March 19th

I felt much calmer this morning, having spent some quality time with both Mike and my parents last night, even if I had to poke Dad until he quit making notes. He'd tested at least a dozen things I hadn't thought of other than just straight strength and while I was happy he wanted to help, I also didn't want him hurting himself either.

Still, the Seeker hall was more filled than I'd seen since I joined, almost thirty people milling about an hour before the time set for this class. Someone had apparently found a dolly and had shanghaied the vending machine from down the hall into the room and plugged it in near the entrance. I spotted the two military guys, not in uniform, standing back against a wall.

The normal full sized screens were moved off to one side and lined up next to each other. The tables had been rearranged to where it really did look like a lecture hall for once instead of just a gathering area. Vending machine notwithstanding.

I spotted Danny standing near his office and made my way over as he watched the room. "Is this everyone?"

He shook his head. "About half, maybe a little less. I doubt we'll get everyone, just like I doubt everyone actually paid attention to my request to not use their power. I'm glad you're early, you have a few minutes to talk this over? You probably noticed those two," he nodded towards the military guys, "but Brent's here hiding in my office too."

"Sure. I was hoping to figure out how we were actually going to do this today anyways." I followed Danny into the office where as noted, Brent was sitting working on something on an actual laptop. He looked up as we both entered and closed the lid of it.

"Good morning Miss Firen, Mr. Sidre. Are the Dantian Seekers ready to take their next step?" Brent looked between the two of us calmly.

Danny looked at me for a moment before he spoke. "I believe we are. There's about an hour before we start this. I was going to take the portion of the Seekers that are on the false path and walk them through getting on the correct path. Nicole is going to deal with those who don't have any power and teach them."

He nodded. "And the vending machine you talked the Sergeant into helping you wheel in?" Brent looked a little amused at that as I sat down in one of the chairs.

"Establishing credentials." Danny answered as he sat at his desk. "I was going to have Melissa show off with more weights than she really should be able to lift, but she's only on the first breakthrough. Nicole's on her third, and the vending machine is right at her max when she was on the second." Danny then looked over to me. "You think your third breakthrough made a big difference?"

"Maybe? I know it made some difference, but we haven't really had a chance to figure out how much I can do now." I shrugged, trying to keep an even keel. "What do you want me to do with it?"

"You said no weight plates, so I had to quickly figure out something." Danny grinned now. "I'll have you lift it at some point to prove a point."

"If I can get my arms around it enough." I frowned towards the door and the unseen vending machine. "I don't have the greatest reach."

"At worst, hug from the corner like it's a box. You could probably get enough grip that way." Brent mentioned. "But that is a second step. What is your first step going to be to start this?"

"Hi, you know me and this is Nicole. You're doing it wrong and we're going to show you the right way?" Danny offered sheepishly. "I do have the screens out there set up to show Nicole's original dantian scan."

Brent groaned. "Your showmanship isn't bad, but your thoughts on public speaking are abysmal." Brent thought for a moment. "You wrote a decent prospectus when you wrote for your grant, work from that. Explain the situation better to them."

He then looked at me. "If you want to work into his credential building, you'll either want to play up being small before removing all doubt about your strength, or possibly just take charge. I will tell you Lieutenant Colonel Young is only here because he was ordered to be. Here."

Brent opened the laptop again, logging back into it. He pulled up a document that had the Lieutenant Colonel's picture on the top. "Young believes this power is a weapon we're going to have to wield against the alien and he has been diligently training it. He is an example of someone with multiple breakthroughs that you are going to have to convince to start over, that he's hurting himself." Brent paused. "Well, not Young specifically because he'll follow orders and his orders include learning your method. But anyone out there that has three breakthroughs or whatever they want to call them, you might lose them."

I frowned. "I don't think I can just take charge like that. Do you really think we'll lose people?"

"I don't believe all of them will even show up today, no." Brent shrugged. "Success will breed success though, especially in those that gain power when they had none."

"Speaking of power, you never did say if you had any Brent." Danny noted. "You joining in today?"

Brent nodded. "I don't have any, so I will be joining Miss Firen's group. The research you've provided so far would have been enough for me to attempt it if I had power."

I tilted my head, debating. "Are you expecting to have to teach this to people?"

"I'd prefer not to, as I'm sure I will have enough on my plate as your liaison. Why?" Brent answered and asked back.

