Chapter 12: THE TRAINING PROCESS.

The next day, Diarmuid went to speak with Taski, "Son it's time to continue your training for this Friday, you're going to need to be ready for some really intense training. The elden knights aren't going to hold back their strength." The king took him out to Mableflower Lake to further his training and strengthen his ability, the two spent the whole day training and hardly took long breaks. Taski's determination to better himself was sky-high, however, he was holding back in some places as Diarmuid took notice of this and shouted at him, "Son! Do you want to be a Knight? You need to stop holding back so much, are you looking to disappoint me? It certainly feels like it." Taski felt the pressure from his father's words, with temptation to argue back, he took in the discipline and unleashed everything he had. He began to push back his father; however, his father didn't easily fall back from the pressure of his son. The prince rushed him with many sword strikes and stabs. Diarmuid was purposely freezing time to predict his sons' next attack in order that he could see what progress he was achieving. He wasn't even aware of what his father was doing against him, he then charges his sword with flames engulfing it to the tip of the sword and then charges Diarmuid with multiple sword attacks. All the king did was guard against the attacks but felt the pressure pushing him backwards toward the lake, he was a few feet away from falling into the lake, he knew he had to make his move now.

 Diarmuid then leaps high into the air as if he were a bird flying past the sun, as he then charges down on Taski with an aggressive sword slam. Taski blocks the attack, but nearly falls down from the impact of the slam. Diarmuid launches a sword-barrage assault and yells, come on, you want to be a knight, right? You have to be aggressive in battle, so stop worrying about if you'll qualify for the Knights. FIGHT BACK!" Diarmuid continued his barrage of attacks, Taski was being trampled down by the attacks increasing in speed and pressure, he then rolled to the side right before Diarmuid could slam down a powerful attack. Taski then charged forward at high speed with his sword charged behind him, he thrust forward, colliding swords with his father and causing an aggressively loud clash. Diarmuid grabbed his sword and pushed it over to the side, causing Taski to stumble and fall, while he held him down with his sword pointed at his face, signaling defeat. Diarmuid, expressing his dissatisfaction with Taski's performance, yelled, "Son, is this your limit?" If so, then I'm not impressed at all with you. I expected much more from you, and this is all you can bring forward." Taski was embarrassed by his shortcomings and couldn't believe he was only halfway through his journey of strength, he began thinking to himself, "(This can't be my limit. This will be harder than I thought, I noticed that I was ready to explore the unknown without fear, without hesitation. How can I only be this strong?)" "Get up, and get ready," Diarmuid told him. 

He then stretches his hand out for Taski to grab. He assisted Taski in regaining his balance and then requested that he take a brief rest and consume a lunch sandwich he had brought with him. Taski graciously accepted this request and subsequently retreated for a duration of thirty minutes. The two sit next to the Mableflower lake and rest, Diarmuid talks to his son about tips and important things to keep in remembrance, "Son, I will have to be honest with you, you have the determination to reach your goal but, you lack the concentration, the knowledge of how to battle. You should never just charge in, confuse your opponents, catch them off guard. You have the strength, but you don't unleash it to its full potential, you're worrying you may hurt me when I want to see your full power." Taski then says, "I only don't want to hurt you, I don't know how I can go about fighting you. You're my dad, it's difficult to fight someone like you since you're the King, which makes you better than I. How can I match your strength?" Diarmuid replies, "Age and Strength don't have anything to do with the here and now, you need to stop worrying about me and focus on what I tell you. You will never grow as a Knight if you're always holding back your power. It's not wrong to use the power given to you in certain moments. What are you going to do when the opportunity is needed and your friends and family is at stake, just give them a slap on the wrist? What will you do if Ariah is in trouble, let her figure it out on her own?"

 Taski ate his lunch and didn't have a response, He remained quiet in his thoughts because he knew that his father was correct. Diarmuid continued with his speech, "Son, you are stronger than you think, you have the requirements to be a Knight, but you just need to use it to its full power. Don't doubt yourself, that will only get you nowhere in life. Believe in yourself and remember that life is full of fails and falls, but, if you just keep walking you will achieve your goal and reach your desires. Life isn't fair, but you can overcome this life and reach new heights. You will become the head and not the tail." His father's words spoke very eloquently to him and opened his eyes to what was in front of him and boosted his confidence to a new level. After his break, the two resumed their training for the next five hours, the two went full throttle and unleashed their strength. Diarmuid unleashed potent sword blows that Taski resisted. Subsequently, Diarmuid arose and unleashed a time-spinning beam directly towards his son. However, Taski rolled to the side, evading this powerful attack. His father then appeared behind him and went for a sneak attack, Taski swirled to evade quickly but, Diarmuid jumped at him with many sword swings shouting, "Come on son! Is this really all you have? I better have a damaged arm or leg by the time this training is over!" With Taski's incredible reaction time, he clashed against all the sword attacks. He then charged in his fist, a powerful flame attack and swung his hand across and unleashed a flame wall that surrounded most of him and blocked his father from attacking anymore. However, Diarmuid leaps over and slams down with a powerful sword swing. The prince leaps to the side and lets the surrounding heat charge his energy, but, the king continues his assault barrage.

