"What the fuck," Janne said, looking into her child's shocked face. He's doing pushups. Her three year old son is doing push ups. Ash looks down.

No point in stopping now.

Ash pushes again, arms shaking brutally as he struggles to rise, but he's doing it, he's pushing himself higher.

"You got this Ash, keep going!" she yells, unable to contain her excitement. Ash screams and perseveres, pushing as high as his scrawny shaky arms allow, before crumbling over. Janne barely catches him on the fall.

"That was amazing, you're just like your father."

What?

"He told me he had been strength training since he could walk... I thought he was only saying that to look tough," she said, picking her kid up.

"Seeing you now... he must have meant it."

What a coincidence, Ash thought.

"What else can Dad do?" Ash tried to say, mostly throwing in words from his own world to compensate. Janne laughs. She thinks it's just him making up words.

"You're so cute when you try to talk," she said, squeezing his face against hers. Hugs are nice.

"Keep doing what you're doing, I'll make sure you have all the food you need to grow big and strong." Janne reassures, before running out the house again to hunt.

Is it normal for a parent to keep leaving their three year old alone like this? Ash wonders, but decides such thoughts aren't worth his time. More alone time is perfect for building up his arms. As he is now, curling dinner plates is enough for considerable gains. Ash flexes his bicep, it's looking good. In truth there's barely a bulge, but to him that alone is cause for celebration. His means of celebrating, more bicep curls. If only he could train all day, unfortunately his three year old body would quite literally break apart from the burden of all that exercise. Ash rests his arm against the doorframe, and leans in, pushing his shoulder back as his chest goes deeper past the door frame. By separating his chest and shoulder this way, he can stretch the muscles out even further. Ash feels his chest out with his other hand as he leans in. There. Nice and isolated. He raises his arm high up on the door frame, and feels his chest muscles stretch up with his rising arm. Now it's time for the biceps, which he pushed today more than he normally does.

Once he recovers, he should be strong enough to carry, stew, and then grind animal bones. The calcium in the powder is clutch, but more importantly, he needs to cook and drain the marrow to build up antibodies. Once he processes it alongside the ginger and turmeric roots growing near the farm, along with other spices, he'll have achieved the first step in preparing the toxi-grip.

Ash chews on a carrot. A root rich in vitamin A, a key nutrient for maintaining health in the eyes. Without healthy eyes, there is literally no hope in unlocking the Kaimen Garbage Vision. This secret technique Ash developed became his single greatest asset in unraveling the sacred techniques of the Khal Sect. In a different time, and a different world, he'd have probably gotten his own statue for teaching others in the sect how to unlock the technique. It is indeed worthy enough to be treated as a sacred technique within the sect, and that lesser forms of it would be taught to the other members. Another way of saying that the highborn would monopolize it for their own gain instead of giving everyone access. They'd probably first develop their own cheap knock off version of the technique and pass that version to the rest. Ash knows this because it's the entire reason the sect master taught him how to cook. Highborn foods were just better. What the others got made it much harder to learn toxi-grip than it ever should be. This artificial difficulty the means they use to delude people into thinking it's because they didn't work hard enough, or underestimated the effort it takes to learn toxi-grip. Ash has no doubt they'd pull the same tricks with his secret technique, they'll try to convince people it's because they're lowborns they can't unlock the true powers of the Kaimen Garbage Vision. Absolute nonsense.

These disciplines make him sick. It holds back the world, and prevents genuine talents from rising past the circumstances they were born in. Sect master Khan said so when voicing these frustrations in confidence for the first time, but insisted that it's just the world they live in, and change must occur slowly lest it angers the complacent and powerful. Ash thought he was just scared, and weak. Flashes of the burning sect flow through his mind as he finishes his carrot. Sect Master was not wrong, and he was not weak. Just wise and patient.

It was my fault for underestimating the lengths people would go to maintain their power and status. A mistake I' will never make again.

Janne returns later in the night, with an absurdly muscular bull slumped over her shoulder, and an arrow embedded in its eye. Later in the morning, Janne takes him outside to where she left the bull and hands Ash a knife, snickering and laughing. He knows she's up to something, but her playful mood is contagious. He tries to gut the bull, but the knife just bounces off. Janne doubles back in laughter, Ash looks on confused.

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"You actually thought a knife could pierce a thunderhoof? Hahahahaha. You're so silly!" Janne said, slapping her knee. The fuck is a thunderhoof? It looks like a regular brown bull, maybe it's legs are a little longer. Ash isn't sure if it's that or it's because he's so small. Janne grabs the knife and throws it aside, cleanly piercing through the door of the house. She's not normal at all, Ash thought as his mother pulls out a machete, which glows silver from her energy.

"Turn away if you're a little wimp," she said.

