I continued to lead Shimak around the village as the day wore on. We made two more stops. One to visit the crotchety old rope maker and another for the blacksmith. The rope maker was surprisingly generous and said we could have all the rope we wanted. The blacksmith was kind of a jerk. He was interested in my crude pulley design but he still ordered Skimak and I to haul fuel for his forge for a month in payment for the block and tackle I wanted.

“Why did I promise to haul coke for a month again?” Shimak grumbled as we struggled to push the hand-cart we were using up the mountain. It was the first really hot day of the year and we were both miserable.

“For a monster-core.” I said for at least the dozenth time today. She didn’t understand the plan and had been bugging me relentlessly for the last two weeks.

“I still don’t get it…” She said exasperated. I’d been trying to explain mechanical advantage to her for a while, but I lacked both the vocabulary and the patience. Today we were finally planning to sneak off to the forest to start setting things up. I figured we had about a 30% chance to be eaten.

I grunted as I heaved the cart over a small rock. “I told you….. I’ll be easier to show you.” I said between pants. I was wiping the sweat off my brow when Shimak groaned.

“What is it?” I asked curiously as she put her head down and tried to look inconspicuous.

“It’s Kalar.” She said the name like I curse and I looked up to see a group of youths heading down the mountain towards us. They were of various sizes and sexes but the boy in the center was a head taller than the others and very muscular for a youth. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt in the heat degree weather and it showed off the small tattoo on his right arm. He had a baby face that looked rather comical with his large build and short dark brown hair.

They youth caught sight of us and headed our direction. I winced inwardly. I hadn’t had much interaction with any of the village children besides Shimak but i’d been to grade school. I knew what a bully looked like.

The youth swaggered over to us with his cronies in tow. There were quite a few girls in the group. Surprisingly there was very little sexism between cultivators. The village had nearly as many female warriors as males and from the interactions I’d seen they were treated identically. That wasn’t true for the normal village women but once you bound a beast it seemed to put everyone one on equal social station.

“Hey, it’s carrot-head and her little pet.” The youth taunted loudly. The jibe set off the obligatory guffawing from his gang and the large boy grinned at his own wit.

“Wow… I’ve never heard that one before.” Shimak replied with an eye roll.

The large boys face grew red after his insult failed to have its intended effect. “You better be more polite. I’m Body ranked warrior now.” The boy said as he took a menacing step forward. I wasn’t sure how high Body rank was, but if the size of his tattoo was any indication it shouldn’t be that high.

Shimak snorted loudly. “You bound a shale-hound. That barely even counts, and you're still at the Muscle stage. I could still take you and I never got my monster-core.” The girl replied confidently.

The boys already red face purpled and he took a long lunge forward and threw a wild-right hook. Shimak reacted instantly, obviously suspecting the attack. She took her own lunge forward and swayed slightly as she dodged the larger boys punch before slamming her extended leg’s heel down onto the boy’s foot. He started to double over but the motion was interrupted as Shimak moved inside his guard. She twisted slightly with a fluid motion and threw a palm strike up into the boys descending head. The blow caught him on the tip of the chin and the sound his teeth made as they slammed back together made everyone watching the fight wince.

The boy yelled out in pain and fell over as his hands covered his mouth. I could see blood between his fingers but Shimak acted as if the fight had never happened and started pushing our cart again. The stunned kids from Kalar’s group moved aside and let her pass without challenge.

I just gaped at her like a landed fish. The casual brutality of her counter attack had me feeling leery of the girl.

“Did you have to hit him so hard?” I asked shocked.

“Yes, she replied as she rubbed her right hand and wrist as if they pained her.” Although Kalar’s is weak for a cultivator he is still a cultivator and his shale-hound is a rock-type beast. Rock-type cultivators are extremely difficult to hurt. I hit him as hard as I could but I would have gotten the worse end of the deal if he hadn't had his mouth open like an idiot. His martial arts are terrible but if he keeps cultivating I won't be his match for much longer.” She explained. I could hear the resignation in her voice.

“What do Body rank and Muscle stage mean?” I asked. The terms were unfamiliar and Shimak seemed to know a great deal about it.

“Cultivators are divided into ranks. Body is the lowest, Then Spirit and Sage. I’m not sure after that, it’s either King or Prophet I think…... I can never keep them straight. Anyway…. Within the Body rank they are three sub-ranks. Muscle, Blood, and Bone. A Muscle stage cultivator is only about twice as strong as a non-cultivator. That difference can still be made up with form and skill. Blood stage is twice as strong as Muscle and Bone is twice as Strong as Blood.” I nodded in understanding. At least the ranks seemed to be fairly logical.

