Chapter 9: Hermione tries Visualisation

The last six months were hard for Kent. It was mainly because of the practice of visualisation.

He had clearly underestimated the difficulties. He couldn't always carry an alarm clock with him, could he? Like in class. It was also difficult to wake up in the middle of the night to practice. He hadn't had a proper sleep in the last six months.

He was reprimanded by his teacher more than once for being distracted during the class.

It was also tiring to practice it every three hours. He found that although he followed the instructions as best as he could, he still felt tired at the end of the day. This also increased his calories intake. He even drank the nutrition mix more than once a day. Fortunately his parents were dentists. It would be difficult for a normal family to bear the cost.

In the end, his hard work had paid off. After the first three months of struggle, he immediately felt the changes. His perception of the surroundings had subtly changed. He noticed many small and insignificant things that he would usually ignore.

The knowledge of psychology and his enhanced observations complemented each other. He could more or less predict what a ordinary person's gonna do in the next moment. It was a magical feeling.

Also after the first three months of practice, he had basically grasped the schedule.

He no longer needed to close his eyes to visualise and concentrate and he also could wake up on time to practice, during the night.

This also increased the efficiency of his practice and it only took another three months to partially master the danger sense skill.

Whenever there was a danger, he would feel a slight stinging sensation and immediately know the direction it was coming from. It was pretty similar to the 'spider sense' of spiderman.

The only shortcoming was that he had to stay vigilant for his danger sense skill to work. That's why he believed that he hadn't completely mastered the skill as said in the manual – only after making it an Instinct the skill could be considered mastered. He was confident that he would be able to do so within a year.

...

"Stare at this pattern for a minute," Kent said to Hermione, showing her a pattern drawn on a piece of squared parchment.

It was exactly the same pattern which Kent had practiced visualisation for the past six months. After mastering the skill, he found that he could visualise portions of the pattern separately. That gave him the idea of drawing it on a parchment and then show it to Hermione and see if it works or not.

At first he was reluctant to share it with Hermione but after the incident involving her nightmare, they became very close, occasionally sharing things about the future they "saw" in their "dreams".

After considering the future troubles, Kent felt it was silly and impractical to shoulder all the responsibilities alone when you have a smart sister who knows about the future.

So Kent decided to share it with Hermione. The skill, if Hermione could master, would become a vital part of their fighting strength against the "dark lord".

His art skills, which he had to spend countless hour in the simulation space to master, had helped him in his endeavour.

There were few differences though, between the pattern on the paper and what he had in his memory.

It was really impossible to copy the intricate pattern to the minute details. But he found it was pretty effective after testing it. He just wanted to know if it would work on Hermione.

Hermione looked at pattern and asked, "what is this?"

She was puzzled looking at the gibberish pattern which made no sense to her.

"Don't be distracted, just look at the whole pattern and try to concentrate on it as much as possible," said Kent.

Seeing Hermione's hesitation, Kent persuaded, "just try it, you will be surprised."

"Okay, if you say so," Hermione finally agreed.

After only few seconds of staring at the pattern she went into a trance.

'So, it also works on others,' thought Kent looking at Hermione who was standing in a daze looking toward the pattern on the parchment which was stuck on the wall.

'It's almost three minutes,' He looked at the clock and decided to wake her up.

"Hermione, Hermione," Kent shook her shoulders.

Hermione woke up from her trance with a gasp as if she was deprived of air.

"Are you okay?" asked Kent with concern.

Adjusting her breathing, Hermione exclaimed out loud, "what just happened?!"

"After looking at the pattern, you went into a trance for three minutes straight," replied Kent as he sat down on his bed and continued, "no worries, I was also in a trance when I tried it for the first time,"

Without waiting for her to speak, Kent asked, "Do you remember the feeling when you were in a trance?"

The question made Hermione thoughtful. Thinking quietly for a moment, she answered, "I can't quite accurately describe it but it felt like I was going to comprehend something. It-it was like... when you read the first few sentence of an essay and think that you understand what's the whole essay is about but the next few sentences make you realise that you didn't actually understand anything. This process goes on. It was so frustrating!"

"Good analogy," Kent nodded thoughtfully.

"What is that pattern?" asked Hermione.

"I don't know myself," admitted Kent truthfully. He really didn't know. It was the system that deduced and optimised the pattern from lots of information collected over an year by him. It would take a lot of time– which he didn't have, to search through the library of the system to find the source.

