There was no storm that night. Tui lay awake in his fancy new shelter listening to no rain falling on the waterproofed roof. This was a change.

  In the morning, after being awoken by two parrots bragging in horrid squawks about the fish they’d stolen, Tui restarted the fire. He parked a breadfruit just outside the coals. Tui's stomach growled.

  He began his morning ritual of siphoning power out of the essence trap crystal. Collecting the essence felt a little different today. It wasn’t smashing through his control. Yes, it was still trying to surge, but Tui was able to maintain an ongoing connection to the crystal. His control had increased to the point that he could throttle the amount of essence entering his body. It still wasn’t comfortable, and it wasn’t easy. But now he was in charge of the essence, it was not controlling him.

  The qi spooled into his dantian onto the spiritual thread. Fat sparks coiled like pearls around and around in a gleaming, sparkling ball. The ball was growing large. It rolled ponderously around his dantian with scant room between it and the walls. He did not have much more room for sparks, even constrained as they were in the ball.

  Once he completed his morning essence collection ritual, Tui rolled the breadfruit out of the fire and split it open. It smelled delicious, like dense sweet bread. He blew carefully on it, cooling it down. He nibbled at the edges as it cooled. It was so good.

  Once it was at the right temperature, he stuffed himself, relishing the flavor. He eyeballed the two thieves in the tree as he ate. He would leave nothing for them.

  The breadfruit trees no longer held any green breadfruit. The season was coming to a close. The trees were loaded with ripe breadfruits the size of Tui's head weighing down the branches.

  Tui loaded a string of qi into his third meridian at his heart, flooding strength into his muscles. He hardly had to think about it. The conduit between his dantian and the third meridian was becoming smooth and open.

  He was grateful for the time he’d spent with his Uncle Ari. The mysteries his uncle shared with him would keep him alive. Equal in significance was the connection to his tribe that Tui now felt. It was like a gate had opened in his heart, allowing thoughts and feelings that Tui had denied himself for so long.

  Using a stick, Tui dug a series of long, deep trenches. Even though he was burning qi, this was hard work. He was grimy and sweaty when he finished. So he had a quick swim in the pool under the waterfall to clean off. He lined the trenches thickly with the fat leaves from the breadfruit trees. Then he picked breadfruit and laid them to rest in the trenches before covering them with more leaves, and finally burying them in the soil. Tui buried hundreds of breadfruits this way.

  In the ground, the fruit would ferment and stabilize into an energy-dense, nutritious goop. This goop could keep for years before spoiling. Tui did not remember eating goop as a child, but Uncle Ari insisted that he do this. It could save his life. The food also traveled well, which might be helpful if he ever got off the island.

  Tui wondered about leaving the island. Where would he go? He had enjoyed his work for the Empire, but he certainly did not miss it. He missed having a comfortable bed. He missed having clothes that weren’t rotting off his body. He did not miss the drama that always followed him. He did not miss the stares of high-caste strangers wondering what someone like Tui was doing in their vicinity.

  The People were not tolerant of anyone else invading their circles. They did not like the look of him. They did not like the smell of him. They did not like the fact that he could turn their lives upside down if he found evidence of wrongdoing in his audits.

  It was late afternoon when Tui went to his fishing hole and speared a brace of fish. He cooked these along with breadfruit over the fire and carried them down to the beach wrapped in a leaf. He watched the sun sink into the horizon and marveled at the beauty of the sunset lighting up the sky.

  No, he did not miss his old life. He was no more alone here on the island than he had been amongst The People.

  The crashing of the waves stirred up the luminescence from the tiny creatures living in the water. Stars were strewn across the sky in far greater abundance than what he saw from within the city. Tui enjoyed the moment of tranquility.

  That night it did not rain.

  The waterfall looked diminished in the morning. Two days without rain had reduced the runoff that fed the stream. There still seemed to be plenty of essence in the vicinity since the essence trap was full.

  Tui was worried about his essence supply. If the waterfall stopped, there was every chance the essence font would stop too. In any case, the trap would not work without the waterfall pushing essence toward his spiritual formation.

  Whether Tui could add any more qi was another matter.

  The ball of qi could barely move inside his dantian. It pressed against the boundaries, inducing a peculiar spiritual pain. Tui did not have any fancy tricks to reduce the volume between the sparks. The whole dantian was packed solidly. Each spark was pressed hard against its neighbors.

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  Tui settled himself into deep meditation. He fed some qi into the fifth meridian at the base of his skull, boosting his visualization and cognition processes.

  He pictured the problem. The giant ball of sparks occupied the entirety of his dantian. Tui needed to store more essence in his dantian. How could he fit more in?

  As he had attempted previously, he formed his spiritual sense into a bag. He enveloped the ball of sparks and compressed them, squeezing them tightly. With his enhanced control, it might be easier this time.

  Just as before, the burden of maintaining the spiritual shape was immense. Furthermore, the ball did not shrink at all. The sparks were too packed together to concede any room. It was no use, he let the bag shape dissipate.

