Marvelous Martial Arts (A Marvel Story)

Now that he was no longer fighting for his life, Mason could clearly feel that he had been right with his hunch.

He could still feel that rift in his Spirit, ever so slowly mending. The wound was only a fraction of the condition Mary was in, but Mason estimated it would still take days for him to completely recover. And that recovery was only possible thanks to how potent his own Spirit was.

That was the bad news. On the brighter side, though, he had started the process of awakening his Spirit. Unbeknownst to him, his Spirit had entered a sort of sealed state that went beyond the usual dormancy of the Three Treasures, because of how strong it had become.

Mason still did not know how regular people awakened their Spirits, but the way forward for him was clear now. Actually, in hindsight, Mason felt stupid for not seeing it, since his body had been telling him all along.

Ever since he had taken over, his body had been trying to catch up to his soul, which had been a major reason behind his changes. But he had always thought of it as a purely passive process, but he was reconsidering that now.

From what he had felt just then, Mason had already more or less met every requirement he would usually need to awaken his Spirit, but he was being held back by the rest of his being, which was simply not ready to house an awakened Spirit. Not one of his magnitude, at least.

And this tear in his Spirit happened to be just the thing he needed to quickly solve the issue. Ever since he had awakened his Essence and Breath, the influence his Spirit had over their growth had nearly stopped.

Mason was not sure how exactly the tear was helping, but he could feel that his body was once more playing catch-up with his Spirit.

In other words, all Mason needed to do now was to improve his Essence and Breath to the same level as his Spirit to awaken it. And while it would have likely taken years, if at all possible, in ordinary times, they had once more entered into a period of rapid growth.

So, despite the agony a torn Spirit placed Mason in, he felt strangely light on his feet as he escaped the scene, sirens approaching from afar. Not surprising, considering there had been gunfire.

Joining Daredevil and Iron Fist on a nearby roof, Mason held himself against a wall, asking tiredly, ”Got everything you needed?”

Mason took a step and almost fell. Iron Fist rushed to his side, helping him up as he immediately asked, ”Are you alright? Did you get shot?”

Mason shook his head, deliberately taking a seat as he replied briefly, ”Nothing physical. She was a telepath, injured my Spirit. I just need some rest; I’ll be fine.”

Iron Fist still looked worried, but Daredevil said, ”We downloaded everything from that computer. We’ll need some time to analyze everything, but we do know for sure the locations of several of his operations.”

Mason nodded weakly, focused on saving energy. But realizing he was slipping off, he shook his head and said, ”Good, that will give us targets. We can get to that tomorrow. For now, I need to sleep. Good work today.”

”You don’t look like you’re in the condition to go anywhere right now. Are you sure you’re not dying?”

”I’m sure. I’m awakening my Spirit; I’ll be fine.”

The revelation meant nothing to Daredevil, but Iron Fist froze, his staring evident even through his mask.

Mason was too tired to feel anything from the reaction, so he opted to get up, which was a struggle, and muttered, ”Alright, the plan doesn’t change. If there’s a warrant for my arrest tomorrow, you release everything incriminating on the internet. I probably won’t be able to come by tomorrow though, so it’s up to you how you move with the plans.”

Daredevil nodded rigidly, and even Iron Fist watched solemnly as Mason leapt away.

The way back home was an arduous one, as the more time passed, the more overwhelming his fatigue became. Still, he managed to get there in the end.

Of course, Mason expected people to come for him there. Be it directly the Hand or Fisk, or the cops themselves if they decided to frame him as he expected, they would target his home first.

What they did not know was that he had his Gravity Room. It could only be opened by him, and he suspected Doom, but since the despot had no reason to attack, it was a safe spot for him.

Taking a few bottles of water and some food with him, Mason set the gravity inside the chamber to 3g and closed the door behind him. Mason generally avoided food and beverages while in the room because it was very strange, and sometimes uncomfortable, to consume them under increased gravity, but since he did not know how long he would be staying, it would always be better than nothing.

Mason usually did not need as much sustenance as normal people, since he could ‘feed’ on Chi, but food was a better source of energy. Chi could sustain him, but food could feed him.

And in a period of recovery, what he needed was feeding.

So, as the portal closed behind him, Mason let gravity do its work, and dove into sleep.

As it turned out, Mason was more tired than he initially believed; for the next couple of days he flickered between sleep and consciousness, and even after that second day, he remained in deep meditation.

It was only on the third day that Mason finally recovered well enough to properly function.

The wound on his Spirit was not yet completely healed, but it was getting there. More importantly, it was his other two Treasures that had undergone changes, along with his body.

In the grand scheme of things, they had not changed that much. According to the grading Mason had made up before, with his Spirit at a value of 10, they had gone from 6 to 8.

So it was not an earth-shattering change, but it still meant he was already halfway there to the peak of the Awakening Realm. Mason did expect his progress to slow down from that point on, but to stand so close to the peak of humanity was an unprecedented feeling.

Mason knew that pride was probably his greatest sin, but very few people knew what it was to be the best ever at something. And even fewer were right about it.

