Morning mist clung low to the dirt of the training grounds, curling against the recruits' ankles like steam from a sleeping forge.

  The two squads stood in two quiet rows.

  Eight cultivators, newly awakened.

  Barely awake.

  Instructor Huo stood in the center with a piece of chalk in one hand and a pebble in the other. He drew a ring around himself—quick, clean, practiced. The stone tapped the edge once, then again. A faint shimmer rippled out from the center, like heat over stone.

  “This is body channeling,” he said. “The first thing that will separate you from peasants and poets.”

  He rolled his neck slowly.

  “You all have a core now. You all think that means you’re powerful. You’re not. Qi sitting in your chest does nothing. You must learn to move it through your limbs. Let it ride your blood. Let it follow your breath.”

  He stepped to the side. “Watch.”

  He raised his arm. Then he moved.

  His fist struck a wooden dummy with a thud that snapped its neck clean at the post. Dust jumped from the floor. The silence that followed was absolute.

  “That’s body channeling,” he said.

  He stepped back. “You will form pairs. One attacks. One receives. If your partner bleeds, you’ve done something wrong. If your partner doesn’t feel it, you’ve done something wrong. If I come over and feel nothing, then both of you are wrong.”

  Nozomi stepped up beside Liu without a word. Lei glanced toward Xo, who gave the faintest nod. The pairings fell into place.

  Kiri turned to Bao, flashing a grin. “If you break me, I’ll be disappointed.”

  “You won’t break,” Bao rumbled, stepping into stance like a cliff adjusting its base.

  Nozomi’s hands glowed faintly—not with light, but with texture. Like shadow made visible. She struck Liu’s shoulder with the edge of her palm. Not hard. But deliberate.

  Liu flinched, just slightly. “Sharper than I thought.”

  “You’ll live,” Nozomi said, resetting her stance.

  Xo drove his palm into Lei’s chest—not with aggression, but mass. Lei staggered a step back, lips tightening.

  “Too much?” Xo asked.

  “No,” Lei said, adjusting. “Just heavier than I’m used to.”

  “Get used to it.”

  Across the field, Miri danced around Jin, making exaggerated punches with bursts of wind that tousled her hair.

  “Can you feel that? Can you feel that?” she teased.

  Jin gave a faint, patient nod. “Yes.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “Thank you.”

  Instructor Huo circled like a storm looking for excuses.

  “Don’t grunt. Don’t twitch. Don’t glow. The Qi should move like a second breath—not a tantrum. If you flare, you’re wasting energy. Miri, If you move like that in a fight, you’ll get harvested for fertilizer.”

  When he passed Lei and Xo, he slowed.

  “Good control, Shui. Don’t let him collapse your guard again.”

  He turned to Xo. “You hold your power like a hammer. Learn to make it a blade.”

  Xo grunted but nodded.

  Nearby, Kiri struck the dummy again, his form smooth, almost beautiful.

  Lei glanced his way and muttered, “Always has to look perfect.”

  “You two know each other?” Xo asked, without looking.

  “Unfortunately.”

  “You hit him yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  By the end of the hour, shirts clung to backs, palms were red and sore, and Qi threaded through the air like subtle humidity. No fire. No water. Just the breath of something old learning to move in new bodies.

  Instructor Huo called them to stop.

  “Good. For some of you, it’s starting to flow. That’s your baseline. Everything else builds from this.”

  He pointed to the water troughs by the far wall.

  “Drink. Breathe. Talk if you must. Then we move on.”

  As the squads broke and scattered toward shade and canteens, Lei and Nozomi found themselves near the edge of the courtyard, sharing a quiet moment under a sliver of awning.

  “He’s not wrong,” Nozomi said, nodding toward Huo.

  Lei raised a brow.

  “You do hold it close. Like it might spill.”

  “I’d rather not bleed out power in the first week.”

  Nozomi smirked. “Wise.”

  Across the way, Miri spun a short stick in her fingers and called, “You all better keep up when we get to actual combat. I’ve got three bets riding on Tiger Squad mopping the floor.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “We’ll see,” Liu said simply, wiping his face with a cloth.

  “You always this chatty?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She laughed, bright and easy.

