Even before the sun had fully appeared in the sky, Kilian woke up in a bed next to his snoring new big brother, yawned tiredly, and tried to perceive his surroundings clearly for the first time, aided by the weak light of the morning.

  He found himself in a huge building, where on the first floor and on the two above, countless beds were lined up on a creaking wooden floor, separated only by a thin, movable paper wall.

  On his way downstairs, he heard a faint babble of voices and soon saw the group of halforcs sitting at several tables having breakfast.

  "You are still here, little one?" Gerok immediately snapped at him as Kilian was about to take a seat at a table to have a bite to eat, "Only those with strength who deserve it are allowed to sit here! The mere fact that you're working with us will surely make us the laughingstock of the Outer Clan! Can't you just disappear again?"

  “N-no, I’m also a worker of the Outer Clan now!” Said the little boy reluctantly, took a small bowl filled with various grains and dried fruits, poured some water into it, and rushed outside, “I’ll show you!”

  "I'm looking forward to seeing you collapse while trying to lift a pickaxe! Hahaha!" Laughed another halforc, and the whole group began to mock the little boy.

  “I have to get stronger!” He vowed, and this incident only strengthened Kilian’s martial heart.

  After a quick wash and a meager breakfast, he set off for the smithy.

  He climbed the steep path again, and before he could see the building behind the fog, he heard the already familiar hammering of the master blacksmith.

  “Does he ever take a break?” The boy wondered, a little out of breath from the rapid climb, rubbed the last of the sand from his eyes, and knocked vigorously on the door.

  For a few seconds, the rhythmic sounds fell silent, and Kilian waited for the door to open or for him to be invited in, but before he had finished the thought, the air vibrated again with the sound of metal hitting metal.

  Several minutes passed, and nothing happened.

  The hammering grew louder and faster, and again and again the waiting man raised his small arm to knock, but each time he stopped before his fist hit the wood.

  An hour later, Kilian's clothes and hair were already dripping wet from the thick fog up on the mountain.

  Finally, the smithy fell silent for a moment, a familiar sigh sounded, and the heavy door swung open.

  “Come in and sit by the fire!” A grumbling voice called out, and a few moments later, the wet bundle took its place next to the loudly crackling forge.

  "Patience is a virtue! For Qi-Masters, and especially for a blacksmith!" The dwarf grumbled again and disappeared behind a door at the other end of the room, while the boy stealthily looked around the forge.

  Everything around him was covered in a thick layer of soot, and hammers and tools unknown to him lay everywhere.

  In one corner of the big room lay dark, slightly glittering ore nuggets, and in the other a gigantic mountain of long rods and thick armor.

  Just as the boy was about to take a closer look at a black armor with glittering eyes, the blacksmith appeared again in the middle of the room and slammed a bucket of steaming water between Kilian and the object of his curiosity.

  “Here!” Said Master Arto, stretching out his short, muscular arm and handing his potential new assistant an old rag, “You clean and listen, I’ll drink and tell!”

  “The Kong Clan owns two large mines.” The dwarf began, taking a black, metallic, gleaming flask from his sweaty, burn-stained robe, shaking it slowly, and opening it with a satisfied look.

  He lifted his drink, which smelled strongly of alcohol, took a long sip, and sighed again, but this time the sigh sounded completely content.

  Kilian dipped his new, holey cleaning tool into the steaming bucket, almost scalding his fingers on the hot water, and began to banish the soot from the forge with nimble movements.

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  “I forged the flask myself, because in the leather drinking bags of the clan even the best wine quickly loses its aroma, but wrapped in shadowsteel the taste gets better with each year!” Master Arto explained happily after some time, while he contentedly tried to taste the different fruits of his drink, and after bringing Kilian another bucket of fresh, almost boiling water, he continued, “One of our mines produces black ore, which is refined and mostly crafted into weapons and armor. The other provides the Qi-stones the clan needs to maintain its power and growth!”

  After this brief explanation, the blacksmith fell silent, took a sip now and then, and inspected Kilian's every movement with a watchful eye.

  “Your shift starts soon!” The drunkard slurred slightly tipsy, stood up and opened the door of his smithy.

  The sweating boy carried the buckets, now filled with deep black water, outside, emptied them, and washed them one by one in a small, ice-cold stream which flowed past the smithy.

  "At least you can clean! That's already better than that useless half giant!” The dwarf yawned tiredly and disappeared again into the room at the other end of the smithy, “Come back in the afternoon and bring your mined ore with you. If it is enough and the quality is good, I will show you how to melt it down…and close the door when you're done!”

