‘Dear god.’

Just when I thought they’d stop, they kept coming.

Over and over and over again.

‘I’ve never seen so much food on one table in my life!’

When Bel mentioned we’d have a feast, I thought it would just be a nice dinner with the four of us. I was very wrong…

First, the room Sylvie brought me to is completely absurd. The doors leading to the room were at least fifteen feet high. Entering the room, the walls were covered in beautiful crimson paint, with eight marble pillars along the walls all leading your gaze to the wondrous ceiling, which hung a very large and intricately crafted chandelier.

The ceiling reached about twenty feet high, and an incredibly detailed mural covered the entirety of it. The mural depicted seven individuals, four men and three women, descending from the wondrous blue sky, the bright sun casting a deep shadow covering their faces.

The next half of the mural showed one of the men landing on a gloomy, dead wasteland. The moment he touched the ground, it burst with beautiful grass, flowers, and wondrous trees, giving life to the dead land. The depressed villagers looked at the new land with glee and bliss.

The mural continued, showing these seven individuals creating life, bringing water through rain, and accelerating the development of civilization. However, the last bit of the mural gave me a weird sense of foreboding. It showed the seven once again levitating high in the sky with their faces masked by a deep shadow. Below them was a massive crowd, hundreds of thousands of people kneeling to them like they were gods.

Distracting myself from the eerie mural, I turned back to the unnecessarily long dinner table. There was enough food here to feed a small village, and Bel expects the four of us to eat all of it?

I will give it to him, though. It looks amazing—the smell of juicy meat, perfectly steamed vegetables, and potatoes—all of it was making me drool. Bel and Zeris had already taken their seats and were waiting for me and Sylvie.

“Right on time, please take your seats. Let’s enjoy this wonderful feast!” Bel’s melodic voice sounded from the end of the table.

‘No one can be this happy and nice all the time, right?’

Ignoring my intrusive thought, I met Bel's gaze, returned a wide smile, and took my seat. Sylvie soon followed.

“It looks amazing, Bel. But don’t you think you went a little overboard?”

Bel somehow managed to smile even wider than he already was.

“Of course not. Ezra, I don’t think you understand what you have accomplished. Only one in every two hundred people have magical aptitude, and on top of that, it takes most years to even reach the emerging phase of the first threshold. The fact that you did it in a month without any training in meditation or sensing external energy of some kind is very, very rare.”

Bel took a sip of the wine from his glass then met my eyes with the same piercing gaze from when I was brought here.

“I can’t imagine how hard it’s been for you, Ezra. Truly, the situation you have been put in is one that I don’t think even Zeris could adapt to as well as you have. Being summoned with no control over it and having to relearn your own body—you truly are a remarkable person. And I’m doing everything in my power to get you home along with making your stay here as comfortable and easy as possible.”

I lingered for a moment, taking in what he had said. It's true; it's been extremely hard. There has not been a day that's gone by that I’ve not thought about my mother or sisters, or even my friends. And I have not entirely forgiven Bel for what he has done to me. Even growing closer with them has been hard; no matter how much I learn about these three people or how much I talk to them and laugh with them, I still feel alone.

“Thank you, Bel, for everything you have done and are doing for me. But it’s not all so bad, you know—I’m quite tall now.”

Bel gave a warm giggle. Zeris remained indifferent, and I'm pretty sure I saw Sylvie smile, sorta.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“But on a serious note, thank you, Bel. I mean it. And thank you, Zeris. I don’t think I’d be doing as well as I am if not for you. Your training has made me learn things about myself and distract me, and I’m thankful for that. As for you, Sylvie, thank you for not making me feel so alone. I know you’ve been trying your best to make my life easier and be there for me, even if you don’t show it, I noticed.”

Sylvie blushed but remained silent. Then Zeris met my eyes and spoke.

“To be honest, your aptitude for magic is remarkable, like Bel said, and you are quite a fast learner when it comes to the way of the sword. But our training will only grow harder now that you are an aspirant.”

I gave him a smile, and we all began to dig into the heavenly feast before it grew cold.

***

“Focus. Don’t just try and see it—feel it. Feel for the tether that connects you to the mana. When you reached the emerging phase, a new sense in your body was unlocked. You need to be able to feel that sense and pull on that tether like it was breathing.”

