Descending from the sky the elder brought the children down into a forest - a mountainous jungle to be exact.
Night yet to turn into dawn the opening of a new day was still a few hours away, the elder had a little time to spare.
"All of you, look here" The elder brought the kids to attention dropping them to the floor no longer protecting them inside the light spheres.
The kids lacking anywhere to put the items they had received ealier failed to adjust on time, falling in odd positions trying to not drop what they carried.
A few fell head first on the ground but no damage was done.
Picking themselves up it was only now that they felt the temperature in the air had changed.
Even if it was night time it wasn't too cold, it was humid but not too hot a rather odd stickiness was in the air.
The jungle burst loudly, the animals scattered in all directions avoiding the newcomers ad the shadows of birds quckly took to the air rustling the leaves in their rush.
From the birds screaming at them, to the bugs chriping, to the odd animal they never heard hollering, the children had quickly taken cover.
The kids could not see in the darkness so they attmpted to adjust their eyes but the jungle was an entire new level of dark during night for them.
One kid panicked for a second then remembered quickly what the item at the tip of his spear could do.
He grabbed the blue stone and focused, while everyone ran around or sought shelter he took control.
"Elder I'm scared!"
"I DON'T LIKE THE DARK!"
"Something grabbed me!"
"I-I'm not scared"
Near the center of this group of children a single pale blue light brightened the surroundings.
"I did it!" The boy exclaimed.
The children's faces lit up blue as the light blinded the nearest kids eyes, the shadows cast by the children blocking the light added a whole new level disorder as some started to cry thinking an animal had come into vision from the dark.
Bran Ai having already been at the outer edge of the group was pushed further away as a kid panicked running past him.
Not willing to separate from the group Bran Ai simply pushed the kids arm away and closed the gap with the rest watching as the boy disappeared into the jungle.
"Right we can do that" one said as he looked at the blue light.
"I'll beat the dark back" another attempted to bring light to the surroundings aswell.
A few more kids grabbed onto their own stone shards focusing their minds to push the Qi required to light the stone.
With the crying voices of some it became harder to concentrate the mind, the task became a test of resilience against the storm of panic.
Some stabbed at the dark with their spears or staves, sticks and stones, really with anything they could use to try and ward off the invisible creatures that dared approach.
'Maybe I was wrong, there might be some talent here' the elder thought looking at the child whom used the blue stone shard first.
With a snap of his fingers a barrier fifty feet wide surrounded the area where the kids stood.
It was wide enough for the kids not to notice it and small enough that no animals would be caught inside of it.
As to the child that attempted to run away he had smacked hesd first into the barrier stopping him from getting lost.
Clearing his throat elder Qez said with authority "Silence!"
The children flinched going silent except for one crying child.
"Good. Now that you have calmed down let us start a little training regiment, we don't have much time, so pay attention" lifting his sleave the elder got into a striking position.
"Elder will the light go out if I remove my hands from it?" The child that lit the stone shard was holding the spear in an odd way as to not cut himself.
"No, it should last for a few minutes without the need to provide more Qi to it"
Another light to the side sparkled at this moment the look of pride painted on the childs face.
"I want everyone to look at what I am doing, you don't need to copy my pose, just see the flow of Qi" the elder did not wait, he expected them to comply.
The children huddled up unwilling to be the person closest to the edge.
They bunched up climbing over rocks to look at what the elder was teaching them.
A layer of light surrounded the elder splitting into multiple streams of light that traversed his body forming pathways viewable with the naked eye.
The children could feel their skin begin to crawl as the Qi inside their bodies wanted to leave them.
The light emitted didn't travel far, staying close to the body of the elder without reaching beyond the barriers length showing a level of control seldom seen by mortal eyes.
If someone outside the fifty foot range of the barrier looked in the direction he stood they wouldn't see anything, it wasn't because the barrier blocked one's vision but because the light would never reach them.
This light released by the elder could not be considered simply 'light' after all, it was pure spiritual Qi with its own rules that both superseded the rules of the universe and existed separately from them.
The elder controlled the Qi masterfully, so much so that even the spiritual light of his display of power followed his will.
The children did not really get what the elder was doing, they understood he was using a great amount of Qi but not the reason for it.
"Did you all see?" Elder Qez hoped at least one would get it.
The children stayed silent, what was there to see? The elder felt oppressing yet somehow restrained.
"Um you made squiggly light?"
"You made me feel like throwing up"
Bran Ai was hesitant it seemed to him that the elder had showed them how Qi traversed the body, the only difference being that his own Qi seemed to go wherever it pleased.
'Did the elder want us to see how the energy SHOULD travel? Or how it could travel?' the distinction between these words was both difficult and easy to explain, one insinuated that many paths were available but only one path should be traveled, while the other did not need a set path and made it's own way.
