Chapter 16

As he drifted away, Alex's consciousness was pulled into another memory fragment.

He watched as a young boy played happily with his brother, after hearing a knocking noise he turned and said. 'Dad someone's at the door.' After a few seconds a young man came through and went to the door. After opening it, a man with a suit was visible. He held a box with a logo on it, and told the man he would have to sign a liability form.

The man smiled happily and quickly signed the paper. "Honey, kids it's here, it's finally here."

His wife who had just entered looked at the box smiled brightly. 'If this works, we can finally live freely without worrying about anything.' The wife said a as if a large weight was lifted off her shoulders.

'Now remember ??????, we could only get three, but once our magic affinities are awakened it won't be too long before we can get you one too.' The man told the younger brother.

Time sped up and a few days later the family was seen rejoicing, the mother was seen playing with water as it floated a over her hands, the father was outside hanging out with the neighbors cooking a meal with a fire he had created, and the older brother was laughing while making a perfect sand castle in the sand pit. The younger brother was jealous, he envied the rest of his family, and couldn't wait until he could get his own powers.

Not wanting to be outdone he made his sandcastle bigger and bigger, while his brother controlled the sand and made his more bigger.

The day carried on, the neighbors had talked the father into doing a fire show, to which he gave in. He created a fire, and made it grow rapidly before making it swirl. His friends cheered him on, while his wife smiled.

At some point the fire came too close to the tree in their yard, and ignited it. With the fire spreading quickly, the neighbors panicked while the wife quickly created a massive sphere of water to drown out the fire. Not too long after the fire was put out. She smiled brightly, proud of her work.

'Wow ?????? Your family is amazing, when will your other son awaken his power he's not too much younger than ???.'

'I'm sure it won't be too long before it happens.'

'He could be a dud, not everyone can awaken an affinity you know.' Another voice spoke up

The young kid had listened to the conversation, motivated himself to do better. He filled a bucked and carefully made his castle larger it was almost bigger than him.

His older brother laughed as the sand began moving on its own once again making his sand castle twice as large. After he had finished he walked around it.

'I won and you lose.'

The young child grew frustrated taking the tiny shovel and knocking both castles down before storming back into the house. The crowd was awkwardly quiet after watching the exchange. The parents both went in the house following the son. They found him crying, and reprimanded him for acting such a way in front of guests. The son, feeling betrayed after being told to go to his room, told them that he hated them and ran to his room slamming the door shut.

The parents, wondering if they had gone too far, had a worried look on their faces. They returned out side telling everyone he was fine and just needed some time to calm down. They had begun to wrap up the get together when one of the neighbor ran over to the older brother, he was lying on the ground, with blood flowing out of his nose.

Seeing this the mother and father hurried over, but the mother tripped and fell. The father went to help her up but she was unresponsive. After telling someone to call a doctor, he checked to see if she was breathing then hurried over to his son. He never made it he fell unconscious on the way to him.

Alex watched as the younger brother learned of what happened. He watched as he visited them in the hospital. He watched as he cried when the doctor told him there was nothing he could do. The boy cried filled with regret, the last words his parents heard from his mouth, were him telling them he hated them. The boy sat next to them, promising he would change, that he didn't hate them. The doctor could only watch sadly, but he watched as he saw darkness gathering around the boy. Seeing this the doctor grabbed his phone and dialed a number. Alex moved closer to the boy and payed a hand on his shoulder, the boy as if feeling something looked over, but turned back around when seeing nothing. He stopped crying after a while. Not long after he was picked up by a man with a suit.

Alex wanted to see what had happened, but the memory fragment was ending. He soon found himself back in meditation. He opened his eyes and found that quite a few people were looking at him.

When Alex was meditating everything was normal at first, the man who had the clipboard was paying close attention to his energy as he was the only one who could. However he was shocked as he watched Alex's begin to increase rapidly.

He was scared for him, as he recalled back when his parents had gained power too fast. Thinking of this he got lost in his thoughts. When he looked back up at Alex, he saw him wiping his face, his sleeve wet with tears.

The rest of the teachers had noticed the entire room dim, but seeing as how he didn't say anything, they figured everything was within control.

Alex looked at those who were staring, and after drying his tears he asked to be excused.

After excusing him the man looked at the rest of the students, who weren't meditating.

'Looks like a few still haven't learned how to even clear their minds.' He was about to get back to paying attention when he noticed movement in the corner of his eyes. It was one of the other instructors. He looked over and mouthed 'what?'

The teacher motioned wiping below the left eye. He was confused for a second. 'Is he speaking about the boy.'

He then raised his hand to his cheek, and after feeling for a second he quickly wiped it. Oh. He then put on a grateful smile and mouthed 'thank you.'

Alex went to the nearest bathroom, trying to hold in his lunch that he had only recently enjoyed.

After a several minutes he returned to the room. Seeing that everyone was still meditating, he went over to the man who had the clipboard.

"I don't think meditating further will be of much more help to me today, is there somewhere I can go to practice control elsewhere."

Alex had realized that his power had grown a lot from that one memory fragment. He had yet to feel such powerful emotions from all previous ones. He knew that even if he tried he wouldn't be able to completely focus, so he decided to change things up in order to calm himself.

"Yeah just tell the lady at the front desk."

Alex grabbed his stuff while leaving behind the manual, as he no longer needed it, and left the room once again.

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"Hey, how can I help you?" the lady asked.

"I need a training room, preferably one that is not occupied."

"I'm sorry you don't have access to the private rooms yet, but I can give you access to the least crowded public room, there are two others in there."

"That'll be fine, thank you."

"Okay here you go, train well, and bring that back by the end of the day." She said while handing him a card with a room number on it.

"Public training rooms are down that hall."

Alex nodded in understanding, and headed off. When he arrived at rooms, he looked around in astonishment. All of them were further enhanced with magic, the doors had a perfect fusion between technology and magic. He physically wouldn't be able to open it, and even more so that a rune was monitoring it. Alex had no doubt the guards would be alerted when someone without access was trying to pry.

After a short walk he soon found the room that matched the number on the card. Alex sent his energy through ahead of him. The two people were busy beating up dummies with their power. He placed the card on top of the reader and he heard a click. He entered ready to get rid of some stress.