“How long will it take him to reach Blood stage” I asked fearfully. I wasn’t upset anymore that she’d beat him up. He had started it ,but soon he’d be more powerful and that would be very bad.

“Depends on a lot of things. Every person’s cultivation is different and there are a lot of factors that go into it. Their talent in cultivation, the quality of their beasts, which cultivation path they choose, if they consume monster-cores or not, and about a dozen other things.” She took a breath before continuing.

“In Kalar’s case probably not very quickly. One, cultivation is boring and requires a great deal of focus and concentration and Kalar doesn’t seem the type to adapt very well to it. Two his shale-hound is one of the more common and least powerful beasts. Most shale-hounds only have a single cultivation path and it’s usually a bad one. Why anyone would take a Shale-hound as one of their soul-beasts is completely beyond me. Unless he found same rare and special shale hound I’d guess at least another year to Blood stage and probably another five years to Bone. After that things get much more difficult. Nearly a third of all cultivators never make it to Spirit rank and in a weak clan like this that number is closer to two-thirds.”

I just nodded as I tried to process all the information. The whole thing seemed needlessly complex to me but at least it was somewhat logical. I followed Shimak back to the village to dump off our load of coal-coke to the Blacksmith. The villages stores were on the very edge of the village and pushing a cart that far had left us both tired and sore.

“Are you sure we have time to start setting up today? It’s almost noon already.” Shimak asked as she looked up at the sun.

“Mom told me not to worry about coming back for dinner tonight. Mom and dad have been making googly eyes at each other all week, so I doubt they’ll miss me as long as I come back before it's too late.” I said with a snort. Skimak looked at me puzzled but I wasn’t going to explain it to her.

After dropping off the coal-coke we left the village. We took the long way around to avoid Kalar and his gang and made it down the the river just before mid-afternoon. Then we started the long process of loading all the equipment we’d stashed down here into the boats.

“Are you sure this is ok?” I asked as we dumped our rope, pulleys, nails, tools, and finally the bow into the boat.

“Yeah, I talked to dad’s old sergeant about it. He tried to talk me out of it of course but he said it would be fine as long as we brought it back.” Shimak said as she pushed us out into the swift current.

The boat wobbled for a moment before the current sucked us up and started to push us rapidly down-stream. I put an oar in the water and started to row us toward the other bank. With my meager strength we ended up nearly a mile downstream before we made it across.

As we stepped onto the far bank all my senses went into high alert. It was like an entirely new world. Even the air felt different on this side of the river. I looked up into the ridiculously tall trees as I stepped into the speckled sunlight beneath the high canopy. The place was eerily silent.

The normal calls of birds and animals I’d have heard in a normal forest back on Earth were gone. Instead there was only the rustle of the wind as it blew through the trees. We walked for a about a quarter mile in silence with our ears strained for the slightest noise.

“What are we looking for” Shimak whispered as we continued forward. I had us weaving a circuitous path through the trees as I inspected each one.

“We need a tree. One with a low branch we can climb to, but it has to be a strong branch that will hold a lot of weight.” I said in a normal voice. I figured the beasts would smell us long before they heard us so I saw little point in staying silent. Besides we were going to be making quite a bit of noise one we got started anyway.

“How about that one?” Shimak asked pointing to a large tree with blue-green leaves. Most of it’s branches were over a hundred feet up, but it had one thick branch that protruded out about twenty feet above our heads.

“Gonna be hard to climb.” I said as I grabbed a small flint hatchet I’d found in our hut and started to hack at the tree.

“What are you doing?” She asked incredulous as I hit the tree over and over with my small hatchet.

“Trying to make hand and footholds. How else are we going to climb up?” I asked as I continued my work.

Shimak sighed and grabbed a long rope then looped it around the trees wide trunk. The trunk was easily eight or nine feet in diameter. Then once she’d circumnavigated the tree she grabbed both ends of the rope and flicked her wrists. The rope rose with the motion and she pulled it tight once it had raised up a good five feet. Then she stepped onto the trunk and started to walk up the tree using the ropes tension to hold her up. When she climbed as far as she could she leapt upwards and flicked the rope again, as the tension went out of it. The rope moved farther up again and she pulled it tight again. In a few minutes of repeated action she was standing on top of the branch and looking at me with a smug expression.

Christ… The girl was like a miniature ninja. If she ever did mange to start cultivating she’d be a bad-ass.

