Hudson, Cor and Xith’le’so floated in the center of a large training room. It was ovoid in shape, with entrances at the ends of the long sides. Thick, gray padding lined the walls, ceiling and floors and hid recessed lighting.

Hudson and Cor wore their air-breathing helmets, as well as new body suits of the same style and form as the rest of the Lurill’shan. Cor’s old clothes were gone, never to be seen again, a casualty to the decades of filth in his body being expelled by a cultivation technique. It had taken hours to scrub their room clean enough that Xith’le’so deigned to enter it again. Even then, she turned her nose up and quickly left.

But Cor was officially a cultivator, and Xith’le’so was now giving Hudson and Cor their first lesson.

“I have been permitted to teach you a series of movements known as the First Form,” Xith’le’so said. “In exchange, I expect the following: you will extend all efforts to learn and master this form. Secondly, that you will not teach this Form to another, without the expressed permission of your teacher. Me.

“Lastly… I have my personal reasons for doing this, but I have gone out into deep waters for you two. In exchange, I only ask that you do what you can to aid the reef.”

“We appreciate it,” Hudson said.

“Don’t worry, we ain’t gonna let you down,” Cor added.

“There is a wisdom inherent in each of our Forms. The wisdom of the First Form is: ‘the mind and body are one.’ Follow along closely,” Xith’le’so said. She breathed in slowly, and Hudson could tell she had begun to use a cultivation technique – the first time he’d ever seen her do so.

She closed her eyes and began a series of slow swimming movements. Her arms swung in wide, opposing circles, punctuated by sharp knife-hand attacks, punches and blocks. Her legs waved in asymmetric patterns, offsetting her motion in the water and keeping her from moving up or down. She gradually rotated, however, about an imaginary axis directly in front of her, as if she were spinning around an imaginary opponent.

Xith’le’so was clearly a master of her craft, her movements graceful and deceptively simple. When she had completed a circle and was back in her original position, facing Hudson and Cor, she stopped and placed her hands on her chest, forearms across each other.

Years of practicing kata in a karate class had not prepared Hudson for the complexity of the First Form. He might have been better suited to it if he had practiced synchronized swimming.

“I will go slower, and demonstrate the first sequence of movements again,” Xith’le’so said. “The key to the First Form is precision, not speed, and timing the sequence of your breaths with the movements of your body.

“Heaven, or the qi in your breath, must balance with Earth, the movements of your body. Only in perfect balance will you move through the waters of your spirit.”

Hudson and Cor attempted to follow Xith’le’so’s direction. It wasn’t pretty.

“Hudson, tuck your elbow in here, and push smoothly.”

“Use your right leg for that movement, Cor. No… the other right leg.”

“OK. Swim back down to the center, and drop the cultivation technique. Simply focus on the movements, and staying in balance with the water.”

After several hours, even Xith’le’so bottomless patience had begun to wear through.

“You two are the worst students I have ever seen, and I have taught the First Form to our youngest for decades. Once more, from the top.”

“Again.”

“Again, I said. But perhaps correctly this time?”

Eventually, Xith’le’so stopped trying to teach them the First Form and simply tried to teach them how to move underwater. They had grown up on land, after all, and the more subtle elements of underwater movement were completely lost on them.

To their credit, they were trying their best, but performing the complex movements in an environment they were not used to was a difficult challenge at best.

Cor seemed to have the most trouble with the leg movements. He had learned the first basic sequence fairly well, but because his leg kicks weren’t timed correctly, he kept rising to the top of the chamber.

Hudson was the opposite, perhaps because of his years of karate. Muscle memory from katas kept getting in the way. It was frustrating, and he felt slightly betrayed by his body refusing to do what he asked of it.

“Enough,” Xith’le’so finally said. Her legs were tucked against her sides, floating in defeat. “At this rate, we will practice for years and neither of you will reach the first rung of mastery.

“Perhaps this was a fool’s errand to begin with.”

Hudson couldn’t help but agree. He very much wanted to learn how to be a body cultivator, if that was possible, but if this was the first step… it seemed impossible.

“Well, we certainly ain’t gonna succeed with that kind of attitude,” Cor said, oddly positive.

“Excuse me?” Xith’le’so said, her gills bristling slightly. “That’s not an appropriate way to address your teacher, much less one who is risking much to help you.”

“No offense intended, ma’am,” Cor continued, ignoring her anger. “Today’s my first day doin’ this here First Form, so I’m still learning the ropes, but it seems to me like we made a lot of progress.”

Xith’le’so struggled to school her expressions before spitting out a response. “How?”

“If we learned that the First Form is beyond our capability to perform, then I’d say that’s good progress.”

“I don’t want to just give up,” Hudson said, despite his frustration.

