When Alex arrived at the governor’s mansion the next day, he was informed the lessons were postponed because two of the students were sick. The guard at the gate, after making sure no one was listening, whispered a praise at Alex, but suggested he would leave Haldenburg as soon as possible.

Alex politely thanked for the advice and ran off to practice at the beach, but when he returned home, he found Hanna packing their things in a hurry while Sigmund was out, gathering information. It took a lot of effort to persuade the two elders to calm down, but in the end they gave in as long as Alex promised to ‘be careful’. His main argument was that the saint candidate was still a child and would take revenge on him later, after growing up.

He himself actually didn’t believe it, but leaving Haldenburg to live in hiding in countryside or woods was basically starting a new, downgraded life. Thus Alex already decided to take the risk and stay in order to learn.

Luckily after a couple of days the attention of everyone in the city was diverted by arrival of a new saint, this time a lady. Alex’s guess was they had some kind of rotation where the empire switched the deployments of the saints.

The bad news were – no one knew when the lessons will resume, thus Alex kept running to the governor’s mansion every day to not miss the only lesson he was interested in and afterwards going to the same old spot on the beach to train.

It was only when the first snow fell Robert finally showed his face shocking the city once again. His trikuta had actually ‘opened’!

Alex stared at the boy’s forehead in disbelief – he really had an extra eyeball, eyelids and eyelashes. It was a bit smaller, but it even blinked, although not at the same time when the ‘normal’ eyes did, making it look especially creepy.

‘What the hell?! First Vova and now this guy? Am I some kind of a tool for enabling superhumans?’ Alex wondered to himself.

Robert noticed his stupefied expression and only harrumphed in return, but the entourage in response to his sudden transformation went back to fawning with increased effort.

Haldenburg, after many years, finally got their own saint and while it was good news for the city from the political perspective, it was not so good for Alex. Be as it may, he speculated that he was not in immediate danger and decided to not change his plans for now.

Another surprise came when the next lesson finally began. Just like Alex hoped, the combat teacher was the one to hold it, but unexpectedly the new governing saint, lady Dalia, joined the class making the Qi warrior extremely uncomfortable and nervous.

She was actually a quite good looking woman, a bit past her prime, but Alex didn’t try to guess her actual age since he had no clue if saints aged differently from ‘regular’ people.

The Qi warrior still wore his signature leather jacket, but there was nothing left from his carefree attitude and for the first time he formally introduced himself as captain Tarazi. He had hard time addressing the kids he mostly ignored up until now, but under the three saintess’s eyes, did his best to perform seriously.

“Master Hilmi taught you the basics of Qi and today we’ll look at a more difficult subject – branding.” He awkwardly began, but according to unofficial protocol spoke directly to Robert, “While most of you won’t be able to apply this knowledge practically yet, it’ll be a good exercise for your future growth. In addition it has nice practical applications, but let’s leave that for now”

The whole class got excited and even Robert showed a satisfied smile – they were finally about to learn something interesting. Everyone knew what branding was, at least they thought so and were eager to learn how to do it themselves.

“Alright, who can tell me – what is ‘Qi’?” Captain asked the kids, but continued to directly look at Robert.

As usual, the class remained silent and everyone waited for the wonderboy to answer.

Feeling the atmosphere become awkward, captain Tarazi continued as if he heard the answer, “You thought correctly, it is a form of energy. It is the energy that allows life to exist, plants to grow and animals to breathe. We, humans, have learned to use this energy to augment our abilities increasing our potential. But have you ever wondered what does this energy consist of?”

This time he didn’t expect an answer and continued, “Like everything else in the world it consists of smaller particles! When we cultivate Qi, we actually gather the Qi particles from our surroundings and guide them through our bodies in a specific pattern.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

While boys and the girl in the classroom listened with open mouths, Alex inwardly nodded. First of all, this was common sense. Second, it would be weird if in a world where people had incredible abilities like influencing minds of others or reading their thoughts, the concept of energy particles was something new. In fact, Alex would not be surprised one bit if those guys with three eyes could discern molecules or even atoms similar to how one could see under a microscope, especially the emperor Cirius, who was rumored to have five eyes. He should be able to see more, right?

But what captain said next shocked Alex to his bones.

“You might ask – what’s the significance of it? Why would we care? We don’t really see or feel the Qi particles, but only the Qi flow, right?” Captain threw a sideways glance at the saintess and continued, “Wrong! The ability to sense Qi particles is what separates an actually talented individual from the masses, because it opens a completely new door in their personal development.”

