Mei opened his blurry eyes, an unfamiliar ceiling above him. Taking a moment to remember yesterday's events. Rubbing the crust away from his eyes he sat up. A silent room of sleeping people surrounding him. Fire gently crackling, wind buffeting the walls outside.

A familiar man that was so tall he must’ve been a practitioner dressed in a white robe poking at the fireplace. He looked up, seeing Mei.

“Oh, hello. Hope you had a nice rest. Your master asked me to give you this when you woke,” he handed over an envelope.

“Thank you Mr. uh…”

“Li’iu.”

“Thank you Mr. Li’iu, but what am I doing here?”

“Oh, you’re the one that fainted right?.”

“Uh, I think?”

“Well after you fell unconscious I offered I’ani refuge.”

“Why? Mr. Li’iu,” Mei quickly added.

“No need for the honorifics, but,” Li’iu gestured vaguely to the pile of unconscious people sleeping beside him, “My grandchildren are here. It’s what family does.”

“Ah, well thank you for carrying the letter for me”

Mei opened the letter, taking out a folded map with writing on the back. A few small paper packages falling out with it. Putting them back he read the letter, well read was a strong word. More like decoding a child's chicken scratch.

After slowly forcing himself through it he got to a portion of the letter that wildly changed quality to a formal old fashioned style of writing. Each character given care and detail, Mei noticing parts of the paper scraped away where mistakes were made. Which he suspected Li’iu wrote for I’ani. Mei taking a second to realize it was an eligible version of the original letter. The following reading so.

Hey whoever’s reading this, I’ve gone to a village down below. I want y'all to get there in one piece as your first test. I’ve marked the course of the map and I’ve given y’all pills attuned to your mana with your names written on em.

Mei, finally understanding the last part, quickly found his package, ripping open the paper. To find a pill with clear energy swirling around like a storm. Contrasting it were circles of acidic green lazily drifting around.

He held it up, a ball of fuzzy warmth rising in his chest. Before it dimmed as he realized something. He turned to Li’iu, a small blush on his face

“Ahem, sir.”

“Hmm, yes.”

“So, uh. How do I use this,” he held up the pill, not looking at Li’iu.

“Oh, of course,” The giant bald man turned around in his seat to face Mei, “Put it under your tongue. Also no need with the Sirs either.”

“Of course. Oh, and uh. Huh, I always heard you were supposed to swallow them?”

“That’s a slight misconception, you only do that with Elixirs you’re certain you can circulate all at once. Or else all the power will run rampant through your body.”

Mei nodded, following the instructions.

“Now close your eyes and breath in and out. Block the world out of your senses and envision your body, focusing on your heartbeat. Feel the energy of the pill under your tongue. Now imagine with each and every pulse you feel a bit of that power slide away from it and into your body. Like your swallowing food”

Mei did so, feeling warmth from under his tongue coming into his body. He smiled, days upon days of trying to gather mana coming to mind, all simplified into taking a pill.

Then a familiar nausea hit him. From said days. The sick feeling flooding his body. He flung himself over to a bucket of water next to the fireplace meant to put it out in emergencies. And threw up.

He felt a hand pat his back, “I’ani told me this might happen.”

“Sorry.”

“No need.”

Mei gathered saliva and sloshed it around his mouth, spitting out the bile into the bucket.

“Is there any way to cultivate without that happening?”

“Well, you’re unique. You’ll have to come up with a technique all on your own to do that.”

“Um.. and how do that exactly?”

“It’s actually quite simple. What you were doing was pushing mana into your core, the core is the connection point between your mental, physical, and spiritual self. So you have to envision pushing energy into yourself. Your soul will reflexively do that with the energy it’s connecting to. Uh, like a baby grabbing onto its mother when its picked up.”

“That… kinda makes sense.”

“Don’t worry, it’s something you really only understand when you make one for yourself.”

Mei nodded

A few people around them started to wake up to the noise they’d made talking. Mei helping clean up after himself by throwing the bucket outside and by the time he was in the rest of the apprentices were awake. Salivating over a simple breakfast of gruel filled with a random assortment of food thrown into it. The old man siring it.

After eating like they've never had food in their life Mei told the rest of them about the letter I’ani had left. Handing out the pills, the old man giving instruction on how to circulate them. Mei feeling a twang in his chest when he saw the rest of them succeeding. But he tamped the feeling down, such emotions were childish.

