--IT BURNS!!!--

  Pengfei didn’t lose consciousness. It would have been a welcome escape from the inferno raging within him.

  He was marginally aware of his friends panicking around him. Shutian sped back toward the sect while Neng and Xiaotong tried impotently to help. There was debate about whether to carry Pengfei to the Medicine Hall or not, but in the end both the disciples were too scared to touch him.

  Whether it was a minute or an hour, Pengfei did not know, but Shutian returned with Chen Lei. The physician grabbed the writhing disciple and shouted questions at him, but they went unanswered.

  A slap across the face brought Pengfei’s attention into focus.

  “Doctor! Help me – “

  “Shut up! Cross your legs and circulate your qi!”

  “I ca – “

  “Do it!”

  The other disciples helped him assume the correct position, forcibly propping him up and crossing his legs. Pengfei squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in raggedly. He searched for his dantian, searched for the energy that should be there, but could not find it.

  “It’s not there! I’m on fucking fire!”

  “It IS the fire! Grab it!”

  --That’s … no it…--

  The burning in his belly felt so different from the energy that the physician had previously guided through his meridians. That had been – no, it was similar, actually. A heat. Flames licking at his nerves.

  --Why is it so painful now?--

  A lick of fire erased all other questions. The disciple reached down into his abdomen with his will and searched for the source of the heat. Underneath layers of perception, he could feel something moving. A miniscule but powerful storm beneath his navel. There, in the center, a spark was tumbling erratically, chaotically.

  He reached out for it, latched onto it. But instead of guiding the particle, his will was wrenched violently along the random path.

  “Guide it!” Chen Lei yelled somewhere, far away.

  Pengfei pulled and dragged against the force. He steered it away from one imaginary wall, only for it to collide with another and bounce haphazardly.

  --Come on!-- Pengfei screamed to himself as he strained against the force.

  Gradually, the sharp turns and jagged angles of the circulating qi smoothed out under Pengfei’s struggling guidance. The roiling chaos slowly transformed into a whirlpool of heat, spinning forcefully but contained and orderly.

  He watched it revolve around an unseen center for a long time, not daring to touch it again.

  “Come back now…” Chen Lei called out to him from somewhere.

  Pengfei’s focus expanded, leaving the pinprick of flame where it was. He opened his eyes to see Shutian, Neng, and Xiaotong watching him worriedly. A hand lifted from his back and Chen Lei stepped in front of him.

  “Come with me, let’s head to the Medicine Hall. The rest of you, go back to…wherever.”

  The doctor made his way back down to the sect in one direction, Pengfei’s murmuring friends headed in the other.

  Chen Lei stepped smoothly over the craggy earth, incredibly spry for his advanced age. He even held out a hand to the weakened Pengfei, aiding the boy’s trembling steps in a strange reversal of the natural order. A frail, aged, body assisting the young, strong one.

  Pengfei thought of climbing Mount Emei with his grandfather. Wondered if his mother was still caring for the man, her father-in-law. Then dismissed their images from his mind.

  The pain and fire had left his body and exhaustion filled the void, but when they reached the level ground of the sect proper, Pengfei had to ask in sluggish words.

  “What ... was that, sir?”

  “Nothing serious. Turbulent qi. Turbulent and slightly turbid. You sensed your own energy for the first time. Starting neigong at a late age can be a little bumpy. Incidents like this aren’t unheard of. Dramatic, but not particularly dangerous.”

  “Neigong? But I still haven’t been successful with it. Every time I try, I felt…nothing. And suddenly my qi is burning me alive?”

  Chen Lei nodded along, knowingly. “But I think you were successful. To some extent. Successful in cultivating, circulating your energy, just not in perceiving it. So, you were unwittingly sending it bouncing around haphazardly through your body. More than your unconditioned channels were ready for.”

  “Is that why it felt so hot? It was so much worse than when you guided your qi through my meridians.” Pengfei ached at the thought of the heat, his entire being felt singed from the inside out.

  “More to do with the context I suspect… the exercise. Promotes the Yang qi.”

  “That…”

  --That makes sense!--

  Pengfei thought back over the last couple months, the burning in his gut that had gotten worse with every passing week. Always at its worst when he had strained himself physically.

  Now it was at an end, and a new milestone reached in his study of martial arts. The exhaustion that he had been filled with just a moment ago disappeared. He was invigorated by the step he had inadvertently taken.

