Nezani walked on the heels of the young man as they weaved their way through the trees.

“So uh” Nezani tried to break the silence.

“Don’t speak, everything will be explained to you once you get to Granny, but silence for now.” The young man whispered in the direction of her ear.

Not wanting to sink into the ground again she complied with his orders.

They walked through the forest and up a tall hill until they reached a tall cobblestone wall and gate.

A fire lit lantern illuminated with each step toward the gate. Just outside the door the young man put his hands together as if to pray. Nezani watched as his chest filled with air and he lunged his arm out toward the door.

His hand hit the door and ripples of mana vibrated through as the door began to creak open. The bright sun on the other side of the door blinded Nezani momentarily and the pair walked through the doors.

On the other side the sun was shining brightly and the birds chirping. She forgot that the sun was up because they had been walking in the dark forest for so long.

The young man put two fingers to the front of his neck where his voice box was located and yelled out “GRANNY! SHE’S HERE!”. His voice sounded like it had been amplified a hundred times over.

“Now that we can finely speak, I’m West! I’m your big cousin by a few years” he said pulling his head clothe down to reveal his large teethed smile. A little pain dinged in Nezani’s chest when she noticed he favored her dad in his appearance and in his personality.

“Here put these on” he pointed to a pair of sneakers on the ground “They are special shoes that stabilize the mana underneath you until you can learn to do it on your own.”

“Stabilize?” she questioned.

“Yes sweetie, stabilize” the voice of the old woman startled Nezani.

“Hey there, I’m your grandma Faye, this is your grandfather Clyde.” She pointed around her at the surrounding people one by one introducing her dad’s two brothers Marcel his wife Amira and their kids Justice and Amir. She pointed behind them and introduced her dads oldest brother Cassius his wife Layla and their kids Justice “And I believe you’ve already met your cousin West who brought you here from the front of the forest”.

“Yea I almost died, he saved me. Is this place boobie trapped or something?” she asked half-jokingly.

“Okay, everyone back to your training, Gramps and I will educate her on our family. Walk with us sweetie” her grandmother said tapping her cane to the ground and waving her in to lock arms.

“I heard you visited your dad’s lab, so I guess you have a general idea of what a manawave is?”

Nezani nodded.

‘Yes, well mana runs through everyone and everything. Every object or person has its own unique pulse creating ripples of energy. And those manawaves ripple out and interact with other manawaves. The manawaves connect us all.”

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Her grandmother motioned around and Nezani finally took in the site, there was one big house at the center of the football field sized courtyard and along the sides were smaller homes each with their own courtyard and training equipment.

“As you know our family specializes in manawaves and how we can use them in our daily lives, but also how we can use them for protection. Most things that have mana the mana is tightly packed together, making an object solid. Before your dad left to go to the 3D realm with your mother, he was studying the use of manawaves to destabilize the mana in objects. He got as far as being able to destabilize inanimate objects like the ground, plants, trees but never finished his work with beings like us or the animals and creatures.”

“This place is where our family is born, where we train, where we are buried when we go back to the tree of life in 5D. After the attack on your mother’s family, we wanted a way to protect our family and our knowledge from attack. The forest that you entered was grown with seeds from your mom’s family arboretum. Then your dad destabilized the mana in the forest. So, if you aren’t trained in manawave manipulation like our family is you cannot make it through the forest to our family compound.”

Nezani nodded taking this all in while walking arm and arm with her grandmother. Finally breaking his silence her grandfather spoke.

“If you’d like dear, we can train you on manawave manipulation and pass on the family knowledge to you. However, we understand if that would be too much for you to handle.”

“Well, I started reading some of my dad’s books in his labs and it was interesting to me to learn about manawaves. The more I learn the closer I feel to him, so I would love to train with you all. I’m also training to be a Guardian, but I think I could do both, training in manawave manipulation might help me with controlling the raw mana I have to handle as apart of my guardian training.” She said to her grandfather.

“You lit up just like your father when you were speaking just now, we would love nothing more than to train you” Her grandfather said through a misty-eyed smile.

“So, when can I start?” she asked.

Shouldn’t be too hard right, I read it in my dad’s books. Although he didn’t say HOW to control the manawaves.

“How about a meal first?” her grandmother smiled.

Inside everyone was already seated around a big table. There was a seat for everyone, and the food was presented family style in the middle of the table. Everyone waited for her grandparents to sit before picking up the serving utensils to serve themselves and their families. The young kids waited gleefully for their parents to fill their plates and began to shovel in food as well.

“Help yourself sweetie” her grandmother motioned to the food on the table and placed her hands under her chin waiting for Nezani to load her plate with food.

Eager to have something to eat Nezani reached her hand out to grab a serving fork to pick up a piece of steak. When she closed her hand around the fork the utensil compressed inside her hand and when she lifted the material fell through the cracks of her fingers like sand and materialized back into a serving fork resting on the side of the serving dish.

Perplexed she tried grabbing the fork again and she could not pick it up.

Maybe it’s the serving fork, let me use my fork to pick up the food.

She pinched her index finger and thumb together to pick up the fork and again it fell like sand and materialized as a fork next to her plate.

She looked around at everyone picking up utensils and cups. The items looked the same as the ones set in front of her, but she couldn’t grasp them to use them.

She placed her hand around the cup in front of her to take a sip of water and the liquid spilled out as her open hand turned to a closed fist.

Nezani sat confused as she watched each of her family members eat and then get up from the table to return to their training outside until it was just her and her smiling grandparents at the opposite end of the table.

“Everything here is training dear; this is a way of life. All objects here are destabilized by manawaves, and if you want to be able to eat, play, walk, run, SLEEP. You need to be able to manipulate the manawaves of the object so that you can interact with it.” her grandfather stated sternly but gently.

“A destabilized object has manawaves running through it that loosen the mana of the object just enough so that it is not grabbable, but not enough for the object to lose its shape. You must match the frequency in order to interact with the objects here” her grandmother added.

Getting up from the table her grandmother walks over to where Nezani is seat and has her stand.

“In order to control your own manawaves you must control the flow of mana to certain parts of your body. To pick up this cup for instance, you must slow down the flow of mana to your hand, changing your manawave frequency and allowing you to match the frequency of the cup and pick it up.”

“How do I do that?”

“Your mana gates, you have 12 of them at different sections of your body” Her grandfather spoke.

“Easier to show you than to tell you.” Her grandfather stood up and the 12 points lit up on his body: his ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, both sides of his neck and his wrists.

“This is the basics of manawave manipulation. This is where your training starts. Let’s head outside and I’ll have West help you with your first training task. But first eat, I’ve manipulated the frequency of your utensils, plate and meal so that you can eat. You’re going to need the energy.”

Nezani happily sat and enjoyed her meal, thinking about how to open and close her gates, she didn’t even know she had them until a few moments ago.