A couple hours later I pulled into the Seeker parking lot, nearly a dozen other cars nearby. Lighter than usual, but probably because of how late I was actually showing up.

Walking in I waved to Tasha still running the front desk. "Afternoon." The still open ceiling echoed for a moment as I heard a faint clang.

"Oh, good afternoon Ms. Firen. I didn't have you on schedule for anything this afternoon?" She clicked something on her screen. "Did you have something you needed to do? There's a few people in the gym and someone's got your crazy run reserved right now if you wanted to observe."

That explained the clanging. "Not today." I shook my head, but a thought crossed my mind. "Although if you could find out if either of our two Earth cycling people are available in the next day or two, that'd be great. Samantha and Jacob I think? I've got something I'd like to run by them."

"I can find out their available times, yes ma'am. Fit them onto your schedule at your earliest convenience?" Tasha took down the notes.

"Please. Also, Melissa said she was going to be here for a while this afternoon?"

Tasha nodded. "She showed up earlier with Mr. Sidre and your friends, yes. That was fun, I didn't realize how non-ADA compliant we'd set up some of the hallways." At my confused look, she continued. "Getting Ash set up in the medical area. It was harder than expected to get his wheelchair around without moving some of the partitions."

"Huh. I didn't realize we had a good enough setup for more than dantian scanning and basic first aid." I mused. "That where they're at now?"

"Melissa reserved a couple of rooms in Meditation, so probably there." Tasha corrected me.

I found Melissa in the meditation area staring down at a pair of long daggers sitting in front of her, her fingertips resting on them. The daggers only had an edge on one side and an interesting wave pattern in the blade.

Melissa's energy was rapidly overflowing and collecting on the blades before slowly vanishing into the background energy. It looked a lot like what I had been doing earlier with my baton, but she seemed to be having a bit more luck than me as the energy was holding longer.

Nearby, a couple of partitions to the medical area had been taken down and Ash was sitting in a wheelchair alternately watching TV and keeping an eye on what Melissa was doing. Karen sat in a chair beside him, mostly doing something on a tablet.

"What's up?" I asked quietly, trying to not disturb Melissa. "Thought it was going to be a couple of days at least for you to get out?"

"You apparently have an overnight staff. Danny swung by the hospital this morning and negotiated my release and recovery to here." Ash answered, thumbing backwards. There was a couple of hospital cots and a female nurse sitting at a desk who looked up and nodded our way. "I don't want to put weight on it anytime soon, but it seems to be healing pretty damn well already. Gonna be a fun scar."

I didn't say anything for a long moment but seeing Ash in good spirits was a balm to my worries about him getting hurt in the first place.

"I thought it was going to be a couple of days of you taking it easy too?" Karen asked, giving me a look.

"Is that why you called my dad?" I asked, getting an unrepentant nod and smile back. "And I am taking it easy. I haven't done half the stuff today I normally would have already. No forums, no staring at other people's information. I had a chat with Sergeant Collins and spent some quiet time messing around with my energy before my parents called."

Ash nodded and Karen smiled.

"Speaking of energy, trying to figure out the metal energy trick?" I asked quietly, waving a hand towards Melissa who was still throwing energy at the daggers.

Melissa paused for a second and looked up.

"You look like you're doing about the same thing I was earlier. Just throwing energy at it and hoping you hit something?" I pulled my baton out and snapped it open before cycling energy out and into the baton. Which again, just flowed off with only the slightest of hesitation.

I got a couple of new looks for the weapon but considering Melissa was playing with daggers I didn't know she owned, no comments were made.

"Not exactly. Barry shifted his Earth energy to Metal, but I don't have any Earth or Metal energy to start with." Melissa answered. "So instead I'm just trying to use my electrical feeling energy to do something. Shocking, or magnetic, or something to at least figure out a base of."

She flooded the daggers again with energy. This time I paid closer attention and could feel Melissa's electrical energy trying to do something specific. Line up in the daggers, maybe?

"We started with my fire technique as a basis, but it really doesn't work for Melissa." Ash started. "I'm honestly hoping it's workable for you and just an issue with Melissa having a specific energy already."

I grabbed a chair, spinning it around to sit against the back. "Alright, what's up?"

