May 2nd​

“I want to emphasize this,” I told the small group sitting in front of me. “If you are not one hundred percent ready to try a breakthrough, don’t. As in, when you cycle and hold in energy, you still bleed off as much as you’re pulling back in.”

The little meditation-slash-relaxation and breakthrough area had changed a good bit in the past month. Gone were the store aisles acting as walls for the entire section. In their place were solid office partition walls. Splitting off the individual rooms were nicer screen partitions. The central section was still open and was where I sat in front of the seven people that had signed up for a lesson on energy cycling. This was the third class I’d done and was the smallest so far.

“So as soon as we’re at that point then we should be good to try, right?” one woman asked. She looked to be double my age with a bit of gray in her hair, especially at the roots.

“Only if you think you’re ready. I take the time to purposely cycle every day, for at least an hour. I try to keep that cycling going as well during the day. I made my last breakthrough almost a month ago and I’ve been full on power for almost three weeks.” I paused. “But I don’t think I’m ready to push it, myself. My second and third breakthroughs were when I was pushing myself hard for a good reason. My fourth and fifth we purposely set something up to push me, and I barely made it.”

I looked them over. “I pushed some friends of mine hard for their third breakthrough a couple of weeks ago. The only one that made it? Melissa. She was pushing herself even harder trying to do a trick with her energy. Karen and Ash didn’t make it through. Now yes, Melissa isn’t using external energy like you all are, and like Karen and Ash are as well. But I’m still of the opinion it needs to mean something for you. And yes, Karen and Ash have both since managed their third breakthrough, so it is doable.”

“I just want to be able to lift half a ton like it’s nothing.” A young boy grinned, running a hand through his hair. “Is that so much to ask?” The older woman, his mom, just cuffed him upside the head.

“For your third breakthrough, probably.” I lifted an eyebrow in his direction but he just kept grinning. I shook my head. “Whatever. Alright, let’s get started.” I clapped my hands. “Remember. Anything you learn, we all learn.”

I stood up. “This is at your own pace, but I do want you all to start at the same time. Hold everything in that you can, everything you’re generating. Cycle and pull in the external energy.”

Since we were so separated from it, those of us that generated our energy completely internally could apparently feel the energy flows better when others cycled. I breathed in, cycling the energy around me. As my little class did the equivalent of holding their breath while drinking, I could feel dips and swirls as they cycled.

I wished I was an artist, or had a camera capable of seeing it. Cycling while holding back for a breakthrough was completely different from normal cycling. Normally, I could feel the energy of the person build up stronger, flowing out in tiny waves and threads that seemed to grow more numerous with each breakthrough, even as the power in the air mixed and matched the person.

But when they held their energy back? The better they held their portion of the energy to themselves, the more it felt like a drain and I could feel the energy swirling as it siphoned away. Different patterns and whorls as they drew it into themselves with only a minor release back depending on how well they were stopping their flow.

After a few minutes I frowned and looked at the kid, then my cheatsheet for names. “Robert, what are you doing?” The energy was acting oddly around him, thickening in part, but also only a thin piece of it was going to him?

“Uhh, cycling?” he offered, being obviously vague.

“Do it right,” his mother hissed at him.

I shook my head. “You’re doing something different, which is interesting. What’s up?”

He looked between his mom and me. She sighed.

He got a mulish look on his face. “Since I made the second breakthrough a few weeks ago and could tell, I like the feel of the water energy better. So I’m only pulling that part from the air and cycling just that.”

I opened my mouth to say something, paused, then stopped. I looked at the other five people in the class who were watching. “Anyone else doing the same?” Five negatives. “Alright, you guys keep cycling. We’re going to go have a discussion.”

The boy frowned as he got up with his mom and we moved over to one of the other rooms.

“You mind if I record this? Or do I just need to take notes?” I asked, motioning with my tablet.

“Record it, I guess?” the mom, Stacey Brooks from my cheatsheet, answered. “He’s not hurting himself doing this, right?”

I flipped the recording on. “Alright. Robert Brooks here with mother Stacey Brooks. Question asked before recording began if Robert is hurting himself cycling the way he is.”

I looked at the kid, still with a mulish look on his face and ready to argue. “Probably not, no.” I answered his mom, which made the look on Robert’s face soften. “Robert, go ahead and give me the full story, if you would.”

