(1 Year Later)

Ever since I began incorporating yoga into my training and creating my own version of Shalfar through it, my training speed has shown no sign of stopping and has in fact only grew as time went onwards.

Father was initially baffled by my sudden spike in progress, thinking that his little stunt did its work too well and that I was overworking myself because of it, but he has since come to terms with it.

Apparently, I was a genius in his eyes because I was not only improving on a daily basis, but also haven’t shown any signs of slowing down anytime soon. To him, I went from an extremely talented child (from a peasants perspective), to a child who could compete with children from the noble houses in terms of cultivation speed.

I still haven't told my father that I was capable of doing Shalfar yet, and I had no intention to. I’d rather not find out what people would do or say when they find out that a 6 year old child is capable of doing one the most difficult forms of cultivation. I trusted my family to keep it a secret if ever it did get out, but the best way to keep a secret was for no one to know about it to begin with.

That's why till today I only practiced Shalfar in my own room with the doors locked and curtains closed in the middle of the night, early in the morning or both if I had the chance to do so. Though it was a hassle to do it everyday I loved every minute of it, the feeling of sore muscles I get after a nice workout was pleasurable in its own right, but Shalfar in combination with yoga made me feel like I just came out of a sauna and a 1 hour full body massage course.

It was not just my Shalfar that increased my training speed over the course of the year, it was also my normal meditation. To be specific, it was the mental image I used during meditation practice. Instead of the mental image of a rope lassoing Spirit Energy and pulling towards my body like father originally taught me, I instead started using the of a black hole with me as the black hole and Spirit Energy as matter (which they probably were).

It had initially somewhat mixed results the first 2 times, but as they say ‘third time's the charm’. When I tried for the third time, my surroundings quite literally exploded into a mist of visible Spirit Energy that continuously flowed into me. Its effects were a bit less than Shalfar, but it was still leagues better than what it was initially which made me quite happy.

When father, who was just meditating across me at the time saw this, he almost passed out. When he came out of his shock he called me a ‘cultivation monster’ and told me that what I was doing was something only the most skilled and talented Spirit Masters could do.

With little stipulations and a bit of guilt for not telling him that I could also do Shalfar, I decided to try and teach it to my father as well. Since I couldn't use the example of a black hole since he wouldn't know what it was, I had to think of something else. Luckily enough, there was a rather strong cyclone that just recently passed our city which gave me the perfect example to use.

After a week of trial and error, my father got it right. Not only my father, but even my mother learned it. Apparently she was still struggling to breakthrough from Awakening realm to the Transformation realm.

I was happy to see them so happy after managing to perfect the exercise. After that day they started to call me ‘little genius’ just to tease me (or boost my self confidence) and took me out for dinner in the best restaurant (and most expensive) in the city that very day.

Other than that, my mother finally finished turning the jewel I got from uncle Hector into a pendant that I could wear around my neck. It turns out the stone I got was called a Spirit Stone and it could be used to improve cultivation speed since it naturally draws in Spirit Energy.

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Mother had apparently enchanted it to improve it natural ability to draw in Spirit Energy which improved my already improved my already monstrous cultivation speed. According to my father, I was probably the strongest 6 year old in the city discounting the children from the noble houses who probably trained from an even younger age with more resources to go around.

Now here I am, in the middle of the field alongside father going through several exercises. Father was a behemoth of a man that stood at nearly 6 ft tall and ripped with muscles throughout his body. He could take on a dozen men without breaking a sweat, a feat he showed me when a group of muggers tried to rob and threatened us with knives.

Their strongest guy, stood just a head taller than father, but had more fat than actual muscle. Suffice to say, that man went sailing through the air into a nearby wall with a loud crack with but a single fist from father, the rest tried to make a run for it, but father was quicker than all of them, he grabbed each of them and they broke under the force of my angered father.

That day I saw, not my father, but an angry monster that was more than ready kill those pitiful people. It was the first time I've seen such level of brutality from my father, or anyone in general. The closing thing I've seen/experienced in comparison was getting mugged on the way home. It ended with me having a few scratches and bruises, but I was otherwise fine.

Thankfully enough, he granted them mercy and didn't kill them, he probably would have if not me being there with scared expression on my face. Though whether it was actually an mercy or not was beyond me, most likely they rot in jail for the rest of their lives or worse, my father would make sure of that.

How they did not recognize my father who was the guard commander of the entire city was beyond me, but for them to be so unlucky as to try and mug him while I was there, I could only offer them my half-hearted condolences.

Rather than scared, I was happy, pleased even with what happened. It was nice to see how far my father was willing to go for me, as morbid as it was.

“Stop daydreaming and pay attention Markus, you might be growing fast but there is still a need to train. Don’t be complacent just because of your talent, start slacking now and you'll soon find yourself at bottom of the ladder.”

In the middle of remembering the events that transpired just recently I forgot that we were still in the middle of training.

“Go get back to doing your exercises before I add even more, unless you’d want that?”

“No, I’ll get to work right now.”

I resumed my training an what happened after was a long day filled with more exercises that I thought was excessive for a 6 year old, but father seemed to know what he was doing, I was hardly the first person he trained. After dinner I went to my room and locked the doors and closed the curtains before I did my nightly meditation.

I slowly found my body adopting poses I was long familiar with while ordering the spirit within me into action. The longer it went on the more my body felt filled with spirit energy and it relieved me of today’s training. After a few minutes of that I struggled into bed after it relieved the soreness but not completely. As I felt my body sink into the soft bed I fell into a slumber.

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“Son are you all right?”

I looked around my surroundings in a daze trying to identify my surroundings. I was in a plain white room and saw my father pale and sickly, battered by an unknown disease, his hair had long turned gray. I sat beside him on the hospital bed and was grasping his frail hand. The hand that traced back into my own body was much bigger than his.

“I’m fine, are you feeling any better now?” I looked at him and saw his tired face and remembered when mom passed, he weeped for days on end until he didn’t any longer. I imagine he must be having the same thoughts as I am.

“You’re neither a fool or a child anymore Elton, you know well that I’m sick and I can still see clear enough to know that something is bothering you. Tell me what’s wrong son.”

I stayed silent and looked at him, there were many things to say, but I didn't feel that I had the right to. Without saying a word he reached out to me with what little strength he had and embraced me tightly.

“I can feel that I won’t be lasting much longer, so don’t you worry yourself. I’ve lived long enough, and everything will be okay”

With his reassurance I let myself go from his embrace and stood up softly from the bed, I let myself out the door and heard someone across the hall roaring loudly.

It was an incomprehensible sound that seemed be growing louder as I tried to move farther from it. It grew to the point that it was deafening to my ears and just as it started to be unbareable, it stopped.

Then the hospital started to shake wildly and there seemed to be no escape at this point, I ran to a nearby desk and huddled underneath and closed my eyes. I opened my eyes and I found myself in my room once more, drenched in sweat and more than just a bit woozy.

I looked around and calmed myself I was in my room all alone with the creeping moonlight. I looked back to the dream I just had, why it brought me back to earth, why in that time. I laid down and stared at the ceiling remembering the words from the dream. I went back to sleep with his voice echoing that everything will be okay.