— Liu —

  I sit with my knees grounded and spine upright, palms flat against the tops of my thighs. The earth beneath me is warm and dry, but familiar. Familiar like a forge fire, or the smell of polished iron. Not threatening. Just there.

  Instructor Huo's voice fades into the background. I've already memorized the theory. I understand where the Qi is supposed to flow. I understand where to send it. What I don't understand is why mine burns.

  "Lui Shen, Fire affinity," they said.

  Not Earth. Not the element I expected—hoped for, even. Earth made sense. Earth was steady. Strong. Grounded. Fire is... something else. Something hungry. Uncontrolled. A fire takes. A fire doesn't ask.

  I haven’t made peace with that yet.

  But the seed is here, all the same.

  I reach inward. It answers like a breath pulled too deep—hot and coiled, like a flame banked behind a wall. It doesn’t lash out, not yet, but I can feel it press against me like steam under sealed iron. It wants to expand. It wants to stretch. I won’t let it—not all the way. Not yet.

  The ignition comes suddenly.

  Qi flares in my gut and slams outward through every part of me. My muscles tense. My jaw locks. I grit my teeth and hold. It burns—but not like pain. It’s more like pressure, like heat sinking into stone. The energy pulses in waves, demanding release.

  I don’t run from it.

  I anchor it.

  I drive the energy deep into my bones—my legs, spine, arms. I feel the marrow heat and harden. I press it into my skin—my chest, my back, my shoulders—until it thickens like unseen armor.

  I don’t want speed. I don’t want flight. I want to stand.

  If I can't control the element yet, I’ll make damn sure it can’t shake me.

  My breath becomes ragged. The air around me shimmers faintly, like the heat rising off an anvil. I grip my own knees just to hold position. Every fiber in me thrums with tension.

  I didn’t come here to burn bright. I came here to hold the line.

  Let the others be fireballs and lightning strikes.

  I’ll be the one who stays standing.

  When it’s over, I open my eyes slowly.

  The world feels heavier—but not in a way that drags. More like I’ve finally sunk to where I belong. My limbs ache with density. My chest feels like it could take a spear and still rise with the next breath.

  I flex my fingers. The skin along my forearms is flushed, but whole. Hardened. The Qi still simmers under the surface—controlled, but not gone.

  Instructor Huo passes behind me and mutters, almost as if to himself.

  “Stone bones and fire blood. Might just work.”

  I don’t answer. I’m still listening to my body. Testing it.

  The fire is there. I still don’t trust it. But I don’t need to—not yet.

  I’ll forge it into something I can trust.

  I rise slowly. My joints crack, but they hold. My breath comes steady. I take a moment, look around. Lei’s already gone. Nozomi too. Xo’s still still. Still silent. I nod once in his direction—not that he’d see it—and walk toward the barracks.

  Each step lands with weight.

  And in my chest, fire rests against stone.

  Not at peace yet.

  But no longer at war.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Xo never expected to end up in a place like this—kneeling in the heart of the Empire, on sun-warmed stone, surrounded by recruits who talked about tutors and bloodlines like they were armor.

  He’d never had either.

  What he had was a village that turned on his family the night the crops failed. A house set on fire. A father who died before Xo could understand what he’d done to deserve it.

  He remembered the flames. The smell of burning rice husks. The cold air in his lungs as he ran.

  They said he was lucky to be here.

  They had no idea.

  He sat cross-legged in the dust, hands resting on his knees, eyes closed. Around him, the others settled into meditation. Their breathing fell into rhythm—like a shared heartbeat pulsing beneath the courtyard.

  His came slower. Steadier.

  He was raised far from cities. Grew up digging terraces for someone else’s harvest, sleeping in sheds, learning to survive without asking questions. He watched men break under weight. And watched himself not break. That was the difference.

  His father, they said, had once been a cultivator—a water elementalist. Xo wouldn’t know. He only remembered his father's quiet eyes, the way he sharpened tools in silence. Never spoke of the Empire. Never spoke of power. Only patience.

  That part, Xo kept.

  So when the examiners told him his affinity was Earth, he didn’t feel pride. Just a shift. Like the ground beneath him had always belonged to him—he just hadn’t looked down.

  Some called it a fluke. A skipped inheritance. A hidden path.

  Xo didn’t care.

  He just wanted to see what the power felt like.

  He inhaled through his nose. Deep. Controlled. Then reached inward, toward the place the instructors had described—the resting seed, the elemental core waiting to be claimed.

