Mage's Cultivation Journey 9

“As you wish, my lord,” he replied when I asked him to flare his internal energy, though he was tenser than I expected. 

The reason, I understood only when he shifted to a punching stance. “No, you don’t have to release it. Just gather it inside you without moving it.” 

He looked confused. “But, how can you examine it if I don’t release it externally?” he asked. 

“Can’t you feel someone else’s internal energy without them using it?” I asked. 

His confusion gave way to surprise. “I can’t, at least nothing more than a subtle feeling that gave me a general understanding of their martial arts stage. And none of my instructors could either. They always made us punch to assess our development.” 

“I could feel it even without that, so you don’t have to punch,” I responded. I suspected I could even feel it in its passive state, but Yu Xing’s reserves were too low to make it viable, which was a consequence of his injury. 

Martial artists were strong, but that strength was little help when it came to injuries to their meridians, which was the part of their bodies that handled the internal energy. 

That alone was a fascinating discovery, one that I would have loved to have back in my own tower, exploring steadily, without the risk of being mauled by wild animals. No one in my home plane had such things as meridians. Whether it was something only the natives of this plane possessed, or it was the martial arts that promoted their growth was an interesting question to explore. 

In the future. I had no intention of turning myself into an experiment. 

Yu Xing stood still, but his expression changed while his internal energy flared. I put my hand on his chest, near his diaphragm, to better feel the accumulated energy. The energy he contained was purer than Wang Bi, my unfortunate challenger, contained, but the amount was low enough to interfere with my analysis to a degree. 

But, what I could see was already fascinating. The energy had almost no similarities with mana, that much was clear. Mana was a fundamental energy of existence, contained, used, and externally manipulated … but it was never a part of the body. 

Well, at least as far as Mages and Lord Mages were concerned. Things might be different for higher ranks. 

Even if that was the case, I doubted it would be something like what I was examining. While mana was an external, distinct existence, the same decidedly wasn’t true for internal energy. I could feel it coming from every part of Yu Xing’s body, gathering above his stomach, as integral as his blood. The flow was slow, steady, and unmistakably reactive, almost alive. 

The nature of the internal energy was interesting enough to keep me occupied for months if it had been a proper project, examining its nature and composition. A practical detail stole my attention, preventing me from delving into purer, more interesting questions. 

The energy lacked a certain … something that I had previously felt. Not just when Wang Bi prepared to attack, but when Yu Xing did. When they attacked, the internal energy was stronger and more rigid … and with something more. 

I would have asked him to punch a few times to understand what was going on, but the side effects of such a move prevented me from asking that. Self-torture from a kid of barely sixteen was not something I could ask; even though I knew not many mages would share my ‘concern’. 

I had my own limits. 

“What’s the smallest amount of energy you can circulate in your meridians?” I asked instead. 

He looked at me blankly. “Are you asking me my weakest … punch, my lord?” he asked. 

“No, even your weakest punch is too much for your meridians,” I said. “Just take a small amount of your internal energy, maybe a tenth of what you can bring, and move it along your channels, so I could get a better sense of their situation.” 

He blushed. “T-that’s not something I can achieve, my lord. This lowly one is not capable of such a thing.” 

“Really?” I said. “You can’t sense it? Also, stop calling me my lord and such. We’re going to travel together for a while. Not just it’s clunky, but a habit like that is dangerous once we arrive to a town, and need a disguise.” 

“That would be most improper, my —” he started, but I cut him with a sharp gesture. 

“No, it won’t, kid. You saved my life, and I saved yours. If that’s not a good enough reason to ignore some useless rules of etiquette, nothing is,” I said, patting his head. “Just relax.” 

He seemed hesitant, but he still nodded. “I will try,” he finally compromised. 

“Much better,” I said. “So, you were saying you can’t circulate the energy in small pieces.” 

“No,” he said. “I can’t sense my internal energy that well. I was still merely an advanced Initiate before my injury. The only thing I could sense is a vague warmth, difficult to distinguish.” 

