> Oh wow, those are some truly salient points drunken one. I thank you for giving weight to nothing."

>

> Meditations of the Listener to the Drunken Chanter

Raxri did so, clearing their mind and focusing only upon their breathing. Their slow inhale and exhale cadence. It really did come easily to them: Raxri became over-aware of the movements of their Nihawa, of the flow rushing through them. The way their breaths slowed or quickened depending on how they wished it to move, the way their breath hitched sometimes, or the way that a budding need to cough arose, or the way some breaths were cold while others hot, or the way they felt wetness when they inhaled due to the dripping rain.

Then, there! The first few embers of their Sapi, stoked by their Concentration. They reached out to it and immediately felt their entire body shudder.

Still with eyes closed, Raxri said: "Master, teach me. What is the Sapi?"

"That's a complicated subject to dive into," replied Akazha. "It is the very thing that penetrates us all, that binds all us sentient beings to each other and to the universe. Everything that arises conditionally has Sapi. The Fires of Samsara. Some believe even that there Sapi is a consequent of Karma. You know how they explain rebirth?"

Raxri shook their head.

"Imagine a candle lighting another candle. Is it the same flame?"

Raxri blinked. Shook their head.

"Right. It is not. But in some ways, for a moment, it is! This what a Mindstream is. The karmic fruits of a sentient being 'lighting' the flame of their next reincarnation. Ah, and you must be mindful. Sapi is not literally a flame. It is a 'fire' because of how it resembles the nature of flame. How it resembles the nature of the candle lighting a candle. Nothing more."

Akazha pointed at Raxri's groin. Raxri blinked thrice.

"There are five nodes within your body where the Nihawa flows through. These are known as your chakras. Energy wheels. As Winds flow through them, they are spun and generate energy for you. Misalignment of chakras, blockages of chakras... these cause semi-material diseases and problems. Things that modern medicine cannot solve. Remember it thus: the five Chakras are your Secret Chakra, your Abdominal Chakra, your Heart Chakra, your Throat Chakra, and your Crown Chakra.

"With proper meditation, you can feel and control the flow of your Nihawa, make them flow cleanly through your chakras, keeping you whole and hale. Your Nihawa must flow to properly activate parts of your body, allowing physical feats nigh miraculous."

"I see. So with proper meditation I can control it?"

"Yes. And now you do just that, by focusing and contemplating on your breathing. As I've said, it comes natural to you. Truly, the meditationist's mind erupts from you. All the more interesting." Akazha bit her lip. "The past may haunt you, but it has granted you exceptional tools to face your challenges in the future. As if it anticipated this."

Raxri's thoughts began to wander into what other things their past might be hiding, but they caught it with their mind. No greater adversary but the mind. Raxri cast aside their thoughts, banishing it with a snarl, then returned to their breathing, returning to their contemplation.

Akazha continued. "Good, very good. Now that your breathing has come to you, and that you control it, send that breathing down to your feet. Let your Nihawa flow through your chakras and reach your feet."

Raxri did so. Every breath being sent to their base, to their feet, channeling all their Inner Power to their very soles. They felt themselves lighten, though not just physically but also mentally. Someone with lesser meditation could very well become too light-headed and vomit and perhaps even pass out.

But Raxri held on.

Akazha turned and pointed up at the hanging branch. "Now leap, my student! Ho ho ho! Your Nihawa flurries!" The laugh was a hearty laugh, half mocking laugh, half "arise my creation!" sort of laugh. Raxri didn't think about it, their meditation was steel.

Raxri shot off the ground with the sudden weight of a hot-air balloon. When most humans leap, they summarily touch the ground in short order. However, when Raxri leaped, they floated, as if carried by gods, and with the winds swirling about them, they soared, moving up and up, until they were at the same height as the branch. Their feet lightly touched the branch and they stepped. With the winds still coursing through them, they felt their body become as light as a feather. Upon the branch, they balanced. No branch could have carried all of Raxri's weight, but there they be. Their Light Body Technique consolidated, settling at the bottom of Raxri's belly.

