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"It begins with a breath.
In, slow and controlled like you're absorbing the world through your nostrils, in so that all you can hear is the air rushing like waves on the shore. Listen to it, feel it, focus on it until there is nothing else.
Let the sensation flow from the nose to the chest slowly throughout the rest of your body until it reaches your toes, the tips of your fingers, the crown of your head.
Now out, flowing in one continuous stream that your mind follows outward, letting all that you are stream forth in an single exhalation. Fear, anger, worry, joy, hope, love, let them all flow from your mind and into the open air with your breath. Know yourself to be a vessel, now being emptied of self.
In, knowing that what you take in is not just air nor mere oxygen but life. Feel that by breathing you renew something within yourself, that body mind and spirit burn brighter as you breath. Let your newfound emptiness be filled with the life of the world.
Now out, aware that a piece of you goes with it and mingles with the air of the world, tying it to you and you to it, linking you to life in this unending cycle of breath. Know you are more than your body, more than your mind. You are a fragment of the heart of the world.
This is the most basic awareness of Qi, and with it you may become more than a man, more than a weapon.
With Qi, you will achieve the impossible
and it begins with a breath."
Even as Lei-Kung's words echoed through his barely conscious mind Daniel Rand-Kai struggled against his desire for air. The swirling, reeking Charybdis that was a private school toilet was hardly the sort of thing he wanted to be one with his body. He twitched and flailed against the hold of his teenage tormentors, but falsely, feebly. Oh sure there were dozens of techniques he could execute even from this position that would leave them stunned, broken, dead. But here, he wasn't Xiaolong Rand-Kai, warrior prince of K'un-L'un and heir to the title of the Immortal Iron Fist. Here he was Danny Rand, the weird, famous orphan who'd spent most of his life speaking Chinese and had nothing going for him socially other than his dead parents' money. Rejecting the scavengers that had sought to rip off the occasional hunk of cash from him had made him enemies. Enemies were nothing new.
What was new was that Danny Rand couldn't afford to get expelled for beating his new classmates into vaguely humanoid piles of bruises. The rules were different here, even if he wasn't always sure what game they were all playing. So in accordance with the rules, the young Human Weapon was forced to endure a form of torture the local bandit chief (the term Lacrosse Captain was hardly fitting) had dubbed a 'swirly'. K'un-L'un training would ordinarily mean he'd have no problem holding his breath through any such torment, but his captors were taking just a little too much joy out of his predicament lasting so long.
Besides, he was probably starting to smell like piss.
He shifted just enough to lash out with a foot and hit into the nearest shin, a distraction that lead mostly to cursing and a sudden release from the depths of his gurgling porcelain hell. Danny grinned despite his head being soaked in...actually he didn't want to think about it. But the smile enraged the two in front of him enough for one of them to take a swing at Danny's face...
Which was really a mistake in the close confines of a toilet stall. The wild haymaker didn't have nearly enough momentum and it took just a little shift and a deflection to make the bully's fist crack painfully against the back tiles. Another fractional dodge sent a low kick rebounding hard against the toilet with a pitiful yowl from Danny's aggressor at which point the living weapon just shoved into him lightly to send the off-balance adolescent sprawling to the floor. Danny just looked down at him with the same big, stupid grin on his face.
"Whoa there, you okay? I couldn't see with all the water in my eyes, y'know. It's been great catching up with you guys but I'm just gonna go home now. Maybe take a shower."
He stormed out before the other two who'd been helping hold him down could process what had just happened, too busy helping their injured friend up. Swirly ended and the Living Weapon had barely laid a finger on them. Maybe he was getting used to the game: bullies zero, Danny Rand one.
Danny left school early in the hope that he wouldn't be tempted to take a more aggressive approach to swirly-deterrence. Let the principle or the school board or whoever go ahead and call Joy up about it, with the amount of money they'd likely donated along with his enrollment he could probably afford a single day of truancy and besides that-
"<<Hot damn, kid! Ya always look like you just went ten rounds with Shou-Lao the Undying?>>"
The words came from a grey haired, middle-to-senior-citizen aged man Danny had just walked past and only now noticed out of the corner of his eye. He was dressed in a ratty brown trenchcoat that looked like it wanted to be somewhere else, green pants that had seen better days a few decades ago and a five 'o clock shadow that had given up keeping time around seven-thirty. Well, all of that and a stench of alcohol and Yu-Ti knew what else that hung around him like a cloud. Not that Danny was one to talk at the moment.
Still, Danny just walked on and hoped he misheard even if it was strange for a probably homeless old white man to yell at him in ancient Chinese and use Shou-Lao's name. This was New York after all, anything was possible and it could just be a coincidence.
Then the old man grabbed Danny's shoulder.
"<<Phew! Make that ten rounds mucking out Shou-Lao's bigass litter box! Ya smell worse than me kid an' I been drunk an' high for sixty years!>>"
The sudden contact brought out old training honed into reflex and Danny whirled into the grab and used the momentum to scythe upward with his elbow in a reverse Rock Smash Strike, knocking the old man's chin high and exposing his throat for a Spear-Hand Blow. As he gurgled and reeled from the jab to the trachea and tucked his chin Danny did his best to smash his nose with a Brooklyn Headbutt: Not a solution Lei-Kung would approve of, but very satisfying to use.
But instead of falling to the ground gasping for air, the old man just stumbled a little and wiped the blood off of his face to reveal a smirk.
"<<You're not bad kid. Not quite as good as Wendell yet, but you're as angry and stubborn as he was->>"
Between being forced to endure having his head dunked in a toilet, yet another day's worth of sudden mystical kung fu intrigue and the mention of his father Danny had had just about enough. He focused that rage into his fist along with his own personal chi, drawing on the Chi of Shou-Lao along with it in a sudden flare of golden fire around his hand as he thrust it out at the old drunk.
The resounding thunderous bang as it was caught by a hand sheathed in similar golden flames just added to Danny's shock as his target failed to go flying or be otherwise stopped from existing in his general area. The sudden and horrific pain that jolted throughout his body as if someone was playing tug of war with his soul didn't exactly help things either.
"<<Even more like your old man than I thought. Name's Orson Randall, Danny. In case you're a little slow on the uptake, we need ta talk.>>"
Unfortunately for Orson, Danny was a little bit too busy fainting to reply.