Chapter 4
The honorary procession led me toward the palace at an unhurried pace, deliberately slowing at intervals to give the crowd a good long look at the new Legendary Dragon Warrior.
Along the way I spotted my teacher among the spectators and asked him to let my father know that I was fine and would stop by home at the first opportunity. The last thing I wanted was for him to worry.
Master Tianjiang gave a short nod, then allowed himself a faint smile and raised his thumb in approval. His entire bearing communicated complete satisfaction.
I wasn't sure what pleased him more — that I had destroyed the gates, or that I had been named Dragon Warrior. Most likely the former. The Jade Palace would almost certainly be coming to him to forge replacement components for the doors and roof, which would earn him a tidy sum.
I climbed the stairs and passed into the main hall of the Jade Palace, and I say this without exaggeration — it was genuinely magnificent. The eye was drawn first to the towering jade columns, their surfaces wrapped in dense emerald carvings that resembled climbing vines. Those columns held up a massive ceiling that vanished into shadow overhead.
Along the walls of polished rare wood stood pedestals bearing relics and artifacts. At the far end of the hall lay a mystical pool, its clear water emanating a faint, otherworldly blue glow. A golden dragon sculpture hung suspended above the mirror-smooth surface of the water, and behind all of it stretched a vast archive holding thousands of scrolls.
The entire space was bathed in a soft half-darkness, barely broken by threads of light filtering through decorative rice-paper screens over the windows. Rows of candles in elegant holders provided the rest of the illumination.
Once I had taken in the room, I noticed that my escorts had vanished. They had withdrawn quietly, closing the doors behind them, leaving me in splendid solitude. I waited for a while, expecting someone to appear, but no one bothered. At least it gave me the opportunity to think through my situation in peace. The first order of business was to remember exactly what the Dragon Warrior was and what the title actually entailed.
I began methodically sorting through everything I knew on the subject: childhood stories my father had told me, rumors overheard from the neighbor's son, fragments of conversation from restaurant guests. Gradually the scattered pieces assembled into something coherent.
To start with, the title of Dragon Warrior had been established by Master Oogway back in the time of Emperor Pea — which was to say, a very, very long time ago. As was widely known, Oogway was the most famous long-liver in the world, reportedly somewhere around a thousand years old, a claim I still found genuinely difficult to accept.
The title itself was considered the pinnacle of kung fu mastery and, according to legend, carried something close to divine power.
Right. *The chosen one with extraordinary power* — the classic setup. Which meant a formidable enemy was due to appear, one that only the Dragon Warrior could defeat. That last part produced a strong urge to walk over and slam my head against one of the jade columns.
Who knows what manner of unknown catastrophe would crawl out of wherever catastrophes come from and begin exterminating everything living on the planet, and somehow I would be the one expected to stop it.
Ahem — the thoughts were drifting somewhere unhelpful. Back to the main subject.
As for the criteria by which Oogway was supposed to select the Dragon Warrior, nobody seemed to know. This appointment was happening for the first time, and the person chosen was me — which meant the selection had nothing whatsoever to do with kung fu ability.
*Perhaps Oogway was simply impressed by my talent for causing destruction and breathing fire like an actual dragon. I even have the fire breath to prove it — as long as I don't drink myself into using it regularly.*
The thought was the first genuinely cheerful one in some time.
But realistically, what did this honor cost me? Aside from the possible future confrontation with some dark lord or nameless catastrophe, I genuinely didn't know. What I did know was that my life was about to become considerably less comfortable, and I was being thrown headfirst into a den. I still remembered the looks on the faces of the Furious Five, people I would apparently now be in constant contact with.
I was not, by any measure, a socialized individual, and the idea of ongoing friction with those particular personalities was deeply unappealing. That said, some kind of working relationship would need to be established eventually. The question was whether they could be won over with good food.
The most sensible option right now was to find a way to speak with Oogway and somehow convince him to reverse his decision. There was simply no other path forward.
Running away was technically possible, or I could do something that would get me expelled outright. But either of those would leave a permanent stain on my name — and that stain would inevitably touch my father as well, which was completely out of the question.
Deciding to take a break from these heavy thoughts, I set off to examine what the hall had to offer, my wooden sandals making quiet sounds against the jade floor polished to a mirror shine.
