34 Warning (2/2)
The scholars filed out of the room, making their way down the corridor. I followed on with Davide, passing Dong in the corridor.
”Ah! Davide, Oscar, how was it?”
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and Tai's voice behind me.
”It was great Dong! I'm sure these two are going to be fantastic scholars!”
”I'm glad to hear that you two are fitting in! It's dinner time, so I'll let you boys go.”
Tai pushed us forward, then whispered when we were out of Dong's earshot,
”I'm sure you know what'll happen if you make a scene. Remember your responsibilities.”
With a final shove, he sent me stumbling down the stairs.
”Big bro!” Davide called out, running down to me.
”I'm alright,” I sighed, standing up and dusting off my robes.
Was Tai trying to bully me? It was quite a novel experience – I hadn't really been bullied in my past life.
”Tai's super mean… I don't like him,” Davide mumbled.
”He's a bit two-faced for sure. But he's becoming strong in his own way, so I can't hate him. Plus,” I smiled at Davide, ”it won't be long before he can't touch me.”
Davide and I chatted about our days on the way to dinner.
”So, how was Freja?”
”She's really weird… all she did was show me her techniques and hug me a lot.”
”Did you learn anything from her techniques?”
”Kind of… one was a bit like this,” Davide stopped in his tracks, planted a foot on the flagstones, then jumped.
He twisted his body mid-air and whipped his arms around, spinning three times in an instant. It happened so fast, he went out of control, and tumbled down onto the floor.
”Ow!”
”Are you alright?” I offered him a hand to stand up, and he took it, wincing.
”Yeah, I'm okay. I think I did it too fast… Miss Freja had a really heavy hammer when she did that.”
”Did Freja teach you that?”
”Not really… I'm just trying to show big bro what Miss Freja was doing.”
Davide seemed unsure of himself, but I knew what had happened. He had instantly understood the movements of a difficult technique.
Master had mentioned that Davide would be a natural at any martial art, and this showed it. There was no way I could move my body like that without plenty of practice.
I had spent my day learning, but I needed to put it into practice, or Davide would far outshine me.
I absent-mindedly chatted to Davide about my experiences for the rest of dinner. He was mesmerised by my stories of the strange characters I'd met.
”Big bro, your master seems really weird…”
”Not as weird as yours! I thought she was gonna crush you when you guys ran out of the meeting.”
”Yeah, she's really strong. But what about your master? Is what Tai said true?”
I paused to think about that for a second.
”Well in a straight fight he's right, master seems weak. But he's a librarian, fighting isn't his strong point.”
”Big bro, are you gonna be okay?”
”Hm, don't worry about me. I've got plans. Just focus on yourself.”
It was evening by the time we got back to College, and I spent a few more hours chatting with Davide. Not long after, he passed out, exhausted from the long day.
Sitting in bed under the pale moonlight, I started meditating. Usually I explored my qi channels at night, but that didn't seem so important right now.
Studying my qi was my focus now. I saw how it acted outside of my body, but it was equally as important to study its internal behaviour.
The individual droplets trickling through my qi channels didn't give me much insight. But I noticed that they gradually moved in a cyclical pattern.
Qi seemed more concentrated in three regions: my head, my solar plexus and my lower abdomen. I remembered that these areas were called the upper, middle and lower dantians.
I had explored the middle dantian a lot, so I shifted my focus to the lower dantian. I channelled all my body's qi there and observed.
Unlike channelling qi into my eyes, keeping my qi here was comfortable, and I felt strength flow into my body. Opening my eyes, I wanted to test this feeling of power.
I tried to perform a simple punch, but my qi scattered. After a few seconds of meditation, I gathered it again, but it dispersed the instant I tried to punch.
For an exhausting few hours, I repeated this process, trying to keep my qi centred in the lower dantian. I found that relaxing my core helped, but it was extremely easy to lose control.
Instead of punching, I tried making slow movements. After an hour, I finally managed to make a punching motion over a minute long. On reaching the end, I felt a ripple of pressure on my fist.
It was easy to dismiss as a gust of wind, but after repeating it a few times, I knew I had caught onto something. Each time my qi was depleted, and I felt the same pressure on my fist.
By now, my body was burning, my arms were aching, and my qi was low. For what was left of the night, I performed some light meditation, and thought about what I had discovered.