The Core Team

Chapter 696

Since ancient times, the martial world had even stricter rules than scholars, who based their conduct on rites and laws.

Why? Because scholars only had a few books, published across the land for anyone who wanted to learn from them. Those secret tomes hidden away where no one had seen them were more likely to be considered heretical. Martial artists and boxers were different. They made their living with the skills in their hands, and their ultimate moves could even decide life and death. Their livelihoods and their lives depended on them, so how could they not be particular about such things?

Thus, they placed enormous importance on distinctions between sects when passing down teachings and imparting skills. Some would only teach their own family, passing techniques to men but not women, to elders but not the young. Yet martial artists were often people of temperament who valued loyalty and brotherhood greatly. When a brother or friend swallowed his pride and begged you to teach him a move, or when one's descendants simply lacked the talent to learn and the ancestral ultimate technique was about to be carried into the grave, what could be done? It had to be passed on to an outsider.

But ancestral rules could not be broken! So they performed an apprenticeship ceremony. Once that process was completed, there was an explanation for it. You became part of the school; you were my disciple, and I was your master. I taught you this move, and you carried it forward. That was also an honor for the school.

But everyone knew that such a master-disciple relationship could not be taken seriously. You could not expect a disciple accepted under such circumstances to serve the school with unwavering loyalty like a disciple raised from childhood as