The following night, after a day of similar training, Aden asked a question with a very determined look on his face.

“Teacher can you show me how to use Ki? I remember your warning about reinforcement and external use. I just want to make my body tougher. I won’t use it forcefully inward or outward. Please, I need to catch up!” asked Aden with fire in his voice.

“I guess I can show you how but I’ll hold you to that promise!” stated Alexander.

“Ki cultivation starts by feeling the energy inside your body. You have to sit down and fall into meditation to feel it the first couple of times. Your mind should be free of any distractions while you sink your consciousness into your body. You’ll eventually begin to feel a wild and unrestrained energy flowing from all your cells. Then you have to slowly learn how to tame this energy. Only then can you start cultivating your body. It’s a less complicated system then Chi so it’s easy to start. Sensing Ki can sometimes be accomplished in an hour or 2 depending on ones state of mind. But as a human you’ll find it hard to advance far.” said Alexander

Aden then spent most of the night trying to feel his Ki with no success. He spent any down time he had the following day trying to feel it. Once night time fell, he asked Cade for help.

“Cade can you help me feel my Ki? I’ve been trying whenever i had time but still haven’t felt it.” asked Aden

“Haven’t you thought you might be stressing out too much at not feeling it? What did your grandpa say? you need to be free of distractions and that includes worries! Think only of wanting to be strong. It’s what I did when I started using it. Then let your mind wander inside your body to feel it.” Cade stated.

Aden then spent the following hour in meditation.

“AHA finally felt it! Grandpa wasn’t kidding when he said it felt unrestrained! I guess i have to learn how to tame it.” Aden said feeling proud of himself for his accomplishment.

At about 6 in the morning,

“Wake up maggots! it’s time to start learning some basic martial arts! Enough stamina and muscle training for now! Are you happy? You shouldn’t be that was the easy part! Muhahaha” Alexander shouted out loud with a grin of pure evil on his face.

“Grandpa stop doing that!” Yelled a sleepy Elena as she rubbed her eyes.

“Yes teacher.” said Cade after he had gotten up with his guard up visibly sleepy still.

“Y.. y.. yes teacher.” said Aden visibly sleepy. He had spent most of the night trying to tame his Ki.

“Elena get down and do some push ups. I told you their will be no grandpa from now on only Teacher or Sir is acceptable.” said the old tyrant. Alexander observed that they all showed signs of muscle pain from his relentless exercises from the day before.

“Their muscles will eventually adapt to training. Working through the pain will be good for their willpower. Cade doesn’t seem nearly as exhausted even though my aura was pushing down on him the hardest. I guess he’s already used to life and death survival in a forest so it makes sense. I’ll increase the pressure from yesterday for him then Hahaha. Now today, I think we’ll work on some basic martial arts!. God I missed training people! I’ll teach them how to punch like boxers. I’ll show them other variations based on other martial arts later but lets start with that!” thought the old fiend while an even worse grin appeared on his face.

Meanwhile Elena did her push-ups while they prepare the remainder of the food from yesterday over the fire. They then ate extremely quickly.

“We will practice basic martial art techniques as we travel. I’m talking about punches, spear hand(nukite), palm strikes, elbow strikes, grabs, kicks, joint-locks, dodges and blocks. Know that any attack can later be infused with energy. Which means they can all be deadly. So for now we will only work on your forms. Later on, you will be able to expand on your basics to develop your fighting styles. This style will be up to you to polish and evolve as you see fit. I’m not here to directly give you a fighting style just to give you some basics. Today’s basic technique is punching! I’ll show you how to punch like Boxers for now. I’ll show you other variations from other arts later. HAVE YOU UNDERSTOOD MAGGOTS!” explained the old tyrant.

“Yes Sir!” they all shouted.

“Now let’s begin with the simple punch. Show me what you think a proper punch should look like.” asked Alexander. They then one by one release what they thought to be good punches.

“Seems like I’ll have my work cut out for me. Cade’s punch was a little better but they all have so much to work on. GOOD! I love a challenge. This reminds me of the time I spent training Kingston's guards!” thought Alexander who’s grin hadn’t let up.

