To their abject disgust, Nadders, Wuot, Skol, Lavellan and my siblings were banished to the Awakened side of the glade to spar, while I took my place, beaming, among the Radiant.

For my next lesson Montadie would teach me, and me alone.

I sat before the giant toad, tail wrapped neatly around my body, ears pricked forward as I tried to suppress my excitement. Montadie’s eyes flitted to the treeline once or twice. She sighed, as if she expected Moððe and Ule to reappear at any moment, but I knew how fast and how long I had run. They would not return that quickly.

At length she refocused on what was important: me.

“So Jenkins. Congratulations, little one. You have already walked the next steps on the path of ascension. You know how to gather qi from the ambient environment. You know how to manifest it outside of your body.” I sat up very tall. “Today you will begin the process of forming your core; your dantian, the cinnabar field, the root of your being. The elixir field. The sea of your qi-”

“What is a ‘sea’?” I asked, eagerly, picking one word out of the many I did not comprehend.

Montadie sighed, and gave a low chuckle. Far above I could feel the cloud hidden Moon’s gentle amusement.

I felt a little silly because as Montadie started talking again, I remembered that River had already explained the sea to me. Moon had sung to me of its beauty. I was just too excited to remember all the things I knew.

“The sea is a vast salty body of water,” Montadie continued. “Ever in motion, with - but nevermind that. Right now, I want you to focus on locating your dantian - the energy centre of your body. Your body has three dantian but the lower one is all you need to focus on for now. It should be in your stomach area. This is where you will store your qi. Seek your dantian within you, now.”

I poked my belly with a soft paw, almost expecting to be able to feel it like a lump.

“With your mind, Jenkins. Seek your dantian with your mind. The spiritual centre that all your qi channels encircle..?”

Of course it was inside.

I shut my eyes and sank into meditation. It was so easy now, with my body at rest.

In that serene state I examined my qi channels. So familiar - ever changing, very special, very loved. There were my meridians, five of them completely cleansed, seven still to go. I was not looking for meridians though. Bones, flesh, fur. Veins, blood, tissues, muscles… Where could my dantian be? I sank deeper and deeper into my body, searching through the layers and channels and organs, navigating the internal map of myself. Wherever it was, it was well hidden.

My heart was loud, a regular, rhythmic beat, pumping my blood where it needed to go.

My stomach rumbled a little. I was hungry again. I pushed the sensations aside gently, seeking the unfamiliar. It should be near my stomach but where? From my current view point the inner workings of my body felt labyrinthine. Perhaps I needed to use other senses besides sight to find it. Could I feel it? A subtle stirring, coaxed me onward down unexplored paths. I listened closely with my mind. Something was calling to me and yet…there was nothing that could be a dantian.

“It will be small,” said Montadie, outside. As if she could hear my thoughts. Her voice was a murmur, somewhere on the edge of my consciousness. The words echoed slightly, vibrating through my frame. “You will grow it, in time, the universe willing, but if you are seeking a large, luminous thing you might be overlooking it.”

Point taken. This was another beginning. But just how small were we talking about? I searched again, this time making sure I did not dismiss anything because of size.

And then I found it! A tiny thing, the size of a conker. A small conker. A seed. Mine. Waiting. The moment I perceived it, I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt, this was my core. This tiny thing would be my core, was not yet. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The most beautiful thing I had ever felt. For a moment I was overwhelmed by sensations both foreign and familiar. I let them wash over me. Then I reached out-

“Now be very careful,” came Montadie’s voice. “Do not flood it with qi, not yet. Just the tiniest trickle. If you shove in too much too quickly you could break it, and it will be gone forever.”

I felt a chill trickle down my spine. Forever?

“It’s alright - it’s just fragile. You must nurture it carefully. Slowly. Go on, touch it. Claim it for your own.”

I reached out again towards the suspended knot, the tiny star. My own personal moon! A seed I would grow into meaning and power. First a sapling then a mighty oak so vast half the forest could bask in its shade!

I reached out but the distance stretched with me, stretching, stretching, seeming further than I could bridge. The universe was contained in my belly. How did I have so much space within me? But I could do anything. And it was mine, no one else's.

With supreme effort I managed to grasp it.

Ambient qi surrounded me in a ghostly embrace - moon, pale white, silvery grey, a darker grey-green for the water qi from the swamp. All of it tipped by sparkling star qi, shy and luminous. The clouds must have parted.

With utmost care I held back the flood from my channels, carefully protecting my dantian, letting trace amounts of qi seep into it bit by bit. It was hard work. My dantian was greedy but I was patient. We would have plenty of time to get properly acquainted. I fed it slowly - strands of qi were gossamer thin, as delicate as a silken cobweb. If I pushed too hard they tore and fluttered away and I had to start again.

Time passed as I worked. I didn’t know how long - minutes or hours.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

When I was done my dantian had taken on the qualities of the qi within. Uncompacted and diffused the whole thing appeared like a wispy ball. When I touched it with my mental paw it spun into motion, spooling the qi out into my channels. Then, gradually it settled once more to stillness.

I nudged it again, and strength and power flooded through me. I luxuriated in it. The energy crackled and flared, warm and cold, alive, alive. The ball spun for a while by itself, the shining qi mist so beautiful, all the different threads and colours of my friends who had gifted me their energy coming together in a beautiful tangle.

It was entrancing. A comforting sight, and…strangely familiar? Not a little hypnotic. What did it remind me of? Where had I seen its like? Ah yes! A ball of wool! Each element of qi a different strand, controlled strings of affection and strength. The thread was fragile but wrapped tight together it was strong.