 The two clash against each other powerfully, Diarmuid knocks his son out of the flame barrier and reappears in front of him. With only a few seconds to spare, Taski recovers back on his feet and lets out a sword attack that pierces Diarmuid's armor plate. Suddenly, he recovers and knocks Taski to his feet, and appears in the sky and holds his hand up to the heavens to charge his Time Sphere. Taski looks up with dismay at the huge Time Sphere. It overshadowed him greatly, but, with determination building up in his heart, he clenches his fist hard and chargers his Fire Strike. He launches his fist high to the sky, punching the great and terrifying Time Sphere, sending it back. With confusion, Diarmuid looks at the sight of his attack flying back at him at high speed and then is frozen in time for ten seconds, after this happened, he woke up to his son freaking out at what happened. He didn't understand the concept of his father's ability and how time laps works with his attacks. Taski nudging his father, panicking and shouting, "Dad! Dad! Are you okay!?" He then grabs his arm and stops his worrying, "Son? How did you do that? You actually hit my attack back and frozen me in time for ten seconds, I never thought you'd be able to do so." 

The two then walk over toward the lake and sit down to chat about the responsibility of training. Diarmuid says to him, "Son, You must keep up with your training on a balanced schedule. You never know when the time will come when you'll need to unleash it. I can say that I'm proud of whom you and your sister have become, I love you both, and I can't wait to see what you and her display this Friday at the exams. I love you, and I look forward to seeing you grow and excel to higher power and greater heights." Taski looks at him with gladness and smiles back greatly. Meanwhile, the queen and her daughter were further out near Mableflower Lake, the two were training just as hard as the king and his son were. Maisie formed a crystal barrier around her body as a way for her daughter to improve her attacks. Darcie attacked and launched a flurry of attacks against her mother, her lightning speed was increasing as the session went on. The queen stood firm and said, "Come on, dear! I better see at least one crack on my body before time is up." Darcie continues with her barrage of punches and kicks at supersonic speed, when suddenly, Maisie then swats at her, knocking her unbalanced and causing her to almost trip over a rock. Maisie then appeared in front of her and launched an iced fist attack, Darcie quickly moves her head over and dodges the attack. She swiftly moves away from her mother and accelerates, hurling off to unleash a potent fist assault on Maisie's back. 

Looking up at her mother, she sees no damage done at all. She thinks to herself, "(I'm hitting her with all I can possibly do, her crystal form is hardly damageable. I can't seem to lay a dent in her.)" Maisie then launches a kick and sends Darcie flying near the lake. Darcie stops herself halfway near the lake and sets her footing. She charges her lightning up further past her limit, Darcie knew that she needed to push past her limit and risk her life to achieve stronger strength. Maisie notices what she's up to and shouts, "I can sense what you're doing." The fast lightning ignores her voice to focus her ability force into her feet, sparking intensely, she feels the pressure begin to weigh on her as her heart begins to beat superfast. She stands on the line of either unleashing her attack or to think of another way, she then sees her approach the area and walks with her blade in hand with the look of annihilation. Darcie then shoots off at ultra-light speed with her attack swelling in her fist, she delivers an ultra-powerful blow on Maisie's abdomen area. The queen is slightly knocked off her walking and is punctured by the impact of the blow. With a slight fracture on her crystallized barrier, she quickly bends downs sideways, avoiding any incoming attacks. 

Maisie then summons her crystal staff, aiming to knock her down. Darcie moves through each attack quickly, making her mother appear to be a low-level. As Darcie evaded all of her attacks, she charged her ultra-light speed once more to scratch the fracture that was slightly damaged on Maisie even more. After some seconds past, Maisie jumped back and unleashed her ultra limit move and froze the ground under them, she became as a frozen diamond while the ground began freezing at unbearable temperatures. Darcie couldn't move as the ice quickly engulfed her entirely. Maisie was aware of what her daughter was attempting to do and took advantage to put a halt to her plan. Darcie was halfway frozen, as the ice began covering her mouth and face quickly when instantly, she was completely covered in ice. Maisie then said, "Honestly, I was hoping you would have moved out of that attack, daughter. At least you learned, the hard way." She looked at her with suspicion as she noticed Darcie began forming cracks on her body. Immediately, she sparks out of the frozen prison that covered her and shoots off at ultra-light speed and snapped at her mother, cracking her crystal barrier. Darcie went flying toward a tree and crashed. As soon as she became conscious again, Maisie said to her, "Well, you certainly have passed this training, congratulations dear." 

