"You sure you can trust a couple of blonds with it?" Ash joked. Karen reached up from her seat on the floor and whacked him. "Abuse, abuse." He deadpanned.

I grinned. "Seriously though." Danny and Melissa were paying just as much attention as Karen and Ash. "I have only weird conjectures and a guess to go off of on this, but I do think it's possible."

"I've been trying to get a power for months. I told you I was hoping someone would figure out how to teach this when you joined the Seekers." Karen mimed cracking her knuckles. "I'm not going to stop now."

I nodded. "Alright, I had some thoughts about it last night and this morning and the answers you guys gave when we got started makes me think there is more there." I paused, gathering myself for a moment. "Breathe."

Everyone flinched, even though I wasn't trying to put the same power behind it as the alien had. As I pushed back at him. I thought to myself.

"That last time yesterday, did anyone feel anything more in depth about it?" All I got was confused negative looks, except Ash.

"Maybe a slightly different connotation to the word." He offered. "Like being told to breathe out instead of in. Finally."

"I thought he was just done doing whatever, and finally let us all go?" Danny looked at Ash then me. There was a worried cast to his face.

I shook my head. "I don't think so. I got a lot more from it than even that. The earth breathes in power from somewhere, changes it, and breathes it back out. Inhale, exhale. Like I said earlier, we're breathing in that exhale. I'm hoping you two can use that exhale as power."

"Breathe in, do something with that power, and then exhale?" Danny asked again. "That sounds a lot like what we were doing wrong."

Melissa drummed her fingers nervously. "Yeah, I know Karen wanted this ability, but..."

"I can hold my breath for a good two minutes though. I bet I could do a lot with it in that time!" Karen broke in. "No more sidekick!" She jumped up from the floor.

Ash snagged her and pulled her into the chair with him. "No."

I shook my head. "I wasn't done, I said hear out the entire idea. What we," and I waved my hand between myself, Melissa, and Danny, "look to have done is something with internal power and finding our dantian. Building it possibly."

I pulled my braid around, fidgeting with the long end in a nervous habit. "But it still follows a general understanding. I don't know where the power comes from in us, but we used it and then once we hit the right way to do it, bam. Dantian. What I want you guys to do is the same, but use that external power to build or uncover a dantian for yourself."

Everyone paused to think that through.

"I can't see anything obviously wrong with that idea." Ash started slowly. "I mean, there's probably a million things we could be doing wrong. But for this tiny, tiny subset of what we do know at this point, I don't think it could hurt?"

"It tried to smother my power when I got on the right path, and it caused Melissa to burn her power faster than she was expecting." Danny answered. "What if using external and internal power sources are incompatible and we end up causing each other to cancel out? I can kind of feel what Melissa was talking about, power brushing up against me that doesn't mix well."

Danny paused. "Heck, what if using an external power source is like hooking up to a huge generator, and you're not rated for that level of influx? Not like there's a GFCI switch on this."

"Don't know, don't care. Gonna try it anyways." Karen grinned brightly.

"Karen-" Ash started, but was cut off.

"No, seriously. If Danny's right and this is like hooking up to a generator, then it got started yesterday." Karen pointed to Danny, then Melissa, then me. "Levels of breakthrough. Right now, the earth is a Danny. If I'm gonna get burned, I'd rather it'd be now than when it's Melissa or Nicole. Or God forbid, the alien Zhaohui."

I paused. "And Danny's other thought?"

"About cancelling each other out? Then we test how far we have to be apart before it stops doing it. Or I don't go any further through the breakthroughs and I'm a little bit of cancel out and not a lot." Karen shrugged, hand running through her blond hair, flipping it over a shoulder. "You're not going to talk me out of this."

Ash sighed and grabbed her hand, pulling it down. "Your call." He then looked at me. "Do you need someone to play control and not try this?"

I shook my head. "There's over seven billion people playing control right now. I mean, you could possibly even call it a double blind test since they don't know it and if they manage to get power this way as well, it's good info too if we find out about it."

"Alright, you're still in then." Karen grinned, leaning back in his lap and kissing him.

"Unfortunately, if it's in the air it's probably going to be better for you two to not be breathing each other's air to try this." I smiled.

Ash got up, letting Karen flop back into his chair and moved across the room, sitting down. Karen pouted at him, but then laughed. "Alright. So what do we do? I'm not going to try just breathing in forever until I pop a vein or something, right?" He asked.

I shook my head, still playing with my braid, fraying the ends to look like fire. "No. What I want to try is simple in theory, but I have no clue how you're going to do it, or how long it's going to take." I flipped the braid back around my shoulder. I focused, putting my thoughts on what I'd picked up from the alien yesterday and how I'd managed to actually talk back to him somehow. I cycled, pushing power out and spoke. "[Breathe.]"

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Huh, the cycle outflow imbalanced itself through my second-A feeling of acute interest and curiosity bloomed from Zhaohui's presence, but only a flinch and then confused looks from Karen and Ash. Melissa, sitting next to me sat up straight, stared at me, and squeaked just a bit.

