5 years later...

Planet B was made up of roughly 1000 densely populated levels. All built on top of each other. The higher the level. The richer, more successful and more powerful.

Each level was supposedly independent of each other, that was the official, legal fiction. But in reality they were all controlled by different factions. The top hundred were controlled by the top families, trading companies, conglomerates, sovereign individuals, crime families, nomadic families, priests and alien who controlled most of the galaxy. It was like reading a who's who of the Forbes-Galactic list.

The 400's which Jian lived was controlled by a corporate mercenary clan, Kingston-Bentzen Services Global(KBSG). Within their capital city, Kingston-Bentzen City, stood their headquarters, KB Martial House (KBMH). It was located at the center of the city. It was a sprawling compound decorated to resemble an ancient Chinese feudal compound.

KBSG was legit though. They had a six thousand year history and heritage. They had been providing security for the rich and powerful and they had been rewarded well for it.

KBMH also had the distinction of being the only martial house setup by them on Planet B.

It was the dream of any of the street kids, regular kids, bipedal beings and martial artists. The level of skills, cyberware and martial-arts masters were the best on planet.

The demand was insane. Therefore the entrance examinations for the aspring was harsh. The odds were low for almost any to enter. Almost 1 in 1 billion.

In an abandoned factory in a VR field. The sensors that were tracking his movement floating around him. It was incredibly hot, the portion of the planet he was on having rotated onto is year-long summer axis.

In front of a virtual tree with virtual cheers ringing in his ears he tthre punch after punch.

Ding.

Ding.

The virtual feedback from the VR field echoed through the factory. It was precise and measured. He had been punching into the air for so long there was a pool of sweat surrounding him.

The boy was Jian Ru. He had an exceptional talent for martial arts and not much else. He was naturally a level 3 talent.

It was a tradgedy. B was a trading planet after all. Everybody on planet was involved in some kind of hustle. Legitimate or illegitimate. All he could do was fight. And fight he had to.

On planet B all that mattered was strength. If you weren't strong, you were prey. The planet was a place filled with people who would love to rip your arm off and eat it, as a delicacy.

Jian was shirtless. He was tall for sixteen, being 6'2. He was slender but well built. He was lightly tanned. His hair was striped in gold and black patches, like a tigers pattern. He wore a plan black and mostly patched jumpsuit which he had rolled the top down on. He had one ear pierced. A gold mandala hanging off that earlobe. His eyes were a brownish gold and they stared sharply at the floating hologram, paying attention to the feedback.

On planet B, 50% of the inhabitants, citizen or not had no martial talents to speak of. That was good enough though, considering all of the hardware that people were packing. Especially on the lower levels.

But above a certain point the skill of the user mattered. Of the 50% who had some kind of martial skill 40% would never get past being a level 1 talent. Only the remaining 10% they had the chance to walk further down the path of martial arts.

On the road to martial arts, they would barely begin to talk the path. They would always be in the realm of the path walker.

The culture of cultivation of martial arts had settled down into four pathways in the known galaxies.

The first path was the internal way. The way of the thinkers. The Empaths, the soul manipulators, the mind readers and the buddhist way. They cultivated an internal path and through the cultivation of internal energy ascended to higher and higher levels. You needed to have the mindset or the wiring for it. Jian never had it.

The second was the path of the channellers. They took the energy from the outside world and channeled it through themselves into different forms of power. He had tested earlier and had failed. He didn't have the internal circuitry necessary.

The third were the eaters. The demonic beings who were the current enemies of all the known universe. You could strike a bargain with them in exchange for power.

The final path, were for those without the natural gifts or the will to sell their souls. The cybernetic path. Augment yourself and your body to immortality.

They were the gene-hackers who built perfect god-like bodies but who died early. Then there were those who threw away their humanity and became machines. Or escaped permanently to the net. Augment the body. Escape the body.

Or the middle path. Augment the body continuously. Maybe he would luck out and forage some parts somewhere that would take him beyond being human. But without losing the humanity.

