“Are you sure about this?” hurriedly asked Jayaka, as he walked right behind Lucia. “Perhaps I could drop you off at a nearby village and pick you back up when I’m finished?”

“I’d love to take a vacation after all I’ve been through, but I can’t afford to take any risks,” replied Lucia as she continued Westwards, not bothering to look back at her rescuer. “If you end up getting killed by that raksh… demon, I don’t want to have to spend the rest of my life living in some random village away from my son. And I don’t want to risk you running away after you do your job, leaving me there.”

“I made a promise, and I never go back on my word!” Jayaka stopped in place and gave Lucia a pained look.

She stopped too and finally turned back to him. “Yeah, I shouldn’t say that kind of thing about you after you saved my ass back there. Sorry.”

“I forgive you,” replied Jayaka with a soft smile. It quickly dropped back into his previous worried frown. “But the rakshasi is still incredibly dangerous, and an injured woman without any training such as yourself is guaranteed to become its next meal.”

“Huh? I’m not injured. What are you talking about?”

“From your story about yesterday, you talked of the sect’s guard wounding you! Though you don’t seem very bothered by it now…”

“They kind of just disappeared when I woke up,” Lucia shrugged. “Not sure why, but I did eat a bunch of gooseberries the night before, and that same guard said something about them being an ingredient in healing potions.”

“I’m not very familiar with the Northern sects’ elixirs, but I am aware of the restorative properties of gooseberry. Many of their ingredients don’t quite line up with what we down South consider safe or acceptable to eat.”

“I know, right?!” exclaimed Lucia. “Apparently, the other ingredient is cinnabar!”

“The poison?! That’s a risky game they play, only those who have honed their bodies can properly excise it.”

“Tell that to them, they apparently feed it to their newbies! Haha! Wait, Daniel’s a newbie! Oh god, I really hope he doesn’t get injured enough to need one…”

“Worry not,” said Jayaka with a reassuring smile. “You said you and he are supposed to grow at an accelerated rate, so even if he has to drink one, he will be able to purge it in little time. And speaking of growth, you said you were healed by merely eating some gooseberries?”

Lucia let out a sigh of relief. “I hope so. And yeah, that’s all I’ve eaten since I got here, besides those dried fruits you gave me. So why do you think I got better?”

“Healing potions require both gooseberries and a source of fire prana-”

“Hold on, prana?”

“Energy, the force that permeates and binds reality together.”

“The guy at the sect called it chi, and I’m pretty sure I know what that is from old kung fu movies.”

“Yes, that is what they call it up here, though I don’t believe I’m aware of what these ‘movies’ are.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Lucia casually waved her hand in the air. “I think I have all of the context I need.”

Jayaka nodded. “Right, and I think you might have sourced the fire from your own body! You said you just arrived in this world yesterday, yet you are already learning to channel prana! That is something that takes students many months, if not years, to master, and you have already done so in a single day!”

“Huh, I guess that makes sense. Also explains how I turned my knife into a fiery sword.”

“Into what now?”

“And used it to slice open that raka-whatever’s heel.”

“Huh?!”

“What? How do you think I was able to get so far away from it before you showed up?”

“C-could you please show me?”

Lucia pulled out her kitchen knife and glared at it. The only extra heat it held was from being sheathed so close to her body. She wasn’t surprised at the lack of activation, remembering the sort of emotions she felt when it first lit up. Rage, desperation, and a hint of guilt. She tried to cycle through them while focusing the closest thing to her “internal energy” out her hand and through the hilt. Still nothing.

“You’ve gotta believe me, it was like three, maybe four feet long! This usually doesn’t happen, heh.”

“I believe you,” said Jayaka. “But if you’re unable to summon it, you’ll be defenseless against the rakshasi.”

“I mean, I could stay in the back while you take care of business! …You can’t convince me to not come along.”

Jayaka let out a long sigh. “I know. That’s why I will train you to control it.”