"Just breathe? I mean, I kinda do that all the time." Karen looked at me.

"You sure, blondie?" Ash tossed her way.

"As much as you, blondie." She fired back with a grin.

"Shit, shit." I jumped up and waved my hands around in the air frantically as I ignored Karen and Ash. "Go away, go away. Nothing interesting here. Nope, nope, we're not doing anything."

"Nicole, what in the world?" Melissa spoke up, watching me worriedly. "I felt that?"

The curiosity shifted to amusement and then patronizing somehow, before it faded away. The feeling of interest lingered for a moment and I held my breath ignoring the others until it too faded.

I slumped back into my chair.

"No, seriously. What did you just do?" Melissa asked as everyone started crowding me a bit to check on me. "Are you hurt?"

I pushed them back as I sat back up, somehow nearly scraped clean of energy in my dantian again. "Something stupid." I replied. "I didn't hurt myself, but I tried to push the intent I felt yesterday at you guys on how to breathe."

"I got that." Melissa answered. "Literally. Though I don't know how, but I feel like I know exactly how I could breathe and get power from the air. You think it'd work for me?"

"I didn't get it." Ash and Karen said at almost the exact same time.

This empty on power, I could feel the external energy pushing against me as well, trying to fill my dantian and flow into both of my breakthroughs. It felt off, like it wouldn't be exactly my power if I let it flow. "It might, but I don't know what it'd do. If you test it, please record everything?"

Melissa nodded. "Later then."

"You want to try that again then Nicole? Maybe if we sit closer to you first?" Ash asked, getting back up from the floor.

I shook my head. "I'm nearly empty from trying once. And worse, even if you guys didn't hear me...the alien did and started paying attention to me. I could feel interest and curiosity."

"Yeah, let's not." Danny's eyes were wide. No one disagreed.

"Alright. Can I try explaining then?" Melissa asked. "I got it, so maybe I can make it make sense?"

Everyone looked at me. "Go for it. I'm just going to sit here and pretend to not be interesting for a bit." I pulled my legs up to my chest in the chair and just nodded to them, watching.

Everyone gave me one last look before focusing on Melissa. "Alright, from what I got? There is power, energy, in the air. You breathe in, hold the air inside you, and separate that energy out for yourself. Then you breathe out and repeat. You keep doing it until you're filled? Full? Something like that."

"Yes, because I'm already so good at separating nitrogen from oxygen in the air now, figuring out the extra and filtering it internally will be so easy." Karen snapped, the biology major coming out. "Shouldn't take me but a minute to tweak my pulmonary alveoli to also grab energy too."

I giggled and Karen stared at me. "You have any better explanation?" I shook my head. "Seriously. Breathe in air, separate energy, breathe out. Rinse and repeat? That's all you've got?"

Melissa shrugged. "It's hard to explain when you don't already have energy to know what it feels like. What'd you call it earlier? Just heavy?"

"Thicker too." Ash added.

Melissa hmm'd. "Maybe part of this requires some mental flexibility? I mean, I can feel power and my dantian and where my new breakthrough pools at, but it's not like I could have told you before where that breakthrough was at in my body." Melissa drew a circle over her left breast. "Here, by the way. If my dantian is a little spot under the heart, the first breakthrough is like a flowing circle here. But not a circle? Maybe an orbit? I don't really have the words to describe it."

I perked up. "Same. So that's at least something trackable then for later."

"Anyways. Maybe it's a bit of mind over matter. Think about holding that heaviness in you when you breathe out?"

Ash purposely took a deep breath and held it in. After fifteen seconds, he slowly let it out. "Honestly, it feels like playing pretend. I'd say it absolutely is if it wasn't for the fact that you guys all do have a power."

"Nothing?" Karen asked.

He shrugged. "I dunno, maybe? Like I said, feels like playing pretend. Nothing to do but keep trying."

Ash took another breath, and Karen started as well.

"Really nothing better you can tell them?" I asked Melissa.

She shook her head. "It's hard to explain. I feel like once you start getting it, it'll be easier."

Danny, Melissa, and I all watched the two breath for a few minutes. Honestly, the definition of boring.

Finally after almost twenty minutes, Ash coughed and shuddered. "Bleh. OK, not pretend. I lost whatever the hell it was." He looked at the three of us. Karen watched and listened, but continued breathing herself.

"It's not trying to settle around my heart like you guys. More in my gut. I thought I had gas and then it moved. I wasn't really concentrating on it, and it fell apart." He explained.

"Well. It's a start." I grinned. "But it sounds like it's going to take a while. I haven't had anything to eat since a tiny breakfast, you guys mind if I see if the dining hall is open?"

"Mind if I go with you, Nicole?" Danny stood. "Melissa should be ok to watch them, if you're ok with everyone in your dorm still."

"Sure."