1 Sending the Spirit Key

The green blades of grass waved softly as the wind blows over it. With the sun high above the cloudless sky it seemed like a normal summer day. Yet John was mindlessly walking in the open field without worry not quite sure if he has been there before. He was half-curious of the sights around him since everything seems familiar and yet some things doesn't seem quite normal. A few minutes ago he saw a fat rabbit with lustrous white hair hopping a few meters away from him, now he saw an albino preying mantis almost as big as his hand that jumped before him then went away. Then he saw a hawk he had only seen in books and the internet but it was all colored grey. It doesn't seem uncommon to see a pure grey hawk but was it really a hawk?

After a few minutes of wandering aimlessly John arrived at a place covered with trees. These trees were somewhat tall about 3-stories high and their branches overlapped with each other. A cool wind seemed to flow from the forest inviting the teenager to go within and he just did that without second thought. He was neither brave nor strong yet he felt safe despite the change of the environment.

Suddenly he heard a whistling tune which he was sure he never heard before and he tried to find the source of the sound. As he was walking faster he realized he seemed lighter than before so he tried taking longer strides and he seemed to jump further than expected. Surprised, he tried to do a backflip after kicking the trunk of a tree and just did it without effort and landed on his two feet perfectly unharmed. He then tried to jump higher and realized he could jump twice, then later thrice his height - almost half of the height of the trees. Amused at these feats he jumped higher and ended up on a thick branch and seemed to balance without effort.

Now John realized this wasn't normal and after trying to think hard which was quite a feat he realized he must be in a dream.

"Am I lucid dreaming?" he finally spoke. "Does that mean I could control certain elements of my dream?"

Then with a wild thought he suddenly jumped imagining to soar to the sky and just as he was rising to the air he began falling down. It was quite a height that he panicked, and he subconsciously somersaulted a number of times before he landed on his butt. Strangely it didn't hurt much since there were layers of dried leaves scattered at the forest floor.

"I guess flying isn't an option" he murmured. "How about powers? Do I have them?"

So the teenager did a few sets of basic martial art moves he learned from Karate and Kali summer classes during his grade school years. Nothing happened. He tried to imitate famous game moves, a jumping uppercut and a continuous roundhouse. He did those moves with ease yet no aura, chi, or any kind of powers appeared. He was somehow disappointed but then realized it was not that bad.

He then continued jumping at trees and higher than ever before trying to copy how ninjas move in anime series he has watched. He was half-surprised he could do it with ease. He could feel the wind flow past him as he sped up jumping from tree to tree starting from branches until he could jump from the top of a tree to another. After a seemingly never ending day of jumping he finally felt bored and decided to look for a change of scenery while perching on the top of the tallest tree he could find.

Then he heard that strange whistling tune again and found in the horizon of the grassland a figure of a man running to the forest. After a few seconds he noticed he was being chased by a dozen of large black dogs or at least it looked like muscular black dogs in the distance. That strange scene caught his interest so he hurriedly tried to take a closer look while jumping on the top of the trees until he could see the silver man doing hit-and-run tactics with the dogs chasing him. It seemed both the man and the dogs were dangerous so he didn't move from his place but observed these characters having a melee.

As he focused to see further he realized the man was really silver all over, like a man being poured all over with metallic paint, and this man was basically throwing a couple of sharp punches to the dog nearest him before sidestepping, feinting and circling another tree. It seemed the man was winning since the dogs were going in circles being punched at the head or the two front legs for minutes. Seven dogs succumbed to the silver man's fists as they had the most hits throughout the forest chase.

It seemed forever that John was watching the cat-and-mouse chase between the silver man and the big black dogs until the man and the dogs disappeared in the edge of the forest. John decided to jump down to the forest floor and take a closer look at the dying black dogs. As he moved closer he realized the dogs were very muscular and thrice the size of dogs that he knows of.

"Are they wolves?" the curious John thought as he raised his fists confident he could take down any of the injured dogs. Just a couple of feet away from the nearest dog he realized, the dog didn't have black hair but emitted black smoke that seemed like hair strands. As he reminded himself that he was in a dream, he thought he could kill the dog-wolves without consequence and he just did that. He jumped high before performing an axe kick hitting the stomach of the nearest dog-wolf which surprisingly popped like a balloon leaving a puff of smoke and smell of something burning around him. As he moved his leg that chopped on the dog-wolf he found that there is a red crystal that was left in place of the dog-wolf. It was just the size of his fist and as he grasped it also exploded into a flash of red light but without a sound.

