It had been two weeks since Dan awoke in his hospital room. In his prison cell. Two weeks had served to cool the itches and remove the need for bandages on his face. It had not served to cool the fire that sat in Dan’s chest, right next to his strange mana core.

Dan’s furious cycling had been all he had to keep his mind occupied. When his last excursion had brought him face to face with the last person Dan had wanted to see, it had cooled his arrogance towards his own stealthiness. Instead, Dan had become inflamed by a different passion altogether.

As the mana screamed around his core, Dan held his eyes firmly shut. He increased the speed more, pushing and pushing and pushing until there was no space for his input any longer. He wanted his mana to rage, to smash against its own pitious limits and become something more. He was so frustrated. Powerless. Dan scoffed. The “roaring river” within him, immense as it felt, could not even blow out a candle. Not alone.

Not without taking from someone else.

When he had thought that his mana was as simple and plain as to be useless, there hadn’t been much point in making plans or having hopes. Not to mention Dan had never been one for dreams. Things were different now. Now there was a hunger within Dan, growing with each hour he sat in the dark, quiet, lonely room. A commitment to himself.

Keep pushing forward. Get stronger in every way you can. Take what you need from these people, because they’ll do the same to you.

These were not comfortable mantras in Dan’s mind, but they were fueling his current growth, such as it was. Each of Dan’s cores now sat ready to receive outside mana, vibrating with a fearsome energy inside his core. When he had hit Guan Po Daiyu, he had expelled his mana all at once but he had still only filled one quarter of his core with her power. Practising alone was not Dan’s ideal, especially when the most important facet of this ability was taking mana from another, but Dan wouldn’t let that stop him.

He practised releasing his mana in bursts. It felt strange. Unlike extending his senses with a web of mana as he had, Dan needed to “punch” with his mana. In the first attempts, all of Dan’s mana exploded out violently and left him feeling winded, drained and blind. There was a horrible, lurching few minutes as Dan’s mana recovered and his sight returned. It took around an hour for Dan’s core to be full, all four sides charged again.

He had been repeating this process for days now. Each failure felt like a whip across his lungs, a lash of blisteringly cold wind against his ribs. His face was a mask, skin hardened by salt from the tears that fell from the wincing pain. Still he persisted. The sun rose and fell in a place that Dan could no longer see. All there was was mana and time.

Until a change.

Dan had foregone his outer perception, just keeping a small sphere around the room. He wasn’t truly looking at the mana, so his world was a dark void with blinking, far off lights like stars. His pinpricks of mana were moved apart by a familiar aura, giving Dan a few moments before the following knock on the door. Dark clouds had begun to form inside him, but when the door opened it was not just the breeze from beyond that blew away the threatening thunder.

“Dan!” A quickly deepening voice boomed, incredibly loud to Dan’s ears. He hadn’t said more than a word to anyone since he last saw Guan Shi Ai. Hyun Soon burst into the room like the breath of fresh air that he was. Shocked, but overwhelmed with a burst of gratitude, Dan hugged the boy back. If possible, he was even larger than he had been, only weeks before.

“Hyun Soon,” Dan had to clear his throat, disuse leaving it unready to speak. “It’s good to see you.” Dan caught a slight hitch in Hyun Soon’s breathing at his words and bit his own lip. An awkward phrasing. The top of Dan’s head, to his nose, was covered with a hood-like mask.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I’m hidden behind here somewhere.” Dan had noticed her just before she spoke. Xiaomei appeared more clearly in his sight and Dan had to consciously move his mana from his core. He calmed it, and his vision cleared with the abundance of mana that Dan moved into the space.

Both Hyun Soon and Xiaomei were smiling, but their smiles weren’t reaching their eyes. If the hood hadn’t been in place, the black fabric covering the scars, Dan imagined that even the forced smiles wouldn’t have been there. He tugged the front of the hood slightly and smiled himself, not worrying that they would see his eyes filled with pain, at least.

“Why are you here?” Dan asked, quickly adding, “I’m happy you’re here, but why now?”

“Well,” Hyun Soon started, a true smile settling onto his face, “It was Mei, mostly.”