Ash settled back in his wheelchair. "So, in general when I, Karen, or anyone else using external energy cycles, we just basically pull in whatever's around locally into the dantian and it blends into becoming our energy to use. The water kid or others using specific energy pull just the energy they need, I think was the thought, but yeah. The breakthroughs are interesting too since they're adding a lot of extra energy, but there's usually a little bit of several different energy types anyways. That forest was interesting because of how much wasn't there, actually."

I nodded and paid a bit more attention to the energy around me. "Yeah, there's little bit of metal and even a tiny bit of something that feels like concrete here, along with the different heavier breakthrough energy types. I didn't notice either in that forest either, just the breakthrough stuff and pretty well slanted to wood."

"Yeah, but in general we pull all that stuff in through cycling. So when I want to use Imbue the Flame, I had to learn to pick that fire energy out of the blend and overflow just that into the fire I was working with. And even beyond that, I need a really good idea of what I'm using the flame for so it can stick." Ash paused and considered. "Huh, which would probably explain a few things. Luke taught while forging, so I keep thinking of it as a forge fire and control for that. Wonder how hard it's going to be to actually shift that?"

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"Before you get completely sidetracked, finish up." Karen poked him. "You got further with this story with Melissa earlier."

I laughed at that, even as Ash poked her back.

"Yeah, yeah. So I don't know how Barry did the whole earth to metal conversion thing, but I figured there shouldn't be too many issues with just grabbing metal out of what we're cycling and working directly with that energy." Ash continued.

"Except I'm all electricity and internal energy, so I don't actually grab external energy for use." Melissa spoke up. "I can prod out little bits of air and water, but definitely no metal so far. Or earth."

Ash nodded to her. "Which we don't know if that is an internal energy thing or a you thing. Danny's internal and fire, but he hasn't came back in since getting me situated. But no other energies is why Melissa is trying to figure out something specific with electricity on those daggers I had made by Luke."

Karen then looked at me. "So we figure you might be able to answer that question. Can you pull specific elements out of your energy like an external user, or do you have some specific energy too?"

Huh. "I never really thought about it. Not like Feathersteps or Awakening need a specific element." I closed my eyes for a moment and cycled, letting the energy gently overflow. The external energy swirled a bit as my own wafted through it, but nothing I cycled out was specific to any element. No, wait. Ash said he had to overflow a specific piece of it that was already fire.

I carefully poked at the energy flowing from my dantian through my breakthroughs, wary of another half seizure. It easily enough parted in my mental fingers like a flow from a stream, merging back together before continuing on its way. I compared it to the watery energy in the room, but it didn't have the same feel to it. Nor to the air, earth, wood, or fire. Not to the electricity coming from Melissa.

I didn't want to have to start really digging into my dantian for this. Seemed a little much to mess with what was generating my energy. "Do you have to track the fire you're blending into your dantian to split it back out at a breakthrough, or what?" I asked, still focusing inward. "Because if you have to track fire, I don't have any to start with I think."

Ash tilted his hand back and forth. "A bit at first. I spent the first couple of days with Luke just watching my cycling inflow and how it went through, I figured out that it more or less becomes even amounts of fire, earth, and water wrapped in air. Wood burns into fire, that little bit of concrete crumbles into earth, stuff like that. There's tiny little bits that don't, but not much at all."

"Huh." I opened my eyes and looked at Ash curiously. "Air? Not wood and metal, like in the geodes?"

"Nope. I thought that was odd too. But yeah, most of the wood cycled in just ends up burning away before it comes out of my dantian." I felt Ash cycle for a moment before he sputtered. "What the hell? The wood doesn't burn now, it's just kinda growing into my energy alongside the other types." He looked around, his eyes landing on his leg. "You think it was the breakthrough or the forest we were in?"

Karen was quickly documenting on her tablet, eyes bright.

"I'd guess the breakthrough, since the forest stuff likely happened because of the breakthrough." More questions than answers. And answers that just made more questions. And distractions. "Deal with one thing at a time though, let me see if I can get anything specific out of my energy first."

I got out of the chair and settled on one of the mats to get a little more comfortable. I looked over Melissa one more time, watching for a moment as her energy flowed into the daggers. Then focused on Ash who was cycling much harder now, not overflowing fire this time.