"By the gods...!" Raxri's grinned so hard that it seemed like their hair and clothes lit up and stood up on end as well.

"Stellar work, my charge. That is the basic way of the Light Body." Akazha also leapt up, onto a branch beside Raxri, and then she sat. "Many of the masters of the Light Body have even eschewed the use of horses for short-distance travel, for they can use their feather-weight body to leap great distances and much faster so than usual mounts. Now, come."

The rain continued, but Akazha walked out into it, towards the flooding stream. It was fortuitous then that they did not choose to wear footwear at that moment. Akazha beckoned for Raxri to follow them, and Raxri followed suit, leaping down and landing relatively unharmed (they had anticipated a massive shock to their ankles and feet, which never came). Though they did not float down like Akazha did, they still descended at a slower rate, much like how a feather would descend upon the earth.

They were wet by the rain. Akazha's clothes matted to her skin, but they were light cloths, so it didn't hamper them overmuch. Akazha's hair was drenched, stuck to the sides of her face. She pushed it back, revealing a massive forehead that Raxri had never seen before. "Whoa, master."

Akazha stopped, turned to Raxri as she smoothed her hair back, pulling it away from her face. "What's the matter? Enchanted, are you?"

"I've never seen a forehead so big before!" Akazha's foot struck straight into Raxri's solar plexus, and Raxri doubled over, wheezing. Half with laughter, half with regret and genuine pain.

Overhead, the trees stood resolute, glinting a bright light as light sunlight peeked from the dark clouds, dappling the very raindrops that fell like tears. In this half-rain half-sun, the colors of nature seemed to be brighter, stronger. The green was greener, the blue of the stream was brighter blue, the gray of the stone and the white of the boulder near the source of the stream were grayer and whiter still.

"Now, student," said Akazha, with a bit of a snarl still in their voice. "Follow me." She leapt, crossing the flooded stream, and then stood atop the rushing waters (which rushed because of the rain). She stood like a flamingo, with one foot lightly touching the rushing water and another foot folded, placed beside the straight leg's knee.

Raxri tried to catch their breath, but it took considerable effort. They couldn't help but laugh: Akazha knew what they were doing by kicking them right where the strike would've impeded the flow of Nihawa.

"What ails you, student?" There was a certain offended tone to her voice, still. A venomous edge.

Raxri laughed again. "My Inner Winds have been knocked out of me!"

"Perhaps you will take care not to speak of my forehead again!"

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"Forgive me, forgive me. I did not realize what I was saying until it was too late!"

Akazha stared longer, then slowly began to laugh as well. She waited patiently for her student, and eventually Raxri managed to enter Contemplation again, focusing on their breathing. With bated breath, and with a certain expectant stare, Akazha waited.

Raxri inhaled, exhaled, then bound with one foot. A single step turned into a leaping bound. Winds flurried through them, their air flapping. When their feet struck the water, they bobbed up and down for a moment, and then the Light Body kept them up. Nihawa concentrated around their feet, allowing them to keep afloat. They stepped lightly upon the waters.

"Good, good job student!" Akazha leapt over and pat Raxri on the head as they were rising up from their crouched position.

Raxri grinned. "Thank you, master. Harnessing my Nihawa affords me freedom I never knew I wished!"

"And I will teach you more yet."

The two of them became drenched in the rain, but it was all good. Raxri, the ever-curious, walked a few steps, and saw that they balanced perfectly upon the rushing, babbling flooded stream. They turned and kicked, and a splash of cleanwater erupted, striking Akazha directly.

Akazha gasped, mostly at the cold, but also at the affront. With play-indignation, Akazha kicked up water as well.

The cold struck Raxri like the kiss of a nether god, and they almost fell over as their muscles spasmed at the sudden chill.

"You see, student: while the Sapi is not something the normal mortal can access, it still exists and has an ambient function. It is expressed as our body regulating our body temperature."

