Quin spent the remaining summer training, as well as sparring with the local soldiers. What Pai, the commander of Houxi, said about Quin’s great intuition turned out to be true, and even during this small period of time his combat skills increased by leaps and bounds.
Aside from the physical part of his training, he focused mostly on that strange sensation he felt during his breakthrough in the lake during the time he spent on meditation. It took him about a month to be finally able to reach the same degree of harmony with it as he had the first time. Still, he was aware of the fact that it was a special moment and thus he was not disappointed. Although his progress was slow, he knew that it was real and kept on trying.
He noticed a weird phenomenon during the last days of the summer: sometimes, after meditation, he would find himself in strange positions. Sometimes he would be standing with his arms raised while at other times his body would be twisted to its limits. There even were a couple of times when he found himself standing on one of his legs while his upper body and the other leg were creating a horizontal line. It was not only weird finding himself in these positions, but there were a few times when he even fell face first to the ground due to it.
As time passed, this kind of thing happened more and more frequently, until it became a daily occurrence.
Alright, this can’t go on! I have to do something about this, but what can I do? He pondered for some time on how to deal with this issue. Hm, I should really try to have a better consciousness while I’m meditating like that. That’s the only option I see...
It was not that this was the first time he thought of this, but while he tried to harmonize himself with that feeling he would enter some kind of trance, and the more he preserved his consciousness, the less effective it became. Thus, he only decided on this idea because he lacked a better one.
Initially, he had a lot of difficulty regarding his attempts to stay more conscious while also trying to reach a higher level of harmony with that sensation. He even felt as if he was fighting a strange, yet ferocious battle as he was pouring all of his mental energy into this day by day.
Then, at the start of October he realized something. Damn, how could I have been so stupid!? He quickly became filled with anger at his own idiocy. I’ve been swimming in the lake daily and I even submerge each time, but I’m only meditating at the lakeshore... How can I be so stupid that it didn’t occur to me sooner! The first time I felt this kind of sensation was at the heart of the lake, so maybe it’d be easier there?
Quin took a few deep breaths to calm his mind, and then swam to the heart of the lake. There, he sat down cross-legged and entered a meditative state. He could feel the difference right away.
Naturally, he made no significant breakthroughs at that time, but he was still glad, as he felt that he had finally made at least some progress. It may take some time, but I’m in no hurry, he thought.
Time flashed by and it was already the first day of December. During the last few days he had finally realized what was happening during his meditation session. Honestly, he found the explanation rather self-evident: as he sank deeper and deeper into that trance, his body was involuntarily doing the same thing.
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It was as if he was imitating the sensation and the flow of the wild energy the lake produced with these kinds of movements. Quin recalled how at first he had no idea how to put that feeling into words or into any other medium to express it. Although he had thought of a lot of different things, he would never have believed that he could so easily convey the thing he felt back then with simple movements.
Maybe it was not easy in truth, as he clearly knew he was only doing a bad imitation of it, and these kinds of movements may have not been as simple for other people. Yet, he was still filled with joy at his realization, and was very eager on discovering what this would mean for him in the future.
He spent day after day practising this movement along with learning new ones through meditation. It did not take too much difficulty for him to notice that they had a fixed sequence, as he always started with one specific movement and the order of the others remained the same every time. Quin also speculated that it was not without an end, and eventually the movements would loop back into what he started with. Despite his assumption, the sheer number of poses made it look unending.
Another couple of days had passed, and it was a week before New Year, which meant that Leyn would arrive in four days. Quin was currently doing his usual training nearby the lake, and thought that he would only have to wait another couple of days when he heard a loud scream. It was followed by a series of ear-piercing shrieks which he could under no circumstances fail to recognize.
His heart skipped a beat or maybe even two as he completely froze. His old and painful memories quickly returned and he began to heave.
The first memory was of Pharren, the gory remains of his classmates and that unforgettable feeling of impending death and helplessness. Then, he had remembered Dreon and how almost nothing was left of him after he died, how his main Core was pierced through and his Lightning Qi exploded, turning him into a cripple as well as cutting his destiny to be the number one genius of the world short.
These memories were something he had not thought of in a long time intentionally. He absolutely did not want to remember them.
He had already spent a lot of time on them, and was also sure that he had learnt his lessons from them. Thinking about them any further only made him feel sad, depressed and sometimes even self-loathing, thus he buried them deep under his conscience.
His mind was in chaos, and even though just a couple of moments had passed since the initial shriek, the egg inside of him was not idle either. Seeing his state of mind weakened, its desire to take over resurfaced and bore down on Quin with huge pressure.
Quin was trembling both from fear and the attacks on his mind, and for a short period of time he felt as if he went completely mad. Then however, the realization came to him of what was at stake currently. His first thoughts were of his mother and the happy moments they shared together, as well as all the things she had done for him and the care she had for him.
Next, he remembered Faiyi, the little girl he had saved, and to whom he felt a great sense of responsibility. After his self-sacrifice in the Wilderness for Aline, the people he would be willing to give up his life for lessened considerably, but his mother and the little girl were without a doubt among them. Although he did not want to stay her guardian, he loved her as family, and would do anything for her.
Lastly, Quin had also recalled the numerous people he had made acquaintance with in Hounxi during his stay. He would not call each of them his friends, but they were mostly good people who accepted him and his mother, despite being strangers.
He gritted his teeth together and clenched his fist so hard that drips of blood started to flow from both his mouth and palms. Though this amount of pain was rather low compared to his abnormal threshold of pain, coupled with his strong willpower it was enough to jerk him back to reality. Quin took a few deep breaths to calm himself, and then turned his focus inward, to the egg.
With his state of mind being normalized, it was not difficult for him to crush the egg into submission once again.
After he had dealt with his inner threat, Quin quickly looked around measuring up the current situation. Found you sons of bitches! He saw his first targets -- four adult Shriekers -- just at the other side of the lake as they were quickly running in the direction of the city. Just wait for me! I’ll kill every one of you!
With that, he utilized every inch of muscle in his body and started running toward them with a lightning fast speed.