“Not saying we give up,” Cor continued. “But if something ain’t working, then recognizing that and moving on is the only way.

“After hours of practicing, I think I figured out what needs to be done… But that ain’t the problem. The issue is I just can’t do it. As they say, the spirit is willing but the body is weak. It’s obvious that without years of growing up with gills and webs between my toes, I just don’t have the foundational movement skills to do this underwater, and it’ll take a really long time to bridge that gap.

“It’s like expecting toddlers to start flipping handstands and turning cartwheels.”

“Do you have a point that you’re getting to?” Xith’le’so asked through gritted teeth.

“When the enemy is in front of you, you can go around ‘em, or through ‘em,” Cor replied. “And y’all wanting to charge the daggone trenches. I think we should go around this problem.

“Like this – watch me.”

Cor swam down to the bottom of the chamber and placed his feet on the floor. He began to go through the movements of the First Form, focusing on the upper body.

“Many of the elements of the First Form are designed to focus the body in a single direction,” Cor commented. “Lining up meridians and qi channels in specific ways. And while I’m still getting used to this whole breathing technique thing, I’m pretty sure there are specific breaths that go along with the movements of the body.”

“That’s correct,” Xith’le’so said. “But you can’t just ignore half of the form. You won’t get the same result.”

“Is that so.” Cor said drily. “Half the daggone little feet movements are to simply counteract the force of your own upper body. Those of us born without gills do that all the time when touching land, without thinking about it. Just like you do in the water.”

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Cor stopped talking, and focusing his concentration, started up Hudson’s Engine Breath technique. He began nodding his head along slightly to some tempo inside of his head. Preparations complete, he started the First Form again, but on the floor of the chamber and with many of the leg movements truncated or missing.

Xith’le’so watched him with a combination of disinterest, frustration, and contempt. As Cor completed one round and began a second, she paid closer attention, her gaze growing serious, and then, in gradual increments, her face turned incredulous.

Cor stopped after the third round, but Xith’le’so immediately said, “Do it again.”

Cor complied, and closing his eyes, began again. Hudson couldn’t tell much just looking at Cor, other than he looked much smoother than before. Xith’le’so could see something, though, and Hudson wondered how.

“You…you’re cycling qi into both jing and shen,” Xith’le’so said. “It’s rough, and not quite balanced, but it’s there. How are you doing this, without doing the full First Form?”

“Like I told you, there’s more than one way to skin a cat,” Cor replied, a smug look on his face.

No kidding! How was Cor doing this? Hudson felt a pang of jealousy. Had the old man figured out how to modify the Lurill’shan First Form to human physiology on his second day as a cultivator and within hours of learning it?

There’s no way…Ah…. Of course. He had help. Who knew both human and Lurill’shan physiology and cultivation forms? Who had decades, maybe even centuries of experience with human, Lurill’shan, and perhaps even more alien physiologies?

Ix. It had to be Ix. That sneaky little guy was telling Cor exactly what to do, and Cor was taking credit for it, the cheater.

“Is this related to how you can make rifts? Are you some kind of cultivation genius?” Xith’le’so exclaimed.

“Naw, I just had a good teacher,” Cor replied with a wink, and Hudson couldn’t help but laugh.

…..

Cor (and Ix) continued to polish their revised technique and teach it to Hudson. He didn’t really capture the subtleties of the technique, though, until they returned to their dry room and he had the opportunity to take Ix’s ring and hear directly.

With Ix giving him live feedback and critiques based on the state of his qi flows, it was almost too easy.

Hudson didn’t realize the moment when he began to perform the technique properly. He recognized the advancement after the fact, when he came out of a dream-like flow state, his muscles feeling slightly tired, but overall feeling deeply refreshed.

“How long was I out of it?” he asked.

You have been successfully performing the modified version of the First Form for the last three hours, Ix replied.

He felt like he had just woken up from a deep sleep. It also felt like he had never truly slept before today. He didn’t feel the explosive energy of qi, like when he was pushing his breathing technique to the max, but he felt better – calmer – and more at ease in his body than he had in ages.

While imperfect, this technique will help replenish the jing you have lost over time, as well as improve your proprioception, or your mind-body connection, Ix continued.

“Imperfect is fine with me,” Hudson commented. “This is great.”

Cor had set out his gear, disassembled it and was quietly cleaning each and every component.

“Hey Cor, I have an idea,” he said.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Cor muttered absently, focusing on the task in front of him.

“It’ll be quick,” Hudson said.

“That’s what she said… Literally that’s what ex-wife number two always said,” Cor replied, putting the spring he was expecting back on the cloth in front of him. “And it never was. So whatcha need?”

“Just sit across from me, and try to meditate for a second,” Hudson said. Cor shrugged and sat opposite Hudson. He closed his eyes and started up the cultivation technique he’d learned from Hudson. He’d refused to call it the Engine Breath technique, though, and said he’d think of a better name.