"B-B-Body temperature...?" Raxri shivered as the cold bit their bones.

Akazha held back a smile. She waved her hand: "Come, let us lecture within. The rain will not abate, it seems."

"Very we-oof!" Akazha had stepped forward and Whorl Hand elbowed Raxri. The motion continued into a carry, with Akazha carrying the now much lighter Raxri over her shoulder. Akazha leapt over to the muddy bank, and then bound a few more steps, back up the path and back to her cottage.

Within the cottage, steaming hot rice and tamarind soup had been prepared, along with clay bowls for eating, cleaned pipes, gloambloom on two platelets, hot tea, and betel nut quids in an opened box. "Ah, you've returned!" It was Jikajika, taking of his wide-brimmed hat and bowing. "I see training has gone swell."

"Too swell," said Akazha, smiling demurely again. She set Raxri down as if they were a sack of rice. Raxri rolled about on the floor, catching their breath.

Jikajika laughed. "Ah, thou must have said something about her forehead!"

"Silence, uncle," said Akazha. "Lest you wish the demon hordes to take you finally?"

Jikajika just shrugged. "Ah, see thee that my time be near?"

Akazha rolled her eyes. She went up to her room in the second floor to change clothes. Jikajika fluttered over to Raxri and pat their head. "There, there. Witness, a fresh change of clothes awaits thee in thy room. Tarry no longer, and come out for food! Tamarind soup is my specialty, and its ambrosia lingers in its steaming hot heat."

Raxri, shivering, nodded. Thunder crackled overhead. As Raxri went into their room to change their clothes into a fresh and warm brocaded tunic and sarong that wrapped around their waist and only reached the tops of their calves, Raxri felt a relief and coziness unrivaled ever since they've left that state of darkness they were in in the Vault of Souls.

Jikajika whistled as another clap of thunder rumbled. "The battle of the winds wage ferocious now. This must be a true grudge."

Raxri stepped out and sat. "Are the gods fighting?"

Jikajika nodded. "Aye. All the time, dear one. Here, in the End of the World, the very tip of Pemi, various storm gods and wind gods fight to establish their sky kingdoms. It makes for very dangerous sailing, and it is why sea sailing is somewhat rare in this section, despite the various islands that pock the waters here. Sky sailing, however, is more common, though that require that you have ancestors and tutelary deities that are friendly with the appropriate wind god to carry you through."

"Why do they set themselves against each other?"

"Well, Raxri. There was a time to be true when the winds were agreeable with another. Then, when a portion of the sky was gashed by the Invincible Blade Princess, a large number of wind gods died, and this caused true imbalances. The winds and storms and zephyrs and gales all fought, and truly keep fighting, over who will inherit who, and who will serve who. This has led to cataclysmic storms. It is especially strong here, as you can see, for the End of the World has ever been the badlands of the skies."

"I see. How sorrowful." Raxri turned and began eating. The sourness of soup was perfect combined with the plainness of the white rice, creating an unbeatable flavor that filled Raxri's heart. They could not have enough. They ate and ate, though with a certain rhythm. They made sure they ate not too fast so that they would not be able to appreciate the taste and flavor.

Eventually, Akazha came back down, now also freshly dressed. A single tube skirt brought up to her chest, and still yet long enough to have multiple folds on one side. The tube skirt was embellished and embroidered with coiling dragons. Now their hair was yet wet, so a headscarf wrapped it up, revealing again her spacious forehead.

"Student, dare not speak about my forehead again."

Raxri blinked. "Ha? Oh, yes, of course master. Forgive me for having done it."

"Thou art beautiful, even--nay, ESPECIALLY--with thy forehead, Akazha dear!" Jikajika said, with humor mounted upon his words.

"Spare me, uncle." Akazha stepped over and sat, and began eating.

"O, thou art yet far from the path of wizardhood if thou be offended over such trivial, material things!"

