Once again, the tea tasted like concentrated regret with undertones of suffering.

Ash set the empty cup down and watched Physician Wen pour another measure from the clay pot. Steam rose in lazy spirals, carrying the scent of bitter herbs and something that might have been tree bark or possibly someone's poor life choices distilled into liquid form.

"Third cup," the physician said without sympathy. "Drink."

"This is punishment for something."

"This is purification. Your body carries residual blockages that interfere with qi circulation. The tea breaks them down." Physician Wen's expression remained neutral. "Would you prefer the enema alternative?"

Ash drank the tea.

The purification regimen had started before dawn—not that she'd been sleeping. Three days of preparation: specific foods, meditation exercises, and enough herbal tea to float a small boat. All leading to this morning's attempt at accelerated meridian opening, which Yao had described with the concerning phrase "unprecedented approach to fundamental energy recalibration."

Lin Mei appeared in the doorway, her usual energy dampened to something approaching professional concern. "Grandmaster Yao is ready. Brother Tian has prepared the chamber."

The cultivation chamber occupied the library's second floor, isolated from the compound's general noise. Ash climbed the stairs slowly, her body lighter than it should be after three days of minimal solid food. The building's wooden frame creaked under her footsteps. Afternoon sunlight slanted through latticed windows, painting geometric shadows across worn floorboards.

Inside, the chamber held little beyond a circular mat woven from some plant fiber and marked with symbols she didn't recognize. Yao sat cross-legged at the northern point, Chen Rong at the southern. Between them, the empty mat waited.

"Sit," Yao commanded. "Face east. Legs crossed, spine straight, hands in your lap with palms up."

Ash settled into position. The mat was surprisingly comfortable, slightly yielding under her weight.

"Close your eyes," Yao continued. "Breathe naturally. Don't force anything. Forcing creates resistance, resistance creates blockages."

She closed her eyes. Darkness replaced the chamber's geometry.

"In standard cultivation," Yao's voice came from her left, "we guide qi through specific meridian pathways. Twelve primary channels, eight extraordinary vessels, connecting at key points throughout the body. This is the foundation of proper circulation."

Chen Rong spoke from her right. "But your energy structure doesn't follow those pathways. Attempting to force it into standard circulation would be like trying to make fire flow like water."

"So we adjust," Yao said. "Chen Rong and I will channel refined qi into your system. Not to unblock meridians, but to stimulate your core energy reservoir. Your power emanates outward from a central source. We need to expand that source, strengthen its output, and remove whatever interference prevents full manifestation."

"This will be uncomfortable," Chen Rong added. "Don't resist. Let the energy flow through you even when every instinct screams to expel it."

Ash felt their hands settle on her back—Yao's between her shoulder blades, Chen Rong's at the base of her spine. Warmth began building at those contact points.

The qi entered her system like liquid lightning.

Her body convulsed. Every muscle locked, fighting against the foreign energy that flooded through her. It burned without heat, pressed without weight, filled spaces she hadn't known were empty.

"Don't resist," Yao's voice cut through the sensation. "Breathe. Accept the flow."

Ash forced her breathing to steady. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The qi continued pouring in, following pathways that made no sense according to anything she'd read in the sect's texts. It spiraled inward, converging on a point two fingers below her navel—what cultivation texts called the Lower Dantian.

But when the energy reached that center, it didn't settle or circulate. It crashed against something, an invisible barrier that held it back, and the pressure built like water against a dam.

Pain exploded through her core. White-hot agony that had no physical location but radiated through every part of her simultaneously.

"Hold," Chen Rong said, his voice tight with concentration. "We're reaching the blockage. This is the critical point."

The pressure increased. The qi they channeled pushed harder, testing the barrier, searching for weaknesses. Ash's fingernails dug into her palms. Blood welled where skin broke.

The barrier cracked.

Not a clean break, but a hairline fracture that allowed the smallest trickle of qi to seep through into her core. And where that trickle touched her innate energy, a reaction occurred.

Her flame ignited internally.

Not like a simple spark, but like the beginning of an inferno in her center. Her power surged in response, drawn toward the new opening, toward the foreign energy that had somehow created a gateway.

