Arion woke to sterile white light and the hum of machines. His skin tingled, tight against smooth sheets in the private family hospital wing. His body ached in places he hadn't known could ache, muscles taut like stretched leather. But beneath the soreness, a slow, steady pulse throbbed near his heart. Not his heartbeat. Something else.
The Neokondria. His ancient, alien symbiote, now awake. It pulsed in perfect rhythm with his blood, a silent metronome beating deep inside him. Qiothon raw power waiting to be harnessed.
He flexed his fingers lazily and summoned the HaloComm interface. The glowing spirals bloomed over his forearm like neon orchids in a glasshouse. Arion never bothered to memorize the technical jargon; why waste precious time reading when he could listen?
"Hey," he muttered, voice hoarse but laced with boredom, "What is a Neokondria?"
The digital voice droned on, clinical and detached: "Neokondria is a microscopic symbiotic organism formed by ancient human-alien genetic fusion during the first planetary colonization. It is responsible for the production of Qiothon, the energy source that cultivators manipulate to achieve power..."
He cut the feed and rolled over, dark curls brushing the cool pillow.
He sat up, muscles protesting but yielding. The hospital room felt too quiet, too clean. Outside, on his father's second planet, the heat baked everything beneath a blistering sun. Here, he was wrapped in cold sterilization.
Arion swung his legs off the bed, feet touching the cold floor. The pulse inside him throbbed louder now, as if demanding action. Rest was no longer an option.
He flicked his wrist again, activating the hospital's secure interface. "Summon prisoner 43-B," he commanded, voice sharp.
Within moments, the holographic screen flickered to life, displaying a tall, gaunt man shackled in a dim holding cell somewhere deep within the estate's underbelly. His eyes were wild, darting between unseen threats.
"Perfect," Arion muttered. "Bring him here. I want to experiment with him."
The guards appeared seconds later, dragging the prisoner into the hospital room. The man stumbled, coughing from the dry air, but met Arion's gaze with a flicker of defiance.
Arion's amber eyes glinted. He raised his hand, feeling the power simmering beneath his skin. The Neokondria pulsed in harmony, ready to unleash.
Before he tested, he tapped his HaloComm again: "Send message to the Council. Request immediate arrival of the Qi Proficient Teras Malvek. Tell him the prince requires his expertise."
The guards looked confused but said nothing. They knew better than to question orders.
Arion turned back to the prisoner. And he remembered the motions he did when he drained the life out of the assassin. Smiling, he placed his hand on the man's forehead. He grimaced that he didn't like touching peasants.
He recalled the dark power he'd wielded against the assassin—how time itself seemed to wither the man to dust under his touch. Confident, he pressed his palm down, willing the Qiothon within to surge outward like a scorching flame.
The prisoner's body stiffened, his breath caught in his throat. Arion could feel the energy flowing, an intense, crackling pressure radiating from his hand. Yet, something was wrong.
Instead of the sickly decay he expected, the man's skin resisted.
Arion placed his palm firmly on the prisoner's forehead again, willing his Qiothon to surge through and wither the man's flesh like before. But almost instantly, a sharp, burning shock shot up his arm not from the prisoner, but from within himself.
His Qi recoiled violently, as if it refused to obey.
The Neokondria pulsed unevenly beneath his skin, a dark tremor disrupting the usual steady rhythm. Arion's amber eyes narrowed in confusion and growing frustration.
He pulled his hand back sharply, the pain fading but leaving a cold, heavy weight in his chest.
His Qi was rejecting the command, refusing to age this man.
"Why?" he muttered, voice low and sharp. "Why won't it obey?"
Arion flexed his fingers, trying again to summon the same power. The backlash returned immediately, stronger this time a warning embedded in his own energy.
His Neokondria trembled, as if judging his intent.
The prisoner watched silently, eyes wide but still defiant.
Arion's jaw tightened. This wasn't a failure of the prisoner's body or spirit — it was his own Qi drawing a line.
His power would not harm this man. Not like that.
A bitter smirk tugged at the corner of Arion's lips. "Interesting."