“Impressive…” I said giving her a thumbs up. “Now tie off the rope and climb down.” I said as I drug the rest of the equipment closer. Then we started to build.

I’d been planning this for weeks so I hadn’t skipped out on the design phase. The problem was the tools I had to work with were extremely primitive not to mention I wasn’t exactly a craftsmen. I’d have killed for a circular saw or some screws.

What I was planning was pretty simple. Basically I was just going to make a wooden frame to stabilize the bow. Then I’d hook up the block and tackle to the bow string so we could pull it. It wouldn’t be pretty but all we really needed was for it to be stable enough to consistently hit a single spot. Then we lure a beast over release the rope, and pray.

The work was taking much longer than I’d imagined and it was nearing dusk when I decided we better head back to the village. I did NOT want to be in the forest after dark. We left everything where it was, and made it back to the village just as night fell. As I suspected mom wasn’t mad at all about me being late and happily fixed me a late dinner.

I had just started to eat when there when Shimak called out to me from outside our hut. Mom inviter her in and I could tell instantly that something had happened. Her face was red from crying and she had a large red-mark over her right eye that was starting to bruise.

“What happened?’ I said as she sat down on our dirt floor.

“I didn’t tell you but the man my mom is with now is Kalar’s uncle. Kalar told his uncle we attacked him today and he finally threw me out.” She said as she cried.

I looked over to mom and her expression fell. I could tell she wanted to take the girl in but we barely had enough food for the three of us. She wouldn’t be able to feed another mouth.

Shimak saw her expression and quickly said. “I can pay. When mom found out what happened she made Frinar gave me money for food. The girl reached into her pocket and pulled out two big handfuls of ration tokens.

Ration tokens were the tribes primary currency for the middle and lower castes. Each one could be traded for grain, salt, and a small portion of beast meat. It was usually enough to feed a small family for a week, and the girl had nearly a hundred. To one of the upper class it was pocket change but it would feed our entire family for more than a year. It was probably more wealth than mom had ever seen.

“Bless you girl……” Mom said with tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, I know your friends with Chok and I should have said yes right away.” Mom and Shimak hugged while as they both cried. I on the other hand I just felt relived. Shimak was my only real friend since I’d come here, and I was glad she could stay with us.

********************************************************************************

The next week proceeded uneventfully. Shimak and I would spend our morning slaving for the smith then run down to the forest to continue building our beast slaying contraption. However today we were finally finished and it was time for the first test.

“Hows does this thing work again.” Shimak asked as she looked up at our creation. It was pretty sad looking. It was basically just a triangle of wooden braces with the bow in the middle. It was lopsided and ricket and looked like it would snap apart the first time we used it.

“Were pulling the bow thirty jot.” A jot was the measurement the tribe used. It was about a tenth of a foot. “However we’re pulling the rope a hundred-twenty jot. That means the pull for us will only be a quarter of the actual weight. It should be a quarter anyway. “ The pulleys the smith had made we pretty bad. I wasn’t expecting them to be as good as they were back on earth but these were a whole new level of bad. We’d be lucky if we could pull the bow at all.

“I don’t get it.” She said as she moved in behind me to grab the rope.

“It doesn’t matter, just pull.” I said as we both pitted our strength against the rope. Shimak was quite a bit stronger than me sadly but the bow creaked and moaned as we pulled. The bow was a work of art. It was made from polished dark wood had been made for Shiamak's small frame. However the bowyer had been true to his word and the draw was ridiculously hard.

“Heave!” I cried as I tugged with all my feeble might. Inexorably the bow drew back and when it was pulled as far as we could manage I tied off the rope. Both Shimak and I were panting heavily when we finished but we managed it.

“Alright, Go stick the arrow on the string and we’ll fire this baby.” I said as I leaned back against the tree to catch my breath. I’d no sooner relaxed when Shimak shouted from above me.

“Look out!” She cried as a ball of teeth and claws fell on top of me. The thing screeched and began to scratch the ever-living shit out of me. I screamed liked a girl and tried to fling what ever it was off me. We struggled for a few moments before I managed to dislodge it. It landed on the ground a few feet away from me and hissed angrily. Unfortunately for it, it was standing perfectly on the ‘X’ I had drawn to indicate where the bow was aimed. With a grin I kicked the rope and knocked it loose from where it was tied. The bow went off.

The arrow’s flight was too fast to even see but It blew completely through the small creature and pinned it to the ground. Iit kicked feebly for a few seconds before stilling.