Turn, if, a, is about all Ash understood from her words, still he is fascinated in the technique she's using. The machete had to be there just for show, there is deeper magic going on and Ash wants to know more.

The garbage arts at it's foundation requires a powerful and adapted body. However that's just what's required to use even the most basic technique, garbage press, and it's specialized form mostly used by nobility, compactor. Without a means to exert energy, the garbage arts would be impossible to access. Ash smiles wide as the glowing silver machete easily skins the bull. He's not sure what the nature of this energy is, but that doesn't matter. What's important is that it exists, and it's accessible. Just like with figuring out how to talk again, Ash knows it's just a matter of time and readjusting. Janne grabs another knife from under her coat hands it to Ash. Ash turns away and crosses his arms.

She's trying to make a fool of me again.

Janne laughs and hugs him tight.

"You're just so cute when you don't trust me," she said, placing the knife in his hand. Her expression changes, still light and jovial, but more down to earth. Ash felt wisdom in that gaze, and squeezed the knife. There's a lesson here, he thought. Without any glow he pierces the skinned bull.

Ah, I see.

"A lot of the creatures are only tough on the outside. Now, let's teach you how to make use of every part." She said, guiding his knife, snickering.

"Including the poop."

Two years later.

Ash kicks through the door, carrying three birds on his back, wearing a sweater and pants his mother stitched out the thunderhoof hide. She made it so he'd grow into them, but it's starting to get too tight. His six pack abs, rounded chest, and massive for his size arms ripple as he slumps his arrows back, unstrings his tiny bow, and puts the birds on the table. He begins defeathering them. His mom chopping herbs back in the kitchen. Preparing to season the meat. She's reading a cookbook he made for her.

At first it was jarring, her son was getting stronger every day, then she saw the foods he made. Incredible. The way he ground and dried roots and herbs into powders, and used it to season the meats and salads was so strange, yet he keeps insisting it's for macros, whatever that is. He tried to explain once, but couldn't find the words for it. He even made some hair scrub by mixing the soap she makes out of animal fat, with the vinegar he makes from fermenting apples, and essential oils he squeezes out of seeds, or fruit. The coconut one was her favorite. When she smelled it on him she knew she wanted her hair to smell like that, so she gave in and tried the shampoo. Wow, the way it made her hair shine was breathtaking. It was like her brown strands had turned golden.

Ash is weird, just five years old and he's hunting and teaching her how to use food to become stronger. Janne always found cooking boring, but seeing the way he uses the ingredients to make himself so strong so fast, tantalizing. It's the way he respects the applications of every ingredient, and the powers they can provide for his body when used in the right ways. She wonders if he truly understands just how deep his knowledge goes. Eating the steaks he prepares makes her feel stronger, the fruits he cuts leave her more rejuvenated, makes her skin tighter. He's even found ways to better their water. The effects from all of these changes have been making her look younger by the day. Her cheeks have more color, the bags around her eyes completely gone, and her lips fuller. If only her husband could see her now, he'd be more smitten than the day they fell in love. Despite gaining weight, she's thinner than ever, and stronger than ever. Ash always says muscle is smaller than fat. Sometimes though he prepares her different meals, it makes her wonder, are the foods designed to enhance specific functions of the body, do they sometimes eat differently because they need different things? Wait, how would Ash even know the functions of his own body? Janne still isn't sure what her internal organs do, she just knows they need to stay internal.

No, Ash knows things. She's not sure what he knows, nor how deep that knowledge goes. Still, it's good stuff. Her growing strength with him has made that certain. There's no doubt in her mind. Ash knows things, and those things will make him great one day. He deserves to have the opportunity to pursue that greatness, and if he chooses not to, well at least that's a choice he made, and he can be happy about it. Janne's smile, bittersweet. Her son's at the age where his body can finally learn and process qi. With that the door will finally open for him to fully explore the depth of his knowledge and gifts.

With how obsessively he trains, he'll definitely be looking to cultivate his body further. For that, he's going to need an environment which can both push and nurture him.

After their meal, Janne takes him out again. He'll need new clothes. They comb through the woods, in search for a thunderhoof trail. Leaves rustle and birds chirp alongside the buzzing of insects as they wonder under a canopy of leaves, shading them from the sun. Janne wants to say something, to sound knowledgeable for a change, but Ash literally internalized her hunting lessons the first time she did it. Her boots sink onto soft spongy mud. It's genuinely frustrating how little she has left to teach him. Before she could finish her lament, he knocks and looses and arrow into a black thunderhoof's eye. One shot, one kill. Ash looks back at her with a proud smile.

She knew this day would come, but that doesn't make it any better. Janne fakes a smile, as Ash happily runs off to skin the beast, knife glowing silver in his hand.

A tear wells in her eye.

This environment can no longer push him.