A gaze into a new world

The walk/run through the forest was completely unrecognizable, every twist and turn felt foreign. I chose to rely completely on instincts, a strong belief that I was going down the right path never faltering to second guess myself. While running through the forest, my breath became lead-heavy, a slight sharp pain could be felt in my chest every now and then, I chose to ignore it deciding that I needed to become more athletic and "there's no better time than now" as my mother always says. Sweat was beating down my face, blurring my vision, causing me to clench onto my ax somewhat desperately.

I wanted to tear off my backpack and prepare myself for the coming onslaught. Strange I know but the forest seemed to tinge with every blink. Causing me to frantically look for the source of the sound.

The forest took on a life of its own. loud singing of the birds felt like the roars of mystical beast, all of them sounding far yet so close that I could feel their hot breath breathing down my neck. The moistness on my back and neck causing my to skin to shift with every manor of twitches, my heartfelt exasperated, flushing my body with an almost stupid level of strength, aiding me in my desire to cut down every branch on my path, one after another.

It was no different from the warrior slaying monsters. I had a growing desire to yell out "die monster die" but even though I'm all alone in the forest, doing something like that would cause me to die of embarrassment, laughing somewhat to myself. The whole altercation carried with it an almost childlike aspect. I unknowingly convinced myself that I was on an adventure.

I was a kid again, playing pretend. I find it strange that I could only do these things when no one was around. It's like when no one else is around I didn't have to hold up the façade that I was all grown up. It was all pretended, I know… a moment of fear and imagination twisted together in my mind causing me to imagine everything.

After a while of running through the forest, cutting down every branch in my path, stomping on the hard dirt, and hearing the crunching of wood breaking underneath my boots. I was Drenched in sweat, and completely out of breath. I saw a clearing up ahead, realizing that I was nearing the cabin, causing me to run even faster like a kid in first place in a race. I wanted to beat the forest in some crazy way. When I got to the clearing I decided to stop and rest.

I found just standing to be a daunting task. After sitting down to catch my breath, I looked back at the path I took to get here, what I saw left a sour taste in my mouth, the feeling of my salvia growing stale, bothered my mouth. My path through the forest didn't look any different like I hadn't been there at all. After spending some time catching my breath and taking a few gulps of my water bottle. I chose to look around for anything even remotely familiar. I didn't have to look for long after just a minute I found the large stone, my father placed at the start of the path towards the cabin.

The walk to the cabin was short. Nothing much had really changed, the grass had grown back, but other than the longer grass nothing much had changed over the years. While standing at the makeshift entrance of the cleared cabin space I felt like I was home. A home that needed some work but still a home. A place in which I could be myself.

The walk towards the cabin felt like reliving childhood memories, the tree stump a few feet away from the cabin reminded me of all the times Id run and jump off it whenever my brothers would chase me around. Or all the times I had to share the swing set with my younger cousins. The steps to the door were covered in leaves and had plants growing through the cracks, it was still sturdy and could support my weight, but was obviously not in the best shape. "I could replace them," I thought. When inside the cabin looked… how do I say this… awful yeah awful would be the word id use. It had spider webs and dust everywhere, the whole place was gloomy and meek, all of it gave me the creeps. The cabin was made to mimic the look of an old western barn, it had two floors and 6 bedrooms, the wood used was a light brown color, it had a shower with a fireplace.

I knew cleaning this place up would take forever, by cleaning I mean killing all the spiders, so I decided to set up camp. The whole process of setting up camp was easier than I thought it'd be. Deciding that I only needed to put up a tent near the cabin. After that I reluctantly decided to find a long stick, desperately trying to stop my shaking, because of my fear of dark places and spiders.

After Harding my nerves, grinding my teeth and clenching the stick as hard as I could I went into the cabin, armed with a stick and a burning desire to kill every spider, and creepy crawly I find inside.

