Chapter 15 (Raw)

A week later.

Eddie woke to the sound of drumbeats. The sun had already risen. He was late. He cringed in fear that he would suffer the wrath of his mother if he overslept. The drum beats suddenly became silent when he peered out the window of the room he was currently sleeping in. He had mistaken the sound of drumbeats from horse hoofs. Cassandra dismounted her mare. Morning hadn't been in the brightest of mood lately. Eddie's heart lurched as fear began to take over his judgment. It all started On the second day of his stay here on the preserved when he was in for a brutal awakening on that morning 6:30am. Cassandra poured a pale of ice cold water onto his face. The shock immediately awakened him. He was led into the back yard and was given a brief lecture that he was not to address her as “mom” and refer to her as “master”.

The first day of training proven to be brutal for Eddie as he did sprints around the preserve and doing push ups and sit ups in the morning at first light. In the afternoons till 5pm, he did chores which was help paint the renovated barn and split timber with a hatched. Eddie developed blisters just in a few days into training and it hadn't been a pleasant experience. The hatched had some weight to it the made very difficult for a scrawny child such as Eddie to wield with proficiency. Balance was the key. Gripping the hatchet closes with the head relieve the tension of the tool's weight. However, each stroke lacked sufficient power. However, the opposite could be said if gripping the hatchet at its bottom. More power was applied if gripping the handlebar near the bottom of the hatchet.

Walter warned Eddie gripping too low could be very hazardous as he won't have a firm grip on the hatchet and it would certainly fly out of his hand when he drew back. He split 150 logs per day and at the end of the week. By the end of the week, he grew strength in his right arm and wist to have better control of his strokes. Walter was very strict, but very considerate and patient with him, unlike his mother whenever he disturbed, agitated or angered her. He got smacked in the face. Only one incident that made spun Walter's anger towards him when he dropped the bucket of paint due to muscle fatigue.

At the final day of the week, Cassandra and Grandma had restrained his arms and legs with enchanted Mythril shackles with Nordic rune engraved These shackles were specially crafted with no chains like as if it were a pair of exotic wrist and ankle bracelets. Then Grandma and Cassandra spoke an incantation in the Norse language. As he remembered that, he felt a sudden rush of gravity flow became so dense that he was immediately shoved to the floor. He could not get up as he felt such force depressing him to the floor. He was frightened and cry out for help. Grandma lowered her head an exited the room. Cassandra had such a sinister smug when she rebuked him.

Cassandra tossed him his Iphone. Eddie with great effort caught it and glanced at the screen. The voice memo and video application was opened and the recording had started. Any noise and voice would be recorded and saved on the smartphone. 

Eddie followed his mother out side the manor.

“From now, rather or not our relationship as parent and child shall resume is not important. Your normal life as an ordinary boy is over. What's important is your survival. For the next three weeks, your main training begins. I will train you how to survive, how to fight and become strong beyond the physical limits of a human being that is even modern day science and medicine could never achieve. You will experience pain and fear beyond your wildest dreams.

“I can imagine you must be feeling the effects of the mana that I stored within those shackles being meshed with your mana core. The pain of been pierced by one-thousand needles and being depress under a bulldozer. This is the first stage of body tempering. Your undeveloped mana network forcefully absorbs the mana. This is an unnatural way to speed the cultivation process of cultivating mana in energy attacks and magic.

“Mana is the essence of spiritual energy in the universe. Some traditions and cultures have different names for mana. As in Asia its called Qi and Haiku. Japanese ninjas even called it Chakra. It's the very same foundation chakra system found in your Ramen Ninja Boy comic book. Mana can be utilized to enhance one's body for offensive and defensive. Highly concentrated mana attacks can generate more destructive power than melee attacks. It's more than possible for a practitioner to split a five ton boulder in half just in one stroke with their bear hands. It also can be done with weapons. Although that's another topic for another time.

“As for defense, practitioners can harden their bodies, increase speed and sharpen their five senses. All this is the Body Tempering process of becoming what is known as a mana cultivator. Mana cultivators comes in variety of practitioners of the military arts to martial arts. However, there are only two ways that a cultivator can utilize mana to achieve one's desire to attack, defend or conjure something out of nothing by weaving seidr.”

It was too much information for Eddie to gather in, given to the uncomfortable situation that he was in. All he could do was focus more on the excruciating of his body being crushed by this unknown force that was holding him down. However, some of the things that Cassandra brought up that he was familiarized with like mana, chakra due to reading plenty manga and playing rpg (role playing game) video games on his Playstation 4 and desktop back home in Michigan.

“Seidr is the Norwegian ancestral and the root name for magic. Magic is a very informal way saying Seidr and is forever scorned by Christianity and the Vatican. They believe that practicing magic as they refer to as 'witchcraft' leads to the dark-side. You will later come across this topic in school someday about religious beliefs or you can just google it on your Iphone in your spare time.”

