Learning how to punch

Descending from the sky the elder brought all of the children down into a forest - a jungle to be exact.

Night had yet to turn into dawn still a few hours away, the elder had a little time to spare.

"All of you, look here" The elder brought the kids to attention.

He dropped them to the floor no longer protecting them inside the light balls.

The kids lacking anywhere to put the items they had received ealier failed to adjust on time, falling in odd positions trying to not drop what they carried.

A few fell head first on the ground but no damage was done.

Picking themselves up it was only now that they felt the temperature in the air had changed.

Even if it was night time it wasn't too cold, it was humid but not too hot.

The jungle was loud, the animals scattered in all directions avoiding the newcomers.

From the birds screaming at them, to the bugs chriping, to the odd animal they never heard hollering.

The kids could not see in the darkness yet they attmpted to adjust their eyesight but the jungle was an entire new level of dark at night for them.

One kid panicked for a second then remembered quickly what the item at the tip of his spear could do.

He grabbed the blue stone and focused.

"Elder I'm scared!"

"I DON'T LIKE THE DARK!"

"Something grabbed me!"

"I-I'm not scared"

Near the center of this group of children a single pale blue light brightened the surroundings.

"I did it!" The boy exclaimed.

The children's faces lit up blue as the light blinded the nearest kids eyes, the shadows cast by the children blocking the light added a whole new level disorder as some started to cry thinking an animal had come into vision from the dark.

Bran Ai having already been at the outer edge of the group was pushed further away as a kid panicked.

Not willing to separate from the group Bran Ai simply pushed the kids arm away from him and closed the gap with the rest.

"Right we can do that" one said as he looked at the light.

"I'll beat the dark back" another attempted to bring light to the surroundings aswell.

A few more kids grabbed onto their own stone shards focusing their minds to push the Qi required to light the stone.

Some stabbed at the dark with their spears or staff, really with anything they could to try and ward off anything that dared approach.

'Maybe I was wrong, there might be some talent here' the elder thought looking at the child whom used the blue stone shard.

With a snap of his fingers a barrier fifty feet wide surrounded the area where the kids stood.

It was wide enough for the kids not to notice it and small enough that no animals would be caught inside of it.

Clearing his throat he said with authority "Silence!"

The children flinched going silent except for one crying child.

"Good. Now that you have calmed down let us start a little training regiment" lifting his sleave the elder got into a striking position.

"Elder will the light go out if I remove my hands from it?" The child that lit the stone shard was holding the spear in an odd way as to not cut himself.

"No, it should last for a few minutes without the need to provide more Qi to it"

Another light to the side lit up at this moment.

"I want everyone to look at what I am doing, you don't need to copy my pose, just see the flow of Qi"

The children huddled up unwilling to be the person closest to the dark jungle.

A layer of light surrounded the elder splitting into multiple streams of light that traversed his body forming pathways viewable with the naked eye.

The children could feel their skin begin to crawl as the Qi inside their bodies wanted to leave them.

The light emitted didn't travel far, staying close to the body of the elder without reaching beyond the barriers length.

If someone outside the fifty foot range of the barrier looked in the direction he stood they wouldn't see anything, it wasn't because the barrier blocked one's vision but because the light would never reach them.

This light released by the elder could not be considered 'light' after all, it was pure spiritual Qi with its own rules that both superseded the rules of the universe and existed separately from them.

The children did not really get what the elder was doing, they understood he was using a great amount of Qi but not the reason for it.

"Did you all see?" Elder Qez hoped at least one would get it.

The children stayed silent, what was there to see?

"Um you made squiggly light?"

"You made me feel like throwing up"

Bran Ai was hesitant it seemed to him that the elder had showed them how Qi traversed the body, the only difference being that his own Qi seemed to go wherever it pleased.

'Did the elder want us to see how the energy SHOULD travel?'

"I'll show you again, pay close attention to the flow of my Qi" the elder got into a pose that was fairly easy for all the children to see.

From his lower abdomen streams of light spread across his body like a net covering his entire body head to toe.

Some kids seemed to know what was shown entering a sort of epiphany state.

The rest had an idea but couldn't quite understand.

What the elder was showing the children now could be considered a great service to their future cultivation journey.

To make Qi visible to the naked eye for even a mortal required a great amount of power to be exhibited.

The elder could have simply explained, he could have shown illusions to make the children see what he wanted to show, instead he made them feel the flow of power coursing across his body.

"Now, I want you all to do as I do with your own Qi"

This time the streams of light only covered the elders right arm as he slowly threw a punch.

At the start the Qi streams surrounded the entire arm of the elder, by the time the punch reached half way the Qi only covered the forearm and fist.

By the end of the punch all the Qi had gathered into the elders fist.

Snap* crack*

The elder had punched the air, the air seemed to be compressed before being unable to bear it any longer cracking like glass.

The 'cracks' formed by the breaking of air looked to be electrical in nature.

Having carefully controlled the output of his Qi the elder made sure none of the children had been harmed.

Shocked faces greeted him from below.

"Elder is that some magic spell?"

"He made thunder!"

"Elder can I do thet too?"

The elder was content with this response.

While not all of them seemed to know what to make of what they had just seen, a good amount had understood.

'This day I have formed some karma with these children, should any die or blame me because of what I've taught them it will make my ascension more difficult'

"Now that I've taught you, you must practice. Four hours, four hours from now we will leave"

Four hours was not enough time to really learn anything, not in terms of cultivation at least.

Should the children have all been prodigies they might have been able to copy at least one tenth of what the elder showed, meaning very basic energy movement.

What the elder wanted to accomplish from this was not the creation of some super genius but for the children to simply have the knowledge of how it should work.

In a moment of danger people are capable of achieving feats not normally possible for them, this is what the elder would be relying on.

Bran Ai thought about the elders actions, to say it would be a difficult process to move the energy in such a way was an understatement.

Bran Ai's current state could be considered infantile.

He needed to learn how to think, how to crawl, how to stand, how to use his surroundings as support to stand, all of it had to be done in order to walk.

He knew how to think, now he needed to learn how to crawl.

'The Qi moves where I point it too, I can control one but not many seperate strands'

How many strands of Qi did he have?

How much Qi could he move at any one time?

Where was the Qi located?

'Can I gather all the Qi in one place? If I move the Qi here will it stay in place or will I have to keep telling it to stay constantly in place? If I can't how will I gather the energy in one area?'

Bran Ai attempted to gather the Qi in one area of his body but as soon as he let go of the thought controlling that Qi strand the Qi simply moves elsewhere.

Once, twice, twenty times.

It did not matter how many attempts he made it was impossible to control multiple strands of Qi in such a short period of time.

'I'll just try with one for now then'

Focusing his mind onto a single task was far easier then multiple at once.

The Qi strand moved in the direction he wanted.

'Can I fuse this Qi strand with another?'

Thinking so he attempted to find another strand to collide with.

Bran Ai searched with his mind across his body, this search was only envisioned but it had real effects on Bran Ai's body.

'Found one!'

Bran Ai controlled the single Qi strand he held and crashed it into the other Qi strand.

The two Qi strands merged into one creating a slightly denser Qi strand as a result.

Unbeknownst to Bran Ai he had just found the method of creating layers of Qi required to advance a stage.

Given enough strands are merged he will be able to enter the second stage of Qi gathering eventually.

Bran Ai tried to gather another Qi strand using the same method to create an even denser Qi strand but instead of merging the denser Qi strand directly split the less dense one in two.

'What happened?'

Rule one of cultivation: Accumulation over abundance, the strong rule over the weak.