Sten moved like a man who had spent hours upon hours practicing his walk.

Heel, roll, ball, toe.

Striding with purpose which he had not felt in a year, not since striding that way into the healing house.

He knew it was ridiculous, getting his hopes up so soon. But I'm lost in the dark, deep beneath the mountain.

He needed this, so he desperately grasped for it; unheeding of emotional traps or potential regrets. There was nothing more left to regret here, it was already infecting him. The only choice left was whether to accept it as his lot. This [Quest] was a chance to say no.

His shoulders were relaxed, despite his inner turmoil. His father had made him practice that too, there was no end to the knowledge he had about reaching the Human body's potential. It was an ancient tradition that his father possessed. He could barely explain half of it, it was all distilled into training. And he knew the why, what was meant to be achieved; even if he rarely knew the how of what made the training work.

For learning this–staying relaxed and not wasting energy despite piercing stress–he had Sten subsume his body in near freezing water. Twelve years old and he’d had to actually break a thin frosted layer on top to get in the water, and then practice relaxing his muscles when they wanted to shake the most.

Of course he could not do it.

It was always practiced at the end of a grueling leg and back session, and no matter what effort Sten summoned… Even by the end of the week, his damn shoulders would not stop shaking.

His father did not do anything ridiculous to discipline him, like stress him further by yelling or ban him from dinner until he focused up; a growing body needed every meal even before you trained it after all. And it was his mind that was being trained. No, his father Birgir managed it all with a look–of scornful disappointment–and if Sten failed to react properly to that… Utter disdain.

Next he was treated as a weakling; allowed to skip training and arrive at those later sessions completely rested, so he could give it his all.

It was humiliating, because he knew his father's thoughts. And even if he could abide that part of it, he also how those thoughts wormed their way into the rest of his siblings. Even the ones who did not always follow Birgir’s lead were still moved to pity, which was worse.

It took a month, but by the end Sten was thirteen, and could relax enough in the freezing cold that soaking for minutes at a time did not inhibit his speed at all, although forcing his chilled muscles to move too fast in such a condition did injure them. Skills would solve issues like that though, Sten's older siblings assured him. Father knew what he was doing.

All those preparations obviously came with expectations of Sten’s future; that Sten ended up thwarting when he lost another sibling for the 3rd year in a row.

Those now regular events convinced him that something was missing, that all these methods of his father could not have just sprung up from thin air; it all required such an intimate knowledge of the body that it could surely not have been originally sought by someone looking to learn how to better destroy. I can feel the love and care it must have taken, being this meticulous in building a strength; it must be in order to protect. I just feel it.

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

He looked towards healing for answers, both for ways to prevent further deaths in the family, but also to find a path forward beyond his father's teachings.

This winter, when it all came crashing down… His home here died when his father ended up taking him out to the barn to ‘beat some sense’ into him, with his mother screaming in the rain outside the locked doors. These words met Sten's eyes as he finally gave in, barely conscious:

[Class Aspirant detected. Pugilist. Kumatai Bloodline. Yes/No?]

Yes.

Sten's fading recollection was of huge domed arenas housing hundreds of thousands, filled to the brim and chanting for more and more brilliant displays of skill. Impossible-to-see people, and bright lights; with the rewards for a lifetime of effort on the line in each minute of combat.

When he had come back to his senses, with his father looming, he had felt queasy–like his whole future had been decided–and when he saw the placement of his Aspirant Skill he turned white as a ghost.

[Class granted: Naturalborn Pugilist]

[Skill granted: Blood Control]

[Passive granted: Unnatural senses]

[Skill granted: Weighted Footwork]

[Skill granted: Iron Knuckles]

[Skill granted: Emphatic Strikes]

[Skill granted: Cognizant Shielding]

[Skill granted: Cerebral Negotiations]

[Skill granted: Feinted Flurry]

[Passive granted: Inured Bone]

[Skill granted: Kumatai Bloodline]

He didn't know what the last words meant, all Sten knew was what the tier of an Aspirant Skill indicated.

But he feared his father did know the terms, and that he would take them as ultimate proof of how Sten had been wasting his time doing anything but fighting.

When Sten refused to name his Skills the beating continued.

It wasn't until his father was certain that Sten had used at least three Skills, and had the Class, that he finally relented and turned from the bleeding form of his boy. By then Sten had leveled thrice.

He used [Blood Control] to stop the bleeding himself.

His mother briefly made sure he was not dead, and then went inside to his father.

Sten did his utmost to start thinking of the man not as his father, but by his name Birgir from that day on.