John was weirded out by what happened but then he felt he wasn't as tired as before. As he jumped to another dog-wolf he felt he was faster than before and did another axe kick after somersaulting twice. His kick perfectly hit the middle of the fallen panting wolf before the exploding smoke scenario happened again. Then another red crystal appeared where the wolf disappeared and as he touched it another flash of red light blinded him again for a second. He continued mercy-killing the rest of the fallen dog-wolves thinking he would gain experience from killing them yet there was no message that appeared before him or a voice that spoke to him like in the light novels that he read. He still felt normal though a little strange after experiencing all those smoke blasts and the red flashes of light.

Well maybe not normal enough, as he seemed to feel his surroundings move slower when he tried to move with effort. He then assumed the red crystals granted him additional speed and found the idea of hunting fun. So what if he hunted the rest of the dogs and save the silver man? He smiled to himself as he made it a mission to save the silver man. He then jumped to the direction where the man and the dogs disappeared.

And just like anyone who have learned that they are in their own dreams he tried to test the limit of his capabilities. His leap with full-power sent him higher than the trees and he tried to see the silver man in the horizon.

He didn't saw the man or the dogs but a strange feeling in him sensed that they were just in front of him dozens of kilometers away and so he leaped again and again to the direction of the silver man.

When he arrived he saw the silver man sucker punched the last dog before falling to the ground due to fatigue.

"Well, that was rather anti-climactic" as John went to the dying dogs punching them to death then seemingly absorbing their red crystals with the flashes of red lights. As he finished with the last wolf-dog he approached the silver man.

Standing in front of the silver man who was panting while lying on the ground, John realized it was no man but rather a silver creature in shape of a man with no face except for eyes that were like sapphires. The silver humanoid creature then slowly moved his eyes to look at John's feet and when John looked down he saw he was stepping on a crystal shaped like an icicle. As he was about to pick it up the silver humanoid sprang up as if he wasn't injured and suddenly attacked John without warning.

It was a good thing John absorbed the red crystals before as he felt pockets of air current of the attacks of the humanoid while barely dodging them. He backflipped numerous times out of reflex and thought that maybe the silver man is the boss of this stage. He then set his mind into 'warmode' as his body seemed to power-up due to the excitement of the coming fight.

Dozens of attacks, feints and blocks were made in a minute as John and the silver man fought with all their strength. At the beginning John was conservative with his attacks making sure he didn't put too much power in his punches and kicks but when he sensed that he was faster than the humanoid he became more daring. He did combination attacks without fear as he knew he could dodge the humanoid's attacks.

Minutes stretched to hours as they were wildly punching and kicking each other with John landing more hits. Unusually the humanoid didn't seem to have the concept of pain as it would just be dented where it was hit and then attacked again, though slower than before. But given enough time the dents on the silver man's body would return to its original form and then the man would be faster again though a little slower than John.

The thrill of the fight for John has faded and as he became more frustrated of not defeating the silver man he attacked more with wild abandon like a berserker who lost all concept of defense. Luckily John pummeled the man too many times that his punch went through the humanoid's chest and as he felt a chilly orb he grabbed it and pulled out his hand. And just like that the humanoid melted to the ground and simply disappeared like water. The cool orb also simply disappeared from his hand or to his hand, John couldn't be too sure.

This unexpected ending didn't satisfy John as he looked around hoping to search for something that would make sense of what happened in this dream. As he was trying to remember why was he fighting and how he got in this dream at the first place, the shimmering icicle crystal caught his sight again. Without much thought he approached and picked up the crystal.

When he picked up the crystal he suddenly remembered he had a class at 7 am where he was the first reporter of the day. As he was slightly shocked, the feeling of nervousness enveloped him as he remembered he barely finished his presentation before he appeared in this place.

Now that John had his full memories back he shouted within the dream "Wake up!" as he slapped himself with his free hand and unexpectedly he awoke.

Wearing the same clothes in the dream, the newly awakened John, scrambled to hop off his bed. He glanced at his alarm clock and it displayed 6:51 AM. He hurriedly took a change of clothes under a minute, downloading his presentation into a flash drive while heading to the bathroom for a quick gargle and combed his frizzled bed hair with his fingers wet from the faucet. He then dashed out of the house under five minutes with socks and shoes on and his favorite backpack running to his school a few blocks away.

Unknown to him, everything he touched when he woke up had a slight smoky haze that ironically was cold to the touch. The glass which he used to gargle had slight frost in the areas where he touched it along with the sides of the sink, the doorknob and the bedsheets. Under his blanket there was the familiar icicle crystal he saw in the dream emanating a cold aura.

But he didn't sense any of those strange things as he rushed to school except for the fact that as he entered the campus just before the gates closed he remembered something very important. He panicked and fumbled to remove everything from his pockets and his bag. Shock filled his face as frustration overcame him.

"Aaaahhh! I forgot my flash drive!" screamed John.

But he couldn't go back, as the school gates has already closed and his phone rang with the alarm reminder that he would begin reporting within the next minute.