Then they made their preparation to hike down the mountain, finding the last gift from I’ani. A Pack of supplies for each of them, making the furrow in Relu’s brow that Mei had noticed lessen. Then they said their goodbyes to Li’iu.

“I bless the path you have all chosen,” the old man said, “And you two,” he pointed at Karu and Xukali, “Please try to be at least decent to each other, I don’t want my grandchildren tearing each other apart.”

Then they were off, Mei walking aside them. Then he realized something, he turned to Xukali.

“Wait Karu and you are related?”

“...Yeah,” she said hesitantly.

“Isn’t Karu’s only living relative that old the Head Priest? You know the former king of the O’ozhiwu clan?”

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She nodded, looking away from him. Seeing this Mei stopped talking, Why hadn’t she told him that, but it wasn’t his place to force. So he kept silent and walked forward.

OOO

Ma’u held her sister's hand as she climbed down a small seven-foot drop, trying not to look down.

“By the Father,” She heard Xukali say, “You can just jump down, the snow will cushion you!”

“Let her take her time!” I’ama yelled back, a snarl in her voice.

What she was thinking when she agreed to this. It was cold, every muscle hurt. And she missed home. It wasn’t much of one, but the city was the closest she ever had. They had moved between cities almost monthly when she was younger. Like they were running away from something. But it seemed like they’d finally settled down there.

Then she felt her foot slip on the rock under her, feeling her stomach drop as she went weightless. Air rushing passed her as she screamed. Then she was still, looking up to the sky. More in shock than pain.

“Useless,” Ma’u heard K whisper.

Ma’u felt a pang in her chest like she was stung, but she couldn’t really deny it.

“That’s rich coming from you,” Karu said.

“What you say!”

And their bickering match started again, Ma’u blocking it out mentally as her sister rushed to her side. A skill she had honed in the past few hours with those two.

“Are you ok, hurt anywhere?” I’ama said with a tremor barely audible in her voice.

“I’m fine,” Ma’u said, putting on a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

Sitting up she felt slightly shaky as the adrenaline pumped through her system.

“Hurry, we should get along before Sunset,” Relu said to them,

Not waiting for the twins, the group walked away. Mei and Relu taking the lead, analyzing the map in turns.

The suns above setting sooner than usual thanks to the mountains in the way. Shadows stretching farther than usual. A jolt of energy pass through Ma’u as they surrounded her. Like when the old man had shown them how to cycle the pills that strange foreigner had given them.

Then she felt a flicker of something, she looked around there wasn’t anything. It must’ve just been her imagination, then she felt it again. And this time she looked up, seeing a cat-like beast of some kind perched on a tree branch that shouldn't have been able to hold it. Its fur blending in with the shrubbery. Ready to pounce on Relu and Mei.

She screamed, “Cougar!” not knowing what it actually was

Slung the pack off her back and flung it at the thing, hitting it mid-air. Making it flop onto the snow in a small puff of white. Everyone froze like a statue at the sight of the thing, except for Karu.

He charged at it, feet making a thumping against the snow. Manifesting a spear of ice as the beast fled into the dark. Throwing it at the beast with his whole body, the spear lodging itself into a tree past the blade. And the beast vanished like it never existed. Not even a footprint left behind.

“Good call kid,” Relu said through a shaky breath.

Ma’u feeling a smile on her face at the words.

“Anybody else think we should make camp for the night,” Xukali said with a higher-pitched voice than usual

“Good idea, the fire will scare it off,”

“Uh, yeah, yeah. That’s what I meant.”

OOO

Mei helped put up the tent with shivering hands. Only half because of the cold and half because of the adrenaline still running through his system after the beast attack. Finishing up he went over to the fire where somebody had made a fire and a sludge in a pot over it. That he thought was supposed to be a stew.

He sat by the fire silently when Xukali gave him a bowl of the ‘stew’, he thanked her. But refrained from eating while the group around him silently eating. With the occasional person gaging on the ‘food’.

Observing the surrounding of ice, nerves still feeling on fire as he looked for something beyond light snowfall drifting around them in a sphere. The fire melting from the snow before reaching them. Creating a dome around them, like a cage.

Blocking their vision in the forest beyond. Two voids of black and white intertwining around them in a knot. Sometimes Mei was sure that he saw something move out there, but it must’ve been his imagination.

