Book of the Dragon

by Logan Jindrak X

"My dream has always been to become a great Kung Fu warrior. Oogway made it clear from day one that it wouldn't be easy, that I would have to face dangerous trials and the risk of death. But with all the fun times and new relationships awaiting, it's totally worth it. So GET READY TO FEEL THE THUNDA!"

2. Strange screens

Since the day he received the rice hat from Grandmaster Oogway, Po did nothing but keep his sight focused on the idea of becoming a Kung Fu master. You would think that, with such determination and motivation, Po would get enrolled into the best Kung Fu school to be taught everything there is to learn about the famous martial arts and then would go one to protect China with all this knowledge.

Well that's not what happened. At all. To Po's dismay, it turned out that in order to be accepted in a Kung Fu school, academy, or Dojo, you needed to have a certain level of academic success. When he turned fourteen and went to see if he would get accepted at the Gongmen Imperial Martial Arts Academy, overseen by none other than Master Thundering Rhino himself, the recruiters denied his entrance, informing him that his academic level wasn't high enough. A part of him also thought that his... let's say, non-athlete figure also contributed to their decision.

Po really wanted to be a Kung Fu master; he spent years studying and even exercising for it. But despite all this training, he could not change his body shape; he was still caught with his chubby stomach. His mother told him many times that it was just the way he was supposed to be, but he did see pandas with square, strong bodies before. Why couldn't he get one too? In addition, he tried to find success in school, studying harder than he ever did before. Unfortunately, determined or not, he couldn't prevent himself from struggling with math and history. Whenever trying to learn something, the young panda's mind would always drift away to Kung Fu stuff - it was automatic!

"22%?! What is that?!" Yonggan exclaimed in disbelief, holding her son's last test result in her paw. "There's no way that's for real! I'm sure there has to be a mistake somewhere in their correction system!"

"No, mom, it's a hundred percent true," Po sadly affirmed to his mother, sitting down in the living room, and letting his rice hat rest in his lap. "I barely got any right answers... I had no idea what was the third biggest city in terms of population in the east of China..."

"Oh, my Little Lotus," Yonggan sighed, pulling the piece of paper away and wrapping her arms around her son in an attempt to make him feel better. "Don't feel bad; you'll do better next time."

"... Mom, do you think I should keep trying to become a Kung Fu master?" Po asked. "I mean, it's been years since I set my sight of that goal, and I'm not even sure I'm anywhere near there. I have no success at school - the teachers told me that, at this rate, it'll take twenty years before I earn the school ship to be accepted at the Gongmen Imperial Martial Arts Academy."

"Po, just because something seems hard doesn't mean you must not try to accomplish it," the young panda's mother replied, breaking from the hug and staring into his jade-green eyes. "You know, not everything is easy in life; I'm sure Grandmaster Oogway must have failed a lot of times before creating Kung Fu. If becoming a Kung Fu master is really what you want, then keep working hard to be one - even if it takes a hundred years."

The younger panda pulled his lips up into a smile. His mother truly was the best in the world. "Thank you, mom."

###

After dinner and homework, Po decided to go outside his house and practice his Kung Fu with a makeshift dummy. While he never got the chance to practice with actual masters, Po owned a book about the basic of the discipline which he bought from a store and used it to get what little practice he could from this limited source. Better than nothing, right? He would normally train for one hour or two, go back in his room to play some video games or watch TV, then go to bed.

However, something unusual happened that night.

About half an hour into his practice, Po stopped to catch his breath. When he opened his eyes again, ready to continue, something appeared in front of him. A square standing in mid-air that looked like a notification screen from one of his video games. It read: "Quick attack level 1 has been unlocked!"

Po blinked his eyes many times. What was that thing? Did he play too much video games today? Wait a minute, he hadn't even played yet! It was probably because of all the food he ate during dinner then. Closing his eyes, Po waved his hand dismissively, and the weird window disappeared once he opened them again.

"I really need to eat a little less... Unless my past regimes caused the hallucination," the panda suggested to himself, scratching his chin with a thinking look. Anyways, it was time to stop his quick attacks and instead practice his strong ones. He pulled his fists further backwards and delivered stronger strikes against his dummy, causing it to bounce back and then hit his tummy in return. Only a few hits in did another window appear in his face once more.

"Strong attack level 1 has been unlocked!"

This time, Po shook his head in disbelief, starting to take this thing seriously. Was this really a hallucination or something wrong with his poor brain? Looking up, he took notice of a little X in the upper left corner of the window and decided to touch it with his finger. As expected, the window disappeared as it would in a computer. The young panda reached a paw to his forehead, trying to rub the tiredness out of it, and then decided to stop for the night. He played his video games for a little while before going to bed.

