As night was beginning to fall Iradin found a tall tree. “Kael, the best way to sleep in the forest is off the ground.” Scaling the tree, Iradin used a large piece of canvas and some rope from his storage pouch to create a suspended platform between two branches. Directly jumping the 40 to 50 feet to the ground, Iradin slung Kael into a piggyback ride and scaled back up the tree again.

Kael was surprised by his father's strength and nimbleness. Remembering his mother glossed over the strength difference between mortals and cultivators, he took the chance to ask.

“Dad, how much stronger are you than an average man?”

“Although my ranking is at the perfection level of body refinement, I’m a bit stronger because my body has gone through the change to xiantian before falling back down.“

“Yeah, but how strong is that exactly?”

“An average man has about 165 pounds of strength. Basically, they can lift their own bodyweight. A peak mortal has about 450 pounds of strength. That difference has to be built up through rigorous training of the body. As a person goes through body refinement, qi strengthens their body further. Their strength increases about 30% of a peak mortal, for 135 pounds on average. That is if they are not using a cultivating technique. A combination of our families Internal Furnace and Mountains Forging techniques further increase that by about 315 pounds. When a houtian body transforms into a xiantian body, their strength increases by another 450 pounds. Due to training my body physically as well as with qi, my strength is 1,250 pounds.”

“Wow, dad you are pretty buff” When I turn 6 my physical body strength should break those conventions. If I remember correctly a 10 should be a mortal peak, thus 450 pounds. 14 would be an additional 40% for 630 pounds. I am going to be Arnold Schwarzasmurf in about a year.

“Yeah, which is why we are going to hunt a magic beast. Since I know you will ask, a rank 1 magic beast is equal to a peak mortal. Each rank doubles in strength is the general rule. So a rank 3 beast will have the strength of 1,800 pounds. Which is why I will be using a bow. Now let's be quiet and keep our eyes open.”

“Okie dokie.”

Sometime past midnight, Kael was awoken by a moo like roaring noise. Not sure whether to laugh or cry, he looked over to see an excited look on his dads face.

Holding his bow in his left hand, Iradin pointed down to the tree line about 100 feet away from their tree. Looking down, Kael saw what he could only describe as a 16-foot tall demon moose. It was covered in dark scales, had bullhorns, and instead of hooves, it had three huge claws.

Finding and gripping his spear like javelin for a sense of security, Kael looked over to his father. Iradin saw Kael's look and cracked into a grin. Whispering he said, “Don’t worry, your old man has good aim.” Iradin slung his quiver over his shoulder as he took a balancing stance on the nearby tree branch. Nocking an arrow and drawing the bow into a full moon shape, he took aim at the creature below.

Slowly releasing his breath, Iradin steadied himself before finally releasing the arrow. With a dull whump noise, the arrow ripped through the night. The arrow pierced through the creatures eye, finally stopping with the bloody arrowhead protruding from it’s lower jaw on the far side of its head.

With a startled roar, the beast ran forward only a few steps before falling to the ground. Excited, Kael tossed his javelin to the ground as Iradin grabbed him and jumped from the tree. Landing, Iradin put Kael on the ground and walked towards the beast. Kael retrieved his javelin and followed a bit behind him.

As Iradin closed in on the beast, it suddenly staggered back to its feet. Iradin began to backpedal as the beast leaped high in the air towards him with an enraged roar. Seeing his father about to be crushed by the beast, Kael’s only thought was that he must save him. Forgetting he was still a child he lunged past his father stabbing out with his large javelin.

Soul has taken an action of selfless sacrifice.

Soul has additional free Karma.

Burning 10 Karma to initiate an empowered strike.

The droning voice in his head caused Kael to come back to his senses. Realizing it was this same urge that got him killed the first time around he was immediately distraught. Lacking the ability to dodge he just braced himself and waited for impact.

