After couple of hours of sleep the kid woke up refreshed and saw that the couple and Rhodos sitting a bit farther away

“Grr….” Came sound from his stomach, he was hungry. He walked up to them to see that they were sitting around a bon fire, grilling meat and fruits.

When he smelled the food “Grrr……” came another noise from his stomach which gave away his location.

Looking up to him Rhodos called “come here Master Kush, we weren’t expecting you to wake up so soon, its dinner time already. Come and join us, we are barbecuing today.”

His father had the grill today not his mother so he wasn’t sure what to expect, but he was hungry no less, hungry enough to devour everything raw if needed. He dove into the soft bosom of Rhodos and rubbed his cheeks in them.

“ah... this is heaven.” He thought to himself as he placed his head in her lap as she fed him.

“Kush, rest well for another hour we start the next part of your training after this”

Always happy to train he said “Okay!! But dad what’s next?”

“Next” his father replied “is your strength training”

“gulp”

After an hour of rest started the arduous training to build up strength.

“Now son, you have to crouch next to the rock in front of you pick it above your head first only using movement in forearm, then using only your shoulder then lower it down behind your head only using movement forearm again and slowly drop it. Not throw it, drop it. You have to complete 10 rounds around the field like this”

The rock weighed almost weighed 7.5 kgs, for a 4.5 ft kid, who weighed 43 kgs himself (excluding the braces, and torso weight) it was considerable weight, but he started without further ado.

Again his father sat in the middle of the field cultivating something while he continued. He started by picking up the rock in perfect posture sitting down keeping, keeping his hands straight lifting the rock using his forearms only, pressed his bicep, lifting it up only using his shoulders pushed his lateral and shoulder muscles and lowering it behind him only using his forearm, pressed his triceps and so started his arduous laps again. If done correctly, it would take him close to 12000 reps of the whole cycle to complete one lap, even though his muscles were continuously being assuaged by life energy from his Mula chakra, it was a near impossible feat for him, so much so that at the end of the first lap he fell backwards unable to maintain his balance, his father did not interrupt so he simply continued after sip of water. After the second round his triceps were tearing up and he was unable to slowly lower it anymore. He hit the back of his head with the rock a couple of time too, which caused him to bleed, but he persevered and continued to complete his laps. After the third lap, his shoulders did not have the strength to lift the rock at all. It was entirely red with his back muscles ripped to shreds now supporting the entire weight all the time. But he still continued. When he was about to complete his 5^th lap, he popped a vein in his biceps trying to lift the rock, he was now bending and using his back bone to lift support the lack to strength in any other muscle. On the seventh lap, the skin on his fingers were no longer repairing as fast as damage being done on them. He lost grip in his fingers which made him use his nails to strengthen his grip on the rock by the ninth lap, he had all but given up on forms and posture his father instructed. He was now using his abdominal muscles to sort of flip the rock from a bowed posture to a sleeping posture (meaning he crouched, bowed his whole body instead of lowering his hands, stressed his abs to lift up the roc, and then fell on his back). Had his lower back bones not been reinforced by mana repair, he would not have been able to pull off such stunts. He realized, that slowly but surely he was getting stronger. At the end of the tenth lap, he just fell on his back, breathing profusely, unable to find a position he was comfortable in. His back, arm, legs, back of his head, abs, thigh everything was aching, he could not lie on anything.

His father came up to him and supported his back. He laid him on his back and “start mana absorption, we start next exercise in another two hours. Come to the dining table when you can, I will prepare something for you to eat”

It took him close to fifty minutes to recover enough to walk up to his house. He ate like a monster. The mana veins in his stomach then acted up and sped up the restoration even more. The veins to the stomach were the thickest because they had the largest ether quantity. The only reason why they weren’t used for initial training of cultivation was because they weren’t voluntary muscles to begin with, even experts took time to be able to use stomach veins, Kush became an expert in spotting the vein location only because he had seen so many of his own veins and had been practicing mana absorption from all of them. Honestly, none of this training would have been possible w/o endurance and the property of Mula chakra being repair. “Sigh… even though mom says it was hard-work and endurance, but I feel luck played some part in it as well, oh well about time I caught a break”

After another hour or so, it was time for the next round of training. It was already dark in the field, except for the stars and moon, the light in his house, there were no sources of light. To ordinary people making out silhouettes would have been difficult, let alone fight, but here he was a knife in hand ready to face the unknown for the first time, his first, first time he would spill blood. Knife he hand in his hand was dark and a foot in length, it was good for a street fight. The peculiar thing about the knife was its sheen/ surface finish, which was not seen in a rock, but blade was no metal for sure. It was a monolith made entirely out of the same material and the same piece of rock. The blade was particularly sharp, again something never seen in a weapon made out of a rock, if one did not know any better, it was made from the weird black rock from the island which contained the Kush peak in-front of their home.