  He expected it to feel like stone. Heavy. Cold. Bracing.

  It wasn’t. It rumbled.

  Pressure beneath bedrock. A quake waiting to happen. And the moment he touched it—

  It broke open. The Qi didn’t flow.

  It erupted.

  It surged into his chest, his arms, his spine. His body seized with raw force—pressure pushing outward in every direction, looking for cracks to escape through.

  He gritted his teeth. Pushed back.

  This is mine. You don’t move unless I say.

  The pulse came again—deeper this time. It drove down into his marrow, into muscle, into blood. He held it. Turned it. Redirected it.

  First into his vitals—his lungs, his heart, his guts. He braced for pain and found instead… endurance. The kind that settled low. Heavy. Slow. Like soil preparing to bear weight.

  Then he channeled the rest into movement. His legs. Ankles. Back. Muscles not for show—but for spring. For tension. For release.

  He felt the change instantly. The coil. The readiness.

  It wasn’t elegance. It wasn’t technique. It was raw, functional strength.

  He had been forged in survival. This… this was just another tool.

  When the storm finally faded, he realized he was gripping the edge of his own boot, fingers white at the knuckles.

  He let out a single breath and then opened his eyes.

  The light hadn’t changed. But he had.

  His skin tingled, as if he’d surfaced after days underground. His heart still thudded—not from fear, not from effort—but from power. Settled. Controlled.

  Instructor Huo stopped beside him, arms folded.

  “Earth affinity,” he muttered, more to himself than to Xo. “Solid bones. Surprising you didn’t channel for strength.”

  “Bones break,” Xo said, without looking up. “Organs kill.”

  Huo let out a short breath. It might’ve been a laugh. Might’ve been approval.

  “Go rest,” he said. “You’ll feel like hell tomorrow.”

  “Already do.”

  Xo rose. His steps were heavier now—but not from fatigue. From mass. From density. He knew his weight now. Knew how to move with it.

  It wasn’t flashy. But it would do the job. And next time someone tried to knock him down? They’d need more than fire and pride.

  The first light of dawn slid across the barracks floor, pale and indifferent. No trumpet call. No barked orders. Just the soft rustle of sheets and the collective ache of bodies learning how to hold more than they ever had before.

  Lei Shui sat upright in his cot, back against the wall, legs folded beneath the thin blanket. He was already dressed. His eyes were open. Calm, as always. But the stillness of his posture masked the hum beneath his skin—Qi still coiling like a river behind a dam. He had barely slept. His mind had been too quiet.

  Nozomi rose silently from her bunk across the aisle, her movements fluid, efficient. The pain in her limbs was sharp but expected. Her body felt like it had been hollowed and refilled with something far heavier. Her breath moved differently in her chest now. Lower. Deeper. Her steps made no sound.

  Liu groaned softly, more from principle than pain. He rolled out of bed with the grace of a boulder shifting in its sleep, cracked his neck once, and stretched his shoulders with a slow, practiced rhythm. His skin ached. Not from injury, but from hardness. His body felt… armored. As if something had grown between his muscles and the world.

  Xo sat at the edge of his bunk, elbows on knees, staring at the floor like it might challenge him. He wasn’t sore. Not exactly. Just heavy. Solid. A heartbeat echoed in his gut—not the normal one, but the second rhythm, the core. That low, slow drumbeat of power.

  No one spoke for a while.

  Not because there was nothing to say.

  Because it was too early to pretend words would help.

  When they stepped outside into the chill air, they found the training yard already awake. Instructor Huo stood at the center, arms crossed, stone-faced. Behind him, new equipment: moving targets, weighted dummies, small elemental channels carved into the earth.

  He didn’t shout.

  “Line up.”

  They did.

  “Congratulations,” Huo said, voice dry as iron filings. “You survived your ignition. You’re cultivators now. That means expectations change.”

  He began to pace.

  “Your body’s faster. Stronger. Your mind clearer. Your instincts sharper. That doesn’t make you warriors. It makes you visible.”

  A pause.

  “Your Qi will leak. It’ll pressure people. Frighten them. Intimidate them. Or alert your enemies. You’ll learn to suppress it.”

  He turned.

  “But not today.”

  He gestured to the new field.

  “Today, we test. Endurance. Control. Reflex. Channeling. No elemental tricks yet. Just body and breath. You’ll fight soon enough.”

  He looked over them with that slow, weighing gaze.

  “Tiger squad. Panda Squad. Welcome to the real beginning.”