Volithur’s heart beat rapidly as he began to read. There were breathing exercises to calm the mind and mental exercises to clear the mind. Then you had to expel mixed energies from your soul through one of the six apertures and replace them with pure cosmic energy. There was a chapter dedicated to using the bodily aperture, another for using the mental aperture, and a third that discussed the aura.
The text explained that the body aperture provided the quickest and simplest method to get started, but that it required expensive resources. Volithur dismissed that method as unrealistic. He had no resources. The chapter on mental cultivation proved more realistic.
He had to contemplate the concepts behind cosmic energy in order to gain insight into it. With that insight achieved, he could filter incoming energy to only permit the right kind to pass through his mind. The downside was that the process would be slow. Mental energy did a great job of filtering incoming energies through conceptual frameworks, but the price for the high level of purity was low intake volume.
The third method spoke about using the aura as simply as Volithur would about using his left and right hand. Lacking any awareness of his aura, the instructions proved useless to him. Volithur flipped to the back of the book to begin reading through the appendices. There was one on common elixir recipes. Another discussed physical exercises to prepare the body for cosmic energy infusion. And the final appendix provided a series of reflections on the nature of cosmic energy for use in mental cultivation.
“Cosmic energy exists beyond heaven and earth, thought and matter, space and time, life and death. It is the child of chaos and order.” Reading the reflection aloud, Volilthur couldn’t help but laugh. This was supposed to teach him how to use the magic of the Xian?
“Harridan, don’t mock their teachings,” Thassily whispered.
It took a moment for Volilthur to recognize his new name. “Does it make any sense to you?”
The other boy’s jaw clenched. “It will, eventually. I am going to become powerful, Harridan, and I am going to kill the Lord General. This book will tell me how to do that.”
Volilthur shook his head and continued reading the reflections. ‘Cosmic energy feels like nothing in particular and everything at once. Every other energy is birthed from it. Every other energy feeds on it. It is eternal and self-perpetuating.’”
Several more entries read similarly, grandiose odes to the great and wonderful cosmic energy. It sounded like propaganda. Volithur skimmed over the reflections until one caught his eye. ‘Cosmic energy hums like background noise you’ve heard your whole life. It is hard to sense because of its ever-presence. I only managed the feat after I realized why all the descriptions are stated as contradictory couplets. Cosmic energy is complete unto itself and the only way to experience it is to split it open, whereupon it naturally forms into diametrical opposites. The challenge of the Xian, then, is to recognize the undifferentiated form and absorb it in its completeness.’
He reread that passage several times before flipping back to the chapter on mental cultivation. He needed to do the calming breaths, meditatively empty his mind, energize his mind until he felt hollow, then hold the concept of cosmic energy as he let the suction from his empty soul pull energy through the conceptual filter.
Volithur spent close to an hour just emptying his mind only to discover he had no idea how to ‘energize his mind’. According to the text, every human could move energy from the soul out of the apertures in an instinctual action. Intentionally invoking that action had not been described at any point, leaving Volithur at a loss.
He was saved from any further frustration by the arrival of the marshal. The clerk preceded a bear of a man into the room. “On your feet, wards. Master Marshal is here to accept you into the fifth household of the Lord General.”
They scrambled to their feet as the large man studied them. “I’ve seen worse,” he pronounced. “The castellan wants you punished and I pick my battles with him carefully. Clerk Anadra set you to septic duty for two weeks, so that will stand. It gives me time to prepare you to join the training program. Anadra, give them a quarter vial of moon water elixir daily for one week, starting today. The two of you are to practice the bodily cultivation method to absorb cosmic energy into your soul. Your success at this will determine how generous I am with resources going forward. That is all.”
The clerk gestured impatiently for their attention. “Let’s show proper decorum by bowing and addressing our superior, yes?” The three of them all bowed deeply and intoned an ‘at your command, Master Marshal’. The marshal left the room at a quick pace, grumbling to himself about useless recruits.
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“Is moon water a good elixir? I didn’t see it listed in the book,” Thassily said.
Clerk Anadra shook his head. “It’s garbage. Commoner children are given it to practice drawing in cosmic energy. You have to start somewhere, though.”