Every wall was lined with equipment of every conceivable kind — from small finger guards whose purpose escaped me entirely to what appeared to be body armor shaped like a dolphin. Between the displays hung paintings depicting masters and battles of the past.
Walking past the exhibits, I suspected a significant portion of it was high-quality decorative nonsense. A crossbow that fired maces? Laughable. A helmet with no eye slots? Completely absurd. A war chariot meant for actual combat? I genuinely could not picture anyone volunteering to be harnessed to something like that.
Not everything was like that, to be fair. There was a great deal of weaponry, armor, and shields that looked genuinely interesting and practical. Even my limited blacksmithing knowledge was enough to appreciate the quality of the craftsmanship.
"Is that… a Dark Mistress ensemble?" My attention was caught by what was, frankly, a textbook leather strap outfit hanging from a tiger-shaped mannequin, with a leather whip coiled beside it. "Well. Some people certainly have their tastes."
If I had encountered someone wearing that in childhood, I probably would have died of fright on the spot. In my first years here, while I still couldn't speak, I had been convinced that someone would come and take me away to be turned into grilled skewers and fur-lined gloves. What a relief it had been to learn that every inhabitant of this world was vegetarian, and that virtually all leather in circulation was synthetic.
I didn't know the full production process, but as far as I could tell, fabric was saturated with a mixture of sap from particular local plants and trees and then subjected to some specialized heat treatment. How anyone here had figured that out was a mystery — but if the locals could build intricate mechanisms without any factories or industrial base, they clearly had their own share of inventive geniuses.
Time passed without my noticing. It felt as though several hours had gone by since I entered the hall. I moved from exhibit to exhibit, examined armor shaped like a rhinoceros that reminded me vaguely of Iron Man's suit, and then came across something genuinely interesting.
*Now that's actually impressive.* I let out a low whistle, studying a sword with the profile of a halberd, its golden guard set with a ruby. The blade was forged from a strange gray metal with a faint inner sheen. Along its edges ran delicate engraving in the shape of a dragon, rendered in the most vivid emerald green. I leaned in to examine the cutting edge more closely.
"What the—" I hissed in sudden pain. The palm of my hand, which had been resting in a fist against my hip, had erupted in sharp pain. I looked at it in confusion and found a barely visible thin cut, a few tiny drops of blood welling up from it. This thing had cut me — a sword I had never touched, never even come close to, merely observed from a distance?
I nearly fell into another stupor. Without realizing it, I had just come face to face with what was clearly a genuine magical artifact — the existence of which I had never actually believed in until this moment.
I had heard stories about such things from my teacher, of course, but I had always assumed he was using metaphors. The fan that summons a storm with one wave. The hammer that can level entire mountains. That sort of thing.
None of it fit in my head. I had already seen the abilities of the kung fu masters, and I had accepted all of that fairly calmly, chalking it up to local physiology. My own physical strength already far exceeded what was normal for the average inhabitant of this world — the flying crocodile had made that quite clear.
"I need a drink." Breaking the promise I had made to myself not an hour ago, I uncorked the flask and took a small sip. This time my body received the mixture considerably more naturally. I set the flask down and was reaching to close it again when I caught a faint sound — a quiet, many-voiced murmuring coming from a large urn standing nearby.
Still not fully recovered from the previous revelation, I decided not to overload my brain and simply go with the current. I walked over to the urn, which was decorated with carvings of warriors carrying spears, and concentrated on the barely audible sound.
For a long time I couldn't make out what the voices were whispering. The only word I was fairly sure I caught was *drink.*
"Well," I said with a smirk, "who am I to refuse a fellow drinker, even if they happen to be an urn?" I tilted the flask and poured a small amount inside. Shortly afterward a thin curl of green smoke rose from within, accompanied by a soft collective sigh of contentment.
"Good, wasn't it? Here, have a bit more," I said, and poured again, feeling the last of my grip on normal reasoning quietly let go.
"Would you mind stopping getting the Urn of the Whispering Warriors drunk?" Shifu's voice came from the direction of the pool. "Five hundred lost souls of the army of Tenshu are sealed inside it."
He had not been there a few minutes ago. He materialized now as though from the air itself, without producing a single sound.
He had probably been concealed somewhere in the hall the whole time, watching me. I turned to face him slowly and met his eyes, trying to read what he intended. What I saw there was an unambiguous storm of negative feeling.