  And for the first time that morning, a little of the tension between the squads seemed to crack.

  The mess hall was half-lit by lanterns strung from the wooden beams, their soft glow rippling across bowls and plates. The scent of rice, fried root vegetables, and bitter greens hung low in the warm air. The room was crowded, but not loud—just the quiet murmur of exhausted bodies chewing in rhythm.

  Nozomi sat alone at the end of one of the long stone tables, elbows on the wood, one hand wrapped around a chipped ceramic bowl. She ate in silence, slow and deliberate, eyes fixed on something just beyond the steam rising from her meal.

  Lei set his tray down across from her without asking. No ceremony. Just weight meeting wood.

  She didn’t look up at first. When she did, it was more out of curiosity than caution.

  “I thought nobles ate behind silk screens,” she said.

  “Usually,” he replied, taking a bite. “But I was never very good at behaving.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t seem that way when you arrived. All smooth lines and calm smiles.”

  “I was performing,” he said with a small shrug. “It’s expected.”

  A moment passed.

  She stabbed a piece of pickled radish with her chopsticks. “Still performing now?”

  Lei looked at her directly, hazel eyes catching the dim gold of the lanterns. “No.”

  The word landed with surprising weight.

  Nozomi leaned back a little. She wasn’t smiling, not exactly—but her jaw had eased. Just a touch.

  “I never met a noble who hated nobles,” she said.

  “Most of them don’t,” Lei said. “They like their comfort. Their name. Their walls.”

  “You don’t?”

  “I liked the library,” he said dryly.

  That made her snort once. Not a laugh. Just enough to betray amusement.

  “I wasn’t supposed to be here,” he added, voice lower. “I was supposed to take a post. Officer track. Sit in a desk and issue commands to people who earned it more than I ever would.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He looked down at his bowl instead, turning his chopsticks slowly between his fingers.

  “I wanted to see what I was without the family name,” he said finally. “Turns out, I’m a terrible archer with a decent punch and a questionable squad.”

  Nozomi gave a half-smile, thin and crooked. “Could be worse.”

  He nodded once. “Could be.”

  They ate in silence for a while. A few tables down, Kiri was giving a dramatic retelling of a training accident involving mud, three spears, and an unfortunate squirrel. Miri was laughing too loud, even for her.

  Lei caught Nozomi’s glance toward them.

  “You know them?”

  “Just from observation,” she said. “They like being seen.”

  “They grew up being watched,” he said.

  “Doesn’t excuse them.”

  “No,” he agreed. “But it explains them.”

  Another pause. Then:

  “You don’t talk much,” he said.

  “I’ve been listening,” she replied.

  He gave her a curious look.

  “To what?”

  “People.”

  “And what have you heard?”

  She finished chewing before she answered.

  “That most of them say what they think they’re supposed to say. Not what they mean.”

  Lei nodded slowly. “And me?”

  She looked at him then. Really looked.

  “I think you don’t know which one you’re doing yet.”

  He smiled, wry and small. “That’s... probably fair.”

  They sat with that truth for a moment. The room buzzed quietly around them. Chopsticks clicked, bowls emptied, boots scraped against stone.

  “Thanks for sitting here,” she said eventually.

  “Didn’t come for thanks.”

  “Still,” she said, almost gently. “You didn’t have to.”

  He nodded. “You don’t have to hate all nobles, you know.”

  “I don’t,” she said. “Just most.”

  He raised his bowl in mock salute. “Then I’ll try not to disappoint.”

  Nozomi raised hers in return. “No promises.”

  They clinked bowls, just lightly, before finishing the last of the meal.

  The next day was spent learning to manifest Qi into its raw elemental form.

  Weapons were set aside. Armor remained in lockers. The training grounds were cleared of clutter, except for six low rings carved into the dirt—one for each element, their edges smooth from generations of use.

  Instruction was minimal. The recruits were told to sit in their ring, reach inward, and try.

  No drills. No forms.

  The element would come, or it wouldn’t.

  Instructor Huo paced at the edge of the courtyard, offering only the occasional correction. The squads—Tiger and Panda—remained unofficially separate, working within sight of one another but without words exchanged. Their positions were unspoken. Natural. The line drawn not in chalk, but in habit.

