The dawn broke over the Valley of Peace, its golden light spilling across the bamboo forest. Po stood atop a hill, panting heavily, his sweat-drenched fur sticking to his skin. He wasn't sure how long he'd been training, but his legs burned, his arms ached, and his lungs screamed for air. Yet, he couldn't stop the grin spreading across his face.
"Hard work really does feel… amazing!" he muttered, stretching his aching arms toward the sky.
This was his first real day of training—not the fumbling, aimless dreaming of becoming a kung fu master he remembered from the movie, but deliberate, focused work toward something much greater. If he wanted to surpass the Po of this world and rewrite the fate he'd once watched play out, he had to start now.
The panda rolled his shoulders, feeling the strange, resilient strength of his new body. He knew what this body was capable of—or at least, what it would become capable of. High resistance to blunt force. Incredible physical durability. Rapid development. He'd seen it all. But he also knew those abilities didn't come out of nowhere. They needed to be forged.
"Step one," he said to himself, "learn to take a hit and get back up."
Po had read about martial artists who hardened their bodies through endurance training—striking their fists against wood until they became like iron, or toughening their stomachs by taking repeated blows. For a panda as naturally resistant to blunt force as he was, the approach needed to be… scaled up.
He tied a thick rope around a boulder and hoisted it onto his back. It wasn't massive, but it was heavy enough to make his legs tremble. With careful steps, he trudged up the hill, each movement a test of his balance and willpower. The boulder pressed into his back, the weight forcing his muscles to adapt.
"You're gonna have to hit harder than that, Tai Lung," he grunted through gritted teeth, picturing the snow leopard's devastating strikes.
When he reached the top of the hill, he set the boulder down, only to start rolling it back down, chasing it at full speed to test his agility. His feet slipped, sending him tumbling head over heels, but instead of frustration, he laughed.
"That's one way to learn."
Day after day, he repeated the routine, adding more weight, pushing himself further. By the end of the first week, his legs no longer trembled under the boulder's weight. His back no longer ached. And when he rolled down the hill, the impacts barely fazed him.
Blunt force wasn't enough. Po needed control—he needed precision.
In the bamboo forest, he set up targets: clusters of hanging fruit, swaying gently in the breeze. With each strike, he aimed for the smallest, most vulnerable points—the stem holding the fruit, the exact center of its surface. At first, his strikes were clumsy, his paw swiping wide or smacking with too much force. But with time and focus, he started hitting his marks.
To increase the challenge, he tied the fruit to thin cords that spun with the wind, making them harder to hit. He practiced relentlessly, striking from different angles, using both paws. When he grew confident, he added moving dummies to his training—a crude setup of wooden logs that swung unpredictably toward him.
He learned to read their movements, striking the "pressure points" on the logs to stop them mid-swing. It wasn't perfect, but the progress was undeniable.
One evening, exhausted but satisfied, Po stared at his paw, flexing it.
"If I can do this to a log… I'll do it to anyone who threatens this world."
Po's training didn't stop with physical strikes. He knew that in kung fu, the body and its energy were interconnected. If he could disrupt his opponent's chi, he could control the flow of a battle.
Experimenting on himself, he began exploring pressure points further. By pressing into specific parts of his arm, he could temporarily numb his own muscles. The first attempts were messy—he accidentally paralyzed his left hand for an entire afternoon—but over time, he learned the locations of key points and the pressure needed to manipulate them.
One day, while sparring with a wooden dummy, he pressed the same points on the dummy's structure, causing its joints to lock mid-swing. He stepped back, watching it hang motionless. A grin crept across his face.
"Imagine what I can do with a real opponent."
The days turned into weeks, and Po felt his progress accelerating. What once took him hours to learn now came naturally after a few tries. His body seemed to absorb every lesson like a sponge, adapting quickly to new challenges.
He remembered the climactic battles from the movies, the way Po's skill had skyrocketed in mere days. Now, he understood why: his body was built for this.
To push his limits, he started blending techniques—striking pressure points while dodging swinging logs, lifting boulders while maintaining his balance on moving platforms. He even tried sparring against wild animals in the forest, always careful not to harm them.
The last part of his physical training involved one of Po's most fascinating abilities: turning his enemies' strength against them.
To practice, Po set up a pendulum system—large logs swinging toward him with significant force. At first, the impacts knocked him flat on his back, but each time, he adjusted his stance, his timing.
By the end of the week, he was no longer bracing for the hits. Instead, he flowed with them, redirecting the force to send the logs spinning back. He pictured Tai Lung's fists, Kai's weapons, the furious strikes of any opponent he might face.
"This is it," he whispered. "This is what will make me unstoppable."
Despite his progress in physical training, Po found chi mastery to be elusive. He tried meditating under waterfalls, breathing deeply in lotus positions, even chanting mantras he remembered from kung fu movies.
The flicker of chi within him was faint, like a candle struggling to stay lit. He knew it was there, but accessing it felt like trying to catch smoke with his paws.
One evening, after a long day of training, he sat on the hill overlooking the valley, staring at the stars. His body was stronger than ever, his strikes more precise, his reflexes sharper. But his spirit felt… incomplete.
"Inner peace," he murmured. "If this is what it takes to truly master chi, then I'll keep going. No matter how long it takes."