“Hmm… but dad said it was a very hard material and could not be processed in to anything. It weighs about 2.5 kgs, perfectly suited for my case. I am completely fatigued, none of my limbs are working to even 30% I guess. I don’t know if can swing around a sword in this situation. Well let’s plan how I will approach this fight, let’s try to run towards the rock over there, that should cover to of sides, that way even if I cannot see the opponent I should be able protect myself simply swinging my blade in front of me. But if the opponent is too strong and just charges in like say a bull, even if I impale it with this blade, it will be of no use or the effect will be visible only after the fight concludes. I will not be able to see its weak points too cause of the dark. I should make a point of requesting dad a book on magical beast physiology book, it should help me later on as well. For now, I guess I will have to rely on my other senses, cause a beast that big will have to make a lot of noise when charging in. What if the beast is like a monkey and has thumbs, then it will be able to throw stuff at me from a distance? Hmm... that’s tough one. I will not be able to sense a projectile, like a stone, coming at me from a distance and a rock will not give me any protection at all if I am on the wrong side of it” thinking upto this point he asked his father “Dad can you give some time to prepare for a fight?”

Surprised the father smirked and said “Generally I do not give freebies out like this, but since this is your first fight and strategizing is also part of a fight, you have another half an hour to prepare yourself”

“Now about the opponent, the beast will have the ability to see in the dark, considering my current inability to move properly, father will have probably brought a high mobility opponent against me. Let’s see what else, this is an open field, I would be in a further disadvantage if the opponent is smaller which will make it difficult to hit it”

He goes to the kitchen and uses a utensil to cover his head and uses glue to strap it tightly to his head, then he folded two hand towels and used rope to strap it on his forearm on the rear side, since he did not have preference in weapons as of yet, he did not try to change out the weapon. Since his right side of body would always be difficult to defend, cause he did not have his right hand, he decided to use two big towels and strap it around his torso on the right side to cushion atleast a few blows, this would give him a fighting chance against a big opponent atleast. Since the purpose of this fight was the dark he was not allowed to carry a torch. He brought a small pouch with him and kept a few things in it for his use.

The Father son duo were standing in the center of the field “Ok, now that you have had time to prepare, lets immediately start with your exercise” As he said so, he disappeared from in front of him. As soon as said that, Kush turned around and started a mad dash towards the rock he planned to use as cover. Just as he reached half way near the rock the he was hit on his back right below his right below his shoulders, it felt like being hit by a club with thorn sticking out of it. Since he was not at his best he was not really fast but he was no expecting to caught this soon, he had not even located the opponent yet and got hit sending him on the ground. He wasn’t prepared for the fall, the momentum dragged him on the ground, his helmet strap broke and it fell off, he got a thin but long scratch from right side forehead to cheek, the shoulder stump got pinned on a sharp rock sending shock throughout his body, one of the straps holding the torso towel in place broke off and now the towel was now folded awkwardly outwards hanging off of the lower strap still holding on. If he had two arms he could have broken his fall easily but alas. His back was hurting like hell. He had already all his preparations in one hit and he did not even not what he was facing. The tumble had caused him to lose grip on his knife and he did not know where he dropped it. He panicked and started the patting the floor in the dark searching for his weapon could not find it, when the rear of his hands hit the utensil which he used to cover his head. He picked it up and started swinging it around in the dark wildly, suddenly came a hit from his right, hitting him right below the rig cage, knocking all the air out of him and sending him flying in the direction of the rock. Mid-air, the utensil slips out of his grip and lands on what seems like the head of the beast inverted. Rolling over to his back Kush tries to move back by dragging himself across the floor for a couple of minutes and then turning around lifting himself off the ground and continue running towards the rock, it was limping more than the running by this point. He was scared, scared of the beast that was appearing in front of him, scared of what would happen if he stopped for a minute, no the beast was faster when he was unhurt, right now he was nothing more than a rat running towards the open maw of the serpent. Suddenly the beast howls “Ooooohhhhhhh…….” a classic wolf cry echoes into the night which has a crescent moon and dim stars showing almost no light, the cry send shivers down his spine. It is only now that he realizes that his back and abdomen are wet. Did I fall into a clay or was the ground wet he thought, for he was sure there was water on the ground. He tripped and fell on his face again and sharp jagged stone hit him on the temple, almost knocking him unconscious, but the fear kept him up, fear of getting hurt, fear for his life. He was about to get up immediately when he realized the beast zoom past his back and wind it generated was felt by him on his back. He had goosebumps all over his body, cause he knew had he stayed up at the time the beast would have had him for dinner, the thought sucked whatever courage he had left out of him and like a poor little kid having faced death this close at the hands of the beast send him cowering towards his house instead looking for his loved one ones, when he was stopped in his tracks cause he had hit something and fell on his butt, it moved just a little due to crash so it is not a rock, it was shaped like it head of a animal, but had no fur, its face’s surface was hard like ceramic, but it felt sonorous like metal. He could feel the warm breath from its nose on his face, now that he was this close he could see it. It was about Kush’s height right now when Kush was sitting and the beast was standing on all its four, its ears on its head were sharp and erect, it had pointy horizontal eyes right placed right above it snout below which were sharp jagged teeth, which he was sure were strong enough to bite his leg off, the powerful jaw had a tongue, which was not quite visible in the dark of its jaw but he was not interested in knowing what it looked like either, the legs were a bit longer than his forearm and had a paw at the end having what looked like very sharp nail, which he was sure were strong enough to dig into his chest cavity and tear his heart out. His heart was racing, “Lubdub, lubdub, lubdub, lubdub…” his eyes were slowly getting used to dark too as he saw the beast’s tracks and could see that beast had crushed rocks beneath its feet. “Grrr…..” growled the beast, with its eyes on the level of Kush. Their faces were only 10 cm apart but he did not pounce Kush for some reason, as if waiting for Kush to make a move. Kush was slowly backing away while on his butt, but so was the dog taking one careful step at a time, suddenly Kush’s palm slipped from something liquid which was coming down from his back non-stop and his dropped to the ground again “Woof” shouted the beast as it finally decided to go for Kush’s neck with its jaws. Suddenly Kush felt a rock is his hand, which he used to smash the skull of the beast “whimper” the beast let out. For the first time Kush had some control on fight, as he grabbed the neck of the beast in between his legs in a scissor hold to pin in down. The sudden motion had made him lose his sight again in the dark and he did not have time to let himself get used to the dark again. His brain started churning “This beast can obviously see me in the dark, the utensil fell on its head when it slipped out of my hand, which was when it momentarily paused its attack that means it covered its eyes and from the dimensions of the utensil, dog should be about as tall as my torso standing, since the utensil dropped on it like a hat, its mouth is larger than the head of the beast but the eyes location below the head should be less than the height of the utensil, its skin is ceramic assuming that is true for its body as well, it would be better for me to hit its eyes and/or it throat, I ca feel its snout on my shin this here should the eye, when he went Baaaammmmmm….”