Arion turned away from the sting in his palm, fury simmering beneath his composed exterior. He stalked to the edge of the hospital room, where a battered book lay half-forgotten on a tray beside a discarded nutrient pack.
Beginner's Guide to Offensive Qi Manipulation.
The title alone was insulting. But he needed answers — or at least a release.
He flipped it open with a flick of his wrist. The first spell was laughably basic:
"Qi Bolt A Directed Discharge of Focused Energy."
Designed for training dummies and sparring circles, it was child's play. But right now, Arion didn't care.
He raised his hand again, this time aiming it squarely at the prisoner.
"Qi Bolt," he muttered, channeling Qiothon to his fingertips.
A surge of heat built in his palm, unstable, crackling, wild. The Neokondria pulsed uneasily, warning him with a tremor just beneath the skin. Still, he pushed forward.
A sputtering arc of Qi burst from his hand and struck the prisoner square in the chest.
The man cried out, his body convulsing as the bolt flared and fizzled against him. Smoke curled from the scorched spot on his rags. He dropped to his knees, gasping, arms trembling.
Arion's eyes stayed locked on him not with pity, but calculation.
But something was wrong.
The Qi inside him bucked again, harder this time. Not rejecting the act outright like before, but recoiling as if offended. Arion's vision blurred for a moment, a wave of nausea sweeping over him. His hand stung, not from exertion… but rejection.
The Neokondria pulsed unevenly, agitated.
"Still resisting me," Arion whispered, staring at his hand as if it belonged to someone else.
The spell had worked. It should have been satisfying. But instead, it left him hollow. Distant. As if a part of him had flinched at the very moment of impact.
He looked back at the prisoner, now coughing, barely conscious.
A strange weight settled in Arion's chest. Not remorse, curiosity. His Qi wasn't malfunctioning.
It was judging him.
Arion stared at the prisoner singed but alive and then down at his own hand, the skin still faintly glowing from the dissipated bolt.
His jaw tightened.
"That… was pathetic."
He paced in a slow circle, boots clicking against the pristine hospital floor. The spell from the beginner's book had fired, sure but the energy behind it was clumsy, thin. Worse than that, his Qi had resisted. Pulled back. Held itself in reserve like a frightened child.
He muttered to no one in particular, "It wasn't supposed to be like this."
He spun back toward the prisoner, pointing accusingly not at the man, but at the universe.
"I drained the life out of an assassin. A trained killer. My first time using Qiothon, and he withered like paper in flame. One touch. One!"
He gestured to the prisoner. "And now? A beggar in chains? I try a low-grade Qi bolt from a student's textbook and my own power flinches?"
He slapped the spellbook against his palm, pacing again, seething.
"It's like I'm being babysat by my own Neokondria! Like some cosmic leash got fastened the moment I tasted what real power felt like."
He stopped, gaze dark.
"I didn't hesitate. I didn't show mercy. And still still it recoils from this? Why? What makes him off-limits? Why does my Qi get a conscience now?"
No answer came, but the Neokondria pulsed again not in harmony, not in rebellion. Just… distant. Watching.
Without another word, Arion raised his hand again, fingers rigid with focus. The spell was simply an arc of raw force meant to sting, not kill. He didn't even bother reading it again. He willed it.
The Qiothon stirred inside him.
But as the bolt formed, a new resistance surged stronger, more pronounced. The energy felt thick, syrupy, dragging at his limbs. His vision flickered at the edges, like static crawling in from a dream. Still, he pressed on.
A second bolt erupted from his palm, crackling through the sterile air.
It struck the prisoner square in the chest.
The man cried out, stumbled, fell to one knee but again, he lived. Burn marks curled the edges of his shirt, smoke rising from the fabric. His breath came in ragged gasps. Yet his eyes… they still burned with defiance.
Arion didn't speak right away. His arm dropped, the crackle of energy evaporating into silence.
His Qi had buckled again. Not in fear, not in fatigue but in rejection. It had obeyed just enough to release the spell, then veered off, cushioning the blow, blunting it. It had deliberately spared the man.
The prince's lips twisted in fury. "You don't get to decide that," he hissed to the Neokondria inside him.