Darcie was weak and took the opportunity to rest for a while, the two sat near the lake on the other side from Diarmuid and Taski. She asked her daughter, "Sweetie, what are your other intentions of joining the knights? I hope that whatever your intentions are for joining the knights, I hope you achieve them and that you would find yourself a good and strong man to be with you. One day, sweetie, I won't be here to take care of this land. It'll be up to you to take my place as a Queen of this land. I pray that you'll enjoy being a knight and that you'll enjoy adventuring out in the unknown lands out there." Darcie slightly giggles and says, "I plan to be close to Taski's side the whole time I'm serving and as I become a Queen one day in Diamond. I'm actually looking at a man from Diamond Asalikith. His name is Melvin Hawken, and he is actually enlisting as a knight as well and is planing to be the King of Diamond. Queen Maisie is then filled with joy and says with overflowing glee, "Oh, how wonderful it is to know that my two babies have potentially found their soul mates for marriage. I almost cannot contain myself hearing this." Later that Monday, Diarmuid, and Maisie wrapped up the training for the royal children. Back in the suburbans, Ariah was preparing to strengthen her healing range. However, she didn't have a clear path and was thinking of many questions as to how to go about doing so. She called her mother with the home phone, Gracie answered her call. Ariah talked a little with Gracie about her stay in Asalikith Capital, the two had a very sweet conversation. She then asked, "Mother, I have a question. How can quickly increase my healing range? I can only go up to five feet." 

Gracie explains in deep detail of how increasing healing range isn't possible to do quickly, but that it requires much practice and dedication to improve. After some time, Ariah went off into her garden to work on expanding her healing range by at least a mile. She got on her knees and opened her healing range on the ground, with her eyes tracking any form of wound, injury, or pain from around her, she sensed the next door neighbor feeling pain in his leg. "I can sense his leg injury, but I can hardly reach him with my limited range. All I can do is try my best to reach for his leg." Ariah thought to herself. As she reached further and further, she only could reach as far as the neighbor's window, she couldn't get any further. Her body began to shake as she tried to break past the limit barrier, her eyes then started losing clearness of sight. She fell out of her healing dome and fell on her hands, panting and exhausted. She got back up and tried again, she stretched out her roses further this time but, unfortunately, failed once more. Furthermore, she tried a third time, a fourth time, she tried for twenty minutes straight but still was unlucky to reach the man's hurting leg. She asked herself, "What is it that I'm doing wrong? I'm not getting anywhere with this training, I've wasted twenty minutes trying to do this, but I guess I'll just have to stay close to my teammates if I'm going to heal them." She continued to try more and more, she remained determined to reach the man's leg before the end of the week came. Around five o'clock, she wrapped up and continued her other essential training. The great orange sunset sky began setting in, with the stars beginning to awake for the night, and Ariah took the rest of the night off and baked a sweet potato with rice. As she sat at her table, she felt a loneliness surround her, wishing she could have her family with her for company. 

She stared at her food with depression, wishing that she could receive her blessing. She then thought to herself, "Being alone is something I've never been good at, but, somehow I'm still alive, I'm still breathing. How I wish my past could leave for a night, so I could enjoy the moment of peace, I am a burden to my family and a stumbling block to the prince, I\only distract him from his goal. How I wish he could be here with me, the prince would really save me, a worthless wrench. I just find it difficult to believe sometimes, even though he risked his life for me. How I love the prince and his bravery." She slowly mixed her tea and listened to metal clanking against the cup and watched the water drips fall down as tears of her past. After she finished eating half of her food, she step into her shower with lukewarm water dripping down on her. She sat down near the corner of the shower with her head down and depressive thoughts flowing through her mind. "(I should've never went down those dark allies with all those bad boys, how stupid I was.)" She thought miserably to herself. She stepped out and dressed herself in a nightgown. Not only that, but she lays sideways throughout the night, only able to think of the Prince Taski. Furthermore, she cried softly as her emotions bundled all up together with no way to share with another, her body felt emotional.

 Ariah's heart cried for him with great tears and great affection, which prevented her from getting rest and would become a burden to her training. She jumped out of her bed, rushing to a phone close by to communicate with her mother for guidance and answers. Gracie answered the phone at the sound of Ariah in great despair and asked, "Sweetheart, What's happening? Are you okay?" Ariah wasn't sure as to go about expressing how she felt and spoke out of her mouth saying, "Mom, my body is feeling emotional right now, I can't stop thinking about the prince. He has been on my mind all night now, and I don't know what I can do." Gracie understood what was happening to her and reassured her in her state, "Understand Ariah, your body is reacting to the interactions you've experienced with that boy the Prince. You feel feelings of affection for him, you are sexually attracted to him and desire to be with him. There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. Sweetie, your time will come for you, and God will bless you with someone that will be there for you. I know how you're feeling because I once was there where you're at now." Ariah's heart became calm and stilled by the words of her mother, and was no longer affected by her emotions. The two spoke on the telephone for an hour, talking about how each other's life was going and their wishes to see each other soon again. As the night grew closer to midnight, Ariah decided to attempt to rest for the next day for a better performance. As she attempted to sleep, she did what was best and took some sleep medication to avoid any temptations. It was one in the morning, she fell into a deep sleep and found rest for herself.