  The early part of the morning passed in quiet effort.

  Some showed results quickly—Kiri’s light, soft and obedient, hovered near his shoulder from the first attempt. Miri’s wind stirred at her feet and grew wilder with every blink, until Huo barked at her to rein it in.

  On Panda’s side, the manifestations came more slowly, but with greater caution.

  Nozomi sat in the shadow ring, back straight, hand resting against the ground. She didn’t move. She didn’t look at the others. For a long time, there was nothing. Then a curl of smoke coiled up from her palm, thin as ink in water. It held there, just barely above the skin.

  She exhaled, but did not smile.

  A few steps away, Lei sat cross-legged in the water ring. He had been still for some time, his fingers resting lightly on his knees, eyes closed. The first attempts had yielded nothing—just warmth in his hands, a slight pressure behind his chest.

  But something had shifted.

  Now, a thin orb of water hovered just above his palm—perfectly round, motionless, reflecting a faint trace of the morning sky. Not large, not fast, but balanced. Stable. Like breath made visible.

  No one commented, though Kiri glanced once in his direction, then turned away.

  Eventually, Instructor Huo called for the group to stand.

  The manifestations faded. Most had succeeded—some barely, some with clear control. A few showed nothing at all. That, too, was noted.

  No formal praise was given.

  They were told to eat, rest, and prepare for the next phase.

  There were no marks. No rankings. Only dust on hands, and the lingering feel of energy obeying will—for the first time.

  The courtyard had emptied slowly.

  Most of the recruits had headed off to wash, or eat, or sit in the shade and pretend they weren’t exhausted. The elemental rings were cooling in the late light, their carved edges soft with shadows.

  Liu remained seated in the Fire ring, elbows resting on his knees, hands dangling loosely. The tips of his fingers were red—warm with the heat he’d tried, and failed, to fully shape. The only sign of his effort was a faint scorch mark on the stone beside him. A half-formed flare that had sputtered out before it meant anything.

  He didn’t look frustrated. Just… quiet.

  Still trying to understand.

  Xo watched him from a short distance, arms crossed, boots planted like he’d been carved out of the stone behind him. He wasn’t usually the one to approach people. But after a long enough silence, he moved closer and sat down beside him.

  Not across.

  Beside.

  “You trying to cook the ground,” Xo said, “or just steam yourself slowly?”

  Liu grunted. “Neither worked.”

  There was a pause.

  Xo picked up a bit of gravel, rolled it between his fingers, and let it fall.

  “Still nothing?”

  “A flicker,” Liu said. “Not enough to call a flame. Just heat.”

  “Could be worse,” Xo said. “Could’ve blown off your eyebrows.”

  Liu finally turned to glance at him, eyes narrowed in what might’ve been mild amusement.

  “I’m not rushing it,” he said. “It just… doesn’t fit. Fire.”

  Xo didn’t respond immediately. He leaned back on his palms, looking up at the fading sky.

  “It’s not supposed to fit,” he said after a while. “At least not at first.”

  “You think it grows on you?”

  “I think it’s already in you,” Xo said. “The training’s just showing you where.”

  Liu looked at his hands again.

  “I always thought… if I had anything, it would be Earth. It’s what I trained for. What I felt closest to.”

  “Same,” Xo said. “But then they tell you something different, and you’ve got two choices. Pretend they’re wrong.”

  “Or?”

  “Or figure out why they’re right.”

  Liu was silent a while.

  The last light caught the stone at his feet, throwing long orange shadows behind him. He opened his palm. A small pulse of warmth gathered there—unsteady, faint, but more than before. It lasted a breath longer this time.

  He exhaled.

  “That’s something,” Xo said, nodding.

  “Still not much.”

  “Yeah. That’s fire,” Xo said. “It starts with a spark and then the whole house is burned down.”

  That earned him a dry look.

  “You always this encouraging?”

  “No,” Xo replied. “Only with people who look like they’d survive it.”

  Liu huffed once—might’ve been a laugh.

  They sat in silence again. Not the awkward kind. Just quiet. Liu’s hand lowered, the heat fading. But the edge of frustration in his shoulders was gone.