The pizza dinner was remarkably mundane. They ate and talked.

Well, the family talked. Henry mostly sat there and reveled at the taste of pizza.

It didn’t taste amazing. There was no grand celebration happening in his mouth. He wasn’t even comparing it against some of the qi-enhanced foods he’d managed to get his hands on in the last few decades. It was utterly generic delivery pizza. That wasn’t a bad thing, of course, it was still completely edible and, he could even argue, enjoyable.

The memory is what made it incredible. This was, quite literally, the pizza of his childhood. He was eating it surrounded by people he’d given up on ever seeing again. It was some of the best food he’d ever eaten.

None of them brought up his crying session, which he appreciated. That would make it easier to claw back some of the authority he’d managed to acquire through his living room demonstration. There wasn’t that much behind the emotional outburst. It was just a relief valve that let some of the pressure off he’d been allowing to build since before coming back.

Nothing important, Henry reminded himself unconvincingly.

Pushing aside his own internal voice, Henry assessed the situation. The mood had completely recovered. That was good. He was going to break it again, and probably soon.

For now, though, he’d let them eat and talk and laugh. He’d also refill the plate he just now realized was empty. For how middle-of-the-road this pizza was, it sure disappeared quickly.

The sun was truly down when Henry decided to shift back to the more important topics. Everyone had eaten, the light banter that made up the dinner conversation drifted away into a sort of companionable silence, and the family found themselves lounging in various places in the living room.

“Okay,” he began, standing up and reclaiming center stage, “Anyone mind if I take over the conversation again?”

The responses were noncommittal, so Henry decided to continue.

“Here’s my basic plan going forward. Learning how to manipulate qi is a lot easier when you have someone who already knows how to use it. It’s even easier if that instructor is himself a cultivator.” He pointedly gestured to himself, “That is why, before I teach you anything, I’m going to regain the first steps of true cultivation. This is called the Qi Condensation or Qi Refining stage. This’ll take me a few days, and while I’m doing that I’ll be leading you all in exercises that will make it easier for you when it’s your time to start cultivating.”

Liz held up a hand. He acknowledged her with a nod.

“So, is this like a class?” she asked, “Also, what’s Qi Refining?”

“Okay, two answers,” he responded, “First off, yes, I’ll be holding a class in the mornings. Attendance will be mandatory,” he continued, “Second answer: Qi Refining, or Qi Condensation, is when you pull in the natural qi in the air around you and gather it into your body. There are several ways of doing this. Once I can test each of your roots and proficiencies I’ll have a better idea of what method suits each of you.”

“We aren’t going to be learning the same thing?” Roger interjected.

Henry shrugged.

“It depends on whatever sort of root you have. That will have the most effect on what I teach you.” Henry looked around the room. They looked puzzled by the term root.

“Does anyone have a pen and paper?”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Marilynn got up and left the room, returning quickly to pass him a notebook and office pen.

“Will this work?”

Henry smiled and took the offered items.

“Thank you, Mother, this will work nicely.” He flipped open to a blank page and started drawing. He missed Marilynn look at her husband and mouth the word ‘Mother’ to him with an arched eyebrow. Roger answered with a shrug to his wife and put an arm around her shoulder.

Henry held up the notebook. On the formerly blank page were five circles, each with symbols in them and lines between, forming a larger circle and five-pointed star in the middle.

“There are five basic elements in Qi,” he explained, pointing at each one in turn, “these are: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. There’s a lot more to it, but these are the basics, the building blocks that the you’ll be dealing with early on.”

He went around the circle with his finger.

“Each element has another they feed into and make stronger. Wood to Fire. Fire to Earth. Earth to Metal. Metal to Water. Water to Wood. Conversely, each also has an element it destroys.” Beginning with Wood again, he traced the inner star. “Wood destroys Earth. Earth destroys Water. Water to Fire. Fire to Metal, and, finally, Metal destroys Wood. I’ll make a better version of this you can use as a reference.”

