8 Preparation for the future
As every other weekday I woke up at 7am and prepared myself to go to school. It was still boring, but the presence of Grace made it all worth it. I had already made my decision last night to teach those that I care about, how to get stronger. On my initial list of people were my parents, my siblings, my best friend Leo and Grace. Of course I could not forget my grandparents either. Especially both my grandmothers. My grandmother Mina had had a car accident a few years ago and was still recovering in the hospital and could not walk by herself. My grandmother Irene would die of cancer 14 years later. I hoped that teaching them the Initial Mana Sensing Technique and Body Strengthening Technique would make their bodies healthy.
But were should I start? Maybe my parents? No. They would think that I am crazy. My sister? No. She would only laugh at me. My brother it was then.
After school was over, my brother and me headed home. Since both my parents were still at work and would only come home in another two hours or so I decided to implement my plan. Going into my brothers room, I asked him: "Matt, do you want to become stronger. Stronger than dad?"
Clearly confused why I would ask such a thing, my brother was looking at me. "What are you talking about Simon?"
"I know a way to make you powerful. More powerful than dad is right now. Do you want to learn it?"
Still skeptical my brother answered: "Yes, I do want to get stronger but what dumb stuff are you talking about?"
Knowing that convincing my brother with words was close to impossible, I decided to make things clear to him. "Let's do arm wrestling for a bit. If you win, you get all my Yu-Gi-Oh!-Cards, but if I win, you listen to me seriously and try out what I tell you. Deal?"
"Hahahaha, sure you little brat", my brother said, clearly certian that he would win.
I estimated that his strenght would be at around 5 points since he was almost eight years old. With my seven points in strenght I could easily crush him. And so I did.
Smiling at my brother as he sat there. dumbfounded, I said: "Are you going to listen to me now?"
"Aha", he was still a bit absentminded.
"I have a technique that can let you become as powerful as myself in about a month or two. After that you would have to learn the next level of the technique to imporve further. I have those techniques. Do you want to learn those?"
Hearing what I had just said, Matt got excited and was looking at me with sparkling eyes. "Yes. Teach me those techniques."
"Promise me that you will not tell anyone else about this. Imagine what will happen if such a thing gets public. We would be in danger. Do you undestand?", I asked him to make things clear.
"Not even mom and dad? Or big sis?", my brother asked.
"I will teach them this technique as well. But not now. I need to be able to convince them. Otherwise they will be like you and won't believe me", I explained to him.
"I guess. Okay, let's start. What do I have to do?"
"Sit crosslegged. Before you can get stronger you have to fulfill the conditions first. You must learn a technique called 'Initial Mana Sensing'. It lets you sense the energy around you. After you can do that, you will use another technique called 'Beginner Body Strengthening Technique Level 1' to draw that energy inside your body to make you stronger. The first time I used the mana sensing technique it took me almost an hour to do so. Now I am able to reuce the time to merely five minutes because I have become familiar with that energy."
As I was explaining that, I sat in front of him and placed my hand on his forehead. In my mind I said, 'Chaos. Transmit the 'Initial Mana Sensing Technique' to my brother.'
After only five seconds I removed my hand from Matts forehead and said: "Now you should know what you have to do right. Just act according to what appeared in your mind just now. After you sense it, don't do anything yet. Just tell me. I will teach you the next step."
While my brother was still in a daze about what just happened, I left his room and went into my own to train the second level of the body strengthening technique. The difficulty of the second level was the same as the first level, but it increased the limit. I should originally only have had 3 points of strenght with my five year old body. But I had seven point of strenght. The maximum that the first level of the stengthening technique could give me was 3 points of strength. So due to my activities in the forest and so my body would have been slightly stronger than others my age anyways. 4 points of strength from my body and 3 points of strength from the technique. The second level of the technique increased the limit to 6 points of strength that could be obtained.
I would be able to attain the strength of an adult at only about 6 years of age. That was tremendous. I decided to have my father and mother start training the technique when I mastered the second level of the body strengthening technique.
I started training the second level of body strengthening for almost two hours, when my brother rushed in and shook my body saying: "I did it, Simon! I sensed it! That weird energy!"
I opened my eyes and smiled at him. "Tell me then. How did that energy feel when you sensed it. Describe the sensation it gave you."
"It was warm. Like -... sitting next to a stove." He was clearly looking for an appropriate description.
"A stove. I guess that's close enough", I said whilst thinking of the burning sensation I felt the first time a absorbed the energy.
"Okay. Sit in front of me again", I told Matt and placed my hand on his forehead again. This time I asked Chaos to transmit the first level of the body strengthening technique to him.
"Now try to sense the mana again and absorb it according to the technique you just got", I told Matt after removin my hand again.
Matt sat crosslegged in front of me and closed his eyes. I did the same, but this time I did no absorb the mana. Instead I chose to only observe it, as it swayed around me. After an hour I noticed that one of the mana wisps started to slowly move in a way that was unlike the other wisps of mana. I concentrated on that wisp and looked on as it was slowly drawn towards my brothers body, which looked like a small light bulb. And then the wisp of mana disappeared into the light bulb. I opened my eyes and saw my brother with slightly red skin panting in front of me.
After watching for five minutes and seeing that his skin was returning to normal color I said: "Like in sitting in a stove right?" Then I had to laugh a bit.
"What just happened to me?", Matt asked me.
"You just absorbed a wisp of mana and refined it inside your body. The heat that you felt was only a tiny bit of the whole. The rest was integrated into your muscles, skin and bones. All of them are slightly stronger. If you were to say that an average adult man had strength of 10 points, then 4 hours ago, you had the strength of about 5 points. Now your strength has increased by about 0.05 points. You should only absorb one wisp of mana per day. Otherwise it would hurt your body. So you can increase your strenth to my current strength in about 40 days. Then you can continue to increase your strength by another point within another 20 days. At that point you will have reached the limit of the technique you are currently using. You will have to switch to the second level of the body strengthening technique. I have already reached the limit of the first level and am now using the second level. It will take me around 120 days to master that. I can only teach you the second level after I have mastered it myself. So you will not be able to increase you strength for those 60 days. But you can master the mana sensing technique and make it faster to sense mana and stuff."
"I see", Matt said, " then what is your current strength Simon?"
"I am currently at seven points of strength and in four months I will be able to beat dad in arm wrestling easily. At that point I will teach him the technique as well. But for now, let's go upstairs. Mom and dad should be home. And remember. Don't tell them."
"Sure, Bro", Matt said.
