Chapter 20.
I sat in my meditation pose, trying to make sense of this new sensation — of qi. The feeling was strangely unfamiliar: as though a warm, pulsing river had come alive inside me, flowing entirely of its own accord. More than seven hours had passed since Pai Mei's departure, yet the hunger, fatigue, and muscle numbness were barely noticeable. It seemed qi genuinely was sustaining the body from within, like a quiet internal fuel source.
The longer I observed it with this inner sight, the more detail I noticed. It wasn't a static sensation — it moved constantly. The most interesting activity happened just below my navel: qi drifting through the body seemed to be drawn there and coiled into a small vortex, then, with a new pulse, spread outward again through the entire body before returning. The process resembled a captivating, endless dance.
And just at the moment when I felt I was almost catching its rhythm, there was a sharp knock at the door. I came back to myself slowly — and then the knock repeated, louder and more impatient.
*Who is it?*
Opening the door, I found one of the senior students I had noticed in the dojo before, usually surrounded by others. His hand was raised for another knock.
The moment our eyes met, his face twisted into an expression of open condescension, as though he were looking at a hopeless vagrant. He let out a heavy sigh, gathered himself, and launched into a rapid, pompous speech in the local language. I understood nothing, naturally, but the tone was more than eloquent enough. While he spoke, I noticed that he was holding a folded set of blue clothing — the uniform worn by students who had felt qi — and a book.
When the tirade finished, the senior student shoved both objects into my hands with force, leaving me no choice but to grab them on instinct. He gave me one final look of contempt and, judging by context, one more sharp remark, then turned and left.
I stood there, taken aback by the treatment. The red-robed seniors had simply ignored me before — but now that I had felt qi, everything had evidently changed. I hadn't just been noticed. I was receiving obvious hostility. Apparently my rapid progress was genuinely sitting badly with someone.
*Well,* I thought, closing the door. *I'm no stranger to difficulties.*
I put on the new blue uniform and noted that it sat comfortably, with full freedom of movement. Then I picked up the book. As expected, every character in it was completely incomprehensible — which added motivation to finally deal with the Knowledge Crystal.
I took it out and turned it over in my hands — small, transparent, almost weightless. The question surfaced again: why wasn't all knowledge distributed in crystals like this? I had guesses — too expensive, impractical, requires individual calibration or rare materials — but they were only guesses. In the events of the night before, I had forgotten to ask Pai Mei.
Setting aside the extra thoughts, I sat again in my meditation pose, the crystal cupped in my palm. Now came the task of directing qi into it. First I simply concentrated on the crystal and wanted the qi to go in — strongly, deliberately. Nothing happened. Then I tried to mentally push it, imagining a current. Again, nothing.
Then I remembered the center of gravity — that vortex just below the navel. Focusing on it, I felt the qi coiling and beginning to surge outward. I tried spinning it a little harder, then mentally mapped a path from the center through my arm, and at the right moment sent an impulse of intention. The coiled qi rushed along the mapped route, but somewhere in the middle of my chest the impulse faded and the energy dispersed again into formless wandering.
Several more attempts followed, experimenting with the intensity of the spin and the focus of attention — it demanded extraordinary concentration. And when I finally grasped the principle, I coiled the qi with sufficient force and at precisely the right moment directed it into my arm.
When the qi reached the palm holding the crystal, what Pai Mei had described came to pass. The crystal seemed to come alive and drew my qi into itself on its own, without any additional volition from me. I felt something crack inside it — as though a hidden mechanism had engaged. The crystal flared with a brief bright orange flash, then began to dissolve before my eyes, evaporating right in my hand, and in that same instant a wave of foreign qi struck my body.
It was strange — cold and structured, nothing like my own. The impulse moved in waves through my arm, shoulder, neck, and struck directly into my brain. Then the information began to pour in. There was an enormous amount of it. It didn't simply arrive — it arranged itself and organized, and in that process "Iron Discipline," "Still Mind," and "Structural Thinking" helped beyond measure. They seemed to place everything into its proper compartment, preventing the flood from overwhelming me or making me black out.
