“For the foreseeable future, you will not be able to use your arms at all.” Said the sage. He took a seat behind his desk and stroked his beard. “Thane will seal off your arms, making them able to receive information, but unable to act on it. Then, he will use his essence of regeneration to aid your body’s innate healing.
“Over the next three days, I have prepared two trials to push your mind and body to its limits. Through facing adversity, one discovers their true self. The same is true of personal essence. You pushed your essence too far, and it broke itself. Essence pathways aren’t physical at your level. The act of not just pushing past your limits, but completely shattering them, has profoundly damaged your mind. You’re physically crippled, and mentally crippled too, you just don’t know it yet.”
Wonderful news.
“It’s kinda like the yips then?” Jay said. He thought the universal translator might help him out, but the blank stares he got in return told him otherwise. “It’s a thing in athletes back where I came from. If you did something, say you threw a right hook, and you got completely countered, causing you to lose a fight that you were otherwise winning. The next time you try to throw that punch, you simply can’t. You can throw all you want, but your body stops working. It refuses to let you even try. You’re so traumatized by that specific movement that you can’t do it again.”
The storm sage scrunched his eyebrows. “Close enough.”
Jay wasn’t sure if the sage was telling him the truth or brushing him off because the truth was too complicated to explain. Either way, Jay much preferred his outlook on the situation than the one the storm sage provided.
People recovered from the yips. Jay didn’t know anyone who’d recovered from “physically crippled, and mentally crippled too”.
“Regardless, by going through adversity, one rediscovers who they really are. Let Thane worry about the physical side and focus on yourself. From my observations, you have a much larger affinity for lightning than thunder, cloud, rain, or any other aspect of the storm. This probably stemmed from before you came to the coliseum.”
The storm sage paused for a moment before meeting Jay's eyes directly.
“You fight differently to most lightning harmonizers. They usually use their speed to stay out of danger, and poke at their opponents. It’s rare to find someone like you who charges into battle like a lunatic with a death wish. Yet your affinity is clear as day. Why?”
Jay mulled over the sage’s probing question. The man may have been an annoying eccentric, but there was no doubting his wisdom. Jay lingered on each of his words, hoping there were clues behind them, but he knew he needed to look inwards for answers. Jay searched his memories for anything that might help.
“Before I came to the coliseum, I was still a fighter, a boxer. There was no such thing as essence on my planet, so I only fought with my fists. That’s why I still fight that way. It’s all I know. People called me Lightning Leonard because I was quick. It seems simple, but there’s more to it than just speed.
“When the only thing you can fight with is your body, how big you are is pretty important. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are, if your opponent is twice your size, you’re losing no matter what. I was a heavyweight. I fought with the biggest guys on the planet. heavyweight boxing is different to every other kind of boxing. When everyone’s that big. it doesn’t matter how tough you are. Each time you step into the ring, you’re getting in there with someone who’s got the power to instantly win any fight.
“Power. Power. Power. In the heavyweight division, it’s all anyone cares about.
“My brother was a big kid, but he was fast too. He and my coach saw a gap in the heavyweight division, it was stuffed full of big guys who couldn’t box for shit but had enough power to knock out a horse. If there was a heavyweight who was just as big as all the other guys, but faster than all of them, that guy had a clear path to becoming world champion.
“When Julian… When Julian could no longer become the champ. I continued the path coach had laid out for him. For the last twelve years it’s been speed, speed, speed. Coach always believed in me. Believed I could be the best. Believed my speed could make me the strongest man in the world. I wanted to repay his belief, to wrap the world championship belt around his waist.
“I really fucking wanted it.”
Jay's eyes welled up as he gazed off into the distance, reminiscing about his life before the coliseum. He’d glanced upon the topic, but this was the first time he’d faced his past life since arriving.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The life he’d left behind. The life he could never return to.
“Then my final opponent cheated, landed a cheap shot, I got unlucky and fucking died. I got even unluckier when I ended up here.
“I guess that’s my link to lightning then. Speed. It’s not much but it’s all I can think of.”
“No.” the sage said solemnly. “It’s more than enough. Your entire existence as a fighter has been to become speed, to become lightning. It’s no wonder you were drawn to it. It’s no wonder it was drawn to you.”
The entire tower stood still until the storm sage disturbed the peace.
“That leads us onto the next part. I asked you a question about lightning, yet you speak about something else entirely. Something just as important, if not more so, than lightning. Something that’s one of your defining characteristics. The lens through which your life is viewed.”