To become a god-like being with cyberpunk hardware.

To start down that road he would need to join up with a corporation. KBSG. But the problem with them is that they drove a faustian bargain.

Unlimited wealth and power. But they owned you mind, body and soul. Literally.

If you died. They would have one of their corporate-monks enter the cycle of reincarnation and pull you out to fulfil your obligation in a new body.

Once you signed. You were trapped forever.

But it was his only way out. So he set his sights on KBSG and KB Martial House.

For a civilian his level 3 talent was an extreme existence. He was almost impervious to most laser weaponry, and was as strong and as fast as a mid-level cyborg un-augmented. Even with this level of talent it would be almost impossible for him to enter KB Martial house.

Being aware of his limitations he had set his target on a second tier house Tova-Financial Martial House.

Tova-Financial was a subsidiary of KB Martial House and KBSG. Some former employees of KBSG had finished their contracts and had setup a second martial house. It was too new a school though. It was only two-hundred years old. With two-hundred years of skills, technical development and a faoundation, the level it had reached was limited.

Techincal skills and skills in general were crucial for cybernetic-martial artists. Without the right level of technical skills they couldn't build parts powerful enough to augment them correctly. Without technical skills, the level of martial skills that could be embedded would not be of a high enough level.

The goal of augmenting your body past the Path Walker realm would be impossible without those two sets of skills.

The Path Walker realm was essentially the first level of martial cultivation. It was a dream for all martial artists. No matter which of the four paths that they used to get there. It was a crucial time. It built the foundations for-what would happen beyond.

Getting a half-step into the realm promised a several thousand year lifespan. Getting off-world guaranteed employment or contract work on any planet. Fully achieving the Path Walker realm made you almost immortal.

It was a ticket off world. It would let you look after your family or friends. It promised respect.

It was here that there was a big difference between a second tier martial house and a first tier martial house.

The feeder system for people, the finances, the level of training were just so much better in a first tier martial house that you were almost guaranteed to at least get to that half-step realm.

Jian yearned for that level of power. It was only natural. The fucked up world of planet B taught cruel lessons about the nature of power and its necessity. Otherwise you would suffer.

The chances were still pretty low with his level of talent. Furthermore if he failed, he would have wasted a year as they only did the entrance exam once a year. He would have to work hard and rely on his persistence and perseverance.

The time he would lose would be painful if he didn't get in. The early years mattered a lot for martial artists.

It was also a part of a bittersweet promise that he had made to his former sweetheart Anita Kovačić-Li.

They had spent years running the streets together. Even though they were young, it had felt as if they were destined to be together forever.

Reality had been cruel though. Her identity had been exposed and she was forced to leave. She was the scion of Li family. Part owners of one of the largest tech companies Seva-Li Advanced Technology.

Her marriage and her future had been arranged and contracts had been signed before she had been gestated.

He had only learned after his testing into Tova-Financial. It had turned out she had been betrothed to another poweful figure. Huan Tao of the Tao Family of the TaoSys Unlimited Corporation.

Their betrothal was meant to be a sign of a bright future. These two powerful mid-tier corporations would unite at this betrothal and become a large enough conglomorate to perhaps even challenge Kingston-Bentzen Services Global.

He was the young overlord of this future merger. A big figure. He was handsome, rich and well connected.

Well connected enough that he and his family had managed to get her directly into Kingston-Bentzen Martial House directly.

It was a crushing blow.

But he understood the realities. For the Tao Family, she was an excellent fit. She had been genetically engineered from birth to maximise her martial talents. And martial talents were key to corporate success. Corporate life was very violent after all.

The odds of two genetically engineered beings producing a powerful martial artist were much higher than allowing some random unknown to do so.

A martial genius was enough to establish an unending reign of power. Look at Kingston-Bentzen after all. The power couple still dominated the lower levels thousands of years and they were still alive.

She was also a beauty.

For Anita the chances in KB Martial House were too much to pass up.

99% of women on Planet B would not give that chance up.