But even with their help, a mild and pressing migraine developed. The experience was extraordinary: it felt as though I had lived through a small lifetime. I saw myself as a young boy, learning to exist in this world from infancy — first forming individual sounds, then assembling them into words, then grasping the speech of adults around him. The boy grew, and in time came reading and writing, absorbing not just the language but the local customs, the unwritten rules, the hidden meanings and subtext that live inside any culture.
The information settled cleanly and in sequence, like a well-written and living textbook. What I had now in my consciousness was not just words and characters, but a deep understanding of the local language — spoken and written both — along with the cultural code that stood behind all of it.
When the process finally concluded, I sat for a while longer with closed eyes, coming back to myself. The price of this knowledge was only a mild headache. I had little doubt that without my Traits I would simply have lost consciousness, with the brain organizing the information in unconscious sleep.
I opened my eyes, walked to the water barrel, scooped a ladle, and drank deeply. Then I sat on the bed and picked up the book again.
And there it was — a small miracle. What had been a collection of incomprehensible squiggles now appeared entirely natural. I could read. Every phrase, every character was clear, without difficulty. The sensation was as though I had lived here my whole life. It was astonishing.
I was eager to begin reading, to go deep into this book — which was surely a beginner's primer of some kind. But barely had I settled to do so when someone knocked at the door again, this time considerably more politely.
I went to the door and opened it. On the threshold stood one of the beginners — a boy of about ten. Seeing me, he folded his hands and gave a quick, entirely formulaic bow, perfunctory rather than respectful. Before the crystal, I wouldn't have caught the difference — but now I understood.
"Barbarian—" he began in the local language, then corrected himself with a slight note of mockery. "That is, Gan. Mealtime."
He didn't wait for my response, turned, and walked away, leaving me standing with the open door. There was not a trace of the respect due to an elder in his behavior — something that would ordinarily merit correction here. And he had permitted himself this precisely because he assumed I knew neither the language nor the customs. My instinct was to call after the little rascal, grab him by the scruff of the neck, and explain clearly how I expected to be addressed. But I understood that it would change nothing in any fundamental sense.
*Well then,* I noted internally. *Welcome to the outcasts' club.*
Besides, it was not yet the right moment to reveal that I understood them. There was something to be gained from this situation. An enemy — or any social structure for that matter — was best studied from the inside while remaining an invisible observer. That way it was considerably easier to determine who was actually worth engaging with. And honestly, I was thoroughly tired of sitting in my room alone through all these weeks.
In the dining hall I took my portion — rice with braised vegetables and chicken — and headed for a free table where several students in blue uniforms were sitting. I made a show of ignoring them completely, staring into my bowl as though absorbed in my own thoughts.
"Look at that — the enlightened barbarian has arrived," I heard a murmur to my right.
"Ssh, he might hear you!" another voice said, in false alarm.
"Don't be ridiculous," the first one laughed. "He doesn't know the language. And if he'd used the Crystal, he'd still be recovering until this evening. My father told me it always knocks you out on the first use."
I continued eating calmly, giving every appearance of being completely absorbed in my food. But the most unexpected thing was that someone spoke up in my defense.
"And how much have the two of you accomplished yourselves?" came a composed but assured voice. It belonged to a heavyset young man of about eighteen sitting a little apart from the others. "He's a newcomer and he's already felt qi and reached enlightenment. You took years for that."
A brief pause followed, and then the mockery began.
"Oh, Fatty Chen found a kindred spirit!" someone sniggered. "Two failures who found each other."
"He just got lucky," another offered. "Pure chance. Besides, he's already too old. No potential, no talent. He'll never catch up with our senior brothers."
