Four months later.

Supper's injuries had healed considerably. Now she and her brother went to Karin Village to learn martial arts under the tutelage of Upa. He was there to meet them when they arrived, together with the rest of the villagers. Among them was a fat man with a moustache and wearing different clothes from the others. The other was a huge brown cat with a walking stick taller than himself. Upa introduced them to the twins.

"Tea and Supper, this is Yajirobei," he introduced the fat man, "and this is Karin-sama," he introduced the cat. "Apart from myself, they will also train you in martial arts."

The twins said their hellos and introduced themselves. Upa had their rooms ready and let them settle down. They were to live in his house, where he had been living alone for the past ten years. "Your training starts tomorrow morning. Have a good rest, you'll need all your energy for tomorrow. Good night," he said to them, before going to bed.

At four in the morning, the twins were woken from their sleep. "Wake up!" Upa said. "Training starts."

"What?" Tea asked sleepily. "It's still dark out. It's barely four," he complained, checking his clock. In her room, Supper was still snoring, completely ignoring Upa's wake-up call. "Wake up now, or else." Upa warned them before going out. "I'll be waiting outside."

For their stubbornness and their slowness in waking up, they were splashed with cold water in their beds. A few minutes later they stood outside facing Upa, and shivering in the cold. "Sorry." Supper mumbled. "Yeah," Tea agreed. He sneezed. "But don't pour cold water on us like that again. I was dreaming.. ah..ah.. achoo!" he sneezed again.

"Quiet." Upa silenced them. "If you want to be better than TaoPaiPai then you better discipline yourselves, starting from today." He lectured them. "Now", he continued, "Your training starts. Follow me."

He took them to a stone tower which stood at the centre of the village. "Start by climbing this tower, and down again. And don't try to cheat. Karin-sama is waiting at the top."

Two and a half hours later, the twins were back down again, panting and sweating despite the cool morning breeze. The first cock crowed, and the sun had just begun to rise. Upa was at the foot of the tower, waiting for them. "The tower you just climbed is called Karin Tower," he told them. "Later it will become your main training ground. For now you will have to build your strength first."

"But there's nothing up there." Tea interrupted.

"No, there isn't," Upa agreed. "It was destroyed when the cyborgs attacked this village ten years ago. What you just climbed is just a tenth of the original height." Tea and Supper listened open-mouthed. This means if the original tower was still standing, they'll have to climb ten times the height they just climbed, and that was tiring enough. "That climb was the warm-up exercise," Upa continued. "Now the real exercise begins."

He took them for a run, away from the village and into the forest. Along the way, they also did other exercises such as running, jumping, and evading the various pitfalls of the forest (jutting roots, wild animals etc.), and swimming through rivers while balancing bottles of milk. Thay are to progress to carrying larger and larger jugs of water as time passes by. For this morning however, they struggled to keep the milk from pilling. Finally they stopped at the foot of a mountain, which seemed to have been turned into a quarry. Upa let them rest while they drink their milk, or what's left of it. Then he pointed to a chunk of rock which had been chiselled to shape like a huge cylindrical block. "Now, your task is to produce similar chunks of rocks and carry them to the village. Next, you will carry them up the tower to build your training ground."

Tea and Supper stared at him incredulously. "You're kidding, right?" "No, I'm not," Upa said seriously. "Now begin."

So Tea and Supper began their training. Time passed by. Karin Tower was now higher though still not complete, and the twins have grown stronger and more disciplined. Upa was pleased with the progress of his students. It won't be long till they will be strong enough to learn chi techniques. These two had a lot of potential. He was sure that one day, they will surpass him, but for now they still had much to learn.

Chapter 20
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