Chapter 2

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"Honey, did you take your toothbrush?"

"Yes, mom."

Ethan watched the flying luggages with shiny eyes as his parents quickly checked every room of the house, checking for anything they might have missed.

It was August 1984, Ethan had turned 4 barely a week ago (he was born the 15th of August), and for Ethan's birthday they were leaving for a vacation.

Ethan's mother, Helene, was a renowned Runemaster who worked with different companies. For example, the company who sold Ethan's favourite toy, his small dragon, had many of their toys designed by Helene.

Of course, Helene's rune mastery did not stop to harmless toy-making, she also specialized in home security, and was quite proficient in curse breaking.

As for Ethan's father, Henry, he was a duelling master in his younger years, and nowadays often worked with Helene when she had to go to more dangerous locations.

Their jobs allowed them to have a lot of time with Ethan, but they also often were unable to free up enough time to make a vacation as they had many demands, and refusing some of them could result in soured relationships.

But today they finally got the opportunity to get some vacations thanks to a contract.

From what Ethan understood, a Buddhist Temple hunting dangerous beasts in Japan had contracted his mother to create different kinds of artefacts to help them in hunting those beasts.

Ethan wasn't too sure of the details, but he sure was thrilled of getting to visit Japan. He had always wanted to go there in his past life, as he was quite fascinated by the culture.

And so the family of three left for Japan. For such a long distance trip, they had to use a portkey, which usually could be quite costly, but as a Runemaster Helene also created portkeys, so that was a non-issue for them.

Runemaster was a useful line of work in many ways.

Once in Japan, Ethan and his parents moved to Kyoto, known by many as the most beautiful city in Japan. At least, if anyone told Ethan it was, after seeing it himself, he would only nod along.

For their first week, neither Helene or Henry worked as they spent their time with Ethan, visiting the city together. Both of them had actually already visited this city in the past, but it wasn't the same with Ethan.

Since his earliest age, they had both known that Ethan was special. In a good way of course, but special nonetheless. They had never really caught onto the fact that he was trying to perform magic, but at the same time his fascination for it was obvious.

Ethan also showed a capacity to learn that was superior to any other children they had seen, as their boy already was capable of reading like an adult would, despite being only four years old. Sometimes, they also noticed that he wouldn't act like a child was supposed to, sounding and acting more mature than he was supposed to be.

But this was a world of magic after all, and it didn't do anything to alter their love for him.

Besides, while Ethan's fascination for magic was number one in his heart, they also knew that he liked discovering the unknown, often catching him trying to explore. A part of it could be attributed to him being curious about the outside world, but it was rare for children to explore the dark, dusty attic on their own.

Unfortunately, no matter how much they wanted to spend more time with Ethan, they still had a job to do.

A week after arriving in Kyoto, Henry and Helene presented Ethan his caretaker, a monk known as Sadanobu Shoki.

The man was a Buddhist Monk, and was chosen as his caretaker because he spoke English fluently, and was a patient man, although that last part wasn't revealed to Ethan. His interest for magic was praiseworthy, but his parents knew their son forgot boundaries when magic was at stake.

And just as they would have expected, once left alone with the man, Ethan first question was, "How do you use magic?"

Sadanobu, who had been warned of the child's interest in magic by his parents, smiled and grabbed a wood stick on his hip. As he took it, it extended into a staff, and he explained, "This is my magical focus."

Ethan looked at it up and down, before asking, "Isn't this… inconvenient?"

In more ancient times, all kinds of magical foci were used, but nowadays most wizards settled for the wand, because it was the best for combat. It's small size allowed for quick spell casting, and did not slow the user down.

Sadanobu also knew where the question came from, so he smiled and explained slowly, "Magic can be used in many ways. In my temple, we all were taught martial arts, and we use them in conjunction with our magic to fight."

His interest drawn, Ethan asked with shiny eyes, "Can you show me?"

Sadanobu shook his head and replied, "Hardly. It is better used against moving targets, and there are none."

Ethan was slightly disappointed, but remembering some research he had made about this place, he asked, "I read monks are great at controlling their magic, do you have any advice?"

Sadanobu was surprised by the question, and after a moment said, "We mostly use meditation. It strengthens the mind, which in turns strengthens the will, which makes controlling magic easier. But you are a little too young for that."

Ethan wasn't deterred though, "Can you teach me? Please?"

Sadanobu hesitated for a while, before saying, "It's not really something for a child to master…"

Ethan grinned, "Try me!"

Sadanobu looked at the child in silence, meditation could be seen as boring, especially for beginners, and it wasn't really something he saw a child mastering.

Still, he had already been told not to treat Ethan as an average child, so after some hesitation he finally agreed to it.

Sadanobu explained, "Meditation is a technique spread to both the magical and non magical world, and has similar effects in both cases, although they are boosted for a magical like us.

"Meditating allows for the mind to not only rest, but also stimulates it for the rest of the day. If used on a long term, it can also strengthen the mind, allowing you to get a better grasp on your emotions, and control them through a stronger will."

Ethan asked, "Will it turn me into an ascetic monk then?"

Sadanobu smiled slightly and replied, "No, you won't lose your emotions, you will only get a better grasp on them. This will enhance your control over your magic, and form a basic defence for your mind."

"Like Occlumency?"

Surprised Ethan had heard about the mind arts, Sadanobu nodded, "Exactly like Occlumency. Even without any training in the mind arts, a stronger mind is a harder one to decipher."

Ethan nodded, before asking with some doubt, "This sounds almost too good to be true. Is there a catch? If there isn't, how come not everyone uses it?"

Sadanobu shrugged and replied, "Be it the magical world or the muggle world, many people don't practice meditation despite it's benefits. I think many treat it as a boring endeavour, and humans aren't the most patient beings. Why meditate when you can spend your time learning a new spell?"

"I see… I still would like to learn."

Sadanobu nodded, and so he guided Ethan to learn meditation.

The first thing to learn was posture, meditation was supposed to last for some time, and so sitting in the right position was very important, to allow the blood to circulate well in the body.

Most adults would take a while to get in the right position because it demanded some flexibility, but as a toddler Ethan didn't lack any, so he managed to get in the right position quickly.

Then, Ethan entered his first state of meditation.

It wasn't as hard as one might think, all Ethan had to do was to empty his mind of unnecessary thoughts and focus on one thing. This would have been a hard thing to do, had he really had the mind of a child, but he had experienced enough in his past life to have learned to empty his mind. According to Sadanobu, most monks focused on their breath, feeling their breath travel through their body, entering through the nose, going down the trachea, entering the lungs, before exiting through the mouth, forming a cycle.

At first, Ethan followed this, but soon something else caught his attention, which wasn't good normally. Any stray thoughts were to be avoided.

It still rejoiced Ethan though as the thing he felt was his magic. He could feel it flow through his body, the feeling was much more distant and obscure, and only appeared for a second, but it was there.

Then, a thought came to Ethan. What if he replaced air with magic as a mind focus? Maybe it wouldn't do any difference, but it just might.