The qi Yao and Chen Rong channeled met her fire and instead of extinguishing it, fed it. The flames grew hotter, brighter, expanding to fill the space the qi created. The barrier didn't break further, but the crack widened incrementally, allowing more exchange between external qi and internal fire.

"Enough," Yao said. His hands lifted from her back. Chen Rong's followed a moment later.

The sudden absence of external qi was almost worse than its presence. Ash gasped, her body swaying forward before she caught herself. Sweat soaked her borrowed robes. Her hands trembled in her lap.

"Open your eyes," Yao instructed.

The chamber materialized gradually, her vision taking several seconds to focus. Both men watched her with expressions of controlled concern.

"How do you feel?" Chen Rong asked.

"Like I was struck by lightning and survived through spite."

"Accurate assessment." Yao stood, joints making minimal sound. "You felt the barrier?"

"Hard to miss."

"That barrier is the fundamental issue. Your energy wants to expand outward naturally, but something seals it in. Standard meridian opening won't help because the problem isn't in the pathways—it's at the source." He paced to the window, staring out at the compound below. "We cracked it. Not much, but enough that some exchange can occur between external qi and your internal flame."

"Will it heal on its own now?"

"No. What we did is analogous to creating a small hole in a dam. Water flows through, but the dam remains. We need to systematically widen that opening until your energy moves freely."

Chen Rong moved to a low table where tea waited—not the purification horror, but something that smelled like normal tea. He poured three cups. "This will take time. Weeks, possibly months for full restoration. But we have three weeks until the Gathering."

"Can you fight?" Yao asked directly.

Ash raised her hand and reached for her flame. The fire came easier than it had in days, responding to her intention with only slight delay. Orange-red, flickering but stable, lasting... twenty seconds before exhausting her limited reservoir.

She let it die and met Yao's gaze. "Not well. But better than yesterday."

"Then we continue tomorrow. Twice daily if your body can handle the strain—morning to expand the opening, evening to reinforce the progress." Yao accepted the tea Chen Rong offered. "Between sessions, you'll train with Chen Rong. Basic martial forms, conditioning exercises, whatever your physical state permits."

"Why martial training if the goal is restoring my powers?"

"Because," Chen Rong said, settling onto a cushion, "cultivation and martial practice are inseparable. The body is the vessel for qi, and a weak vessel limits what you can contain and control. Also, you'll need to demonstrate combat capability at the Gathering, not just produce pretty flames."

Fair logic.

They finished their tea in silence. Ash's body felt hollowed out, every movement requiring conscious effort. The session had lasted perhaps an hour, but it had consumed energy she didn't know she possessed.

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"Rest until evening meal," Yao said, collecting the cups. "Tomorrow we begin in earnest."

The training yard stretched fifty paces across, bordered by wooden posts that had absorbed decades of impact. Chen Rong stood at its center, empty-handed, wearing practice robes that allowed full range of motion.

Ash approached slowly, her body still recovering from yesterday's cultivation session. Sleep had helped, and the morning's second energy infusion had gone marginally better than the first, but she felt like a cracked vessel barely holding together.

"We start with basics," Chen Rong said without preamble. "Stance is foundation. Everything else builds from proper rooting."

He demonstrated. Feet shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, weight distributed evenly. His posture relaxed but ready, like water before it moves.

Ash mimicked the stance. Her legs trembled after thirty seconds.

"Lower," Chen Rong instructed. "Sink your weight. Feel the ground supporting you."

She adjusted. The trembling intensified.

"Hold until you can't."

Two minutes passed. Her thighs burned, breath coming in controlled gasps. When she finally collapsed, Chen Rong nodded approval.

"Again. This time focus on breathing. Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth. Match your breath to your heartbeat."

They repeated the stance training twenty times. By the end, Ash could hold position for three minutes without collapsing, though her legs felt like they'd been replaced with poorly constructed furniture.

"Good," Chen Rong said. "Now we add movement."

He flowed through a sequence of positions—each one transitioning smoothly into the next, his body moving with the kind of efficiency that came from endless repetition. Forward step, weight shift, arm extension, retraction, lateral movement, return to center.