I nodded. I could sense it perfectly, but that was likely the benefit of my mage training. I could ask the kid to throw some underpowered punches, and disperse the energy after, limiting his pain. That would have been a compromise. 

I decided to go on a different track. “Alright. Sit down and cross your legs. I will teach you how to focus and feel.” Meditating was the first step in learning magic. While some lucky few — myself included — were born with the ability to sense mana, most had to achieve that through meditating in special rooms. 

Even for natural sensitives like me, meditation was the key, allowing us to feel mana as more than just a cold mist of energy. 

“I want you to take a deep, slow breath, then release it, like this,” I said, showing the first step. Technically, the breathing aspect had no benefit, but it triggered a reaction from the body, signaling relaxation. He repeated, but it was a tense movement. 

“No, try to breathe in slower, more relaxed. You’re not rationing your breath. You’re just letting it move at its own pace, nothing else.” 

He nodded and repeated, I corrected. Again and again, taking far more than I expected, even slower than some of my most petulant private students. But, I could sense that it had more to do with the habits of martial arts. 

While practicing punches, he always breathed sharply, with particular intent. Habits like that were difficult to modify. “Better,” I called sometime later, even though it was nowhere near enough to support a proper meditation session. 

I stopped for two reasons. First, he didn’t need to meditate perfectly to develop a better feel for his internal energy. Unlike a mage, he didn’t need to understand every ebb and flow in his internal energy, just a general awareness. More importantly, I wasn’t sure if the approach he developed from meditation would affect the specific breathing methods of his attacks, making such a push unnecessarily risky. 

“What’s next?” he asked. The tense silence at the end of his sentence showed he struggled in order not to add an honorific. 

Progress.  

“Think of it as a circle. It starts when you breathe in. Don’t control the movement, but feel where it enters. Where it leaves. Count the flow if it helps. But, the important thing is to feel how it spreads to your body. Keep your focus on your breath, and ignore everything else. The noises, the smells, your senses. Only your body exists.”

Ideally, such breathing would have allowed me to pull a tiny amount of mana from a dense environment, slowly developing sensitivity through repeated practice. However, there was no such option on this plane. Instead, I was betting that the interconnected nature of the body and the internal energy would provide some benefits. 

He closed his eyes, face twitching slightly. "It’s difficult.”

"It always is at the start. That’s the training. Slowly, you’ll figure out a way to distinguish things. Since you can already feel your internal energy without using it, even if it is only a vague sensation, it shouldn’t take long. Now, close your eyes and focus on the warmth of your internal energy. Don’t try to think, just feel."

“For how long?” he asked. 

“Let’s start short. Until midnight, with a break for dinner,” I said. “You focus on that while I gather some twigs and get a fire going. I’ll call you when dinner is ready..” 

He opened his eyes. “But, my lord. That’s not appropriate—” he gasped, which I cut halfway. 

“Enough, none of that lord stuff like we agreed. We have to share the work if we are to travel together. Understood?” He nodded despite his discomfort. “Good. You focus on your meditation while I handle the fire and cook the porridge.”

I built a tiny fire near the cave entrance. I wished that it wasn’t necessary, but the food we had was mostly a low-quality grain mixture that was supposed to be rice, with some dried vegetables, which needed cooking before consumption. 

He positioned near the entrance as well, allowing me to observe him, and correcting some of the more egregious mistakes whenever his attention wandered enough to break the meditation cycle. He adjusted his posture slowly, mimicking my instructions to the best of his ability. 

Once the dinner was done, I sat across him, and started meditating as well, focusing on an advanced application, one that I hadn’t practiced much. Splitting focus to maintain a clear focus on the environment, while letting the body rest. It was a niche application of meditation, mostly treated as useless by the wider mage community, who had dozens of bodyguards whenever they were in a dangerous location, but I was glad that I had learned it. 

After the long trek, the rest was something I desperately needed.