All five of us settled into our meditation poses. I tucked both paws beneath my body in a comfortable loaf, Nadders resting his chin atop his neatly coiled scales. The goose, bizarrely, stood on one leg, shoving her wicked beak into her feathers. I wondered briefly if she was playing, but apparently not. As Montadie said, we were all different, I guess.

Skol and Lavellan merely sat, eyes closed. But not before Lavellan’s eyes met mine once more, narrowing in a most unfriendly manner. Hurriedly, I closed my own and stopped looking at the other students. I did not want to eat my fellow students. The tiny, succulently fat water-vole did not need to worry.

“Meditate until you can see qi,” I heard Montadie say.

I breathed in and out, calming my excitement and determined to outshine my fellow students. Soon I was lost in that peaceful cycle, my chest rising and falling methodically. When I opened my eyes I could see the silvery disk of the moon floating over the forest, and let out a happy sigh. I could feel her attention but she was not just watching me.

The master moon-toad gleamed silver, the qi bending and flowing over her in visible drifts. Over on the other side of the clearing the moth’s wings glimmered so brightly they were lit up like a beacon.

All around me qi coursed and flowed in ways that I had never seen before. It was particularly noticeable over by the Awoken and the Radiants but it suffused the entire glade, somehow contained and concentrated by the mushroom circle. I couldn’t see exactly what the Radiants were doing but qi was clearly bending and swaying around their bodies in most interesting ways.

I looked away, concentrating on my own meditation.

Mixed with the moon qi were other strains, vibrant forest green, earthy browns, shadow grey - all different hues and scents. Moon and forest qi were the most prevalent however. I sat in peace for several long minutes, listening to my own breath, and watching the spellbinding patterns.

After some time, Montadie spoke again. Softly, hushed, as if not to break the spell of our concentration: “The next step is the process of cleansing your bodies, inside and out. Not an easy task, if your body is riddled with impurities, as no doubt it will be. This is the natural state, without cultivation so do not be alarmed. The more filth your flesh and blood contains, the more difficult it is to work with qi. The beginning of this process is to open your meridians. There are twelve in total, each connected to a different body system or organ. These meridians are the conduits, the great energy pathways within, markers that serve the flow of your qi. I want you to sink inside yourself and try to find these pathways, and markers.”

I heard someone stir beside me.

“What’ssss an organ?” The snake asked. Weirdly, his voice echoed in the chamber of my mind, rather than out loud. The mind voice was drowsy but not a little sibilant. I frowned, a little perplexed, but managed to keep up the rhythm of my slow rhythmic breathing.

“Organs are important parts of your body - things like your liver, your brain, your skins, your eyes, and so on,” replied Montadie, as if this manner of communication was quite natural. Could I speak without sound? The meaning appearing in someone’s head? I had never tried but I didn’t think so.

“Why did he…why did he speak like that?” asked Skol, the wolfcub. His head was tilted questioningly to one side. “How?”

“Nadders is mostly deaf,” said Montadie. And this time she spoke aloud and telepathically, the voice overlaying itself in my mind and ears. Presumably so Nadders could hear. “However he has developed other…means of communication. He is particularly sensitive to vibrations. Telepathy is not a skill usually developed at this stage of cultivation. Nadders is quite gifted.”

We all looked over at the smug adder, his tongue flickering in and out of his mouth in a pleased fashion.

“Keep breathing. Do not let conversation interrupt your mediation.”

I did not need this reminder, having complete control of myself, but the goose, the wolf cub and the squeaker all hurriedly shut their eyes again.

Montadie continued, as they fought to regain their concentration.

“As I was saying: there are twelve meridians and twelve stages of Body Cleansing. Each meridian has a particular function, linked to the body part or organ that it is connected to. We will work on them one at a time. Some are easier to open than others. Some are challenging. But beware, you must push and strive, yes? But to force an opening before you are ready can be fatal. To do it correctly takes time, effort and energy. Dedication. Patience.

“I look forward to the challenges your varied forms present us with. For example: the heart that pumps your blood around your body, this is an organ. All of you here, today, have hearts, which is not true of some of my insect students. Those of you with warm blood have four-chambered hearts, while Nadders here has three, and his blood is colder. Nadders, you will likely struggle more than the others to open this meridian. But as I said before, all things are in balance. You only have one functioning lung, whereas the others all have two, so likewise the lung meridian will be an easier task for you. Each of you will have unique challenges, affinities, and trials but beware, beware, I cannot say it enough-” Montadie let out a great sigh, and shifted her limbs in the squelching mud. “Do not grow overconfident. Once I had a student with thirty-two brains, but alas...”

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“What happened to them?” asked Lavellan.

The enormous, gleaming toad let out another sigh. This one loud enough to rustle the leaves of nearby trees. “Thirty-two brains, two hearts, five pairs of eyes, ten stomachs and eighteen testicles. One body. What happened to them? Not enough intelligence. The irony. They died trying to open their brain meridians before they were properly prepared.” She glared around the clearing at us. “Take this as a warning. Do not follow the path of the over-confident leech! All those brains and yet not one single drop of sense! There is a time for bravery, there is a time to push, but take care that you do not doom yourself from misplaced bravado! Immortality is not for the stupid. Where was I? Ah yes.