"I'll show you again, pay close attention to the flow of my Qi" the elder got into a pose that was fairly easy for all the children to see from the side.
From his lower abdomen streams of light spread across his body like a net covering his entire body head to toe.
The streams seemed to gather into one point at the end of his fist until it was flattened into a thin layer smaller then the width of a hair.
With a bang the energy burst like thunder, the elder did not punch fast making sure the children could see every detail of his actions, it was simply a release of concentrated Qi.
Some kids seemed to know what was shown entering a sort of epiphany state.
The rest had an idea but couldn't quite understand.
What the elder was showing the children now could be considered a great service to their future cultivation journey.
To make Qi visible to the naked eye so that even theyl could see required a great amount of power to be exhibited.
The elder could have simply explained, he could have shown illusions to make the children see what he wanted to show, instead he made them feel the flow of power coursing across his body and eventually exiting.
"Now, I want you all to do as I did with your own Qi"
This time the elder only showed the punching action, the Qi in the original punch would have drawn the attention away from the stance he wanted to show.
Once he threw a few punches he again demonstrated a Qi punch, the difference was staggering.
At the start several Qi streams surrounded the entire arm of the elder, by the time the punch reached half way the Qi only covered the forearm and fist.
By the end of the punch all the Qi had gathered to the elders fist with all yhe separated Qi stands fusing as one.
The elder punched the air, the air seemed to resist before ultimately being unable to bear it any longer cracking like glass.
The 'cracks' formed by the breaking of air looked to be electrical in nature, just more controlled.
Having finished his demonstration the elder waited for them to attempt to imitate him only to see shocked faces from below.
"Elder is that some magic spell?"
"He made thunder!"
"Elder can I do thet too?"
The elder was pleased with this response but not content.
While not all of them seemed to know what to make of what they had just seen, a good amount had understood.
'This day I have formed some karma with these children, should any die or blame me because of what I've taught them it will make my future ascension more difficult'
"Now that I've taught you, you must practice. Four hours, four hours from now we will leave. That is when the light of dawn will touch the top of these trees"
Four hours was not enough time to really learn anything, not in terms of cultivation at least.
Should the children have all been prodigies they might have been able to copy at least one tenth of what the elder showed, meaning very basic energy movement.
What the elder wanted to accomplish from this was not the discovery of some super genius but for the children to simply have the knowledge of how it should work.
In a moment of danger people are capable of achieving feats not normally possible, this is what the elder would be relying on.
Bran Ai thought about the elders actions, to say it would be a difficult process to move the energy in such a way was an understatement.
Bran Ai's current state could be considered infantile.
He needed to learn how to think, how to crawl, how to stand, how to use his surroundings as support to stand, all of it had to be done in order to walk.
He knew how to think, now he needed to learn how to crawl.
'The Qi moves where I point it to, I can control of one small strand but not many seperate strands'
How many strands of Qi did he have? Fifty three in his best condition, how many was required to make a strong enough punch?
How much Qi could he move at any one time? One strand, the elder had moved at least five but the quantity and quality of his Qi was simply superior.
Where was the Qi located? For now it seemed to move about his body as it wished, while it did tend to gather more to his lower abdomen he couldn't perceive enough of a difference to matter so far.
'Can I gather all the Qi in one place? If I move the Qi here will it stay in place or will I have to keep telling it to stay constantly in place? If I can't how will I gather the energy in one area?'
Bran Ai attempted to gather the Qi in one area but as soon as he let go of the thought controlling that Qi strand the Qi simply moves elsewhere.
Once, twice, twenty times.
It did not matter how many attempts he made it was impossible to control multiple strands of Qi in such a short period of time.
'I'll just try with one for now then'
Focusing his mind onto a single task was far easier then multiple at once.
The Qi strand moved in the direction he wanted, that was good.
'Can I fuse this Qi strand with another?' thinking so he attempted to find another strand to collide with.
Bran Ai searched across his body, this search was only in the mind but it had real effects on Bran Ai's body.
'Found one!' Bran Ai controlled the single Qi strand he held and crashed it into the other.
The two Qi strands merged into one with a bang creating a slightly denser Qi strand as a result that appeared to have two layers instead of one.
Unbeknownst to Bran Ai he had just found a method of advancing his cultivation by pure chance, the merging of Qi to create layers was required to advance in the Qi gathering stage.
Given enough strands are merged he will be able to enter the second stage of Qi gathering, likewise the difficulty of controlling Qi would increase making it more difficult to merge multi layered Qi strands.
Bran Ai then tried to gather another Qi strand using the same method to create an even denser Qi strand but instead of merging, the denser double layered Qi strand directly split the single layered one.
'What happened?' the Qi strand did get slightly bigger but the vast majority of the Qi had simpy been pushed away.
Rule one of cultivation: Accumulation over abundance, the strong rule over the weak.