"It's a lot more quiet these days isn't it ?", on a training ground of the Flying Fist pre-school, classmates of Shura, like him all around 14 years of age, were practicing combat skills and training their bodies using the variety of equipment available to them. Or in mock combat.

"Yeah, well the peasant punching bag isn't here"

"That and Bull is practicing in seclusion at home, I heard rumou-"

"Shh! Whatever you heard I don't care! I have no desire to get on the Golden Leaf clan's bad side!"

"Yeah, now less talking and more training. Let's make the most of this place when the others aren't around!"

With a group nod the young apprentices returned to their practice. The Flying Fist pre-school was just that, a pre-school. Attendance was not mandatory unless a lecture was taking place, the idea of it and other similar institutions was to provide the minimum necessities for the young of Cloud City with an affinity with ki to attain the first level of ascendance needed to join an actual school. With hard work you would break through in your meditation and consolidate a ki core within your body, thus enabling you to start freely tap into the mystical energy. Ki users, like Bull, that could materialize ki were called warriors, beyond warrior further ascendence in ki manipulation, size of one's core and purity of ki would mean becoming a martial master and beyond that a martial archon. There were only a handful of archons in Cloud City, all were rulers, one of them was Bull's grandfather, the head of Golden Leaf clan: Jade Archon*. Such a level was not even a shadow of a distant dream for the young apprentices exercising in the dust of training ground. Only a quarter of them would ever gain the first inspiration that would enable their ki cores to form properly opening the door to even the warrior level.

All these worries were utterly un-present in Shura's mind as he sat under the shadow of the porch of the orphanage's main building. Smiling he was sharing a mid-day refreshment with his younger siblings. Running around playing or crowding around their strange older martial apprentice brother, the 4 girls and 7 boys of the orphanage relaxed a little and rested a bit before returning to their various duties. Most did house work in the orphanage the others, like Shura, went out to help out on the various agricultural mountains. All would be expected to return at sunset for the communal supper during which the Headmistress, affectionately called by the orphans mother Petal, would teach the youngsters their letters and basic arithmetics. Shura as an attendee of the Flying Fist pre-school could have, since he had first passed the ki affinity test, been exempted of the communal suppers and lessons with mother Petal. But he would not miss them for the world. In fact his musings about that evening's supper were interrupted by mother Petal herself. She introduced herself to the children by giving a rowdy boy a hand chop on the top of the head.

"What have I said about using Shura as a climbing frame ?!" she barked but with a smile on her face. Squealing happily and rubbing his head the boy scrambled off of Shura and ran away from the playful wrath of mother Petal. "You really should be sterner with your siblings Shura"

"I don't mind" replied Shura with a shrug, his smile here in the orphanage was genuine and warm unlike the fixed one he carried otherwise.

Mother Petal sighed and shooed away the other children glued to Shura. "I need a hand with something Shura" she spoke softly so the other orphans couldn't hear "the meat delivery never came today, supper will be a sad affair for foreseeable future without it. Could you go to the southern peak and check up on the earth-oxen farm ?"

"Of course mother Petal! I wouldn't want to miss out on your meat buns even for a day!" Shura replied with sincerity. With that he leapt to his feet, stretched and playfully chased after the other children for a minute before waving them goodbye as everyone returned to the day's work.

Mount wild was the name of the peak Shura was heading towards. It's periphery was a succession of pastures and ranches for Earth-Ox, however the pastures bordered a dense and dark forest that clung to the mountain all the way to it's peak. There were other forest peaks and all were deadly dangerous, for they inhabited Demons. Like the Earth-Ox all animals as they grew older transformed in some way due to their natural absorption of the ki surrounding them. In fact many of martial arts, like Bull's "Raging horns of the beast", were devised after the study of beasts and demons, for their natural connection with ki made them somewhat of a source of jealousy for humans that struggled to attain ascension. Some animals however truly ascended and became Demons, transformed and twisted by the great torrent of energy within them they became extremely dangerous. Lethal for all non ascended humans unless they were in groups and well armed, they were dangerous for even warriors, and like martial artist's different stages of ascension Demons also evolved with the right conditions. Shura had to go past Flat city and another peak before arriving at Mount Wild, the urgency of his mission, or the urgency of his greed for mother Petal's meat buns, made him run the whole way, stopping only for his reverence to the beast pillars on the bridges he crossed. He arrived after a 30 min. jog, some times out right sprint when no one was on the path ahead, without a sweat. If anything he felt invigorated and wondered if he could add sprinting to his training.