Hudson prepared himself, molding qi into the one technique that he knew. “Reach out your hand,” he told Cor.

Cor held out his hand in a fist. Hudson raised his fist to Cor’s, then released the qi into his Mind Gate technique, white mists taking over his vision.

The interior of Hudson’s mindscape had been a mess. It was looking a little bit better – grass poking through the mud in his yard, the roots climbing up his half-destroyed house looking a little less smoldering than usual. Leaves were growing back on the oak tree.

It was a small improvement, but perhaps it was because of his advancement in the First Form. Mind and body were one, after all.

He wasn’t here to look at his own mindscape, however; he was here for someone else’s.

He had been able to peer into the mind of the soldier after the attack from the swarm, and cleanse it of silicate influence. He wondered if he could do the same for Cor, and sure enough, there was the faint sound of screeching, clicking and gnashing that he had come to associate with silicate intrusions.

The noise was a lot fainter, however, than what he had heard in the past.

He walked around the outside of his yard, listening to the screeching and looking for a porous area in the edge of his mindscape that it could be coming through.

“Cor? Can you hear me?” Hudson called out.

“Over here,” Cor’s faint voice called back. It had worked, and Cor could even talk to him in this space.

Hudson hustled over to a dimly transparent portion of the white wall of mist. It was larger than the soldier’s – at least double the size – but not even close to the walls of water that the Lurill’shan body cultivators like Xith’le’so had formed with their minds.

Peering through the door into Cor’s mind, Hudson could see a vague, human-like form hunched in a fetal position. Blue-white streaks shown through the translucent body, forming the general shape of qi channels. The body was also wrapped in streams of a clear, water-like liquid. These streams flowed in regular orbits around Cor’s central form, and the faint screams of silicate slugs, trapped within those streams, could dimly be heard.

“Did ya wanna chat without any prying ears?” Cor’s voice echoed through. “Or just check out what the mindscape of a ‘cultivation genius’ looks like. You got Ix over there too?”

“We are here,” Ix’s voice sounded from the opposite side of Hudson’s yard, pitched to carry over the distance.

“Hey, look at that, now we’re all neighbors,” Hudson said, pleased with himself. “But a question for you Ix – how come you can speak with us telepathically, without entering our mindscape? Is that a qi technique you can teach us?”

“It is a technique, but it is not simply a qi technique per se,” Ix replied. “We have multiple consciousnesses, and it is a trivial matter to focus on multiple things simultaneously. Your mindscape exists whether you are focusing on it or not, and we can speak into it directly when connected.

“As you progress your cultivation to Foundation Building or Core Formation, you can learn to split your mind to focus on multiple things at one time. There are also qi techniques for telepathic communication across distances which we can teach you.”

“Of course. Multiple consciousnesses. You are such a cheater,” Hudson said. It would be nice if he had multiple minds to split his attention between his mindscape, his qi senses, and his normal five senses.

“So what’s the agenda for this here pow-wow?” Cor asked drily.

“Well, during the battle, I inadvertently came into contact with one of the soldiers, and their mind was under attack. I was able to help get rid of the silicate slugs attacking their mind, and was thinking I could help you as well. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it sooner.”

“Ah, well daggone, I appreciate that,” Cor said. “But for this… Hmm. I reckon this is a fight I need to win by myself.”

Hudson nodded. “OK, sure thing. It seems like you got them mostly under control anyways.”

“Takes a lot of effort, and they never shut up, but now that I’m one of you cultivators, this is something I can do myself. That I need to do myself,” Cor said, his tone unusually quiet and somber.

“I’ve lost men to these things. Good men, bad men, some of them friends, some of them not, some of them real pieces of work. None of them deserved what they got. I… uh… had a lot of hesitation on starting up this whole cultivation thing, but being able to do this – to be able to fight back on this battlefield, and take back my own mind…

“Help makes me feel like I’m not betraying everything I’ve lived for.”

Hudson wasn’t sure what to say. “I don’t know your men, or what you’ve gone through… but I would imagine they would appreciate you taking the fight to the enemy, wherever they are.’

“Hoo-rah,” Cor replied. “That’s right.”

Ix’s voice echoed across the yard. “We are very intrigued by the concept of justice, and how Cor’s actions here are in part an effort to achieve vengeance for his fallen companions…”

“Ix, buddy, how much have we talked about this before?” Cor replied, his serious tone replaced by exasperation.

“You too?” Hudson interjected.

“Yup.”

“They have their opinions,” Hudson said. “But that’s not a bad thing.”

“Then shall we continue the discussion? We would like to explore…” Ix began.

“No,” Hudson and Cor said in unison, and Hudson quickly exited his mindscape.