Breaking Through

-1st person-

50 years later,

Breaking through, an event common on Earth. Of course, this event becomes harder to achieve the more one breaks through. It's common sense, isn't it?

And here I am, breaking through to Duke rank after 30 years. Yes, 30 years. For the 20 years, I mainly read books and gained knowledge since training gets repetitive and I have around... 299939 years left? Obviously, this calculation will be inaccurate and I'd most definitely have to stay for 100000 years more or so. It's strange to think I'm this old now. Well, away from my thoughts and to my present situation. But, the truth is, this is only if I read the bare minimum of books. If I were to try and read all the books, then I would spend an incomparably long time here. Eris never mentioned this before...

---

-3rd person-

Many different forms of energy swirled around Ray, forming a sphere around him as he floated in the air and caused the wind to blow harder, howling in his eyes as he tried harder to concentrate on his meditation. The harder he tried to expel his passing thoughts, the more they came and interrupted his training.

The energy dispersed momentarily as it began to condense again, forming a loop of dispersing and condensing.

Disperse, condense, disperse, condense, disperse, condense, disperse.

A large rumbling emerged just as all the energy left, causing Ray to fall over onto the ground and groan in pain as his back hit the hard ground. Though, it was quite soft due to the ground being mud and grass. He slowly got up, rubbing his back and muttering,

"How long will it take for me to finally become a Duke... Every time I try this..."

Ray had been attempting this breakthrough for quite a while and he'd been unable to get past the breakthrough stage. Whenever he tried to focus, his mind would wander to a topic and would cause his concentration to stop. He had the strange urge to... This had been another failure of which he'd lost count of how many he had. But he was sure it was over 100.

He sighed as he began to get up from his spot and walked inside his artificial house. He stopped outside a certain door and looked back to the garden, before turning back and walking through to the library. If he can't train, then why not learn instead?

---

-1st person-

Another failure. I really wanted this to be the last, what am I missing? I'll just read. It's not good to overthink things like this.

I walked to a bookshelf labelled [Constellations And Their Powers] and I took a random book to read.

Unlike most books, the books on this bookshelf were named by different emotions or types of powers. For example, the book I took was labelled [Tiredness]. These books would contain different constellations that were related to these emotions or powers. If I opened this book, then a constellation who slept a lot or had powers relating to sleep or laziness would pop up along with it's description and story.

I usually liked these books since it taught me about emotions and how someone would act if they felt them. Others are lucky, though, this comes to them naturally. It was also quite interesting.

I trudged towards my trusty chair, eventually getting to it and reading this book. Which was... Long. Very long. And, as always, I read.

---

A few days later,

I got up from the chair, feeling my bones crack as I stretched. I had been in the exact same position for these few days. It was something I got used to doing after spending so long with those failures.

I tried to smile bitterly as I remembered.

After reading that seemingly endless book, I quickly ran up the stairs leading out the library and ran into the garden before stopping abruptly and settling down into the exact same spot as I thought.

Should I have a different mindset or something? Maybe I haven't gathered enough mana, or energy at all... Oh, what the hell! Why should I care.

I began meditating, slowly starting to bring energies towards me and bringing them inside my body and outside my body. It was a loop that tickled. Some kind of meditation that brings you to the peak of humanity and it tickles... It's probably quite funny...

Back to the meditation, I slowly tried to bring all the energies around into my body, just so it wouldn't explode and I then brought all that out after I got the energy accustomed to my body. If the energy hasn't been left in your body long enough then it would kill you. Painfully.

The energies quickly formed a sphere around me as it merged and smoothened out. The energy was now mine. Then, I quickly condensed the energy so my body, this vessel, could contain it. If I don't condense it, then my body would simply explode.

After condensing the energies enough, I systematically brought these different energies into my body.

First, Mana. Second, Void. Third, Cosmos. Fourth, Aura. And fifth, Qi.

A warm feeling different from the varying temperatures and rumbling I had felt enveloped my body and heart. It was a sign that I had broken through to Duke rank. Though my body had recovered completely and had even relaxed, I still had a throbbing headache that annoyed me beyond my thoughts of breaking through.

There were possibly more energies but these were enough for me. Mana, the power of nature. Void, the power of nothingness or destruction. Cosmos, the power of everything or creation. Aura, the power of our bodies, or just physical condition. Qi, the power of history and techniques.

History means nothing in Qi but I added it cause at the very start of 'Aetil', the era of the Gods, the Chinese began using, or rather publicising, Qi. They eventually stopped to use Mana but it didn't change the fact that they used Qi. It was just my opinion as someone who had just learnt that Qi actually existed before 'Aetil'.

---

In my library,

I walked over to a book in the [History Of Earth] shelf and took out a book titled, [The Era Of The Gods].

I walked over to my chair and opened the book. I don't know much of what happened to Earth cause of my sealing in the void without being able to go to school. But I do know the basics. Like at 0 Aetil, Mana was discovered on Earth.

[Aetil, this refers to the time when Mana and Qi were discovered. Or more easily to say superpowers. When humanity learnt of these powers through portals and different species, the leaders of Earth decided to name this a new era. It was a big enough era as people had discovered that they had the power and ability to become Gods, and therefore, everyone decided to change the year.

It changed from AD to Aetil. And it refers to the start of superpowers.

Eventually, the ranks changed to what we now refer to as Commoner rank all the way to Peak rank. And with those came nobles and commoners, this is also where the first Emperor came.

The Modern day Imperial family are descendants of the most recent Emperor rank, who was killed brutally at the hands of the Gods for her power in 391 Aetil. That marked the start of the Gods oppression, where they used humans as slaves for their own gain.]