A few hours ago…. seeing their son and loved one in pain the couple and the girl were struggling, but since he was dealt these cards by fate itself he had to fight this else he would become a wastrel. Alicia had enough of it in a few second itself, but was held back by the massive power of her husband, it should be acknowledged that nobody other than the two people next to her (the girl in the future perhaps) would be able to hold her back. Still tethering on the brink of madness the woman out of her maternal love dug fingers in both her hands into her husband’s arm which held her back. The child was a naughty one, he had broken things, swallowed things, gotten injured on numerous occasions, she was the one who tended to him when hurt and punished him when he was naughty. She did not give birth to him, but each drop of blood in his body, each cell on him, every drop of tear from his eyes were preserved by her and not even fate could take it from her. It all belonged to her not fate not anybody and the one who her this powerless due to circumstances should start counting their no. of days left because they wont have many left. She made fun of women who spent their life on their children yet here she was…. agonizing in pain worse than the time she was violated by the dogs of that wretched kingdom months without an end. Nobody in this world has a life without pain, but no mother would want even an ounce of pain on their child, no matter how irrational it sounded, it sounded just right to her. Sitting on the side of the two them was the young girl on her knees. She did not have happy life when she was young, she brought misfortune everywhere she went, her father did not have the means to protect her and was intent on selling her off, but stopped when he saw that she had yet to her scales seventeen years in. In the end when time elapsed and he got scared he reported this matter which in the end left her there. The last six years were the happiest of her life, she had yet to get her powers back but Alicia was teaching her and Sagar was strengthening her as well. Life was happy and fulfilling but the most important reason for that was the boy. He was the cutest thing she had ever seen. Initially it was just a mere fascination of seeing a baby and pity for him for not having a hand, but later she was amazed by him. The child had the mentality of an adult but the playfulness of child, he gave the couple the satisfaction of being parents but never let it haunt them that he was in pain. The two of them being the youngest had their rooms next to each other so he had the tendency to sneak in and sleep with her, but whenever they came back from a voyage he would feel his incompleteness. She wanted to go to him to console him, but he wanted to be left alone, this mentality was uncanny, scary even. Sagar did say that this was because of endurance, but this seemed like it was impossible. How was he even a kid? But today she saw it, all his bottled up feelings, all the weakness in his body, all parts of his shattered heart in those weak punches hitting the wet loamy soil of the beach.

When his episode of hysteria was over, the father walked up to him and picked him from sinking into the pit again and lied down next to him and slept. He was not this tired, when he battling the fierce Kraken while surviving the power of the ocean trying to pull Rhodos apart, but the night had taken all he had to stop himself and his wife from intervening in those few minutes. He slept next to his son, right hand protruding out to support Kush’s head, letting him sleep comfortably. He circulated mana in to his son, trying to mend the broken tissues, he would set the bones in place later, but right now he was tired, “ah… this is what feels like having a family huh… heh… probably the weirdest family out there”

Later that night after his proclamation, Kush passed out again. Tired Alicia and Rhodos were sleeping on the beach as well. Sagar picked the two of them up and placed them on their beds. He brought a few slings of various sizes and brought a stretcher, tenderly placing him on the stretcher he rushed back to his house. He used mud treated with neem oil to prevent movement of his lower body and spine, after the cast was ready he injected mana into his body. Kush was passed out for 3 days enduring fever, but never uttering a cry.

He woke at dawn and saw his mother next to and voiced out “Mom…”. Hearing the word, the mother sleeping on a chair next to him snapped out of her sleep and leapt up to hug her son but stopped mid-way fearing that she might exacerbate his injury. But still moved forward and hugged his head, pulling it into her bosom. He liked the soft of his mom’s love and for a moment forgot his pain, to alleviate her pain he pronounced with great difficulty “Mom, I am sorry, I will never show such a sorry sight of me aga…” she covered his mouth with her hand. The child had never complained about his hand, at times she chalked it up to the fact that he never missed something he never had, but it was not true, all that time he had bottled it all up. “Oh my son… I am sorry I can’t do anything about it sniff…. Sniff….”

