Ishin always knew that his mother was powerful. She wouldn’t have been named the tribe’s First Warrior otherwise. But growing up, he’d heard about the danger Sun Tigers posed. Spirit beasts in general were supposed to be stronger than humans at the same cultivation realm due to their naturally superior physiques. Because of this, cultivators throughout the Nine Striped Hills avoided confrontations with the beasts unless specifically hunting them with superior numbers. This was why travel through the hills traditionally ceased during the summer months, when the Sun Tigers migrated. And Ro Akira wanted to fight four of these spirit beasts on her own.

  Akira began to move toward the hill. “Come along, Ishin. I want you to watch.”

  Following his mother, Ishin was led around the left side of the hill. Minutes later, he caught a brief glimpse of the four Sun Tigers resting in the shadow of the hill from around the bend. Akira immediately pulled him back, keeping him out of sight. In that brief moment, Ishin had seen enough. The Sun Tigers were still fifty feet away, but there was no mistaking their sheer size. Three of them—it was a little hard to tell since they had been lying down—were at least ten feet long and probably six feet tall. They had pale white fur and nine golden stripes along their bodies. Those seemed to be sleeping. It was the one who was awake that really concerned Ishin. It had been maybe thirty feet long and ten feet tall. Massive by any measure.

  “They are so big,” Ishin whispered. He wanted to steal another look at them to be sure, but knew it was risky, lest the large one on guard noticed.

  “The three small ones are just cubs,” Akira explained. “The large one that was looking around is their mother.”

  “Those were only cubs?”

  Akira nodded. “The mother must be leading them westward for better hunting grounds. It’s a common sight during this season, actually.”

  The thought of numerous streaks like this one roaming the hills made Ishin understand why many people avoided traveling during the summer. Mentally, he thought about how he would fight even just one of the cubs. With their size, it would be a real challenge—maybe even impossible for him currently. He couldn’t even imagine fighting a fully grown Sun Tiger, let alone multiple at once. I wonder how strong I’d have to be to defeat the mother. He then looked at Akira, who appeared completely relaxed.

  “You want to fight all of them?” he asked.

  Akira smiled at her son. “Is that a problem?”

  “No, but…” He looked at the small portion of the hill that blocked his view of the Sun Tigers. “You’re outnumbered. And don’t they know we’re here?”

  “Probably not,” Akira said with a shake of her head. “The wind is blowing toward us, so I doubt they’ve caught our scent this far away. And while they have a third eye of their own, your chakras are still dormant, while I’ve been suppressing mine.” Seeing Ishin’s confusion, she added, “It’s a good skill to learn once you become a cultivator. Third eyes can only see chakras, so if someone suppresses their chakras to the point that they appear dormant, then they’re effectively invisible to third eyes.” She smiled. “In a way, it’s fortunate that your chakra is still dormant. Most initial realm cultivators aren’t able to sufficiently suppress their chakras.”

  Ishin hadn’t known that detail about the third eye. He still had one question though. “Why fight them?” If the Sun Tigers were just resting and the two of them could avoid being detected, it seemed needless to kill such majestic creatures—especially the cubs. Given their journey, they wouldn’t even be able to return with the beasts’ meat or pelts to the tribe, making the deaths a true waste.

  “Their chakras, son,” Akira said as if it were second nature.

  “What about their chakras?” Ishin asked, confused.

  Akira looked over her shoulder in the direction of the Sun Tigers. “I’ll show you later.” She removed her pack from her back and twirled her spear. “The mother somehow noticed us. I better go.” Before she left, she gave a wink and said, “Be sure to watch!”

  A sudden burst of wind catapulted Akira around the bend of the hill toward the Sun Tiger. The sound of a fierce roar followed her departure. The Sun Tiger had noticed.

  Ishin sprinted after his mother, eager to witness the fight. He rounded the hillside in seconds and found her soaring into the air above the mother Sun Tiger, her body engulfed in a brilliant electric glow of lightning. The Sun Tiger below had risen to her full, massive ten-foot-tall height, dwarfing Ishin, and the surrounding cubs had begun to stir. The mother glared up at Akira’s still-rising form. Its jaws opened toward her, and he watched in fascination as motes of yellow light began to appear, flickering in and out of existence, around the beast’s jaw. The motes began to coalesce into a single orb of stable light that in mere moments grew to the size of the Sun Tiger’s head.

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  Looking back at his mother, Ishin saw that she had reached the zenith of her jump. She executed a midair somersault, flipping her body so that her face and spear were pointed directly down at the Sun Tiger. Another sudden blast of air propelled her downward. Her speed was so fast that the surrounding lightning aura appeared to completely consume her, transforming into a single bolt of lightning. In turn, the Sun Tiger fired the orb of light upward at Akira. The impact between the bolt of lightning that was Akira and the missile of light lasted only a moment before she ripped through the orb and struck the beast.

