Everyone around dropped at once, moaning in pain and confusion. Seth's chest tightened when Bacchus looked at him. Should he have dropped with them? Standing out gets you killed here, after all. Fortunately, Bacchus looked away and launched right into a lecture about how they would be strengthening the body to handle more qi. Seth was confused; his body was plenty weak, so why was he still standing? Questions raced through his mind, and he took a deep breath to calm down. One step at a time.

  "Where are you from?" Bacchus asked, jolting Seth out of his thoughts.

  Seth wasn't sure how to answer, but hesitation seemed like a bad idea, so he answered, "Earth, senior brother."

  "I assume you don't literally mean from the ground?"

  "No, that's what we've named our world." Seth said.

  "Of course it is...Anyway, how did you arrive here?"

  Seth gave him the quick version. When he mentioned the fight, Bacchus seemed shaken, but stayed quiet. The silence hung in the air.

  Eventually, Bacchus continued, "Did you see anyone who had brands like yours?"

  "Yes."

  Bacchus smiled sadly, and chuckled, before saying, "You truly are unlucky."

  Seth didn't answer, hoping Bacchus would continue. Instead, he called some servants over. They had a quick huddle, then split apart to their various tasks. One took Bacchus' spot leading the initiates. A couple more rushed away in different directions. Seth could only guess their goal. And it was Seth's lucky day, as one servant had stayed to give him special attention.

  The servant was a short, middle aged woman with multiple rings on her hands. "Sir, follow me," she said, her grey eyes and tone of voice telling him the 'sir' was more courtesy than actual respect. Seth stood and smiled, waiting for her to take the lead. Eventually, she grinned, before turning and leading him away.

  She led him down some side streets to a smaller courtyard. They started doing the same exercises as before, only at triple speed. She pulled a monocle out of her robes, and watched him through it. It wasn't long before he felt lightheaded, but she kept the pace up. Even when his arms and legs turned to lead, he pressed on. The memory of the disciples that had been converted to pills proved an excellent motivator. The torture kept going on, his lungs burned, and he started coughing wet coughs. The taste of iron filled his mouth, and his vision swam.

  "Why aren't you using your qi?" she asked.

  "How do I do that?" Seth choked out between coughs.

  She looked confused, but her expression softened as she handed him the monocle. He put it on, and lights and colors flooded his eyes. There were lines of green, blue, and red surrounding all of them, and dots of light of all colors coming off of everything. The rush of information stabbed into his brain, and he closed his eyes to get some relief. After getting used to the information overload, he started to see patterns. The green dots flooding into her in time with her breathing. He looked down, and could see the flows in his arms and legs. Where the burning under his skin was worst, the lights were there. Eventually, he found his qi responded to thoughts. He moved the qi away from his lungs, and the burning stopped. He pushed the energy into his arms, and tried to push himself up to a seated position. Instead, he found himself ten feet in the air, crying out as he fell back to the ground. Somehow, he managed to land without breaking anything but his pride.

  Once she stopped laughing, they continued. Seth got to keep wearing the monocle, and seeing how she manipulated the energy was helpful. He tried to copy it, usually failing, but not always. It reminded him of trying to weld for the first time; he was sloppy and made mistakes. The idea was simple, but the execution was tough.

  Bacchus had always worried about being dragged before the elders for a hearing like this. He had heard whispered tales of disciples being summoned by the elders, never to return. Back then, he had laughed at how ridiculous the stories had been. Now that he was before four elders and the grandmaster, he was no longer laughing.

  "So you are saying that you believe the missing inductee was assisted in their escape?" asked Elder Timmon, fingers stroking his long beard.

  "That's the only way they could evade tracking, honored elder," replied Bacchus, fighting to keep his voice even. He felt their technique twisting through his soul, trying to detect any hints of falsehood. Rationally, he understood, but the way the technique squirmed inside of him was nauseating.

  Desperate to keep his mind off the technique, he focused on the qi stones providing light to the room. The lights were not for the elders benefit, but for the disciples that were summoned here. That way, the disciples had no excuse for failing to show proper respect. The lights were positioned so that the elders were backlit, making them formless silhouettes. As dim as the light was, Bacchus felt like they were spotlights beaming into his soul.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  "One point of clarification. This was seen by an inductee who was found days after the missing one disappeared, not you. Correct?" Elder Phillip cut in, leaving elder Timmon's mouth hanging open. The move was politically interesting for Bacchus, but he forced it out of his mind.

  "Yes, honored elder."

  "And the initiate's name is Seth, correct?" continued Phillip.

  "Yes, honored elder."

  "Tell me, what do you think of the initiate?" asked Phillip, his voice gentle.