Seeing the confusion in the eyes of his underage audience, captain awkwardly scratched his head and explained, “Alright, I’ll try to simplify the concept. To sense Qi we use our consciousness, this much is clear. But what drives our consciousness? I believe you might have heard this from the elders in your families – our souls are the main controllers of our consciousness! And who can guess, what do our souls consist of?”

‘Holy f*ck! Particles?!’ Alex inwardly shouted in shock, ‘Don’t tell me it’s actually ...’

This time captain Tarazi didn’t expect an answer and after a short theatrical pause continued, “Particles! Just like Qi and just like everything else in the world, our souls consist of particles! Unfortunately we, mere mortals, can’t directly see them, but just like we use our consciousness to sense Qi, we can use Qi flow to sense our souls. Her sainthood, lady Dalia, allowed me to map out a technique for you that is used in the higher echelons of the imperial army. If you can learn and practice it, one day you might actually sense your own souls. Oh, right! I almost forgot! This technique is considered empire’s secret and you are not allowed to write down or share it with others, or saintess herself will erase you and your family from existence.”

While the rest of the children watched the captain draw on the wall with open mouths in confusion, Alex burned in his memory every detail, including captain’s movements and the slightest changes in his expression while he drew. Alex knew he might leave this world at any point, but this knowledge was priceless!

It took over half an hour for captain Tarazi to finish the chart and after he was done, he only saw confused faces in the room staring back at him.

“Now then, since this part is clear, let’s move on to the principles of branding …” Captain immediately continued while Alex desperately tried to find an empty space in his short term memory to store more information, but luckily for him, it was not necessary.

“No need.” Saintess interrupted and Alex heard her aged voice for the first time. It made him feel like she was actually much older than she looked, not that he cared.

Seeing captain’s expression turn ugly, lady Dalia continued, “From this day on, you’ll replace master Hilmi and teach the basics of cultivation. They won’t be able to grasp the concepts of the soul anyway, look at them!”

Captain glanced around the class and the dumbfounded faces spoke for themselves. Even the kid who asked about branding was perspired all over, probably from stress since he couldn’t understand anything.

Captain sighed, “Your sainthood, I …”

“You want to have an opinion?” Saintess immediately interrupted, but after captain silently shook his head, she said, “Good, that’s how a good soldier should behave! I’ll personally teach Robert about the soul branding. Your task is to guide him in cultivation so that when I send him to the capital in the spring he is not completely clueless. Any questions?”

Captain shook his head again and the saintess said in a satisfied tone, “Good! Class dismissed! And you, Tarazi boy, tear down that wall! Who allowed you to draw imperial technique there? I said explain them, not openly draw! And loose that damned jacket! It’s ugly!”

‘What a b*tch! She clearly could’ve stopped the guy at any point! Obviously she just wanted to pick on him.’ Alex inwardly laughed already running through the door, ‘But that little lucker – the saintess personally is going to teach him and even more – send him to the capital for further education!’

But that was the only distraction he allowed himself. Focusing on the fresh memories, Alex continued to picture the mapped technique in his head until he got back home.

There he immediately gabbed a piece of paper and began drawing the technique. After finishing the first, he drew another one and then another. Only when it was time for dinner he came out of his room with a satisfied smile – he was certain he managed to remember the correct mapping of the Qi flow!

Alex was not clear yet how this technique would help him in the future, but he was certain of one thing – his soul was what he carried to his next lives, thus gaining more understanding of it would only bring a step closer in understanding the whole concept of reincarnation!

For the next few days Alex almost never left his room. He memorized the new technique, burned all the drawings to not get in unnecessary trouble and continued to cultivate.

In the past years Alex had a decent success in practicing his father’s technique, and was even able to guide himself around the house just by the smell. On couple occasions he tried to blindly go down the street, but soon threw this idea out of his mind when he almost got trampled to death by a speedy carriage. Be as it may, Alex felt it was fine to start prioritizing something else and see the actual results of his efforts during the last few years when he was ‘checked’ by a saint again.

Alex was not disappointed he didn’t have any results right away. He continued to practice the new technique for over ten days, but while he felt a noticeable thickening of the Qi within, there were no ‘splashes’ or ‘sparkles’ in his consciousness signaling discovery of his soul particles. Of course, captain Tarazi didn’t explain what he had to focus on, thus he could only go by trial and error.

One morning, few more days later, Alex got off the bed where he cultivated through the night as usual. He loudly cursed himself for being overconfident and too arrogant to ask for advice, and after a longer break jogged back to the governor’s mansion.