“I’ve been keeping up with all the stuff being put up on the forums and wiki and stuff. So a couple of weeks ago when I made my second breakthrough I tried doing the types of energy sensing thing. The fire and the earth is from the lava and stuff, right? Well there’s been lots of water energy too from all the rain and I like the rain, so I tried to cycle just that part.” He grinned at me. “It’s kinda hard to get just the water part, but easier now than when I started.”

I drummed my fingers against my leg, thinking. Mom looked at her kid, face worried, as I didn’t immediately say yay or nay about what he was doing. “So, are you still trying to cycle just water then, even when you’re not building up?”

“Kinda?” he answered. “I mean, if I’m not paying attention I get everything, but I’ve been trying to only do water when I can. I can tell it’s doing something different, too. The energy my dantian makes feels different.”

Oh. Oh goodie. “Different how?” I couldn’t keep the worry out of my voice and now both mom and kid looked a little more worried.

“Kinda like it’s more watery? Even when I cycle everything, stuff like the fire and earth energy don’t seem to exchange as well anymore.” He paused. “I’m not going to turn to water, am I?”

“I don’t think so. Can you cycle normally? Not to build up or anything, just like if you were going to lift that half a ton you were talking about.” I gave him a smile.

He did so, and I could feel his energy moving. It did feel like water, just a bit. “Alright, now just the water stuff?”

This time the water feeling was much more pronounced, but even that was just saying I could notice a mist instead of just getting a couple of raindrops in the face. “Alright.”

He stopped and his mom looked at me. “I could kind of feel that difference myself. Honestly, I was hoping it wasn’t anything different, which is why I didn’t say anything when we came in today.”

“He’s not the first one to feel like a type of energy rather than just straight ‘energy,’” I air quoted the word. “He’s just the first person I know of using external energy for a dantian to do it. Danny and Melissa both feel more specifically of an energy type. Fire and electricity.”

“So I’m good to keep doing it then?” Robert asked.

I looked at his mom. “That’s actually between you and your mom. I don’t think it’s specifically hurting you, but you’re doing something new and kids aren’t usually the test subjects for anything new.”

“I can’t really stop him though, can I?” Stacey sighed and Robert got a huge grin. “So what do I do to make it as safe as possible?”

I had Robert cycle a few more times, both normally and his only water cycling trick, then looked back at his mom. “You’re certain? I’m fairly certain I can find some gruesome stories from someone out there about doing stupid things with this power that hurt them. Heck, I even have one about the wrong way to use power without a dantian that felt like the guy was ripping chunks out of himself.”

She sighed and looked at her son who looked a little green at my description, but still determined. “He’s as hard headed as his dad, so yes.”

I nodded and looked at Robert. “Alright, welcome to testing then. First thing to know about testing something new? It sucks because you’re going to have to write down or record everything you can. You said it feels different cycling, right?”

He nodded, unsure.

“You still feel mostly like normal energy to me, even when you cycle just water. So to limit variables, no attempting breakthroughs or anything until you feel just as much like water as Danny or Melissa feel like their energies.” I looked at Stacey. “Can you bring him in every couple of days?”

“Or his father, yes,” she answered.

“Alright, I want to know down to the minute how often you’re purposely cycling just water. You need to make note of that so we can try to track how long this takes.” I looked at Robert again. “Cycling just water is probably less total energy than cycling everything?” He nodded. “Then we’re going to have to quantify that too.”

“That’s a lot of work,” he complained.

“You’re welcome to just cycle everything and try to get back to normal?” I offered. “It probably wouldn’t take much. You don’t feel all that much like water yet.”

The mulish look was back. “No, I wanna.”

“Then help everyone out. It’s called the Firen Method because I was the first one to document exactly how to build a dantian for everyone else to do. If we can document all of this and it’s repeatable, we’ll probably start calling it the Brooks Energy Conversion Method or something like that eventually,” I dangled.

“Ooh, deal!” Robert grinned. “Can it be the Robert Brooks Energy Conversion Method?”

“Mine’s not even the Nicole Firen Method,” I laughed. “But if it’s well documented enough, who knows. Remember, we need as much detail as you can on everything you’re doing with it.”

“I’m gonna drown you in info then!”

Stacey just shook her head. “If only you did that for your homework.”

I clicked off the recorder. “Every day something new, huh?”