  “Thank you for your guidance, Master Arto!” Kilian called out loudly, stacked the buckets on top of each other, and hung the old rag in the now rising sun to dry.

  After completing his work, he bowed in the direction of the smoking building, closed the door, and walked back down the steep path to the miners' dormitory, where Thrym was already waiting for him with a large woven wicker basket and a short pickaxe.

  “I'd ask you how it was with old Grumpybeard, but I don't want to remember working for him!” The half-giant laughed in greeting and handed his little brother another bowl as a second breakfast, this time filled with goat's milk, some fresh fruit, and grains, “Eat up quickly! You'll need the energy!”

  After Kilian had shoveled his tasty meal into his mouth, he slung the basket over his back and shouldered the pickaxe.

  Full of motivation, he looked up and saw a group of green-skinned youths, glaring at him disapprovingly, coming out of the large hall, and together the workers set off for the Kong Clan's ore mine.

  "Black ore is very brittle in its raw form and therefore comparatively easy to mine!" Thrym explained as he slowly dug a tunnel further forward with a gigantic pickaxe, "It's important to identify where it's hidden in the rock and remove the hard, heavy layer of rock around it, otherwise your basket will crack during transport, giving old Grumpybeard another reason to complain! Also, if you bring him too much useless dirt, he will chew your ear off! Hahaha!"

  “Thanks for your advice!” Grinned Kilian as he slowly dug through the hard rocks, picking up small, dark chunks again and again, “How much ore do you think I need to make Master Arto happy?”

  "In my opinion, he's never happy unless he drinks a whole barrel of monkeywine! Hahaha!" Laughed the digging halfgiant, happy about the possibility to rant a little bit while completing his daily workload, "But when your basket is full and you already have to slowly balance it to avoid losing anything, he should at least only complain about the quality! So pay a little more attention and remove the useless stuff around the ore, otherwise you'll have to put in an extra shift when you hand it in!"

  “A whole basket full?” Laughed a voice loudly from another shaft, “I’m curious whether the tiny creature will even survive his first shift, and if so, he’ll get smacked in the arena on Saturday at last! Every worker in the mine will happily tear you to pieces, because you couldn’t wish for an easier victory! I can understand the half-giant, but a human in the mine… ridiculous! Master Arto should have accepted me as a student a long time ago!”

  Shouldering a pickaxe, Gerok, followed by his loyal pack of halforcs, stepped into Kilian's field of vision, glared at him hostilely, and spat on the ground, "A human child is supposed to be better than us? We'll see!"

  With a rage-distorted face, he turned to his followers and barked, “Anyone who has mined less ore than this weakling will answer to me after our shift!”

  The group let out a sort of battle cry, split up into the different shafts, and continued digging with great vigor.

  “The clan should have sent a human here much sooner!” The giant whistled cheerfully, “We certainly won't be able to beat today's haul anytime soon! Hahaha!”

  “Why do they hate me?” Asked the boy, struck by the harsh words.

  "Orc blood tends to be overly proud!" Thrym answered slowly, "Gerok has wanted to become old Grumpybeard's student ever since he arrived here, but Master Arto refuses to teach a halforc, and now they're directing their anger at you. Don't waste too much time thinking about it, because once you defeat them in the arena, they'll have no choice but to accept you! Hahaha!"

  Resigned, Kilian accepted his fate, unconsciously trying, as was slowly becoming his habit, to sense the Qi around him and was amazed to notice that the Qi clouds around the larger ore deposits were always slightly denser than in the rest of the rock.

  Astonished by his new realization, he tried to further sharpen his senses and gave his best to feel the energies around him while working.

  "It works...but my head!" He thought, panting deeply as he rubbed his throbbing temple, "I feel like I have four eyes and everyone is trying to look in a different direction. Will I ever get used to this feeling?"

  Just before his head felt like it was going to explode, he would take a short break, clear his mind, and then throw himself back into his work again.

  With a satisfied grin, he noticed how he was getting used to the sweaty work, his body was pulsing with energy, and even, very slowly, at a snail's pace, his mental strength grew bit by bit.

  “Someday I will be able to see and feel everything around me! Even when I sleep!” The boy summed up his goal with childlike naivety and thus laid the foundation for something that most Qi-Masters of the Kong Clan, if at all, only understood after decades of meditation.