Douluo Dalu: 1st Cycle: Dancing Panda

Whether it be Siduo or Karni, neither of them expected to see this particular face here. This was the person who helped them establish the bet. Is it even okay for them to learn from him? Wouldn't it be cheating?

"To think that you two are my future students, now, isn't this a conundrum?" The man laughed to himself.

"Dad… Is the vice-headmaster our Mecha Engineering teacher?" Siduo was still in a state of disbelief.

The dad laughed heartily, noticing that there's something going on here. "But of course. Not only is he your teacher, he is also your dad's good friend."

He found the children's reactions amusing. "What are you waiting for? You two, accept your teacher."

Siduo finally shook away her slight confusion and went in front of the teacher. She kowtowed towards him as she said seriously. "Siduo greets her Teacher."

Karni followed suit, but when he saw her kowtow an awkward expression appeared on his face. This… He couldn't do that. What he experienced just now would be this little thing called culture shock.

He came from quite an easy going culture. Respect for your teachers and elders was a given, but not in such a way. His culture would perhaps find this even laughable and exaggerated. Heck they would even find the Japanese way of bowing

to be absurd. Sincerity came from one's actions in his culture, not these sort of preconceived moves.

He understood of course, that what Siduo did was sincere, this was a part of this world of course, this was the best way to show one's sincerity. In this place, it was all one and the same. You weren't sincere without genuinely doing such movements.

But would him imitating that be sincere? No. He would actually consider it as showing disrespect to his future teacher.

He wouldn't be capable of showing sincerity, he would know that this would only be showmanship, even if only in his head. He might be embarrassed by accident as well, just what would that say to his future teacher?

"Foolish boy, what are you doing not showing your respect?" Wu Jianguo got a bit angry at this moment. Karni has been standing there looking a bit foolish for quite a few seconds now.

In his awkwardness of being called out, Karni panicked slightly and as is the custom from his home, he bowed slightly with his hands at the lower abdomen. Anything more would be seen for what it is back home, exaggeration. "K- Karni greets his Teacher."

Ah great. He just had to bite his tongue on top of all things.

Wu Jianguo facepalmed, he was both angry and embarrassed, it was the first time seeing something like this. He knew the boy isn't from here, they even got him a teacher to get him used to here. But getting such a teacher won't rewrite one's own ingrained culture.

Thankfully, Jianguo liked this honest boy. He didn't know what the boy was thinking to act this way. He was about to apologise, but was interrupted.

In a giggling manner the middle aged man answered. "And I accept you as my students." He wasn't angry? This was something that would be disrespectful in this foreign culture. Even Karni knew that.

Wu Jianguo was surprised as well, he expected his friend to forgive the kid, since he was quite easy going, but he should've at least given a small reminder.

"Val Karni correct? Oh right, you introduced yourself as Karni Val. You can explain to me later why you introduced yourself this way, in full, I won't take it against you." He gave Karni a kind and knowing smile, he knew more than he was letting on, and he was silently informing Karni of this.

Even when he said Karni Val, it didn't sound condescending, nor as if he would be making fun of him, it was a sound of remembering the facts as they were. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Vice Headmaster took Karni and Siduo to a private room. Whatever they discussed shall be between Master and Disciples.

"First of all, let me properly introduce myself. My name is Mo Qing, you can refer to me as Teacher, Master, Teacher Mo, whichever the two of you prefer."

Karni and Siduo almost simultaneously answered. "Teacher." While they appeared very focused.

"No need to be so on edge you two, we will be seeing each other a lot from now on, so please relax." Mo Qing wasn't too good with formal stuff, so he wanted his students to relax as well.

"For today, why don't the two of you explain to me your plan. I've heard some things from Jianguo, but he told me that the rest is a surprise, so that I don't get spoiled. I must say, I'm not too good at keeping myself in check in terms of curiosity, so I'm quite eager to hear what you two have to say." A wry smile appeared.

"As for you Karni, I would like to hear your story. We've done a background check on you in the academy, as we do for all students, and you're almost a ghost; like you were never even born. I do think I deserve some sort of explanation. Seeing as I am your teacher now." He gave Karni a raised eyebrow.

Karni coughed a little, before he tried to explain. "I don't know why there's no record of me… But what I can tell you is that I come from very far away, though I don't know where this is correlated to this continent… And… I also want to find my way back there… And… umm…"

Mo Qing interrupted him. "There's no rush, take it slow, take your time to think about what you want to say." He wasn't about to pressure a seven year old child, who was clearly uncomfortable talking about this.

"Yes, thank you, teacher." Karni said and went quiet for a good solid minute.

As Mo Qing was about to say that they should move on, Karni was faster.

"I don't know how I got here, I simply woke up in the forest one day. The path led me to Green Tiger City, where I got awakened and then went to Star Luo City with Teacher Yi Lan." He paused, taking a breath.