"Yes, yes, bite me. Our student here, uncle, has learned the beginnings of the Light Body Technique."

Jikajika hopped up to the table. "O, that be true? If so, then this young being can survive on their own without any other help!"

Raxri nodded, looking up at Jikajika. Akazha bit the inside of her cheek. She wasn't sure they agreed. Raxri wasn't sure they agreed either not sure if they agreed, but they nodded anyway. Far be it for them to disagree. The god would know much more than them, a mere human, after all.

Akazha chewed on her foot. She sat with one foot up, her hand resting on her knee. She swallowed and said: "The Light Body Technique is the most common way of doing so when one is a traveler, adventurer, explorer, warrior, or any profession that requires travel through dangerous locales."

Jikajika nodded twice. "Aye. In the grand mountains, manipulating harnessing one's Sapi is the more common cultivation solely due to the cold. The greater blacksmiths use their Sapi when building a weapon fit for a god to inhabit. Any god will respect a strong Nihawa and Sapi."

Akazha sipped some of the stew, loudly. "Rah! How delicious. Anyhow: within the world you see there are eight primary powers, the things that keep it moving and make up this phenomenal reality. That is, the reality that one experiences and suffers in. These arise from the basal aggregates, which is a spirit science I cannot teach you as of the current moment.

"Remember when I said that every conditional arising contains Sapi? It is Mystic Fire to us, because fire is one of the most dangerous elements. However, every thing has Sapi, and that Sapi often expresses itself as an element. There are six elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space, and Consciousness.

Many of the natural minerals of the world hold these Elements within their hearts. Topaz holds lightning, an aspect of Fire. A pearl holds the power of water. Rubies hold the power of fire, and so on."

Akazha took a moment to shove a spoonful of rice. Raxri then said, as their master chewed: "Do these elements... exist within us?"

Akazha nodded, swallowing a mouthful of food, and said: "You know how we are prone to sweating? Especially in the heat? That is the element of Water erupting from us."

"Ah... I see. Sweat is of the Element of Water?"

Akazha raised a finger, a proud grin on her face as she closed her eyes. "You're catching on, student. All the liquids that pour from your body are your Bodily Waters: blood, tears, sweat, urine, and all. While Inner Earth is your flesh and your solid wastes. Your Inner Fire is the connections of your neurons, the electrospasms that move your flesh, as commanded by your Consciousness. All things are in truth made up of these elemental aggregates. Even the elements themselves are aggregates of other things!"

Jikajika chuckled. "You confuse the child, witch. One step at a time, you know?"

Akazha smiled. "Of course. Worry not."

Once they finished their food, they carried their plates to the kitchen, into the rattan bag they used to carry to the stream the dishes. Then, the three of them smoked the gloambloom, filling them with relaxation and rest. Purple smoke wafted lazily about them. The rain had calmed down now, from being a storm. They had to resort to using lotus-lights to be able to illuminate their room, as the torches kept getting doused by the waters.

Before Akazha alighted to their room, they called to Raxri.

"Yes, master?"

"You need not call me master," she said, a soft smile on her lips. "Just Akazha. You've exerted yourself too much. Does your bullet wound not hurt?"

Raxri looked down upon it. In truth it continuously pulsated pain still, but the adrenaline of learning new things and advancing kept it down. Not to mention the Healing Pill, the healing-infused foods, and their newfound access to their Nihawa and Sapi being able to strengthen them for the time being. "It does."

"We will take our time in our practice. Usually wounds from arquebus projectiles take a Moon at least to heal. The Healing Pill has doubled that time, but you will need at least 10 days or so to fully recover. We will be training on each day, but you will not be pushing yourself past your limit, nor even bringing yourself to your limit. Understand?"

Raxri nodded. Now that their attention was to their wound, the pain did seem to lance more frequently. It alternated between sudden daggers of pain and numbness. Wincing, Raxri said, "Thank you, Akazha."

"Get plenty of rest. You will need it."

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