  Tui pondered the problem and could not see any solutions. He was simply at his capacity for qi. There was no more room.

  He considered the end of the string of sparks. The sparks in the middle of the string were smaller than the outside ones. He might be able to fit in a little more qi if he added to those inside sparks.

  With his spiritual sense, Tui squeezed the large spark at the loose end of the string. It shrank slightly, forcing some energy into the next spark. That spark grew slightly. While maintaining pressure on the first spark, Tui squeezed the next spark in line, compressing it and pushing the qi down the chain.

  Tui was excited. This could work.

  He moved down the string of qi, compressing each spark, pushing the energy deeper and deeper toward the center of the ball. When he got to the end of the string, he left the last spark larger and more full of energy than it had been.

  He started again, driving the qi from the outside sparks, and delivering it to the innermost ones. Over and over again, Tui repeated the process. He completely compressed dozens of sparks on the outside of the ball and transferred all their energy into the center.

  The pressure in the center of the ball grew immense. There was nowhere for the qi to go and Tui was compressing more and more energy into the same space.

  Tui drew from the crystal and restored all the sparks on the outside of the ball. Then he continued pressing the qi inwards, forcing it into the center, over and over again.

  This was amazing! There did not seem to be a limit to how much qi he could force into the center sparks. Tui drained the last of the essence from the crystal and once more restored all the sparks on the outside of the ball. Once again, he squeezed the essence down the chain of sparks, using his control to force it into the packed core of the ball.

  At the center of the ball, the pressure grew too strong. The individual sparks in the middle of the ball burst and flowed into one another. The center of the ball collapsed into a tiny star. The rest of the string of sparks unwound from the inside of the ball and fell into the star. The ball unraveled with startling swiftness, pulling Tui’s entire store of qi into the star before he could comprehend what was happening.

  The tiny star expanded as the qi fell into it, growing larger and more fiery as each spark landed within. As the last spark fell in, the star exploded through the walls of his dantian. The explosion expanded from his dantian at the center of his sternum and flashed over his whole body. The explosion ignited his flesh with molten heat. Tui screamed in utter agony as he burned alive.

  He screamed and screamed until his voice ran out. His scream continued, simply without the sound, barely a whispering moan. The pure pain went on, consuming him. It felt like his bones were melting. He felt a river of fire explode from his bowels and blood ran freely out of his eyes and ears.

  There was no unconsciousness, no sweet relief. Just visceral pain. There was no longer any time. Tui’s whole world was fire. It simply continued for an eternity.

  ***

  And then it stopped. The fire in Tui’s dantian stabilized, a burning, red-hot ball of flame. The flame was constrained by the walls of his dantian just as the sparks had been.

  Tui lay sobbing on the ground. He could not process what had happened to him. His skin felt raw where it touched the ground. His body felt like a wrung-out rag. His nerves were ringing with the sudden cessation of pain. His experience felt like a ripped-out tooth in his mind. Like a bloody hole painful to approach. What had happened? He didn't want to think about it. Things had been going so well.

  He couldn’t open his eyes. Tui didn’t know if he even had eyes anymore. Maybe they were burned out? A terrified shiver ran over his body. He couldn’t see.

  He had a nose though. It told him that he was laying in a pile of shit. It smelled revolting, way worse than normal shit. He gagged, then retched. Nothing came out. He felt like a hollowed-out log.

  One of his ears seemed blocked, but the other was open. He listened carefully for the sound of the waterfall, turning his head to locate it. There it was. The steady roaring was a comfort. Tui was desperately thirsty. The screaming had torn out his throat.

  Tui rolled into a sitting position and slowly crawled toward the sound of water. The rocks were brutal on his knees and the revolting smell was not being left behind. He crawled painfully onwards.

  When his questing hand splashed into the water, Tui scrambled forward into the pool. On the way in, he bashed his knee on something sharp. Tui barely even noticed. He swallowed huge gulps of cool water.

  As his thirst was quenched, he noticed that the revolting smell had an accompanying flavor. He nearly retched again. His hands and face were covered in something slippery and foul. He frantically scrubbed his face with his hands, trying to loosen up the horrible coating on his skin. It stubbornly clung to him. Gradually, the sticky layer washed away under the rubbing of his fingers.

  He pried open one eye and light flooded back into his life. The relief at being able to see was so strong and sudden that Tui’s knees buckled. He flopped back into the water and let himself rest. He floated on his back, letting the cool water assuage his tender nerves.

  The gross, black coating covered his entire body. It was in his ears and nose. Tui was too tired to deal with it, so he stayed where he was. As he floated, it slowly dissolved on its own and drifted away downstream. Eventually, his other eye opened, and his ear unblocked. It still smelled horrible.

  Tui scrubbed the last of it off his face and head. His eyes were drawn to his fingers and he noticed his fingernails were missing. He had no toenails either. The hair on his head and body was gone. It was as if the fire had swept them away.

  As the sticky coating was washed away, he noticed his skin. It was glowing and youthful. The fire had burnt away his age.