‘Feel for the tether? What the hell is this guy talking about… Wait.’

After hours, and being drenched in sweat, this intense meditation to access my internal mana reserves has been rigorous.

But I finally felt it, a strange feeling in the back of my mind. It sorta felt like when you are trying to remember something and it’s just on the tip of your tongue. That's the best way I can describe the feeling of the tether.

“I—I feel the tether!”

Zeris stopped his circular pacing and stepped toward me, speaking with a serious tone.

“Grab ahold of it, and bring it forth.”

‘What does that even mean?’

Focusing as hard as I could whilst trying to decrypt Zeris' words, this tether I’m feeling frays at its end. It splits into a thousand other threads with bits of mana connected to them. I need to pull the tether connecting all of them and bring it forward into the center of my chest.

Closing my eyes tighter, my vision filled with a vast darkness. In that darkness, I tried desperately to imagine myself grabbing ahold of this thick tether and pulling it with all my strength to the center of my chest.

As I did this, a white silhouette formed in my mind. It was of two hands. These two hands grabbed the tether with devastating power and pulled it with that same power. When the tether was pulled, all of the mana that was lying dormant in my body came to life and was flung toward my chest.

In that moment, I felt flood gates open. The ambient mana around me began to pour into the center of my chest, filling my reserves as much as a first-phase aspirant could hold. It felt like a large jar in my sternum held a mass of power.

All of this happened within a few seconds, and once that jar filled, an outward explosion of wind came from my body. This burst of wind threw Zeris a few feet and slammed him into the wall of the relatively small training room we were in.

After hearing the crash, I snapped my eyes open and looked at Zeris, who was now kneeling on one knee.

A low vibrating laugh escaped Zeris' mouth.

“Do you feel it, Ezra? Do you feel it coursing through your veins, giving you strength and power?”

Uncrossing my legs and shifting a little nervously from being slightly put off by Zeris' expressive emotions.

But he was right. I could feel it all through the fiber of my being and new strength to my body. It wasn’t just that, though; that instinct that caused me to use magic when Zeris knocked me out—I could feel it. Except it's not an instinct per se. The mana that filled my body was now one with it. It felt like an extension of my body, the same went for the ambient mana around me.

I felt connected to it.

My heart was pounding with excitement and my hands trembled. Staring at the palm of my hand, I imagined the mana that was being held in the metaphoric jar to leak out. I focused on the stream of white, metallic liquid?

At least that's what it looked like in my mind. I tried to influence it to flow through my shoulder, down through my forearm, and out my fingertips.

As I did that, I concentrated on it forming a sphere of wind.

And it worked!

‘I’m… I’m doing it! Holy crap, I’m doing it!’

Glancing back at Zeris, who was walking toward me, the moment I shifted my concentration, the sphere broke and dissipated.

A slight frown appeared on my face.

“Incredible. It only took you two days to grasp the tether of mana, and not only that, within minutes you were able to influence it to a desired shape. What you have done is truly remarkable. But now we will be moving forward with combining magic with swordsmanship. Performing these tasks simultaneously will prevent what just happened right now. We are going to make it so using magic is like breathing.”

His words did flip my mood slightly on my wind sphere breaking.

‘Training only to keep getting harder isn’t, at least it gets my mind off things.’

“We're done for today. Rest—we’ll pick back up tomorrow.”

***

Walking through the beautiful cobblestone path that leads to the main door of the palace, luminescent flowers gave the path and the area around them a blue and pink hue.

I stopped at a wooden bench that was in one of the many gardens of the palace. I took a seat and just gave myself a moment to let my thoughts wander. The cool midnight breeze caressed my cheek as I stared at the bright moon.

‘I wonder how Claire is doing in her classes? I’m sure Sarah has been getting into plenty of trouble as she does. I hope Mom is not stressing too much.’

In reality, they probably think I'm dead. That might not be the worst thing; at least they could move on if I never get back.

Tears started to stream down my face.

I don’t want to be stuck here forever.

‘God, crying? Really, what is that going to do for you right now? Nothing. It’s going to do nothing. You have to be strong and be patient and get back home no matter what.’

Wiping the tears from my face, I made my way to the palace and went to bed.

Not knowing the statement I made would become much, much more complicated.