Jemini

A repeat of my earlier info-dump warning from last chapter. I think I managed to make this chapter a little more interesting, and it talks about stuff that is a little more in-world relevant. This is the chapter where most of the plot-relevant points come up, so there are more reasons to read this chapter than the previous. It is still a little too heavy on points that could be skimmed over though.

Again, I will sum up all relevant information in an author's note at the beginning of chapter 18.

“Moving on, now it’s time to talk about the more advanced meditation techniques,” I said.

As soon as he heard this, Rolwen got a weird smirk on his face. “So, is this where you start talking about yin-yang spirits and chakra and stuff?” he asked.

I tried to avoid groaning or rolling my eyes at the comment. “The concept of yin and yang is really more of a philosophy about opposites. You can apply it to almost anything where there are two things that are opposite to one another,” I told him.

“Alright, so, like, maybe masculine and feminine energies?” Rolwen asked.

“Maybe that’s a thing,” I said. “I don’t know enough about the subject but, from what I’ve seen, there is no meditation technique that works better in the hands of one gender or the other. At least not among those that I’ve studied. As such, I don’t pay much credence to that concept.”

“Hmmm..” Rolwen groaned.

“Chakras, though... that’s a fairly popular theory that has recently seen some scientific semi-recognition. Really, it’s more like they had recently discovered something on Earth that warrants more research. A fluid circulation system in the body that travels through the interstitial space peripherally to the blood vessels and lymphatic system. It had never been discovered before because they had only ever studied the circulatory system of cadavers, and it only exists in living…” I suddenly had to stop talking, because Nymph had started floating straight toward me. More importantly, her upside-down head was on a collision course with mine.

“Ah! Nymph! What are you doing?” I demanded, and waved my arms about to ward her off. It was completely ineffectual. My arms pass straight through the head of her incorporeal projection.

“Hehehe! You’re doing the same thing Tia does,” she said without even acknowledging my hand that had just gone through her head.

It took me a second to realize what she was talking about. I had jumped into some pretty heavy medical jargon. Well, it was kinda hard to help that... The paper I’d read on the subject was in a scientific journal. I could probably explain it properly so the rest could understand, but to do that I would have to give them a lesson that was several hours long on the body’s complete circulatory system. An advanced lesson on the subject, covering all body fluids rather than just the blood.

“Uhh… yeah, well…” I paused and tried to consider what to do with this. “Well… I guess I’ll just skip to the end. They found a part of the body’s fluids that followed the same tracks as the chakra channels, even when there were no blood vessels in the area, but the medical community has no idea at all what it means yet. So, at the very least, we know there’s something going on with the chakra system.”

“Hmm…” Levin piped up. “Maybe it’s the actual shape of the spirit, and the way it moves the body fluids is part of how Tia said the spirit can influence and strengthen the body.”

“Could be,” I said. “Sounds good, let’s go with that.”

“That sounds a little irresponsible as our teacher,” Rolwen commented.

“I don’t have so much ego that I’m going to ignore a good conjecture from my students,” I said. “Besides, as I told you already, it’s not an area that science understands properly. As such, the only thing we can do is make conjectures, figure out which conjectures make the most sense, and observe whether or not we get results from it. In other words, we’re now in a world where the metaphysical has been proven real. However, that does not mean the scientific method has suddenly become unviable. We can still learn more things far more reliably by forming and testing conjectures, refining them into a hypothesis, and then devising the proper experiments before we can say anything definitive. Science does not deny the existence of magic, it’s just that on Earth our tools of measurement were insufficient to capture the proper data we would need on this subject.”

“Magic is just science in a world with different laws of physics,” Rolwen commented.

“Ehh… not really,” I said. “Science is a methodology for separating truth, plausible speculation, and unfounded nonsense from one another. Magic is an applied principle. On Earth, magic was an unfalsifiable conjecture, with nothing to prove it. Here, it’s been proven to be a true phenomenon. We, from Earth at least, just don’t fully understand it yet. Science is a tool that could help us understand it better now that we can observe it in action.”

Rolwen looked at me skeptically for a moment. “Ok, I just gotta ask. What was your job back on Earth?”

“Nurse, and martial arts instructor on the side,” I said.

“A nurse!?” Rolwen said in a surprised tone. “I was thinking a scientific researcher of some sort after you said all that. And wait! Didn’t you say you were a man in your 60s? I know we have male nurses now, but…”

“Yeah, when I said I wanted to be a nurse they looked at me like I had said I wanted to be a fire truck...” I commented. “It was harder back then, guess you can call me a trail-blazer. Anyway, nurses have to be fairly well grounded in the scientific method in order to apply best medical practices. I don’t do research myself, but I follow the research of others quite closely. In fact, it’s actually a requirement in order to keep your license in most states.”

“Wow, that’s kinda crazy,” Rolwen said.

“Umm… I think you’re both pulling a Tia now,” Levin commented.

“I blame ADHD!” Rolwen said.