“No,” Xiaomei said, extending the word playfully, “Hyun was really important.”

“I just looked scary, she did the talking.” Hyun Soon wasn’t looking at Dan’s face, or rather the hood, anymore. He was beaming happily at Xiaomei.

“It was just a case of figuring out where you were,” she said, blushing at Hyun Soon’s gaze. “I just realised that we could find you by following the food. No one told us to stay away, and I thought someone had to be feeding you.”

Now it was Dan’s turn to grin. Mei and Hyun, is it now? That had happened quickly, while Dan was away. His grin turned to a smirk, and Dan wondered if either of the two even realised how close they were getting. Xiaomei continued explaining the convoluted path that they had taken through the Jaioduo’s kitchen and cleaning staff until they found this room, in a quiet, hidden wing of the school. When she finished explaining, Xiaomei’s eyes went wide and she realised that she had been talking for quite an extended period of time.

“Don’t worry,” Dan said, “I’m excited to see you two, too. I… I didn’t know if-”

This time it was Xiaomei who hugged Dan, surprising both of them in all likelihood. He didn’t know which hug he had needed more, the first one which had cooled the fire inside a little, or this one which steeled Dan’s resolve.

“We’re your friends, Dan.” Xiaomei released Dan at her words and looked firmly to where his eyes used to be. “Nothing someone else does will change that.”

“I sort of forgot. Sorry.” Dan apologised, and that was the end of it. For the next while they spoke of general goings on, though Dan had nothing to say in that regard. He was glad to hear that life had been normal for Xiaomei and Hyun Soon, that the chaos his own life had undergone had not spilled over to them as collateral.

Eventually though, the conversation had to turn to the more distressing events. Xiaomei had gotten increasingly quiet, the weight of her questions pressing down on her until she was silent for over ten minutes. Finally, she squeaked out the question that was loudest in her mind.

“What happened to you?”

Dan hadn’t been avoiding the subject out of personal trauma but because he was just enjoying the company. The air seemed to be sucked out of the room, and Dan had expected that and wanted to avoid it for as long as possible. Now, it seemed, the time had come to explain how the last month had been for him.

He started by asking what was the last thing they knew. Hyun Soon answered, telling Dan that after the events on the field outside of the Sasin forest they had seen nothing, and heard nothing, of Dan nor Fa Lian. The girl had walked away with her family members and the unconscious Dan. Xiaomei had wisely kept Hyun Soon from following the procession, which he had apparently intended to do.

After that, they had just been left to their daily lives, as if nothing had happened. They had gone to some classes, but they had been few and far between as tensions continued to rise between the main family and the branch family. Now that Guan Yo Shen and Fa Lian were both missing, those tensions were reaching such a boiling point that this visit was possible.

Dan in turn told them about the time caged with Guan Po Daiyu and the events leading up to the Quiet Combat. Already mostly silent during his retelling, the two were basically statues when he described having to fight Po Daiyu. Dan couldn’t explain the intricacies of the fight, it had all happened so fast. He could describe in perfect detail the ending though.

“I thought I’d won,” Dan laughed but it was mirthless, “I bowed and said something like well fought, and she attacked me while my guard was down.” Xiaomei gasped, Hyun Soon winced. “I woke up here, and have been here ever since.” He opted to leave out the intense one on one he had received from Guan Po Shang himself, unsure how to properly frame that situation. He had learned next to nothing from it, beyond the fact that he was just a pawn on a grand game board.

“So what now?” Hyun Soon asked simply.

“I honestly have no clue, no one has told me anything. I almost think they’ve forgotten about me.” If he were being honest, Dan was reaching a breaking point in himself and he hadn’t let himself think of what other avenues were available to him. It was time to think of those now.

Like a flash of lightning crashing down, Dan had an idea that might just be the making of himself.

“I’ve just thought of something sort of crazy… will you help me?” Without a second’s hesitation, they both agreed. A yes from Xiaomei and of course from Hyun Soon. Dan nodded, his brain still racing with this new possibility that had occurred to him.

“Most importantly,” Dan asked, “how long do you have now and do you think you’ll be able to come back tomorrow?”