  Something Chen Rulan had said came to his mind. The rough divisions in the skills of martial artists. 3rd, 2nd, 1st rate, Peak, Transcendent.

  “Elder, if I can sense my own qi now does that mean – “

  “Yes, congratulations on becoming a 3rd rate. It’s not much, but you can truly call yourself a martial artist now.” The physician smiled as he reached the Medicine Hall, opened the door, and beckoned Pengfei inside.

  The doctor’s assistants, all of them Jin disciples, were at the evening training session. Or perhaps dinner by now. The clinic was quiet, the soft beds inside beckoned Pengfei to sleep. But the disciple found himself suddenly invigorated.

  --‘Mystical Heaven Infinite Skill’… first was circulating the qi in the dantian then …--

  “Elder, can you guide me? What comes next?”

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

  Pengfei yawned and blinked the sleep from his eyes as he stumbled along the uneven ground with the others. Chen Ji led them from their isolated dormitory toward the center of the sect, only turning to explain once they were within sight of the training ground.

  “The Sect Leader will be addressing everyone soon. Once he is finished, you may rejoin the rest of the Jin disciples. Your punishment is over.” The little man spoke sweetly, but as he turned to leave, he paused and spoke with a sudden hard edge to his voice. “I trust I won’t be seeing you in an official capacity for quite some time.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  The head of the Discipline Hall left them and shuffled over to a group of elders standing on the edge of the training ground.

  “That guy is so damn weird.” Pengfei whispered to his friends.

  Neng shrugged, “Not all of the elders handled the sect’s isolation well.”

  There were already sixty or so disciples milling around the area and soon the rest of the dormitories came to join them. And it wasn’t just the Jin generation; it seemed every elder of the Chen line would be attending as well.

  The four of them weren’t about to ask any questions, just happy to be out from under the restrictions placed on them. The last ten days under Chen Rulan had been mixed blessing and curse. They had all appreciated having each other for company after the solitude of the cliffs but the training regimen had been excruciating.

  Pengfei yawned again, drawing a rebuke from Shutian.

  “Would you stop that? We’re all tired.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “You need to stop staying up so late abusing yourself.”

  “I was practicing my neigong, asshole.”

  “Whatever.”

  Their bickering was cut short by the arrival of the Sect Leader. Chen Hongzhang stood in front of the Jin disciples who arranged themselves into neat rows on the stone practice area. Pengfei and his companions joined the back row unnoticed by the others as the patriarch began to speak without preamble.

  “First, an announcement. Unfortunately, a wandering herb gatherer was killed near the sect recently. It looks like it was the result of a rockslide. As a precaution, all disciples are to avoid the north side of the mountain until further notice.”

  --Herb gatherer?--

  Neng was apparently thinking along the same lines as Pengfei, because the boy leanded over and whispered, “Is he talking about the leg you found?”

  “I don’t – “

  Pengfei’s words were silenced as the Sect Leader continued speaking, and an abrupt shift in topic drove the doubts from his mind.

  “At the beginning of this winter, the Kunlun Sect will have been in isolation for forty-six years. The time for us to return to the Central Plains is quickly approaching, even sooner than you may realize. Our ancestral home is in Qinghai, at the terminus of our mountain range. We will begin the journey back in three years – not four.”

  The disciples tittered at the news. Rejoining society an entire year earlier than expected had drastic ramifications on the daydreams and plans of everyone present. Chen Hongzhang raised his hands to silence the murmuring crowd.

  “You will not be spending much time in Qinghai though. After a short while in our new home, we will travel across the provinces to visit the great sects, clans, and families of the Wulin. On the first day of the fiftieth year since our seclusion began, we will knock on the gates of Shaolin and Wudang and Mount Hua AND ANNOUNCE OUR RETURN!”

  Cheers went up at the Sect Leader’s sudden crescendo.

  “But we need to show our allies a good face. After fifty years, our friends may have forgotten our strength. They may believe we have wasted away in our mountains, that the new generation is a shadow of the old. IS THAT TRUE?”

  “NO!!!” The disciples screamed back.

  “The elders will make sure of it. From now on things will be different. A new schedule and new methods. More training than you have done before. We will make you into warriors worthy of standing side-by-side with anyone in the Jianghu. Are you ready for it?”

  “YES!”

