Seven months of training

Altin failed in feeling the 5th force, despite many attempts. He felt irritated; he couldn't accept failing at a seemingly simple task. The setback disturbed him. What if he didn't have any talent in it, after all?

He resolved to move closer once again. He raised the chair, and ...

"Wait a bit." Marie walked towards Altin, with Juliette following. "Do you not feel the 5th force?"

"No... I really don't." Altin replied.

"Ok, well, it's not that weird. However, I'm worried that you trigger some weird effects if you get too close to the orb. So I would like you to remain as far from it as possible. Did you really not feel anything?" Marie gazed at Juliette, looking for her opinion. She nodded. She turned her gaze back to Altin.

"No, I think I need to come closer," Altin confirmed again.

"It can't be helped then," Marie said. "Move one meter closer. Juliette, please stand behind the orb, ready to close the lid of the chest or to take the orb away in case anything happens, even minor." She instructed.

"No problem." Juliette acquiesced. She had seen what Altin could do close to the orb, so she took the matter seriously. She disliked menial tasks, but she was a diligent student and had a strong sense of responsibility.

Altin nodded and brought the chair one meter away.

He forced himself to push away his anxiety. It took time, but the green and verdant field's calming image helped.

He...

... started meditating.

He felt indescribable warn chills in the back of his head. Focusing on them, he attempted to extract them into tinier and more numerous feelings. They increased.

He felt it.

Altin had succeeded in feeling the 5th force, one meter away from the orb.

The training session continued in the same fashion: Altin kept meditating one meter away from the orb, with Eléonore four more meters behind. Juliette and Marie kept a close watch on Altin, but nothing of note happened.

To the disappointment of Altin, by night, he still couldn't get much farther from the orb.

Eléonore, who was all about feeling and less about words, explained that the process of tuning your brain to the 5th force was akin to learning to recognize musical pitch. At first, you wouldn't accurately tell a note apart from another. It would be hard to estimate how high or low a note was. However, with training, your ear and brain would slowly become familiar with the notes. After years, identifying pitches would become easy.

Like that, Eléonore told Altin that he would need time and frequent practice, just like learning music. Like learning music, one would find it terribly hard to learn without sensing. Just like learning music was impossible without hearing, learning to feel the 5th force was almost impossible without the orb presence.

The day came to an end.

The weekend. Altin decided to remain in Paris with his friends this week to not miss the first lesson together. He promised to visit Mr et Mme Durand the following week.

The content of François, Juliette, and Paul's lesson was similar to that of Altin's. Yet, it should be noted that they were taught in a group class with other association members. They didn't have private tutelage like Altin had, as only Altin had warranted personal attention due to his incredible results during the talent test. He carried the hope of Pascal and Marie that they would be able to discover more of the 5th force and perhaps save lives by raising such an expert among them.

It could be said that aside from Altin, Paul was the most talented, especially in manipulating light, most likely a benefit from his oppressing and terrifying experience in the black hole. Next came François, who seemed to have a natural talent for gravity. Then, at last, came Julien. He still had to find a way to manifest any reaction, even when holding the orb directly.

Of course, just like Altin, they were to only train in feeling for the time being. At any group class, a dozen people silently meditated in the large living room in a circle around the orb. They found that the training session now happened every Saturday and Sunday, both morning and afternoon.

It was unlike before when sessions only occurred every Sunday afternoon. However, the recent spike of anomalies, both in occurrence and intensity, had everyone worried. There were more and more anomalies reported everywhere in the world.

Members of the 5th force association felt they needed to master the 5th force as soon as possible to avoid danger. At the very least, they felt the need to feel it.

It was known that wherever the 5th force was felt, strange and unexpected anomalies would occur, most often dangerous. Therefore, one had better detect them from afar to not get close!

Weeks passed in the same way: Altin would visit twice, sometimes thrice, on weekdays.

Sometimes, he would also come on Saturday or Sunday.

François, Julien, and Paul would come on most weekends, only coming home once a month. Of course, they didn't miss to feel envious towards Altin, who had private teaching. Still, given how Altin was dedicated to helping them and retelling every little thing he heard, they found it hard to have any bad feelings for him.

The training was difficult and slow, very much slow.

It was the kind of speed that seemed as if you didn't progress a week after another, but you would observe some progress after a month. It was a bit like growing: day to day, you would grow, but you wouldn't notice.