Shortly, they each held a glass vial stoppered with a waxed cork. Volilthur read through the instructions once more on bodily cultivation and then pulled the cork and downed the liquid. Then, while his body absorbed the contents of his stomach, Volithur and Thassily ran laps around the exterior of the building, pausing at each corner to drop and perform as many push-ups as they could manage before sprinting off on the next leg of their lap.
The physical exertion, combined with a calm mental state, would let their body borrow energy from their soul. The elixir they’d consumed would saturate their body with cosmic energy that would replenish what had been borrowed from their soul.
As the mix of energies in their souls shifted to have a larger component of cosmic energy compared to other varieties, they would become more strongly attuned to the energy they sought to master. Then their bodies and minds would become influenced by the cosmic energy, making future cultivation easier. It would create a positively reinforcing cycle of self-improvement. Over time, the energy mixture in their soul would come close to a hundred percent pure.
Volilthur didn’t stop the exercise until he felt on the verge of emptying his guts. He lay on the grass, clutching his abdomen, and tried to steady his breathing once more. It took a while for his body to return to some sort of equilibrium, and by that time he was vaguely aware of a pervasive emptiness, one that went beyond emotional exhaustion, an empty belly, and lack of purpose. It was an emptiness he would not have noticed before, but now it stood out to him as a phantom draw demanding recompense.
Something within his body distorted, twisting free of reality to go elsewhere. The hollowness faded. The soul hunger had been sated. Volithur stared up at the sky which looked identical to that of his home world, wondering what the future entailed. He wanted his old life back so hard he would gladly sacrifice anything.
But he had nothing to sacrifice. Even if he did, his old life was gone. Parents: dead. City: demolished. Friends: abducted. Society: defeated. Revenge sounded nice in theory. Hurt those who had hurt him. Only how could he ever achieve that? People who had been training for their entire lives weren’t able to stand up to the Lord General. What chance did a nobody orphan from a powerless world stand?
None. His best path forward was to stay out of trouble and scrounge up enough power to live a comfortable existence. Thassily could chase a self-destructive revenge fantasy if he wished. Volilthur had his feet firmly grounded in reality. He would survive.
His thoughts drifted to the other youths who had been taken away. The ones who would become soldiers in the invading force that killed their parents. The ones who were made wards of minor officers. The ones who were taken to orphanages, presumably to be adopted by commoners. And the ones who had worse fates. He couldn’t help any of them. He could help himself.
Thassily appeared over him, a hand extended to help Volilthur up. “Come on, Harridan, I heard them talking about dinner. We’ll need to eat if we’re going to get strong.”
The two of them walked over to the barracks building and filled cheap tin bowls with hearty stew from a large tureen. The stew was packed with root vegetables, maize, mushrooms, lentils, and peppers. There were also finely diced bits of poultry throughout, and the marrow-filled thigh bone of some beast lay exposed.
They feasted and drank mugs of water until they felt sick. The sergeant in charge of training met them and then did a quick round of introductions. So many names were spoken that Volilthur managed to retain none of them. The welcomes were friendly enough and his belly full enough that he felt something akin to contentment.
The sergeant guided the two of them towards a tiny room with a curtain for a door and two hammocks hung one on top of the other. “This is your cell. Life in the barracks isn’t fancy, as you can see. Three meals are provided daily. We issue fresh uniforms each evening before lights out. You will be assigned work details, training schedules, and free time by the marshal, myself, or one of the clerks. If you have any personal items you wish to keep, we can lock them up in storage. Otherwise, there is no expectation of privacy in the barracks. Thievery is discouraged, but a company of rowdy boys are going to take and break anything they can get their hands on.”
Volilthur looked down at the thin evening clothes he had been wearing when he was dragged from his house. There was brain splatter on the pants. “I have nothing worth keeping, Master Sergeant.”
“Look at you, showing decorum,” the sergeant drawled. “Just call me ‘Sergeant’ without any of those airs. I’m not a noble nor do I pretend to be one. I’m a working man the same as you two, just a few steps further along my path. The business with the castellan will blow over quick. He won’t consider you worth remembering once he feels you have been properly humbled. The marshal will take good care of you so long as you don’t cause trouble. Now let’s get you a change of clothes and show you to the showers. You will be needing to know their location tomorrow.”