"Yes, that barbarian has exactly as much talent as you do, Fatty Chen," one of the students jabbed. "You've been sitting in this school for years now? While everyone your age has moved far ahead. No wonder you're defending him — you've found a soul mate."
Chen tried once more to say something in my defense, but he was quickly buried under a wave of mockery. Flushing with embarrassment, he went quiet and turned back to his food.
The situation was, unfortunately, entirely clear to me. I was their oddity — an outsider, visibly different from everyone else, placed in the beginner group despite being in my twenties. And on top of that, there was the special treatment from Master Pai Mei himself. And as the crowning touch — I had turned out to be a "child of fortune," managing to reach illumination by apparent chance. Yes, this kind of reception was predictable. I inspired both envy and irritation.
I finished my food, maintaining every appearance of being unaware that I was the main topic of discussion, while keeping an eye on Chen from the corner of my vision. When he finished, I stopped eating as well, and we both made our way toward the training ground. I fell in behind him at a comfortable distance, keeping it unforced.
Chen noticed and looked back at me with a mute question and mild confusion, but said nothing and kept walking.
This session was held at a different training area. I took my place at the end of the row, not far from Chen. The whispers and muttering around me didn't stop, but I made an effort not to let them register — I had the information I needed, and now there was work to do.
When training began, I focused on the movements, and the qi inside me responded immediately. The feeling was extraordinary. The energy made each movement lighter, smoother, and — most importantly — more correct. I now understood from direct experience the difference between a beginner and a student who had felt qi. Every action required less effort; the body seemed to know on its own where and how to move.
At the same time I was observing Chen. And what I saw only confirmed what the others had said. The boy genuinely didn't shine. He was putting in everything he had — his face was concentrated and flushed with effort — but the movements weren't coming. What looked smooth and natural on everyone else came out angular and clumsy on him. The most important thing I noticed, through my sharpened perception, was that the standard movements designed for everyone were simply inefficient for his physique and — apparently — his internal structure. He needed a different approach, a different range of motion, possibly even a different stance entirely. But he kept stubbornly trying to force himself into the universal mold.
And in that moment I made a decision. I needed a source of information about the realities of this dojo, about how it actually worked on the inside. I needed someone who would at least not hate me — someone who would be tolerably neutral. Chen seemed like the ideal candidate for that role. We were both outcasts in our respective ways.
After training, I made a show of simply walking, and unobtrusively followed him from a distance. He, suspecting nothing, wandered back to his room. I noted its location — it was in one of the shared barracks, at the far end of the corridor. When I was certain he had gone inside, I turned and headed back to my own room.
A rough plan was already forming in my head. Now I needed to find a way to make contact. Simply walk up and speak? Too direct — it could raise suspicion. I needed to create a situation where a conversation would look natural, or wait for life to hand us both a pretext on its own.
Back in my room, I finally sat down on the bed and opened the book, setting aside all thoughts of local social maneuvering. I settled into reading, making myself read aloud in a low voice to accustom my speech apparatus to these new sounds. The first attempts to pronounce words in the local language confirmed the wisdom of the approach. The more I read aloud, the cleaner and more natural my speech became. So in another day or two, I thought, I would be able to speak almost like a local, without mangling the words.
The material was basic — written for absolute beginners — but for me it was invaluable. I devoured it, and when I closed the last page some five hours later, my head hummed with new knowledge, but the picture was finally beginning to come clear.
So: once a person had felt qi, they could begin forming what were called centers. There were three.
The first — the Earth Center — was located below the navel. It governed the accumulation and control of qi within the body. This was the foundation of everything. Its energy made you stronger, faster, more durable, helped wounds heal, fortified the body, and increased resistance to poisons and diseases — everything having to do with flesh and blood. Opening it was the next objective for anyone who had felt qi. Fortunately, the book contained information on how to do this.