And now, it was within sight for Mason. Actually, in his current state, Mason very well might be the best in the present world. The precise figures had always been rough estimations because of the secretive nature of Inner Alchemy, but Mason’s several hundred-year-old master was pretty sure less than ten people had reached that level across all of human history.

Although there existed some secrets to stretch one’s life to a few hundred years, that was nothing over the history of the human race. Unlike in Mason’s old world, where the first humans appeared 300 000 years ago, in this world the first humans appeared over a million years ago, and Mason believed there might have even been earlier ones.

The historical accounts were spotty at best, probably because of all the gods who messed with the Earth over history, but Mason distinctly remembered from his old life a storyline about the ‘First Avengers’ that took place a million years before the modern era, and in his casual research he found some papers that corroborated such an old humanity. Some others contradicted the theory, but the neat thing about his meta-knowledge was that he could tell which were right or wrong.

Of course, the practice of Internal Alchemy, or cultivation, did not start right away, but as the art of fostering lifeforce, it was also one of the first technologies to appear. Especially since it was copied from ancient beasts in the first place.

Actually, it was quite easy to place the birth of cultivation since Mason remembered that the first Iron Fist had been part of those First Avengers a million years ago.

Taking ten people who had lived at most a thousand years, which was already stretching it a little, that only amounted to a single percent of the history of cultivation.

The only reason Mason believed there might still be one alive today was that it would make sense for more of them to be concentrated over the latest portion of history. And even then, cultivation had stalled for so long that the chances were not high. At best, one of them had managed to find some form of pseudo-immortality.

But even in that case, stretching one’s life in such a way was a deeply unnatural thing to do, and would inevitably weaken one’s Three Treasures. That was why Mason could match Master Izo, who had awakened Two Treasures for hundreds of years and cultivated them to their limit, when he himself had only just barely awakened them.

So by pretty much any metric, be it fighting power, strength of the body, or potency of the Three Treasures, Mason was certain that unless an Awakening Grandmaster had arisen in the last fifty years, then he was the world’s best.

The world’s best. The sentence filled him with pride, but perhaps greed was his worst sin after all, as he never intended to stop there. For him, it would only be the beginning as he strove to push past the barrier that had stumped humanity and become a trailblazer.

---

Senator Stern sat in his office, tediously reading a new law he was supposed to help Hydra pass, forcing himself not to throw it into the trash.

Stern was not one of those fanatical cult members who blindly followed an outdated ideology. He used Hydra as much as it used him, and Stern would liken it more to a business transaction than anything else.

So while Stern disliked what he was currently doing, it was the small price he had to pay for Hydra to grant him his favor.

And speaking of which, a man Stern knew well soon entered his office. Jasper Sitwell, a man who had been blinded by Hydra’s ideology, held a powerful position within both SHIELD and Hydra.

Stern inwardly cursed the pretty secretary he had hired for her looks and skills under the table for not warning him of Sitwell’s arrival. Stern leaned forward and asked with a well-practiced fake smile, ”Is it done?”

Sitwell walked directly over to his desk, dropping a file onto it as he pointed at the law proposition, replying dryly, ”It’s done.”

His smile turning genuine, Stern opened the folder to see a warrant for the arrest of Mason Tunt, aka Solis. Stern’s smile turned into a grin as he looked at the picture of the Tunts’ son and the bounty under said photo.

But Sitwell was not done. The undercover agent added, ”You have to pass this law, Senator, or I don’t think I’ll have to tell you about the consequences. This warrant will cost us, so you better make it worth it.”

Stern put down the folder, snorting, ”Cost you? You control SHIELD; all it takes is an order.”

Sitwell stared at Stern coldly, his jaw clenching as he forced the anger back down, and he explained, ”Control SHIELD? Do you think they are as easily manipulated as the Senate? We have influence, not control. This is a big move, and it will be scrutinized by Fury. The only reason we were able to do this was because of our liaison between SHIELD and the Hand. But they’ll get him, so you’ve already cost us an expensive hidden piece.”

Stern stopped himself from rolling his eyes, convinced that Hydra was just doing this to get more from him. He said nothing because while he did not like having to pass this law, as it could bite him in the ass down the line, he was confident he would succeed since a considerable part of the Senate worked for Hydra too.

Besides, this was well worth the price. Stern did not have a feud with Mason Tunt per se, but rather with his father, who had been a pain in Stern’s ass during the Senate Hearing for Iron Man. Not only had Eric Tunt caused Stern to be humiliated on live television, but the damned lawyer had also been the main reason why he had failed his mission.

Hydra had tasked him with retrieving the Iron Man armor, and he had to pay a dire price for that failure. So Stern wanted revenge.

Tony Stark was obviously untouchable, and Eric Tunt was no easy target either. They had some connections to SHIELD, and even if they were distant, any action taken against them would be deeply investigated, so Hydra refused to touch them for Stern’s personal revenge.

But that was only without justifiable cause. Now, their idiot of a son had gone and offended people Stern himself would not even dare send a nasty look at, so all he had to do was fan the flames, and his revenge would be enacted for him.

After all, what could be worse than losing one’s child? And using criminals and the Hand that had nothing to do with Stern to do his dirty work? That was just a bonus.