  Ishin had to cover his eyes with an arm as the shockwave from the impact sent waves of debris across the landscape. From within the clouds of dirt and grass, he could hear the unmistakable cries of the young cubs. When the dust cleared, he lowered his arm, coughing, to see the aftermath.

  The mother Sun Tiger lay dead at the bottom of a shallow, scorched crater. The beast’s body had been cleanly ripped in two, the wounds so charred that blood didn’t spill out. It was a wretched sight—he could see the anguish on the dead creature’s face. Despite what he expected, his mother wasn’t near the carcass.

  A sudden cry drew his attention to the right, where he saw Akira withdraw her spear, lightning surrounding the tip, from a dead cub. She’s so fast. Ishin then looked around and realized that the other two cubs were already dead, each with the same stab wound through the heart.

  Akira jumped down from the Sun Tiger’s body, dismissing the lightning qi around her spear. She swung the weapon, flicking the blood away. “How much did you see?”

  Ishin closed his jaw. “I saw you in the air and then using a technique to turn into a lightning strike and kill the mother.” He pointed at the cub directly behind her. “I also saw you kill that one, but not the others. You were too fast for me.”

  “Good.” Akira rested her spear over her shoulder. “More than I expected.” She turned around and knelt beside the dead cub.

  Ishin watched as she raised a flat hand. Wind flowed to it in strong gusts, causing his robes to rustle. A three-foot-long blade of wind, like a condensed miniature cyclone, formed around her hand. She swung it down across the corpse. The wind blade cut the body in two, straight down the middle, blood and internal organs immediately spilling out. Ishin forced himself to stare at the carnage, determined not to gag. If I intend to walk a martial path, I have to be able to stomach this.

  Akira examined him. “Not bad. I was afraid you were going to be sick.”

  “Was that necessary?” Ishin forced out.

  “Yes,” Akira answered, standing. She directed a palm at the growing pool of blood and unleashed a burst of wind to blow it away. Pointing at the beast’s upper half, she commanded, “Search in there until you find its chakra. You’ll need your carving knife.”

  Disgusted but determined, Ishin set down his pack and retrieved his curved, serrated carving knife. He approached the upper half of the body and began to feel around, as instructed. The process was messy, and he understood why she’d told him to bring the knife. Strong tendons and muscle tissue blocked his path. The spirit beast might have been dead, but its body was still as tough as ever. His arms became coated in blood as he worked. The smell was horrific.

  After several minutes of searching, Ishin was surprised to notice a faint illumination near the beast’s stomach. He carved away the remaining muscle and intestine until his hand reached a small, hard, smooth substance. With a yank, he removed it from the surrounding flesh, revealing a bright yellow sphere the size of a knuckle bone.

  A chakra! Ishin knew that cultivators and spirit beasts alike drew on them for qi, but he thought they were purely spiritual in nature. But this was a physical chakra! As he rose, he examined his own stomach.

  “Surprisingly small, aren’t they?” Akira said, holding out her hand. Ishin placed the filth-covered chakra into her palm. The remaining blood and tissue suddenly flew away, revealing a gem-like beauty.

  “The color reflects the aspect of the chakra,” she explained. “All Sun Tigers aspect their first chakra with light qi. The thickness of the chakra can be used to determine the number of layers formed around the beast’s chakra.” She held the gem in front of Ishin. “The same is true for human cultivators. Can you guess what stage this cub was at?”

  Ishin squinted, trying to detect any markings of layers around the chakra. It took a moment, but he eventually identified faint ascending circular grooves that wrapped around it, similar to the rings on a tree stump. He counted two rings. “Third layer.”

  “Correct,” Akira affirmed with a smile. She pointed at the corpse of the mother. “That one will have two inside.”

  “You can tell from your third eye?”

  “Yes. But if we let these bodies decompose, their chakras will dissipate too. Faster than the rest of it, actually.”

  The eventual fate of the corpses reminded Ishin about the surrounding dead Sun Tigers. “Apologies, Mother, but I still don’t understand why you needed to kill them.”

  Akira lifted the chakra. “For this.”

  Ishin felt like he was missing a basic piece of knowledge. “Okay, but why take their chakras?”

  “I forget sometimes that you’re ignorant of certain parts of the cultivation world. No, most disciples of the Martial Hall probably wouldn’t know either. Chakras can be used to produce alchemic elixirs or powerful spiritual tools. We can sell these to alchemists or artificers for a fair price.”

  “We can?” Ishin knew that hunters sold the meat, bones, and pelts of spirit beasts—the durability of a Sun Tiger’s hide made them extremely prized. But he hadn’t realized their chakras could be harvested and sold too.

  "I take it the stronger the spirit beast and the more chakras they’ve formed, the more valuable they are?" Ishin asked.

  “Precisely. Now, let’s retrieve the rest.”