“whimper, kkkyyyuuuu….. kkkyyyuuuu….. kkkyyyuuuu….. kkkyyyuuuu….. kkkyyyuuuu….. kkkyyyuuuu…..” (cry of a wolf, couldn’t even get close I know) from the sound he knew it was working as he continued hitting the location of eye “Bam!” “Bam!” “Bam!” “Bam!” “Bam!” “Bam!” till he could no longer hear the beast at all and he could feel the beast lose strength from between his legs. For safety, he put his finger in where the other eye should and once he identified the location he hit it as well, just to make sure the job was done.

He dropped on his back when he realized he was hurting a lot “AAAghhh….” He screamed. The first paw attack had torn his back to shreds and bleeding copious amounts of blood, he rolled from his back to his stomach “AAAAAAAAAAAa…..” he screamed even more. It seems the hit on his stomach had broken the skin on the abdominal wall, he had not been pierced there atleast, but it smarted. Tired he rolled to his left side and tried to get up. He walked back slowly to where he thought he left his dad at.

“Dad…” he shouted looking for him when he suddenly saw fire bursting from the approximate location his dad was at. limping he walked up to him, the distance was about a km and it took him close to 20 min.

“You did good there son, not dying to an iron wall wolf on your first day a feat worthy of appreciation. I thought for sure I would have had to save you there, though then I wouldn’t have been this happy. Did you start mana absorption?”

“Ah...” said Kush in agreement, unable to speak a whole lot.

“Over the years son I have developed a system wherein I can make an estimate of power of a person using various beasts and people as reference. I obviously had to use a lot of test to ascertain them but for most people initially, but now I can make a judgement mid fight”

“Heh.. then all I did today was a way to measure by power? Then why did you have me run tests?”

“Of course the mid fight thing is only valid to those who are closer to me in power levels”

“Hmm… then how did I fare dad” he asked suddenly energized at the prospect of getting results for his hardwork

“Well to say the least it was weak, you are probably the weakest being out there today”

“heeehh…. That’s all you have to say. I knew that even before you told me”

“Heh…” marveling at his mental fortitude

Father then said. “Your power can be said as follows:

Strength: 45

Speed: 32

Agility: 60

Regen: 230

Magic Regen: 350

Toughness: 108”