“Lorna! Bring that brat to the smithy right away! Let me see how useless this one is!” Thundered a deep, growling voice across a well-trodden path between two fields, which the herd of deer was trotting.

  The siblings awoke from their thoughtful contemplation of the golden brown ears of the nearly ripe grain in the fields around them, and Edana cast a worried glance at her brother, who, with his mouth agape, had a bead of sweat dripping from his forehead.

  “Hahaha! Typical Master Arto! Hahaha! Kilian comes with me, and the rest of you ride on!” The leader of the caravan replied with a laugh and guided her mount with a gentle movement up a steep path.

  At the end of it stood a huge stone hut, whose chimney blew vast quantities of smoke into the air, and periodic blows of a metal hammer could be heard.

  Just before the two reached their destination, the massive door of the smithy swung open, and a small, stocky dwarf with a long, white, sooty beard and hair stepped out.

  "Where's my wood? How am I supposed to work like this? You're already half a day late!" He immediately barked at the Qi-Master as she dismounted.

  With a sweet smile, she opened her pouch, and the mountain toad saw the light of day again.

  “Kilian, unload the logs and hurry up!” She ordered, and the boy immediately got to work.

  “Do you think I have all day to watch a human child fail?” The master blacksmith asked venomously, “Even if he is stronger than a grown man, he can't lift an ironpine!”

  “He can even chop them!” Lorna replied calmly, “He chopped the last delivery that even you praised, and today's is of even better quality!”

  “I'll be the judge of that!” Retorted the master blacksmith defiantly, but one or two angry wrinkles on his leathery face smoothed out barely visibly, and he snorted, “I've got an iron in the fire right now. Knock on the door as soon as everything's unloaded and settled!”

  "If he's a good lumberjack, at least he'll have something to do once I kick him out of here!" He grumbled half intelligibly into his beard as he disappeared back into the smithy, "Why, by the beards of the various dwarf gods, did HE have to give that annoying woman the task of finding me an apprentice! Always such a waste of my time!"

  The master blacksmith went to his fiery forge and took out an angular piece of glowing metal, and began to shape it into a cylinder with lightning-fast hammer blows.

  Just before he had completed three dozen blows, there was a knock on his wooden door, made of ironpine.

  "Already finished? That can't be true!" The dwarf asked himself with raised eyebrows, threw the metal back into the crackling fire, and walked out of the forge.

  His first glance fell on a sweat-drenched, bent-over boy, gasping for air with all his might, and his second on a long row of tree trunks on which the halfelf sat with a sweet smile.

  Kilian took a secret peek at her and blushed at the sight of her long, slightly greenish legs, which seemed to flow down endlessly from the tight-fitting, figure-hugging robe.

  "Get off my wood, you'll ruin it!" Master Arto thundered irritably, not the least bit impressed by the lovely sight in front of him, and turned to the worker now sitting on the ground, "Stupid brat! Stay focused when you're out of breath and don't let beauty blind you! If you make those mistakes in a fight, you'd already be dead! Nothing is as poisonous to a man's heart as the beauty of the wrong woman!"

  As if struck by lightning, the former shepherd boy jumped up, turned his face to the dwarf, his ears still red, and panted, "Yes... Master! Thank you... For your... Guidance!"

  Laughing sweetly, Lorna jumped down from the tree trunks, placed her graceful hands on Kilian's shoulders from behind, and murmured with a satisfied grin in his ear, "So that's your weakness! At your age? Hahaha! A beautiful woman can bring your downfall faster than fighting a pack of vicious magical beasts. Besides, you're still too young for that, and above all, too weak, because in the world of Qi-Masters, only strength counts! A mere mortal will never win the hearts of the beauties living in this world!"

  The little boy felt as if his head swelled to three times its size and his face was boiling with heat, but he forced himself, despite the pleasant scent that now surrounded him, to keep his gaze firmly directed forward.

  The blacksmith ignored the short interlude and was already eagerly examining the new delivery of wood.

  “Boy, come here!” He called grumpily, Kilian ran to him with quick steps, and immediately the dwarf asked, “Look closely at these two ironpines! Not just with your eyes, but use all your senses. How do they differ?”

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  The young man nervously walked around the chopped trees, looking at the two logs, which he recognized as one felled by him and the other by his father, from all sides.

  He smelled them, touched them, and was even about to lick them when he had an inspiration.

  “Qi! Is that why the trees are so hard?” He thought, sat down, began to meditate, and tried to detect the smoke-like flow of the energy.

  Several minutes passed, and Lorna watched the silent blacksmith in amazement, finally murmuring to herself, “So he can be patient after all? But only if he wants to be!”

  “Knock on my door as soon as he has an answer for me!” Master Arto commanded the beautiful Qi-Master, and shortly thereafter, periodic hammer blows caused the air to vibrate again.

  As the sun was about to disappear behind a distant mountain peak, only a faint orange hue was left.

  Kilian opened his eyes, filled with insights, rose, and stood between the two logs to test his theory.

  He placed his palms on the cool wood, sensed the Qi flow, and felt like the inner barrier of his own Qi-paths.

