Harness Your Chi!

Bai Ling waited until night to even look at the books. She didn't know if Madam Fu had people watching her. It would be naive to think that only Instructor Ding was watching her.

So Bai Ling stayed in her room and waited until the girls went to sleep. With a night lamp and the books in hand, Bai Ling started to read.

The book she started with was the "Harness and Refine Your Chi" book. As Bai Ling read the book, she learned about what chi was.

Chi was the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. Every living being is born with chi and the ability to harness chi. However, not everyone learns how to harness it.

The next section was what Bai Ling was looking for: how to harness chi. To harness chi, one had to open their dantian points.

This was the first time that Bai Ling heard about the dantian points. The book said to open one's dantian points. You had to go somewhere filled with spiritual chi and assume the lotus stance.

This way, the chi in the environment will come to you.

Finding this easy enough, Bai Ling assumed the stance the book showed her. Bai Ling waited and felt nothing. She decided to give it some time to see if she could feel the chi.

After a while, when nothing happened, Bai Ling opened her eyes and read ahead. Nothing told her what she was doing wrong.

[You're too impatient, fool.]

The voice came out of nowhere, and Bai Ling looked around the room. Everyone was sleeping, so she ignored it for now. She wanted to know where the voice was coming from.

Bai Ling went back into the lotus stance again and tried to feel the chi within. Bai Ling wanted to give up again, but very soon, the air around her became cooler. Feeling excited at this development, Bai Ling stayed in the stance.

The cool feeling became a soothing warmth as it seeped into her skin, and Bai Ling felt something moving straight through her. The warmth went through her head, chest, stomach and slowly circulated to the rest of her.

"Wow." Bai Ling knew she was harnessing her chi now. As she felt the warmth rush around her, she felt like she could go on forever. However, she felt resistance after a few hours.

Bai Ling didn't know that it was shocking enough that she could harness so much chi for hours. When others harnessed their chi, they could only absorb chi for an hour or two.

When Bai Ling finished, the sun was coming up. Bai Ling felt sticky all over, and her beddings were soaked as well. Seeing her dorm members stir slowly from their sleep, Bai Ling put the books under her pillow.

As the girls started to wake up, a few of them noticed the air was cooler.

"What happened? Why is in here so cool?" One of the girls stretched as she spoke.

"Who cares? This means I can stay in bed longer." After speaking, another girl dived back under her comforter, going right back to sleep. Hearing her snores resume, some of the girls chuckled at her antics.

Bai Ling 'woke' up as well soo after. She grabbed her bathing stuff and left ahead of the girls. The girls forgot about Bai Ling until they saw her quiet exit.

"Does she hate us? Why doesn't she talk to us?" One of the girls called Jiang Wei hit the girl on her head.

"Stop acting as if you wanted to talk to her. Why would she talk to us when she doesn't know us?" The girl rubbed her head, looking aggrieved but remained silent.

In the meantime, Bai Ling was bathing in the bathhouse. A few girls there saw her cleaning up and discussed her. Being used to the murmurs about her, Bai Ling ignored them.

Now that she harnessed chi, she wanted to refine it as soon as possible. Thinking back to the voice she heard last night; Bai Ling wanted to know who or what it was. That was the third time she heard the voice. It sounded like a child's voice.

Who was messing with her? She had to find out soon.

*

Bai Ling was the only one in class who couldn't fight. Bai Ling stood at the side and watched the other students learn the different forms of the Raven Claw Strike. This was the signature martial form of the Black Bird Academy.

The students of the academy used its techniques as the base of their martial arts. Looking at the movements, Bai Ling realized that she could remember then easily. So while the rest practised them, she memorized everything.

Bai Ling knew she needed a place to practice at night, so she looked around the courtyard. Only three guards stood by in the courtyard. So practising here at night wasn't possible.

Bai Ling looked to the forest area that was east of the courtyard. Was it possible to go there? She would come back later to find out.

Instructor Ding Ji studied Bai Ling who stood to the side. He noticed that the chi around her was dense. He couldn't believe how dense it was. If one really looked at her, with their keen senses, they could not see her figure. The only thing that would be visible would be a golden ball of fire and light.

She did it. As a teacher, he was excited, but he couldn't show it. Instructor Ding had never seen such a concentrated amount of raw chi on a person before. He wanted to do what Madam Fu said but how could he when Bai Ling was such a good seedling?

So Ding Ji decided then and there that he would hide this from Madam Fu. Little did he know, this was the best decision he ever made.