“You’re all doing it wrong! A punch is not just moving your arm forward really fast. No its about using the rotation of you body to generate momentum. It should start at the feet and pass throughout the body. Moving your whole body one inch will generate much more force then moving your arm a foot or so said an ancient legendary martial artist only known as Lee. So let’s start by positioning your feet correctly. They should be spread on the ground a little wider than shoulder width with one leg forward and one back. The back foot should always start with a heel lifted to pivot easier. While punching your feet pivot in the direction of the punch. While you throw a right punch the right heel should be lifted while the left is flat. Your feet should never leave the ground when you throw a power punch. Try it again we will move on to the next part of the body’s rotation after. “explained Alexander.

They then proceeded to try punching over and over again. Slowly feeling the force given by the rotation and position of their feet.

“Good! Now your knees should always be slightly bent and bent slightly more during a punch to lower your center of gravity and thus put more weight in them. Then your hips should turn into the punch. Practice this now!” shouted Alexander.

They spent the next hour slowly moving while punching. Slowly getting more proficient at using their lower body.

“Now you’re starting to get the importance of rotation. Let’s move on to the upper body. Your torso should rotate as much as possible and spin the punch out from your shoulders. Remember the principle of rotation. Keep you body straight and never lean or try to reach forward further then your range. A punch is always stronger if you don’t over reach and stay inside your range. Your shoulders should stay loose and raised during a punch. Your arms should start relaxed then spring towards the opponent. You should keep your hands relaxed before punching so you can actively switch to blocking if needed. A straight punch should be delivered horizontally while a cross/ left hook should stay vertical. You should keep your fists at face level at all time in a guard. Now get to practising!” said Alexander with a glint in his eyes.

They then spent the next hour punching. Every so often he would shout out comments.

“Remember to exhale during your punches! Always look at your target! Keep your guard up! Stay inside your range! Try different angles for your punches! Speed is not power! Put some weight in those punches! Step into your punches! Don’t lean forward! Don’t reach! Keep your feet down!” yelled out Alexander as if the harass them.

This kept up for most of the day stopping only for a quick lunch, a few rest pauses and finally for supper. During lunch Aden exclaimed that he had finally tamed his Ki. They weren’t going full speed as the point was to simply learn to mobilize all their bodies into attacks . They were still feeling the burn in their muscles unfortunately but felt better then on the previous days of physical training.

“Now Aden and Cade go hunt our meal! Elena prepare the tents and the fire pit. This will be you first hunt Aden so follow Cade’s instructions and be careful. Now go!” said Alexander with a slight worry in his eyes.

“Yes teacher!” both boys replied. They then entered the forest. Cade quickly advised Aden to be as quiet as possible and try to use signs to communicate. Later on they happened upon droppings that Cade pointed out. It still seemed fresh when poked with a stick. So he started to look for footprints, damage to branches or any other clues he could find always going out of his way to show Aden. After finding and following some tracks, they found a young mountain lion which had captured their prey a deer. This mountain lion was a meter tall but showed signs of still being a juvenile. Cade seeing that the mountain lion hadn’t made any moves towards them and seemed to want to simply leave with the meal tried to explain it to Aden. Aden wouldn’t hear reason he wanted to be successful on his first hunt. So he jumped out to challenge the meter tall feline.

To which Cade thought” You have got to be kidding me! He spends one day learning how to punch and just barely learns how to tame his Ki and he thinks he can take a Wildcat on!”

“Come back Aden you’re not a match for a wild cat yet!” yelled Cade.

“If you can fight 4 wolves, I can fight one lousy Cat!” exclaimed Aden as he quickly approached the mountain lion with his guard up.

The mountain lion seeing the foolish 5 year old challenging it let out a roar.ROOOWWWW! Then jumped at him. Which to his credit didn’t make Aden flinch but he had no time to dodge or anything. Which quickly led to him being pinned to the ground.

Cade quickly approached the mountain lion and punched it in the ribs which made it fly 2 meters away. This quickly enraged the juvenile wildcat. It then pounced at him. He dodged this attack while quickly unleashing a knee kick to its rib cage followed by a punch to it face.

ROWWWW! It roared visibly injured and limping. It looked upon Cade with hate in it’s eyes somehow refusing to back down in front of this young fighter. It then slowly started circling around him trying to find a weakness. After circling around him 3 times and not seeing any it jumped at Aden.