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"Stop!"

Shura was startled out of his thoughts by a rancher waving his arms at him in a panic. The man, Cloud** recognised him as being, was middle aged and panting as he ran to Shura.

"Hey you're that boy from the Orphanage! The martial apprentice one ain't you." the quote being more of a statement than anything Shura simply nodded and awaited for the man to catch his breath.

"You shouldn't go any further young one, we're waiting for warriors to come help. An Earth-Ox had turned into a demon! It's been destroying the place and-"

A scream cut the man short, from it's direction Shura felt he could also hear the sound of destruction and the ground shaking. Without a glance or an afterthought for farmer Cloud, who's protests of danger and madness Shura didn't even hear, the young martial artist tore at a his fastest towards the sounds of commotion, after leaping over a few fields' fences and sprinting round a farmer's house he arrived at a scene of utter chaos. The screaming was coming from a girl, half buried under broken fences and surrounded by Earth-Ox stampeding wildly in complete terror, she would have been in terrible danger of being trampled to death if not for the Demon towering above her. Twice the size of a normal Earth-Ox the demon had terrible glowing red eyes, instead of two horns it's head was now crowned with what looked like multitudes of ebony black spears. It's frothing mouth had grown fangs and it's earthen skin seemed now to be a dark glinting coat of metal. It seemed startled by Shura's arrival and had stopped mid way from tearing the girl to shreds with it's fangs. Shura did not hesitate, rushed to the massive beast and punched it as hard as he could on the nose. The creature bellowed in rage, the force of the roar knocking Shura back, his rush attack had worked though, the demon was focused on him. "Now to figure out the rest of a plan" thought Shura, but the towering beast would not allow itself hit again. Incredibly agile for it's size the Demon-ox leapt in the air and crashed beside it's enemy, Shura managed to leap backwards in time not to get crushed under a hoof but the shockwave made him lose footing, the beast charged forward head lowered to skewer the prone boy, but just in time Shura managed to lay flat and roll away from a jagged horn, it tore at his shoulder but did not impale him. He was now however underneath the raging beast and would be trampled any moment, with a flash of recollection Shura acted. Recalling last night's feeling of ki manipulation the apprentice forcefully launched a double kick into the creature's under belly. The impact winded the beast ever so briefly, but enough time for Shura to throw himself sideways away from it. The beast bellowed again, Shura this time stood fast his arms crossed protectively before his face, it growled at him lowering it's head a hoof impatiently kicking the ground, it was going to charge at him again. Slide right leg around and forward, as you lean in putting your weight on that leg slide the left leg straight forward whilst crossing your arms forward then pulling them back at your sides gathering ki toward them then the Demon-Ox charged, a mass of rage, evil eyes blazing red, roaring collided with Shura's unleashing of the "Raging horns of the beast", WHAM the collision created a shockwave between the two, as loud sickening CRACK resounded and Shura was sent flying back and he crashed into the farm house. Blind pain in his left side was the last thing he felt before falling unconscious...

* Rumours are that his name comes from his particular martial arts that, when he wielded a sword, created blooms of green leaves that could slice through all. The name of his clan is believed to be inspired from this also.

** Cloud was the most common name of Cloud City, most un-ascended humans had names of common sights around them and martial artists often got baptised depending on the arts they used. Shura was an aberration of a name*** and all mother Petal could say about it was that it was pinned to his cloth as a baby when he was left at the orphanage.

*** Which didn't help with the bullying