Early the next morning, Kael and the old man, Rache, were on their way. They sat side by side in the driver seat of their cart. Grim and the other hound, named Groum, padded behind. As for the raven, it was sleeping in its cage, not much bothered by anything in the surroundings.

It was not long before they left the small village far behind. Soon they were trekking through the woods on the road heading south. Along the way they passed by travellers, farmers and the odd trader with their own carts. They all stared at the odd pair, with their half dead looking horses.

The journey carried on like this, until it started to get dark. They had managed to cover about nineteen miles that day. As they made camp by the side of the road, Kael was getting bored. So he made some conversation with the old man.

“Say, yesterday while I was getting out, I realized my strength is vastly different in this place. Can you tell me the reason behind this? I am quite puzzled by this.” Kael asked after having sat in silence for a long while.

“Ah I forgot to explain that, yes this is because of difference in atmosphere from where you have lived all your life. Where we lived before gravity was much heavier than it is on this place, and we have something this place does not, a particle, which is necessary for our bodies not to break down there. It reinforces our bone structure significantly as young, and after enough time passes this change will be permanent. This is the reason for us being able to exist where we lived before.” The old man had a look of reminiscence when speaking of home. Soon however, he looked at Kael, and his expression brightened, before continuing.

“As such, when we leave the place, we are already extremely strong in other people's eyes. You yourself, young master, have not yet mastered your body to the degree of controlling your own strength yet. However, if you were to have a fight, id say you would be able to contend with a wild forest troll. We should do something about that, i will teach you some exercises so that you can control yourself.” The old man scratched his head, looking a bit embarrassed after this statement.

“It is fine grandpa. I remember my sword lessons at home, I could already beat old uncle Kirrion by the time I was leaving. I'm not sure how useful this will be with no sword, I'll just go look for a stick of sorts and practice until I can control my strength.” Kael said this with an enthusiastic grin before jogging towards the forest, hounds hot on his heels.

The old man looked after him with horror and excitement on his face. "To think that the young master could defeat the Scarlet Legion commander before the age of thirteen... He is too abnormal, even for us demons... I guess sending him into military service would be useless then... He would be more skilled than any knight, sword master or general at least in this continent. Maybe only someone from the war god's temple would be his match... I should tell him to try to hide his skill for now, or every emperor from the five continents would seek him out for the position of royal sword master... " The old man laughed after this thought, then shook himself and started working on the campsite.

Meanwhile, Kael, having ran into the woods, after much trouble, managed to find a stick to his liking. Only trouble was, then when he was running he kept crashing through trees. His speed was truly abnormal. If any ordinary person saw him, they could only compare him to Kerian Coursers, which were used by messengers of war and in races.

After enough trial and failure he managed to slow down and control his speed. It was at this time that he had spotted a stick similar to the length and thickness of his practice sword at home.

He was delighted, until he swung it once and the whole branch turned to splinters by the speed and weight put into it alone... This somewhat put Kael's mood to shame, but he refused to give up, he tried thicker and thicker branches, finally only one branch made the cut, and that was the thickness of his thigh. He sighed. It would take some time until he would be able to use a stick of normal thickness without smashing it to smithereens.

He began moving into his sword forms, Demons Lunge, Twisting Tendons, Fang Strikes The Heart and so on. Many of these were meant for a fight of attrition to wear down one's opponent. However, Demons Lunge was an exception, it comprised speed and deftness over skill. It was a skill used for killing one's enemies swiftly and against enemies with less skill than oneself.

The skill went like this; Start with a low weight point, with your body in battle stance, chest leaned forward, lower body half squatting. Most importantly, keep your sword arm pulled back, elbow close to your body, sword pointing forward. Then when you have built up enough power and see an opportunity, push yourself forward, whilst twisting your body in such a way that you can push your sword arm forward at maximum speed. It should be such that your sword arm is stretched out in a straight line. This way your reach will be at its highest and you will strike with momentum.

The only flaw of this move was that once you were in the stance, you were very vulnerable. This, however, could be fixed by various martial arts of close combat form, for example pulling your arm back whilst spinning around whilst sending out a roundhouse kick in the direction of your second enemy.

Kael practised this familiar art with his newfound strength, not tiring until he got bored with changing sticks every time one of them broke. On his way back he realized how much more control he had over his body, he could jump from tree to tree whilst running, swinging himself up onto branches and performing flips and the like. He was just completing one of these when he heard noises coming from afar.

It was making quite the racket as it neared him. He settled on a rock nearby, watching his hounds, as their ears were perked, looking in the direction the noise was coming from. Soon enough, a massive head came poking out of the nearby shrubbery.

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This was clearly a bear, that much was clear, but it was clearly also not one of the ordinary sort. It was at least three times the size of his hounds. Covered in brown fur, it had black eyes. Although it clearly saw him, there was a struggle in its eyes. Its vision, although adapted to darkness, was clearly not that great. Kael and his hounds on the other hand, were used to darkness far less penetrable than this. He was amused by this beast, which was internally debating whether this was worth the risk or not.