While inside all the furniture was covered in a green thin protective cover. The dust in the air could be seen everywhere whenever light seeped in through the thin covers over the windows, what seemed like a second after entering the cabin, I ran into a spider web, cried out and freaked out, swing the stick in my hand randomly my foot making contact with a small ball-like thing on the floor, causing my feet to come out from under me. My heart rate quickened, as I try to grab onto anything to keep myself from hitting the ground. After the hard fall, I quickly got onto my hands and knees shaking. I gasped for air, putting a hand to my lower back.

"This… whole… day… sucks!" I yelled out in a spaced breaths, unable to catch my breath.

After leaving the cabin to catch my breath, pissed off, and with a mind filled with revenge I headed back in, I practically ran through the cabin destroying every spider web I could find. I removed every window cover, trying to let some light into the cabin. Hoping that the light could aid in my massacre of the spiders. The whole process felt needlessly tiring. Running from one room to another for no other reason than it seemed fun at the moment. The stick in my hand was covered in thick ghostly white spider webs. "Now I am become death, the destroyer of spiders," I said trying to maintain a straight face. I looked at the cabin still remembering things from the past, trying to get some of the dust off my clothes, remembering all the nights I'd sit at the dinner table and stare outside, wanting to do nothing but play all day.

It took me just a few hours to get the cabin in goodish shape, at least good enough to hang out in. After that, I grabbed [beginner's guide to core creation] deciding that now is a better time than any to learn about this "core" thing. The book was different from [alchemy for idiots] while the latter tried hard to give the reader some semblance of hope that they could be an alchemists, the [beginners guide to core creation] made it quite clear that only the truly gifted could ever hope of even "sensing qi" as the author put it. According to the author, there were 6 stages of qi mastery, qi sensing was the first followed by qi core forming, qi manipulation, qi molding, qi transformation, and qi conjuration. Each stage had an endless depth to it. The author also added that each stage other than the first two needed not to be met, as some martial artists chose not to bother reaching the later stages, instead deciding to dedicate there lives to fully master and create abilities that utilized only one or two particular stages. After the qi sensing, and qi core-forming stage. The others were more specialized, someone could choose to be a qi manipulator/molder, or qi molder/conjuration, or just focus on a single stage. It was all really just depended on where their talent took them.

The author then reiterated just how gifted someone needed to be to simply perceive qi, it all felt somewhat snobbish, like he was looking down on those who weren't born "special" enough to even sense qi. According to him, the qi sensing stage was the shortest and easiest stage. "Can you feel the qi in the air, ground, trees…. can you feel the qi traveling throughout the world? If so then move on. Cry not for the fool who attempts to understand the grand mysteries of infinite worldly qi! And loses him/her self in the endless void, begin forming your core, grab what little you can and boldly walk the path of the martial artist!" he wrote, "worldly qi" I thought how strange, he places a certain emphasis on "worldly qi". Deeming it to be different from the qi that martial artist use.

The description he gave for each stage was satisfying just from reading it I gained an insight on what qi was and the different uses of qi, the qi sensing stage was the first requirement of becoming a martial artist, "There exist worldly qi, constantly flowing throughout the world, the gift that the martial artist can acquire through meditation and mental stimulus is the ability to sense this qi" he wrote on page 25 of the chapter titled "sensing qi". The qi sensing stage relied completely on birthright/luck and if you can't sense worldly qi then you cannot become a martial artist. As sensing qi is something that a martial artist never stops needing.

The next stage was the qi center forming. Honestly, the concept of qi center forming was just an absolutely, amazing thing to read about. The martial artist, through meditation and qi compatibility, takes qi from the infinite worldly qi source and stores it inside the body. Forming a sphere-shaped qi ball. That is constantly being compressed by new qi entering the body through meditation. The qi inside the body forces the body of the martial artist to adjust to the diluted qi (author here the qi is diluted simply by being inside the martial artist) , allowing said person to begin the process of qi adaption, which sees the qi take on the characteristic of the martial artist.

Though the process comes at the risk of the would-be martial artists' death. Death would come slowly if said person did not process qi compatibly.