The sage let his words hang in the air. Jay considered them, lost in thought until he realised the sage was waiting for a reply. Waiting for him to place the final piece of the puzzle down.
“I’m a fighter. It’s all I’ve ever done. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.”
The sage nodded. “That shall do for now.”
Jay looked at him in confusion.
“Harmonizers in the last thirty or so years have begun to use models, or structures, to build their thoughts on.”
What does that even mean?
“I hate these models. They oversimplify everything.”
He’s about to start rhyming, isn’t he?
“But the thing I hate most, is that they’re so damn useful. Especially for beginners.”
I guess there is a god.
“The essences of fighting and lightning are great foundations. Both are intrinsic to your journey so far, but both are vague enough to leave room for adjustment later along your path. The path towards Harmony can be looked at as a building. You establish a base and as you walk your path, learning more about the world and your place in it, you build higher and higher.”
“But it’s all reliant on how solid your foundation is, right?” Jay said.
“Well yes but actually no. That is only one portrayal of Harmony. People are far more complex than buildings, so that model of thought doesn’t actually show the full picture. Nothing can fully explain your journey, these are just ways to look at it. The Building Model is okay, but let’s look at the Sculpture model for a moment.
Jay didn’t even need to ask the sage what the sculpture model was. A single second of eye contact, Jay's confused grey eyes locking with the endless wisdom of the sage’s, was enough.
“Think of harmonizing like making a sculpture, except the sculptures in question are ourselves. Someone further in their journey, such as me, has a more defined sculpture. All that’s left is to refine the sculpture in my exact image, to capture the unique parts of my personal essence. Someone like Selena hasn’t gotten there yet. They have the broad idea of what they want to make, they’ve even started chipping away, but they still don’t know what the final sculpture will look like.”
“Why doesn’t she wait until she knows before she starts carving?”
The sage smiled, seemingly proud of Jay's question.
“Because it is the act of carving that defines what the final sculpture should look like. Your journey influences your true Harmony far more than any planning made beforehand.
“But let’s return to the model.” Said the sage. Although he just sat at his desk, the storm sage commanded Jay’s complete focus. Even Selena and Thane latched onto his every word. Surely this wasn’t new to them, but when greatness spoke, even experts shut their mouths and opened their minds.
“We’ve looked at Selena, we’ve looked at myself. Now we must turn to young Jay. Paradoxically at the most, yet also the least important step of his path to Harmony. Why? Because as I said before, the journey defines the destination, so does it really matter where you start?”
The sage chuckled at his audience’s faces. From Thane’s contemplation to Jay's confusion. “That’s a thought for another day. We should focus on the model for now. Jay, you are at the very start, your entire life up to this point has been for one purpose. Deciding what sculpture you are to be moulded into. Each fight, each conversation, each thought. All just to decide what to make of your life.
“Now you’re ready to start carving. But there’s one last decision to make. What rock are you going to cut into? It simultaneously doesn’t influence your sculpture, yet it also influences everything about it. You can make anything you want, but it’s always going to be made of the same material. Therefore it’s important to choose materials that will stand the test of time, yet can also be moulded in any image of your choosing.
“Your metaphorical building blocks of lighting and fighting are tied to your very core; they permeate through every aspect of your being. But they’re also versatile. Just like my very own storm essence has its component essences of lightning, rain, wind and many more. Each part of the whole but entirely their own entity. Your lightning and fighting essences have infinite avenues you can dive into; whichever direction Harmony takes you down.
“Understand?” he said with a wry smile. The storm sage had rattled all this off with barely a second thought, but Jay felt like his brain was bursting at the seams, barely able to contain the new knowledge. Jay wished he could record this speech and look back at it later, he feared it contained insights he couldn’t possibly take in now.
“Yeah…” He said. Sounding about as confident as he felt.
“Don’t worry about the theory. Your sculpture isn’t real, just like your pathways aren’t either. You can’t study any of this, you simply have to live it.”
A solution had begun to crystallize in Jay’s mind, a solution that the sage smashed into the ground with his final sentence. Why couldn’t anything ever have a straight answer?
“I see your anguish.” Said the sage. “I understand your confusion. I was there once, as were we all. Harmony’s a tough thing to get your head around. My mentor had a motto about it, it rings true not just for Harmony, but many other things too. Keep it in mind, whenever you feel overwhelmed by the world’s eccentricity.
“The closer you look, the more the lines blur.”