“Ah… the sight of the Chandi herself crying, oh how your enemies would have been shocked to see the sight of you crying”

Seeing his father and Rhodos standing outside the gate, he called out “Father, Rhodos, I am ….”

“Men don’t need to say word to express themselves son”

“Mom, I am hungry…”

“oh my, how thoughtless of me” don’t worry son I will take care of it. The two parents rush to get something to eat for their son.

Sitting next to Kush, Rhodos says “You know, you are a very strong child”

“Father says its cause of my characteristic power”

She pulls him towards herself, his head on the side of her breasts, he likes it there, it’s comfortable; they sit there silently, motionlessly waiting for the couple to come in and bring food. The four of them ate and Kush went back to sleep, he only woke up for eating.

Next day his mother woke him up to wash him and he asked, “Mom is there no way for me to get stronger”

“sigh… for now no, I still haven’t figured out what to do but I would suggest let’s continue with our training”

He couldn’t help but feeling down but, still said “Yes mom”

Seeing his face, she understood this was not the answer he was looking for, but for now it couldn’t be helped.

Afternoon the four gathered in his room, his father sitting at the gate, practicing something. Rhodos trying to concentrate on the lecture as well, trying to find a clue to breakthrough her cultivation as well.

“The world, nature is filled with energy, called ‘Ether’. This is the most universal type of energy, prevalent in all non-living things and in nothingness of the world. As per scripture of Manusmriti, all the energy in the world is sourced from Ether, even the Surya Deva sources his energy from this. Concentration of this energy ranges from place to place and from thing to thing. For example, a hotter thing will have higher Ether concentration than a thing a room/body temperature, but doesn’t mean a cold thing would not have ether in it, the colder the thing below room temperature the higher the ether content. Life energy i.e. the energy required to move cells of your body is also a version of ether, the muscle energy, potential energy of a high object, the kinetic energy of a moving object, heat of body etc. all of it are one or the other forms of ether. Cultivation of our world is storing the ether in our body in form of Mana”

“But mom, if this is so then wouldn’t the amount of ether in this world end after a few years”

“No, the amount of ether in the world is never conserved, i.e. the more ether is absorbed the more the ether is formed in the world in one form or the other. Manusmriti, also states that the purpose of life in this universe is to consume ether, consumption of ether is never 100% i.e. there is an inefficiency which turns to heat……” seeing the kids losing track of their lessons, she stopped “Anyway that is a very advanced level for now, let us limit ourselves to the physical aspects”

For humans and most terrestrial species, air is the largest source of ether, before their education children simply fill their lungs with air and expel it, but now I want you to inhale the air and hold it in place for as long as you can. Your lung cells are made up of two components the aerial components separating the oxygen from the air for your body and the ethereal components to separate the ether from your body and process to mana which will stored in your body. To be most focused on extraction of ether one has to be motionless, the mobile body loses concentration, hence makes it nearly impossible to extract ether. This comes naturally to everyone, depending on the caliber of the person, specie and place a person extracts the ether from. For a human, it ranges from 4 to 6 days, don’t worry about anything else and start practicing.

Listening to his mother the son immediately started the process of extraction, he inhaled air and held his breath his breath, 10 sec…. 20 secs… 30 secs…  after about a minute, his lungs started burning, but he continued, after 2 min his diaphragm started trying to push the air out of his lungs, but he held on. Final after close to three minutes his mouth burst open and he panted exaggeratedly. He started again 10 sec…. 20 secs… 30 secs…  but achieved nothing after 3 min and let out his breath. Seeing him started on the training the mother left the room.

He inhaled again and tried holding his breath, succeeded in holding for 3 minutes and 10 seconds. This continued till dinner when his mother asked him to stop. He had done this 63 times and the maximum time he could hold off for was for 4 and half minutes. His head was swirling and he was starting to feel nauseous. But smell of food put him out of his nauseous state, he ate with gumption and was about to start again when his mother said. Son you need to stop the training at some point. Rest is just as important as training, listening to his mother he stopped. He restarted as soon as his mother left the room, he knew he had to work a lot harder than other to be able to become strong. Shutting his eyes, he let in the breath and held it in, this time he managed to hold his breath for 4min and 40 seconds. Even he was realizing that the duration he could his breath for was increasing, but could not feel anything special.

