The morning sun rose as Alexander finished his internal healing. He had finally suppressed the effects of the poison using Chi. He had then worked on bringing all the toxins together in a sealed space he had created. He would have to find a way to completely expel it in the future but it would no longer threaten his life. The same could not be said of the damage he had received to his soul. Only time and some treasures could heal this type of damage. Fortunately it did not mean death for the ex-governor. It would instead make his Chi usage more unstable and much less reliable. Which all the wounds, poisons and now soul wounds he would have to meditate for years to recover. For now, he decided it was time to wake the kids up and to take on the role he had loved the most while in the guard.

“WAKE UP! And stand at attention!” he shouted causing the kids to wake up startled. Cade woke up and immediately went on guard. His body remembering to be alert form its time in the forest.

“Grandpa why did you wake us like that?” complained the siblings.

“From now on you will be training in martial arts. You will address me as Teacher or Sir and not as grandpa. I will be hard on you all equally. There will be no special treatment. You will be expected to complete all the exercises I give you. Punishment will be delivered if you slack off. The training will push you to your limits but you will be stronger for it! Do you understand me maggots?” stated Alexander a cold steely air developing around him.

“Yes grandpa um... I mean Teacher?” said Elena with a bit of confusion. She wondered where the gentle and kind grandpa she knew disappeared.

“Yes Teacher!” replied both boys excited to learn. Aden still wondered about the complete change of persona in his grandfather but was glad that this wouldn’t be easy. He wanted to catch up to Cade quickly. Cade was reminded of some of the instructors in the videos from the pod and found this behaviour normal. Alexander pulled Cade aside.

“Last night I saw you use a Ki blast through my spiritual sense as I was rushing here. From now on I don’t want you using Ki externally or forcefully increasing your strength with it. Their is a lot I have to teach you all. Know that Ki usage can damage your ability to use Chi in the future! I’ll explain more later but keep this in mind.” stated Alexander with a serious look in his eyes which caused Cade to gulp. Cade now wondered how much damage he might of caused. He had formed Ki blasts to practice while in the forest and had boosted his strength many times. Worry started to appear on his face.

“Good! Now drop and give me as many push ups as you can! Keep going until your arms are numb! The loser will have to cut all the wood for tonight super.” yelled Alexander with great enthusiasm at finally playing the role he liked best “hellish drill sergeant”.

So they went all out for the next 5 minutes, Cade reached 150, Aden could barely reach 60 and Elena reach 30. They all collapsed out of breath and soaked with sweat. Alexander had slowly been adding weight to their body’s by releasing his aura. By the end of the exercise Cade had a pressure of roughly 3 times his weight over his body, Aden had 1.25 and Elena had 1.

“Elena your on wood duty tonight. You all did well! None of you tried to slack off. What you may not know is I steadily added weight to your bodies as time went on. So don’t be discouraged if your results seem low to you. In the future when we reach Kingston I’ll give you weighted clothing. For now, ill keep using aura to increase the pressure on you. Now do some sit ups and squats for the next 10 minutes.” said Alexander. The rest of the day was spent on working all the muscle groups and trying to run as they slowly kept travelling along the way to Kingston while their teacher truly had a shit eating grin on his face. Evening was slowly approaching.

“OK lets camp here tonight. Cade go hunt something nearby but remember what I said. Elena go cut some wood. Aden prep the fire pit and set up these tents.” he said while pulling tents of of thin air causing Cade to stare with a look of wonder.

“Cade that’s just a storage ring. They are slightly rare but allow you to store a certain volume of items inside. The rarity depends on the volume it can store. They are usually pricey but sooo convenient.” stated Aden while trying to show off some knowledge.

“GET to work!” stated the annoyed teacher.

Cade left to hunt only using his senses. An hour later he found 2 rabbits and one deer. Strangely they didn’t seem to have that spark of intelligence in their eyes. They were easy enough to hunt which left our runt dissatisfied at the lacklustre fight they put up. He returned shortly after to the camp carrying his quarry. While returning he inspected his body’s Ki only to find he was nearing 400BP.