Despite all of the rationalisations to himself. He had disappeared into long forgotten corners of the net for weeks after hearing the news.

The breakup only hardened his resolve. Toughened his heart and crystallised his focus.

He would chase martial arts.

He would try to get into KB Martial House.

Ding.

Ding.

The continued sounds of his fist hitting the impact zone echoed through the empty factory.

The program that he was using was one of the toughest. It was also very old. He had found it while he lost on his heartbroken ramble through the nest.

It was titled simply BruceLee's Punching Adventure. It was an ancient long forgotten game from some martial arts master, but it was a lot better than the basic programs that most of the people would be using to attempt the entrance exam.

After throwing thousands of punches, he tired himself out and went to sit on a crate next to his supplies. He pulled out a clear glass vial with a glowing blue liquid, opened it and swallowed it down.

He grimaced. It was incredibly bitter. It was a SynthPotion that he had used. It was almost a necessity at this point. Synthetic drugs were pretty common on the streets of planet B. Many are experimental chemicals sold by ruthless corporations as experiments. Some were home-brewed with horrific side effects. Others were military-brewed surplus, both good and bad.

He felt in burn through his veins and saw his veins glow bright blue, illuminating his body before the light vanished.

The potion that he was using was a military surplus health synthPotion. It was called cactusJuice because it both tasted like cactus and the user felt as if their veins were being scraped by a catcus.

There were much better potions with much milder effects, but Jian was too poor. This was all he could afford.

Jian had lived with a crew of netrunners and fixers for most of his childhood. He had been small, precocious and fast, so he had been useful. He had also been lucky to work with a good crew who had taken on quite a few big jobs and had survived.

That was where he had acquired his meagre savings. The savings had been enough for him to subsist on for a few years if he did nothing but live and surf the net, but the training was quickly burning through his reserves.

It was expensive.

He had also been stuck at the first level for a long time. The Path Walking stage involved building up your body and was divided into 10 stages.

The first was Strength Reinforcement. Second was Muscular Reinforcement. Third was Skeletal Reinforcement. Fourth was Nervous System Reinforcement. Fifth was Circulation System Renforcement. Sixth was Respiratory Reinforcement. Seventh was Organ reinforcement. Eighth was Reaction Reinforcement. Ninth was Sense Reinforcement. Tenth and final was Energy reinforcement.

Then one would be able to step onto the second state. The realm of the Path Knight.

He was about to start training again when he was interrupted by a giant figure than lumbered into view. The giant figure was even taller than he was and almost wider than he was tall. A mixture of fat and muscle.

It was his best friend Willis.

"Bro," said the big youth with a smile. "Why are you still training? Did you forget that today was the entrance exam day to KB Martial House?"

The two had been friends for years. Ever since a disastrous mission in which they had been on opposing sides.

Willis' family had also been quite good to Jian when they had been still around. They had practically adopted Jian as a son. They had been good people actually. Before a hostile takeover had forced them into prison. And Jian was left looking after Willis.

"The line's gonna take forever," said Jian. "Going there now would be a waste of time."

"Damn Bro, you won't even give up this tiny big of time. You're that obsessed aye?"

He walked up to the floating targets and looked at the excessively large tallies next to them. He turned at looked at Jian and sighed in sadness.

"You're crazy bro." Willis said. "But this won't be enough. You know how far people go rewiring themselves just to pass the exam-"

Jian cut him off "But that's as far as they'll ever get. Just passing the exam. Wired forever at that setting."

Jian looked at Willis' sad expression. The path to cultivation was long and risky. Considering the level of talent he had. He would have to give everything he had to ascend to the limits of the Path Walker realm.

There was also the risk he ran of becoming a cripple. A glitch from a small mistake somewhere. A bad SynthPotion. A flaw in his training protocol. There was also the risk of him succeeding and getting to the tenth level of the Path Walker realm and his body regenerating or parts being replaced and this no longer being a worry.

It was risky. This was his only way out though.

He was putting everything on the line. The greatest risk was not to risk it all after all.