---

Following this strange training evening, Po thought that the tiredness was over and that those strange windows would never appear ever again. He was wrong. After waking up and eating his breakfast made with love by his mother, a window announced him that he was filled with the basics for a healthy breakfast. He didn't say anything to her by fear of making her think he was crazy.

Later on, during school, it happened again. The gods decided to be generous enough to bless Po with a history lesson about ancient Kung Fu masters. About half-way through, a window popped into his line of view, saying that he paid good attention to his lessons which earned him intelligence points. The young panda looked all around, wondering if anybody else in the classroom could see this window. Their lack of reaction made it clear that it wasn't the case.

It's only when noon strolled around that things got even weirder. Po sat alone at a table and opened his lunchbox, sighing upon seeing the fish sandwich prepared by his mother. Possibly one of his least favorites snack to have at school. "Why does she always make these? I wish I could have my word to say on the..." Po marked a pause, having a slight blank in his mind, before remembering what he wanted to say. "Menu."

Another screen appeared in Po's face. However, this one did not display a message, but a range of tabs that actually looked like the pause menu of a video game. Going from the upper to the lower part, these tabs included: status, attributes, skills, techniques and inventory.

"... Okay, I really must be dreaming now," Po convinced himself. He reached to his cheek and pinched himself to test his theory, proving himself wrong as the pain was a hundred percent real. Okay, but if this wasn't a dream, then why did he start seeing screens popping up all the time all of a sudden? That didn't make any sense at all!

Unless...? When reading about Kung Fu, Po learned that masters did not rely only on their awesome physical skills, but also on a mystical power known as Chi. While he didn't completely remember the endless explanation in the history books, what he did manage to understand was that Chi was a mysterious energy flowing through every living beings with some animals getting cool powers from it. According to Grandmaster Oogway, Chi could manifest itself under almost any form from one animal to another. Some animals might receive elemental powers from Chi - good examples being Master Thundering Rhino and Master Raging River - while others received unexpected and never seen before powers...

"Is this my... Chi power?" the young panda immediately asked himself. Curiosity getting too strong, he decided to reach a paw forward and touched the 'status' tab, making a new window appear.

-Name: Po

-Other names: Little Lotus

-Species: Giant panda

-Gender: Male

-Age: 23

-Height: 6'2"

-Weight: 260 lbs.

-Fur color: Black, white and brown

-Eye color: Green

Excitation started rising up inside Po like lava inside a volcano. He was going to go back and check the other tabs of this window when he took notice of a female croc passing by and staring at him with a confused expression. "Huh, is everything okay, Po? Why are you staring before you and wiggling your fingers all around?"

"Oh, hum... For... nothing, no problem. I just saw some bits of dust flying by and I waved it away, he, he," he chuckled nervously, trying to find a good excuse. Not wanting to look like a fool in the middle of the cafeteria, he closed the window by taping the X and resumed eating.

---

Once school ended, Po rushed home, locking himself in his bedroom, and then said "Menu!" to make the screen appear once again. His mother was out to make some groceries at this hour, so he should be okay for now. Po discovered that the status menu was displaying his general information, which was pretty useless unless he suffered from amnesia or could somehow find a way to make other animals see these screens.

The next tab he checked was the attributes one. It displayed the following information:

-Strength: 10

-Constitution: 14

-Dexterity: 13

-Intelligence: 8

-Wisdom: 14

-Charisma: 9

Okay, it really started looking like a game of D&D. Those were probably the same kind of attributes that he could upgrade with time by training and gaining evolution points. That's how it looked to him anyways. It was time to check the skills menu which displayed the skills he currently knew alongside their level. These included:

-Quick attack lvl. 1

-Strong attack lvl.1

-Cooking lvl. 12

-Gaming skills lvl. 13

-History knowledge lvl. 2

-Basic Noodle Soup Recipe lvl. 10 (max)

-Spicy Noodle Soup Recipe lvl. 10 (max)

-Lemongrass Noodle Soup Recipe lvl. 10 (max)

-Watermelon and Corn Noodle Soup Recipe lvl. 10 (max)

-Curry and Sweet Potato Noodle Soup Recipe lvl. 10 (max)

-Steamed Dumplings Recipe lvl. 10 (max)

-Cheese Dumplings Recipe lvl. 10 (max)

-Red Bean Buns Recipe lvl. 10 (max)

After being done with the skills, Po moved on to the techniques section... which was empty. Guess it was because he hadn't learned any technique yet. Not seeing anything else to do, he switched to the inventory... which was also empty. However, there was eight item slots that looked exactly like those in an RPG. Deciding to take a shot, Blu went in the kitchen to take a little apple juice box from the fridge. While holding it in his paw, a little notice window appeared over the item reading: "pull in inventory?" Po reached his free paw to click on the window, causing the juice box to disappear into thin air. He found it upon checking his inventory and seeing it occupying one of the eight slots.