Altin was mainly given tips and lessons by Juliette and sometimes helped by Marie. She could explain further than Juliette could. It was a pity that Altin was too young to understand much of what she said. In actual training, he practiced with Eléonore.

At one point, Marie and Pascal agreed to let Altin practice control of the 5th force. It was only after Altin pleaded for a month due to being bored to death of only meditating "far" from the orb. Altin inquired whether he should focus on studying physics, but he was told there wasn't too much point in researching the physics behind the 5th force. Practical training was the most important.

So instead, Juliette advised him to train to feel the 5th force and to have his body intuitively learn how to influence it. It was a bit how learning to ride a bike "in theory" wouldn't teach you how to ride one. Instead, it was much faster and easier to have your body get used to it. The actual learning process was indescribable.

Eléonore was a good friend in that process. She kept pouring positive energy into training, and she seemed skilled at describing how it felt. Although she was more advanced than Altin regarding the 5th force, she found that giving tips to Altin benefited her by clarifying and solidifying her own understanding.

Weeks passed.

When Altin came, he would first learn physics taught by Juliette and sometimes Marie. Then, he would practice a reasonable distance from the orb, but not too far either. Altin didn't make much progress at first. It was just too hard to feel the force far from the orb. He went from 1 meter to 2 in two months, then from 2 to 3 meters in 3 more months.

Eventually, François, Julien, and Paul were accepted into the lessons with Altin's efforts to bring them in. Even though Juliette didn't have the patience to teach more than one kid at a time, she gave in, understanding that the four made an inseparable band. Altin was often tasked with retelling the lessons to his friends so that Juliette didn't have to answer too many questions herself.

Soon, weeks became months. There were numerous reports of small-scale anomalies globally, almost once every week. Meters-wide anomaly had started to occur everywhere; thankfully, most were fortunately outside urban areas... but not always.

The worrying increase of deadly anomalies pressed against everybody's urge to train. There were reports of deaths by unfortunate falls, electrocution, or mysterious disappearance. Once, a gravitational anomaly occurred in the airspace of an airport. This had caused a plane to crash, killing all passengers. After that, the air traffic was stopped for a moment, but even after it resumed, people started to lose confidence in flying aircraft worldwide.

It was like back in 2020 when air travail had brutally stopped because of covid fears.

Altin didn't just go to the classes of the 5th force association; he did everything he could do in his free time to speed up his training. He trained both body and mind. For his body, he practiced Tai Qi and Kung Fu after Juliette's advice. For his mind, he read books on physics.

He made incredible efforts for a 14 y.o. teen still in middle school.

He drew motivation from the thought that if he failed to progress, his friends, even him, might become implicated in another deadly anomaly. Even now, Altin had nightmares of being trapped in darkness, helpless to help his friends draw away from fatal dangers.

He was not courageous; he avoided risks as much as he could. Altin feared death very much and feared his friends' deaths all the same. This was precisely this fear that drove him to train harder than anyone.

Even when his body hurt all over, he would continue to train. In this way, he acquired resistance to both pain and tiredness.

With this terrifying motivation, he would commit two hours to train every day. As a result, he trained twice more than Julien, Paul, and François.

They, too, had adapted to a particular training routine. However, they aimed to specialize in one thing, contrary to Altin, who preferred training in all aspects.

François focused on training speed and power. He thought that he might develop tremendous physical strength in the future, given his talent in gravity.

Julien focused on theory; he had accepted that he lacked the talent for feeling the 5th force. Because of that, everything was much harder. However, he initially had the most interest in science, so he hoped to one day uncover the mysteries of the 5th force by the power of science.

Paul was the most intuitive among the band of four. He didn't understand much of science, and he wasn't fond of physical training. However, he did things intuitively, much by failing and finding what worked and what didn't. He made quick progress on feeling and controlling the 5th force, but when asked how he was doing it, he usually shrugged his shoulders and said: "I just do it."

François, Julien, Paul, and Altin all avoided being involved in an anomaly. Whenever someone proposed to take a look, Altin strongly defended the idea of going, arguing that they weren't skilled enough to fear no risk.

In Mai 2025, Altin's birthday came; he turned 15.

His birthday was set as the day he was found on the side of the road as an infant. His age was estimated to be around five years old at that time.