Shimak had already jumped down and stared at the now dead animal with wide eyes.

“Told you it would work.” I said with a grin as I walked over to look at our prize. It looked sorta like a squirrel, but it’s claws were much longer and they had done a number on my face. My head and upper arms were covered in shallow scratches and bled freely. None of them were serious but they hurt like hell.

“You idiot! That was a timber-rat.” I frowned confused by her tone..

“Timber-rats make great soul-beats if we could have captured it we would have made a fortune. We could have easily traded it for monster-cores for both of us.” She said as she looked at me horrified.

I inspected the small animal again. It didn’t look very special. It really did look like a normal squirrel.”What’s so good about it?”

“Firstly it’s has the wood element, which lets people cultivate improved healing, and they are extremely nimble. As they evolve they have some very powerful evolutions They are practically the perfect starter beast.” She said exasperated.

“I’m guessing it’s not soldier rank?. I asked hopefully.

Skimak snorted. ”Yeah right, if a Soldier ranked beast fell on your head it would no longer be attached to your shoulders.”

“It’s dinner now” I said with a shrug. It was hard to miss something I’d never had in the first place. Besides if it was that easy to catch they wouldn’t be worth so much.

“We could sell it…. Fresh meat is worth quite a bit.” She said with a question.

“Screw that, We’re eating it..” I said firmly. I hadn’t had real meat since I came here. The family always ended up with dried stuff or scraps that mom had to turn into broth. My mouth was nearly watering at the thought of some fresh grilled meat. Even if it was a rat.

It took nearly five minutes for me to pry the arrow out of the ground. The bow was ridiculously powerful and the arrow had buried itself to the fletching.

“I’ll climb up and unstring the bow. You can get the boat ready.” I said as we got ready to leave.

“ I”ll do it. You climb like a dragon-turtle. Watching you is painful.” She teased as climbed the rope like a monkey.

“Well, fine then.” I said as I headed towards the boats with dinner in hand.

************************************************************************************

When mom saw my face she was furious. She yelled at me for at least an hour then yelled at Shimak for not stopping me from going into the woods. She did cook the timber-rat though which tasted much better than I imagined.

Apparently beast meat contains trace amounts of world essence, which makes it very nutritional and since the meat was fresh it had more in it then the stuff we got normally. I understood now why the upper caste always hogged all the fresh meat. To punish me for going into the forest mom used some of dads hard liquor to disinfect the scratches. The stuff was practically diesel fuel and it felt like I’d set my face on fire when she wiped it onto my wounds.

Shimak and I spent the next week planning for the last stage of our mission. We continued to haul coke for the smith and did our best to stay away from Kalar and company. The village held a martial arts tournament once a season and the next one was in a few days. Shimak and I were going to use it as an excuse to sneak away for the whole day so we had time to find a beast.

The tournament was a major event in the village. As isolated as the village was the seasonal tournament was always popular. The booze and bets were already flowing freely as Shimak and I met up around mid-morning..

They had set up a sparring ring in the main house's courtyard. And the entire village was surrounding it as they prepared for the first fighters to come out. Skimak and I ignored the entire affair and headed down the mountain to the boats before we crossed the river into the forest.

The forest was as silent as ever as we made our way to the tree. Shimak re-strung the bow and with our combined efforts we managed to pull it and tie off the rope. It was a shame we couldn’t come up with a trigger, but I wasn’t mechanically savvy enough to rig one I had faith in. So tieing off the rope was the best we could manage.

“You sure you want to do this?” Shimak asked as we finished setting everything up. The plan was a simple one. We find a Soilder ranked beast. Then get its attention and run like hell. One of us lures it over the ‘X’ and the other lets loose the rope. It was simplicity itself but honestly our chances weren’t very good.

In fact I’d say we had only about a 10% chance of success and about a 20% chance of survival.. The bow was powerful enough to hurt a Solder-ranked beast but we had to do enough damage to it in one shot that it wouldn’t kill both Shimak and I. Bows are good but it usually requires quite a hits to bring down something large.

Unless we hit something vital we were probably dead, but I’d already died one. honestly , it wasn’t as bad as everyone let on. I sure as hell wasn’t spending my life as a peasant and life would be even more unpleasant for Shimak. The girl was a great fighter but without cultivation her talent was useless and she was pretty enough to attract the wrong sort of attention once she grew up.

“I’m sure.” I said firmly.” Are you sure you wanna do this? We will probably both die.” I asked as I met her brown eyes with my blue ones.