The second — the Human Center — sat in the middle of the chest, where the heart was. This was the next level. It allowed you to sense qi outside your own body and direct it — the kind of thing Pai Mei had done while warming the teapot or moving at impossible speed. High leaps, gliding, and in time perhaps true flight; the creation of elements — fire, water, anything — all of this came from the ability to sense and direct external qi. This center was also considered essential to alchemy, which was logical: to brew potions, you needed to feel the energy within the ingredients.
And this was where the real complication lay. Walking the Path of Earth — opening the first center — was relatively straightforward: it required simply consistent, determined practice. But the Human Center was another matter. The book stated plainly that only those who had suffered deeply, had observed the world with great care and attention, or had passed through a powerful emotional upheaval could touch it. The requirement wasn't to accumulate power, but to somehow "understand" the world — to feel its soul. The keys were intuition and enlightenment.
And then there was the third center — the Heaven Center — located in the head, and it was the most enigmatic of all. It governed the mind. Its opening sharpened every sense to extraordinary limits, accelerated learning, and enhanced concentration and perception. This center was considered essential for creating the formations Pai Mei had mentioned. The book was explicit: reaching it was only possible after full mastery of both the Earth and Human centers — such was the standard path.
But the most compelling thing lay in how it could be opened. In a section titled "For General Reference" was a highly complex symbol — a tangled, multilayered diagram of lines and nodes. According to the text, opening the Heaven Center required the practitioner to mentally "draw" this symbol in their consciousness through sheer force of will and concentration, tracing every line with perfectly equal intensity, without breaking concentration for even an instant.
I looked at the symbol for a long time. It truly was ferociously complicated. It was difficult even to imagine how anyone could hold it whole in their head, let alone trace it mentally with perfect precision. For an ordinary person it would seem impossible. Apparently the locals relied on that intuition — on the sudden flash of understanding that allowed one to "grasp" the symbol whole, without breaking it into parts. And given how unpredictable an instrument inspiration was, it was no surprise that the Heaven Center was the province of exceptional individuals — geniuses or the extraordinarily fortunate.
But for me — for me, this was a chance. My "Still Mind" could cut away all interference and hold perfect focus. "Structural Thinking" could break the most complex systems down into their elementary components. And "Iron Discipline" provided exactly the kind of unbending will needed to see something through to completion. For them, this symbol was not a mystical puzzle — it was a complex but solvable problem. It was a blueprint, plain and clear. I didn't need to hope for a flash of inspiration. I just needed to work.
There was my unbeaten path. While others would spend years opening the Earth Center and then as many more struggling toward the Human Center, I could work top-down. Risky? Absolutely — the book wasn't wrong to warn that a premature attempt could harm the mind. But the potential. Sharpened perception, accelerated learning, formations — all of this could become my trump card, the thing that pulled me out of the grey mass and gave me a genuine chance at real strength.
My heart beat faster with anticipation — but all right. Not now. First I needed to properly master the Earth Center, accumulate qi, grow accustomed to directing it. Reaching for the summit without a solid foundation was a reliable path to failure. But the goal was set, and that was what mattered.
I put the book down, settled into my meditation pose, and closed my eyes. Time to absorb everything I had read and think clearly. Inside me was qi. Now I understood what needed to be done: not simply feel it, but gather it, concentrate it below my navel, build that vortex which would become my Earth Center. That was my immediate task.
And parallel to that, I needed to solve the problem of communication. My plan involving Chen was looking increasingly correct. I needed my own person here — a source of information and, perhaps in time, an ally. I pictured his round, earnest face. He wasn't talented, but in his eyes I saw no malice or cunning — only stubbornness and a certain resigned determination. He was someone I could work with.
I took a deep breath, feeling the qi respond to the motion of my lungs, and let it out slowly, releasing the last of the tension. There was work ahead. Long, stubborn work — but now, with a clear objective, it no longer felt entirely hopeless. For the first time in these past weeks, I felt not just survival, but a real and tangible path forward.