"Because I can ignite a dantian the easy way once a day at best, because it takes me hours to rebuild what I burn out of my dantian doing it. And since I haven't figured out how I'd teach this to someone else, I'd rather a teacher learn the longer way." I looked at Brent who listened with interest. "Hand please."

He offered his hand with an interested look and I took a breath, focusing on my dantian before grabbing his hand. A flex of power and strength as I pushed concepts to him. "Art of Awakening: [Dantian]."

Huh, Mike was the only one who didn't flinch away from me when I did this so far. Brent jerked back so hard he actually tipped over in the chair.

"Damn, you OK? I didn't mean for that to startle you that badly." I probably should have held onto his hand a little harder so he couldn't yank back. Maybe.

"Fuck." Brent rolled off the chair and stood, shaking his hand and staring at me. "What did you do?"

"The quick and easy way to tell you how to light your dantian. I don't know how to teach that to anyone else."

"If you can do that, then why wouldn't...Nevermind, I don't think I would have wanted that to happen from the alien." Brent shook himself. "So, like this?"

It was still interesting to feel a dantian being lit, but... "You know, it's going to be odd if everyone out there does this today. It'll be almost a normal thing at that point."

"Eventually, yes." Brent shrugged, but he had a little more energy in his voice. "But it wasn't normal for me. And it will not be for those out there either. Normal will be when it becomes a normal school subject, or like getting a driver's license."

"Huh. That helps." Danny said. "That actually gives me a talking point."

"First rule of having a dantian, don't try to push your limits until you've pulled in as much as you can and deepened your dantian's power." I advised Brent who nodded.

"We've got about ten minutes, we should probably at least go wait out there." Brent said after checking the time and grabbing his laptop and a suitcase.

Danny and I nodded our agreement.

Leaving Danny's office, a few more people had shown up but not the sixty or so that was all of the Seekers membership. Melissa, Ash, and Karen were all sitting at a table for moral support for us, thankfully.

And Mom and Dad had apparently managed to find their way in the right building and were actually sitting with Mike. I felt a little frisson of fear, how long had they been here. How long had Mike been here? I was supposed to be there for their first meeting!

I quickly headed over. I might only have a few minutes, but I could at least see what damage control I needed to do.

"Hey." I said to all three of them, trying to smile.

"Your dad recognized me from last week when you called them." Mike offered with a 'what can you do?' shrug.

Mom rolled her eyes at both of them. "We're not going to make a scene or anything, honey. It's unprofessional. Maybe we can all go to lunch or something later?" where we can have that conversation was left unsaid.

"Alright?" I looked at Mike who nodded his agreement, then I shook my head ruefully. "Alright, cool. You guys will be coming with me to the other room once Danny gets everyone going."

"Sounds good honey." Dad answered. "Go ahead, we'll be alright here until then." He shooed me off.

I made my way back to the front of the room where Danny was turning on the screens. "I guess I'm ready." Brent was sitting at a desk off to the side.

Danny nodded, looking at me before looking out over the gathered people. "Good morning, everyone." Danny's voice boomed over the speakers. I looked closer and noticed a lapel mic. "It's just about nine, so I'm going to assume we've got everyone that's going to show up."

It was maybe half the Seekers, and I didn't even know which of them already had power and which didn't.

"I believe you all know me, even if I haven't had much to do with the day to day business of the Dantian Seekers. But I'm Danny Sidre, and I am the academic club head for the Seekers. With me here in Nicole Firen, one of your fellow club members." Danny waved a hand towards me. I half waved to the room, nervous.

"I know most of you joined the Seekers either trying to figure out the extent of your power or possibly how to get this new power for yourselves. But the original reason this group was founded was to bring together everyone and use the collective to attempt to determine what a dantian is, thus the Dantian Seekers. The only real clues we had were what the alien Lei Zhaohui said and the extraordinary powers people started having."

"And then the alien did something and now says the dantian is lit. Get on with it." A guy called.

Danny nodded. "True, the world's soul lit its dantian, wherever that is. But that isn't the only dantian." He clicked a remote, and the screens lit up. Stretched across all of them was my original CT scan. "This is also a dantian. And every person in this room can have one. If you have power today, you're hurting yourself using it without one. With a dantian, the power doesn't go away. You don't grab it and use it until it fades. Until you grab more. With a dantian, a good portion of that strength becomes your regular strength."