"Where did you get it?" asked Hermione.

"Well, let's just say, lots of knowledge and a powerful mind." Kent gave her a vague answer.

"Okay, putting away the unimportant questions," said Kent not caring if Hermione was dissatisfied. The system was his biggest secret which he didn't want anyone other than himself to know about.

"You see if you visualise that pattern for five minutes in the interval of three hours, you would develop a skill which will help you sense danger in advance," explained Kent concisely.

Looking at her expression, Kent laughed and asked, "You don't believe me?"

Hermione nodded frankly. Although the pattern was quite mysterious but it was still unbelievable to think just by visualising the said pattern, one would develop the skill to sense danger.

"Flying brooms, dragons, unicorn, talking portrait and magic itself is an impossible thing but they still exist, so why can't the fact that the piece of pattern on the parchment can help develop a intuitive sense of danger be possible," argued Kent.

Kent then suddenly thought of something and looked under his bed.

"You may not believe my words but you have to believe your eyes" said Kent suddenly as he pulled out a plastic bag containing three tennis balls.

"Lets go to the backyard."

"Tennis balls? What do you want to do with tennis balls?" asked Hermione on the way.

"You'll see," said Kent as they soon reached the backyard of their house.

"Okay, you hold this for a sec," Kent handed over the plastic bag to Hermione.

He walked to the centre of the yard.

Then he took out a piece of black cloth and covered his eyes with it.

"Hermione, throw the tennis balls toward me. Aim for my chest or head, wherever you want. Just throw with the intention of hurting me," Kent instructed.

"Did he really mastered the danger sense skill?" Hermione muttered. She finally understood what Kent wanted to do but she was still skeptical whether Kent's words were true.

'Whatever, let's see if Kent can really dodge the balls while blindfolded,' Hermione took out one of the tennis ball from bag and put rest back to the ground.

"Here I come," Hermione threw the first ball aiming for Kent's shoulder. As she was standing really close to Kent, about ten meters away, the aim was pretty correct.

The ball went straight toward Kent's right shoulder.

But when it was just about one foot away from Kent, he jumped sideways to his left. The ball hit the fence on the back missing him completely.

'It must be a fluke. He probably heard my voice and dodged the ball,' Hermione concluded and to prove herself right, she picked the next ball quietly and walked sideways to her left. Aiming for Kents abdomen, she threw the ball. This time, the ball was faster.

But the result was the same. Kent dodged the ball at last moment by jumping sideways to his right.

She was still not reconciled.

Picking up the last ball, she threw it with all her strength.

"Oops," She gasped as soon as the ball left her hand. Due to her using full strength, the aim was a bit off. She wanted to aim for his shoulder but the ball went straight toward his face.

But similar to the first two tries, Kent dodged the ball in the last moment just by ducking his head.

"You must be cheating," Hermione ran toward Kent to check whether he had properly covered his eyes. Even after seeing the cloth tightly wrapped around his eyes Hermione remained skeptical.

"This time I will tie it around your eyes. Let's see if you can still dodge," said Hermione as she untied the blindfold.

"Okay, whatever you wish," Kent laughed. He was having fun seeing Hermione so frustrated and flustered.

After making sure the blindfold wasn't transparent, Hermione tied the blindfold back around his eyes. She even made sure that it covered both of his eyes completely.

"Are you happy now?" Kent sighed helplessly.

"Let's see if you can laugh after this time," Hermione said as she picked up the three balls and went back to her position.

The first ball went straight toward his leg, Kent jumped and dodged it. The second one went straight towards his lower abdomen, Kent turned ninety-degrees to his right allowing it to pass and missing him completely.

The last one was difficult. Hermione walked forward quietly until she was only a few meters away from Kent. She threw the ball fast and hard straight toward the middle of his chest. The aim was perfect this time. Kent responded to this one a bit differently. He caught the ball with his right hand while his left hand was on the back.

Throwing the ball back to Hermione, Kent untied the blindfold and asked, "So, how was it? Still don't believe?"

"Can you sense any kind of danger? Like... like if someone is in front of you and pretending to be all friendly but he actually want to harm you. Can you detect the danger?" Hermione couldn't help but ask.

"I haven't tried it but it should work. If you can master the skill, you will feel a slight stinging sensation when you are in danger and also know the direction its coming from." answered Kent expressing his thoughts.

It had only been a few days that Kent had mastered the danger sense skill. He still hadn't have the time to experiment with it properly.