He grabbed the edge of a table and flung it aside. It clattered violently across the room.
"I am your host! You don't get to filter my judgment!"
His chest heaved, hands trembling as the Neokondria pulsed with a low, almost mournful rhythm. Not fear. Not guilt. Something weary.
Arion stood over the crumpled figure, breathing hard, fury thinning into something colder. The prisoner coughed weakly, burned but not broken. That same defiant flicker still danced in his bloodied eyes.
What if I healed him?
The thought was foreign, intrusive not borne of compassion, but curiosity. If Qiothon resisted destruction… Would it embrace restoration?
Arion's gaze dropped to the spellbook, still lying open on the floor where he'd tossed it. He knelt, flipping pages with unsteady fingers until he found a section labeled: Basic Vital Mending — Tier I.
His eyes skimmed the words.
A light touch. Directed flow. Visualize vitality. Speak the syllables with intent.
He scoffed. "Intent," he muttered bitterly. "Fine."
He rose, stalked back to the prisoner, and without hesitation, seized the man by the hair. The prisoner groaned but didn't resist.
Arion lowered his other hand, fingers glowing faintly with unsure energy. The spell was simple. The movements, mechanical. He could follow instructions. That wasn't the problem.
"Lorithan ves qioth el'rhen," he intoned, the words scraping off his tongue like a language remembered in a dream.
The Neokondria shuddered.
Then to his shock it surged.
Qiothon flowed from his palm in warm, golden pulses, weaving into the prisoner's scorched chest. The man's muscles twitched, his breath caught. The charred flesh beneath his torn shirt mended before Arion's eyes slowly, but surely. Skin knitting. Burn fading.
There was no resistance this time. No recoil. No judgment.
Only release.
Arion's eyes widened. The Qi wasn't rejecting this act it was amplifying it.
He kept his grip tight, glaring down into the prisoner's face, not from cruelty now but fascination.
"You accept this?" he whispered to the Neokondria. "This is what you want?"
The pulsing energy answered in waves of warm compliance. It wanted to heal. It thrived in restoration. Even as his fingers trembled from the strain, the Qiothon flowed like water down a long-blocked path.
He let go, stepping back, breathless.
The prisoner collapsed into a weak, stunned silence, but his burns were gone.
Arion stared at his hand.
"This is the path you choose?" he asked aloud, voice raw. "To mend instead of destroy?"
A long silence. No voice answered. Only the quiet, loyal hum of power now fully awake inside him.
He raised his hand again, voice soft, composed but his eyes burned with something wicked. "Lorithan ves qioth el'rhen…"
The phrase slid off his tongue like honey hiding a needle.
This time, he masked his intent. He cloaked malice beneath layers of gentleness, whispering calm into the Qi even as his will twisted inward. Heal him, he urged, but don't stop. Keep going. Rebuild him into something that shouldn't be. Overdo it. Suffocate him in regeneration.
The Qi hesitated, as if sensing the duplicity. It came slower now—tentative, thinned—but still it came. Threads of gold trickled from his palm, dancing across the prisoner's body.
Bones realigned. Skin smoothed. Even cracked teeth shimmered and sealed.
And Arion smiled, not with warmth, but with hunger.
"More," he breathed. "He's still broken. Fix everything. Even what wasn't broken."
The Qi surged, just a little. The man's back arched with a guttural groan. Cells multiplied too quickly. Scar tissue vanished and then came back. Muscles swelled, then spasmed. Something under the skin rippled wrong.
Yes… yes
Then the Qi shuddered.
Mid-flow, it recoiled again—but not just back into Arion. This time it writhed as it returned, like it was angry. It lashed up his arm, scalding hot, and then punched into his chest with a concussive thump.
He gasped, stumbling backward. The prisoner collapsed, unconscious or worse.
Arion clutched his ribs, breath ragged, eyes wide. The Qi still boiled faintly inside him, restless. Displeased.
For a second, just a second, he could almost feel it watching him.
It hadn't just resisted.
It had punished him.
And yet His lips parted into a breathless grin.
"Oh… you're learning too."