“I guess I can’t criticize anymore,” I said. “Sorry, so, where were we? Ah, yes. More advanced meditation techniques. There seems to be something to the idea of Chakra, and I’ve studied it, but the meditation I’m going to teach you for my style does not concern itself with chakra at all. You don’t need to worry about it. Maybe I’ll teach you sometime later if you’re interested, but for now, it'd only interfere."

“What I’m going to teach you,” I continued, “is a visualization styled meditation. This one focuses on the four classical Greek elements plus a fifth visualized element we have designated as ‘void.’ It is a visualization and moving meditation, and it has a philosophy built into it as well as certain complex concepts that are attached to each element.

“Now, I’m going to define some terms. Visualization is another meditation technique. You might call it the intermittent technique. Now, that’s not an intermittent technique. Visualization is the one and only technique that serves the purpose of bridging the basic techniques, which allow you to focus your mind, into the advanced techniques. The advanced techniques will allow you to actually accomplish some pretty unusual tricks. Back on Earth, the best you could get is self-hypnosis and some heightened senses. The best uses could get you something of a weak sixth sense. Here, according to what Tia has told us, visualization is most likely going to be the thing with the best chance of having some kind of magical effects.

“Movement and self-hypnosis are examples of advanced techniques. With movement, you can achieve a fully meditative state while physically in motion. Moving meditation is actually fairly ingrained into things like slinging and archery, as well as knife throwing. You won’t find it in the modern commercialized martial arts, but I’m operating under a rather strong impression that it was part of most of the more traditional ones. If you are using a martial art that includes moving meditation like this one, it’s not just that you are able to meditate while fighting. Your ability to fight actually increases if you are in a meditative state.”

“Well…” Rolwen said, “I can tell you that BJJ and MCMAP didn’t have moving meditation.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” I said, “BJJ is fairly commercialized, and MCMAP is what we call a soldier’s martial art. That is a stripped down and reduced version of a real martial art that just teaches a soldier the basics of how to do basic offense and defense the right way. It includes a few techniques, but not how to use them at their most effective level. Although, admittedly, the battlefield tends to bridge a lot of the gap in terms of application.

“Soldier’s arts are still way more effective than a commercialized art, but they don’t really train you to the full capacities of the art, and it’s the people who see combat that tend to fill in the final missing gaps in the style. The main thing the full version gains you is the ability to fight well without needing to see combat first to get you there. I’d favor my chances as good against a fresh marine, who’s never seen combat and has learned some MCMAP. If it’s someone who’s seen combat, though, then I don’t know who would win and I don’t really want to find out either.”

“Well, I’ve seen combat, so we’re probably going to find out here at some point, when it comes time to spar,” Rolwen said.

“A spar is not the same as serious combat,” I said. “I’ve learned a lot from sparring with those marine fellow students I told you about before.”

Rolwen lifted up a finger as though he had something he wanted to say. Then he paused and stopped, shook his finger with an ‘I see what you did’ grin, and then sat back and looked around the room awkwardly.

“So,” I said, “with all the introduction out of the way, let’s get down to actually going over the meditation. Usually you are supposed to do a kata with it, but it is also possible to just meditate with the breathing technique. The breathing technique is the mantra for this meditation. As for the kata, it is slow, simple, and repetitive. Basically, the same three motions again and again for the kata of each element. The purpose is to distill the idea of the element into the movement, and get you used to moving while feeling the element’s sensation becoming part of your motion.”

“Do you think you can cast magic by doing your kata?” Levin asked.

“I was just thinking the same thing.” Rolwen backed him up.

“I think I’m already doing some kind of magic thing with the void meditation, making my spirit undetectable even to Tia, but I take it you two want me to try a move that’s a little more flashy,” I said. “It might damage the room a little, though. Nymph, will that be ok?”

“So long as it’s not fire,” she commented.

Or water, I thought. That would also make a big mess. I’ve seen Nymph warp around the wood of her tree body on the regular, so I suppose she could recover from anything that wind might wind up doing.

With that in mind, I turned to face the wall. The way all five kata went was to block an attack and then follow up with a counter. The counter for wind was a thrusting attack just below the shoulders or hips. The target would be the femoral or brachial arteries, which would allow the limb to be caught in a way that would push it, rather than just damaging it, thus allowing for even unarmed and blunt-weapon using versions of the kata to at least destroy the presumed enemy’s stance.

I went into the breathing pattern for the wind meditation. I took a very quick breath in as I mimed the block, and then I let out a long and forceful breath, as though I was trying to blow away a piece of paper, as I thrust my hand forward.

I heard a cracking sound from the wall, and Rolwen instantly went running toward the area I had targeted.

“No way!” he said. “Was that the earth kata? This looks like it was hit by a 50 cal rifle!”

“It was wind, actually,” I told him.

Rolwen looked at me for a second and then immediately broke out into laughter. “Freaking air bullet!” he said. “Ok, this magic stuff is officially OP. That hardly even made any noise except the cracking wood when it hit!”