Tara couldn’t wait for school to finish so she could do the heart exercises. The light she’d experienced had felt so good that she would do almost anything to experience it again. As the day dragged on she was scolded more than once for daydreaming while she should be paying attention. She tried, she did, but the memory of the light flashing through her body had been so wonderful that she could hardly think of anything else.
Once their sports practice was over – Tara had chosen gymnastics for her sport – she couldn’t contain herself and sprinted at top speed to the training courtyard. Once again there were mats laid out everywhere. This time, however, it seemed that she beat even the funny men to the courtyard. Just as she was resigning herself to wait, the beautiful lady came in. Tara couldn’t help but stare at her in awe. She hadn’t gotten a good look at her last night but now she thought that she was too beautiful to be real.
With typical youthful exuberance, she blurted out “Are you an angel?” To which the woman laughed.
“No,” she said seriously, “I’m a fairy; Fairy Rejya to be exact. And who are you little one?”
“Tara,” she said happily.
“Oh, so you’re my little prodigy, huh? I heard that you had a particularly fun experience yesterday. Are you ready to do it again? One of the other teachers is going to help you do something special today. At first, it will be only you but others should join you soon enough.”
Tara practically fell over she nodded so hard. “I can’t wait. I want to feel the light again. When I let it out it felt so good! I want to feel like that all the time.”
“Don’t we all. Sit here and one of the teachers will be with you soon, okay?” Tara listened to the beautiful lady and sat down in the front row while everyone else was still showing up. Just like the fairy had said, one of the funny men came over to her when the fairy took the stage. At first, they did the same exercise that everyone else was doing but soon the light got restless again and be let out. Instead of letting it all out at once, however, the man talked about a special way to let it out. It didn’t feel quite as good when she did it his way but he also let her do it again and again and again. She was so lost in the feeling of golden waves of light passing through her body that she completely lost track of time, her giddiness kept in check only by her desire to keep going and going and going.
Eventually, the funny man stopped her by putting his hand on her shoulder. Once Tara stopped playing with the light and opened her eyes a wave of sleepiness washed over her. The man smiled at her as she curled up right there on the mat. He told her it was fine to go ahead and take a nap. His smile was so nice that Tara didn’t hesitate and closed her eyes, falling asleep almost at once.
“Well?” asked Rejya Xinasa as she looked down at the little girl sleeping on a meditation mat.
“I followed her progress very closely. For someone who hasn’t ever tempered her meridians the amount of energy she can pull in is quite impressive. She completed six pulses and it wiped her out. I could tell it was having an effect but I have no idea just how much an effect it will have in the long run. Her body seemed to be absorbing tiny bits of energy from each pulse. Not much, all considered, but the fact that it could do so at all is quite impressive. I was worried about her body collecting impurities at first but they didn’t seem to accumulate to any significant degree, certainly not more than the first rebirth would cleanse.”
Xinasa smiled. “Well, since she didn’t seem to take any harm from it we’ll have her keep at it. Keep a close eye on her and let me know what happens. I don’t know if you caught it, but you’ll have two more tomorrow. I considered sending them to you tonight, but figured we should let them enjoy their first pulse before we start putting them to work.”
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“Very wise,” said the teacher. “For most cultivators, the memory of their first pulse sticks with them forever. It’s a powerful experience.”
Xinasa was about to dismiss the teacher to carry Tara back to her room when, to her surprise, Master Zhao came into the courtyard. Both she and the other teacher immediately bowed. “Master,” they greeted as one.
“No need to fret,” he said cordially, “I just came to see how our little experiment went today. How’s she doing?”
“Tired,” answered the teacher after receiving a nod from Xinasa. “She completed six pulses. She would likely have broken the first barrier to opening her core today without our interference. Her accumulation of impurities is minimal. She even managed to absorb a tiny bit of natural energy.”
“Interesting,” said Zhao Gang, placing a hand on the girl’s forehead and one over her core. A brief pulse of his aura flooded the area, so powerful it felt like the air itself had turned solid, yet it was as wispy and ethereal as late morning mist. It disappeared as quickly as it arrived but despite its brief appearance both Xinasa and the other teacher lost a moment’s breath.
“Interesting,” said Zhao Gang again. “She has indeed absorbed both impurities and natural energy. Tell me, do either of you know what the impurities in natural energy are?”
The two shared a look before shaking their heads. “No?” asked Zhao Gang, his manner distracted. “It is simple. All beings have an aspect. These aspects are whole and unique, indivisible. It is only when you mix many different aspects that you start finding that some portions of these aspects have things in common. Those commonalities are what cultivators call the primary elements – wood, earth, fire, water, metal. This is why natural energy seems such a morass; it is filled with a multitude of aspects, all of them harmonizing in some ways and conflicting in others. Of course, there are many other elements, these are only considered the primary because they are the ones that exist in the greatest quantities in the human body naturally.”
“But natural energy does have a very unique property – if you get lucky and find just the right spot, you can find ‘pure’ energy, that is to say, that you can find natural energy that has found balance, harmonizing completely. The usual way to describe this phenomenon is a balance of the five elements, but that is only a child’s explanation. The truth is that pure energy is energy that; through whatever process, it contains only one aspect - the aspect of energy. Natural energy with the aspect of ‘energy’ is very rare and very valuable.”
Xinasa found the lecture interesting but she couldn’t quite see what it had to do with this little girl. She knew better than to interrupt the master mid-lecture. Looking at the other teacher’s face he was wondering the same thing. Master Zhao must have sensed their confusion because he chuckled and shook his head.
“The reason we cannot simply use natural energy directly is that aspects other than our own naturally conflict with us internally. To simply draw it in and try to use it is to have it conflict with our very nature, causing damage. Qi impurities are aspects which, even after refinement, don't harmonize with our natural aspects and thus resist our control and may even poison us. This girl,” he said, poking Tara, “has absorbed natural energy with her very being. Not much and because of how it is gathered and created it is nearly in perfect balance, but nearly is not in perfect balance and no person should be able to absorb natural energy without refinement. However, as impossible as it should be she has done so. Even more interesting, I fear that doing so has shifted her natural state, slightly changing the attunement of her personal Qi. This should be due to the spirit resonance. If the resonance shifted her aspect towards that of the natural energy she was resonating with, then it would only be natural that she could absorb some tiny bit of it.”
Master Zhao paused for a moment. “I do not know if this is a boon or not. If she used this method with Qi in perfect balance, would her personal Qi attune to balance as well? And would that be bane or boon? Or would it be better to go the other way and attune her Qi to as many aspects as possible, meaning that she could easily attune her personal Qi to those ‘elements’, making all manner of profound techniques possible?”
He looked up at the two teachers standing over him looking on, dumbfounded. “It is truly a wonder, something so simple left undiscovered for so long. How is it that I can live for hundreds of thousands of years, yet still discover something new so often?” He paused for a moment looking down at the girl. “Take her to her room and let her rest. I shall have to consider this.”
With that Master Zhao turned away, leaving Xinasa to wonder what, exactly, they had done.