  “Good.” The Sect Leader paused and walked back and forth in front of the disciples, pondering. “But… this life is not for everyone. We don’t expect all of you to remain with Kunlun for the rest of your lives. Some of you may be impatient to leave already.”

  Pengfei felt Shutian bristle next to him as Chen Hongzhang surveyed the crowd.

  “It is nothing to be ashamed of! And in truth, not all of us are destined to be heroes. Whether you remain within our walls or leave for the outside world, it would benefit you all to develop skills besides combat. So, in addition to your martial arts training, you will also learn more mundane skills. Some of you have already begun studying medicine with Elder Chen Lei. Some of you will learn to keep accounts, or blacksmithing, and so on. If the time comes when you leave us, you will do so prepared to make your way in the world.

  And, if you DO leave, it will be with more than the clothes on your backs. On New Years Day in four years, each of you will receive three hundred liang of silver to use as you see fit.”

  Another loud cheer went up, speaking to the avarice of the Jin disciples, but Pengfei was dumbstruck.

  --Three hundred liang?!--

  There was more to the assembly. Details, half heard. By the time it was over and the patriarch had finished speaking, Pengfei had crunched the numbers. Walking with his friends, he shared the results.

  “Three hundred liang each, one hundred fifty-one disciples, that’s … forty five thousand three hundred liang total.”

  “Is that a lot?” When Pengfei blanched at the question, Neng felt the need to explain himself. “What? We’ve lived here since we were ten. I don’t know how much stuff costs.”

  “How long will it last if we’re thrifty?” Shutian demanded.

  “Economizing has never been a strength of mine.”

  Xiaotong draped an arm around Pengfei, “Of course not, young master. Just explain it as best you can to us dirty urchins.”

  “It’s a year’s salary for a high ranking official. Each. Where did the sect get all that money? This place is a shit hole, it doesn’t look like we have that kind of cash to throw around.”

  “The problem isn’t how much money we have, it’s that we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere. Kind of hard to spend money when there aren’t any merchants.”

  “I guess so...” Pengfei conceded the point to Shutian as the foursome made their way to the Dining Hall.

  It was a free day, the one opportunity they had every two weeks to relax. Leftovers from the night before had been set out before the patriarch’s address, and now the disciples lazily ate as they discussed their suddenly bright future.

  The raucous laughter and grand plans shouted across the room drew more and more mumbling from Shutian. Finally, Pengfei had enough.

  “What’s your problem? You want to go home and take care of your mom, right? In a few years, you’ll have enough money to do it.”

  Neng and Xiaotong nodded their heads and looked to their local misanthrope for the reason behind his complaining.

  “You guys are idiots. They dangle a little money and you forget everything they said before that. Training? Working? Think of all the shit we’ve been through up until now, without any hint of reward. And now they’re offering us a small fortune. If they’re going that far just to keep us around, it means they’re going to put us through absolute hell for the next few years.”

  As the truth of Shutian’s words sunk in, the other three disciples uttered a collective, “Fuck.”

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

  After breakfast, Pengfei shuffled away from his friends with a mild sense of dread. Their new training regimen would begin the next day, bringing with it unknown pain and suffering.

  --Now all I want to do is take a nap. Why does the prospect of future work make me tired in the present?--

  Instead, he made his way to his appointment with Chen Lei. When Pengfei had finally learned to sense his qi, he had begged the elder to show him the next steps in the cultivation method but the lesson had been postponed until now.

  The physician’s students had already made their way to the Medicine Hall and were talking amongst themselves as the elder poured over a book at his desk. Pengfei waited quietly until the man finally looked up and noticed him.

  “Ah, Pengfei. Let’s begin. You four, quiet down.”

  The medical students lowered their voices and moved a distance away while Pengfei and the elder relocated to a comfortable spot in the middle of the room. The disciple sat in front while Chen Lei placed a hand on his back to monitor the flow of qi.

  “Start at the beginning. Feel the qi in your dantian, guide its flow.”

  Pengfei inhaled and exhaled slowly. He searched his body for the still unfamiliar energy within him. His private attempts at neigong had only been occasionally fruitful but whether it was practice or luck, today he succeeded.

  He found the tiny spark in his abdomen. As he concentrated on it, his senses burrowed inward to a dark illusory world. Outside sounds muted and stimuli dampened. It was like he was in a dark cavern, with only a small fleck of light visible, swirling around a center.