“A warrior can fear for her comrades and her family but she must never fear death.” Shimak replied seriously.

“Alright, you're faster than me. So you should release the rope since you’ll get back first and will have more time to get into position.” I said as we set off into the trees.

“Shouldn’t I lure it, since I have a better chance of not dieing?” She asked.

“Normally yes, but since you wouldn’t let me stay behind at the tree we’ll have to do it this way. You're going to have to flee ahead of me and get into position while I lure the beast over the right spot.” She grunted disapprovingly but fell into step beside me.

We actually encountered quite a few small beasts but only one of them attacked. The small beasts weren’t as violent as the larger ones and would normally avoid conflict against something that was larger than them. Shimak killed the one that did attack with a small knife she’d brought with her.

We could only cover a small area of the forest and mostly wandered around in circles. If we attracted a beast too far from the tree it would catch us before we could run. So the area we could work with was limited. We wasted the entire morning with no luck. It wasn’t until mid-afternoon that our persistence paid off.

We’d decided to head out slightly further and I had gotten tangled in a berry bush. They berries weren’t ripe but the thorns were still working, and I’d gotten pretty scratched while Shimak had laughed at me. I was still picking thorns out of my clothing when Shimak went very still. I was oblivious to her change in attitude and was still swearing under my breath when she hit me and motioned for me to stay silent.

In a copse of pines up ahead there was a large boar with extremely bristling looking hair. It’s fur was dark red with black patterns on the side that resembled fat lightning bolts. Shimak leaned over to me and whispered softly.

“Walk away slowly. We need to get out of here.” She said quickly and I looked at her puzzled before I whispered back.

“Isn’t this exactly what we wanted?” I asked incredulous. The boar was massive and obviously a ranked beast.

“Look at the size of that thing. It has to be close to Elite rank there’s no way we can kill it.” She whispered furiously. “We need to go before it sees us.”

“Too late.” I said in a normal voice and she looked back to the boar and froze. It was staring at both of us with what I swear was incredulity. The emotion was so human it made me freeze for a moment. Even the boar seemed to think we were idiots.

“Blood and Bile!” Shimak swore savagely.

She immediately turned and sprinted towards the tree and I followed without a second glance at the boar. It let out a squeal so loud it hurt my ears and then the sound of it’s thundering hooves echoed through the previously silent forest. .

Shimak had a dozen steps on me and was getting further ahead. So that part of the plan was going well. On the other hand it sounded like the boar was closing rapidly but I wasn’t going to slow down to look. Instead I gritted my teeth and poured on all the speed I could muster.

Shimak reached the tree first and headed for the rope before spinning to look at where I was. At the same time I was on a dead-sprint for the ‘X’ I was still a good twenty yards away but the look on Shimak’s face told me I wasn’t going to make it in time. I mentally counted to five as I approached then leapt into the air when I was still a few meters short. I knew that the boars hooves would smash me to paste if I landed under it. I just hoped I wouldn’t break too many bones when I landed.

The boar hit me like a train. There was a loud snap and my whole body seized up as I spun wildly through the air. I heard a loud squeal as I cartwheeled crazily through the air, but I had bigger problems. The hit had knocked me up a good ten feet up and when I hit the ground the lights went out.

**************************************************************

I awoke to darkness and my first thought was that I’d died again. However soon Shimak’s face popped into view and I tried to set-up.

“Just sit still you're really hurt.” She said as she knelt beside me. We were still by the tree but darkness had fallen. I must have been out for hours.

“What happened” I asked numbly as my body protested even speech.

“You were too slow and the boar got you.” She said worriedly. “Your leg is broken and you’ve got burns all over. The thunder-boar hit you with it’s lighting I’m surprised you're even alive.” That would explain why my leg and back hurt so badly at least. And seriously what kind of boar gets to throw lighting?

“Did we get it?” I asked hopefully.

She made a vague gesture with her hands. “Sort of.... I got distracted when it hit you and was too slow with the release. Instead of hitting it in the head I got it in the spine. It’s crippled but alive.

“That’s something. At least. I’d hate to be maimed for a miss.” I said sarcastically. “We should finish it off, it’s blood will attract more beats here. We need to leave soon.”

“Ya think? I was waiting till you woke up. I figured I’d leave it like that for a while anyway. It’ll be weaker now. ” She said as she stood up. She pulled the small knife she had on her belt and walked towards the boar.

“You sure that’s a good idea?” I asked as she approached it.

“What do you mean?”

“Using a metal weapon against a beast that can use lightning seems like a bad idea.” I said reasonably.