How very very nice. I wanted to play with it, spin it wildly but I reigned my instincts in. Careful now, play later. If I cultivated hard we would have an eternity together. So I watched, enjoying the prettiness of it all, trying to figure out how it worked.

It seemed simple enough. The energy lessened with the rotations, the threads stretching and thinning until they disappeared altogether. It made sense that as I sent it through my system the qi was used up.

Someone was calling me. Outside.

With some difficulty, and more than a little regret I swam back to consciousness.

Montadie was before me. Had she moved? Or had she waited with me all this time. I blinked up at her, feeling a little dazed. And grateful.

“Welcome back,” said Montadie. “And well done. Continue to feed your dantian but take care until it is hardier and more robust. So not rush. Be patient.”

I promised that I would.

Looking around the glade I could see that a lot of time had passed. It was nearly dawn, and yet Montadie seemed to show no inclination to return to her rest as she usually did when the time of two lights approached. The sky was clear and cold, the clouds had indeed parted. The snow had stopped falling, but now lay in thick drifts on the ground, except where the Awoken had trampled it into mud with the enthusiasm of their sparring. Small folk were still huddled on their winter seats, sipping some sort of steaming beverage from acorn cups. A few snow pixies fluttered around, ice-lattice wings beating, clearly revelling in the season’s chill. A few of the more rambunctious small folk were building snow pixies, and throwing tiny snowballs at the occasional unwitting cultivator.

I sidled over to the three mean toad girls who were sitting watching the Awoken with three sour expressions. My core spun within me as I went - the sensation odd but not unpleasant. It took me a moment to remember how to walk normally however.

“They are not back yet?” I whispered to Hangbelly.

All three mean toads looked at me, aghast, presumably because I had the audacity to speak to her unbidden. I wondered if I was wasting my time but then Hangbelly shook her head.

“No,” she said. “They are not back.”

All of us looked to the treeline, then back to the glade.

No one seemed to want to leave.

Certainly I didn’t. After a while the mean toads went back to their meditations, and Montadie called me over, back to the Awoken side.

My former classmates were looking a little the worse for wear, splattered with mud and ice from head to toe (or head to tail, in Nadders’ case), all of them reeking of the impurities expelled by their cultivation.

“While we wait,” said Montadie, looking around at her battered students - and me. “I thought we could discuss the subject of our next lesson. This one applied to you too Jenkins. When you told us the story of your tribulation you mentioned how intimidating Brosnod was? That it felt like a crushing weight?” I nodded, wondering where this was going. “This was not just a product of your own fear, this was the demonic rat’s killing intent.”

I sat up, my eyes flashing.

“Like Lavellan does?”

“Yes, but I imagine many times more potent.”

I nodded, unhappy with the memories. Yes, I wanted to know how to resist this. I wanted to know how to do it myself.

“I was not expecting you to encounter one outside this glade for some time,” said Montadie, looking sad, her eyes on the empty treeline once more.. “It is truly unfortunate, but we must make of it what we will. I will protect you as much as I can.

“Killing intent is a useful ability to have,” she said, turning back to us. “It can set an opponent on edge, intimidate them into a puddle of fear, scare off none cultivators with ease. As you all know from trading pointers with Lavellan.” Lavellan has already developed one.”

The fat water vole could not look more pleased.

My eyes narrowed as I remembered fighting her - the way anger and bloodlust radiated from her small rotund form.

“When you are fighting someone it is not just a question of their martial prowess.”

“I don’t-” Skoll looked confused. “What does it mean?”

“A killing intent is the manifestation of your will,” said Montadie. “Of your willingness to kill your opponent. It is just another weapon. This one is a mental skill.”

For a moment the great toad’s eyes flickered. A wild fey look came over her. The glade seemed to dim. The forest was shocked into silence as the oppressive weight of her presence rolled over us. My chest tightened. My brain panicked, I felt as if I was being crushed by an enormous weight, I was going to hurl my guts… Then - as if it had never been, the sensation disappeared.

We all straightened from the cowering positions into which we had unwittingly sunk. I swore to myself that I would have the most ferocious killing intent as soon as possible.

“How do we learn it?” asked Wuot, her feathers fluffing out, as the big goose shook her torso, as if she could shake the feeling off like water.

“Practice,” said Montadie. “Find your fury, harness your anger. Kill things with intent, remember how it feels. Those of you who focus on evasion, on hiding, these are excellent skills but there will come a time when direct confrontation is the only way. You cannot let yourselves be bullied. But remember, likewise, a killing intent is just that - an intent, you do not have to follow through. In fact, often a powerful killing intent is an effective weapon of peace. Yes, Lavellan?”

The water vole was bouncing on her small paws.

“If killing intent is real-” she said, her eyes gleaming.

“Yes?”

“What about…loving intent?”

“Loving intent?” Montadie’s giant eyes bulged.

“If you can project an aura of fear to crush your enemies, surely you should be able to project an aura of… love, of care, of kindness?” The small water vole was practically hyperventilating as she spoke. A tiny bit of drool dropped out of the corner of her mouth. Hush moved away from her a little.

“It would be possible, yes-” said Montadie.

“Excellent,” said Lavellan, clasping her tiny paws together.

“Why?????” hissed Nadders.

“To lure them in,” said Lavellan.

“Who?” said Thimble.

“Everyone,” said Lavellan.

Everyone started arguing.

I thought Lavellan had an excellent point, but our spirited discussion was broken by the sound of flapping wings.