They say eyes are the mirror of the soul, and in this case it was entirely true. I could even understand his position — he had invested enormous effort, hope, and patience into students who had been preparing to receive this title, and now I had appeared and dismantled his plans. His problems were not my concern, though. I had not asked to be named Dragon Warrior.
*Wait — five hundred warrior souls? Does that mean people here can seal actual souls into objects? And I just… got an entire army drunk?* Shifu's words were finally sinking in. I would have liked to sit with the implications longer, but he was clearly waiting for some kind of response.
"They asked," I said without expression, doing my best to maintain a flawless poker face. "Apparently they've been in there for God knows how long and fancied a drink." If Shifu had been trying to rattle me, it hadn't worked.
He held my gaze with those sharp eyes of his, brow furrowing slightly. Then the corners of his mouth curled into something distinctly unpleasant, and he said:
"So. You're our Legendary Dragon Warrior, are you?" He let the last syllable hang in the air with audible mockery.
An obvious provocation. I wasn't sure what response he was hoping for — bluster, submissive silence, confused stammering. Instead I made a show of looking myself over, glancing briefly behind my own back, and stated in a completely neutral tone:
"I haven't noticed anything of the sort. No dragon's maw. No claws. No tail. And I'm certainly no warrior. I'm a one hundred percent panda who apparently inherited his appearance from a goose parent."
Shifu's eyebrow and his contemptuous smile both twitched. Visibly restraining himself from unleashing something considerably harsher, he said:
"Indeed! You are not the Dragon Warrior and you never will be… until you have learned the secret of the Golden Dragon Scroll! It contains great knowledge — knowledge that grants limitless power and the ability to overcome any enemy and any trial imaginable!" He extended a hand toward the dragon sculpture hanging above the pool, the one holding a scroll in its teeth.
I listened to this speech in silence, one eyebrow slightly raised, projecting complete indifference. The films, games, and series of my original world had long since convinced me of one thing: objects that grant unlimited power tend to result in the destruction of their owners, or worse.
Not getting the reaction he was looking for only seemed to sharpen his irritation. He stepped up close and began to circle me slowly, speaking as he went:
"You will not receive that scroll until you have attained the highest level of kung fu. Every master spends years strengthening the body and forging the spirit, developing extraordinary reflexes and absolute precision of movement. For someone with a body like yours, reaching that level is simply impossible."
"What's wrong with my body?" I made another show of looking myself over, as though seeing it for the first time.
Before he could launch into his assessment of my supposedly fat and clumsy physique, I flexed my chest, arms, and legs with enough force that the definition began cutting through the layer of fat in sharp, visible lines. Then I started rolling the muscles one by one, doing my best impression of some ancient marble Adonis.
Genuine disbelief and shock crossed the master's face, but he recovered quickly and resumed his usual cutting tone:
"Are you certain about that, Panda? Having muscles proves nothing. Look at my students, for comparison. And I have never once heard of a panda who mastered the art of kung fu."
"Do you have something against pandas? You're a panda yourself — a red one, but still. Word has it you're one of Oogway's finest students. We're practically the same species. Family, even! And one must always believe in family and never turn away from it — so a wise man once said."
I was aware that provoking Shifu further was likely to end badly for me, but for some reason I couldn't stop.
Shifu stared at me for a moment with a slightly unfocused look. Then his face contorted, and something raw and furious ignited in his eyes. Somehow, without meaning to, I had found the rawest nerve he had, and it was clear he was unlikely to forgive me for it anytime soon.
"Very well. Since you believe your body is ready for training, we will go to the training hall immediately and begin right now. I'm already looking forward to it." By the end, Shifu's voice had taken on a particularly ominous quality.
That last line produced a genuine internal shudder, but underneath it I felt a measure of relief — at least instead of more insults and attempts to get under my skin, there would be some kind of training. And while I found myself hoping for an actual training hall filled with equipment, something told me I was about to be disappointed again.
Without looking back at me, Shifu moved toward the exit from the hall at a brisk pace. Given his height, it was slightly comical. I followed after him. When he pushed open the entrance doors, the evening sunset met my eyes.
*Just hold on a little longer and this day from hell will finally be over,* I thought with profound relief.