Mei heard a crack around him, whirling to the sound he saw. It was just the sisters going to the tent. The hair on the back of his neck went down slightly, but not any farther. And slowly people followed the twins one by one till Mei and Xukali were alone around the crackling and dying fire.

“Got no appetite or do you have higher standards than us?” Xukali said with a wry smile, gesturing at the cold bowl of ‘stew’.

“I was checking that nobody would keel over and die from eating it.”

She snorted, “Should’ve done the same.”

“Also,” he pulled out the pill I’ani gave me, “I wanna try this again, I threw up last time. Didn’t seem like a good idea eating before that.”

“Oh, what happened?”

“Your grandpa gave the same directions about the pills but I woke up the earliest. And.” Mei waved his hand in the air, skipping part of the story, “Well… apparently my soul is unique somehow. And that means I have to find my own way of circulating this.”

“Oh, that must be annoying.”

“...”

“Xukali….”

“Hm?”

“How long can I last here?”

“Oh, don’t give up yet.”

“But, I can't even do this. It’s the namesake of the entire profession.”

“It’s been less than a day, have you even tried a second time?”

“Well, no. But my Dad-”

“And plus. Who cares about going back to that city? From what I’ve seen of that sister of yours, your family’s a bunch of pricks. Forget 'em.”

“But they’re family! How can I… Just forget them? They’re… family.”

“Sometimes,” she took a shaky breath, “Sometimes you just have to… it’s not easy. You can probably guess but my parents are… was a part of the royal family. They were executed for good reason,” She let out a bitter laugh, “It took me a while to come to terms with it. But they got what they deserved.”

Mei looked at her with a mix of emotions that he couldn’t describe except as rejection. For the idea, for the action. For the very thought.

She looked away from him, and said in a faint voice, “I’m… I’m going to sleep.”

He looked away from the tent. Mei shook his head, taking the clear pill back out. Holding it up to the starless sky. The Moons the only illumination in the cage of darkness. Shards of light piercing through the trees. Helping ward off the darkness with the dying fire.

Mei pushed it under his tongue. Dismissing the world around him, focusing on the warm energy in his mouth. What had Li’iu said, ‘You must envision pushing it into your core’... And how the blazing storms was he supposed to do that? Well, no point in not trying. Mei imagined the energy as the air around him, taking it in like deep breaths. The power going to where he thought his soul would be.

And he felt the power slipping away from the pill and becoming a part of him. Oh, it was actually- then he felt a pain like an explosion of needles in his gut. His breath punched out from his chest, only able to take shallow breaths. Even though he thought he was gasping like a fish on land. He took a moment suppressing the panic. Forcing himself to take slow breaths no matter how small they felt.

When he felt back to normal he sat back up, picking the pill up from the ground. Half of it warm from his mouth, the other cold from falling onto the snow.

He clenched it in his fist and threw it at the ground. The marble-like pill lodging back into the snow. And he just stared at it, he wanted to scream at something, he wanted to kick, he wanted to punch.

But he breathed in and out, this wasn’t the place for it. There never was, he was on his first steps. This was unbecoming of him. He forced those boiling emotions down, ignoring them.

He crouched over picked it back up, brushing it off. Putting it into his pocket. And followed all the others to the tent, making an effort to ignore Xukali, and went to sleep.

OOO

Kek the Beast King of the southernmost mountain of the Dragons Gate Range lay in hiding outside the camp of the humans that had humiliated him. His fur changing color to blend in with the snow and trees around him. A ball of fire roaring in his chest, telling him to move. Hi tensed to pounce.

But he stopped himself, he was the weakest of the Beast Kings so he couldn’t just pounce. But had become one for a reason. Attacking while they were grouped together, and especially with that girl with the gifted eyes was awake was not a smart move.

So he waited till the humans went one by one into the tent. He contemplated pouncing when only the blond and the prey remained, but something in his gut told him to stay.

So he did. The blond soon going to the tent. The weak boy remained, put something in his mouth then let out a shriek of pain. Did some weird human things then put out the fire and followed the blond.

Kek waited a whole hour to make sure they had fallen asleep and creeped out his hiding spot. Sneaking to the ashes of the fire. Picking up a log in his teeth he pushed power through it.

Watching as its light ablaze once again. Then he threw it onto the canvas of the tent. Quickly hiding in the trees as it burst into flames. Waiting to pounce on his prey.