We adjourned to the kitchen where I put the fridge back in place mostly no worse for the wear. Melissa busied herself for a moment grabbing coffee.

“So did you come over just to drop the training schedule off, or what?” I asked, sitting down at the table.

“More than just that.” Brent sat as well then pulled out his paperwork again. “We should have a building in the early stages of ready for use in the next week or two. Thankfully, so far there hasn’t been any need for hard to acquire gear.” He passed a few sheets with a printout of an office layout, combined with what looked like a greenhouse and other outdoor stuff.

“Setting up the same way again?” Melissa said, sitting down next to Brent and looking at the paperwork upside down.

“Somewhat.” Brent nodded to Melissa. “While I still believe I should have made the call to just shoot Barry immediately instead of letting it escalate the way it did, we are using what you learned during that fight, Nicole.”

“Oh?” I asked. Brent had apologized once already for not taking the choice from me, but even if it had worked we wouldn’t know what we’d lost.

“We have enough people in California at the second breakthrough now that can sense energy. The military is buying any geodes people are finding that have energy in them, along with any plants that do as well.” Brent looked at a list. “We’ve got nearly two dozen geodes and a full-sized persimmon tree so far from the San Francisco area and we’re reaching out to others that have posted on your forums as well.”

“Huh, really?” I blinked. “In just a couple of days? Also, another fruit bearing plant?”

Brent nodded. “There’s a lot of dross, however. Almost three hundred total geodes. And following up on plants is hard if they weren’t already in planters.” He referenced the paperwork again. “I don’t know how long it will take to get a full tree here. And two instances of fruiting plants does not make a pattern. You’ve had several people discussing other plants on the forums that we’re looking into as well.” Brent then offered me the full list.

There were a few spots marked with animals and other things they were trying to reach out to people to get. “Animals too? Well, with that many options, maybe we can figure out Barry’s method then.” I stopped at one. “Hey, didn’t they kill that crab?”

Brent shrugged. “Apparently, they found a few more. I’m honestly hoping we have a way to move creatures like that. Strange creatures are easier to spot than plants.”

“So what do we have here then?” Melissa asked. “Besides the one stone the Elves left, that is.”

“I believe eight of them were flown in on an autopilot cargo plane yesterday morning.” Brent tapped the paperwork I was looking at. “There should be an onsite note for anything here. I’d rather we not do anything with the geode left by them until you’ve had a chance to compare it against the ones we’ve acquired without their influence.”