"This is the foundation sequence of Flowing Mist cultivation," he explained. "Every technique our sect teaches builds from these eight positions. Master them, and you can learn anything else we practice."

Ash tried. Her body didn't flow—it lurched. Where Chen Rong's movements were water, hers were wood attempting to imitate water and failing comprehensively.

"Stop," Chen Rong said after her third attempt. "You're thinking too much. Analysis has its place, but martial forms require muscle memory, not intellectual understanding."

"How do I develop muscle memory without understanding what I'm doing?"

"By doing it repeatedly until understanding and execution merge." He moved to stand beside her. "Watch my feet, not my whole body. Just the feet."

He repeated the sequence slowly. His feet traced patterns across the packed earth—weight shifting from heel to ball, toes gripping for balance, subtle adjustments maintaining center even as his upper body moved.

Ash watched three repetitions, then tried again. Better. Still awkward, but the individual movements started making sense as components of larger patterns.

They drilled the sequence until afternoon sun slanted low across the yard. By then, Ash could execute the eight positions without completely embarrassing herself, though her form lacked the fluid grace Chen Rong demonstrated.

"Enough," he finally said. "Tomorrow we'll add hand positions. For now, rest."

Ash collapsed onto a stone bench at the yard's edge. Every muscle protested. The morning's cultivation session combined with afternoon martial training had pushed her past comfortable limits into territory where existence itself felt like an aggressive choice.

But her hand summoned flame without conscious thought. The fire burned steady for thirty seconds before exhausting her reserve.

Progress.

"You learn quickly," Chen Rong said, settling beside her. "Most disciples need weeks to grasp the foundation sequence at even basic level."

"Pattern recognition."

"More than that. You're treating martial forms like a language, breaking them into component parts and rebuilding understanding from those parts." He uncorked a water flask and drank. "It's the same approach you used when analyzing our technique problems. Unusual methodology, but effective."

"Speaking of technique problems," Ash said, nodding toward the disciples practicing across the yard, "I can see where their forms break down now."

Chen Rong followed her gaze. A dozen disciples worked through various sequences, supervised by an instructor whose name Ash hadn't learned.

"Explain."

"Watch the one in the middle—third from the left. His transition between second and third position introduces a very slight pause that disrupts the flow. It's barely visible, but it creates a moment where his weight distribution becomes vulnerable to disruption."

Chen Rong studied the disciple. After three repetitions, he nodded slowly. "You're right. I never noticed because the pause is so brief."

"And the woman on the far right—her hand positions are technically correct but her fingers stay rigid. The forms emphasize fluidity, which means fingers should remain relaxed until the moment of actual technique execution. Her rigidity creates tension that transmits up her arm and affects her shoulder alignment."

"Also correct." Chen Rong's expression shifted from interested to troubled. "These are subtle flaws. The kind that don't prevent basic competence but create ceilings on advancement."

"They're systematic. Everyone here has similar minute flaws in slightly different places. Which suggests the teaching methodology itself introduces these problems rather than individual students failing to grasp concepts."

Silence stretched between them. The disciples continued their practice, unaware their forms were being dissected.

"If you're right," Chen Rong said finally, "it means we've been teaching flawed techniques for so long that even our instructors don't recognize the problems. The degradation has become normalized."

"It's a hypothesis requiring more data. But the pattern is consistent with what you told me about the 'improvements' your ancestors introduced. Small changes that individually are barely noticeable but compound over generations into significant deviation from original principles."

Chen Rong stood abruptly. "Come with me."

He led her back to the library where Yao maintained his workspace among stacks of texts and scrolls. The old master looked up as they entered, his expression shifting to mild annoyance at the interruption.

"Grandfather," Chen Rong said, "Ash has observations about our disciples' form execution that suggest systematic teaching flaws."

Yao's annoyance transformed into sharp interest. "Elaborate."

Ash explained what she'd observed—the micro-pauses, rigid fingers, subtle weight distribution errors. Yao listened without interrupting, his gaze growing more focused with each point.

"Show me," he said finally. "Not through description. Show me the difference between correct execution and what our disciples do."

"I can't execute the forms properly myself yet."