The process of qi center creation is painful and time-consuming. The last requirement of qi center forming is to survive the release of qi inside the body from the "qi ball". depending on how much qi the martial artist had stored, there would be either one of two battles that needed to be fought, the first option being a lack of qi, if the qi ball is released and the martial artist had not stored enough qi, then they'd have to spend some time meditating trying to absorbed more qi into the body, for a body deprived of qi dies. If the other option happens and the martial artist absorbed too much qi that person would be in an even worse situation as he'd/she'd be forced to form enough meridians/qi pathways to enable qi flow, if they failed in doing this they'd die, explosion or overheating was one of the many possible deaths. But if survived, that person would have successfully created his/her qi center, which from then on would allow him to use qi however he/she had the talent to".

After reading that description I started getting all kinds of crazy thoughts, "could this be real?" I thought everything felt weird. Like I just accidentally gazed into an entirely different world, "this could just be some guys fantasy magic system" I thought trying to get back to reality, after flipping through more pages I landed on a page detailing the meditation process for the qi sensing stage. After reading it and getting a strange electric feeling run through my body, a sudden burst of excitement ran through my body.

But I quickly remembered all the times I had to take my medication, all the kids who'd tease me for being different. "I don't want to be the weird guy anymore," I said quietly, laying on the couch in the main area of the cabin.

Holding onto the book that truly had captured my heart, I remembered a time when I was younger and read somewhere that mediation could decalcify my third eye. Just thinking about it caused me to burst out laughing, a younger me fully dedicated myself to opening my third eye, taking every little twitch to be a sign that I was on the right path. I went months just meditating a few hours a day. Now that I think back on it, I truly just wanted to escape the mundaneness of daily life. School was a bore to me and getting in trouble every day for speaking my mind was getting to me. I had a superpower I thought to myself, my ability to see auras, sense danger, and good fortune, made me feel different. But instead of trying to hide this ability I wanted to enhance it, randomly deciding that my ability came from my third eye, I found some obscure way of decalcification of the third eye on the internet and dedicating myself to it. Honestly, the whole process was like spiritually running away from home.

Memories of my childhood seeped out of the hole I placed them in long ago. I remembered a boy who stood boldly Infront of everyone, sharp-tongued and fearless, everywhere he went he'd say what he was thinking, "shut up!" was his catchphrase. To whoever dared to disagree with him. Only one day that boy had said something he shouldn't have, "I'm not normal I can see auras" he said puffing out his chest and looking firmly down at everyone forms the desk he was standing on. A simple remark he made to a girl who said he was acting high and mighty, and that he was just normal like everyone else. The months of bullying afterwords was… "shit I'm crying!" I thought to myself. Quickly getting up and looking at the time. 6:31 pm, it's not like it's going to get dark any time soon, but I decided to head home. "Tomorrow I'm going to bring some cleaning supplies and lights", I said to myself. I chose to leave my backpack and all the other things I brought with me, only taking my book.

The fun through the forest was long and honestly with the lack of visibility even scarier than before. When I got to the streets, I made sure to take another peek at the ghost girls aura. She wasn't outside but that didn't matter I can pretty much feel the qi of every person who has qi in this town. Her qi was just as void and cold as ever when I got home, I was shocked and surprised to see my dad. "Where have you been A?" "A" was something I wanted everyone to call me when I was younger, and ever since then, he's been the only person to stick with the nickname. Honestly, it made me feel happy every time I heard it. "Umm I was at the cabin, I wanted to check out a few things up there," I said seriously surprised to see him back from work. My father works abroad so we only see him sometimes out of the month, "what's it like up there… geez, I can only imagine the spiders." He said making a face of concern for me. "Go get cleaned up. you're all sweaty sweety" my mother said, rushing from one thing to another trying to get dinner ready.

After taking a shower and eating dinner with my family, I was naturally removed from the conversation, not by force or anything it's just I've never had an interest in the things that my family or anyone else to be honest. My mind instead drifter towards the meditation process I saw, in [beginners guide to core creation]. I really don't care I thought to myself I don't care if it's fake I have to try it out, I have to escape this boring life of mine. "I'm full can I go to bed," I said, with a vacant look in my eyes, "sure thing A, but your mother and I have to talk to you tomorrow". My dad said, honestly I was completely exhausted when my body touched my soft cool bed I passed out.