Po left his home and went to hit his training dummy, trying to figure out how he could get his skills to grow in level. If it really was the same way as in video games, then his guess was that he had to use it to make it grow. After giving many quick attacks to his dummy, Po opened his menu and went to check his skills. Surely enough, a little blue bar appeared underneath the quick attack slot and kept growing the more he hit the training dummy. Before long, a notice screen announced: "Quick attack passed to level 2!"

"So this is my Chi power? This is so AWESOME!" Po beamed, dancing in the living room. The sound of the entrance door opening and then closing immediately afterwards brought him the desire to share the news at the very moment. "Mom! Mom! I have great news!"

"Funny coincidence; so do I!" Yonggan announced, pulling all the groceries on the kitchen's counter.

"Really? What is it?"

"It's... No, you go first!"

"No, you!"

"Come on, Po!"

"I insist, mom! Tell me what you have to tell!"

"Alright, alright," Yonggan finally gave up, agreeing to tell her son first. "Po, my Little Lotus, I had a very special customer at the shop today. He's apparently a special officer of the Imperial Army who's charged to overlook and take information on everything Kung Fu-related in China. We chatted a bit and, of course, I told him about your love for Kung Fu. Oh, Po, this is wonderful!"

"What? What did this guy told you?" Po asked, eager to hear the next part.

"Po, there's apparently one place in China that accepts to train anybody in Kung Fu without any level of academic knowledge!" Yonggan smiled, seeing her son's eyes widening. She continued on before he could explode. "This place is called the 'Jade Palace' and it's located in the Valley of Peace."

Po blinked his eyes multiple times. "... Wait, wait, wait a minute. Did you say the Jade Palace? As in: the Jade Palace, built by Grandmaster Oogway himself, in the place where he created Kung Fu?" Yonggan nodded her head. "The Jade Palace, led by Grandmaster Oogway in person?" Second nod. "The Jade Palace, home of Master Shifu and the Furious Five, my favorite Kung Fu team?" Third and final nod.

That was it, Po could no longer contain himself and exploded.

He jumped so high that he almost touched the ceiling. "THAT'S SO AWESOME! IF I COULD GET ACCEPTED AT THE JADE PALACE, I'D GET NOT ONLY TO TRAIN WITH THE BEST, BUT I'D EVEN HAVE THE CHANCE TO MEET SOME OF MY IDOLS! AND BECOME FRIENDS WITH THEM!" Po rushed to his mom and took her paws in his. "Since Oogway's familiar with me, it's almost sure that he'd accept me there! You realize, mom?! We finally found the place for me to learn Kung Fu!"

Seeing her son beaming and jumping all around in joy, Yonggan couldn't resist the desire to pull her lips into a smile. It almost made her feel bad to bring up the next part of the news. "Yeah, son. The only problem is that the one taking charge of the newcomers' training is Master Shifu. Apparently, he's a very strict and hard master; most people wanting to start Kung Fu are afraid to get him as their teacher."

Po's train of happiness came to a stop. He did know about Master Shifu through his many, many years of studying Kung Fu with books. Thus, he knew Master Shifu's reputation of being harsh when it came to teaching discipline. Apparently, it was because of this harshness that he got welcomed on the Kung Fu Council... which somehow made Po feel even more eager to get him as his master.

"It's okay, mom," Po assured with taking his mother's paws in his. "I don't mind if my master is a little bit harsh. It's my dream! And I'll even get the chance to meet my heroes! Besides, I know that I'm ready for Kung Fu right now. Wanna know why?"

"Why?"

"Because I discovered my Chi power today!"

Author's note: Not a very fast-paced chapter, but you know that the best stories always have a soft beginning ;)

Chi is gonna play a big role in this world - kinda as does the Force in Star Wars. I know it's a concept that only got introduced in the third movie, but it has so much potential that I decided to make it important from the get go here. My friend TheDragonSaver and myself used to portray Chi as a major player in the power levels of our stories not so long ago... and I'm still doing it!

Po's Chi power is like that of a video game's experience system. I really want this story to be unique and, to do so, Po, the main character, needs to have a unique power too. When thinking about it, I happened to read a story named "My Hero Playthrough" by Xavon Wrentaile, which is where I told myself: "Why wouldn't I give Po powers based on a video game? Nobody ever did that in a KFP fanfic before!"

Constructive reviews are welcome and, as always, may the gods watch over you all :)