Kael patted his hounds, telling them not to move. Although reluctant, they lowered their heads. It seemed they were interested in hunting this creature, so much larger than themselves. Kael neared the beast, until he was only eight meters distanced from it. Then he got into battle stance, preparing himself to perform the Demons Lunge. The bear sniffed about, cautiously nearing him growling all the while. It was quite odd, but the hounds made the choice not to express their disdain for the beast, considering how he had just told them to stay put for the time being.

Kael breath was relaxed, and his expression was rather dull. He had faced bigger things than this at his home, while training. He wondered if his heavy branch would hold when used against this big beast. The bear suddenly started trotting towards him, as it finally determined his location. At a distance of four meters, it roared and ran at him.

Kael waited until it was at three meters distance, before making his move. He lunged, his speed far surpassing any normal reaction speed, then he brutally stopped his momentum abruptly. His muscles went taut as his right arm was catapulted forward.

The bear although fast for a beast its size, failed to stop its momentum. Its eyes widened at the aggressive action of this human who it thought was moving far too quick to what it was used to.

BOOM! SPLINTER! CRACK! ... ROAAAR!

There was a boom, followed by a small explosion of shrapnel and splinters, as the thick branch made contact with the bears face. The bear roared in pain as blood gushed out from the big hole in its forehead. Shallow the wound might have been, but there was a lot of bone breaking in the process.

It stumbled around in a daze, until it passed out on the ground, all the whilst grunting in pain. Kael was surprised by this, he never thought he would harm the animal to this extent. After thinking for a while, he decided it would be a shame if the bear was forced to live with brain damage for the rest of its life, so he decided to put it down. He gave it a swift chop to the back of the neck.

The bear then lay lifeless on the ground. Deciding this might be a good supper meal, he, with his comparatively small stature, managed to put the bear on his shoulder. It was an odd sight, because most of the bear was dragging behind him on the ground, only a third of its massive body suspended on his shoulders.

After a long trek through the woods, he made it back to the camp, being greeted by a surprised Rache, and a three other men. At first, they thought it was a forest troll coming for their blood, a massive boulder of fur, but soon realized the truth of it. Then they gaped at Kael in amazement.

This boy, where on earth did he find this massive dead beast, and how could he even manage to drag such a beast? When Kael gave the explanation that he thought it would be a good supper meal, they stared at him in horror. How did this, although tall for his age, boy manage this? Instead of giving a direct answer, Kael pointed at the two massive hounds at his heels. The three men shut up rather quickly upon seeing the beasts. If they were capable of killing a dire bear, was there any need for further questioning? They certainly could not bring down such a beast themselves.

After butchering and skinning the massive dire bear they started to cook it. Soon after having enjoyed a sumptuous meal, with plenty to spare, they started chatting among themselves. It soon became clear that the three men were merchants. They were fur traders and created capes and clothes from furs obtained by farmers along their trade rout.

Kael pondered for a while, before asking where they were headed. To his surprise, he learned that they were heading in the same direction. It was soon winter, and the traders were heading back to Fallgara, to sell their furs for a good profit. Apparently the nobles of Fallgara would spend good coin if it made them warmer during winter. Grandpa Rache apparently had agreed to travelling alongside them for the journey.

The three men were brothers, and their names were Bob, Kimle and Lannen. After enough small talk, they started praising Kael for his skill as a hunter, and asked him if he wanted to sell them his dire bear fur. Kael pondered on this, before asking them if it was possible for them to help him by making armour out of the fur. The three spoke among themselves, before telling him that would not be possible for the time being. They were used to making ordinary clothing, fur from a dire bear on the other hand would be much too hard to make use off, but they offered to tan and garving the pelt, making it ready for a professional armourer to process. Kael agreed to this.

Eventually one of the men asked Kael about his white pupil. Kael brushed it off by saying that he was born with it. Though internally, he wondered about that himself, he had never really asked anyone. Rache meanwhile, unbeknownst to any of the other men, stared at them coldly.

He thought to himself, that as the saying goes; curiosity killed the cat. He just hoped they would let it be with Kaels reply. Fortunately, for them, they accepted it with no further questions.

After talking about this and that, the brothers started talking about rumours. Apparently there was a new lord in Fallgara, Gerard. He was the son of the previous lord, but it appeared he was not a well liked man. He had a bad reputation. Apparently he liked to have young women taken to his chambers, claiming this was his right. A lot of people felt pity for these women, who had hard times trusting men after experiencing rape from the hand of this cruel lord.

Even Kael was a bit angry listening to this, even if he had never seen a girl his age. He felt that women should be respected, the same as men. He had read in history that some of the greatest characters on the world above, were female, so naturally they should be able to demand respect the same way men did. However, it was not his business.

Other rumours were of the new magister at the academy, youngest in two hundred years. Talented he was, and well liked. He also was quite famous for his new spell, the twin fire bolt spell. Making him capable of fighting two magi of the same rank as himself.

There were also mentions of different monsters appearing across the land, a vampire lord harassing a feudal lord in the border region. A werewolf butchering an entire village before being hunted down by a demon hunter and a priest and so on. The most disturbing rumour was that off the mention of a new troll king in the mountains far to the south, nearly outside of the region borders.

This talk continued far into the night, before finally the fire was put out and everyone went to sleep. It would take them a week to travel to Fallgara, but Kael was started feeling something he had not felt for a long while. Anticipation...