- Sam -
They walked for a few miles before arriving at a clearing. Senior Hall announced that they would take an hour at most to learn how to set up camp, then they'd go into the forest to begin hunting tree bunnies.
Apparently the Senior brought enough tents with him for everyone to be assigned two to a tent. He first showed them all how to set one up. It was simple triangular design, with a tension pole down the middle for suspension. They were big enough for two adults to fit snuggly in, so more than big enough for two children per tent. There happened to be an even number of both boys and girls, so they were able to pair off to share their tents. Sam and Kyle stuck together, and assembled their tent as soon as one of the adults showed them where they could place it.
The tents were set up in a circular arrangement, with a circle of six fire pits in the center. Senior Hall told them this set-up would help him keep the protection formation simple without sacrificing durability. It seemed that learning this formation would not be part of their survival training, since the Senior began setting it up on his own. Sam watched as he ran around the circle placing flags and stones in a complicated manner. Then he returned to the children and showed them how to start a fire.
Sam thought he already knew how to start a fire, but then the Senior disabused him of that notion. "The way mortals start fires is useless to us. If you start a fire with mortal tools, and then try to cook spirit meat, you will lose the spiritual essence of the meat while it cooks. There is more than one way to start a fire with chi, but I'm going to show the easiest. You just need a fire aspected stone, such as this burning sandstone. It can be found anywhere with a lot of sandstone and dense fire-aspected spiritual energy. This is the most common type on the Colorado Plateau. You can see the veins of spiritual energy here," and he pointed to some smooth crevices in the rock he was holding, from which he could feel the warmth of chi. "You'll concentrate on moving your chi into these veins. It's just like moving chi into your dantian, except the destination will be the rock instead of your dantian. When the veins begin to overflow, it will start a chain reaction that will produce flame. Be careful not to burn yourselves."
Each child got a chance to practice starting a fire with one of the rocks that were passed around, while the Senior gave a long and boring lecture on fire safety. Sam had heard the same things from his parents all the time, and Senior Hall didn't have anything new to add. For instance, they wouldn't be leaving any fires burning if they weren't in the camp.
Once they were done, the Senior told them, "alright, time to go catch some tree bunnies. Remember to circulate your chi, and use the stances from form one, and you'll start catching tree bunnies in no time. If you don't bring any back, you won't eat tonight. Now go."
They took off. Sam wasn't sure how he was supposed to catch and kill something with just his bare hands. Kyle offered to team up with him, saying "I'm not sure what to do, but maybe it'll be easier if we work together."
"Yeah, I agree," Sam said. Then he saw four girls walk over to them. He recognized the two girls from his town, as well as Amanda and Katrina who were always sitting with him in the cafeteria. "We'd like to join you as well," Emily, the oldest of the group, said. "That'd be great!" Sam said.
They worked out a plan, and decided they'd team up to kill the tree bunnies, then split them evenly at the end. Everyone agreed to it, then they began working their way through the trees. It didn't take long before they found what was clearly a tree bunny. Although he had never seen one before, there was no mistaking it.
The critter looked like a field bunny, with long back legs, long ears, and the same general body shape. The difference was that it had a long tail, like a cat, and it's claws seemed to be more for gripping the branches than for digging. There were at least a dozen of them, right in front of the children, sitting on branches. They were all munching on leaves, nuts, bark, or whatever else was nearby.
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They decided to each try to take one on their own first, to see if they could. They agreed who would get which one, with Sam being given the closest one, since he was the smallest and youngest of the group.
He focused on his target. A tree bunny eating the bark of the low branch it was resting on. He circulated his chi, and began moving through the stances. He quickly found himself nearly on top of the tree bunny. The tree bunny noticed him, but it was too late. It leapt from the branch, but the final stance of the form brought Sam to the exact spot the tree bunny would be in the air. He could tell the tree bunny was fast, but in the midair it was unable to maneuver. He grabbed it by the ears, and snapped its neck quickly, like his mom had taught him to do with the field bunnies that got into their garden. It was over before he landed.
It occurred to him how fast he had been. These tree bunnies were supposed to low grade spirit beasts. Most of them probably hadn't even grown to grade one yet, but they should still have some chi, which would make them faster than the field bunnies he was used to. Even still, he had caught it with so little effort. He couldn't help but grin in pride as he looked to see how the rest of his group were doing.
Emily and Ava had both caught one, but Kyle and the other girls' tree bunnies had gotten away. Without his chi circulating, Sam saw how fast the tree bunnies really moved. His eyes could barely keep up with them, hippity-hopping from branch to branch, with their tails helping them balance as they moved.
"We still have plenty of time," Emily reassured the others. "Yeah," Kyle said, "good job though guys. I didn't think they'd move so fast."
"Ava and I are taller than the rest of you," Emily replied, "and Sam has a better spirit root, so his chi flows faster. Y'all are gonna catch up at some point, but for now let's keep going. It would be better if we can catch extra rabbits, too, in case tomorrow doesn't go as well."
"I agree," Ava said, "let's get moving."
The children wandered through the forest for a few more hours. The tree bunnies were infesting the forest like fleas on a opossum, so it was easy to track down several more. He thought it would be hard not to catch at least one tree bunny before dinner. Then they ran into another group of children that had teamed up like they had.
He knew them from the dorm, and from training, of course, but he'd never really spoken to any of them. Since everyone had been so focused on their cultivation, and on Senior Hall's training, there hadn't been much socializing.
"Hey y'all sure caught a lot of them tree bunnies," the boy at the front of the group said, as they approached. Sam noticed that the group only appeared to have two tree bunnies between them. "Yeah, they've been everywhere since we started. It was impossible not to find them. Why do you guys only have two?"
"Well," the boy said, with a sheepish look on his face, "we did find quite a few, but they were too fast. I'll be honest, it's shockin y'all caught so darned many of 'em."
"Did you circulate your chi and use the first form?" Emily asked.
"Well, yeah, o'course we did. It ain't like we're dumb. Them dang tree bunnies just moved too dang fast, that's all." The boy looked like he might have been offended.
"You haven't been practicing your chi circulation," Ava chimed in. It was more of a statement than a question, but the boy answered anyway. "I have too! Not everyday, but who would? It's so dang boring and it ain't like I gotta do it or nothin. What's even the point?"
"You speak Royal English, so your parents must be wealthy merchants or aristocrats from the Central Plains. They probably taught you that money was power. That might be true in the mortal Empire of the Central Plains, but now you're a cultivator. The only power that matters is strength." Ava said.
Sam was taken aback by her sincerity. She seemed to know a lot about the Central Plains, too. He thought there might be a story there, but knew better than to pry. Maybe she would tell him one day. Right now, they needed to deal with this group. He wouldn't mind sharing the bunnies, if that's all there was to it, but he had a feeling it wouldn't be so simple. He was watching the children behind the lead boy. The way they shifted their feet, like they were ready for a fight, reminded him of some bullies back in town.
His dad, and his brothers, had taught him what to do about bullies. His older brothers even showed him one day, when some older boys had tried to take his sweet bread money.
The boy was glaring at Ava. "Now, girl, why don't you shut up. You ain't got a clue what it's like in the Central Plains, and you ain't nothin more'n a girl anyway. Know your place!"