The ambient field felt as if it had deepened overnight and the river ran with a low surface mist, and standing at the bank I could feel the field's texture in more detail than I had ever before.
I worked on the directional attentiveness of my Qi sensing, choosing where within the field to focus in an active manner instead of waiting for the ambient Qi to enter my field of vision.
The distinction was the same as looking versus seeing: passive reception told you the field was present, while directional attentiveness told you what it was doing in real time.
I moved my awareness along the bank, east toward the ridge, and south toward the horizon of the hill.
I opted not to attempt the pooling of Qi into my core. I had already noted what needed to be developed and today was not that day.
I walked back to the training ground as the first light came up over the ridge.
Wei Suyin took over the cohort's training for the day at the clinical wing of the Academy.
There were sessions on basic injury assessment and pressure point release taught as standard material for practitioners who would need to operate in the field. The cohort sat in the clinic room in a rough semicircle around Wei Suyin as she went through demonstration after demonstration from reading one's own pulse to teaching the students to practice reading one another's.
I stood at the back.
I had been using the visualization since the first day, testing it against the contact assessments, building confidence in what it was showing me. Now, watching Wei Suyin work, I tried it at classroom distance.
Her pathways were different from the cohort's. The density was higher and the structure was livelier. The medical channels ran with a precision that most practitioners' channels didn't approach. The pericardium pathway and the heart channel had a brightness about it due to her consistent Refinement. Her hands, when she placed them on the demonstration point on her shoulder, ran several degrees hotter than the surrounding tissue, which was the qi concentrating where her intent directed it.
I noted: Stage Three. The label itself was the problem I kept circling. The comparative picture was becoming necessary for how I thought about the curriculum. You couldn't design a progression track without knowing where people started and where they were going. But the moment I named the stages they would become something people tried to climb, even if it meant climbing over the corpses of others.
That afternoon I found Hao in the yard running his evening exercises.
I had been watching him run this and I knew the structure of it. He hung off of tree branches and pulled himself up as his opening exercise, then after he worked up a sweat he would then move on to running his Qi through his Mai to try and limit test the strength of his cultivation through physical exercises.
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What I had not been watching, until I developed the visualization, was what was happening below the visible movement.
I looked now.
The channels were running at a density I hadn't seen in anyone else I'd assessed. What stopped me was below the sternum: a region where the qi pooled. It didn't circulate outward the way the other channels did. It actually sat and took hold.
The pooled qi was denser than anything in the surrounding channels, and the structure holding it was expanded, worn smooth around the edges due to repeated use.
The pooled qi moved when he concentrated. On the transitions from exercise to another that required peak output the pool drew down and the channels ran brighter. Afterward the pool refilled from the ambient field around him in the same manner that a well refilled from the water table.
I thought heavily about if I should approach Hao about what he had been doing, and if it would be irresponsible of me to try and inform him of something I couldn't even properly explain. There was no need to rush steps.
I opted to take a good hard look at the students with my increased awareness in order to gauge their progress.
Chen Wei: the gallbladder restriction was still invisible to him and likely would remain so until something forced him to address it directly. His cultivation was competent within its ceiling and he would continue to be competent within it.
Lu Li: the ceiling he had built was starting to show stress fractures. His natural capacity was pushing against it from the inside, the way a plant pushed against a container it had outgrown. Another two weeks of zone one work and he would either break through or need direct intervention.
Shu Lian: she was listening and executing. During the previous sessions she had been looking outward for confirmation. Something in the zone two riverbank work had gotten through to her. Her pathways were starting to show awareness, which was the quality I'd been looking for.
Dian Lu: the restriction in the large intestine pathway was marginally looser than the first day. He had been working it himself, daily, with a focus that didn't waver. Patience was not his natural state but he was slowly getting over it.
Then I looked at Hao across the yard, doing his warm-up for the zone three afternoon session.
He was definitely a level above all of us, he would be, by my estimation, at the Peak of Qi Refining.
It was scary to think that Hao might have really been the most powerful cultivator that I have known, and he was merely scratching the surface of his full potential.
I began crossing from the clinic to the curriculum room when I saw Gao Ren with Pei Yan at the training ground that evening running the militia drills alone.
Gao Ren watched her stumbled on her footwork and then spoke up and said: "Your base."
She stopped.
"Keep your legs steady." He walked to the edge of the ground. "Do it over, a strong base is a soldier's foundation."
She ran the drill again and paid special attention to her feet.
"There," he said. "See the weight transfer before you reset. If you stay in that transfer instead of completing it, the garrison pattern connects." He demonstrated with three steps. Even with his limp he was sure to remain steady.
"Again," he said.
She ran it until the light was gone and he stood watching without saying much beyond the occasional correction, which from Gao Ren was as close as you were gonna get as a stamp of approval.
I was in the curriculum room after the evening meal when I heard Wei Suyin's voice from the training ground as she was counting the polearm stances for the second night in a row.
I looked at the session notes in my hand that was written by Wei Bolin and so far, everything was perfectly on track.
I set the session notes down and went to watch Wei Suyin instruct Pei Yan on her polearm lesson from the doorway.
Pei Yan was getting the second stance right and her feed was steadier than ever. Wei Suyin made one adjustment to her grip and stepped back.
"Again," Suyin said.
Pei Yan ran it again.