“The reason,” he emphasized the word, “you may not learn the same things is because of a potential impact of a Spiritual Root, which is a sort of special vein inside of you that lets you pull in qi and cultivate. We all have one.”

He flipped a page on the notebook to start another drawing but dismissed the idea, instead holding the notebook to his side.

“A Spiritual Root with a mix of four or five elements is called a Base Spiritual Root, because the overwhelming majority of people have them. Most cultivators looking for students will ignore anyone with a Base Spiritual Root, choosing to wait decades or longer for someone with a better root to come along.”

Henry wiggled his finger and let out a little grin. “Where it gets interesting is when the Spiritual Root starts to specialize. Two or three elements is called a True Spiritual Root. A cultivator with one of those can cultivate a lot faster than a Base Root.”

He gestured at himself. “I have a True Spiritual Root, a mix of Fire and Earth with a small pinch of Metal. On the lower end of power for a True, but enough to ensure that I’m better than the rabble.” He pointed upwards.

“Now the top of the top, the real cream of the crop are the ones with a single element root. They’re considered blessed by the heavens, which is why they’re called Heavenly Spiritual Roots. Fought over something fierce, a Heavenly Root can cultivate several times faster than a simple True Root like me, and leagues faster than a Base Root. A Heavenly Spiritual Root will breeze past the early stages of cultivation with a speed that will leave anyone who’s not either gifted like them or someone with powerful backing in the dust.”

Henry lowered his arm and shrugged, “You will most likely never meet one in your lifetime,” he admitted, “If you do they’ll be a valued and protected member of an organization you won’t want to trifle with, so be polite.”

“One of a multitude of reasons I’m going to cultivate first is that,” he said, popping his neck, “Once I have some of my abilities back I’ll be able to test your roots. Having a Heavenly Spiritual Root is a blessing only if you can take advantage of it. My True Root is Fire, Earth, and Metal, so I have trouble using techniques outside of those elements. The more pure your Root is, the harder it is to use elements that aren’t present in it.”

Henry stopped for a moment. This was an old argument that was pretty popular between cultivators.

“There are some who say that makes Base Spiritual Roots the best for their unmatched versatility. In practice, though, without something to considerably speed up their rate of cultivation, they’ll always lag behind their peers, sometimes by a pretty big margin.”

“But I digress,” Henry said as he made a dismissive motion with the notebook, “The important thing is that I’ll be able to test your roots and figure out what techniques to teach each of you.”

Liz raised her hand. Henry nodded at her.

“What sort of roots do you think we’ll have?” she asked.

“I dunno,” he replied with another shrug, “There are cultivation families that have been maintaining their bloodlines carefully for thousands of years and their kids get a completely different root like a third of the time. It’s pretty much blind luck for the rest of us.”

Henry looked down at his notebook, lost. He didn’t know where to take it from here. It was time to circle back, he decided.

“So, anyway,” he changed up, “Like I was saying, I’m going to cultivate and lead everyone in some exercises and pretty much just prep until I’m ready to lead you in your cultivating. Any more questions for me?”

A hand went up. It was Marilynn. She hadn’t said a lot this time, or really either of the talks, so her proactive approach was appreciated. Henry acknowledged her hand with a gesture.

“If we learn this, will we have to fight?” she asked quietly.

He knew what she was really asking.

“You will have to fight regardless,” he replied. There was no other way for him to put it. This was the one thing he wouldn’t be able to sugar-coat. “Practicing cultivation will give you the best chance to survive the wave of combat and death that is coming.” That wasn’t the answer she wanted, and he knew that. It was the only one he could give her, though. If someone else were here, maybe they could do more, he thought tiredly.

“If that’s it, I’m done for the evening, folks. I have a lot to do in the coming days.” Henry's eyes flicked over to a clock on some box on top of the television. “I think six in the morning is a good time for the class.”

No other family member chimed in, which Henry took as his cue to head back upstairs. He’d been making good process on unblocking his acupoints in the morning, and he felt like if he pushed the rest could be opened in a day or two.

He ignored or didn’t notice the murmuring from the room he walked out of.