She frowned for a moment then picked up a rock. She walked out of my vision but soon I could hear more squeals and dull thumping noises. I swear she must have hit the thing a hundred times before it finally went quiet. Then there was a few ugly squelching noises and then Shimak appeared covered in blood and holding a yellow crystal the size of a golf-ball.

“Is that it’s core?” I asked with interest.

“Yep” She tried to hand it to me but I pushed it away.

“You take it. You’re way better at martial arts. You can cultivate up and then we can kill another one for me.” I said, but she shook her head.

“This was your idea and you got hurt. If you absorb the core it’ll help heal your wounds. You don’t want that leg to set badley or you’ll be crippled.” She said.

“Can we share it?” I asked. I knew you had to eat the core but I didn’t know how the process worked after that.

She looked at me startled for a moment before she blushed deeply.

“I’m missing something obvious aren't I?” I asked suspicious.

She bit her lip as she looked at me for a moment then nodded. “Actually that might be for the best. That thunder-boar was really strong. The arrow only penetrated it a inch or so. If It hadn’t hit a gap in it’s spine it definitely would have just bounced off. This core probably has too much essence for someone who has never cultivated. It could damage your meridians if you tried to absorb all of it.” I just looked at her and she swallowed nervously before her jaw set and she swallowed the crystal.

She sat down immediately and made a few hand seals before she closed her eyes. She sat like that for almost ten minutes before she suddenly stood up and walked over next to me. Then without warning she pinched my nose closed and pressed her mouth over mine.

I inhaled reflexively, completely flabbergasted by her action. She breathed out into my mouth at the same moment and my whole body seized up as the recycled air hit my lungs. It was like inhaling a ball of lighting. I could feel the energy inside me. It was wild and powerful and seemed to be trying to burst out of me.

Shimak shouted as I twitched spasmodically. “Focus….. Make the hand seals. You need to start cleansing the energy before it does any permanent damage. She met my gaze and slowly made the hand-seals in front of me. I tried to focus my mind and copied the motions. I must have succeeded because the energy inside my seemed to flow into a ball in the middle of my chest.

“Now can you feel the energy?” She asked as she stood over my prone form.

“Yes” I said baffled. This had to be one of the most crazy things that had ever happened to me. I mean I always knew on an intellectual level that this world wasn’t anything like Earth, but the feeling of this alien power inside me was so far removed from anything I’d experienced.

“Good, now move the power through your meridians until it’s purified. Then move it into your Lower Dantain.” She said while I was still trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

“Move it though what and then to where?” I asked stupidly. Honestly, not going overall this before hand was a massive oversight on my part.

Shimak looked at me as if I was an idiot. “Don’t you know anything about martial arts?” She asked stunned.

“Not even a little.” I said honestly. I’d lived in America my whole life. I knew completely jack-all about Asian medicine and Qi. “Give me the 10 second version. This energy is starting to get painful again.”

She shook her head and looked at me as if I’d just asked her to pull the moon down from the sky. “Okay, The energy is probably in your chest right now, right? Thats your Middle Dantain. Now you should be able to feel a bunch of small paths that branch off from that area. Those are your meridians. They lead all over your body. You need to push the power through those channels until it’s purified then move it to your Lower Dantian. That’s just behind your navel.” She explained quickly.

I didn’t waste any time and did as she said. I closed my eyes and started to pull off tiny bits of power from the ball and push them into my meridians. I continued until the ball of power was completely spread around my body. Then started to slowly circulate it. The longer I did it the less wild the power felt and soon it started to give off a soothing feeling that energized my whole body.

I kept at it and fell into a sort of half-sleeping state as I kept circulating the energy. When I could no longer feel any wildness at all I pushed all of the energy into my lower dantian like Shimak had said. It formed into a sort of cloud that slowly revolved there and I finally opened my eyes.

The night was starting to brighten to the east and Shimak was sitting next to me with her legs folded and her hands still making the seal. I tried to set-up again and this time succeeded. I tried not to disturb Shimak as I looked around. The area was exactly the same as it had been but my vision had become much sharper. There was only a hint of light but I could still see decently in the dark now. It was very odd but not unpleasant. I stretched a little and a bolt of pain shot through my leg. However, the pain from my burns was significantly diminished from when I’d started.

Shimak’s eye’s popped open a few minutes later and she looked at me and smiled. It was full of pure joy and my heart fluttered just a bit at the sheer happiness in it. That girl was going to be a handful when she grew up.