The next day all three of them, Damo, Soph and Anuj, met in one of their hideouts.
The three of them have remained friends, and their parent’s constant headaches.
Looking after one another they formed a bond.
Their friendship dynamic being of a lazy bast*rd, a trickster, and a maintenance unit.
Anuj was obviously the lazy one, Soph the maintenance, the one who had to rescue them form one incident or another, like the cascading coal incident from the smithy, or the burning wall, where mysteriously a coal had burned a hole through the wall.
The trickster was Damo obviously, looking all simply, his mind was anything but simple always up to some mischief.
Today all three of them were anxious to meet, the last night all three of them had spent it trying to form the false dantian.
“You guys tried the technique?” Anuj
“Umm” Damo
“Yeah, I even reached stage 2 of the technique! And you?” Soph
“I just reached Stage 1, couldn’t stay awake.” Anuj
“Second” Damo
“You need to be more active, you can’t be this lazy about everything!”
“Umm” Damo nodded
“I‘ll do it no worries, it’s a 4 stage technique, 2nd stage today, and 3rd after that” Anuj
“You-“ Soph
“Sigh” Damo
“Hey! That’s a sound not a word!” Anuj
The
Stage 2-> Manipulation, where the ways of manipulation of energy, qi were taught and guided to a basic degree.
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Stage 3-> Internal Sphere, where the user is to form a Spherical structure, and slowly form Runic Circuit across the sphere, this part of the technique is to be a long-term project, but fortunately not an uninterruptable one.
After the creation of Internal Sphere, false dantian, the next step is to anchor it to a point.
Stage 4-> Anchoring, using the will as the instruction, runic circuit as the anchor, the runic circuit is then attached to a point on body, or on an object, one that should be close to the body or the distance will cause transference disturbance.
So like a Lich’s Soul Box, but for Qi holding.
Anuj is not telling the complete truth though, he had reached Stage 3 already, the Runic Circuit Creation stage.
That was because of a simple fact, he was not a child, but an adult in a Child’s body, these 5 years were long, but not eventful enough to make him forget his past life, his friends.
So as an adult, his mind was sharper and will stronger, tempered by the modern life He had been able to sense the Qi in just a few minutes, as he knew what he was looking for, and he had wondered why his parents had never tried to tell him how to do it, then he understood, the sensing part was one of the things the Oath restricted too.
Sighing to himself about the ‘damn controlling Emperor’ he continued on to the Stage 2, the Manipulation.
His mind, will, and control showed its use this time too, as in the first few tries, he could influence it, and then after few hours form basic spaces, and thus this was how he reached the Stage 3.
Though he is going to wait a bit to try and make his Internal Sphere, Dantian.
Because currently formed one would be rough, he wanted to make it after he acquired some expertise.
As for why he did not say he reached stage 2, that’s because according to his character, in normal case, the happenings as he explained them would have been the real thing.
The other two hearing him could only mutter, lazy idiot.
Both of them, then just said they need to complete stage 2 and sat down then and there.
Anuj just shrugged, and sat down with his back to the wall, his hear touching the wall and he looking up.
Then he looked down, chuckled, his eyes tacking a serious look for a second, then closing his eyes, he evened his breath. As if asleep, he stilled there itself, and started to work on his manipulation.
Few moments later Soph opened her eyes, she looked up at Damo, then at Anuj, her eyes looking out of depth for someone just 5 year old, instead looked like someone who has been through life and death.
Her eyes deep, but soft looked at them both.
Closing her eyes, she continued on with manipulation exercises too, their depth greater than what the Internal Sphere required.
It was finally Damo who opened his eyes, it had been around half an hour since they had gone to whatever they were doing, the two of him and her doing exercises, And Anuj sleeping, according to Damo.
He looked at them both with an intense love, brotherly kind, his eyes only on the connection held with them.
He an old soul, a trickster, had an persona only few touched, and these 2 did touch it.
He holding his own kind of determination, closed his eyes too.
He had reached stage 3 too, but he will continue to polish himself.
And so that is how the three Old Souls of this generation met.
They will not always be together, but whenever they meet, it will be with open arms.