"Seriously?" Melissa watched as I hopped back down from the gutter. She shook her head. "I took weeks to figure that out, and you pick it up in basically a day?"

I grinned at her, buoyed by the success. "You had all the parts to it, and being able to sense how you were doing it was a major help. I definitely wouldn't have been able to do it without feeling your energy pull you up. It does eat up energy though, doesn't it?"

Checking myself one more time, I nodded. Falling from the second floor and not even worrying about the height was still interesting in and of itself, even beyond the parkour I'd been doing to burn off the excess energy flowing through me. "Actually, without you figuring it out first, I don't know if I ever would have. The only other actual technique I know and used requires me to be full up on energy to spend it. So having to build up and use energy specifically for doing this is different."

I walked back into the house, Melissa following as we continued.

"So, something new then." Melissa looked thoughtful. "Two different ways to do a technique?" She dropped back onto the couch.

I shook my head. "Three, I think. Have available energy and spend it specifically on a technique, like yours-which you still need to name-," I looked at her, holding a finger up, then held up a second. "Second type being like my Art of Awakening, which requires me to have a lot of energy already built up to burn off. Third is just the general cycling to hold onto power which makes us even stronger overall." I ended with a third finger held up.

"Maybe two and a half." Melissa shook her head. "General cycling seems like just a slow burn technique if we're comparing it to mine. Which how about calling it Featherwalking?"

I grabbed my tablet from the kitchen table and crashed onto the couch as well, pulling up the wiki and throwing our thoughts there so others could find out. "Featherwalking sounds fun. And you're probably right. Damn, does that mean we could have found out all sorts of other things if I hadn't been making us all push on cycling for the energy overflow? Damn, damn, damn."

"Hey, live and learn, right? And it's not like we weren't doing something with the energy." Melissa waved a hand around. "It's a measurable difference between no overflow and full up as far as you can push it." She then wrinkled her nose and stood. "Alright, I stink. I'm going to go take a shower."

I was feeling pretty grubby myself but tapped the tablet with a finger. "I'll take one before Brent comes back to grab us for class. I want to get this organized a bit first."

~~~

Board – Seeker General

Topic: Techniques

Posted By: NicoleFiren

May 12th

I've added a new wiki section and sub-forum to the board, Techniques. The wiki will stay locked for update to only Seekers, but we'll be asking for anyone to provide verifiable abilities they've figured out. Full credit and whatever else I can do if you're sharing.

The technique forum is open for anyone to post about anything they've managed or seen or even want to guess at. Please practice safely!

(Topic has been locked).

Wiki:Techniques

If you are on this page and have not recently reviewed Energy please do so for additional information on maximum cycling and why it's no longer always the best idea. General cycling is also listed as a technique below.

We currently know of two ways to use techniques. Anyone who has additional methods, please share on the forum.

The two current methods have been tentatively marked as active and passive uses of energy. Active uses require you to have already cycled enough energy from your dantian to use, and using the technique expends that energy.

Passive techniques require you to not be at your maximum energy use from cycling, and appear to reduce the amount of energy in your dantian to use.

In either case, energy used is gone until you've had recovery time to bring the energy back into your dantian.

Cycling/Overflow Cycling

Effect: Drawing energy into yourself to fill your dantian. Energy in your dantian is required for all other techniques. Overflow cycling, or drawing enough energy into your dantian to flow power past your dantian and breakthroughs, creates active energy. Overflow cycling also gives a general extra bit of strength, the more you overflow, the more strength.

Currently, overflow cycling well beyond your maximum is the only known method to get past a block and breakthrough.

Art of Awakening

Creator: Nicole Firen

Has been taught to others: No

Energy Type: Active

Energy Use: Everything

Description: Uses your own energy to show others how to ignite their dantian. So far, everyone taught via this method has gone on to ignite their dantian with external energy.

Feathersteps

Creator: Melissa Belle

Has been taught to others: Yes

Energy Type: Passive

Energy Use: Less than a single breakthrough, rapid use

Description: Reduces weight to nearly nothing. Must stay in contact with some sort of object, but capable of supporting yourself on any object. Tested up to including fishing line tied on tree branches, with no noticeable bending of branches or line.

Unknown Defense Technique

Creator: ?Barry McDonald?

Has been taught to others: Unknown

Energy Type: Unknown

Energy Use: Unknown

Description: Made the user much more durable during a fight. Unknown actual effect.

~~~

May 14th

I'd ignited a fair bit of conversation on the board about the tiny list of techniques we knew, but unfortunately no one else had come forward with their own. I knew people had to have them, YouTube and the like were still littered with videos of people's efforts from before the Earth's dantian was lit. But either no one wanted to share or they hadn't figured out how to do those things when they weren't on the false path. Or they weren't on our site, which was entirely possible too.

Still, I'd almost take Barry or someone claiming to be an ELF at least confirming more of their stuff too. If he wanted to prove our method was wrong, he'd need to actually do something again.

I tapped the browser closed once more, refreshing wasn't going to make anything show up faster if no one was there. I flipped over to the energy stone documentation, looking between it and the table in front of me once more. In just a few days, we'd grown from having eight geodes holding energy to nineteen.

"Ready?" Danny sat to my left, there as the lead for the Dantian Seekers. He'd taken the time since Barry's attack to get himself through his third breakthrough and it'd taken me the better part of the day to get him even the basic understanding of Feathersteps.

Melissa wasn't even having that much luck teaching Karen and Ash her own technique. I had low hopes for the general class later this evening.

"Not particularly, but that's not going to stop this." I grumbled.

