I wake up in bed, ‘this seems to be a regular occurrence for me’ looking around the room I see my mother sitting beside my bed, holding my hand. Feeling me move my hand, it wakes her and she leans in to give me a deep hug.

“ You never cease to surprise me, little general”

Feeling a smile tug on my face I retreat back into bed. Feeling like everything is back to normal in regards to my QI activation I send my QI around my body in search of anything different, feeling the same as before my advancement I relax, and begin to think of father.

“Where’s Father?”

“Gabriel returned not too long ago, the encirclement was a success and the bandits are all dead or captured, lucky the other camp chose to sit on the fence during this otherwise it could have been worse. Alex is hoping that they’ll soon pick up and leave after realising that they could be wiped out but you never know what the bandits will think.”

“That’s good, when will he be back?”

“Finally worried for your father? He will be back tomorrow, He will be over the moon to hear about your advancement. Bless the true source of life for giving my child such strong blood.”

I have come to realise that Mother has always been the more religious one out of the two of them, supposing it’s because her parents were also religious while fathers weren't. I just hope they haven’t given too much to the church.

“Stop with that look, one day you will come to understand the source of life, and on that day you will come to understand Miien’s blessing.” With a warm look on her face she continues to stroke my hair while looking over my body for any problems. “You are a cut above the rest already, when you accept Miien’s blessing you will be stronger than ever, just as blood is the true source of life it is also blood that decides your fate, by accepting Miien’s blessing you can control your blood and in turn your destiny.”

Feeling her hand leave my head I look up to meet her eyes and see her Red eye’s seem to be more teared up than usual, “Mother?”

Seeming to snap her out of that trance she relaxes before quickly standing up, “ I really wish he would call me mom “ whispering her wishes loud enough for me to now hear she looks back to me in hesitation. “ We will be going on a walk later today, go see Rafael about your new training schedule. And apologise to your sister, while you're both not wrong she can sometimes get caught up on the small stuff.”

After saying her piece she quickly leaves and finally, I’m alone, this time I’m feeling quite guilty about this whole situation. All I wanted to do was grow stronger to stay with them, but at the end of the day while I have accepted my siblings as family, I guess it’s a lot harder to accept somebody else as my parents when I’ve already had them before.

Mom, I wonder how she is doing back home, did she take the news of my death well? After Dad died it was really hard for her, I was all she had left but now she’s alone. *SLAP* I can’t keep thinking about her like this, it’s better to move on and accept my current family. After all, we are bound by blood.

Jumping out of bed, I make my way to my office, where Rafael should be, but as I get close to my office I see my sister lingering outside hesitant to knock on the door. sneaking up behind her I believe it’s time to give her a taste of her own medicine.

“BOO”

“AAAAAHHHHH”

“HAHAHAAHA”

Seeing her literally jump out of her skin, it’s enough to make up for all the tormenting she’s done over the years, almost.

“damn it Joseph you scared the shit out of me.”

“Ha it’s what you get, lingering outside my office at this time.”

After that an awkward silence descended on the conversation, both of us truly knew what the other was here to do, but when faced with the person in question it’s a lot harder to say sorry first.

“I’m sorry”

“I’m sorry”

Having both ended up saying it at the same time, we’re left a bit confused about where to go from here and once again we stand in silence. I see the look of confusion in her eyes, probably trying to guess why I said sorry in the first place.

“Alice, while I do think you're a little out of line in what you said, you weren't exactly wrong. And, in your own way, you're just looking out for me trying to make sure I don’t grow too attached to someone who I probably won’t see again after I turn 12. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being friends with the people in the lower district, after all, we’re all human in the end.”

Seeing her brood over my little speech I decided to just wait, no point in forcing an answer out of her. I’d rather have her think about it herself before coming to a conclusion.

“Maybe, you’re right. We all have different parts to play, and in the end, the source of life is partial to everyone, and gives everyone a destiny to live by. Thanks Brother, and congratulations on your rank up.

Feeling correct in what she said, I see a big smile imerge on her face before she takes off, leaving me alone and caught up on what she said about the source of life. ‘ It can’t be that bad, believing in a god like that, at least I know they’re real’.

Entering the office I see Rafael sat down on the rug in a lotus position, noticing my arrival. He motions for me to sit opposite him.

“Have a good conversation with the young mistress.”

From the look on his face I can tell he probably heard everything we said, after all the doors aren't that thick. Looking at Rafael I wonder if he takes it to heart, being a comminor himself.

“It was enlightening to say the least, do not take offence to my sister, she is still young in her ways.”

“haha, and a child 3 years younger than her is telling me she's too young, ahhh Joseph. I have been called much worse than that in my time, such words are nothing to me”

Hearing him talk about his past made me realise that, even after nearly three years together I still don’t know that much about him other than that he was an adventurer.

“But that’s enough about me, time to talk about your new schedule. Having just entered rank E QI teacher you’re officially not an apprentice anymore. and you know the levels are separated into efficiency for how you use it. This does not mean differences in rank are set in stone, it is just a generalisation. the more efficient you are at controlling your QI or mana the more effectively you can use your spells and body.”

“But people are all born with different levels of mana in our body and there is not real limit to how much to can absorb, but there is a limit on how much QI we can store inside our body, the core is like a muscle and the more we work it the more efficient and bigger it gets but there is a limit for everybody, and it can only grow between two to four times as large as when it forms. There are methods to grow it alchemically but only those of A rank need them.”

Flashing two stones and a piece of paper he continues his lecture. “These are measuring stones, we use them to measure your efficiency, take off your shirt and lay down”. Doing as I’m told he places one on my stomach and another on the palm of my hand. “Okay, send some Qi to your palm.” Doing as instructed I can guess how this works, the stones are receptive to the QI and by knowing the difference between the two you can work out the loss in QI.

Staring at the paper Rafael seems quite content, “Well it’s to be as expected, It’s good that you're on the higher scale of natural QI.” Showing me the results it seems this is like the paper that was used in the temple.

Base: 11,310

1: 1,190

2: 10

E: 0.84

Feeling like these results we’re a bit low I look to Rafael for an explanation. “Yes they seem low but the average human is born with 6000-8000 base QI being any higher than that might be good but, it tends to mean that your body favours QI which is bad for opening your mana core. And your efficiency is to be expected, you were pushing QI into your hand for 1 minute, in a fight you can probably only use your QI for 5 minutes until you’re empty.”

“It’s a good thing your efficiency isn’t that high, if you awaken with a high efficiency you can kiss your chances of using the other energy goodbye. Because it means your body is made to use only one energy and not the other. We humans are a balanced species while others like dwarfs tend to be born with Qi focused bodys and elves with mana focused ones.”

Seeing that I was steadily losing interest in this lecture Rafael decides to speed this up, “Okay as for your training, it will be spars and specific Qi point training until you reach 5% efficiency, only then will we start training in other weapons, for now you will stick with the dagger. Training efficiency is a long slow process so don’t be annoyed if it doesn’t progress quickly.”

“Well that is everything for today, Quickly go see Ann for your change of clothes, the mistress will be waiting for you in the main hall.” *sigh* Even after all that I still have to go for a walk with my mother, I guess it’ll be more interesting than this. “Enough of your sighs you won’t have training today so enjoy your time off.”

Quickly getting up and leaving, I’m beginning to look forward to this trip. I haven't had a proper conversation with my mother ever, so I don’t know what will happen. But I’m just happy to have the day off, this should be a relaxing trip, no?