Myrkas inhaled, then exhaled again. He had managed to steady himself somewhat, to not let the pain become his all. In the process, the boy had become aware of his body, of his flesh like never before. He perceived each pull, each tear of the foreign energies in his muscles, his bones, and every single one of his softer organs. Qi was running rampant all over, thoughtlessly destroying, "purifying" Myrkas' body of everything not akin to the Piercing Jade Grass.

To Myrkas' surprise, the rampaging Qi had a harder time advancing to his lungs. It was as if a wall or some other obstacle prevented it from boring its tendrils any further. The phenomenon bore the first hint of a solution to Myrkas' mortal issue. A potential way for him to fight back.

For Myrkas instinctively knew it would be futile to simply get out of the bath. The Qi had penetrated too far to resolve on its own. Even if Myrkas had had the strength to stand, the steam had carried enough Piercing Jade Grass' Qi into the air to render the effort near pointless. If Myrkas was to survive, he needed to tame the green beast in its current state. No external miracle would save him. His own recklessness would be solely responsible for his untimely death.

Myrkas steered his consciousness deeper inside himself. He concentrated on the different sensations in his chest, where the needles stopped. The outside world ceased to be, so focused on his insides was he. He followed his breath, the quality of the air moving through his lungs. And so an eternity seemed to pass.

A some point, something shifted. Subtle motions emerged. Patterns could be discerned. Flows could be perceived. Myrkas could sense a new type of weight. It was hard to describe properly. As the feeling became more detailed, Myrkas realized he could "see" though his eyes remained closed. Tiny, colourful particles moved inside him. Most same colours moved in sync with each other. Some vibrated, more floated, and others moved around in waves. Myrkas was entranced, mesmerized. He forgot his life-threatening predicament for a second and a half.

The sight was beautiful, but not serene. Myrkas was able to discern the vibrant, jade-green energy attacking his innards. It was spreading, forcefully converting, and expulsing any other type it touched. It tore apart anything found on its warpath. The displaced energy added onto the damage as it searched for ways to escape Myrkas' tissues.

Everywhere, injuries accumulated. The Jade Qi was still gaining speed all over but in Myrkas' lungs. There, the destroying force met a wall, a silvery-white wall. It shimmered in its intangibility as if the air inside Myrkas was suffused with powdered diamonds and pearls.

My own Qi, Myrkas thought, elated.

He had done it! He could feel Qi. In his joy, he lost his inner focus. His pain came back to the forefront of his mind in a wave, no, a tsunami. It nearly drowned him. Myrkas stopped breathing for a moment, overcome by his screaming cells, his raw nerves. His entire self was hurting, on both physical and metaphysical levels.

If light had been present, Myrkas would have been able to see the bloodied bath water. Blood escaped the boy's pores. Drop by drop Myrkas was weakening. Fighting through his pain, he aimed to regain his meditative state. Harder, better, faster, stronger. He repeated his mantra again and again until the words resonated with his entire being. Myrkas refused to be defeated. He refused to be killed by a piece-of-shit stabby plant and his own failure. No. He had a life to live, people who loved him, he could not allow himself to stay down, to die. He had to fight, to resist the invasion and take back his body.

Using his anger as fuel, Myrkas stabilized his breathing. He was back on track, able to visualize Qi and its flows anew. He saw the different particles moving in and out of his lungs, following the air. A small amount, almost imperceptible, however, stayed within the boy. Caught by an unseen current, they moved in between Myrkas' heart and lungs until they mixed with a tiny puddle of Myrkas' own silvery-white Qi. The small pool—and pool was a big word, it was a birdbath at most—swirled to the beat of Myrkas' mantra, swallowing the external Qi in its ripples. Once mixed in, the foreign dust-like particles soon assimilated, becoming indistinguishable from Myrkas' Qi. Over time, Myrkas assumed the pool—his middle dantian—would grow, granting him strength. But the whole process was nowhere fast enough. Whatever protective effect his own Qi gave Myrkas, it was too small. The grass' aggressively purifying energies would destroy him before he could make any significant leeway by regular meditation.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Briefly, Myrkas surmised he should have listened to his uncle. Mixing techniques was indeed a dangerous endeavour. Quite effective, as his new ability proved, but nonetheless stupidly dangerous. The boy had no one else to blame but himself. He had acted in secret, ignoring sound advice.