  A powerful, unbridled energy pulsed beneath his right arm, while beneath his left it crawled forward at a snail's pace.

  “Why is that?” He began to ponder, but the next moment he heard Lorna knocking loudly on the wooden door of the smithy, and shortly afterward he found himself facing the dwarf’s unreadable expression.

  “One trunk is brimming with Qi, while the other is almost empty in comparison!” The boy immediately described his findings before the blacksmith could say a word.

  "Why is that? The two pines come from the same forest, grew in the same soil, are the same age, and yet the difference is enormous. Can you explain it?" Master Arto asked again, heading back toward his forge, but stopped after only a few steps because Kilian began to answer.

  "The trees' lives were the same, so the only difference is the way they died! One was chopped fast and the other slow…" He began, somewhat haltingly at first, and then continued in a firm voice, "If the trunk and branches function like Qi-paths, the rootstock could be similar to the dantian. If the iron pine is felled quickly, there is little time to recollect the energy in the roots, and if you work slowly, most of the Qi is stored underground for the plant to sprout again in the next season!"

  Without turning around, with a deep sigh, as if a part of his world had just crumbled down, the dwarf answered as he disappeared into his forge, "Tomorrow, at sunrise, your first lesson begins! You'll learn the basics of the metals you'll mine in the future. From nine to one, you'll work in the mine, and if I'm satisfied with your haul, you'll be allowed to watch my work in the afternoon! Whether you pick up anything or not will depend entirely on your talent! Lorna, explain the rest to him and then get the hell out of here!"

  With a loud bang, the door closed behind him, and he devoted himself entirely to his craft again.

  Confused whether his answer was right or wrong, Killian, scratching his head stupidly, looked to the fairy like Qi-Master for help, but she only smiled at him contentedly with two thumbs up.

  “There are a few things you need to know before your new daily routine starts tomorrow!” Lorna said to the two shepherd children, “Generally, Monday to Friday, you will work in the morning and afternoon! The other two days of the week are free for you to concentrate on your training and for relaxation. Except every first Saturday of the month! On this day, your progress is evaluated, your work is assessed, and there's a lecture from a Qi-Master from the Inner Academy to teach you something. But after that comes the most exciting part!

  The arena battles!

  Everyone has to fight once a month, and you can fight up to three times as long as you win your rounds. Every victory is rewarded with training resources, and these are essential if you ever want to be accepted by the clan!”

  “Fight?” The siblings asked in unison, while Edana looked fearful and Killian beamed with enthusiasm.

  “Fight!” Confirmed the Qi-Master, adding seriously, “Only your own strength can keep you alive, for if you are too weak, you will fail on your path! Now go to sleep! Your new life awaits you tomorrow, and you have a strenuous week ahead of you!”

  “Have they finally dug up a living dwarf somewhere?” Laughed the mocking, sometimes high-pitched, sometimes deep, slightly scratchy voice of a green-skinned, pimply halforc, who licked his small, sharp fangs and watched Kilian amusedly as he entered the workers' dormitory.

  The boy paced from one foot to the other, feverishly wondering how to answer and watching a small group of teenage hybrids staring at him mockingly.

  "Leave him alone, Gerok! You can see that he's a human child, right? Or are you not only stupid but also blind?" A tired and bored voice sounded from the shadows in the depths of the hall.

  A figure, over two meters tall with shoulder-length brown hair, rose from his creaking bed and slowly approached the newcomer.

  "Are you lost, little one?" Asked the giant with a raised eyebrow, "You're only eleven years old at the most, and your human bodies are far too weak. What are you doing with us miners?"

  “I am ten!” Kilian answered shyly and, after his counterpart’s second eyebrow also shot up, quickly added, “Starting tomorrow, I’ll be working in the mine in the morning and at the blacksmiths in the afternoon!”

  “At the blacksmiths?” The giant marveled, and shortly after began to laugh loudly, “Hahahaha! So you are Lorna’s next victim? Hahaha! Until a few weeks ago, it was my job to help that old Grumpybeard! I tried to butter him up to learn something, but since I'm a half-giant, I have virtually no talent as a Qi-Master, and he just kicked me out after months of toiling! Hahaha! You can't please that grumpy bastard!"

  “The next victim?” Kilian replied, his jaw hanging open, staring ahead with a confused look, “He’s a bit strange, but I thought he was not that bad…”

  "Hahaha! You'll understand me in the future! My name is Thrym, by the way, and I'm responsible for making sure everyone here gets along well! Hahaha!" Explained the blacksmith's former assistant, approaching the newcomer and smiling, extending his plate-sized hand, clenched into a fist, "Since you're going to go through the same misfortune as I did, and we're the only ones in the mine without orc blood, you can be my little brother. Interested?"

  Kilian also clenched his fingers, which were at least four times smaller, struck the giant's fist with a powerful movement, and said with a grin on his face, "I'm Kilian, nice to meet you!"

  A dull thud filled the room, causing the giant's gigantic arm to tremble slightly, and after a brief silence, Thrym's loud laughter rang out again, "Hahaha! Now I get why you're here at the age of ten! So small, yet so strong... You're a wolf in sheep's clothing! Hahaha!”