I figured that was my cue. I'd eyeballed the vending machine previously, and it wasn't one that was on legs so Brent's suggestion of a box pickup was probably necessary. Walking over I pulled the power from the wall and squatted down. I cycled for a moment and pushed the vending machine onto it's side edge a bit, getting my hands underneath it. Standing with it was actually a lot easier than I expected.

"Holy shit." I heard called, but didn't pay attention. It was bulky and hard to keep balanced while coming fully up from my squat. "Bullshit!"

"Nicole managed to create her own dantian recently and has pushed through breakthroughs as well." Danny remarked.

"I could do that too." One guy called.

My arms weren't shaking from the strain or anything, but I had to keep one arm as far under it as possible to provide balance, with it tipped slightly backwards into my other arm.

"You might be able to Mr. Jacobs." I heard Danny say after a moment. "I believe you'd registered as having gone through two breakthroughs yourself. But how long could you hold it up?"

"Danny, you should have told me you were going to have me continue holding this." I complained, trying to find a good way to keep it balanced. I didn't have long enough arms to really get fully under it.

"Feeling like you're going to lose it?" I heard the previous voice call.

"No." I snapped back. "It's awkward holding it though." And then it starting tipping off my arm and I panicked, trying to grab anything I could on the back to steady it. My fingers curled into something and I yanked, pulling it back upright as I finally got spun around.

"Thankfully, the Seekers can easily spare the replacement money for that." Brent drawled as I looked around the room with the machine now fairly easily resting on my arm.

I craned my head around as best I could to the back of the vending machine to see what I'd grabbed and broke, only to find my fingers were gripped into the thin metal backplate. "Huh."

I noticed my parents and Mike were halfway out of their seats before they settled back down. "Danny, how heavy is this supposed to be?"

"Five to six hundred pounds." Danny gave me an odd look as I actually shifted my arm underneath it to stop a pinch in my bicep from the edge. "Plus the weight of whatever food is still in there."

"Yeah, we're definitely going to have to test my new max lift." I grinned at him, then out to everyone else. "How long do I hold this up then?" I eased up on cycling little by little as I didn't think going all out was necessary and was relieved to find it was within my normal strength so I was able to stop the extra cycling. I still was fairly low after Brent's dantian.

"A while longer please." Danny answered me before addressing the room again. "As you can see, Nicole's not really having any trouble and yes, I will let anyone who wants to make sure the vending machine is real and you can test it's weight."

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"One day, I hope that a person lighting their dantian is common. Today though, it isn't. Today, we would like to assist every one of you in lighting your own dantians to repair the damage you've done to yourself. Those of you who don't have any power, we'll teach you to gain it. I would like to think we'll all be taking the first steps on the right path."

Danny looked out over everyone and sighed. "Yeah, that sounded a lot more heroic in my head." Now he got a few chuckles. "We'll take questions for a few minutes, then I'd like to actually get started with the training part."

"What do I lose doing this?" Of course, it was the military guy speaking up. He probably already knew too.

"The blocks you already went through." Danny answered him simply. "I lost mine and I'm in the process of fixing what it did to me. We already have one person that fixed theirs, and they've already made their initial breakthrough back."

The earlier guy spoke up again. "Wait, you want me to start over?" I finally got a good look at him, he was a darker skinned guy, thin and wearing a ballcap indoors for some reason.

"I want you to not kill yourself." I shot back in Danny's place. "You keep breaking blocks the way you are, it's going to do something you can't fix eventually."

"Like what?" The guy scoffed.

"Whatever we're pulling this power from?" I started, shifting myself and my vending machine to face him. "The way you're doing it, it eventually ends. I felt that from the guy that attacked me in the gym. He's on his last dregs of it."

"What do you mean, felt?" A girl sitting near my parents spoke up.

"Wait, you were in that fight that ruined the gym?"

I ignored the second question. "When you're on this path, you can sometimes feel others on it as well, kinda like a six sense. I can't really feel it from people doing it wrong, the way you are now. But him? He felt like a hole he'd dug so much out."

They were mostly quiet for a minute before another guy spoke up. "So can I minmax? Can I do both?"

"What?" Danny looked confused.

He grinned. "Since you can teach people to use power your way, can I do that and still keep the power my way? Use them both?"

