Hundreds of diverse creatures sat meditating or talking quietly with each other in front of the entrance to the Inner Academy, repeatedly glancing furtively at the guarded entrance.

  Around the gate bustled tailors, tanners, stonemasons, construction workers, and countless other tradesmen, who performed the clan's everyday tasks for a chance to become a Qi-Master.

  As soon as even the slightest commotion arose that disturbed the watchful weapon master of the Inner Academy, he would send out a powerful, pulsating wave of Qi to ensure peace, and hardly anyone dared to even breathe loudly!

  Lord Cayden only tolerated obedience!

  While the young newcomers timidly eyed the older workers, an excited, shrill scream broke the oppressive silence, but instead of sending his all encompassing Qi aura across the square again, the weapons master only briefly opened one eyelid, looked at the cause of the commotion, and closed it again with a smile, while Connor, half hidden behind the door of a watchtower, observed the events with red ears.

  “Brother!” A young, red-haired girl, accompanied by a happily barking windwolf pup, jumped into Kilian's arms, hugged him tightly, and finally said, “You look terrible! Is the work in the mine very hard? Are you getting enough to eat?”

  “On the contrary!” Laughed the young boy, happy to see his sister again after the strenuous days, and looked her up and down to see if anything was amiss, “ The mine is almost relaxing compared to my other training! How are you? Are they treating you well?”

  Before Edana could say anything, a powerful voice boomed across the square in front of the gate of the Inner Academy, “The test of your progress may begin, second-level Qi-Gatherers, enter!”

  A small group of six people, consisting of five humans and one halforc, stood up and walked past the weapons master with a deep bow.

  Kilian felt small clouds of Qi swirling around each of the Qi-Gatherers, who were about sixteen to eighteen years old, briefly disappearing into their lungs with deep breaths, and then flowing out of their noses untouched.

  “If you constantly feel the Qi, can you also constantly train and absorb it?” He asked himself, but his sister immediately interrupted his thoughts.

  "This is Ferga! I named her after our father's old dog." Edana explained with a smile, oblivious to her surroundings, and held the little puppy under her brother's nose, "I take care of various animals and plants all day long. There are wolves, deer, and bears! Also, many magical fruits grow everywhere in the gardens, which I pick for the clan and then bring to the Inner Academy. Lorna told me that we can win some of these fruits in the arena fights! I'm so excited to see what happens today!"

  “That's Thrym, by the way.” Kilian finally interrupted her continuous talking a few minutes later, after the half-giant sitting on the ground had already cleared his throat several times without successfully getting the attention that he wanted, “He's become something like my big brother in the mine and has helped me many times!”

  "It's nice to meet you, I've heard a lot about you!" Said the giant with a big smile on his face, grinned at the half-hidden Connor, and deliberately raised his voice, "Even in the Inner Academy, you already have a suitor! Wow! Hahaha!"

  Edana turned her head in confusion to follow Thrym's gaze, but saw only a cloud of dust where the aspiring beast tamer had stood seconds before.

  Her questioning glances were met with fits of laughter from the two miners in front of her, which were interrupted a few moments later by a quiet but pervasive female voice, “First level Qi-Gatherers, enter!”

  Several dozen workers of all kinds rose, and to Kilian's astonishment, Gerok led a small group of halforcs through the gate of the Inner Academy.

  "He became a Qi-Gatherer shortly before your arrival." The half-giant said in a depressed voice, "Since then, he's been trying to take my position as foreman because I simply can't channel Qi into my dantian. But as long as he's a coward and flees at the mere sight of a metalbiter, he'll never get my place!"

  “We're working for Master Arto now!” His little brother interrupted with a fiery look, “As soon as I get my training instructions and become a Qi-Gatherer, I'll teach Gerok a lesson!”

  "Connor!" Cayden called out loudly, and his assistant appeared before him with a bowed head, "As the newest recruit to the Inner Academy, it's your turn to test the workers! Send every new Qi-Gatherer to me!"

  “Understood!” The shy boy answered in a shaky voice and laid dozens of finely crafted rugs on the floor.

  When he had completed his preparations, he called out to the waiting workers, "Form lines in front of the Qi-O-Mats, sit on them, and rotate your training instructions. If you are not yet able to do this or do not have instructions, simply try to feel the Qi around you."

  Under the constant pressure of the powerful aura of the weapon master, who watched from the background, twelve orderly lines quickly formed, and one after the other tried their luck.

