted to it. Not that he wasn't beforehand. However, contrarily to what many believed Leo didn't only train his martial art or even his body.
More often than not he could be seen lying in the snow or even going for an ice bath in the lake. He would usually go out barefoot or in minimal footwear. Others had asked him why he was doing what they perceived as weird, and he had disclosed this to some of them.
After hearing what he had to say about those practices Mang Tou had become worried about him. He thought that Leo had stolen a secret technique of another school, but Leo had assured him that was not the case.
It took Leo a lot of effort to convince his mentor but eventually he let him off only because he wasn't approached by any other school and didn't hear about a robbery of sacred texts. Such news would have spread in the community like wildfire.
Mang Tou still advised them to not disclose this to anyone casually and was only reassured when Leo promised him that he hadn't and wouldn't talk about it with people that he didn't trust or couldn't defend themselves.
Shunlei and Lenny were also interested in his weird behavior but didn't want to hear about the benefits in fear that they would want to copy his techniques.
Shunlei explained that if she only copied him, she would never surpass him. Lenny on the other hand didn't want to spread himself thin and wanted to master the Saphed's meditation first before moving on to something else. Leo could only respect their decision.
In comparison to the rest of the world his path would be experimental to say the least. He usually had another perspective on things, and if he could he still gave them some advice when they were stuck on a problem.
It took a few years until they decided to learn a few techniques from him and to say that they were astonished by the benefits those techniques had would be an understatement. According to Leo, he had more techniques that would be at the very least as beneficial as their body scan meditation. It almost sounded like they were reaching into the realm of the impossible.
Leo's increased dedication to developing his meditation techniques from his past life came to him after realizing how beneficial they were. The only reason why he figured that out was because of the so-called next step of their meditation his mentor introduced him to after the tournament.
He had first thought that he would learn a magical technique that would let him reach the realm of the supernatural. A meditation technique straight out of a cultivation novel but once again he was disappointed. The next step of their school's meditation technique was just moving meditation that he already started to implement into his routine.
After showing his degree of mastery or in Mang Tou's eyes his absolute talent he started to show him another variant and tips and tricks to increase his bodily awareness that unbeknownst to Mang Tou Leo had already learned.
Leo realized that not only did he know so-called secret meditation techniques but also variants that Mang Tou didn't even know about which were more compatible to him or show better results in general.
At that moment he knew that he would just need to stick to what he knew to achieve a previously thought to be impossible degree of prowess, that everything he knew could be implemented in this world with greater results.
He finally realized why this world's martial artists were greater than those from his world, it was because it was easier to become better. Their body could achieve greater results with the same effort and could therefore achieve a level of martial arts that seemed to have been impossible in Leo's eyes.
One could say that on average the humans of this world were more adaptable and the limitations of their body and mind were further away. It could easily be compared to the difference between geniuses and the average. If they put in the same effort, a genius would be miles ahead of the average person.
Obviously, that meant for him that he was talented at most. Mang Tou had hailed him a genius but considering his knowledge and his determination being greater than a child his age ought to have, he couldn't be called a genius.
This realization was like fuel to him as he put in more and more effort into mastering everything he learned in his past. His newfound motivation in turn resulted in rapid growth across disciplines.
Of course, that in turn motivated Shunlei and Lenny to work harder and the circle continued. In the beginning, the two were shooting ahead of Leo in terms of pure skill since they dedicated almost all their time in martial arts, but they were slowly but surely overtaken.
Leo's body became so far beyond them that they still couldn't believe that Leo was a human like them. Obviously, they knew some techniques that he taught them, but they didn't realize how great the benefits would stack after Leo had trained in all of them.
The benefits of a bunch of techniques mastered to a certain degree stacked on each other was much greater than a perfect mastery in only a few techniques.
The only negative aspect of his immense insight in various techniques and methods was the time it took to master them to a satisfactory result. It took him a decade and some for Leo to leave the two in the dust.
But in the end, it was all worth it, he could proudly show the world the result of his training. He had to endure an intense routine and after a long time of training he firmly reached the realm of the supernatural.