Danny looked at me and I shrugged. "You're welcome to try I guess, but I don't know if it's possible or even safe." I answered. "Please don't hurt yourself?"

He looked uneasy.

"On that note, I do have release forms for everyone to sign." Brent spoke up and both Danny and I looked at him as he continued. "It's a simple release form that if you hurt yourself in attempting anything explained by the Dantian Seekers today, you indemnify them from liability." He opened his suitcase and pulled a sheaf of papers. He stood and started passing them out along with pens.

"You brought a lawyer?" Someone asked.

"Let's go with that." Brent answered. "If you don't sign, I do not believe you will be allowed participation in today's lesson. If you learn from someone else that was here, that will be between you and them."

We lost a few people to that, huffing as they left, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. The final count was thirty-seven people, and that included six people in the audience that already had a lit dantian.

"Alright, everyone that currently has power, please stay here. Everyone else, Nicole will be taking you next door to the other hall and teaching you." Danny announced. "I promise, we are not hiding anything but the method of building and lighting a dantian are different depending on where you start."

I gently set the vending machine down, prying my fingers out from the back to find no broken skin. I walked to the door and waited, watching as quite a few people checked the vending machine, trying to lift and move it themselves. A couple of the guys were able to struggle it up, but it still proved my point.

The sergeant just walked over to me, nodded, and leaned against the wall waiting for everyone else to separate themselves.

It took a few minutes, but I ended up with the larger share of people at twenty-four following me to the other lecture hall. It was set up with chairs and desks and I waved everyone towards them. "Alright everyone, get comfortable. We're going to be here for a little while."

They all moved to different parts of the room, enough room for people to take individual areas for themselves.

I looked everyone over after they got settled, most of them sitting at the desks but a couple of people choosing to sit on the floor or remain standing. Mom, Dad, and the others who already had dantians were grouped up with each other, watching me and the rest of the class as well.

"I've thought about this a bit, and realized it's probably going to sound a lot like a new age hippy. Laugh if you want, but it's how I'm going to explain it." I started. "When the alien caused the world's soul to light, he told the world to breathe. Underlying to that, was the idea of how to breathe. The earth breathes in some type of energy, uses it, then exhales out a new energy. That new energy is what has made the air feel different to everyone."

I paused, taking a deep breath myself, pulling the energies. Metal, concrete, earth, wood, and small bits of others. Strange that metal and concrete were energy as much as earth or wood was. "Every breath you take, you pull a little bit of that energy into you. But you don't do anything with it, so you breathe it right back out. Or at least most of it. I think some does get left behind, but it's incoherent."

"Remember how I said I can feel others on this path? That same sense is what you can feel the power with as well. It will feel like you're just imagining it at first, but I promise you will be doing something."

I looked around, but no one seemed completely disbelieving so far. "So what we're going to be doing is breathing, and taking that energy from the air and keeping it. Once you keep enough of it, that is how you form a dantian."

I held up a fist. "The size of the human heart is about the size of your fist." I extended my thumb. "And one knuckle is about the size of the dantian. So when you breathe in the air and pull out the energy, you're going to be slowly pushing it all together until it gets down to this size."

I nodded towards Ash and Karen. "As we've learned previously, if you make it too small too fast, you won't have enough energy to actually form it and you'll lose what you're building. Don't squeeze it enough and it will never form either."

"So yes, this sounds a lot like new age hippy meditation. It's the closest I can actually come to describing it to you. Because describing how to wiggle your ears when you've never moved those muscles is the more scientific way I can think of it. But I can't even touch this muscle to try to let you feel what should be moving." I looked over my 'students.' Not really any looks of disregard at all. I guess having seen others with power made you a bit more willing to believe in anything to get it.

"Alright, breaths should be five to ten seconds long, holding it in. You're probably going to feel dumb until it starts building, but that's fine. Get comfortable, stretch, move. Whatever you can do to be able to just breathe." I didn't dare push, if only because trying to tag this many people in this large a room would probably do really bad things to my own power. But they also had to learn the, heh, mundane way so it would be something they were doing, not something they were given. Especially the sergeant.

"You don't have to be in time with anyone, you don't have to match breaths with someone else. This is you, your breath, and your dantian. And you don't have to get every bit of power with every breath. You won't stop breathing and there will always be more power in your next breath." I said finally.

