Slowing his breathing, Teng turned his focus inward, as he had done many times before when guiding the essence within him. The echoes of their meal lingered on his tongue, the flavour of Gravok sharp, wild and rich. His lips twitched into a fleeting smile as he licked them, savouring the lingering taste.
“Clear your mind. Slowly infuse your stomach.”
Teng closed his eyes as he heard Gockta, and his thoughts descended, folding inward like the roots of a great tree seeking deeper soil. In his mind’s eye, a place unfolded before him. The walls of this place glowed with slick moisture, and were red and ruddy as some elderberries were after a season of drought
A low thrum shook the space, like the stirring of the mountain spirit, vibrating through him. His heart, of different shades of red, was a fleshy, muscular thing, contracting with ceaseless energy, suspended in the middle of this place. Thick veins and arteries snaked outward like vines.
Every time his heart beat, the chambers within his heart opened and closed with a deep, wet sound for which he had no comparison. He tracked the flow of his own lifeblood, thick and red rivers gushing in and out.
The sounds—the rushing blood, the relentless thud-thud-thud—filled his ears, growing louder, almost deafening, until it seemed to echo in every corner of the space.
Teng placed a hand on the heart and smiled. It was warm, and he could feel the power coursing beneath it. This wasn’t just an organ, he mused. It was a creature in its own right, a living thing that refused to tire, that drove his body and sustained his life.
“This feels right. But what if I fail?”
Teng knew he wasn’t the most cautious. When he wanted to do something, he would do it, even if people told him not to do it. Yet for the first time in his short life, he wavered.
“Should I choose my stomach instead?”
Even so, his feet remained fixed inside. He gazed at his heart for a long time, then firmed his mind. This felt right; this felt good, no matter what Gockta said.
With a deep breath, Teng opened his eyes, the real world rushing back to meet him. He glanced briefly at Vanod and Namur, their faces tense with expectation. A grin flickered across his face, and he turned to Gockta, whose scowl deepened in response.
Closing his eyes again, Teng let the outer world fade away. He turned inward, reaching for the essence scattered through his body. He could feel it—coiled and waiting in the depths of his stomach, lingering in the remnants of the Gravok meat. It was a hum, faint but potent, a buzzing warmth that spread through him with the promise of power.
Teng’s breathing slowed, each inhale deliberate, filling his chest with air, and each exhale a steady stream of tension leaving his body. His shoulders dropped, his spine aligned, and his hands rested loosely on his knees. His chest rose and fell rhythmically, his body perfectly still except for the subtle quivering of his muscles, as if they anticipated the strain to come.
A tingling warmth followed the essence’s path, threading through him like water flowing along dry riverbeds. First, it swirled around his stomach, then climbed through the criss-crossing veins and arteries, rising toward his chest.
Teng’s fingers twitched, a reflex he didn’t intend, and his back straightened further. A bead of sweat traced the curve of his temple. Inside, the warmth had turned sharper, as if the essence resisted being moved into his heart.
Teng pressed on, pulling the essence inward. He could feel the subtle resistance in his veins, like sap caught in narrow channels. The flow moved sluggishly, thick with power, until finally, it reached his heart. A jolt of heat surged through him, making his arms tremble. His heart responded, the beats quickening to a gallop.
Every beat was a wave crashing through his chest. He felt the valves opening and closing, the chambers contracting and expanding with raw force. The essence swirled around it, brushing against the walls like a current carving through stone. He sensed every tendon, every fibre, every coil of muscle in the heart as it worked tirelessly.
His muscles twitched again, a ripple starting in his shoulders and spreading down his arms. His breath hitched, catching briefly in his throat as the pressure inside his chest mounted. It felt as though his heart was swelling, stretching to accommodate the flood of essence pouring into it. The sensation wasn’t entirely painful, but it was uncomfortable—like holding his breath for too long, his body crying out for release.
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Sweat broke out across his skin, and his fingers curled slightly, clenching against his knees. His heart felt heavy now, almost unbearably so, but he pushed the essence deeper, letting it seep into every crevice, every fold. The heat had spread, radiating out from his chest, warming his neck, his shoulders, and the tips of his fingers. He could feel his pulse in every corner of his body, each beat rattling his bones.
Then came the tear—a sharp, searing pain in his chest. His body jerked, his back arching briefly as he gasped. Inside, he felt the rupture, essence and blood leaking like water from a cracked pot. He instinctively pressed his palm over his chest, his other hand digging into his knee for support. His whole body tensed, his muscles coiling as if bracing for a blow.