His hair seemed to grow very slightly whiter in some place, a thing unusual for his age. He grew taller but yet was still the second smallest after Julien.

When Altin became able to feel the force as far as 5 meters, he realized he could now feel it everywhere with extreme focus.

From there on, his progress skyrocketed, and so did his obsession. Finally, he started to learn "control."

Compared to him, François, Julien, and Paul made slower progress. They still couldn't feel the force farther than 3 meters from the orb.

They had fewer opportunities to practice than Altin, and they trained less hard. Despite that, it seemed Altin had the talent to train faster.

Since Altin had started to learn control of the 5th force, he verified that learning martial arts really helped achieve minute control over your body's many muscles. It was certainly easier to "guide" the "tingling" feeling from your head to somewhere else with minute control.

Eléonore didn't progress as fast as Altin, but she redoubled efforts seeing him moving so far. She did not want to be left behind.

By August, to give you an idea of how much progress each made, Altin was able to feel the force anywhere in a minuscule amount. However, he had yet to try to apply it for anything. Each time he had the force flow through him, he would remember the danger it posed to his friends and him. This subconscious thought stopped him from gathering enough force to have any actual effect. One mustn't underestimate how harder and harder feeling the force became as you pulled away from it.

Feeling the force anywhere was about dozen times more challenging than feeling the force 5 meters away from the orb.

Feeling the force 5 meters away was 4 times harder than feeling the force 2.5 meters away.

The relationship between distance and a force origin could be summoned as follow:

F = C/r² where F is the force's power, C is an unknown constant, and r is the distance from the force's origin.

If you doubled the distance, the force intensity was split by four. So feeling it was four times more difficult.

As such, it could be said that Altin had improved at a tremendous rate.

François and Paul's limits were 3 meters.

Julien, even after 6 months, could only feel no farther than 2 meters. Nevertheless, it was still a good result for the boy, given he had started with no affinity at all.

In terms of control, François, Altin, and Paul had some success. They were at about the same level. It seemed to everyone that Altin's talent was limited to his sensitivity.

None of the four boys could do anything in terms of application power.

Eléonore had not slacked off. Living in the Hub, she could train with Juliette and Marie's help every day.

Thanks to that, she managed to catch up to Altin near the end of August. She now, like Juliette and Altin, could feel the 5th force in a minuscule amount everywhere. Thanks to her more extended experience with it, she could even gather it to her palms.

It was now confirmed that she had an apparent talent for a rare application of the 5th force: sound. She could create or neglect vibrations of matter in the air, thus clearing and making a sound of her choice.

This was only possible when she held the orb; otherwise, she could not have any measurable impact on her surroundings yet without external help.

---

Seven months after the initiation into the 5th force association, September 2026

Altin, François, Paul, and Julien had all graduated from the 3ème to the second (from the 9th to the 10th grade). They were now in the high school section of their school.

It was the afternoon of a rainy day. The school had chosen to organize a sports competition between the classes this day. The director had figured it was an excellent way to kick off the year and have the kids band together.

Altin and his friends, unfortunately, weren't on the same team and were forced to play against each other.

The competition took place in the gym. Unlike nearly a year ago when Altin's team had played against Jean's team, the game was handball. The teams had to coordinate to throw the ball into the opposite team's goal using hands, not feet.

The games started in a very ordinary way. A fierce competition played out between the two teams. Still, he half-heartedly played whenever Altin had to face one of his friends, preferring to be defeated.

There had been no incident in the past 7 months at the school. Yet, the memory of the gravitational anomaly that had occurred in the gym never left Altin.

After an hour of play, Altin realized that he had started to feel a slight tingling in the back of his head, despite him not even trying to feel anything.

10 minutes later, he felt an unmistakable tingling in the back of his head.

"I must feel the 5th force. This kind, I seem to sense it especially well. But why ?" He considered.

He knew that he was feeling the 5th force, and apparently, it was gathering in the area. "Is it dangerous? Should we leave? Should I just alert everyone? But who would believe me?"

He was conflicted.

He didn't know what to do. He hoped that the feeling was his imagination alone or that it would somehow disappear.

However, the tingling feeling kept increasing. Altin tensed more and more.

Unbeknown to him, the fifth force was reaching a terrifying concentration below ground. It was building up in the gym like a raging volcano about to erupt.