“Good it seems we won’t go hungry tonight! You remembered our talk right?” stated the old man with amusement at seeing the expression of disappointment that still plastered Cade’s face.

“Yes teacher I didn’t use Ki. It would of been much easier if I used my Ki sense though. Also why do these animals not seem to be as intelligent as the wolves or the ones in that forest?” asked Cade.

“Intelligence in beasts usually shows up as they get closer to forming their beast core’s. These cores are formed automatically in their bodies as they age and their bodies absorb Ki from the world through consuming other beasts or plants or by strengthening themselves. As such herbivore’s take much longer to form a core unless they find spiritual herbs. The only exceptions are beast’s with greater or legendary bloodlines. They have basic intelligence even as new-borns and take a very short time to form a core. All beasts be they magical, demonic, common or legendary are inherently Ki cultivators.” stated the old man to Cade while Aden was listening.

“As for your Ki sense, it is better to refrain from using it. Keep your Ki for life and death situation’s for now.” he quickly stated almost forgetting to mention it.

“Teacher what is Ki? Can I use it? Why can Cade use it?...” Aden fired question after question at his Teacher.

“First you all go prepare the meal. We will speak of this afterwards. From tomorrow on, I want you to go with Cade to slowly learn how to hunt.” said Alexander. Aden and the others could now be seen to be working quickly at bleeding, gutting and grilling the animals. They all began eating.

“You wanted to know about Ki earlier. In this world or realm, people cultivate of of 3 energies to try to reach immortality. One of these is Ki. Ki can be considered the energy that your body every cell generates. Some people call it life-force, internal energy or vital energy. It rests in every inch of you body. It is usually wild and unrestrained and takes great effort to tame. Its quantity and quality increases as your body gets stronger. You can use it internally or externally but mostly for combat. Ki users generally have great healing rates which at high levels rise to insane proportions. Ki is not generally compatible with Chi. Using Ki externally or for amplifying your strength makes most of the energy pass via your circulatory system which isn’t a problem. It also forces it to pass through your meridians which usually cannot contain the energy causing damage and blockages to appear. In extreme cases, the spiritual root of a person may be damaged or even destroyed. In a sense using it can ruin one’s potential in Chi cultivation. Ki cultivation can also be cultivated in a path that is called Body cultivation. But this path is much more difficult for humanity to progress in. If potentially 1/1000 cultivators manage to reach foundation establishment in Chi cultivation. It may be 1/100000 that reach the equivalent in Ki cultivation. Ki cultivation requires one to break the limits of their bodies for each advancement. Beasts who succeed usually have the bloodlines of great beasts or even legendary ones and even they aren’t guarantied success. The beastcores they form also help in reigning in Ki wild and unrestrained flow. For a man to reach those heights, he would need to be have a rare mutation called heavenly strength from birth. The whole system is more or less abandoned by humanity as it truly is too rare for one to reach ascension using this system. Those that succeeded were seen as monsters for the amount of raw power they could call upon. To answer the question I will teach you Ki Aden if only as a trump card but remember the consequences to it’s usage.” explained Alexander. Aden nodded.

“What is Chi then?” Asked Cade and Aden.

“No more questions for tonight. Now get ready for bed we have at least 4-5 more days of travelling at this pace.” seeing the quenched curiosity in their eyes A Alexander thought “Ha wasn’t too hard to find the carrot to my stick. Good it means they will likely put their all into this. Elena might require something else she doesn’t seem to seek strength as they do. I’ll find her a motivation soon enough. God it’s good to be in a teaching role” a steely looking demon seemingly appearing behind him as he said the word “teaching”.

“I’ll make you a deal you all get to ask one or two questions per day. This is provided you all put your all in the days training.” stated Alexander.