I knew I shouldn’t have said that while she was drinking. Well...I knew it afterwards. Li-chen stifled most of his laughter. He didn’t get Blaze’s dirty looks. I got both barrels...both eyes boring into me before she finally gave up and laughed.

  “Told you I wasn’t going to stop back when the President left town. That was sufficient warning,” I said, earning another similar angry look while she calmed down from the release of it.

  I wasn’t sure what our guest made of all this, but he was a wise man. He stayed mostly silent. He exaggerated chewing a big piece of pizza to keep himself from saying something.

  “Will. Give me time, and I’ll get you for that one. Do you really think I’m going to think of something neither of you two can think of? I barely know what you’re talking about. Center of balance. Sure, we were taught that in hand to hand...and when learning to take someone down and keep them down so we can cuff them.”

  She looked at Li-chen. “Is that why martial arts movies show people doing moves in slow motion?”

  He nodded. “We teach the moves slowly so your body learns them correctly. Tai Chi is a martial art practiced slowly for exercise. Tai Chi Masters are ranked with other Masters of their arts. At speed it’s as effective as anything I teach.”

  He shrugged. “My family’s school teaches it to beginners and to people who only want exercise. My older uncle is a Tai Chi Master. Eighth Duan in Wushu...sport ranking. Ninth is the highest.”

  “That’s impressive, but it doesn’t get us closer to cultivating MANA. So...we’re back to relying on Blaze to tell us how to do it, right?” I asked...and received another dirty look.

  She looked like she was thinking of something, and I’d just interrupted her. Then her eyes unfocused and her face went slack. She was doing something internal with the System.

  Rain pattered steadily outside. The windows were grey and streaked with the downpour. The wind had shifted and it was blowing it under the porch roof and against the side of the house. The afternoon was dim, the light from the lamps reflecting faintly off the wet glass. I took another sip of coffee and waited. Li-chen ate more pizza.

  About five minutes and another close lightning strike later, she went to her bedroom and came back with a MANA battery held in her hand. It was one of my rechargeable bead batteries. We watched her roll it around in her hand.

  I guessed it was a full one. She made a fist around it...then her focus went somewhere else again.

  “Is she on to something?” Li-chen asked quietly, careful not to disturb her.

  “Maybe,” I whispered back. Blaze was smart. She was trained to follow clues and leads to find something...or someone. The stuff they teach police and FBI agents.

  The battery glowed once in her hand...then glowed again. It repeated five more times. It looked like she was pulling MANA from the battery, then transferring it back again.

  Why?

  I looked at Li-chen. He shrugged. I returned the shrug. We had no clue.

  Finally, she blinked and looked between us.

  “I felt it coming in and going out,” Blaze said. “I’ve never paid attention to that before when using them. This time I paid attention. The more I focused on it, the more it felt like it went into my stomach. And came out from there. The dan...whatever you called it. That area. The more I did it, the more I felt it.”

  “Dantian,” Li-chen said. “That’s more than I could do, but I’ve never had a battery or a Ley Line to work with either.”

  “You’d need to be a mage...a spell caster...to get the spells to do it. There might be something to it after all. Blaze, could you move the feeling anywhere else?”

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  She shook her head, then looked down...then up at me. “I don’t have the control or the levels you do. I couldn’t get more than that. Maybe with many more tries, I might.”

  “Practice. Just like anything else...you get better with practice.” I reminded her.

  She went quiet, thinking.

  Like Blaze, I didn’t have any System created Mana Batteries, so I reached over to the coat rack and pulled one of mine from my pouch. I wasn't down enough MANA from the five second test that the 25-point battery wouldn’t fill me up.

  “I’m going to try what Blaze did.”

  They stared at me. I closed my eyes and focused on MANA. I didn’t feel full, and less than the 25 points would max me. There would be some left in the battery.

  Focusing on feeling the movement, I drained part of the battery. My MANA rose over two seconds. Normal.

  I didn’t feel directionality...but I could feel the MANA.

  Then I pushed it back. TRANSFER MANA took the full five seconds. The default cast time.

  I repeated it...and tried slowing the transfer down. Tried to feel where it was going.

  It felt the same.

  “Why could Blaze feel the difference that I couldn’t?”

  I tried it again...imposing my EGO. The Game doesn’t have Willpower, but it does have EGO. I hadn’t increased it manually, but I'd gained points in it from leveling. Fourteen more since character creation.

  I tried to use EGO to slow the entry.

  It worked.

  I felt it better. Like it was going low in my body. Belly. Dantian.

  Another cycle.

  Rain hammered the gutters outside. The house felt like its own cave. Thunder rolled.

  Something was in the background. It might have been words from someone...but I didn’t care. I wanted to feel the MANA.

  I lost track of the cycles when I felt someone’s hands shaking me.

  “Will. Will. Come out of it. Break out of it.” Blaze shouted. I finally heard. It was accompanied by hard shaking.

  I forced myself to stop. I opened my eyes. Blaze’s face filled my view. She looked...worried. Tears were in the corners of her eyes, dripping down her cheeks.

  She shook me again, harder.

  “Uh...stop. I’m awake. I’m awake. What is it?” I stammered. Li-chen stood beside her. He looked worried too.

  “What happened?” he asked. “You’ve been out almost half an hour. What were you doing?”

  “I, I’ve…I’ve been doing what she did. Pulling it in and pushing it out. It went in and out...in and out.” I shook my head. “It went where she said. We can move it.”

  “Will,” Blaze hugged me. “We can already move it in and out of a battery. What else did you feel?”

  “It moved faster. Bigger. More.” I struggled to describe it. I didn’t have the words.

  The room sharpened. The TV across the living room. The smell of coffee from the pot in the kitchen. The dark green covering on the couch. Everything felt too vivid. It felt like I’d never really seen it before, and I’ve owned, watched, smelled, sat on, and seen these things for more than eight years and then some.

  “I think it worked. I cycled it in and out and it got easier.”

  “You were starting to flash,” Blaze said, worry obvious. “Once every six seconds. And it was getting faster. You were flashing blue.”

  “MANA blue?”

  They both said yes at the same time. Their faces showed their concern. I felt the worry hit me too.

  “What was I doing? What just happened?”

  Silence.

  Nobody said anything. They just looked at me. I don’t think they could explain it any more than I could.

  “OK. I’m not trying that again without a spotter. Someone who can wake me up. Overall, my MANA’s down a quarter. That’s probably TRANSFER MANA putting it back into the battery.”

  They nodded like they agreed with me. Or felt it was safer appearing to agree with the crazy man. Me.

  “This means there’s something to this. But what? How? Can anyone do it?” Li-chen asked.

  “Well...you can go to the STORE and ask Albert Holms, but you won’t be able to afford the answer.” Blaze said.

  “Will kinda cheated last time,” Blaze said. “He got an answer, but it didn’t help.”

  “How could he cheat the System?” Li-chen asked.

  “I’ll tell you later,” Blaze said, glancing at him. “Right now, we have to take care of him.”

  Her face went blank a few seconds. “I just called Megan. She’ll be right over. Contacting Ingrid now.”

  “Whose Megan?” Li-chen asked.

  “Our next-door neighbor,” I said. “She’s a Healer and makes great cookies. Anything she cooks is good. She’s the grandma everyone wishes they had.” Blaze nodded, agreeing about the cookies.

  A few minutes later the doorbell rang. Blaze got up to answer. Megan and Ryan were there. Again.

  “Will! What did you do to yourself this time!” she shouted the moment the door opened, then barreled inside. Ryan set a large black umbrella off to the side on the porch to drip dry.

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