Learning basics

P.O.V. Aadi

Waking the room is silent, getting up I see I'm still dressed in my workout clothes. Getting a pair of jeans and a short sleeve shirt from the closet I head to the bathroom to shower and clean up after sweating earlier that day.

Heading downstairs after cleaning myself off I come to the kitchen to see no one there, next I go to the sitting room.

Everyone is there each on a separate sofa and talking about a request sent by the guild to investigate a low grade dungeon that had appeared in the sewers. Hearing me walk in they look at me before going back to their original conversation, going to my yellow sofa I wait for them to finish talking.

"When is food?" I ask, I can hear Gurlet break down laughing at my question but I ignore him.

"It will be fixed in an hour if you would like to eat now I can fix you a snack or you can wait till we eat to join us." Lucien replies smiling at me.

Nodding my head I look at Lucien and say, "can we continue this mornings training now?" I see Lucien tense then relax again at the question, probably expecting me not to want to do anything after the breakdown earlier.

"Go get into practice clothes and we will return back where we left off." Lucien says and I rush upstairs to change into a new set of workout clothes along with sitting my current clothes to the side to change back into later. Returning to the gym I go to Lucien and wait for him to decide which mat we will be on.

"We have the room to ourselves so we will use the main sparring mat to practice, I ask that for this spar you only use mental energy. You need to get used to only using it when fighting and this will let me see how much you need to truly learn for combat in our world." Lucien says.

Knowing it is probably for the best despite it being a massive restriction on me I get into position on the other side of the mat and once Lucien takes position I push my mental energy rather the energy in my veins to my body. Everything seemed too much in this state from the draw of breathe to the feel of wind on my skin, it was almost too much for me.

Breathe in, breathe out, again and again till I finally was able to somewhat adjust to this new state, it was no doubt very different from my usual fighting state were everything is slightly dulled due to my energy veins blocking the feelings.

Rushing at Lucien like the first time I feel much slower and out of my depth then the first time, it was hard not to feel weak and unsafe as my enhancement and barrier was no longer there, I had gotten used to having it up when I fight that not having it was a massive distraction to me.

I miss Lucien completely and try an turn my body to hit him when he stepped but it doesn't seem to respond properly as it is so much slower then I'm accustomed to making me once more miss him completely.

Again and again I am unable to properly control my body while in this state as I either respond to soon or to late to him, or I let my senses tell me one thing when it is simply a feint.

By the end of the spar I am exhausted and upset that I can't even get close to him, even at a disadvantage I should still be able to control my body better than this with all the practice and training I did while in the cave.

"I can see the disappointment on your face, don't be you are already better than most beginners when it comes to controlling your body while your senses and reaction speed are heightened. Most can't even properly coordinate their body in a particular direction as their mind is to flooded with information for them to properly respond to only a small bit of it." Lucien tells me, trying to encourage me.

I purse my lips, I felt helpless and weak again like I had the first time I came across the slime in the dungeon. Unable to do anything but run and hope I survive.

"You will take a while getting used to this state and learning how much of those enhanced senses you actually need, it is why you need to learn precise release of your mental energy to make it so you aren't either muting your senses or over doing them. Each person has a different amount they prefer it is all about finding that amount and getting used to it." Lucien continues.

"I need to go cook dinner, get a shower and changed and we will eat." I nod my head and go to get cleaned up once more. Eating I am to mentally taxed from the training and collapse on my bed to sleep once more.

Being shaken awake by Lucien to once more join the training downstairs he says to me while eating, "you are not to use your other energy starting from this point forward whether in training or otherwise except for when you cultivate it is not to be used.

Nodding my agreement I run on the treadmill once more and then practice a new set of spearmen martial arts forms with Lucien with the reasoning of, "since you have to learn a new martial arts anyway to match with your mental energy might as well swap to a better matching weapon."

And so the first week in this world came to an end with my days filled with practice, meditation and chatter.

The beginning of my second week started with Lucien shaking me awake but instead of heading to the practice room we went to a room filled with books and with Nilan standing their with eyebags and a cup of what I assume to be the drink the adults in my world referred to as coffee.

