“Argh..Hmmm…M-mother…” Kilian groaned, tossing and turning in bed and finally waking up from his restless sleep, drenched in cold sweat.

  “Wh-where am I?” He asked, astonished, with half-opened eyes, trying to remember the fading events of his dream while he studied his surroundings.

  He lay on a soft bed, thickly wrapped in blankets, in an unadorned room.

  Next to his pillow, there was a round table decorated with a small vase filled with flowers of different colors.

  “They must be from Edana, she always loved picking flowers.” He murmured with a gentle smile on his lips as he thought of his sister, but the next moment an image from his dream appeared before his inner eye.

  A tall, beautiful brown brown-haired woman who smiled at him contentedly.

  “Who are you?” The little boy racked his brains until a door suddenly flew open, tore him from his thoughts, and a red mane was all he could see.

  "Finally, you're awake! You've been sleeping for a whole week, despite the clan's medicine! I thought you'd never wake up again!" Sobbed the girl, hugging her brother so tightly that his ribs, which were just beginning to heal, began to crack again.

  "Have your injuries healed? Have you seen the prizes you won? You were already injured after the second battle, and you still decided to fight a magical beast? Do you want to die that badly?" She asked, her expression wavering between concern and curiosity as she looked him up and down.

  Finally, she calmed down and pointed to a wooden table in the middle of the room.

  On top lay a small, glittering Qi-stone, a bright pink berry, and a glass vial filled with a clear liquid.

  Curious, the young warrior got up from his sickbed, every movement painful, opened his senses, and felt the Qi raging around the objects, especially around the berry.

  “What is this?” He asked, open-mouthed, and carefully picked up his new treasure.

  "It is the fruit of the tourmaline bush. When eaten, a living being's Qi sensitivity increases!" Edana replied, proud of the knowledge she had already acquired.

  "But you can only eat one once in your life! The next one has no effect and is harmful to the body. Therefore, in the Kong Clan, it is always given to the children of the apemen on their third birthday, to maximize the effect. Normally, simple workers can't get one, but since you are still relatively young and have won all three fights, the clan has made an exception!" Said a gentle voice as the fairy-like figure of Lorna, followed by Master Arto and Cayden, entered the room.

  “I have been waiting in the smithy for days and you just don’t come!” Grumbled the blacksmith in a bad mood behind the beautiful woman, “Do you know how much work has piled up? Thrym is useless for cleaning! Have your wounds finally healed? You were pretty badly messed up…”

  "But you did it! A stone golem is no easy opponent! Hahaha!" Laughed the weapons master and patted Kilian on the shoulder, "It's best to eat the berry as soon as you've picked up your new training manual and started your cultivation! The Master of Goods is patiently waiting for you, and we will accompany you to him."

  “Understood!” Replied the now slightly nervous boy, quickly changing his nightshirt for the rough miner’s robe and stowing away his three prizes.

  "In the vial is a sip of one-year-old monkey wine!" Said the bearded alcohol lover as his apprentice lifted the flask, "It is full of Qi and will purify your body. Once you have redeemed your clan point, your real training begins!"

  “There you are! Are your wounds healing well?” The gentle, scratchy voice of the Master of Goods asked, and his old eyes fixed the young warrior, who nodded with a slight bow, “You have fulfilled your part and shall now be rewarded!”

  A dull green jade stone appeared with a swipe of the bony, fur-covered hand and flew towards Kilian.

  The stone seemed to magically attract his gaze and moved closer and closer to his temple until it gently touched it and disappeared behind it with a bright glow.

  A storm of information flooded into the little head, and the boy gritted his teeth in pain.

  “My head…it’s going to explode!” He groaned, forcing himself to stand upright.

  "It'll be done in no time! Stay conscious, otherwise the transmission of information won't be complete!" Commanded the apeman, emptying his curved pipe with a tap of his hand, only to refill it with sticky, intensely fragrant tobacco, "It will take some time for you to understand everything. Start from the beginning and work your way through it step by step. You are the first to fulfill the requirements to follow the Path of the Ape..."

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "To follow the Path of the Ape, one needs extraordinary Qi sensitivity and a strong body. The first step is to learn to subconsciously and constantly perceive the Qi around oneself, day and night. If this training manual is used without this ability, the progress in Qi gathering will, if at all, be roughly equivalent to the Class E, regardless of one's talent. However, if one learns to constantly maintain the smooth flow through their Qi-paths, one can even surpass the speed of Class B, even with little talent, but this requires a perfect foundation and a great deal of work!" A voice sounded in Kilian's head, as if someone were reading aloud.

  In his mind's eye, he saw a young, gaunt man writing line after line with vigorous strokes, pausing now and then to talk, argue, philosophize, and laugh with a muscular apeman beside him.