But he didn’t retreat. With gritted teeth and a furrowed brow, he focused harder, guiding more essence to the heart. The tear became his singular focus, the pain sharpening his awareness. He could feel the essence gathering, pooling around the wound, binding the broken fibres with an almost organic precision.
“It can do something like this with essence?”
“Envelop the stomach. Imagine the essence inside and all around. Fill it up slowly, steady.”
Teng let Gockta’s words wash over him, and focused on his task. He enveloped his heart with even more essence, and slowly let it fill up inside, as if the heart lay was the meat of his mother’s stew. The essence was the pot, his heart what was to simmer.
The strain grew heavier still, and Teng felt the beat through his whole body.
“Are you… you idiot!” he heard Gockta’s voice outside. “I told you… Ugh.”
His heart lay within a haze of blue, as if it was submerged within a pond. Teng didn’t know when it had happened, but he had entered the state of where he could sense everything. Now, though, he didn’t sense the world around, but the world within.
With his eyes closed, his focus turned inward again; he drifted into a vivid awareness of his body’s inner workings. The ability to sense the world around him, a gift from the blue bird, now showed him everything within himself, making him able to guide the essence more naturally and easily.
His heart, strengthened and infused with essence, no longer felt like a simple organ. It was a roaring furnace, pumping vitality through his veins with force and precision. Each beat sent waves of power coursing through his body, shaking the subtle network of blood vessels and essence pathways. He could feel the way his veins expanded, the walls pulsing as they carried the enriched lifeblood to every corner of his being.
The flow of blood was no longer a sluggish stream; it was a surging torrent, rushing through his arteries with a power that made his entire body feel alive. He could sense its path, from the wide rivers of his chest to the narrower channels of his arms and legs, and finally to the smallest, thinnest capillaries in his fingertips and toes. Even these tiny vessels carried the thrum of his heart, pulsing with a strength they had never known before.
The blood returned to his heart, and this time, he felt something new. As the lifeblood entered, the heart itself seemed to transform it, refining it further before sending it back out. It was as if the heart had become a forge, tempering his blood into something more. Every beat brought a rush of refined essence back into his body, strengthening not just his muscles but his bones, his skin, and even his senses.
Teng focused on his lungs, feeling them expand and contract in perfect time with his heart. The refined essence wove into the very fabric of his being, and he could feel his lungs working harder, more efficiently, pulling strength from the world around him.
Even his mind felt sharper. As the essence surged to his brain, it carried a clarity he’d never experienced before. Thoughts came quicker, more vividly, as if the pathways within his mind had been widened, cleared of fog. He could sense the tiniest flickers of essence in the furthest reaches of his body, down to the smallest joints in his fingers. His awareness stretched outward and inward all at once, encompassing the vast, interconnected system that was his body.
The heart’s newfound strength didn’t just pump blood; it seemed to command the entire body, forcing every part to align with its unrelenting rhythm. It was a ruler, driving his body to work harder, to grow stronger, to become something more. He felt invincible, yet strangely grounded, as if the heart’s power anchored him even as it elevated him.
For the first time, Teng truly understood what it meant to wield essence—not just to absorb it, but to let it transform him, to become a part of something greater. This was more than strength. It was life itself, refined and sharpened, beating in time with the unbreakable rhythm of his heart.
There was a booming sound, like when the sky spirit bellowed, and he knew he had succeeded. He could feel the remaining essence within his body flow into his heart. It seemed more robust, more alive, a deeper shade of red than before. This was more than what Gockta had said refining the heart into his pouch would do. Much more. He could barely to find out how this would improve his capabilities.
He opened his eyes, the light of day shining in through the room, the the other people within all looking at him.
“I told you to…” Gockta began, then sighed, his expression unreadable. “Never mind, at least you survived.”
Vanod slapped him on his back. “Gockta told us what you were attempting. Don’t know why you did it, but looks like we’re hunters now!”
“You're far from hunters.” the older man snorted.
“You succeeded too?” Teng asked the two boys.
“We are tribes folk.” Namur pointed out, puffing out his chest. “Of course we would succeed.”
Gockta simply shook his head he watched them, which made Teng and the two boys break out in laughter.
Tomorrow, they would be placed in hunting parties and live their first day as condense stage cultivators.
Teng could barely wait. The hunt was in his blood, and the day prior had reminded him of how much he missed the forest—the quiet purpose, the sharp focus, the thrill of being out in the wild with nothing but his instincts and determination.