Chapter 10: The training begins - I

*Rafael woke up next morning feeling more refreshed than ever. He allowed himself the

luxury of another bath and then went out of his room. He didn’t feel hungry or any other

desire to eat so he searched for Gorion straight up*

“Ah! I see you are up. Slept good I presume?”

“Yup. Like a baby. No dreams, no nightmares and no foreboding threat upon my life”

“Ha. Shall we begin our day then?”

“Yes”

*Rafael silently followed gorion back in to the training room. Again he sat in the middle of the

room and Gorion sat in front of him as the door vanished into nothingness*

“close your eyes young one try to feel the energy within your own body, the tempest swirling

within you, be aware of your every beat, be aware of your every breath”

*Rafael closed his eyes and fell silent. He concentrated on his breathing in and out, calm and

slow until he could feel the rhythmic beating of his heart and then something akin to fire, a

fire burning within his chest giving birth to a storm that threatened to take control of him,

that contained the power to do anything, the power to create but also the power to take and

the power to destroy. He could feel it flowing through his entire being. Rafael opened his

eyes, which for some reason had grown heavy as if he hadn’t slept in days, yet he did not feel

tired, if anything Rafael felt alive, truly alive*

“Good. Now remember this feeling, this power, as long as you are in this state, you are in

sync, you are alive and you are powerful”

*Rafael simply nodded. Fearing a single word uttered out of him would break this trance,

would take away where he was and then he feared he would never be able to return*

“Now try to channel this energy into the palm of your hand. Try to gather it there and make

of it what you may call, an energy ball”

*Rafael shut his eyes again and breathed, the fire still alive, the storm raging, his entire body

seemed to shiver at the thrill, at the excitement. He shifted his focus to his right arm, the

tempest followed. He felt as if all the cells of his body brimming with energy, but he focused

on the ones in his hand right now. He willed the energy to escape his body through the pores

and gather up in his palm*

*Sure enough, he was able to feel it slither out of his hand and onto his palm, but it did not

form into a ball. It was like smoke coming out of his hand. Rafael focused more, controlling

the amount of energy that leaked out and the shape the energy took*

*After a few minutes he was able to muster up enough to make a small ball about the size of

a cricket ball*

“Splendid. Now open your eyes”

*Rafael complied*

“Creating the ball was the first step. The ball is a pure and raw form of energy which dissolves

around in thin air if not continuously supplied with your own. Once this contact between you

and the ball is gone the ball will disappear until you have enough control over your own

energy to prevent that. Go ahead try it. Try to juggle this ball”

*Rafael did just that and the moment the ball left his hand it disappeared into nothingness*

“Practice the control over your own energy. Once you feel you are comfortable with one, go

for two and then finally proceed until you can juggle three”

*Rafael nodded. Too happy to complaint or sulk. He concentrated on creating another one as

he heard Gorion’s retreating footsteps and then the shutting of the door. He knew Gorion

was no longer in the room but he continued anyways. He made another one and tried and

failed, and then another and then another only to fail again and again. Though the ultimate

result seemed inevitable, he could notice the subtle changes, the minute improvements that

he was able to make with each creation he was able to create a little faster, every creation

became more precise, they travelled more distance before disappearing into nothingness,

until the weightless warmth traversed the distance from one hand to the palm of another

and then stayed there. Rafael, could feel the trajectory of the ball, its spin, its shape as it now

lay in his opposite hand. He was one third through*

*Managing one ball was difficult but going for two or three seemed like next to impossible.

His focus was spread too thin, his control wasn’t enough, his creations, simply blinked out of

existence, those left if any would just be a wobbly mess of energy which too would disperse.

Time after time he was met with disappointment but Rafael refused to give up. He went at it

again and again, and slowly but surely, he was getting better at it. Soon he was easily able to

juggle 2 and then 3 of them easily, well a sudden gust disrupted his focus and he lost control

and everything vanished*

“Gorion, I did it. I did it”

“Yes, young one that you did. And it took you what only a week to do it”

“A WEEK? No that can’t be right. It surely can’t be more than couple of hours”

“Time passes at a little different rate here in this world, and when you do something you

enjoy time really tends to slip by”

“The place just keeps getting weirder and weirder. Haha. What’s next?”

“Now you need to go and rest, before we move forward”

"Alright Gorion I will see you first thing in the morning"