"Since you are new to our world you must learn everything you can as fast as possible about it in order to blend in with us, this means a false background and a large amount of studying as you must learn what we spend eleven years learning as fast and as quickly as possible. Speaking of when is your birthday we need to make your false identity as real and true to you as possible so we will keep your name and birthday the same while changing up where you come from and how you came to be in Turnover city." Nilan informed me.

"My birthday is next month on the 29, I will be officially 12." I say.

"So you need to be on par with the average twelve year old not eleven, even more work for you then, well lets begin our lessons." Nilan says.

"Lets start with our history or brief over view of it, the nation we are in is Neelan named after the first Monarch of this land, we are by the sea with only one small nation neighbor to our west and little wars. We are mostly peaceful with the only problems popping up due to internal struggle for who gets the throne, our current emperor is young and ascended only ten years ago so no struggle for a good while will occur again." Nilan explains.

"We are at Turnover city, this place used to be a slum but when a dungeon with a energy mine of high quality appeared it rose in worth rapidly and it went from a slums to a large merchant stop location due to plenty of energy and a good position for stopping from different cities due to it's semi central position." 

"Neelan has three main holidays, the moon celebration where the moon is full and reaches it's closest distance causing an upsurge in energy and better crops for seeds planted or crops picked during that time. The day of passing where energy hits it's lowest point coming up soon in October where it is said that the drop in energy is caused by the dead leaving the world at that time. And the Day of blossoming when the national flower the blue peony blossoms, this flower blossoms for only a day and has incredible ability to aid people in awakening quicker and more likely to awaken when consumed. Blossoming day occurs at the end of winter, while moon celebration occurs at the end of summer."

"We are a kingdom built on agriculture and trade meaning we are a neutral country that although few allies hold no enemies as we trade with everyone."

"Finally we can talk of our technology as I'm sure their is a difference there, we use energy stones and connect them to artificial pathways built using metal to run our items and home appliances, although impressive you need incredible mental strength, control, and intelligence to make them as their are thousands of parts that goes into making the more complex ones that you need to keep mental energy in the entire time you put it together."

"with that you have covered the most basic parts of our current location, but I think you may be more interested in what exists in the center of the continent." I perk up slightly as he is clearly saying something that I would be most taken with.

"There is a Place in the center of the continent with a giant tower that those freshly awakened are sent to for practice while being safe, the Enhanced Being Academy also is there and is the front runner for information on Dungeons and the tower." Feeling my hands shake I know I have to visit their eventually to see if it was the same as The Trials or the bits that could be told.

"We also have beings known as daemons that are animals that have awakened their mental realm like us and are able to communicate with us, they are innately hostile to other species and often have small fights with their neighbors while still having an active peace treaty that is mostly effective over all at preventing them from going to far." They sound like this worlds versions of our awakened creatures but unlike ours only ruled by instinct they are intelligent and able to somewhat live in coexistent with the people of this world.

  "Now we will slowly begin with basic knowledge that you have most likely missed like math, science, language, history and other courses like first aid and the required instrument and craftsmen classes that most students are required to complete before they turn fifteen, since it will probably take you till then to completely catch up with everything you need to know."

We spend the next ten hours going over all the beginning things like potion making, a required part of both science class and first aide, wood working and metal working as you need basics in both and advanced practice in at least one, a test to see how I stand in math, language, and science while not even bothering to test my history as that will have to be learned from scratch.

We figure out which instrument I would like to learn, apparently it is to increase ones finger dexterity and precision, it is the piano like one but it is far larger and more complex and with nearly twice the amount of keys that Nilan called the Organ.

With that my first day of school leave me with a better base understanding of the hell that comes later and a new found respect for my old school as it had none of the extra nonsense the current learning requirements intel. 

Finishing my courses at five o'clock I will have an hour and a half to relax and eat before physical training and martial arts practice begins with Lucien for another three hours before I will return to my room and start the process all over again with only one day break every 7 days to not overwhelm me to much.

Truly the amount I need to catch up is to massive and requires me breaking many old habits to relearn, it will be an arduous process.