"When you do finally ignite it, you'll know. And when you do, you're welcome to mess with it but if something starts hurting, I already know what it is. Don't push past that pain, I'll explain afterwards."

A few more people got out of chairs and sat at desks, one guy even sitting in a weird pose I recognized as similar to the way the alien was sitting the last time I saw a picture before he was boxed up.

Some eyes closed, some open. Some people stared right at me like I had the immediate answer I wasn't giving them, others just looked around almost aimlessly. Mom and Dad were smiling as they watched me teach, while Mike and the others seemed more curious to watch the students.

I guessed Ash and Karen would be really interested, considering I was using a lot of the descriptors they had used, combined with what we all could feel of the energy flowing.

What was interesting was I could almost feel, perhaps imagine, the energy in the room thinning out slightly after a few minutes as everyone purposely didn't breathe out as much energy as they were breathing in.

Did it swirl closer towards the guy in the back because he drained more with each breath?

Did it thicken around the sergeant because he wasn't taking in energy nearly as fast as those around him?

I wasn't sure. I could feel little rivulets flow around though, drawing from a much wider energy surrounding the room. It didn't require an open window to replenish, and it wasn't like eighteen people could suck all the air out of a room either.

Five minutes went by without anything changing, but Ash and Karen had taken much longer themselves. Starting about the ten minute mark, several people got up or changed positions, the sergeant actually moving a few desks to pace.

At the fifteen minute mark, almost half the room jerked as one as I felt someone in the other room manage igniting their own dantian. "Well, any of you who felt that were probably pretty close to having formed your dantian. Any of you manage to not lose it when someone in the other room lit theirs?"

All I got were headshakes and no's. "Well, at least now you know what it feels like, maybe you can ignore it now. There were probably plenty of people over there that got startled out of their own as well."

It took another twenty minutes, and two more dantians igniting next door, before someone in my room managed it. There was the same looping and folding sensation before it tucked itself away and the guy, someone I thought I recognized from one of my core classes, opened his eyes and jumped up laughing. Nearly cackling. "Yes, yes! Hah!"

After the previous jump scares from the other room, most of those in here had managed to ignore a dantian igniting even if it was closer to them. I still saw those nearest to him lose their breathing as he almost started dancing.

"Shh. Don't screw everyone else up." I told him, trying to not be too loud myself. "Sit there and play with the power if you want, just remember don't push past any pain."

He nodded.

In the end, it took a little over three hours for everyone in my room to light their dantian. I'd kept a count of those I felt in the other room, and most of those guys managed it within the first hour, with only two coming in much later than the others.

But once everyone was done, I clapped my hands to get their attention. "Now that you know what it feels like, what the sensation is, welcome to the first step on what's probably going to be a long journey. As much as we might wish, no one's going to wake up tomorrow and go beat up Zhaohui. If you do, more power to you though."

There were a couple of distracted laughs.

"Now, your power flows out of your dantian and into your body. It technically is even flowing out of your body a bit when you breathe out, and you breathe in new energy to replace it. If any of you pushed yourselves to where it hurt, that hurt is your first block, where you make your first breakthrough. But the energy you have as a default is not enough to break the block. You'll just hurt yourself if you try."

I motioned to Karen and Ash, still sitting but had been looking slightly bored. They perked up at me singling them out. "Karen and Ash are the first two people to have ignited their dantian the same way you all did today. So they've already been testing how to build up your energy. As they've discovered, when you breathe in your dantian is now taking some of that energy and converting it to your own power, and the rest escapes you. Strengthening yourself is the same as what you just did. Breathe in the energy, take it into your dantian, and breathe out. Each breath will deepen the well of energy your dantian draws from."

"After a while though, your dantian will automatically start pushing that extra energy back out and make the well shallower. The rule we're working from to make sure no one hurts themselves is don't try pushing past that block until you've pulled in so much power that your dantian is pushing it back out as fast as you're filling it."

People were nodding and I noticed several different recorders out and others taking notes now. "As a plus that I can tell from myself? Each time you make a breakthrough, that well doesn't stay as shallow as it is now. So after each breakthrough, you'll dig deeper but it won't always be the same base." Except my art, but I wasn't going to bring that up. Though... "If you ever do something that it somehow does end up getting shallower, you can dig it deeper again. But please, please. Let me or Danny know what you did. We are still learning every day."