The next morning was surprising to say little about it. 

At an hour till sunrise about the same time as the local farmers tend to get up dad came into my room like a earthquake and hurricane in one. 

He got me awake with a shout loud enough to wake the whole town and the surrounding woods. 

"GOOOOOODDDD MORNING! ARE YOU READY FOR MY FAVORITE TYPE OF TRAINING!" 

At this point I was wide awake and scrambling to orient myself. But just as my feet hit the floor dad threw a new set of clothes and a piece of wood that I couldn't make out yet because of the clothes around it.

Upon finishing getting dressed in the new clothes and finding it to be a set of loose fitting work out clothes consisting of a short boys tunic, light pants and sturdy boots. I was told by dad to tuck the pants into the boots so I wouldn't trip.

When I finally have a chance to look at the piece of wood that was given to me with the clothes. It turned out to be a heavy wooden short sword made for my size. It was a total of one and half feet long and had a straight blade with what seemed to be a metal core to add weight. This thing was about two pounds and I was kind of expecting to not get this for a little longer probably after I did a bit of training first. However dad seemed to have other plans.

When we reach the woods, dad turned to me with a new expression that I hadn't seen before. His eyes were scarily sharp and it looked like he saw through everything. His normally warm amber eyes that exuded with love and willingness to help where replaced by the eyes of a tactician or general thinking of the battle field. This was something I hadn't ever thought possible from my goofy, fun loving dad, but despite my surprise he spoke without giving me time to fully process the change in mood. 

"Sweety, I am going to train you with everything I have. You are going to learn how to wield a blade to kill. You are not learning to just defend yourself, you are learning what to do to kill someone and end their life. There is no Suger coating this. I understand that every champion has a mission and I won't ask about it, mainly because it's between you and the Gods. However I have some guesses. But at the end of the day you will need to kill someone at many points in this journey, therefore I'm here to insure you learn how to kill and how to handle what it means to kill. You won't be doing that anytime soon but it will happen make no mistake. Also normally I wouldn't tell this to you so early or this young but since you are champion and that means you will have quite a few challenges. That and you have your memories from your past life." 

As he finished his talk his eyes went back to ones of care and love. The ones that proved every day that he loves me and mom. 

"Now, let's start with the basics and drill those till you'll never forget." 

Oh, that doesn't sound good. 

As it turns out I was dead right. He put me through hell that day. First he had me run till I was just about to collapse then made me start doing exercises like jumping jacks, push-ups, sit-ups, burpees, and flutter kicks. While I was going through this I was told to have the wooden sword on me at all time and to make it part of my body. I was told to have the sword within arms reach at all times and when I finally graduated from dad's basic training he would change the sword I carry from the wooden training sword to a real sword with a blade and sheath. But until then I was to carry the wooden sword and act as if this was a real sword.

It was exhausting and I was drenched from head to toe in sweat by the time I was done. If beastkin didn't grow faster then normal humans I wouldn't have been able to make it through either. Even though I am technically five years old I look about seven or eight. 

With morning training out of the way dad said I was not allowed to use healing magic on my muscle pain because that defeats the reason for training my muscles. As it was explained to me. Healing magic puts the body back to the state it was before, there by healing it. However for working-out, healing magic makes it so instead of gain muscle and losing fat it puts me back to where I started and wasting all that effort from physical training. 

These first few days where hell. I would start by training with dad and then continue my magic training and education with mom and uncle Uca in the afternoon. This meant I was sore and still trying to focus on controlling my magic adding another layer of difficulty to the training. Surprisingly my body recovered faster then I originally thought. Normally It would take a day or two to stop being sore from a workout but all it took was about twelve hours of sleep and I would be right as rain. This in turn made dad think I was using healing magic which I wasn't. After explaining that to him, his eyes lit up with excitement apparently he was training me assuming I would have a break day every three days so my body wouldn't burn out but because of my blessing and my naturally high standard regeneration he could up the program. But before mom let him, she asked me to confirm it was safe with Arnia to train that hard and if my regeneration was an effect of my blessing. 

So that night as usual I spent some time talking to Arnia and ended up almost forgetting to ask about it.

"Oh, yeah that's right. Do you know if your blessing gives me extra regeneration? Apparently I naturally heal faster then normal."

"Ummm, well I don't believe my blessing has that effect. So it probably has something to do with your family. My guess is the occasional birth of what is called a 'High' beastkin this happens when two strong people of the same race have a child and even then it only a chance of happening. And by strong I mean Strong. There is also the fact that the stronger you are the less likely you are to have a child so it's not common to say the least, but it is also a solid fifty fifty chance of giving birth to a 'High' beastkin. So since your parents are so strong they definitely qualify to give birth but I didn't predict this. Most of the time 'High' beastkin are considered super rare but not impossible. The main reason being the race requirement. Since both of your parents are cat beastkin and are equivalent to S-Rank in their level of strength, they had a chance but it looks like you got lucky. That's great but that's about all I know on the matter. The only reason I know that much is because the first champion of Earth is a 'High' Dwarf and is obsessed with research and he rambled about it for a while once with me." 