Maybe instead of splitting out something just as the energy was leaving my dantian, I could move further outward. I cycled my own energy a little faster, letting the energy lap outwards. First breakthrough then the second. I focused for a moment on the energy at the third breakthrough when it split but didn't reduce in power or strength, maybe something there?

Touching on the flows leaving there, I could almost feel a bit of a difference. Not stronger, but more in focus maybe? The energy flowing from my shoulder breakthroughs was again a bit more focused, a little denser seeming. Different though for each. Again separately but more refined when the energy passed through my hips and naturally left the breakthroughs into my body.

Mentally I carefully split the flow again. Just a separate flow that rejoined the energy that coursed into my breakthrough before suffusing my body, then ebbing back. Huh, the ebb back flowed back towards my dantian again.

Maybe the backflow was missing something the outward flow had? Maybe I could follow that and find a way to differentiate the elements that hopefully made up my energy.

Following the backflow was harder though, it barely seemed to exist, slipping away from sight even faster than the energy that flowed into each breakthrough. Then I metaphorically stared my dantian down, trying to find the flow that was returning to it. It took some time and effort, watching my cycling, seeing that spinning energy generate my power before I realized where that return flow was at.

Bit and pieces of that higher focus, more refined energy was burbling out of the cycling itself. The refinement then faded from the energy before being released into the overall flow of energy again.

I followed the energy again, this time not skipping anywhere. Out of the dantian. A tiny bit of overflow even there, but the vast majority moving into my first breakthrough, which now seemed so shallow when considered all by itself. Even though three months when it was the entirety of my power it seemed to hold so much.

But the energy that spilled from it did not have any additional focus or refinement, it just flowed onwards, both into my body and from my heart to my breastbone. Where I'd accidentally managed to break through yelling at the alien. Where the few times I'd ran energy through when I used my Art of Awakening. It was here it first gained a little touch of something, that first minor refinement.

Then it built as it went through the breakthroughs, before returning again to my dantian. Cycling. Not just only in my dantian, but through the entire system of dantian and breakthroughs.

I paused, letting my energy just flow over and through me. Was that additional refinement something I could use? Was that how to find metal, or fire, or anything else in my energy?

I opened my eyes, my muscles a little stiff for some reason. Somehow, Ash had gotten a table pulled up to him and he and Karen were sitting at it with Danny. Melissa was still nearby, but I could see she wasn't flowing energy to the daggers anymore.

"You were pretty out of it, you OK?" Karen gave me a worried look. "It's been over an hour."

I cracked my neck. "Huh, that really didn't feel that long." I looked around. "Since I obviously wasn't paying attention, did you ask Danny the element thing too?"

"Yeah." Danny nodded. "I easily get fire, I'm going to have to practice myself to see if I can find anything else."

Made sense. Then I addressed the question I really had. "Ash, when you get fire. At what point in your breakthroughs can you pull it out? When it becomes that even amount you were talking about? If so, when does it actually become even?"

Ash nodded his answer. "Yeah, when it's even. And what do you mean when it becomes even? It just eventually evens out?"

"There's a point where you cycle it in, that's your dantian. Then it flows through you and becomes evened out. Where? Immediately after leaving your dantian?"

"Huh, uhh…" It wasn't difficult to feel Ash begin to seriously cycle his energy after pulling out his lighter, pulling in external flows as he clicked the striker and a sharp blue flame came out. "It all spills out of my dantian messed up and messy. I'm overflowing the fire at my third breakthrough." He spoke distractedly. The flame flickered uncontrolled for a moment and Ash swayed as the flame lost some of its shape. "Second breakthrough it's just barely evened out though. Coming into that breakthrough it's a mess even if I still could pull the fire out specifically for overflow."

"And before that? Can you get fire to overflow at the first breakthrough?" I prompted. "Be really careful trying."

"No." Ash answered flatly after less than a second. "It's my energy, but it's basically trying to pull a single thing out of a huge snarl and not evened out then." His let the extra cycling fall aside. "You figure out how to get it then?"

"Well, I think I found what might work. It's not an element yet, but maybe something I can work with."