Chương 46: New Students

While Nick Fury walked away, Mason stretched his waist, saying, "Alright, students, I am sure you can't wait to feel this mystical Chi we've been yapping about, so we'll start with that. It will work better if you are in top shape anyway." He approached Steve, warning, "Stand still," and cautiously poked his Three Treasures. The caution was not from fear of harming him, but rather because no one would like having someone rapidly stabbing them with their finger.

Despite Mason not hitting him particularly hard, Steve let out a surprised heave as three energies appeared in a body he thought he had grown to know. He took a stance, throwing a few punches, observing the changes, while Mason moved on to Agent 19. The beautiful blonde did not appear guarded, her blue eyes fixated on Mason's as she asked, "Should I expect anything?" Mason hummed quietly, hitting her Three Treasures with more speed, before saying to them both, "Memorize the feeling.

Feeling the Three Treasures and awakening them are completely different matters, but it's a first step." Agent 19 looked at her own body marvelously, but she still had the presence of mind to ask, "How did you awaken yours?"

"A fight to the death with the Hulk." Captain America gave him a concerned look, and Agent 19 gulped, "We'll find some other way." Her moment made Mason chuckle.

"Bold of you to assume you will manage to do it. I'll only be teaching you for a few days, and I might be awesome; you definitely won't awaken your Essence before I leave. Even Cap only has a very small chance, and that's thanks to the Super Soldier Serum. By the way," he pointed at the two, "if I'm going to be teaching you, then I won't be calling you Captain America and Agent 19 all day. You may call me Mason as well, because nothing weirds me out more than getting called 'Master'."

"Steve is absolutely fine. And since I haven't said it yet, nice to meet you." Mason nodded calmly at him before turning to Agent 19. He expected her to hesitate, since he figured the names of SHIELD agents were supposed to be secret, yet she candidly followed, "I'm Barbara, but everyone calls me Bobbi."

The name did not sound a bell in Mason's name, but given that it was only a first name, and that the first face to pop up when Mason thought of the name Barbara was that of Barbara Gordon from DC, also known as Batgirl, she might be a hero from the comics. Besides, considering the sheer number of heroes in Marvel's roster, there were probably quite a few sharing the name.

Not that Mason really cared whether he was teaching a 'famous student' he heard the name of in his past life or someone he met in this one; it was just that knowing her identity from his meta-knowledge would help gauge whether she was truly SHIELD, or if she was Hydra. The fact that out of all his agents, Fury had decided to send her was a good sign already, but he could never be too sure.

"Alright then, Steve, Bobbi. Let's get started, shall we?"

Mason ended up spending most of his morning, and the first half of his afternoon with the two, training them mostly on cultivation. Although they had also talked about teaching martial arts with Fury, the time he had with the two was already too short to properly teach them either of the two disciplines, so Mason decided to focus on one. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. And since they were both already very good at hand-to-hand combat, he taught them Neidan.

That also left some time for Mason's own meditation. Then, once they were done, Mason gave them his address before returning to Rand Tower. While Izo was passed out drunk in a corner, Daredevil was surprisingly in his civilian attire, alongside another man Mason did not know. The moment Mason stepped in, Daredevil did not react, but the one next to him immediately got up, exclaiming, "Friendly! We're friends, not ninjas in disguise!"

Daredevil finally looked up from his papers, his red-tinted glasses directed at Mason.

"I think he knows that, Foggy. And I think he knows who I am." Mason nodded, "People do have unique Chi signatures." Daredevil nodded back before pointing at himself, "Matthew Murdock, Matt for short," then at Foggy, "Franklin Nelson, but everyone calls him Foggy." Mason sent a look at his seemingly passed-out master, fetching a water bottle for himself as he asked, "How are things going along?"

"With the amount of information we got, taking down Fisk is only a matter of time," Mason said nothing to that, since he already knew. The reason they were hitting those last bases was more to weaken Fisk than to gather evidence, although it still helped to have more.

"The only reason it is taking us so long is precisely because of the sheer volume of information we have, and that we must make sure Fisk will go down." Mason looked at them with surprise, asking, "Does he still have any chances of not getting in jail?" It was Foggy who answered, "The problem is with the way the evidence was gathered.

Normally, evidence that was obtained illegally becomes inadmissible in court, but this case is special because you guys put things out to the public, sent the police to others, or even got the information from technically public places. A big part of our job in the last week has been to filter between what would be admissible or not, and how we could use what was admissible to infer what wasn't." In the corner of the room, Izo suddenly called out drunkenly, "We should just kill the fat piece of lard.

Stupid could do it in a heartbeat." Before Matt could even say anything, Mason said, "It's precisely because I can do it that I shouldn't. Besides, I just got my name cleared, so I won't throw it all away to kill the Kingpin." Matt, who had been about to burst out, stopped, blabbering, "You… did?"

"Yes. The government itself came to meet me, and I negotiated my freedom for basically peanuts. Easy peasy lemon squeezy." Mason did not mention SHIELD since they were not common knowledge at this point, remaining a shadowy organization. Foggy whispered to Matt, though everyone in the room had good enough senses to hear him, "Is he an actual child?" Izo replied for him, "No, he is just Stupid."

"At least I'm not drunk all the time, you fossil. What are you trying to do, master drunken fist?" Izo scoffed, repressing a burp before mocking, "That's not a thing; it was just a trick. That son of a bitch Wu Song put mushrooms in his wine and pretended he got stronger because he was drunk, but he was just high as fuck. Made plenty of morons get themselves killed by trying to fight drunk.

Made even more waste their lives trying to replicate the 'drunken' style, when in fact Wu Song was just copying berserker Vikings."

"So you're just blasting yourself for the kicks of it?" Izo wagged his finger like he was teaching a little kid, even clicking his tongue.

"No, no, no, you don't get it. You're being too rigid in your thinking. This is about the purity of an unbound mind." Mason rolled his eyes at that.

"What purity? You useless old thing couldn't even understand the Dao for the life of you."

"The sword is the grandest of weapons, and the Sword Dao is unmatched! Simplicity is strength refined, Stupid!" Mason applied his Push Concept onto Izo with a snap of his fingers, forcing him a step back as he looked away, passing a hand through his hair.

"Sorry, couldn't hear you over the sound of Gravity making you its bitch." On the side, Foggy whispered to Matt, "I feel like we're intruding." Matt shook his head, sighing, "I can't tell whether they're idiots or having an actual philosophical debate."

"Probably both." Matt nodded sagely at Foggy's conclusion.