"Oh, that's really helpful. But kind of surprising. Is there any other benefits you know of the being a 'high' beastkin? If you don't is It possible to ask the First Earth champion?"

"Sure give me a moment."

After about thirty minutes she returned with more information.

"So I learned some things about it. This is what i got. Most of the time being a 'high' of any race only means you are better at the things your natural race is already good at. So being a 'high' beastkin probably means you will be faster then normal, have better natural regeneration and finally better senses then most other on your level even among other cat beastkin. It shouldn't be anything crazy but the regeneration may be vary helpful for drawn out battles and training. So you are probably fine just make sure to keep your dad Informed of your condition so he can monitor you and not over work you." 

This could be vary helpful, but it sounds like dad is gonna up the difficulty on my training isn't he. 

"*Sigh* this is gonna suck isn't it?" 

"I'm not going to say it's not but it'll help you in the future so you should work hard. Plus I'll be watching over you and routing for you all the way."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning dad burst into my room the exact same as the days before and asked about the reason for my fast recovery. 

"So what is the verdict? Can I train you harder?"

Oh, wow he really wanted to train me more. This is gonna suck for me isn't it. 

With a resigned sigh i told him about being a 'high' beastkin.

"So as it turns out I'm apparently a 'high' beastkin because you and mom are so powerful. That means all of the normal traits of cat beastkin like faster regeneration, better senses, and being more agile then normal apply doubly to me. So yes you get to train me more"

With this I could see his eyes grow wide and then his smile widens to the point i think his face is going to split. Then he pats me on my back and says.

"There you have it! We get to train you more. But a 'high' beastkin they don't come around vary often I'm pretty sure your the first in quite a few years as it's not a common occurrence plus people don't know how it comes about and they are considered to come about at random. This is great!" 

With his piece said he turns and starts heading downstairs to get started at eating breakfast and most likely also tell mom about our newest revelation. After getting dressed and grabbing my sword I follow him.

When I reach the main floor dad and mom are talking about it.

"So your saying Sarin is a 'high' beastkin?"

"Yes, therefore I'm going to train her harder so she can reach even higher." 

"Ok, just make sure not to over do it and hurt her. I know you know what you're doing in terms of physical training but make sure to keep an even closer eye on her condition so you can handle it if something comes up."

"Of course, rest is half of training. She has to recover so the muscle can settle and heal on its own. And yes I agree I'll have to keep an even closer eye on her condition because of this. It should be good practice for my eye for people's muscle movements and how to read them." 

"Alright as long as you're careful you can train her into the ground if need be."

As I hear this I feel a shiver go down my spine. That does not sound good in any way. 

"Um, can we not train me into the ground please." I say as I enter the conversation.

"Oh, don't worry your father is an expert at training people. He even trained some knights as a personal request from the captain of the knights. So you're in good hands."

"That's reassuring but I'm still scared of what dad in gonna do now." I say sighing as I sit down and start eating the food that is set out in front of me.

With a big smile on his face dad starts to eat too. When we are done we go out to the woods behind the inn and start doing the same as yesterday but instead of one hundred of each exercise he up it to one hundred and fifty. And he also started throwing nuts and acorns he found on ground at me while I'm running so I can start to learn some danger sense and to get used to being on guard. 

With this training I was exhausted and fell asleep the moment I got to bed day after day. For about a month when I started to get used to the training. Much to my chagrin as soon as dad noticed I was having an easier time he up the difficulty. 

Then about a month more of training in he added practice swings with my training sword to the regimen. 100 vertical, 100 horizontal from the top left to bottom right, and 100 horizontal from top right to bottom left. With the training upped again I started crashing into bed again. 

At some point dad invited uncle Uca to join us and teach me how to move like a rouge and scout so I could take advantage of my elemental affenities which leans toward a quick and nimble fighter with my swordsmanship but I wasn't allowed to add my magic yet or spar until I had the basics drilled into my bones so deep they would never come out. according to dad and uncle Uca agreed with his sentiment by silently nodding along in the background as dad talked about importance of the basics. As dad put it.

 "The basics are what you fall back on in a scrape, when your life is on the line, when it's you or them and you're at your limit and feel like you can't go on. It's your safety net. It's what will always be in your sword. You can't swing a sword with no strength to pick it up. And you certainly can't become a sword master without mastering the basics and then some. With you being a 'high' beastkin we can drill it into you all the more. Most people would lower the amount of time spent on the basics and train harder so it evens out if they where in your situation but we are going to stick to the same outline and time frame I originally set out and up to requirements for each level so you can reach even higher later on and have better opportunities to improve later on."

After that I now understood why they where so excited about this. They are on a time limit with only Eleven years till I become an adult and leave so of course they where worried I wouldn't have the level of mastery to tackle it but now they can train me to their hearts content and make sure I have everything done to a science. Alright I'll train hard enough to assuage their worries and master this training. I have the opportunity most people only dream about, the training and care of three S-Rank people and the body to keep up. So I can't half ass this and give it my all. 

(Jess's corner)

This chapter was originally going to skim over the training a lot more but I figured that it would be better to slow it down and show rather then tell in regards to the training. I hope y'all like it!