The pressure around Eddie dissapated. He sighed if comfort as he stood up.

"Allow me to demonstrate the usage of mana."

Cassandra closed her eyes, taking in deep breaths. Eddie felt a tremendous pressure weighing down on in as if it was the end of the world. The flicker of movement of Cassandra's hair caught his eyes. Her eyes abruptly opened, glaring straight at him. Eddie shuddered with cold sweat dripping down his face. He nearly fell back down when he felt a cool breeze braced his left cheek. Moments later, Eddie heard the sound of twigs snapped in half.

Spinning around, Eddie was able to see the top right half of an oak tree fell down with a thunderous thump. Soon the other half of the tree fell in the opposite direction. The tree bark was diced in chucks nearly down to its roots in a blink of an eye. Eddie could not believe his eyes as he stood there in a daze of shock and awe at the. This was no way it could be accomplished too quickly based on human standards. 

If Eddie's life was like an animated cartoon, his eyes would pop out from his socked and opened so wide that his lower lip would fall drop like an anchor down to his feet. That was how much in state of shock Eddie was experiencing. The fairies gathered around and applaud Casandra for her performance.

the field and glanced in the direction of the mother and son pair. Then he glanced up to the sky. There was a gargantuan crack in the sky that seemed to stretch on for miles. The crack was dark as the abyss as it began to sucked in the clouds and anything within its range. Even some of the daylight began to fade as if a solar eclipse was about to occur. The crack itself appeared to be like a black hole before it dissipated. Daylight was restored.

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Walter's eyebrows creased and was in deep thought.

Incredible precision and absolute control of mana and display of Sword Way. Her mastery of Sword Way must be at least a God Tier. Heh! Truly deserving of the title Sword Empress. There is no one in the universe under a hundread years of age will be her rival. Her talent and strength are too terrifying that she could this planet in half in a single stroke of her Sword Way even if the mana here on Earth is very faint for cultivation. Whatever it has nothing to do with me. 

Walter resumed his task hoeing the fields while Eddie broke out of his stupor and shocked state and proceeded to  pick up a chunk of tree bark and inspected it. The cut was very smooth that if one were to rub their fingers on the flat surface they would not get a splinter. Eddie than shot back a glance to Cassandra with a dignified look. Her posture remained the same. Very stoic with her arms crossed against her chest.

Eddie was about to voice his question when suddenly he witnessed his mother coughing out blood. Eddie cried out and ran up to Cassandra. She held up her hands, signaling to him the she was alright.

"I may have overdone it," she coughed. "There is need to worry. I will now explain what I have performed. When a cultivator makes a successful progress throughout their cultivation pilgrimage, very special, talented cultivators will comprehend what is called a Way. The Ways of the Cultivator are a classification. A way is what you can either refer to an art or skill that a person's might and will becomes a weapon.

"A way is very comprehended as a supplement for weapon users. This is more advanced than simply applying mana to a weapon as a way could be said that it has a mind of its own, following the will of its master. As you've witnessed, I'm not armed with any weapon. As you gain higher tier and mastery of a way, having a weapon may be useless.

"Having to comprehend a way to a higher level may result in your weapon being dismantled if at a lower grade or the higher grade weapons won't bring its full potential. There is a setback you must be aware of . . . unleashing a way consumes more mana, will and soul  power than anything in this universe. This means a great toll would be put on the cultivator's body. As my advice, use a ways as little possible and only use it if you have confidence to land a finishing blow in one strike.

"Ways come in many forms of weapons. The way I use happens to by sword condensed from my mind. This form is known as Sword Ways. Another form that you will be familiar with is the Bow Ways. You will be to condense a  an arrow just with your mind alone. The lists of forms can go on, but you get the idea.

"Now make sure your iphone is still recording because I will explain the three basic tiers of a way. First is the Elementary Tier. The very basics where every cultivator starts.  Follow with that will be the Intermidiate Tier and High Tier. Breaking through each of these tiers means higher comprehension. With ever comprehension comes great power."

Eddie was astounded. He was speechless and could not believe what he was seeing with his own two emerald hued eyes. It was pure magic beyond the scopes of modern day science. Eddie could not wait not wait the see the recording of the lecture and performance given by Cassandra. Eddie had ideas of posting the video on YouTube when he goes home after Summer Break. The  big question remained in his mind if he and Cassandra had a home to return to. 

Eddie could not imagine his pursuers ransacking their house with the lost and destroyed belonging. He only hoped that his Playstation 4, desktop and his collective volumes of Ramen Ninja manga were not lost if such an event were to take place, otherwise, his childhood source of entertainment would never be the same again.

