Tui opened his eyes to the bright tropical sunlight. It was just past noon, and Tui was hungry and emotionally drained.

  His chat with Uncle Ari had gone in a direction he hadn’t expected, but Tui was so glad he had summoned the courage to talk to him. What Uncle Ari had told him was absolutely true, he was part of a tribe of explorers and settlers. His people had been navigating over the ocean for centuries, finding islands and making their homes among them. Tui had not been brought to the empire by choice, but he had made his home there. He wasn’t entirely sure, but Uncle Ari had almost sounded proud of him. The next time he tried a spiritual visit, he would invest more qi into it and try to go a bit longer.

  He grabbed his knife and hand axe, then hiked up towards the caldera rim while eating a breadfruit. The island was fairly large and he hadn’t explored much of it yet. It seemed foolish to put off exploration any further.

  While hiking up, he kept an eye out for obsidian chunks. It would be good to have better tools and more specialized ones too. By the time he’d reached the rim, he had found a few good-sized chunks, which he stacked beside the path.

  From the rim the view was magnificent. It was a beautiful island with white sand beaches and dark green trees. Inside the caldera was the small lake Tui had noticed on his first survey of the island. Today he was going to make it to that lake.

  The sides of the slope were quite steep, and he had some distance to go. Tui wanted to try something new with his qi, something he had never been able to do before. This was only going to be possible thanks to the new method of controlling his qi, and the vast quantities of it that he now had available.

  Without dropping into meditation, Tui reached into his dantian with his spiritual sense and snipped off a set of five sparks, these he dragged carefully to his seventh meridian at the base of his spine which governed lower limb dexterity. He only dropped the first spark into the meridian, leaving the other four sparks tied up like lambs at the gate. He felt the meridian begin to consume the spark, making his footing firm.

  Working slowly and smoothly, he did the same to his third and first meridians, bringing a string of five sparks to each, enhancing his overall strength as well as his perception. Doing this without meditation was slower and less efficient, but empowering his meridians while maintaining full awareness was good practice for him. Dragging five sparks through all those conduits made a noticeable difference in widening and smoothing the passages, making them easier and quicker to traverse in the future.

  With his meridians empowered, Tui felt like a mountain cat. His muscles warmed up, swelling with power. He gave a little test hop into the air, landing gracefully on the balls of his feet, his toes gripping the stone. His sense of time dilated, and his senses were fully engaged.

  With a whoop Tui hopped down the inner slope of the caldera, bounding from boulder to boulder, surefooted as a mountain goat. In a few minutes, he had descended about eighty feet and was into the thick jungle, heading towards the lake.

  As Tui crossed from the open rim of the caldera into the jungle below, a chill ran over him. This was a different jungle to the outer side of the caldera. This jungle was dark, with a thick canopy that completely blocked out the sun, a few spears of light making it through the leaves. It almost felt like eyes were upon him, and Tui felt himself stealing through the shadows, using his enhanced perception to search for threats and sniff for danger.

  This did not feel like the friendly island which had provided him food, water, shelter, and essence. This jungle was ancient and malevolent. Tui gripped his hand axe in his right hand, his knife in the other as he continued towards the lake. A parrot screeched from a branch nearby, giving him side-eye as he passed.

  He checked his active meridians. The first spark had been consumed and as he had hoped, the next spark in line had been pulled in. He had some time before all the sparks at the meridians were used up.

  He hiked through the giant trees to the lake without seeing anything but birds, trees, and plants. Still, he felt alert, unable to relax. The lake was beautiful, with clear water lapping onto mossy rocks. Tui had been hoping to find alternate sources of water on the chance that his waterfall dried up after the nightly storms stopped. He tasted the lake water, which was fresh and sweet, running down his chin and dripping onto his tattered robe.

  He had hoped this trip would provide some other resources he could exploit, but Tui had not seen anything useful. At least he now knew that the water was fresh, that he had an alternate source.

  Instead of retracing his path back up the side of the caldera, he angled his path to walk out through the mouth of the horseshoe-shaped ridge. He trudged through the dark jungle, his eyes still casting around for a fruit tree, maybe an interesting rock… …Nope, still nothing useful.

  Through the massive trees, he could see the edge of the jungle where it met the slight slope of the fallen caldera wall. The sun was still bright and cheerful out there. With renewed energy, Tui began jogging towards the jungle edge.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  There was a terrifying scream from behind his right shoulder, a brief patter of hooves, and an impact on his right hip which flung Tui head over heels into a tree. The scream came again and the patter of hoofs came crashing toward where he lay, stunned on the ground.

