Imparting knowledge

Exiting the room Bran Ai walked out and made his way back past the room with all the clerks, past the front entrance and out into the stone streets.

Bran Ai walked through the street following the scenery he recognized passing to make his way back.

There were less people walking along the street then earlier making Bran Ai feel more comfortable and less worried about making a mistake that could cause other's to berate him or to notice him.

Bran Ai enjoyed the scenery around him watching as the birds flew from tree to tree singing their songs, watched as the warm wind carried fallen leaves, watched as people made their way across each path all headed to their own destination living their lives.

Such liveliness was new to him whom had always lived on the outskirts of his village.

The house's made long rows in all directions with alleyways leading deeper into areas with even more housing hidden inside.

Fighting the urge to enter one of the alley's Bran Ai kept to the main path not wanting to get lost.

Along the way he saw people of all sorts carrying objects of all kinds, no one seemed to pay attention to him much to his delight.

'This place is nice, peacefull'

Bran Ai looked up wishing to take in the sunlight but for some reason the sky above felt a little odd.

He looked at the streets for a moment feeling something was odd.

Bran Ai walked slowly for over an hour until finally finding his way back to the underground building he would now call home.

It shouldn't have taken him so long even if he was curiously observing his surroundings but he had not eaten anything for a few days already, at best he ate some of the snow on the path yesterday while today his tired body had to walk even more with no nourishment.

Ahead of Bran Ai, an old man sat back on a chair relaxed.

It was Abbas.

"Come here child" Abbas called to Bran Ai, he had been waiting for each child to impart his first and final gift onto them.

Bran Ai made his way over, he saw Abbas as one of his savior's to be respected even if the interaction could be considered basic.

Although Abbas only guided the way indifferent to each child, without his guidance Bran Ai felt that even though his dream of escaping his past life came true it would still be a hard life.

Guidance may not physically do anything for him, but it was what he needed at the moment.

Bran Ai wholeheartedly believed everything happening right now was positive.

Abbas did not make small talk, he placed two fingers on Bran Ai's forehead.

Bran Ai felt something enter his head.

"Now go, do not waste time and cultivate yourself"

Bran Ai no longer heard Abbas's voice in his head, for the first time Abbas had spoken aloud.

"What are you surprised about, I simply imparted onto you the ability to understand my speech, I did the same for all of you, now stop wasting time and go" Abbas waved his hand telling Bran Ai to go away.

Bran Ai looked at Abbas before quickly nodding and walking away.

Even if Abbas had done the same to all the children besides himself, Bran Ai would remember this gift.

Entering his room Bran Ai saw all his roommates for the first time.

A boy with long dark brown hair, a girl with long black hair, and the sleeping boy from earlier with short black hair.

"H-hi" Bran Ai greeted them with a low voice, his heart was slightly pounding harder.

None of the children answered him, they simply looked up returning to reading the booklets in front of them paying him no further attention.

Bran Ai quickly made him way to the back of the room where his mat lay, he was slightly red.

He quickly made himself busy pretending to read the booklets in front of him.

'Huh? how?...'

Bran Ai looked up to his side.

Through the window bright warm light shinned clear illuminating the inside of the gray stone room.

He didn't notice before this due to how tired he was, followed by Abbas's quick appearance his thoughts kept being interrupted.

'But aren't we below the earth?'

Bran Ai looked at the other children wanting to ask them about it but he swallowed his words.

'Let's try reading these instead'

He would need to find another time when no one was around to take a closer look.

Looking at the booklets he flipped through each one skimming the contents within.

He didn't understand most of what was written, but unlike before he seemed to have a grasp of certain words.

This was Abbas's gift, wisdom.

Bran Ai looked through each booklet until finally grabbing the one titled [Letters and speech the basic's].

Flipping through the first few pages Bran Ai started to get an understanding as to the contents of the book without anyone explaining it.