Cassandra seemed to quest what was on her son's mind. 

This boy I tell you . . . worrying about trivial things!  She coughed.

"With that said, comprehend ways will give weaker cultivators a trump card to attack and defend against stronger opponents. Now how to explain how cultivators get stronger? An increase of strength, toughness and mana is done by a breakthrough. Breaking through to a single layer within a realm or advancing to the next realm will make a cultivator more powerful."

Eddie nodded, pretending to understand. Cassandra sighed and frowned. There was too much info that has to be crammed into a short amount of time. Eddie was not the most brilliant and average elementary school student of his grade. He needed a lot of tutoring to avoid flunking. She stressed how much of a burden it will be on him if she had to make a decision to cut out part of his education to balance out with cultivation. She could only put her hopes on the knowledge Eddie gained by playing video games, watching television and reading comics

"Mom . . . a-um . . . I mean master? Is everything okay?" Eddie asked, looking very gloomy.

"Pardon me. Do you remember playing your father's classic Playstion Japanese role-playing games? Do you remember the numerical level up system that increases the stats of all characters and creatures? You start off with the  digit number. Give me an example of how max numerical level you can level up into those games?"

Eddie rubbed his chin. He was not sure where Cassandra was getting at with the sudden change of topic about his past experience with RPG games. Nevertheless, he knew what she was talking about. Leveling up makes the characters' strong in an RPG. The higher the level, the more powerful the characters' become. It will increase stats like Health Points, Mana Points, Power, Toughness, Vatality, Agility, Durability, Intelligence and more. However, there was always a limit to how much a character could max out. This was called a level cap. 

"Dad's Final Fantasy collection is level from 1 to 99 and 1 to 100. Some of the RPG and MMORPG's I played have up to levels 20 and 40. But I don't get it. Does playing these video games has anything to do with cultivation?" Suddenly, a thought suddenly processed in his head as if a light bulb had turned on. Cassandra was about to answer when he cut her off, "I get it! I get! Leveling up makes a cultivator stronger. How stupid of me!'" Eddie berated himself from catching on slowly.

A wry smile could be seen on Cassandra's face. Not because Eddie caught on slowly, but his interruption would have been more than enough to give him a spanking on his behind. But she let it slide for now and the punishment would be added on the next day of physical training.

"Good! Leveling up has the same meaning as breakthroughs. Lets used the Level 1 to 100 to gauge a culitavor. Now you understand the beginning of cultivation will be the Level 1. Getting back onto topic, comprehending a way at the Elementary Tier will give you the ability to kill above five levels from your current level in a single strike. You can perhaps land a critical blow on cultivator seven levels higher than you. All this can be done as a Level 1 cultivator."

Eddie was startled. He defeated characters several levels above the player's character or characters was not uncommon in RPG games. There are spells and skills known as "buff" that could increase a character strength and stats to fight beyond their current level. But defeat a character five levels in one stroke as a level 1 was just wishful thinking. Unless if the game designed a cut scene during a boss fight, it was impossible to accomplish that feat, let alone try to inflict a critical hit on someone that was seven to eight levels high. The only possible way to achieve such a miraculous result is to activate a cheat code.

"Very cool! It's like a super buff! How powerful is the Intermidiate Tier way?"

"Minimum required level . . . about 15 or higher to unleash a way at that caliber. Anything lower than that, you are just asking for death. So do even think about asking about it."

"Holy smokes!"

Eddie could only imagine the backlash. There were even such taboo skills that would sacrifice a character's life to cast it at an opponent in RPG games. He started to shiver of the notion being in a life and death situation on a battlefield.

"Another thing to take note is that once you past a certain level of cultivation. Your current comprehension of a way will not match the current strength as your cultivation. This means your way will be weaker. Using that level 1 to 100 scales again, an Elemtary Tier way approximately has a the power of a Level 12 cultivator attack. 

"Let's say you are Level 15. The power output of the way you unleash will much weaker that you throw a punch. This is very important fact that you must be aware of all times. Your comprehension of ways must always be above your level of cultivation or else it would useless to you in the future. Unfortunately, comprehending ways is much more difficult than leveling up your cultivation. This has always been a major setback throughout the history of mana cultivation," She she shook her head.

What! This is dog poop!

Eddie screamed his brains out. 

From that point was the beginning of his miserable training.

Day one of training for a week would be thought to be the most simplest task of having to complete a single push up, a sit-up exercise and stand up on the tip of his toes. That was not to be as he remained prone motionlessly prone as if he was paralyzed from the neck down. He could not even speak. All he do was lie motionlessly on the lawn all day and listen to Cassandra and Grandma arguing. He was thankful that he was lying flat on his belly that his face would not be directly affected by the sun with minimum sunburn.