“Meridians. Open five, six, and you are truly Awoken. Now, enough talk. Feel your bodies. Look inside yourself. Call the qi into you. Breathe it in, become one, let it flow. Map the path, weak and blocked though it will be. Some of those blockages will be as a beaver builds a dam across a stream. There will be tiny gaps. Do not push, instead - be the water, flow with the stream, find your path. Are you ready? Then breathe.”

I really did not like all this talk of water, but I suppose it was inevitable when my teacher was a toad. I shut my eyes and did as she said.

I felt the qi, drifting through the glade.

The motions were indeed, like a current, I thought uneasily, an undertow, simultaneously evasive and snatching at me. I could feel it brushing against my fur, against my nose. I would master this, I would not be buffeted by something so paltry, I would have control.

I tried to grasp it with my mind, pulling it inwards. Get inside me! My concentration shattered like one of Maud’s earthen plates on the stone of the cottage floor.

My eyes snapped open.

“Again,” said Montadie, as if she was privy to all my thoughts. Perhaps she was. Or perhaps it was to be expected. The thought annoyed me.

I set my breathing in motion once more. My concentration was again tested when the moth and the owl started tossing balls of incandescent qi to each other. The orbs of pure energy hurtled this way and that in a soundless battle of wills. The movement sent out ripples of disruption that I could sense as well as see if I opened my eyes.

After a few minutes I managed to successfully block them out, even though it was an uphill battle. The ball was hypnotising. My paws twitched for me to pounce. No. Breathing.

My mind cleared.

I sank deep inside myself, feeling my body, my toes, my tail, my whiskers, the hair that coated my skin. The pleasant warming sensation of qi filled up inside my belly. Cooler, and more subdued than that of the sun, but still a growing fondness. Carefully, softly, I felt once more for the current. I could sense it clearly, but every time I tried to touch it with my mind, my concentration wavered. Doggedly, I tried again and again, keeping my breathing steady, inviting it inside me, trying to breathe it in.

At last I coaxed a slither into me, by imagining it whooshing up my nostrils.

Once it was inside I almost lost it again, so strange was the feeling. Tickly. It pooled in my belly like cool liquid fire, the happy spot of my cultivation swirling into a ball that I could feel. Now to cycle it through my body. Where was the path? There were channels, strange and unfamiliar. Slowly, carefully I nudged the qi along.

Somewhere, outside I could feel my body sweating from the effort.

The qi moved, slowly, sluggishly, feeling its way along my body. Down my legs, across my chest, along my stomach to my back legs, then up and down the tip of my tail. I coaxed it along as best I could. I could sense blockages, dimly, chokepoints in the darkness as I felt along like a blind squeaker. Sooner or later the qi completed a complete circuit of my body and I let out a gasp. How long had it taken? I could not tell. I would do it again.

The second time was easier, but not by much.

I was dimly aware of the passage of time but it did not matter. This was too interesting.

When at last I opened my eyes, the moon was sinking low into the treetops of the western horizon. The bulk of her luminescence was already obscured by the branches and the forest was full of chirping birds. It was nearly dawn, I had been in the glade all night.

The next thing I noticed was the stench.

It was rancid.

It was rank.

It was worse than the nanny-goat, worse than Maud’s outhouse on a scorching hot day, worse than the worst smell I had ever smelt in any of my lives. I could taste it in the back of my throat. I immediately vomited up the remains of my supper into a neat pile in front of me as I realised the stink was coming from me.

Every inch of my once pristine fur was clogged with the most disgusting, foul smelling filth I had ever seen in my life. Streaks of black and brown, even yellow, a little purple. What was it? With a yowl of distress I rolled in the dew-wet grass and rolled and rolled, trying to get it off me.

It helped a bit. I rolled some more, coating myself in the boggy muck of the glade but any smell, even dirt was better than that stink. Once I had got off as much as I could I rolled on dry grass then set about washing with utmost urgency. As my tongue made contact with the remains of the revolting stuff I gagged again, but forced myself to keep going. I had to be clean. This was not acceptable.

It tasted as disgusting as it smelt. I had to stop every now and then to puke out any bits I had accidentally swallowed. With copious amounts of spit and paw action it slowly started to come off. I was dimly aware of the others rousing around me, all of them just as filthy.

“Sod this for a lark!”

A distressed goose disappeared into the trees with a series of agonised honks. No doubt she was searching for water. For a brief, crazed moment I contemplated dunking myself in River on the way home. Then I came to my senses and kept cleaning.

“Well done,” said Montadie to us, as if we were not all suffering agonies.

She chuckled, and the glade floor bounced a little. “Better out than in! Just think, all those impurities lived inside you. And more yet to be expelled. Congratulations! You have made a start. A great step forward. Practise your cultivation as much as you can, and I will see you all beneath the next full moon to evaluate your progress. Take care, my students.”

With that, the glade rumbled, and the giant spirit beast sank back into the forest floor.