Hunger eventually drove him out of his funk. The sun, now high in the sky, had burnt off the haze.Stomach rumbling loudly, Tui returned to the stream, keeping his eyes on the trees and bushes for something edible. He passed by a tree with large, yellow, bumpy fruit, which tickled a long-lost memory from childhood. It was familiar to him. Breadfruit?Throwing a stick at a fruit the size of his head, Tui knocked one down. It broke open when it hit the ground. It had a thick starchy texture and tasted slightly sweet. He gorged himself as he walked past the waterfall, and out to the beach. Tui rested under a tree on the beach, looking out over the water. He watched the surf crash onto the reef in the distance. He needed to take stock. He needed a plan if he was going to survive.He shifted into the lotus position and closed his eyes, focusing on breathing and calming his emotions. He breathed slow and steady, letting his heart rate fall, allowing his body to relax into a state of deep meditation.Tui was good at strategy and analysis. Skills honed first at the academy, and then through endless practice. Reaching inward with his spiritual sense, letting his consciousness expand outward like a balloon. In this state, his powers of cognition were enhanced as emotions and bodily sensations fell away.To survive, he needed food, clothing, and shelter. He had the first two, and with the materials on hand, he could build a rudimentary shelter. However, Tui wanted more than survival. He wanted to thrive and get back to civilization. He had the means to do both. To thrive, he needed qi, which required harnessing the essence font at the waterfall. Tui needed to remember exactly how it was done.Tui reached into his dantian. There were only two little sparks remaining since he had not been able to replenish since arriving. That didn't matter, what Tui was about to do only took a little energy. He carried a spark carefully along the well-worn conduit to the fifth meridian at the base of his skull. There, he carried it along the pathway into his repository of memories, to a specific class in his second year at the academy.He referred to his academy memories frequently and they were well organized. The more he used them, the less convoluted the pathways became. The class he looked up was Principles of Spiritual Formations.Memories exploded into his awareness, diagrams and schematics, theories, and rules of thumb. Tui loved this feeling. Something that had been so distant springing to life as if he'd just taken the final exam. The formations instructor loved his subject and taught it engagingly. He had included all sorts of trivia and snippets that were peripherally relevant. His enthusiasm had transferred to the class, and the elective class had received Tui's full attention.Tui searched for essence collecting and storage formations, and a dozen schematics flicked up into his consciousness. These were highly refined, efficient designs requiring engineered crystals and precise spacing. Tui did not have the resources to implement these. He swept them aside and combed once more through his memories of the class.One particular design stuck out. It had been included in his class as an exercise in minimalism. The design used natural materials, which were inconsistent and often unreliable over the long term.The beauty of the idea drew him in, and he found himself imagining the possibilities. Tui envisioned ways to make improvements and to adjust for the current conditions. In fact, the modifications seemed obvious. The topography was conducive to focusing essence at a particular point. All he had to do was to redirect the scattering of the essence.For the next two hours, Tui gathered the necessary materials, then hiked them to the waterfall. He carefully placed three identically sized conches the same distance apart around the pool.He arranged all the conches to be at the same height, stacked on stones of various thicknesses. At the base of the waterfall was a large, round rock. There, Tui stood an obelisk of obsidian, about as long and thick as his thigh. He cradled the obelisk on three smaller stones to be on the same plane as the conches.Theory said essence would follow the plunging waterfall and scatter across the surface of the water. The conches should reflect it towards the obsidian obelisk, which would capture some of it. Tui would then be able to absorb the essence at his leisure.In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there's often a difference indeed. Tui was not a spiritual formation engineer, but he thought it would work. He would check the essence trap the next day.Caught up in the building, Tui hadn't noticed how dark it was getting. Nightfall came early in the rainy season. He hurried to find some breadfruit for his supper while he could still see, then ate while watching the sunset. After dark, he folded his robe for a bed and laid down under the stars.Tui felt a measure of peace and satisfaction. His body ached from his exertions and his mouth was still sore, but his spirit was buoyant. After such a harrowing experience, he was alive! He had survived and had taken steps to go beyond that. The thought filled him with hope and optimism.Tui fell asleep almost immediately, only to be awoken by rain that poured from the sky in torrents. Thunder smashed his ears and lightning split the night sky. Tui grabbed his robes and huddled beneath the overhanging branches of a nearby tree, sheltering himself from the driving wind and pounding rain.At that moment he questioned why he had prioritized the essence collection over shelter. Perhaps he had been too hasty to harvest the essence. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do except wait it out. As the storm raged through the night, he dozed off, slouched against the trunk with water dripping around him.Morning dawned, and Tui awoke, shivering and soaked to the bone. He cautiously stretched out his muscles, discovering he was even more sore than he had been the day before. He considered warming himself with qi but there was not enough left.The collecting obelisk was still standing upright where he had left it, so he waded into the cold water and plucked it from the stony cradle. He could feel a small warmth emitting from it.He was surprised by the amount of essence trapped within the crystal. Even though the design was far from optimized, the trap seemed to have worked well overnight. He brought the stone back to the shore and sat facing it.Tui pressed both palms onto the sides of the obsidian, and carefully reached for the energy with his spiritual sense. A tiny trickle crept into him. The trickle swelled into a violent surge, standing his hair on end. He gasped at the sudden rush of energy but continued to hold on. The burst slowed down as quickly as it started, then died away.Tui fell back, trembling in reaction to the rush. Wow!This was wild essence, not the tame stuff that came in pills! He had only managed to convert a little of it into qi. However, even that small quantity was about the same as what he obtained from a pill. He had never heard how to handle this sort of essence. The recovery process would require some experimentation and refinement, but that would have to wait for the trap to recharge. In the meantime, Tui needed shelter. He was not going to spend another night in the wet.Tui replaced the obelisk into the charging cradle and went to find some breakfast. After a filling breadfruit meal, he walked the beach to gather building materials.The process was unexpectedly exciting. He found a palm with some dead fronds hanging within reach. Tui tugged on the first one, which came free easily, along with a smattering of dirt and particles that rained over his face and body.Blinking it out from his eyes, he pulled the next frond, which dumped even more junk over him. As he grabbed the third one, he felt a sharp pain on his neck, followed by more on his face and arms."Ow! OWWW you little fuckers!" He was covered with angry little ants biting all the exposed skin they could reach.Tui ran down the beach, stripping off his clothes, and dove into the water, frantically brushing the pests from his head and neck. The ants did not forgive his trespasses upon their domain and continued biting him savagely.The cool water eased the stings, and after a few minutes of scrubbing, Tui was left in peace. Covered in itchy welts, he climbed out of the water. He shook himself vigorously and returned to gathering fronds, this time taking care to stand aside when pulling them down. Within an hour, he had collected a large pile and dragged them up to his base at the waterfall.Tui set about building a crude shelter using fronds and some driftwood. He stacked the driftwood into an interlocking frame and draped the palm fronds over the top. He lashed it all together with fibrous palm leaves. Tui spent a few minutes admiring his handiwork. It was rough, but it would keep him dry when the rains came again.Tui was hungry again but discovered he was growing a bit tired of breadfruit. It seemed strange he could be happy to be alive, feel lucky he had food, and yet feel sick of eating breadfruit.Tui glumly ate some anyway. There were many trees, and the fruits were so big he could barely eat a whole one. There was enough around to feed him for a long time.If Tui wanted other food, he would have to make some tools. For the kind of tools required to thrive on this island, he would need to dig into his childhood memories. Tui was not at all keen to relive his childhood as a savage.