  Several hours passed, no one had yet been identified as a new Qi-Gatherer, and finally, it was Edana's turn.

  She sat down on the carpet-like Qi-O-Mat, took a deep breath, and began to rotate Qi through her channels and the Dantian.

  The Qi-O-Mat beneath her small, delicate legs immediately began to glow yellow, and behind the girl's back, as if out of nowhere, a brightly shining column appeared, which was divided into two parts in the middle, as if by a dark brushstroke.

  "A Qi-Gatherer in the second third of the first level! Good work!" Connor nodded enthusiastically and, nervously stammering a few friendly words, accompanied her to Cayden, while Thrym, who was one place ahead of Kilian in the long queue, began to meditate on the carpet to feel the Qi around him.

  No glowing pillar shone, but slowly an increasingly strong aura began to emanate from the halfgiant, as if Qi was beginning to gather around him.

  Just as Edana was about to bow to the weapons master, he vanished before her eyes like a thin wisp of mist, and the next moment stood before the giant, "A Qi-sensitive halfgiant? Hahaha! Who's ever seen such a thing? Hahaha! You must have been working on that for years! On a trip to the ruins of the ancient world, I found a few yellowed pages of a script from the giants, and if you can convince me in the arena fights today, they will be yours! You'll certainly be able to do more with them than I can! Hahaha!"

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "My journey is not over yet!" Thrym answered firmly, taking one last deep breath and standing up to make way for his little brother, whispering to him, "It's your turn, and with your ability to sense Qi, a storm is brewing! Sweep them away!"

  With a confident grin, the small but powerful child sat down on the finely crafted Qi-O-Mat, closed his eyes, slowly began to sharpen his senses, and put all his concentration into feeling the energy around him.

  A light breeze arose and blew wave after wave of smoke-like Qi into his face.

  With each second, the clouds became increasingly dense, and the energy in the surrounding area began to pulsate with such force that it was almost tangible.

  Invisible lightning-like discharges struck next to the human boy, and a powerful aura, almost comparable to that of the weapons master, repeatedly flashed through the air in front of the Inner Academy.

  A storm had indeed arrived, and most of the creatures around the meditating worker were frightened and tried to take cover.

  A few hundred meters away, a white haired apeman stood beneath a brightly shining archway, his moist eyes pressing a hairy palm against an old wooden panel and blowing thick clouds of smoke from his curved pipe.

  Unfazed by the storm raging around him, the smoke slowly rose into the sky, and a soft, raspy voice whispered, while a small, black squirrel, sheltered in a tree hole, watched him with big, round eyes, "My old friend, has the time come? I know fate is already written and no one can stop it, but I wonder if we are strong enough to bear it? Only time can reveal it in the end..."

  “I have never seen such a Qi affinity!” Murmured the weapon master of the Inner Academy with a meaningful gaze, “With intact Qi-paths, he would be the greatest talent since the founder…How can we utilize his abilities?”

  Kilian felt the world dancing around him and wanted nothing more than to store the masses of Qi, some of which he could even direct outside of his body for a short time, in his Dantian and finally become a Qi-Master.

  But he couldn't!

  He knew that any attempt would be punished with injury and perhaps even the destruction of his inner Qi network.

  “I need a training manual that is gentle enough!” He longed, as he could sense the seemingly endless power around him, but could not use it.

  Slowly, he opened his eyes, the Qi clouds cleared almost immediately, the last lightning struck next to him, and the world seemed to fall into silence, as if time itself stood still.

  "Prove your worth in battle, and the clan will find a way!" Cayden said succinctly, then called out to the crowd waiting in cover, "Hurry up! Your lecture and the battles are still waiting for you!"

  No further Qi-Gatherers or other gifted beings were discovered, and almost two hours later, all the workers were sitting together in a large amphitheater, and an old, small man began to roll out some parchment rolls in front of him.

  "My name is Professor Irwin, and I am one of the elders of the Inner Academy" The approximately 1.60 meter tall Qi-Master began to introduce himself in a hoarse voice, while an enormous white mustache above his upper lip magically took on ever changing forms, "Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to the Institute of calligraphy, which I am honored to lead, and I would like to try to give you a better understanding of this demanding art. The history of the academy is deeply intertwined with this Dao, as our founder, Lord Gao Kong, was a master of this subject!"

  His beard performed unimaginable contortions on the elder's face.