“Man this is tough, I thought I would be able to do such a simple thing but it’s still not working. Anyway, not like sitting around doing nothing would help me anyway. But this holding my breath thing burns. It like I felt when I was drowning I that puddle. It hurts a lot in my heart too, how the heck do people do it? Man cultivation sure is tough, sigh… but can’t be helped”

He geared up and continued, by the morning he had completed 94 repetitions of the breathing exercise, his maximum hold time was 8 min 50 sec. Till he felt nauseous and puked on the floor, all he had eaten out on the floor. The exercise deprived his body of correct supply of oxygen. He simply pushing his broken and battered body which supposed to be repairing itself, by not supplying proper oxygen and rest. His mother had realized in the night itself that he was continuing through the night, but she did not stop him because for him survive and become stronger, he had to push to new limits, hence now you had a six-year-old pushing an all-nighter.

She heard him puke in his room and ran to his room, after cleaning up she did not question him, she simply cleaned his face with a wet cloth and caressed his cheek with her hand. Painfully aware that her gestures could end up weakening his resolve, she picked herself up and went out to prepare breakfast.

Kush continued in his cultivation, but the devoid of food and a spinning head, stopped him from concentrating on cultivation. He was not able to hold his breath for more than a minute since he puked. After breakfast the sleep clouded his eye so much that he slept through the morning for 3 hours. When he woke, it was still early morning but his fatigue had reduced a little. Any normal man in Bhoomi would have passed out in between his first session, i.e. before Kush had his dinner yesterday and the fatigue would have pushed him to sleep till the morning. This step is not that tough, all a child had to do was persevere on and it would come to him automatically, the process itself is tough because no one can teach it to you and no one had a fixed idea of how it occurred, all that was known was that, body needs this energy to sustain itself and absorbs it to form life energy used for everything, from repair to digestion to growth. You just needed to tap into the cell’s ability to absorb ether and convert it to mana, lungs being one of the most voluntary organ and absorbing the largest amount of natural elements from nature, it also has the highest surface area in all, making it the most efficient method of absorbing ether. Once a person got it, all he had to practice to become efficient in mana absorption.

He asked his mother for something to eat, so that he could continue through the day without interruption. He started inhalation and exhalation process. By evening he had completed 78 repetition of the entire process but still achieved nothing. His eyes were starting to hurt, cause of the lack of sleep. He had his dinner and waited for a half an hour, before starting this time around. The maximum he could hold his breath for now was 12 minutes now. He knew this was not sustainable and things were but he would not give up. He started the next session of training after completing 30 reps now he could hold his breath for a 15 min now.

It was almost 2 PM in the night everybody was asleep, the waves at the shore of their house came and went, the tides were high, the animals the ones the family were rearing were asleep. The couple and Rhodos were fast asleep as well, when suddenly a roar echoed out of the Kush’s room, the roar was more like a hoarse cry for help, there was something else which made it seem powerful, it had mana imbued in. Surprised the couple and Rhodos dashed towards his room and saw the child was screaming in pain and had broken through his cast. He was screaming in pain by grabbing onto his left leg. “The numbing agent which they used must have stopped working?” Was their first thought. So they immediately grabbed him and held him down on the bed, with the strength of his mother he was immobile, but the pain had sent him in seizures. Alicia used her perception trying to identify when she saw a clear stream of golden line starting from his lung forming a small pile of water going to the base of his spine, from there another clear stream of line was going towards his left leg and was dissociating there.