Looking back, he was proud but also immensely annoyed that there was no meditation that would let him have access to Ki, Qi, or Chi, whatever you wanted to call it. He still hoped that such a method existed somewhere in this world, but he didn't hold any high hopes.
However, this didn't mean that he wouldn't search for it. Maybe in another part in the world something beyond his grasp existed. He wouldn't know until he ventured out of Canada to take a look.
The Asian continent was obviously his first choice as it was usually the origin of the talks of Ki or at least the rumors were most prevalent there. It was not like he didn't have the means to travel either. He was already beyond rich. After his success with Flappy Bird and Angry Birds, he started a company that would pump out more mobile games that he remembered from his past before including PC games.
He thoroughly dominated the market for games and with constant investment in real estate, stock market, crypto currency, etc. he had enough passive income to retire already. Additionally, his fame could be easily turned into wealth as well.
Not only was he a self-made multimillionaire but was also famous for his martial prowess. In the short period he wasn't training, he had a cameo in a few martial arts movies and success on the website MyMovie would be easily achieved as well.
Obviously, his martial arts debut wasn't taken on hold while he was getting rich and recognition. Leo, Shunlei and Lenny had participated in multiple tournaments in the last 16 years.
In the beginning, they regularly lost against each other. Leo was the only one that lost more than the other two, but now after stacking his techniques for several years, he never lost again.
Their progress was phenomenal to say the least, and they made waves in the martial arts community first on national level. Unfortunately, because of their reputation the committee of national tournaments would let them fight each other earlier, so students from other schools could have a shot at the title.
However, despite not always winning a medal, they were known as the strongest martial artist of their age division and beyond.
Everyone in the martial arts circle knew that they would have a great career ahead of them and were excited for their future. The three were also asked to represent Canada at the Sommer Olympics when they just turned 17 and with it introduced themselves on international level.
They of course weren't the only one participating. Additional to the three, Laura Everlast would be joining them as another participant. Speaking of Laura, after her declaration during the tournament, she changed schools to Leo's and even joined his class.
She was rather adamant being close to him and could generally be seen in his vicinity. It took some time but eventually Leo started teaching her as well. Leo was fine with being her friend, but it slowly became more of a headache.
There was a period in which a day could barely pass without Laura, Sarah and Shunlei attempting to bash each other's head in. Anyone who was popular in middle and high school would understand.
A lot of drama came to be just by being in the same room and it took Leo, Lenny, Jack a lot of effort to keep them in check. It was only after Bella decided to step in and help Leo out that their dislike for each other seemed to have vanished considerably.
Bella made it clear that she only helped Leo reluctantly and that he owed her. To this day he still doesn't know what she told the other three girls, and he was afraid to ask.
Anyway, after the four won silver and gold medals at the Olympics with Lenny and Shunlei getting the Olympic title, they started to go professional and participated in MMA fights. Leo and Laura participated at the Olympics again when they turned 21 – 22 to get an Olympics title as well.
From then on, they had dozens of matches with only a few losses. Fortunately, they all participated in different weight classes and therefore didn't clash with each other.
Many old casual friends in his class usually became more distant with a few remaining. He was still friends with everyone that he was close with and was cool with most in the Saphed school but his relationship with a few female friends became a bit of a minefield.
With his fame he obviously gathered a lot of female attention and with it the ire of his three female friends. Although, he wasn't at fault when others approached him, he still got shit for it. It calmed down a lot lately since their frustration stemmed mainly from his seemingly indecisive.
He now could somewhat understand why the boys in animes are always so indecisive and beta as fuck but he on the other hand knew what he wanted. If he rushed it, it might destroy his friendship with every one of them and he really didn't want to end what they had going but he also wanted to advance their relationship.
So, with patience, with a little suggestion here and there, they were more open to a polygamous relationship. He had the clear advantage since the three were still unexperienced with everything concerning love that they were more susceptible to some ideas.
He was also treading carefully as he already had a polygamous relationship in his past that ended in an absolute disaster with everyone being unhappier than before. To be honest, he had been a lot happier when he only had one girlfriend but with a new life he couldn't stop dreaming, right?
Of course, he knew it will come with its own problems, but he was willing to try. He believed that he could make them happy with enough patience and a lot of effort. Anyway, long story short he had slept with all three of them…