Amid the dark night a lone boy sat still in his room, his reddish-brown hair that barely drooped past his neck swayed gently in the draft leaking through the wood boards, his eyelids concealing his bronze-golden eyes creating a picture of serenity, however, inside Shu He was anything but that.
His steady breathing abruptly stopped as his heart began to beat faster than a war drum, inside his minds eye he could feel it, almost see it.
A pale golden flame resting inside him, it seemed to gently burn off the endless void as it flickered like a candlelight, he felt a close connection to it and as his emotions peaked the flame swayed violently.
As it 'burned' he could feel its warmth penetrating every inch of his body, cycling around and returning to the source, it felt comfortable and refreshing, as he released his held breath, the warmth left he cycle of his body and in to the air, as he breathed in it returned and the little flame strengthened.
'Is this it?' He thought to himself.
'This has to be… a flame, I shouldn't be mistaken!'
"Accept the heavens, ignite the flame; The path before you shall unfold" He recited it once more in a whisper to himself, as he finished he became elated.
"I did it!" He jumped up and held his fists up in the air with joy, before realising how loud he was and covered his mouth; it was the middle of the night so he didn't want to wake anyone up, he quickly looked towards his door and as he did, something unexpected happened.
A pale golden warmth seemed to suffuse his senses, and a light golden tinge coated his pupil, before he could tell what was going on he felt the world around him expand.
'What?!' He fell on his backside yet ignored the pain tinging his rear end completely, his senses were entirely overwhelmed by what he was experiencing.
It wasn't the same as 'seeing' everything around him, it was an entirely different feeling, it was like his senses had merged and turned In to something different, he could 'feel' everything around him, like outlines with millions of fireflies shifting around objects, if he focused he could hear the slight shifts of the wind, the light creaks of wood or the chittering of small insects outside, he focused on a specific spot, a pair of bright lights made up the shape of two humans, one male and one female, it was his parents laying in their bed, the form that made up his mother was calm, the lights slowly faded brighter and dimmer whereas his father's form was bright, occasionally jittering.
'What does this mean? What am I seeing?' He didn't understand exactly what was happening, he just kept looking around and observing things, he felt he could see about 30 or so meters away, easily enough to clear the area around his house, the more he looked the more he saw a pattern, humans, animals and insects seemed to glow with a brighter light whereas everything else were covered in less 'lights', everything seemed to flow towards one another in a grand loop.
His mind felt overwhelmed, it felt like whenever he inspected somewhere every sense of his followed, if he felt he could feel the grooves of the wood many meters away, yet he could tell he wasn't really 'touching' it, even more so he could taste it, he had no control over what senses were used, so it resulted in many sour or bitter tastes filling his senses, it was out of control as his mind seemed to wonder all over.
But eventually a sense of dizziness took over Shu He, like a monitor with its plug pulled his senses cut back to normalcy, his eyes peered in to the darkness of his room, the tastes filling his mouth were gone and all his ears could hear was the gentle breeze.
'I feel sick…' His head felt like it contained a few kilos of lead and his stomach felt like it was twisting, he pulled himself up on to his bed, collapsing on to his back, as he laid still he tried focusing his vision on the ceiling to stop his head spinning but it didn't work, eventually he closed his eyes once more.
He focused inwards on himself once more; he felt the flame that was burning inside him.
'It's smaller' The pale gold flame was almost a tiny ember, it was about a tenth the size it was before.
"So that… whatever it was consumed it? It didn't last long either, maybe a couple minutes…" He recalled how long he was in that state and compared it to the size of the flame, quickly working out how much was consumed, afterwards he continued to lay still, steadying his breathing and watching the state of the flame.
After 10 minutes of rest the side effects subsided and he felt fine once more, but more importantly the flame had grown once more, growing to just about 5 times the size, so half the size it was initially.
'It's consumed a lot faster than it regenerates, but at least it doesn't take too long to recover'.
He couldn't help but smile as he laid on his bed.
'This is AMAZING! All cultivators get this?! I wonder what other wonderous things come along this path! I can't wait!'
"What should I call this?" He talked to himself, while he won't be talking to anyone about this ability he felt he needed a name for it, even if it has a name out there already.
'Divine Sense?' He thought of a name commonly used in novels he read but shook his head.
'Feels a bit too early for that, I don't feel it's divine enough'
He thought some more and opted for a simpler name.
"Qi perception" The words left his lips and he nodded to himself.
'Those small gold lights, this little pale flame inside me, this is 'Qi' right? I shouldn't be wrong about this… so it's like this huh'.
He had opened his eyes and focused once more, the warmth once more embraced his senses and the flicker of light rose in his pupil as he observed the household.
'Gah, when did Father get there?!' He almost jumped in surprise when he observed the house and saw a male figure standing on the other side of his door, but he kept his mouth shut and didn't move, he quickly put two and two together and figured something out.
'The 'lights' around my Father were bright, but those around my Mother were dim, was it because she was asleep and he was awake?' He felt for sure this was correct and was joyed to realise this.
'On top of that, even though I'm observing my father it's just my sight and hearing, none of my other senses are used…'
It was only the second time using the 'Qi perception' yet he was learning fast.
'An instinctive reaction, limiting the use of my senses? If this is true I can train myself to change what I use manually…'
He was already planning out what he would do in his mind, he would do everything he could to find out what he could do with this ability and experiment as much as possible, the only backlash seemed to be a headache and slight lethargy so it was easily rested away!
Soon his headache returned and his Qi perception ended, he rested up and initiated it again, he looked towards the door and his father's figure was nowhere to be seen, causing Shu He to breathe out in relief.
'I know he is a skilled hunter, but he's way too silent! I could barely even hear his breathing with Qi sense… I'm nowhere near his level'.
He had definitely improved in his skill as a hunter and with a bow over the past two years, but he still paled in comparison to his father.
'Either way, I'll keep going until I'm tired, it took me just over two years to get here but I'm finally on the first step! I won't stop now.'
And so, for the rest of the night he went through a loop of using Qi perception and resting all the way until the morning when he finally dropped asleep from tiredness.