  He reached out the spark and felt its movements as muffled words came to him from the outside.

  “Begin with the Great Circuit.”

  Pengfei tugged at his qi, willed it to the meridian he felt at the base of the spine. The energy resisted his direction but slowly found its way to the vessel. The point of light bounced and jostled as it travelled upward, careening off unseen obstacles. Suddenly, it darted out of sight and disappeared in the darkness.

  Pengfei opened his eyes back to the real world and turned to Chen Lei.

  “It’s like the meridian is blocked by something. I can’t get past it.”

  “It’s a common misconception that the Governing and Conception Meridians are blocked, but if they were completely clogged, I doubt you would survive for very long. Circulating your internal energy will eventually reduce the obstructions.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “You may never completely clear the passages. That is an achievement that few martial artists manage, usually only after reaching the Peak stage.”

  Sensing another question, Chen Lei held out a hand to silence Pengfei. “You have enough to work on for now. Try to complete the Great Circuit at least once before you leave. Next time, we will begin invigorating the five major organs.”

  “Yes, Elder.”

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

  A new day dawned, and a new era began for the disciples of Kunlun. Even the weather was different. A clouded sky brought with it a freezing cold and a threat of snow but the boys were not permitted to wear their coats for the morning exercise.

  Chen Rulan met the disciples as they exited their dormitories and sent them up the mountain instead of down.

  “To the statue and back! No internal energy!” he commanded.

  The disciples dutifully jogged upward, looking expectantly for a marker that few of them had ever seen before. The path was longer and more difficult than what they were used to and the air thinner with every step.

  The sensation of sweating in freezing cold was unsettling but simultaneously pleasant. On the other hand, the burning of the dry air in their lungs was unequivocal torture.

  However, Pengfei’s ordeals during his punishment at the cliffs had prepared him for the hardships. Where he had once consistently fallen far behind the pack during morning exercise, he could now barely keep up with the rearguard. Unless they used their qinggong. A small improvement.

  It was similar when the disciples returned to the sect’s main compound. Usually, they alternated between running and calisthenics each day but now they would do both. Everyday.

  The pushups, squats, lunges, frog jumps, and so on, were arduous but Pengfei was nowhere near the last to complete the assigned number.

  --I may not be fast, but it feels like I’m getting a bit stronger.--

  He draped his coat over his sweaty shoulders and made his way into the Dining Hall for the morning meal while two thirds of the disciples were still struggling.

  Neng was one of the few disciples who had beaten him inside. Pengfei joined him with a bowl of gruel.

  “Shutian was right. They might kill us all off before anyone can claim their three hundred liang.”

  Neng just shrugged, seeming to have already made peace with the new routine. He didn’t even seem that tired by the exercise.

  Shutian joined them shortly, and the chubby Xiaotong after that. The four of them finished their meal together as several elders escorted the Sect Leader into the Dining Hall.

  The disciples quieted as the stern Chen Hongzhang stood before them again.

  “As was discussed, from now on you will take on new duties within the sect, learning the skills necessary from the elders. Listen closely as they will now call your names.”

  The Sect Leader stood aside and another master stepped forward. It was Chen Weidao, the head of the Scripture Hall and Pengfei’s one-time savior.

  “Jin Neng.” Elder Weidao called.

  Neng gave his friends a raised eyebrow, then stood from the bench and left the hall with the elder.

  --Damn, Scripture Hall, that would have been cushy. Lucky bastard.--

  Pengfei thought back to his few days cleaning the library under the quiet supervision of Elder Weidao, dreading everything else by comparison.

  Other masters, many of them still unknown to Pengfei, stepped forward and called their own lists of names. Chen Rulan called disciples forward, apparently taking them off to learn the basics of smithing.

  --Huh… I didn’t know we had a forge.--

  Chen Lei had seemed to have no need of more students in the Medicine Hall. He stepped forward and waved for the students already under his tutelage to follow him out.

  Elder Chen Ji was the last master to step forward.

  --Shit, not this crazy bastard.--

  “Jin Fan, Shutian, Wai, Yusheng, Xiaotong, and Zaifeng, come with me.”

  Shutian and Xiaotong shot Pengfei confused looks, but stood to follow the elder, leaving their friend alone at the table. The only disciple still seated as the last of the Jin generation left the building.

  The Sect Leader Chen Hongzhang looked down at him.