Hopelessness tried to set in. It tried, but failed. The strife against himself churned in Myrkas' belly, strengthening his resolve. His Qi was the key. As slow as the conversion process was, it remained his best bet to subdue the energies of the Piercing Jade Grass. Myrkas went back to his dantian, narrowing his view to his Qi and his mantra. He had to accelerate the process, to find a way to improve his efficiency. To drag in more Qi to convert. Maybe even convert the green devil's own.

The foreign Qi followed his breath. Anything Myrkas attempted to directly catch it and push it further inside failed. He lacked metaphysical hands or a tool able to grasp the wispy energy. He was able to nudge his silvery Qi a touch but not much else. He tried again, his mind straining without success. The pain was too great even in his meditative state. The task too hard to accomplish with the enemy in his midst, and misery clouding his brain.

Simple, he had to aim for an easier solution. If grabbing the Qi didn't work, he would try to "suck" it in. Myrkas focused on his dantian, nudging his Qi, creating a whirlpool, a vortex. The ripples changed, following the created current. The flow accelerated, trying to spill out, but Myrkas did not let it. He pushed back with his will, keeping the swirling energies tight within his dantian. The rotation continued to gain speed, with more and more motes of foreign Qi attracted by the vortex.

Myrkas' effort had an effect, though small. As more and more Qi joined his dantian, the protective aura around his lungs and part of his heart increased. It was too little though. At this rate, his flesh would be rendered to bloody rags before he could convert enough Qi to protect his entire body. He needed to spread the effect, to fight the Jade Grass' Qi everywhere, not only in his chest.

In a desperate gamble, Myrkas pushed some of his silvery Qi towards his heart. He hoped to create a cycle, a returning flow through his vasculature. For his Qi to travel with his blood and protect him as it moved. The boy focused, isolating a thin thread of Qi from the center of the whirlpool. It was hard, incredibly so. His mind threatened to stray more than once, setting back his progress. Myrkas felt as if he was attempting to thread flimsy wool through the eye of the smallest needle ever made. All while under the sadistic care of an incompetent acupuncturist, assisted by an army of relentless wasps.

He persevered, unable to give up, to let himself die. To stop was to fail, and to fail meant death. Finally, after untold attempts, Myrkas succeeded. The faintest thread of silvery-white Qi entered his heart. It readily mixed with his blood and pulsed along, remaining visible through the carmine liquid. Myrkas felt a pull in his dantian. For a brief moment, he feared his meagre pool of Qi would empty before any Qi could cycle back. He dared not imagine the consequences an empty dantian would bring. Nothing good, for sure.

With relief, Myrkas saw his Qi come back through his veins. It was much easier this time to grab the silvery thread and hook it back from the right side of his heart to his middle dantian. It had been close. His small pool had decreased by two-thirds in the time it took for his blood to come back to his heart. But it had been worth it. Already, Myrkas witnessed the change. The grass-green energy was stopped in its track in the vicinity of the boy's blood vessels. At last, the damage had stopped progressing. The piercing part of the ordeal had ceased. Instead, the needle-like energy seemed to mellow. It lost some of its sharpness and started to diffuse in Myrkas' flesh. Some even joined with his bloodstream, guided back to his middle dantian to be assimilated.

Myrkas very nearly cried at the sight. Progress. He had made progress. His survival was in range. Until a burn like never before arose from his insides. Everywhere the jade-green Qi had penetrated hurt. It was like the bath water had been suddenly transformed into bleach. Blood and Qi leaked anew from the tracks left by the invading energy. With it, a new viscous substance was expelled, similar to rance, contaminated oil. This new phenomenon used up some of his precious silvery Qi, somehow. The trickle of energy coming into his heart was drying up, with his dantian's level still decreasing.

It looked like Myrkas was not out of the woods yet. He had celebrated too early. Grinding his teeth, Myrkas meditated evermore. His mantra became his all. Harder, better, faster, stronger. With each word, he put the full weight of his intent into his Qi. The boy visualized his ideal self: a tall, muscular warrior certain of his power, with the scars to prove his worth. The boy's image was also meditating, concretizing Myrkas' Will.

He stirred the whirlpool, again and again, straining to maximize its suction effect as well as to keep it contained where it belonged. It was slow-going and excruciating work. All the while, energies were still running amok in his body, the Jade Grass' Qi bucking under Myrkas' taming.