The last traces of light from the vanished sun were disappearing, and Clef pushed Endki off the path into the woods. A little bit of walking later, the pair arrived at a small firepit in a clearing that Clef must have prepared while waiting for Endki. She gestured to a convenient log and asked him to sit.

“We need to talk about your chi,” Clef said.

“I’m not keyed to anything,” Endki replied.

“Okay, and the puns. That’s another rule. There’s a quick path towards death in this world, and it begins with puns.”

“I mean, ki is the end of my name—” Endki ducked as Clef threw a rabbit bone at him. “Okay, fine, what do you mean.”

“I mean, how do you plan to get stronger?” Clef asked.

“Learning,” Endki answered promptly. “That’s why I took the trial. You know how hard it is to find a school, or even a scroll, outside of the Great Nations.”

“What will you learn?”

“Uh—” Endki began, and then fell silent. They stared at the flickering fire for a few moments, and Endki had to concede that he really didn’t know.

“Look,” said Clef, sitting next to him. “Watch my arm.” Endki dutifully turned towards her, looking at the arm. It was covered in blood and scratches from the day’s exertions, but mostly just superficial marks. One dark bruise sat on the lower part of her bicep. As he watched, Clef slowed her breathing, straightened her back, and let her arms fall her knees.

Endki blinked. He thought there had been a bruise on her arm. Was it just a trick of the firelight? As he watched more closely, the dozens of small nicks she’d picked up from chasing rabbits through underbrush smoothed over and vanished. It took several more moments, but eventually, Clef’s eyes fluttered open and she met Endki’s gaze.

“Did you see?”

“How—” Endki began, before falling silent.

“You need to learn to path your chi through your body. That’s really what the trial is about, anybody who can path chi should pass, all others should fail. All the members of the Kingdom can path. Some to great extent, to the point where they can level mountains or summon great beasts. Others, just a small amount, but you’ll see it in the way they never drop a cup or never slip on the pavement in the rain. But everybody does it. So you need to learn,” Clef exhaled. “This is the most basic of paths. We call it Soothe. It recovers a little bit of your energy, but it is very slow and not useful during combat.”

“Can you show me?” Endki asked.

“I’m no San, not even First Step. All I can do is tell you what my sis—err, my teacher told me. Before she left to join the Kingdoms. At this stage, your only goal is to try and let chi flow into you, from your experiences of the day.”

“How does whacking a rabbit with a stick—” Endki began, and Clef cut him off.

“You’re not ready to ask questions, and I’m not able to answer them. I know nothing, you know less. But the point is, either you figure this out, or you’ll be meat for the first peasant who decides he wants your straw hat for his own.”

“I don’t have a straw hat—” Endki said, and ducked another chicken bone.

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“Look, just try it. I’m going to go check the perimeter.”

“What perimeter? We’re in the woodlands, there’s nothing—”

“Stop asking a lady what she’s doing in the woods!” Clef huffed, red-faced as she rose. “Now path,” she commanded, and stomped away. Endki listened to her rustle for a moment before settling down in an imitation of her pose, legs crossed, arms resting away from him, hands on his knees. He immediately noticed a number of uncomfortable and distracting things: the tangy smell of the fire, a small piece of brush that was beneath his crossed ankle, the sound of an unknown insect trilling away. Several long moments and a few attempts to brush the bit of pine from beneath him, Endki sighed and tried again.

His first thought was to empty his mind. First, a field of black. A little while of that and Endki got bored enough to shift up his mental image. An endless field of white. A dizzying array of stars. Swirls of color, from all sides. He was trotting a mental horse across a fictious field when he heard a **crack** and found himself lying on his side. Clef stood over him, bokken in hand, and pointed down.

“Are you even trying?”

“It’s not like you helped!”

“I told you everything you needed to know!” Clef replied.

“Obviously not, you’re a terrible teacher,” Endki said. He expected the banter to continue, but instead, she flopped down beside him.

“You’re right, and I’m not the one to help you. We both need a lot of training, and we’ll only get so far on our own. So, Buya for you, Sanhae for me.”

“What if I can’t path chi?” Endki asked. “You did help me through the trial.”

“Actually,” Clef replied, “I think everybody can do it. It’s just that only the people in the Kingdoms are taught how. They say people born here are pathing a new way for every year of their life, and I hear there are legends that are hundreds of Yuris old.”

“Yuris?”

“Measure of time, one of each season makes for one Yuri. I think it’s the name of an old dead guy. And whether or not anybody can path, I know you can.”

“You mean the shadows on the rabbits.”

“Right. I don’t know how you did it, so don’t ask me. But that’s a chi path. You moved energy somehow, and created an effect.”

“So that’s what strength is, learning different ways to move chi?”

“No, strength comes from many things. Different people grow in different ways, but pathing chi is how you grow. Eventually, yes, you can learn many different effects. Abilities, spells, chi paths, whatever you want to call them. But as weak as you are, you could throw a fireball and it wouldn’t faze a squirrel. You’ve got to gain experience, grow stronger, and then that same chi path will obliterate the squirrel. Maybe even two, if you practice hard enough,” Clef concluded with a smile.

“What about—” Endki began, and Clef shook her head.

“Get some sleep, I’ll wake you in a bit. We’ll sleep in turns. I think these woods are safe, but I’m not sure.”

Endki nodded, and as uncomfortable as the ground was, he found himself dozing off the moment he laid down.