"It's an all-volunteer military, Ms. Firen." Major Clarke, assigned to this project from the military medical group, interjected from my right. "And all actual volunteers for this as well. They're getting hazard pay as well."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

I shrugged. Testing energy from the geodes was something we wanted to do, but none of the Seekers were in the initial test group. Ash and Melissa had both wanted to try, but we'd been reluctantly convinced to let the military take the first risks. "Guess we get started then."

The major clicked something on his own tablet and a few minutes later several men and women in uniform were led into the room.

Six men and two women, eight volunteers. According to the notes, all junior enlisted with no more than two breakthroughs. There were three additional nurses as well in case of issues.

The volunteers came to attention and the Major waved them down before nodding to Danny who stood. "Good morning. I'm Danny Sidre and the current lead of the Dantian Seekers. With me is Nicole Firen, here to assist in our testing today." I gave a nervous smile.

Danny waved to the table between us and them. "What we have here is a set of geodes that have their own stable energy in them. Our testing today will be to see if it is possible for anyone to cycle the energy inside the geodes. Either instead of, or with, the energy you normally cycle. We have enough for two tests for everyone, and a third for most of you but we're going to start with just one stone. Now, if you'll all come collect a single stone of your choice and a questionnaire, we can get started. And if you feel like you need a specific stone, why you think so is question one. And unless two people decide they need a specific stone, you'll get whichever one you want."

The volunteers already had most of the information we needed tracked, but we did need to know what they considered themselves at currently with regards to their own energy levels. Thankfully military people wear nametags, so I was able to mark down my own estimates of what I thought their cycling levels were at and if I thought any of them had a specific feel to their energy, like Danny's fire affinity. They also had long free-form boxes for if and/or when they managed to pull on the geode's energy to describe in detail.

As the group came up to collect their items, I stopped focusing so much on the individuals and focused more on the energy in the room. I wasn't sure I was actually the one with the best senses for feeling out someone else's energy, but as the one with the most breakthroughs we didn't have anyone more sensitive to it.

The energy flow in the room made whorls and eddies around everyone, some drawing in deeper than others as I made guesses to who had two breakthroughs versus one or even just a lit dantian. Muddying the waters there was the amount of energy each person was cycling as well, as the pull and overflow of energy would be less if a particular person wasn't cycling their full amount of overflow.

Heck, my own overflow was less than my usual, having learned my own lesson about needing to reserve some energy to use for Feathersteps.

"Relax, sit on the mats if you want to. Do whatever you normally do when practicing cycling." Danny called after a moment when all the paperwork was complete and the volunteers were sitting at tables of their own, studying the stones. "If you have any questions, Nicole or I will try to answer them, but this is new for everyone."

No one immediately asked any questions. I could feel/see/sense the energy in the room move a little more though, drawing into our testers at various speeds. Then overflowing back out in a ripple from them. The static energy in the geodes appeared to be buffered by the various flows, but not affected.

I waited a few minutes in quiet as well, just watching the various flows. After ten, I decided to speak up. "No one's cycling appears to be affecting the energy in their geodes. Can anyone feel the energy in the geode when they cycle?"

"Yeah, it's a literal rock of energy." One woman spoke up, getting a couple of chuckles. "I can feel the energy I'm cycling in just flow around it." The others voiced similar thoughts.

"Alright. Well, let's keep at it then." I responded.

Thirty more minutes passed. I'd gotten used to the quiet of cycling and watching others cycle back in Rolla when I ran those classes, so it was easy enough for me to focus on them. Danny seemed more twitchy and bored, while Major Clarke continued to work on something on his own. The nurses stayed busy monitoring vitals of the testers, but they looked bored with nothing happening.

One guy blew out his breath and looked up from where he was sitting. "Can I just crack it open?" he asked, holding the stone up. Jennings according to his nametag.

I looked left and right and got two shrugs. "Go for it, though please move further away from everyone else first. Do you need a hammer?"

Jennings shook his head. "I think I can break it without it." He got up and moved over to an empty corner of the room, sitting down.

I checked my notes, two breakthroughs. The geodes were just hollow stones, so he probably could pretty easily, actually. I focused on him from across the room before frowning. Too many people and their own energy between us. I moved, giving myself direct line of sight. "Go for it."

With everyone now watching, Jennings squeezed the stone. It resisted for a moment, before cracking apart. Jennings jerked back along with most of the rest of the room as we all felt the energy inside of the stone release before breaking somewhat into the component elements and dissipating into the general energy flow.

I frowned, trying to mentally compare how much was released to what vanished. "Did you manage to cycle any of that?"

"I, uh, might have been a little startled and didn't manage to cycle anything when the energy jumped like that?" Jennings gave a sheepish grin.

I rolled my eyes, but still nodded and grabbed another geode. I then tossed it over. "Try again." I then looked to the other watching volunteers. "If this works, we'll have the rest of you try it as well."

Jennings caught the geode and took a deep breath. Power eddied around him more as he began cycling, the overflow starting to make little whorls going outward. After a few minutes and with another deep breath, he cracked the geode.

Well, that's disappointing. I thought to myself even as Jennings frowned. "Barely anything, ma'am. I could feel it break apart, but I didn't really get anything extra from it."

I nodded with a sigh. "It blew energy away from you, so anything extra you got from the geode was countered by the lost of the energy you were already cycling into yourself. Breaking them isn't the answer, but we're at least one less possibility. It's got to be something simple we're missing."

"Ma'am?" Another one asked.

"We know for a fact people are able to take in this energy and utilize it, we just don't know how. Considering who did it originally, I doubt it's anything long and drawn out." I thought to Barry and Joe. Maybe we could get someone to talk to Joe if they were still tracking him? Brent hadn't mentioned them for a few days now.

I grabbed another stone and threw it to Jennings again. "Alright, let's keep trying without breaking them."