As Honoka woke up, her everything hurt in that annoying way similar to catching a particularly vicious cold. Her body felt hot and cold at the same time and her joints hurt, her chest felt tight and she felt difficulty in breathing.

"Fuuu… haaa…"

She turned her head to the sound of a familiar voice, her sunsengnim sitting cross legged on the ground and sweating profusely, and for once he wasn't smoking while outside class.

"Sunsengnim?" Honoka tried tiredly, catching her teacher's attention with a nod but otherwise he didn't moved from his position.

"You gave us quite a scare", came another voice on the other side of the bed and she saw the nurse sitting on a nearby chair. "Do you know how lucky you are we found you while you were still conscious? If we were late even a minute you would have been dead by now."

"Sorry for eating all that dango", Honoka finally answered after a few moments of silence.

Shiho sighed before shaking her head. "No, I'm the one who's supposed to be apologising. I left a dangerous medicine on the same table as the sweets and from what I saw it probably had rolled right in front of the food. If anything, it's my fault you're in this state."

Honoka didn't said anything, confused about her words. Didn't she just got sick from overeating sweets?

"That aside, we must discuss your future right now." The nurse continued just as her sunsengnim stood up and got a nearby towel to wipe himself. "Because as of right now you will be deep into the world of Murin."

"Am I now, really?" Asked Honoka with a elated tone that disturbed the school nurse, who promptly looked at Chun-Woo Han.

"What the hell have you done to this kid?" She said in a disbelieving tone at the Nine Arts Dragon.

He for his part was utterly unflappable. "Don't look at me, the kid's messed up. Then again, after what happened it's understandable she snapped under pressure."

"You need to tell me more about that. I didn't get the full story from the higher ups when I came here."

"She is right here, you know?" Interrupted Honoka a bit annoyed by how they talked over her.

"Right, sorry about that", Shiho wasn't quite sheepish when she answered but it was a close thing, something Honoka took as a small win. "It's better if you sunsengnim explain to you how it's going to work."

"Basically", he said while taking a cigar, but at a dirty look directed from Shiho made him reconsider and pocket it for now, "I need to [I]formally[/I] introduce you as my apprentice. The type of spirit medicine you ate is normally extremely powerful, forcing your body to generate tremendous amount of ki from your body, and requires an advanced understanding of proper breathing techniques to steady the flow of ki, meaning only advanced students or near masters should take this medicine."

He sat on another chair near Honoka's bed, continuing his explaining. "The difference with the spirit medicine you [I]actually[/I] ate is several orders of magnitude stronger than that, not counting the fact that your younger body demands a much more through ki flow technique in order to steady its newly improved ki production. Only one of them would demand you to be immediately taught some of the strongest ki flow techniques in existence, but both of them at once demands nothing less than the absolute best."

At his next words he leans forward to look at Honoka directly in the eyes. "Meaning that you need to be taught directly my school of martial arts, the Black Heaven and Earth school and it's secrets. You should feel grateful that your sunsengnim isn't the heartless bastard some make him out to be. If I were it would be all too easy to slip past this school and let your cooling carcass rot on the ground."

"I already knew you weren't a heartless bastard", Honoka answered promptly earning a surprised look from both of the adults in the room. "You saved me when you had nothing to gain, and you did so on reflex since I was this close from dying. At the very least, you can't be evil."

Shiho looked between the two other room occupants trying to divine what the hell they were talking about, when Chun-Woo Han sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Anyway I will need to skip a few steps and start teaching you the advanced stuff immediately, otherwise the production of ki in your body will break down the cells of your body causing catastrophic morphologic destruction."

Honoka looked at her sunsengnim for a moment before looking at the other adult in the room. "What?"

"It means you will literally explode with all the energy inside you." Shiho helpfully supplied the young girl.

"Oh." The young girl said, letting the words finally sink in. "Does that means I get to learn all the cool stuff you do sunsengnim?"

Once more Shiho looked up with a disbelieving look at Chun-Woo Han, who once more sighed and was tempted to go after his cigar anyway.

"Like I said, she completely snapped", he finally said sounding a lot more tired than he already was.

"There's something else you have to take into account Honoka", said Shiho trying to ignore that for now, "you can't tell your parents and family about what you are learning, or about the world of Murin. If word gets out that you are the official disciple of the Nine Arts Dragon, literally people all over the world would come after you, either to use you as leverage against him or to try and extract his secrets through you."

This time Honoka hesitated for a few moments before nodding. "Alright. I was asked not to tell them about sunsengnim training anyway and I held my promise. I'm not going to babble now that things gotten more serious."

Shiho looked at Chun-Woo Han yet again, and he simply muttered 'snapped' as if that answered all questions regarding the girl.

Perhaps it did.