“Okay. So, are we ready?” Lakshman asked his sisters as he stood in front of them.

“Yes!” Indira and Priya replied with nods of their heads, holding a pair of writing pad and pen in their hands.

“Um… do I really need to join…?” Valerian asked a little nervously as he stood next to his comrade.

Noticing his reluctance, Priya apologised with, “I’m really sorry for getting you into this. If you’re not interested—?”

“It’s fine, Priya. Val,” said her brother and turned to him, “please do help my sisters as I alone am not enough to help finish their given assignment. I am also curious about the kind of techniques you can use, so please take this opportunity to demonstrate some of them?”

At the end of his statement, Valerian blinked in surprise before he nodded with a determined look on his face as he said, “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”

“Again, with the sir…!” Lakshman complained.

“S-Sorry. I… I’ll get used to it,” replied Valerian in a fluster.

“Okay but please do it sooner. I feel like your boss or something when you keep calling me that.”

“I… see. I’ll do my best to get it over with… sir.”

As Lakshman sighed, he heard Asura say inside his head, “I get the feeling this kid’s doing it on purpose just to annoy you.”

“You overthink things, Asura,” replied Lakshman inside his mind and turned towards his sisters. “Okay. So, which of us would the two of you prefer to study the four techniques from?”

There was a moment of pause as the sisters turned to one another and began exchanging words in muffled voices. Then, as they came to a decision, they turned back to face them and raised their hands to point at the individual they had chosen; Indira towards her brother while Priya towards Valerian.

“Oh. So, you’re with me, Indira,” said Lakshman with a bright smile.

“Please show me those four techniques, annayya!” Indira said excitedly, and she beamed at him.

“I’ll be in your care,” said Valerian and bowed a little to Priya.

“Likewise,” she replied cheerfully. Then she looked at her brother and said, “Annayya, I don’t think the both of us can do this at the same time considering we might just get in the way.”

“Yes. That is a good point,” he agreed and then said, “How about you and Valerian wait with your Vodinalu while I help Indira?”

“That’s no problem,” replied Priya in satisfaction.

“Sure. I can wait,” agreed Valerian with a small, relieved smile.

As the two headed off to sit with the rest of the family, Stuart floated towards Lakshman and asked, “What are you two doing? Why did they go back?”

“You see, uncle,” began Indira and explained about their assignment on studying four techniques.

“Studying four techniques and writing up something like that? That’s weird,” admitted Stuart with a puzzled look on his face.

“Yes, but their teacher requested it off the entire class so we’ve just got to do it,” said Lakshman with a smile.

“Well, I suppose this is a good chance for me to see what else you’ve learnt after my death,” said Stuart eagerly.

Lakshman nodded and said, “Okay. So, which one do you want me to show you first, Indira?”

“Um…” muttered Indira for a moment as she thought about it. “Annayya, we just need four techniques so can you like show me four different types of techniques?”

“Okay. I suppose that’s showing my ability to use diverse range of techniques,” agreed Lakshman, and his sister smiled happily. Then he gestured for her to move back a little and when she did, he began saying, “Now. I’m going to show you an Energy Force based technique which is also like my signature attack; the Phonikalachalara.”

“Great!” She said excitedly with a wide smile.

“Basically, Phonikalachalara is an Energy Force based attack that relies completely on the energy that you channel from inside. Like so,” and he began to surge with a small amount of energy that caused the wind to slowly pick up speed around them, which surprised Indira and Stuart.

A moment later, he extended his hand out and instantly gathered enough energy to make it take the shape of a blue shining sphere. Indira stared at it in awe at her brother holding the gathered energy there like it was nothing.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“This is the condensed energy that I’ve made to take the shape of a spherical orb in my hand,” he explained to her, and she nodded in excitement.

Stuart looked at the energy, then at her and seeing that she was transfixed by its sight, he coughed and said, “Indira, don’t you need to take down notes or anything to help with your assignment?”

“Oh! Yes! Thank you for reminding me, uncle!” She said, reacting in surprise and quickly scribbling down several notes down on the paper pad she had out with her. For a few seconds, she wrote down details of the technique and then looked up at her brother before saying, “Please continue, annayya.”

He nodded with a smile and said, “Sure. So, what do we do with this gathered energy? Any ideas, Indira?”

At his prompt, she blinked in surprise and said, “Don’t you just… release it? Like… whoosh,” and she made a gesture of sending it flying into the air.

“Cute,” commented Asura inside his head, and Lakshman had to agree as well as he chuckled and said, “Yes. That is one of its uses, but there are others. For instance, you can use it to power something up, you can share the energy with others, and even just store it away for later use if you like.”

“Share the energy with others?" Indira asked, looking alarmed. “Isn’t that dangerous to share charged energy with people?!”

“How so?” He asked, and she looked surprised. “I think you have a misconception about the Energy Force, Indira. This… is not a charged energy, this is simply the condensed energy that has many uses. Charged energy would look something like this.”

