It was late in the night, birds chirping on the palm trees around the school, the insects singing, making merry as their chirping reached a crescendo. The shadows covered the whole area since lights out has passed in the hostels.
The martial arts hall is always open to students to practice. Though the school does not encourage or permit students to use the facility at night, there are still a few dogged ones among us who flaunt the rules and use the hall at night.
Since I left Old Town for borden school, I no longer see Geo, Nate and Cara like before so the training I receive from them stopped and I had to find ways to personally improve my skills. I still have a lot of things to achieve so I couldn't stop improving at that point. Though I still meet Geo and others whenever I go home for breaks and we still train and spar but I can't wait till the end of every term to improve myself.
I was on my way to the martial arts hall that night after the football match where I won it for the school. It was a dark path, so dark that if it was just anyone, they wouldn't have seen beyond their next step but I have walked that path frequently enough for me to understand where every step should land. There's a saying that a night that falls before your eyes, its darkness won't scare you.
It wasn't just me alone on the road to the hall, Jane was with me. For some reason, Jane joined the martial arts club in Class one when we chose our preferred non-academic clubs. Though I had began to train her before then but I never expected her to make such a decision. I tried to talk her into changing clubs as it was still possible then in class one.
Moreover, girls don't favor this club as they go into more feminine things like catering and crafts, dressmaking, and so on and Jane was just one of two girls in the whole martial arts club. There are about 50 boys and just two girls in the martial arts club; Jane and another girl, Katie.
I carefully pushed the door to the hall open and we stepped in. We had been introduced to an ancient martial arts skill the previous day so we are out to test it out. The skill is called qi. Master Leao, the martial arts teacher explained to us that qi is energy generated from inside of our body. He called it a life source because it animates our body, it can make us stronger, we can use it for self-defense and if perfected can be use as a form of combat.
He said some people are naturally gifted and have an insane amount of qi in their body, so these people might not need too much practice to activate their qi, while some of us would require rigorous and consistent practice to activate our qi.
This was soon found out when we were told to activate our qi. We were asked to sit in a meditating position, close our eyes, find a white energy, and then try to move it around our bodies.
Some students were able to detect the white energy Master Leao had described but couldn't move it around their bodies, some found the white energy and were able to move it around their bodies, these set of people jumped for joy and over-aggrandized themselves that day. While there are these sets of people, there were some that couldn't detect any energy. One of those people is me and I am one of them.
Out of everyone in the club, I thought I would be the one to detect the energy first because I had been receiving martial arts training since the age of ten. Jane was able to detect the white energy, it shocked me, but she couldn't move it around her body. Katie on the other hand, detected the energy, moved it around her body till it began to affect her and her face was becoming wet and full of sweat and she was becoming pale. Master Leao quickly brought her out of meditation and did some things to make her calm down. He explained later that she has an overload of qi and her body was still too small to activate all of them.
I was the second-best student in the class, behind Katie only. We always spar from time to time and the winner switches position with the one who loses. If numbers 5 and 8 were to spar and number 8 emerges as the winner, then number 8 would jump to 5 while the loser, number 6, would drop to 6. So that was how we switch positions and know the best student in the class.
I was in 3rd position, Katie in 2nd and a guy, Rio 1st. It was reported that Rio had a disagreement with Katie and decided to settle it with a spar which he later lost. Katie became the first student in our class by defeating Rio. Rio met his hubris when he requested for a spar with me, he lost and I climbed to the second position. It has remained like that ever since.
I was in the training hall, still meditating and trying to find my qi. Jane was on another side of the hall, doing her own thing too. I was trying to give it all my attention maybe it was because there were lots of distractions when we were in class, that's why I couldn't activate it but the result have remained the same.
While I was still in the middle of my meditation, the door to the hall sprang open and five boys entered with Rio leading the charge.
"You still haven't figure it out punk!" Rio said as he stepped in.
"Well, I don't care, I'm taking my position back today".