“Dodge!” shouted Cade while he lept after the lion.

“Dammit!I’m not going to make it at this speed. I have to use reinforcement!” shouted Cade.

Whoosh! A wind blade fell on the mountain lion’s head before Cade could start using Ki. Shortly after, Alexander could be seen jumping down the tree with Elena on his back. He then proceeded to shout at Aden.

“What were you thinking going after that mountain lion? You just learned how to punch and use Ki recently your body has barely had time to get stronger. How did you expect to use something you just learnt in battle? There is a reason people spar before they attempt real fight! If it wasn’t for Cade you’d be dead right now! You almost forced him to use Ki forcefully! Did you not listen to my warnings about listening to him? you’re overconfidence almost killed you and crippled his cultivation. YOU HAVE TO THINK BEFORE YOU ACT!” shouted Alexander in a raging rant.

“Bu... But it seemed so easy for him to fight those wolves the other day. I just....” said Aden as he was cut off by Alexander

“Don’t make excuses!! Now come over and receive your punishment.” said Alexander angrily as he then proceeded to strongly slap the shit out of Aden. Which made Aden cry.

“Grandpa never slapped us before! Why is he doing this?! I get that I messed up! Please stop already” thought Aden while crying as he received 4 slaps.(Aden turning into a young master averted.)

They then went back to camp with the prey. Aden having to be carried from the pain of the blows.

“Grand... teacher was it really necessary to beat him up this much?” asked Elena while worrying about her older brother.

“This much is getting off easy! He could of died for no reason just out of overconfidence. He could of damaged Cade’s future by forcing him to use Ki. They were lucky I happened to use my spiritual sense to keep an eye on them. They won’t have that luxury forever so he has to learn now! Now Aden I think you owe an apology to Cade!” stated Alexander with vehemence.

“I’m sorry I was so reckless. I just so wanted to be on your level that I didn’t stop to think before I challenged that lion. Can you forgive me?” asked Aden.

“I understand your drive to want to be strong. I truly do but this could of been your death or mine. You need to be aware of your capabilties before fighting in those kind of situation. I forgive you but remember to listen next time.” stated Cade with a bit of leftover anger in his eyes.

They then settled in to eat, no one really disusing anything until Cade asked a question.

“Teacher almost having to use Ki left me wondering. What is it exactly I would of damaged. You said Chi was humanity’s cultivation method but I know nothing about it. Would you mind explaining it to me?” asked Cade

“No problem Cade, I was wondering when you would ask me about it. The short answer is your meridians and possibly your spirit root as stated before. To truly understand you need to learn some of the basics of Chi cultivation. Chi is the energy of this world. It is calm, fluid and may be manipulated easily if one knows the method. Chi cultivation is the preferred method amongst mankind. Our bodies are more attuned to this energy. Not everyone may reach great heights in Chi cultivation but anyone that can start will have some degree of success even if its only the lower stages. Even the lower stages are enough to lengthen your lifespan from 100 to 300 years. Those lower levels consist of refining one’s own body layer by layer with Chi to maximize its potential. To start this type of cultivation one must draw in Chi from the world we then circulate throughout our bodies in the vessels we call meridians. This is only possible if you have a spirit root. A spirit root is born with you. It has affinities to certain elements. These elements will be the one’s you have an easier time controlling. Many cultivators have dual elemental roots. Rare are those with more elements. The roots have a grade going from poor, common, rare, legendary and godlike. The grade of root usually determines your growth speed. Most youth are tested when they reach 7 years old since that is when the root is fully grown. From then on, they might be recruited by sects or organizations if they have a higher grade root these become the inner disciples. For other’s they have to pass tests and even then they end up outer disciples. Chi's usage is extremely varied. It can heal, produce attacks, defend, divine the future, assist in alchemy, create formations... It all leads up to ascension when one forms the beginning of their Dao or Truth. While a Ki God might have extreme strength in battle and may use some exterior techniques like Ki blasts, a Chi Immortal has an edge in the variety of fighting techniques they can use, magic and many finer control techniques.” Explained Alexander while observing theat they all were starting to nod off to sleep from a day of hard work and a potentially deadly situation.