As he spoke, he began to charge the sphere in his hand and it began to pulse radically. Indira widened her eyes in alarm at the sign of it changing as it began swirling around rapidly.

“W-Wow…! So… that’s what charged energy looks like…?” She asked, looking surprised.

Her brother nodded and said, “and now that it’s charged, the only use it has is by discharging it like this,” and he aimed it at the sky, causing the sphere to burst into a wave to soar away before disappearing entirely. “That’s the basics of using Energy Force on releasing energy into waves and such.”

Indira looked amazed, and she began jotting down notes on her writing pad. When she finished, she looked up and asked, “Can you teach me how to do that too, annayya?”

He smiled and said, “Sure, but not now. You got an assignment to complete, right?”

“Aww! I really want to learn this style!” She said firmly with a disgruntled face.

“It’s okay, Indira,” he said to her with a reassuring smile. “Tell you what? Once we finished your assignment and had our lunch, I can get you started on the basics of Energy Force.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

They stared at each other before she smiled widely and said, “Thanks, annayya! You’re the best!”

As he let out a chuckle, Stuart eyed him curiously and said, “You’re pampering her.”

“It’s fine. They deserve it after the number of years I hadn’t been there for them,” he replied to his friend. Then he turned back to Indira and said, “Okay. Let’s move onto the second technique?”

“Yes. Ah! Before that, can you show me the full extent of the power so I can understand its strength?” She asked him curiously.

“Oh. Sure,” he agreed.

He held his hand out and began gathering immense energy there, which took a blue spherical form. Then he pulled it back while taking a stance and then extended his hand out to the sky. As he did, the charged energy got discharged and shot into the sky at high speed before it vanished from sight.

“Oh wow,” she said in amazement, but she recovered and asked, “But annayya, how come you didn’t say it out loud?”

To that, he said, “Oh. The reason is that I don’t necessarily have to say its name out loud. You see, the few times that I do need to say it out loud is to strengthen the technique, solidify my focus, and increase the charged energy’s potential.”

“Can you show me since I never got the chance to see it before?” Indira asked hopefully.

He looked at her hopeful look and smiled as he said, “Gladly.”

After gesturing for her to move away a little bit, he took a stance and put the two palms together while gathering energy. He began to surge with energy as the channelled energy seeped into the space between his palms and formed into a spherical energy ball.

“Phonik—!” He began with a serious look on his face while facing the sky.

Lakshman took a stance while bringing his hands back with the held energy ball between them as he said, “—ala—”

“—chala—” he said and the intensity of the attack grew immensely, causing the ball to grow larger in between his palms.

Then he brought both of his palms forward and aimed it at the sky while shouting, “—ra!”

In an instant, a massive wave of destruction was unleashed from between the palms of his hands and soared high into the air. It caused the surrounding area to become damped in a bright blue light as it soared away before disappearing and leaving no traces of its flight behind.

“That… is Phonikalachalara in a nutshell,” he told his sister with a smile.

“Amazing,” she said quietly. “It was so much stronger than what you used with one hand.”

“Well, the more control you have over it, the greater potential it has of doing more than it can with one hand usage.”

Indira nodded and said, “Great! Thank you for showing us, annayya!”

Behind them, Priya, who was seated with her family, heard Valerian say, “That’s the signature technique of the Phoenix Titan.”

“Yes,” she confirmed with a smile.

“Wow…! It’s so… powerful and beautiful…” he remarked in amazement.

“Beautiful?” Priya asked, looking surprised. “I suppose its blue shine does make it amazing to see.”

“No, I meant the level of control he has over his technique,” said Valerian with a smile while she stared at him in confusion. Seeing that she did not understand, he explained, “You see, I can see whether a technique was executed with full potential and am able to see if it had cracks or any weaknesses… and his technique had no weakness. It was a fully fledged attack meant to destroy whatever is in its path and that’s why it looked beautiful because of how rich the energy coming from it felt.”

“I see. Unfortunately, I’m not able to perceive the same,” said Priya sadly while looking towards her brother.

Valerian sensed the sadness in the young girl and smiled a little as he said, “It’s okay. I will show you how it’s done.”

“Really? You will?” She asked eagerly before catching herself and coughed before asking, “I mean… you can teach me?”

“Yes. I’m sure I can,” he replied, and she smiled eagerly.

“Great! Thank you, Val!” She said; Valerian was startled by her suddenly shortening his name into a nickname.

This made him blush and avert his eyes, causing her to become curious and ask, “What’s wrong, Val?”

He jumped for a moment in surprise before he managed to say, “I-It’s nothing! Really! It’s nothing at all!”

“Huh?” She asked, looking confused by his sudden change in attitude.

Watching them from the side, Lakshman’s wives could only chuckle as Mariana lamented, “Ah. It’s good to be young,” and the others nodded while spectating the scene that unfolded before them with smiles on their faces.