'So these are the symbols that represent individual letters that make up a single word or make up a word'

Page by page Bran Ai learned the basics of reading and writing, while not quite knowing what they sounded like but in his head the sounds came together.

He couldn't actually use this knowledge yet, even if he imagined how it should sound like, the reality of it would probably be different.

'I should ask the old man about this, ah! but not right now he already told me too... cultivate? Am I cultivating right now?'

Bran Ai looked at the other children thinking of asking them, but once again chose not too.

Looking at them, one was reading the same booklet as Bran Ai, the other had gone to sleep, while the last seemed to be sitting cross legged with his eyes closed.

'Have a feeling they don't know either'

Time seemed to pass quite quickly while he didn't notice.

He went back to reading, even if he didn't know what the words sounded like he still knew what they meant so he would be able to understand the contents of each book regardless.

It was rather odd, some letteres seemed to be the same as other yet the words meaning was completely different while others seemed to be the same word yet the meaning changed depending on other words that came before or after it.

Looking through the booklet for twenty minutes had greatly enhanced his knowledge and expanded his comprehension.

Still... It got boring after a while.

Bran Ai looked at another book [Basic Qi gathering technique]

This booklet had both letters and diagrams with the diagrams making up the majority of each page, Bran Ai gained a small burst of mental energy.

'Sit down and cross your legs, close your eyes and relax your body, feel the energy of your body, feel the energy in the air as it touches your skin and imagine yourself drawing this energy inside yourself'

Bran Ai read the book and looked at the pose in the diagram comparing it to the boy sitting cross legged.

'This is what he's doing?'

Bran Ai quickly sat himself up and copied the pose, he gave it a quick re-read and then started to relax himself.

'Feel the energy inside of me, feel the energy outside of me'

Bran Ai tried to feel the energy within himself, his eyes closed, he relaxed his body and felt the blood in his body pulse from time to time, this was his heartbeat.

He couldn't feel the energy inside of himself.

'Maybe there's not enough? Lets try to feel the outside energy'

Bran Ai changed tactics.

This time Bran Ai felt the air in the room, the warmth it carried and how it touched his skin.

Little by little this air passed by and whenever he felt it touch his skin Bran Ai felt a little enter his body.

'I can feel something entering, but I can't feel it inside of me still'

A Question arouse in his mind 'What am I doing wrong?'.

Bran Ai was troubled but he carried on regardless.

'Maybe there simply isn't enough energy... Or Qi yet'

Above the underground building Abbas felt the changes in the wind, he was feeling the spiritual energy inside each of the rooms and watching them carefully.

'That kid seems to know what to do, it's to bad his spiritual roots are such a low quality. His progress will be hampered until he reforms them multiple times, truly too bad' he gave Bran Ai a passing look giving him a basic judgement before looking at the next child.

Indeed, Bran Ai's knowledge and understanding weren't interior to others, his body simply didn't have the ability to keep up with his own lack of talent.

It was a matter of writing beautiful lyrics but not having the voice required to sing them.

With plenty of practice one could sing but it required stamina, training the lungs, and knowledge or guidance to learn how to properly sing.

'Ah here come's the last one, now I can leave this to someone else'

Abbas had done what was required of him and would no longer involve himself with the children.

In the room Bran Ai kept drawing the energy of the surroundings inside, little by little his empty spiritual veins came to life and Qi coursed through his body.

'...I can feel it, the energy inside. But it doesn't seem to last long'

Bran Ai would continue to gather the spiritual energy around him before his mind and body forced him to take a rest.

Laying his head on the hard mat, Bran Ai feel asleep with a faint grin on his face.

'I'm here now, as long as I work hard I can stay here...but I am really hungry, at least I have somewhere to stay but I'm really hungry' with that his eyes shut close and his thoughts ceased.

Abbas had forgotten that the children had only just started to cultivate, they still needed constant nourishment otherwise they could collapse of hunger.

On this day, the children of this building went hungry.