  One moment it simply curled upwards, then downwards, and the next moment it looked like a flying bird flapping its wings.

  After Kilian could swear that a white sailing ship had just sailed over the old man's lips, he forced himself to follow the professor's lengthy explanations again.

  "But enough praise for this fine art, let's now move on to the practical question: Why should a young Q-Gatherer invest his valuable training time in calligraphy instead of simply expanding his Qi reserves?" The elder ended his monologue with a brief question, only to continue speaking unabated the next moment, "The most common application is to strengthen weapons and armor! If you know the formula and have the right material as ink, you can, for example, use the blood of a magmaboa to imbue a staff with a powerful fire spell that can be activated with minimal Qi expenditure. Any learned Qi technique would consume far more energy when used, so with the right enchantments, you can fight longer and thus increase your survivability! If you ever leave the clan or you are stranded in a different world, the art of calligraphy is also a good way to earn some quick Qi-stones. Furthermore, by studying calligraphy, you can learn things about Qi that would otherwise remain hidden from you for a lifetime...but now for the demonstration!"

  After a brief, bright flash of a magic ring, a yellowish piece of parchment, a white quill, and a small vial of red ink lay before each of the workers.

  The master of calligraphy now stood in front of a suddenly appeared tablet on which, in sweeping writing, Aed stood.

  "The art of enchantments is not just about the writing, but also about the flow of Qi behind it. Study this word with all your senses, concentrate, and try to reproduce it on the parchment in front of you! You have thirty minutes!" Said the old man, while his beard alternately took the shape of the writing or a trickling hourglass every few seconds, and closed his eyes.

  The silence of the tense atmosphere was repeatedly interrupted by a soft scratching of the quills on the thin parchment, often followed by a stifled curse as the tip of the ink-soaked quill easily broke or punctured the yellowish paper.

  For the first ten minutes, Kilian just sat quietly in his seat and watched the writing on the large board, trying to feel it.

  It was as if each letter lived, breathed, and moved.

  His inner eye followed the movement of the Qi again and again, which disappeared in the short word and a few moments later, glowing slightly reddish, glided through the room again.

  Under the watchful gaze of thousands of eyes, the little boy stood up, went to touch one of those reddish clouds, and closed his eyelids.

  “So that’s how it is…” He murmured so quietly that no one, except the professor, whose full attention was on the human child despite his closed eyes, could hear him, while he felt how it slowly grew warmer around him, “The writing is a catalyst that transforms the already existing energies flying around and gives them a certain direction. Qi is usually made up of different elements, and depending on where you are, one can be stronger than the other! It is not enough to simply copy the word; you also have to understand the invisible structure, the true meaning of Aed, and print it on the paper! I think I've got it! This is the only way to transform the other types of Qi into the desired element! Simply copying the word doesn't do anything!"

  With quick steps and a steady gaze, Kilian returned to his seat, raised his quill pen, and opened his inner eye.

  He dipped his tool into the red ink and noticed how the tip of the pen attracted slightly reddish Qi.

  Slowly but skillfully, he connected the fire-Qi with the parchment before him, and an invisible network began to form, hidden behind each letter.

  “Time’s up, you can go!” Professor Irwin shouted, and the pieces of paper in front of the workers disappeared from one second to the next, just as the thoughtful young blacksmith apprentice made his final mark on the sheet in front of him, “If you ever make it into the Inner Academy, you can retake the talent test, and now get out of here!”

  “Now the fighting finally begins!” Thrym said to his little brother, patting him on the shoulder and adding quietly, “I have never heard of simple workers being taught by an elder, especially in calligraphy!”

  Before Kilian could answer, he suddenly heard the shrill voice of the old Qi-Master in his head, “You stay here for a moment!”

  Frozen in mid movement, the boy suddenly could no longer put down his raised leg and stammered in confusion to the half-giant, “Y-you go ahead, I’ll be right there!”

  Shrugging his shoulders, the giant left the amphitheater along with everyone else, leaving only the little boy and the old man behind.

  “You’re Kilian?” The eldest asked abruptly.

  “Yes, Professor. Do you need anything from me?” The worker replied, confused.

  "Me from you? Not necessarily... But maybe you need something from me!" Said Professor Irwin, watching the boy, who was now looking more and more confused.

  “Your work today can be used! You have some talent!” The head of the calligraphy institute finally began to explain after a brief pause, “I am aware of your... circumstances and would like to propose a suggestion...”