"What I do remember from my home is that our culture is vastly different, to the point that I'm still getting used to many things that you consider 'normal'. It is why I didn't kowtow, as we don't do that. We express our respect very differently, mostly through context and way of speaking."

He continued to describe some differences between the cultures and tried not to sound like he was making excuses, with unknown success. Mo Qing simply nodded along for what he had to say.

"I'm impressed you are so perceptive about our cultural differences at such a young age. That is good. Now, onto our second topic. Please explain your plan." Karni could only be glad that there was a simple comment and no further questioning.

Siduo began explaining the plan about their dual training, and how one could focus on designing and another on manufacturing. Karni took over every once in a while to give his thoughts on how they would exchange information and why they didn't wish to both be Mecha Mechanics.

When saying they don't want to primarily be Mecha Mechanics, they both paused for a second. "No offence", which Mo Qing found quite amusing.

More than anything however, he was impressed with the minds of these two children. It's not like they discovered something revolutionary, and there were some downsides, where they could become too dependent on one another, but this was something that only those who were already integrated into Mecha Engineering thought of.

He was genuinely impressed. "Good, good. I like this plan of yours. I will help you wholeheartedly, however I will add a limitation."

They got a bit nervous when he said that.

"I will only teach Karni Designing and Siduo Making, for the dual progression you want, you should rely on each other. I will only take care that you two don't become too reliant on the other's knowledge." You could tell that there was no room for negotiation in his voice.

Karni and Siduo looked at each other. This would definitely slow down their growth in the secondary profession, but it should solidify their main one. But could they really become non reliant on each other in such a teaching space?

"Still not convinced eh? That's fine. I suppose, since you two are now officially my disciples, I should be truthful as well. I am not a 7-Star Mecha Mechanic, but an 8-star one. I recently broke through."

Now they were speechless. Their teacher was an 8-star Mechanic. They really did hit a jackpot. Their doubts immediately vanished. Though there should've been none to begin with.

They both approved of everything.

"What reasonable kids. Alright there is one last thing I must inform you two about." His voice suddenly became serious.

"Do not ask me questions about the school class, I will not help with your bet whatsoever."

"Ah!" They forgot about that…

… … …

With their new teacher the days passed by. The second day the teacher brought them some designs of multiple mechatronics and some unfinished soul tools and left them to figure it out themselves.

His approach was very hands off. He gave them a few important points that they should consider and then let their hard work speak for itself.

The first designs were very basic. It only started with designing the outer layer and in Siduo's case, making an outer layer of a soul tool. They first had to become proficient in the actions of designing and manufacturing itself.

The other part was learning to design soul arrays and learning to make soul arrays. This was the only part where Teacher Mo was more hands on.

He needed to explain how certain parts work and how to connect them. Both Siduo and Karni figured out the basics very quickly, their comprehensive talent was quite high and it only took about a month before both of them could be considered a true 1-star Mecha Designer and Mecha Maker.

From here on out Mo Qing changed his style. For Siduo he brought her some already finished designs of arrays and told her to put it onto different shapes, whether those were oval, corners of various shapes, ones covering multiple corners and so on. She had to learn how to apply it to every surface. In a similar way, there were different materials. Iron, plastic, stone, even wood. Each of them required different levels of delicacy.

On the other hand, Karni was given similar shapes and had to figure out how to design the array on that particular body so that it would be most efficient. Siduo could apply it any way she wanted, but there did exist an optimal way. It was Karni's job to understand why and how that worked. If used well, the shape might even boost the array itself, it was just about reinforcing the right lines.

About two months into this practice, Karni got a particularly hard 'T' shaped metal body of a soul tool. On it, he had to put a circular soul array so that it would fit.

He found out that arrays could also work with a special perspective, it was only by bending it in weird ways that one could fit a circular array onto a 'T' shaped body. Do it right, and the body will even compliment the array.

This was something that Mo Qing was going to tell Karni when Karni would struggle too hard, but the boy figured out perspectives all on his own. The only thing Mo Qing could add was that in the future he should be careful as those kinds of arrays usually break more easily, and, if possible, to always design a body that fits an array.

From that day on Karni noticed a change in the blueprints he had to analyse, he didn't yet know, but those blueprints were Mo Qing's original creations. This came as a bonus of being his direct disciple.

To have an open enough mind to think about bending the perspective of an array was very rare, especially so little into the profession. This mostly came as a bonus of him being reincarnated.

There was a thing Karni didn't notice. There was already a particular style to his designs, even ones he recreated from his teacher's own had a small difference. He drew his designs in a special tapping rhythm.

Whenever Siduo got his designs to create a soul tool, she noticed that his designs were incredibly easy to read, like it was shown how she should move based on the strokes of the pen. It was more of a mental effect than anything else.

