Elder's Training I

"Think of your psyia as blood. Your body needs blood to survive but it cannot do without psyia as well, your body circulates blood all around your body and it circulates psyia as well."

A young boy wearing a wooden mask took slow strides around another boy with dark blue hair and Azure blue eyes.

"The difference is that unlike blood, you can actually control your flow of psyia. But in order to control it you need to first have a conscious knowledge of its presence."

The boy stopped walking and looked at Luck.

"Sit in the stream."

"Heh?"

Sometime after the incident Luck had finally begun his training with Elder. According to Elder their lessons were going to be in two dimensions.

First, he would cover psyia manipulation and then they would move on to physical combat. According to Elder he would only be teaching Luck the basics of psyia manipulation because he had not developed an enigma yet.

Luck was going to protest but after remembering that what actually happened was just a temporary activation of his enigma, he kept his protests to himself.

He took off his clothes leaving only his boxers and folded them neatly at the edge of the stream.

Luck walked into the stream and hopped in but immediately he did…

"Haaaaaa!"

Luck jumped out of the stream as fast as he had entered it. The water was freezing cold!

"Why is it so cold!?"

Elder turned to face Luck.

"Cold is good, it gives you a conscious feel of your entire body."

If Luck could see his face he was sure he would be smiling when he said this next:

"Be a darling and hop into the stream, we don't have all day!"

And then a small laugh escaped his lips.

'This guy!'

Not wasting anymore time Luck plunged himself into the cold embrace of the water.

The water level was not that high, while sitting, the water went up to his chest, leaving every other part of his body underneath it.

He was freezing…

He could only last 10 seconds before he jumped out again.

"Haaaaaa!"

It was as if he was in one of those icy cold baths. Why was the stream so cold in the first place?

"You need to spend more time in there."

Luck turned to him, an irritated look on his face.

"You think I don't know?"

"Then this will be your first training, conquer the chill of the stream and we shall begin."

After 2 minutes of hopping in and out of the water, Luck finally sat in the stream allowing the unrelentingly cold water to bathe his skin.

"Good, good. Do you notice that feeling around your body? That gentle hum, like a tingling feeling caused by the coldness of the stream."

"Yes, I can feel it. But how does this have to do with anything?"

"That feeling is very similar to what psyia feel like, hold onto it."

Arder then continued.

"Close your eyes and concentrate, this time try to feel something similar within yourself."

Luck sat in the cold stream, he could feel the tingling sensation as the cold water tortured his skin and then he tried to search for the same feeling inwardly.

He found…. Nothing.

Luck's eyes were still closed as he spoke.

"I can't feel it."

The masked boy then spoke in a low tone.

"How tenacious."

He was currently squatting down, curiously watching how a group of ants forced down a large spider into their hole.

Luck opened one eye to peep at what he was doing.

"Hey! I said I'm not feeling anything!"

Elder turned to look at him.

"Of course you aren't, it's not that easy. Just soak in there for another hour or two!"

"What do you mean an hour?!"

***

An hour went by like a breeze, and Luck still felt nothing.

He was used to the coldness of the stream by now but no matter how much he tried, he could not feel his psyia.

Elder walked up to him, watching him intently.

"I genuinely thought you would have felt your flow of psyia by now. Are you perhaps."

He tilted his head.

"Not very smart?"

"I'll have you know that I am a genius! A prodigy for the matter of fact!" Luck retorted, his eyes staring daggers at Elder.

"Well I don't blame you, feeling and manipulating psyia by someone who hasn't awakened his enigma is considerably more difficult. Except if you're a genius like me…"

Luck awkwardly shuffled in the stream.

Since he could use soul sight… didn't that mean he had already awakened his enigma? Or at least part of it?

'Is my body in this world….'

He gulped.

"Dumb!?"

He blurted out loud.

Elder turned to face him.

"Huh?"

"Oh, it's nothing."

Luck replied, sweating even though he was in a freezing lake.

Elder just shrugged.

"Hmm, let me think for a moment."

Elder began to pace around, his hand on the chin of his mask.

"Have you ever had a brief outburst of your psyia before?"

It took a moment of thinking before Luck figured out what he was talking about.

It was not rare for children to have random psyia outbursts as they grew, in fact it was a welcomed sign that meant the child would probably develop an enigma in the future.

Luck had not experienced any of such things but he had an experience that was very similar to a psyia outburst, during the time he fought the bandits.

"Something like that?" Luck said to himself.

"What do you mean by 'something like–." He sighed. "Stop spacing out."

"Imagine yourself in that situation once more, try to imagine the way your body felt when psyia surged around your entire body."

"The psyia has always been there, you just didn't feel it. Use your experience, use your imagination, use whatever you can to stimulate that feeling again."

As Luck closed his eyes deeply concentrating, Elder weld to the trunk of a tree and picked up a pretty sturdy but flexible branch.

'Yes, this should do.'

He slowly creeped closer to Luck and when he was close enough.

WHOOOOM

He whipped Luck's wet exposed back with the stick causing him to jump out of the stream.

"KYAAAAAAAA!"