  "He truly has a great...ugh" Bacchus started, before nausea lanced through his gut, forcing him to throw up. The technique he had been trying to ignore asserted itself, and didn't stop until he had thrown up three or four more times. He lost count.

  "Now, now, self deception is unbecoming of a cultivator" asked Phillip, he said in a sing-song manner, standing up and pacing behind the other side of the table. "Now, take a moment and make sure you're remembering correctly. It would be...unfortunate if you made such a mistake again."

  "He's unlucky," Bacchus spat out, not trusting himself with thinking through his answers anymore. A cold sweat ran down his back.

  "Oh, why would you say that?" asked Phillip, now stopped. Bacchus couldn't see his face, but could feel his gaze bearing down on him. No, not just his gaze. He felt Phillip's presence bear down on him, and the weight was crushing to the point he could hardly breathe.

  Scrambling for an answer, Bacchus settled on, "He doesn't have the background to take advantage of the opportunity, honored elder." The wringing of his gut stopped.

  "One more question," asked Phillip, his sing-song speech becoming harsh and direct "you aided inductee Sule's escape, correct?"

  "No, honored elder," answered Bacchus, expecting their lie detection technique to expose him. Seconds ticked by, and he was surprised that he was still alive.

  While Bacchus was anticipating death, Phillip had gone quiet. Timmon took the chance to force his way back into the interrogation, "Now, what to do about this Seth. I believe a quiet disposal would be for.."

  "No," said the grandmaster. He didn't raise his voice at all, nor did he need to. All sound in the room had stopped to make way for his voice. Timmon's mouth had continued to flap ineffectively for a moment before he realized what was going on. Once he had everyone's attention, the grandmaster continued.

  "Have you already forgotten about the karmic magic that protects this place?" replied the grandmaster, the anger in his voice rising. "Are you simply an idiot, or perhaps you're a traitor..."

  Timmon's eyes went wide, and he tried to say that he was not a traitor, but no sound came out. He flailed his arms around and threw himself to the ground. The other elders had distanced themselves from him.

  "Leave," said the grandmaster, and Bacchus found himself outside the meeting chambers before he could blink. After he realized he had survived, he took deep breaths to calm his racing heart. He smiled, and hoped his friend Sule was doing well wherever he was. He also confirmed that the lie detection magics employed by these frostbitten ghouls were not perfect. They were brutally effective, but left enough blind spots that Bacchus could work around. Having calmed down, he smiled and made his way back to the courtyard he had left his initiates.

  Seth and Bacchus returned to the group at around the same time. Some of them had managed themselves into a sitting position. Most were still sprawled out, groaning and panting from the exertion. Upon Bacchus' return, the symbols on their bracers faded, and qi returned to them. After a short break, the bracers were activated and the struggle began anew. Other than a short meal break, that is how the rest of the training session went.

  As they were wrapping up for the day, Bacchus called him over, handing him a scroll.

  "Learn this tonight, and give it back tomorrow," Bacchus said.

  Whispers of discontent spread through the crowd. He continued, "He has met the requirements to learn the technique. Once you can stand while having your qi suppressed, you will also be permitted to learn. If you try this technique sooner, you will most likely cripple your cultivation." The unhappy mutterings stopped.

  He whispered to Seth, "After you return this to me tomorrow, you are no longer required to attend these sessions." Then he left. When it became obvious Bacchus wasn't coming back, everyone left, with most people splitting into small groups. A few people were throwing him nasty glances, though most kept their eyes ahead, focused on leaving. Not happy with standing out, Seth decided to leave as quickly as possible.

  After getting back to his room, Seth opened the scroll, and got an answer to the burning question of what it felt like to have a book seared into your brain with a hot poker. After the agony died down, he realized a couple things. First, his throat was raw from screaming. Second, the scroll had transmitted more than just words to his brain. The scroll had diagrams that came to life in his brain when he concentrated on them. *Ok, that sucked, but this definitely beats trying to memorize books for days on end* he thought to himself. After a few minutes to recover, he got to work.

  The technique was a complicated two part technique. The first part was a precise dance that helped the qi absorb and flow into the right places. The second part had him sit and compress the qi within his body. The second part of the process was unnerving, as he felt like it could tear him apart from the inside. Once he got comfortable with the process, he started experimenting with it. At first, little experiments to see what would happen if he changed the dance a bit. It didn't do much except make that cycle worse. He also discovered that if he couldn't do the movements at all, he couldn't condense the energy.

  As he experimented, though, he started to notice a problem.

  It took hours of experimenting for Seth to force himself to accept what was happening. The energy he was pulling in was also being stored in seven other places in his body. They were places he knew well. Placing his finger on a large lump underneath his rib cage, he felt it pulsing with power. The fucking cancer that had stolen his life, was now coming for this too.