As the time passed, Siduo broke into her 20th level and got a second soul ring. From that point on, she started using her martial soul when carving out the bodies and soul arrays of soul tools, much to Mo Qing's pleasure.

The use of one's martial soul in carving always gave those carving their own special characteristics. While her martial soul wasn't yet developed enough to fully integrate her martial soul into the designs it was well underway.

Days went by very fast in such an environment. Cultivating by night and designing by day. Everything in between was used for sparring when there wasn't school. Before they knew it, half a year had gone by.

Karni was in his room, trying to solve a particular hard design puzzle that the teacher gave him. He found himself enjoying designing far more than he thought he would. Sometimes, instead of cultivating, he would stretch his time into designing. Only after he developed fatigue would he continue the cultivation. Because of that, after half a year he was still at the bottleneck of 20th level.

This time, he was given a design that he had to make as efficient as it can be without any other specifications. An interesting thing of note is that of all the tools that were usually available while designing, he was simply using the special pencil that Mecha Designers use. He didn't even use simpler helping tools like rulers, geo triangles, compasses and other geometric accessories. He was essentially doing everything with free hand. How? It was the weird rhythm.

When he tried to draw once late at night he forgot his accessories and didn't want to wake anybody up. Hence he attempted to draw with free hand. Weirdly enough depending on his tapping rhythm, his curves could be as smooth as he wanted. It did however take a month of practice before he could consistently do it.

Yet another thing that was connected with his Bo Staff martial soul. With everything, he did notice a small pattern of them requiring some sort of rhythm or sound, but not everything had it. It felt similar to his Stacks, or his drumming, it was simply applied to drawing lines on paper instead.

Bending the perspective would have solved the problem that his teacher gave him, but he didn't think that was the objective. Additionally, with his technique, he found drawing bent perspective arrays quite easy at this point.

He was wrong though, this was exactly the objective. To bend them in the most efficient way. That's why the sturdiness of the array's wasn't a condition in his teachers orders. He was just complicating things for himself.

However something piqued his interest. He has been trying to combine the two of the designs, where they had a partial overlap. A soul gathering array combined with the power release array.

These two were the most basic of the arrays. What made this difficult was the attempt to combine them on a donut shaped body of a soul tool.

However at some point he could swear he heard a click. It just… worked. One of the arrays was under the other, yet they flowed seamlessly through each other, it felt like a new world had just opened up for him. Everything felt aligned perfectly. They didn't go against each other, it even felt like the two were reinforcing one another.

If one can do this on the other basic arrays… The possibilities just increased exponentially.

He went into meditation immediately. He felt wonderful right now. A fleeting moment and he might forget this thought.

… … …

Karni woke up. It was already morning, the night was spent in focused meditation and he felt incredibly invigorated. Almost too much.

He could tell. He reached rank 20. He broke through. To be more accurate, he was now rank 21. He could tell that a new ability has appeared within him. But more than that.

"Why is the world so clear?"

He focused on his spiritual power. Indeed it has increased, it was like he broke through a barrier.

"I broke through the 20th rank and into the Spirit Connection realm at the same time?"

This was wonderful news, not even Siduo has broken through Spirit Connection yet. He was finally, truly ahead of her in something.

In one and a half years, he went from the intermediate realm in Spirit Origin to Spirit Connection. He could tell that this was a combination of his Martial Soul being of spiritual variety and him focusing on Mecha Designing so much. Mecha Designing was a sort of soft training for Spiritual Power.

He stood up and went to have breakfast. When he told Siduo he broke through she first congratulated him. "You finally caught up." She was already Rank 23 by this point. It gets harder and harder to progress, the higher one's soul power is. Karni was still catching up in that regard.

"Now you have to catch up as well." Replied Karni cheekily.

"What do you mean?" Siduo questioned.

"I'm in the Spirit Connection realm."

"You WHAT?"

"You heard me."

"You bastard. I'm reaching the final few stretches as well, how did you beat me! Curse you and your spiritual Martial Soul." Siduo huffed and puffed, but mostly, she was having fun.

"Anyway, I think it's time we ask Teacher Mo if we can finally start teaching eachother now."

"Mmmm. I agwee." Said Siduo with her mouth full of food.

… … …

"Alright, you can begin to teach each other. But give me monthly reports on your progress. And remember, you're not learning to be each other's profession; You're learning to be secondary Mecha Mechanics.

Karni and Siduo cheered happily. Their plan truly begins now.

"However don't forget you have your midterm exams next week, you must remember that I can't help you with the bet." Said Mo Qing as a matter of factly.

The sheer shock on Siduo's and Karni's faces was incredible.

"Wait teacher!" Shouted Karni as Mo Qing laughed himself out of the room.