  "The key to this lies in the rotation of the Qi! If you achieve the right speed, the energy is compressed, and with enough control, you can move quite a lot of Qi, even through the narrowest and most brittle paths! This skill becomes even more important the further you progress along the Path of the Ape! The first step is rotation and energy quantity. It serves to prepare the body and can be used up to the beginnings of the middle circle of a Qi-Gatherer.”

  After a complex instruction on how best to circulate Qi through which channels, the voice in Kilian's head fell silent, and the throbbing flood of information slowly subsided.

  "Ingenious! So that's how it is!" He murmured, opening his tightly closed eyes and looking at the expectant faces of the Qi-Masters around him.

  “I won’t let you down!” He finally said in a loud, powerful voice, clenching his fists.

  "Then go and pursue your path! In the future, I hope to welcome you as a member of the Inner Academy, perhaps someday even as a direct member of the Kong Clan!" Replied the mysterious Master of Goods, and, puffing on his pipe, lay down under a shady, flowering tree.

  "Thrym is already waiting for you!" Cayden laughed, patting the boy on the shoulder, "Arto's locked him up for a week, only letting him out to clean, and he's still brooding over the giants' script! Hahaha! I'm curious to see if this will work out in the end..."

  “Come on, boy!” The master blacksmith grumbled before Kilian could reply, grabbed him firmly by the arm, and pulled him away from the other smiling people, “I’ve already prepared everything for your training!”

  The two trotted together silently up the steep path to the smithy and entered the building.

  Just as the young apprentice was about to go to the forge as usual, his master grabbed him by the arm again and said, “Not this time! This way!”

  He opened the only door in the forge that Kilian had never gone through before, and together they passed through a silvery shimmering barrier, similar to the one the boy had crossed on the back of the mountaintoad during his journey to the Kong Clan.

  A few moments later, he stood before a mighty mountain range into which a deep, hand-carved tunnel led.

  “Welcome to my humble home!” Said the dwarf with a sad smile on his lips hidden behind his long beard, and disappeared into the depths of the earth, murmuring, “Or at least to the remains that I was able to save from those accursed orcs!”

  “Master, where are we?” Asked Kilian, and after a moment of astonishment, he followed the blacksmith with quick steps.

  "In these mountains lies a small dwarven village where I was born and raised!" Master Arto answered in an emotionless voice, "Unfortunately, it is deserted, except for me. No one survived the orc attack. With the help of the clan, I was able to transport my homeland into a separate dimension, and I have been trying for years to revive my people here, but unfortunately, there are almost no dwarves left in this world."

  “What happened?” The little boy wanted to know curiously, but after a moment of reflection, he fell into a deep silence because he did not want to reopen his teacher’s old wounds.

  Heavy, lonely footsteps echoed through the massive corridor, adorned with brightly shining jewels, which led ever deeper beneath the mountains, and were interrupted only by a few clear, rumbling words.

  “You still need to know a few more things to understand a bit about our world!” The blacksmith began to explain, “The land we live on is called Terrapin, and it is populated by various races. If we look at a map, we find in the middle the great kingdom of humans, led by the royal house Arian. It has the most inhabitants and the largest territory, as you humans reproduce and spread like insects. To the south, it borders the realm of the orcish hordes, who live under the leadership of the shamans and Khan Grokbar, and there has been war between these two nations for several decades. We, the Kong Clan, are located in the west and are one of three territories controlled by beastmen. Far away, to the southeast, lies the Lupus Clan, a clan of wolfmen with whom we have always been at war, but due to the vast geographical separation, major conflicts rarely arise. North of the human Kingdom lies the United League, which serves as a collecting tank for all other types of beastmen, whom most members of the two major clans consider the lesser of their race. There you can find Sheepmen, Birdmen, Lizardmen, and so forth. They are governed by a senate consisting of the five most powerful members of the League. In the east, next to the League, begin the vast and dense forests of the elves, who lead a very secluded life and rarely seek contact with other living beings. They are ruled by a mysterious queen, the guardian of the forest. Finally, in the north, there is a gigantic ice desert where the giants live. They live as hunters and gatherers in small family groups, and for a long time, there hasn't been a great leader who could unite these stubborn fools.”

  “And where is the kingdom of the dwarves?” Kilian asked unconsciously, as a rough map of Terrapin began to form in his head.

  "The empire of the dwarves... It lies in ruins!" Master Arto replied, clenching his fist in anger, "A long mountain range surrounds our clan, providing natural protection from both humans and orcs. There once stood the majestic realm of the dwarves... We supplied all nations with the finest gems, rarest ores, and best-smithed goods ever known! Trade flourished, and we grew increasingly lazy in our opulence, feeling so secure with the accumulated riches... until the hordes of orcs came and destroyed everything! Now only bones lie in the ruins of my people, and various magical beasts have reclaimed the mountains for themselves. That's why I don't train anyone with orc blood! It's been over a hundred years, and yet I still hate them! I hope the clan will side with the humans in the future to fight against these bastards when the time is right!"