"Then describe it in terms I can demonstrate."

They spent the next hour with Yao performing sequences while Ash and Chen Rong provided analysis. The old master moved through forms that should have been fluid but contained exactly the subtle flaws she'd identified.

"I see it," Yao said after the third demonstration. He stood still, breathing controlled, staring at his own hands like they'd betrayed him. "These imperfections are so small that I never consciously registered them. But you're correct—they're systematic. They're in everything we teach."

"Can they be corrected?" Chen Rong asked.

"Yes. But it requires returning to source documentation and rebuilding our understanding from foundation principles." Yao moved to a specific shelf, extracting a volume bound in faded silk. "Our founder's original manual. I've studied it for thirty years, trying to decode what made his techniques superior. Perhaps I've been looking at it wrong—searching for advanced secrets when the real answer is simply executing basics correctly."

He opened the manual to a page showing the eight foundation positions Ash had spent all afternoon learning. The illustrations were simple, almost crude, but the accompanying text was dense with instructions about weight distribution, breathing patterns, and energy flow.

"Tomorrow," Yao said, "we'll begin systematic analysis. Comparing original instructions to our current teaching methods. Identifying every deviation, no matter how small. It will take weeks, possibly months to complete properly."

"We have three weeks until the Gathering," Chen Rong reminded him.

"Then we prioritize. Focus on the foundation sequence and our three primary demonstration forms. Perfect those, and it will be enough to show we haven't lost our way completely."

Ash felt exhaustion pulling at her awareness, the day's exertions finally catching up. "I should rest before evening cultivation session."

"Go," Yao said, already immersed in the founder's manual. "Chen Rong, tomorrow morning you'll train Ash while I continue this analysis. In the afternoon, she assists me with comparative documentation."

Chen Rong bowed slightly. "As you say, Grandfather."

They left the library together. Evening light painted the compound in shades of amber and shadow. Disciples moved through their routines, oblivious to the revelation occurring in the library above them.

"You've given us something valuable," Chen Rong said as they walked. "A path forward that doesn't depend on miraculous breakthroughs or external resources. Just careful correction of accumulated errors."

"Assuming the corrections work."

"They will. The logic is sound." He paused at the entrance to the guest quarters. "You're recovering faster than expected. This morning's session—you held the qi infusion for twice as long as yesterday before the pain became unbearable."

"Progress feels incremental."

"All progress is incremental. The difference between master and novice isn't dramatic leaps—it's ten thousand small improvements compounded over time."

Ash nodded, too tired to formulate adequate response. Chen Rong departed toward the main hall, leaving her alone with the evening's approaching darkness and the persistent ache of muscles discovering they could hurt in new and creative ways.

Inside her small room, she collapsed onto the sleeping mat without bothering to change robes. Her body demanded rest, but her mind continued processing.

The breakthrough today, cracking the barrier around her core energy, had been minor in absolute terms—a hairline fracture allowing minimal exchange between external qi and internal flame. But it represented possibility. Proof that restoration wasn't impossible, just difficult.

And the martial training, despite being exhausting, had revealed something unexpected.

She'd enjoyed it. Not the pain or exhaustion, but the process of breaking down complex movements into component parts, understanding how body mechanics translate into effective technique. It was an analysis she could feel physically rather than just conceptualise intellectually.

Her sisters-selves would mock her for finding satisfaction in martial forms. Pyra would make jokes about Ash finally discovering the joy of hitting things. Cinder would point out the irony of the philosophical one becoming a combat enthusiast. Ember would be supportive but amused. Kindle would just be happy Ash was happy.

The void where their presence should be remained. But it felt less oppressive than it had days ago. Isolation was temporary. She just needed to survive long enough to find them again.

She reached for her flame one more time. The fire responded immediately, burning steady and controlled. Orange-red with hints of yellow at the core, lasting forty seconds before exhaustion forced her to release it.

Tomorrow she'd manage forty-five seconds. Then fifty. Eventually, she'd recover enough power to be dangerous again. Enough to search for her sisters without being helpless if trouble found her first.

But tonight: rest, recovery, and the quiet satisfaction of incremental progress.

Sufficient for now.

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