During his 30th rep, he felt a small tug from his left leg, he thought this is what it would feel like for mana to flow in, so he let the tug go. Tug was like string going along his broken bones, tendon and muscles to his hips, it stung a little cause it made him feel where he was hurt, but the juice mother and father gave him prevented the tug from turning into a whole flood of hurt. From his hip it went to the base of his spine where the tug had disappeared, from here he felt a suction, a suction that went to his entire skin, the inner lining of stomach and intestines, his blood vessels, his heart, his tongue, his eyes, his ears and his lungs. It was a like pump had been started without being primed, the wall of the vessels which were supposed to carry the mana, collapsed in on each other, the pain sent shivers down his spine but he couldn’t let his breath out making him unable to shout out, so he punched the wall out of desperation. It was like something was trying to keep the lungs from collapsing and letting his air out. His mind was about to go blank, everything in front of his eyes was turning dark, the spectacular pain was like pushing pins up the tip of your finger if you had a hundred fingers and all of them were pierced at the same time. Suddenly as if he could see the inside of his body, he could feel the ethereal black gooey liquidy thing separating from the air in his lungs and went into the alveolar ducts, his entire lungs, his skin were shinning golden from the inside. Even a sage, when he sees this would be shocked, cause it takes decades or a century, for the less talented, to be able to achieve this much mana absorption rate, for it to be achieved on the first try for someone who was not even a Magic regeneration characteristic, was impossible nigh impossible. Such things are absent even from fairy tales of great heroes of strength, the hero the Mahabali ‘Hanuman’ even, because this was the one step which was alike for all, be they heroes or the hoi polloi or paupers.

As soon as the mana began to flow, he screamed, because the stream was dissolving into his injury and opening up all the scabs which were starting to form.

“Ahhhh…….”

The mother on examination saw this, she was surprised, because even for her this was a first, but time was of the essence, she could not let her shocked state impact the golden opportunity for her son.

“Kush” she shouted

“Kush, you have to snap out of it” she shouted

Delirious in his mind he could see a white expanse where he was sitting with his legs crossed in Padmasana. His eyes shut, cut off from the rest of the world, unable to focus on his senses. Suddenly he could feel a palm on his shoulders, pulling him up. It was his mother who was shouting at him to wake up.

Out in real world

“Son, wake up”

His tremors stopped, and he opened his eyes, running high on fever he turned his eyes to his mother signaling her to continue

“Son, listen to me. I know you can see your entire body light up from the inside right now. This is a good thing trust me. I can theorize why it is happening and it is good thing, trust me. What I am going to tell you is going to hurt a lot, but it will be good for you, remember and follow my lead. Let the golden shine in your body move easily to the base of your spine. There you will find, a sack the shape of a sphere let the golden shine pour into it, from there it will try to flow to your wounds in your back and your legs, let it flow easily, but don’t let the sphere empty out ever. The flow should be such that the amount you are allowing out of the sphere should always be less than flow of into it. Remember the pleasant feeling you get from allowing it out will make you want to let it go but stay put”

Listening to his mother he gritted his teeth and snubbed his scream and did as was told. He breathed in and out, the flow went with him, in and out. Due to the pain prevented him from hold his breath, but with the state he was in, it did not matter. Whatever his lungs inhaled was absorbed by his muscles.

“Ah.. ah.. ah..” He felt good every time the mana dissociated in his legs. This feeling was better than sex itself, the endorphin released after the pain was a blessing, he almost got an erection due to this, he was healing, he was healing and he could feel the repair going on in his body. He liked the feeling and momentarily allowed the out flow to increase.

“Kush concentrate” shouted his mother and he came back on course

This happened numerous times over the period of this incident. Alicia knew this could happen and hence was vigilant all the time.

“Remember this feeling son. Remember how you absorb the ether and let your body remember the feeling. The control of mana is secondary, let your body remember all the location from where ether is absorbed and let it continue un-interrupted. Have a look of all the paths ether can take and remember them”

Kush concentrated on his mother’s words and did what he was told. What seemed like an endless tirade of absorption and expulsion continued for over the night and well in the morning.