“That’s fine.” I answered with a nod. “Can we go look at the ones we’ve got now then?”

~~~

We’d picked up a small box from a depot near the airport and had returned back to the house, spilling them out across the kitchen table. The eight stones varied in size and general color, ranging from the smallest tan stone being a quarter inch across to a red-black stone that was a good three inches across and extremely craggy. Setting them all out on the table, I could sense that static, non-cycling, energy in each of them. Interestingly, they each felt like they had differing amounts of power inside. Not by too much, but just enough to be noticeable.

“Same five element types in all of them.” I mused. “Wood, fire, earth, metal, water. Isn’t that the Chinese elements?”

I arranged the rocks from least power to greatest. Surprisingly, it didn’t follow the sizes.

Melissa looked up from her tablet after searching that question. “Yeah. Huh, you think it’s a coincidence?”

“Dunno. When the storm got put together, it felt like air or wind along with water.” I nudged the weakest stone, watching it roll around before stabilizing again. “Just like the other one though, it’s not moving energy. Just sitting there.”

“So that’s a point in favor of the other stone not having anything wrong with it then.” Brent noted, sitting a bit away from the table himself.

“So, how is this thing a broken soul? Or eight of them.” I picked up one of them. “Any ideas?”

“A stupid one, sure.” Melissa responded, picking one of them up herself. “Do you think the energy in here is bigger or smaller than my head?”

Brent sputtered out a laugh. “I’ve read that list. No eating the rocks. We can’t do surgery on you to get them out, and I don’t think you want to try passing a stone of that size.”

Melissa shook her head. “No, not physically eating them.” She turned the rock around in her hand. “Remember you caught me with that breathe when you were teaching Ash and Karen? Is there anything stopping me from trying to pull on this for power instead of the more general external energy of the Earth?”

“Yes, yes there is.” Brent said before I could answer. “There are thousands of military on base right now that I am fairly certain we could find any number of volunteers or at least voluntolds. Neither of you are risking yourselves on this if there are options.”

I paused before sighing with a nod. “It’s an idea, especially since Barry and Joe said they took souls inside themselves. Karen ate one of those blackberries and it just gave a little extra wood energy before spending itself, but I don’t think she tried to actively cycle it. And we didn’t have something that was more than one energy type before.” I looked at Brent. “So it’s something to test then.”

“Let me make a couple of phone calls then.” Brent pulled a cellphone out, immediately getting onto that.

Melissa looked at the rock in her hand again. “You think anything interesting is going to happen with these?”

“Maybe?” I waved my hand back and forth gesture. “It could be it locks someone’s power to a specific level, or they could do nothing. Or something else. No clue. Eight’s not really enough for a good test, but it’s a start.”

While we waited for Brent to finish his phone calls, I went back to attempting Melissa’s technique. Separate how much my own power was lifting something compared to what I was physically doing was odd. Energy overflowed from my dantian and breakthrough points, suffusing into my body which made me stronger.

I messed around with the overflow in myself for a few minutes trying to restrict it, then when that failed alter it. Any changes I could start to enforce almost immediately were corrected by the energy flowing out from me, smoothing it out and returning to the normal excess created by my cycling.

It wasn’t too long before Brent closed his phone and I had to put aside the attempts.

“You had a class for the soldiers scheduled in three days, so the students are being contacted for people willing to test this.” Brent began. “That will also give us a few more days to get as many geodes or other energy holding items here that we can for testing.”

“That easy?” I asked, eyebrow raised.

“That simple from your and my perspective, but simple isn’t easy. Other people will be doing a lot of work in the next 48 hours to make it happen. But anything new that comes, it’s better we understand it instead of getting caught on the backfoot again.”

I nodded. “So, do you want to work on the theory of this with us then? See if you can figure it out? Or do you have other work to do?”

Brent shook his head. “Unfortunately, I do have some other work. I would appreciate being kept up on this, once you’re able to successfully teach it. I’ll be back this evening to drive you over to the Combatives class.”

After Brent left, I returned my attention back to Melissa. “Alright, I think I’m going to need to see you do this again. I can’t quite pick out the energy right. You feel up to showing off some more?”

“Sure. Just not sitting on the fishing line again. I have to burn a little too much energy to stay up there and balanced.” Melissa got up from the table and we went outside once more. “Try not to toss me into the sky again?”

I laughed, holding my hands out. “No promises. It didn’t hurt you anyways.”

She just gave me a look before laughing herself and jumped, landing on her heels in my palms. “I’m half tempted to get something heavy so you can really tell the difference.”

Melissa’s energy flickered from smooth overflow to almost pulling away from my hands and stabilizing as she said that. I shook my head. “I can sense it, it’s just trying to figure out how to do the same with my energy. I’m hoping to figure it out from sensing you doing it.”

She shifted to a handstand and I felt the same energy flicker in her hands and wrists, pulling itself into a stable configuration. Her hair fell over my hands as she grinned at me.

“How the hell do you keep the overflow from just going right back over that?” I groused, trying to grab and stabilize my own energy in the same way.

“I’m not pushing nearly as much as you? I’m only on my third breakthrough and you’re higher than that.”

“You need to try for four eventually.” I said offhand. “Are you not full up on your cycling though?”

“Half or so.” Melissa said. “I don’t keep myself topped off all the time. You think that has something to do with it?”

“It’s going to take a couple of hours to let enough of my excess burn off naturally for me to find out.” I answered. “Can’t hurt to try.”

~~~

Three hours and several parkour leaps over the house later, I stood on the gutter attached to the two- story building laughing at myself. It clicked, just like my Art of Awakening did. But whereas my Art of Awakening spent all the energy I cycled and more, expelling and removing it from me, this technique instead cost energy for each use. It stayed stable for maybe half a minute or so and I had to provide additional energy to keep it going. Energy that had been all in use by cycling.

Damn it.