Upon entering my study, I sat in my boosted chair while Rafael sat cross-legged to the side of the room, seemingly waiting for me to say something.

“Sigh, Rafael, how would we continue with today’s training?”

He looks surprised at what I just said, probably imagining I would just take the rest of the day to relax in recuperation for tomorrow's undoubtful hell. “ Well, I wouldn’t advise any more physical exertion for a while, but I can walk you through the QI apprentice stage.”

I gesture for him to continue, and so he asks for me to come and sit in front of him, to which I comply. “ The QI apprentice stage has 10 levels, 1st being the Qi core which is located just below the belly button, and it consists of activating your core and producing your first amount of Qi from there. It is like using a new limb or muscle; you have to constantly use it and eventually draw QI from your core to other points of your body; these points make up levels 2-10.”

“ Is there any specific order to where you should link up first or not?”

“ Not a specified order, but there is a general order to do things. First, you start with drawing QI to your heart; this will make the later stages easier as your Qi will travel through your blood streams throughout your body. Next is your brain so you can better understand what QI is inside you. After that, It is the lungs and your digestion organs to help improve your body's constitution.

Next is the arms, followed by the hands or the legs, followed by the feet. It doesn’t matter which order you do these, but what should always remain last and usually the point where lesser people falter is the five senses. Only after supplying Qi to enhance all five senses can you be considered an actual level 1 Teacher.”

I sat quietly, trying to digest the information he just told me, then I tried to feel for the QI core he told me of. I had only just started meditation when Rafael grabbed my attention. “ It is nearly impossible to activate your QI core through meditation alone. The best you can do is rest so that tomorrow, when we are training, you might be able open it then, but any earlier is a lost cause.”

Well, there goes my planning for the rest of the day. Since I've got nothing else to do, I’ll probably just walk through the city, but I still have one more question” I’ve read that the mana teacher progression is quite similar. What can you tell me about it?”

“Well, as you might know, upon the age of 12, we are able to start training our mana, it has a similar progression to the QI levels, but the mana core is located on the opposite side of the chest to your heart and after opening your core, the progression is exactly the same as Qi being through the heart and then the brain and so on.”

“I think I've got the hang of it, but what is the difference between the different levels of mastery in QI and mana?

“Both are split into teacher, master and grand-master any further than that is beyond my expertise. and they are both measured in efficiency, teacher is 0%-50%, master is 50%-90% and grand master is the full 100%. I myself am only at roughly 65% mastery of QI and 30% mana mastery.”

“Can you explain what efficiency mastery means?”

“It is different for mana and QI. QI is internal energy drawn from the core, while mana is ambient energy drawn from outside the body into the core, it is different to use either one of them efficiently. With QI, the core is like a muscle. The more you work it the more QI your body holds, so while everybody starts with a different amount of QI, we can all train to gain more. The matter of efficiency is how well we draw the QI from the core. At the beginning, most people can utilise 1% of the QI from their core, with the rest of it being lost in the process being dissipated into your body. “

“That doesn’t really make much sense. Can’t you explain it a bit better?” shooting my best puppy-eyed look at him, hoping to get a bit of a clue of what he just said.

“Okay, if a fat person and a fit person work out until they drop, the unfit person will drop quicker. If you compare that to QI, once you open your core, you are the fat person not able to utilise that energy in the best way being used on weak muscles, while someone in the grand-master realm is the fit person able to utilise their body to the utmost efficiency, it is the same with mana except the energy is external and a lot harder to control and travels in its own veins. ”

“I see.” I take a couple of minutes to digest all this information and then glance at the clock. 10:30, seeing the time, I motion to stand up, and Rafael follows and raises a question of where we’re going “ We’re going into the city. ”

—------------------------------------------------------------

The city of Moon is considered a small city in the Ghore with a population of 40-50 thousand. It is quite an organised city, being relatively close to the border with Osoerde, we had to be a militarised city.

Our mansion was right next to the city hall in the middle of the city. The city itself was separated into 2 segments, with the nobles and the rich in the inner city with walls and a gate between them and the outer city filled with the majority of the population.

As I left the house with Rafael following behind, I started planning my route for today. I have never left to explore, but from what I've heard, I know where to go. I have decided on the blacksmiths as my first destination, and while it seems a bit cliché, Father has decided I need to train with a real weapon at some point, and the store in question was called the black hammer blacksmiths and also the only blacksmith in the city.

The streets were surprisingly clean, and I could see guards patrolling the streets in pairs, and other than the guards, you would only see 1 or 2 other people in passing, and they all looked like servants, maybe because it was midday, nobody of status was out in the streets yet.

As we were walking, the buildings transformed from upscale detached houses into a wall, and as we approached the guard post, they took one look at me and stood to the side in attention as we walked straight through them.

It was like walking into a different world. The once quiet streets were now filled with people. The guards could still be seen in the sea of people with their armour shining in the sun, and the people looked more regular now as you could see children playing in the streets and even the occasional group of adventurers stumbling out from their inn after a night of drinking.

While it was nice to see people in the streets, the air was definitely different. It could be due to the nature of the houses and smaller roads, or maybe it was harder to clean the uneven cobblestone in the streets, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad smell, and it started to remind me of home a bit.

“It certainly is different when compared to home,” I muse out-loud

“ If you think this is bad, wait till you get to the outer district '' Perhaps misunderstanding my comment, Rafael makes me think about how my Father runs this city. I had only heard good things, but it's hard to get unbiased information in that house.

“Is it really that bad in the outer district?”

“It's not a pretty site,” I stare at Rafael, trying to get a sense of how bad the situation is, “ but it's not as bad as the outer districts in other city's, that’s for sure,” and with a small gruff he refuses to elaborate any further. I don’t know whether his added words were actual or just there to ease my feelings, but I think I’ll figure it out when I get there.

We didn’t speak for the rest of the trip and quickly made our way to the blacksmiths, and it was quite busy considering it was 11:00 as there was even a queue to get into the store, but I guess that’s what happens when you're the only blacksmith in the city.

As we queued up, I started to think about black hammer blacksmiths, Father had only told me a little bit about them, but the thing that stood out the most to me was the fact that they’re the only blacksmith in the whole city. We had a contract with them not to allow anybody else to set up in this city.

I was quite confused by this as I know a monopoly will mess up the market, but Father had a simple answer for this “ Dastreal is an honourable man. He left city Brewrich because the other blacksmiths in the city made it hard for him to secure any supplies to try and run him out of business, he went to house Brewrich, but they had long since wanted a personal blacksmith, so that was their offer. And we were a city with a retiring blacksmith and no replacement, all he wanted was a promise of no competition, and with him coming here, he put our city on the map. Adventures come from all over for a dwarf's equipment. So tell me, Joseph do you think having only one blacksmith in this city was worth the price”.

“Father Spoke very highly of this man. Do you have any knowledge about him, Rafael?”

“ I haven’t been here yet. He relocated 1 year after I retired” he wasn’t much of a talker, my dear Rafael, but I didn’t really mind that.

The queue was quickly shortening, and I soon found myself next in line. Looking at the store, it was surprisingly awe-inspiring. It was near the southern exit of the city and occupied a large territory. It reminded me of a factory, with the front being a store and the back warehouse being the blacksmiths.

As the door opened, I was hit with quite the smell that seemed to burn my nose, and I was greeted by a salesperson. She appeared quite muscular for a saleswoman, and I couldn’t help but think she was also an apprentice. With a surprised look on her face, she greets us and welcomes us inside.