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily- wait, for real? Let’s go!”

The two sat cross-legged in the middle of a small clearing. The short grass touched their bare feet as the cawing of crows and ravens could be heard overhead. The afternoon sun shone down with a mild intensity, but could be felt even through the thin foliage.

“You said you’ve called forth fire before, so I will teach you to do so again,” said Jayaka to his new student.

Lucia, sitting across from him, nodded in response. “So how do I do that?”

“Prana is not easy to see, and is even harder to grab hold of. Let us start with learning to feel it. First, close your eyes and take a deep breath.”

“Mhm,” she said, doing as instructed. “Now what?”

“Clear your mind of all extraneous thoughts. All that exists is your own consciousness, your breath, and the heat of the sun.”

“Sounds a lot like meditation.”

“That is exactly what it is,” nodded Jayaka. “All practitioners perform it, as it is the best way to control the senses. When they are no longer a distraction, you can make use of the sense you never knew you had.”

“Alright, let me give it a shot.”

The day dragged on as Lucia continued her meditation. Well, her attempts at meditation. She did her best, but worldly worries kept worming their way into her mind. Her son’s situation, how she was no longer on Earth, and the fact she volunteered to go demon hunting with a man she’d just met! But worst of all…

A gurgling sound resonated from her core, loud enough to make Jayaka open his eyes in surprise.

“Did you harness it? That sounds like the roaring fire within you!”

“Uh, that was a different kind of roaring…”

Her ever-patient teacher let out a quiet sigh, but still loud enough for her to hear.

With this sudden change, Lucia’s mind was taken away from all other thoughts and instead entirely focused on her stomach. All she’d eaten in the past two days was fruit. She was ready for a proper meal, dammit! But she didn’t dare open her eyes to ask for one, not yet at least. She could forgo a meal for a little longer, especially if it would improve her chances of survival against whatever they’d be up against next.

Several more minutes passed. Despite her best efforts, Lucia was unable to focus on anything other than her growing appetite. It was hard when there was nothing else to distract her from it beyond a vacuum of thoughts. With a sigh of her own, Lucia handed over the reins to her mind and let her stomach take the driver’s seat.

Hunger. A desire to eat and feel satiated. It was a familiar feeling, one that the single mother had experienced many times throughout her life, and not just in her belly. A hunger for love and acceptance from her parents when she’d gotten pregnant at a young age, for any kind of support when she was forced to strike out on her own with her son, for mere survival when she had almost nothing and two mouths to feed.

Dark thoughts sparked across every neuron in her brain, taking Lucia to a morbid place. But through the darkness, she began to feel a small, but irritating light. It wasn’t anything from within her, though. It was the sun. It forced the misery away and revealed another emotion she felt during those times, something she was feeling right now. The desire to survive.

The sudden realization brought forth a mental chain reaction that grabbed Lucia by the ears and dragged her along for a ride. That was what hunger was, the desire to survive! Every time she’d fought, she did so to live, for her son to live. Even the feeling in her stomach was there to tell her she needed food to get the energy needed to live.

And that hunger was just like a fire. Fire ate what it could get its hands on, grow, live. It wouldn’t give up until it was out of fuel and energy, until there was nothing left. Her will to survive, it was a will of fire.

Lucia began to feel a new force welling up in her stomach, a swirling inferno contained within her lower torso, and it wasn’t acid reflux. She opened her eyes and pulled at the feeling, letting it flow up her body and through her arm. Lucia held out her right hand and let the feeling flow up her wrist and out her palm.

“And you have learned to harness your inner fire,” smiled Jayaka.

Lucia stared at her hand, and the vibrant red and yellow flame that made its home in her palm. Wisps of flame flickered off from the main mass, their light reflecting off her wide eyes.

“Yeah, I guess I have,” replied Lucia with a chuckle. “But it’s getting pretty low, so how about we feed it? I’m starving!”