The beast descended towards the humans, also lacking the ability to dodge, it fell directly towards the javelin. The butt of the javelin was resting on the ground due to Kael’s height, causing it to be locked firmly in place. The tip, as if urged by the hand of the goddess of luck herself, pierced between the beast's scales, becoming lodged in its breastbone. The javelin, strengthened by karma’s empowered strike, acted as a fulcrum. The impaled beast was carried up and over both Kael and Iradin by its own momentum, crashing into the ground behind them face first.

The beast crashed into the ground and rolled onto its back before sliding to a stop. Iradin quickly dashed towards it while drawing his knife. Just as the beast began to roll on to its side, Iradin plunged the blade down, cleaving the beast's skull in half.

Looking back at his son with a look that was a mixture of fear and anger he began to scold him. “What in the name of the abyss were you thinking? Your first action should have been to run away like the child you are. You would not even be a snack for something this size! Seriously, if it wasn’t for some freakish act of luck that pointy stick you were holding would not have supported the weight of the beast. You would have been crushed!”

“Uhhh, sorry father, I wasn’t thinking, it was like my body moved on its own.”

“Thank the heavens you are ok! In no way whatsoever are you to ever mention this to your mother or anyone else or we will both be sleeping on the porch, understood?”

Rubbing the back of his head in the attempt to look like a foolish child, Kael said, “Ok dad, this our secret, but hey, we got it right?”

Shaking his head Iradin turned back to look at the beast. Now that he had a chance to really consider its size he realized just how huge it was. Sizing it up, he speculated that it must weigh at least 3,000 pounds. After cleaning and dressing its carcass it would still produce over 2,000 pounds of meat. He knew the first use of the Internal Furnace required the user to consume 20 times their body weight, which meant they would still have over 800 pounds left in the end.

Iradin began to carefully cut up the carcass, ensuring the horns and skin were damaged as little as possible. Ignoring Kael’s pleas to practice on it, he laid out another large canvas from his pouch. As he removed huge chunks of meat from the creature he left them laying in a neat pile on the canvas. When he finished he told Kael to sit down in front of it.

After Kael took his seat he was slightly appalled at the gory scene of bloody flesh in front of him. At some point, his father's hand was pressed against his back. Breaking from his nauseous trance, he felt a warm energy entering his body from his father.

“Son, feel the energy as it enters your meridians. Follow, and memorize its path. Feel how it acts as it enters your stomach.”

Following the flow of the energy, Kael observed it while it split into two streams, taking a strangely circuitous route through his body. In the end, the meridians lit by his father’s qi seemed to draw a cauldron.

The two streams of qi then entered what would be the mouth of the cauldron. Making two spirals, one at the top and one at the bottom, the qi continued to spin. The spirals would then move to meet each other before separating again. Each time the process was repeated Kael could feel an intense burning sensation erupt in his stomach.

Becoming increasingly famished, Kael eventually lost himself to hunger. As if a starving man being presented with a feast, he threw himself at the pile of blood meat like a wild animal. Each time he thought his hunger would be sated the damnable spirals of qi would instantly fire his stomach contents into nothingness.

At some point, Kael’s tiny body was finally full. With a contented sigh, he looked down at himself to see that he was kneeling in the middle of a much smaller mound of meat. His entire body was covered in the thick sticky blood of the beast. He could even feel his now matted hair sticking to his scalp and the back of his neck, soaked in blood. Turning around, he rushed away from the bloody scene. Falling to his knees next to a nearby tree he began to vomit until there was nothing left but dry heaves.

Iradin was standing to the side, carefully watching over his son as he feasted until almost dawn. As he saw Kael’s dry heaves beginning to calm down he walked over to the beast corpse and retrieved its heart. Walking over to his child, he knelt down and said, “I know it is hard the first time, we all go through it, but you have one step left.” Channeling a small trickle of qi into his son's body again, he waited until a frenzy of starvation overtook him before handing him the heart.

Once the heart was consumed, Iradin stuck Kael in the back of the neck, sending him into a deep stupor. Carefully washing his son off before storing the remaining meat. He Lifted his son into his arms, then dashed back to the village at speed much faster than he had shown before.