  Tui forced himself up and dove around the tree just in time to avoid an angry pig driving towards him with flashing tusks. He’d lost both his hand axe and knife in the first impact, he had nothing to help himself. Not that a shitty stone knife or hand axe would make a difference against the bloodthirsty sow.

  She spun around once more and drove at him. Tui leaped with all his might, springing over six feet into the air with the aid of the qi pulsing through his body. His grasping hands just caught the lowest branch of the tree, and he pulled himself up onto it, gasping for air.

  The sow stared up at him malevolently, squealing occasionally with a murderous glint in her beady eyes. Tui caught his breath and began to assess the damage. He had a lump on his temple from where he was thrown into the tree and a wicked cut on his cheek that was bleeding freely.

  His hip was massively bruised and stiffening up rapidly. Tui wasn't sure how he had avoided the sow's tusks in the first strike, but it seemed that he had just gotten lucky in the way that he'd been hit.

  So there they sat, staring at each other, Tui's hip aching abominably. He didn’t know how much longer he could cling to the branch like a fucking parrot. They stared at each other a bit longer, then with a snort, the sow tossed her head and then trotted back into the bush.

  Was she being sneaky? Was that pig waiting in ambush to finish him off the second he came out of the tree? Tui clung to his branch a bit longer.

  His hip suddenly cramped up, then Tui lost his balance and fell like an extremely clumsy parrot out of the tree.

  The ground knocked all the wind completely out of him and he lay flat on the ground with his limbs flailing weakly. He waited for the sow to finish him off. She did not come.

  In tiny gasps, the air came back slowly into his lungs. The sow did not trample him, did not gore him, and fling his entrails over the branches of the tree. He sat up slowly and then got to his feet. A wave of tremors shook his whole body, a reaction to the adrenaline that had coursed through him, a reaction to the terror that had gripped him as he had waited to die.

  He cast around for his obsidian tools and found his hand axe. The knife was nowhere to be found and Tui did not want to hang around.

  He limped out of the gloomy jungle as quickly as he could, out into the bright afternoon sun.

  The walk back took a bit longer than it normally might have. His meridians ran out of qi one by one. His hip was really sore, but he was happy to be alive. He walked in the happy sunshine and relished its warmth. His robe had even more tears in it and was tangling his legs as he walked. So Tui stripped it off and rolled it into a ball under his arm. It felt a little weird to be walking around in his underwear.

  The walk was painful, but it loosened up his hip, and he felt much better by the time he walked into his camp. He had a few hours until sunset, and he needed a new knife.

  Grabbing a few chunks of obsidian and his hammer stone, Tui sat on his fallen tree and spread his robe over his lap. He wasn't keen to get any nicks or cuts in vulnerable areas.

  He carried on with the same process that he used last time when working with the obsidian. Consider where to hit, predict the direction of the split, strike with the appropriate level of force, and assess the result. He activated his first and sixth meridians, increasing his perception and manual dexterity. He hoped that the perception enhancement would help improve his ability to predict how the official would split.

  He carried on working with the obsidian, slowly demolishing three pieces with no good result. This was frustrating. When considering the fourth piece he felt something shift in his first meridian. Something had changed in there. A new pathway had opened up.

  New pathways from a meridian signaled the appearance of an ability related to that meridian. A pathway from the first meridian would have something to do with his perception.

  A thrill of excitement curled through Tui's stomach as he brought a spark from his dantian to the first meridian, and then carefully into the tiny new passage. He pushed the spark through the passageway, which was not very long, and placed it into a little chakra that had formed there. The spark began to be slowly consumed.

  Tui didn’t notice anything different. He looked around, observing the trees, birds, coconuts…

  That was a little disappointing. He picked up the obsidian again, observing it, and tried to predict where it might split. He picked a good-looking place to strike and brought his hammer stone up. In his mind’s eye, Tui suddenly had a split-second impression of the obsidian splitting badly, a twisting crack that would ruin the entire piece.

  He stopped. He reassessed the stone and found another spot to strike, as he brought the hammer stone up, he received another mental impression, this time the stone split perfectly along the line he desired.

  He struck on the spot with his hammer stone and as his vision had predicted, the stone split wonderfully. He checked the little predictive chakra and saw that the qi inside had been completely consumed, this was a fairly expensive ability, but it was so very useful.

  Tui loaded the predictive chakra with a string of ten qi sparks. Then carefully, he struck his workpiece with his hammer stone over and over again, using the visions to guide his strikes, the knife forming exactly as predicted on every hit.

  He held the new knife in his hand, marveling at it, feeling the solid weight in his palm. This handle would not cut him if he held it wrong. The blade was razor sharp, only about five inches long, but good enough for filleting a fish. This knife was something to be proud of!

  He grabbed his spear, some breadfruit, and his new knife then headed to his fishing hole.