It took but a moment for his father and Rhodos to return with milk of poppy, they just stood by Alicia near the bed the whole time, they were nothing but shocked at what was happening, but since Alicia was managing the situation, they did not interfere. This went on for 17 hours till day time, Kush’s young body continued till he could take the pain. After memorizing all the path, he let go of the mana control when the sack seemed to have filled up visibly showing a golden shine at the bottom, the mana out flow went out of control.

“AAhhh……” he let out a lewd sound, cause of the growing rate of repair in his legs and spine.

“Alicia!!” Exclaimed the father

“Sigh…” Alicia injected her mana in his body and cut off the ether supply from his body everywhere

Kush on falling out of the awesome state, passed out. Despite being a six-year-old kid, he had persevered what could be called the most horrendous torture the world could imagine

Drenched in sweat in her clothes “Plop” she fell on her butt and supported her head against Sagar’s knees.

Sagar had his eye trained on Kush during the whole process and only one term come to his mind “Monstrous”. This kid’s tolerance for torture and mental fortitude is horrific. Once he confirmed all had stopped, he sat down next to his wife and supported his back against the wall behind him. Rhodos during his whole ordeal, ‘was just plain dazed’. Even she had yet to reach this state, and this kid had already reached there. But most of all was the that monstrous immediate repair going with his leg, how the heck did he survive that ordeal. The tug of war of mana flow itself would have killed her then and there at the get go, but he survived this for 17 hours? Just thinking of this sent goosebumps through her whole body. The view of her erect nipples through the sash would have made anyone want to suck on them for the sweet-sweet nectar, but no one here would appreciate the view. Fatigue came to her already weak body as she plopped to the ground too, she too sat down with her back to the wall.

Alicia started “He must have been a break-through point when his injury, part of his skin, on sensing ether would have tugged at his Mula Chakra point for it. The Mula chakra point must have started suction on his body on sensing demand, this must have closed his chakra veins. It must have been painful for him, my poor son.”

“Ma’am, what do you mean painful? When the veins of person collapse a person is supposed to die from pain, nothing even comes remotely close to the amount of pain when one’s chakra veins collapse” said Rhodos

The room went silent for a moment, cause even the couple realized what the collapse of veins means to a person a child no less. His mind should have tried to blank out the pain, cutting off communication with his spine, paralyzing him and sending him in a coma best case scenario.

“Monstrous” said Sagar again. “This kid is going to give me a heart attack someday” said Alicia like a common mother waiting for her kid who is late from school. Though she was a little proud of him as well, mostly horrified, but a proud

Continuing on she said “once the Mana flow started in his veins, they re-opened…”

Rhodos said interrupting “I’ve never heard of a person who has recovered from collapsed mana vein. This is ridiculous, why aren’t any of you trying to find out the reason?”

Cause they themselves had on many occasions, pulled off what seemed entirely impossible at times.

To her Alicia said “No one has ever survived with scales on their body for more than 17 years and 11 months. You are one to talk”

The retort shut her up.

“Anyway as I was saying, the suction straight away pulled the mana, which should have dissipated entirely back into air, in the ‘Mula Chakra’ from where it went straight to his injuries to heal them”

“Ssss….” Said Rhodos again, feeling goosebumps over her body again

With head in her lap Alicia said “I know, it would have re-opened all the wounds at the same time to repair. The horrific pain must have knocked him unconscious and put him in seizure”

A drop of tear flowed down the beautiful skin of the country toppling beauty, anyone in this world would have wanted to lick the tear of her cheek and console her in his chest, but no one here was in the mood.

He already had an inclination as to what had happened, but hearing it dried up his lips. His grip around his wife’s shoulders tightened.

Alicia controlling herself continued “As soon as the injury felt the life energy the suction from it must have increased. I was here by this time and slowed down the out flow to injuries. Must have killed him to control the out flow, but he persevered. My son still listened to him.”

She then broke down, unable to calm herself, she cried like a woman without any prospects and power.

Then came a gruffy voice of man “Ah…” he started “At least we have a path now he can take. A perilously tough one, but he has a path now”

Her face buried in his chest, she nodded in agreement and cried inconsolably