The slip was heavier than it looked. Bamboo strips bound with cord, ink faded but steady, diagrams etched in dark strokes.
Elementary Formations: Barrier Arrays.
It was among the simplest manuals permitted in the outer halls of the Li Clan Library. Older children barely glanced at it, choosing martial stances or alchemy notes. Yet to Heng, it was a window.
He unfolded it carefully.
The first page showed a circle broken into four points, each marked by a symbol. Arrows traced Qi from one node to the next, looping until pressure gathered and released as a shimmering wall.
Heng's chest stirred. Nodes. Channels. Flow.
On Earth, he had drawn circuits across whiteboards—resistors, capacitors, amplifiers, electrons chasing paths through copper. What he saw here was the same script in another alphabet.
Qi isn't ghostly. It's current. Arrays aren't spells—they're boards. The difference is only the carrier: electrons there, Qi here.
The manual explained collapse: a cracked node, uneven channels, Qi forced too sharply.
Circuit failure. Overload. Short. The principle is the same.
His breath quickened. The library was not a vault of myths. It was science disguised as ink.
Around him, the others leafed through their own manuals.
Jian tossed aside a spear scroll. "Arrays are for cowards hiding behind walls."
Rou scowled at forging diagrams. "Without arrays, half the weapons in your hand would break."
Wei grinned. "Then we'd see who has courage left."
Mei, head bent over ledgers, said evenly, "Without arrays, gates would not open, furnaces would fail, and no army would march."
Shun's eyes stayed half-lidded. When Wei called arrays "fancy locks," he murmured, "Locks decide who eats and who starves." His words lingered longer than anyone expected.
Heng said nothing. His brush moved steadily, copying diagrams onto fresh slips.
He redrew the array, then overlaid Earth in his mind.
Qi channels as wires. Symbols as resistors. Nodes as capacitors. Release node—a transistor, triggering flow outward.
He thought further: If an array channels Qi through stone, then the body must be an array of flesh. Breath is input. Meridians are wiring. The dantian—power core. Failure comes not from lack of energy, but from crooked alignment.
The idea quickened his pulse.
He tied the slip closed as if sealing a secret.
Later, in the quiet of his chamber, he sat cross-legged. A candle burned steady at arm's length.
He closed his eyes. Not incense now, but the diagram.
Breath in—current enters. Breath out—current cycles. Meridians as wires. Nodes must align. Rhythm regulates flow.
Inhale. Exhale.
The flame steadied.
A flicker brushed him. Warmth curled faintly in his chest, longer this time, prickling across his skin.
It works.
His breath faltered. The flicker collapsed.
Dizziness struck. His vision swam.
Smoke pressed in—not from the candle, but thicker, harsher. Heat. Beams above. The weight of air burning. A trembling hand touched his brow. A voice hummed, tired, soothing.
His heart lurched. He gasped, and the vision tore apart.
The flame wavered wildly.
He sat breathing hard, sweat cooling across his forehead. His fingers gripped the bedding.
Failure. Again.
But not emptiness. The flicker had lasted.
He wiped his palms slowly, gaze settling on the diagrams.
Arrays collapse when channels are crooked. Circuits fail when components mismatch. My breath falters because rhythm breaks. I must tune it like a design—precise, measured, repeatable.
He lay back, exhausted.
The warmth lingered faintly in memory—smoke and a hand, a hum too distant to name.
Not miracle. Not myth.
Logic. Rules. Science written in breath.
And anything bound by rules could be understood—and once understood, refined.