“Okay first I’m going to have you do, bring out your spiritual energy, but don’t use it for anything. Just bring it right on the edge of use, and then slowly redirect it back into your core.”

I nod and begin gathering it. Instead of using it in a slash like I usually do, though, I instead attempt to hold it in place right before I would use it.

It feels as though I’m holding my breath. Now I try to do the second part of the exercise, that being slowly releasing all this built up spiritual energy back into my core.

The instant I relieve the pressure on my spiritual energy, though, it instant shoot outward and leaves my body.

The sudden loss of such a large amount of spiritual energy is enough to send my vision swirling for a few seconds.

Surprisingly, this feeling doesn’t last long, and I’m quickly back to a hundred percent almost instantly.

I stare down at my hands confused before looking at Solace sporting a cocky grin.

“Pretty neat huh? I don’t think anyone’s figured out how to restore someone’s spiritual energy so quickly in one of these yet. Gotta say though, took me decades before I figured out the trick.”

I nod absentmindedly.

‘Who the hell is this guy? Why have I never heard of him before? Something like this is revolutionary for soul shards!’

I did some research during our little down time that we’ve had these past few days. The way normal soul shards work is they transport both your mind and spiritual body into the soul shard.

This means that any spiritual energy you use is real, and you have to wait and recover it when it’s used.

But here, it feels as if I have an endless supply of spiritual energy to draw from. It’s almost as if the soul shard itself is made of spiritual energy.

“Anyway back to the exercise.” He says, snapping me from my thoughts. “Your first mistake was you tried to relieve the pressure as a whole. You can’t do that. What you need to do is increase the outward pressure and decrease the inward pressure. It might take you a bit, but it’ll be worth it once you finish it, trust me.”

I once again nod seriously, as I dive head first into the exercise.

My second and third attempt go much the same as the first. I seems to be having trouble distinguishing where I’m supposed to relieve pressure and where to increase the pressure.

I know he said inward and outward, but to be honest, I have no clue what that means. When questioned further, he just said, ‘You just got to try it a bunch of times and you’ll get it. You’ll know the feeling the first time you make progress, from there it’ll just be practice.’

My fourth attempt almost showed some progress… maybe. I’m not sure if I’m just feeling things or not, but it almost felt like I was treading in the right direction.

My fifth attempt finally showed tangible progress. I was able to redirect a sliver of spiritual energy into my core, not a lot by any means, but it’s a start.

I’m beginning to feel the general forces acting upon my spiritual energy, though very vaguely. It’s almost like I’m searching around a mountain sized boulder, looking for the exact spot that I need to push. Twice.

For now though, I’ve seemed to rule out about half of the boulder, and now I’m searching the other half.

After about ten more hours of constant practice, I finally make some more progress. I’m able to absorb about thirty percent of my spiritual energy before I lose control.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

It may not seem like a lot, but for nine of those ten hours, it felt as if I was searching blindly in the dark for something that I’m not even aware of.

Solace just lazes around while I do this. Occasionally offering me such helpful advice like, ‘You got it, just keep doing what you’re doing.’

Another ten hours pass, with the amount of spiritual energy I’m able to keep reaching about fifty percent.

Progress from here slows considerably, with barely noticeable increases in the amount of spiritual energy I’m able to redirect.

After another ten long hours of practice, I’m only able to make it to around sixty percent.

At this point I stall even further.

‘I must be doing something wrong or maybe I’m thinking about this all wrong. At the rate I’m going now, it’ll take me much more than a hundred hours to do this.’

I stop and think to myself

‘There’s no way he would give me a task that’s impossible to do in the timeframe we have together. Either way something needs to change.’ I say mentally, deciding to take a quick five minute break to brainstorm some solutions.

‘Maybe… maybe instead of trying to find the perfect spot to push the boulder, I need to increase the area that I’m pushing… yeah that could work.’

With my plan formulated, I once again dive into the exhausting work that is controlling my spiritual energy. Not physically exhausting, but mentally exhausting. After all I’ve been hard at work for close to thirty hours now.

I close my eyes and focus on my spiritual energy gathering. I make sure to get it as close to release as possible before I begin to hold it there. Slowly I release the energy towards my core, and this time, instead of attempting to perfectly control the ebbs and flows of every single movement, I instead guide it broadly, almost like waves in the ocean.

At the same time, I create a wide ‘barrier’ to prevent the spiritual energy from leaking outwards. This seems to be working, and in no time I’ve redirected almost seventy percent.

‘Yes! Finally some progress.’ I exclaim to myself.

This short celebration, though, causes me to lose focus, and immediately the rest of the spiritual energy bursts outward like a broken dam.

“Damnit I had it.” I curse out.

“There you go kid! I was wondering when you’d figure it out!” Solace says somewhat cheekily.

“You couldn’t have helped me at least a little?”

“I find students often learn better when they figure out things themselves. I was one such student.”

I grumble angrily quietly.

“You know I can hear everything in here right?” Solace ask while giggling like a little school girl.

I sigh before replying defeatedly,

“Whatever.”

After another five hours of practice, I finally get it. One hundred percent of my spiritual energy was redirected from the edge of use, back into my core.

“Finally.” Solace says, “Took you long enough, I did it in less than ten hours when I was learning, what took you so long?”

“Ten hours?! What kind of a monster were you?”

“Well to be fair, I was kind of already doing something similar to that exercise on my own anyway. So it wasn’t very hard to extrapolate.”

“How did you figure that stuff out on your own?”

“Talent.”

“Oh…” I say slightly disheartened.

“Relax kid, everyone’s got their strengths, mine just so happens to be cultivation, swordsmanship, battle IQ, strength, speed-“

“Okay okay, I get it, you’re the best.”

“Ha! Please! As if I’m the best. You’ve gotta understand kid, there’s always gonna be somewhat better than you in the multiverse. Always. Even if you can’t find them, they’re out there, I promise. Don’t underestimate anyone.”

I nod and a bout of silence ensues.

“See, I can give some good advice when I want to!” Solace says with a hearty laugh.

I wait for him to finish laughing before asking,

“So uh, what now? What else are you gonna ‘teach’ me?”

“Well, I suppose I can show you a little sword practice. Won’t hurt.”

Suddenly my worn down blade appears right in front of me.

“Wow uh, quite the sword you got there. It’s really, uh, nice.” Solace says awkwardly.

“I know right! It’s perfect!” I say not catching his trepidation.

“Any reason you use it and not, ya know, a better sword?”

I stare at him like he just said the most blasphemous thing imaginable.

“Are you crazy? This ol’ girl’s been with me since I can remember! Plus, The better the sword, the worse the swordsman!”

“Uh huh, well if it works for you, I don’t mind I suppose. Now on to some practice. I want you to attack me. I’ll bring all of my stats down to your level, even my masteries.”

“You can do that?” I ask surprised.

“Well not in the real world, but in here, yes. Another work of genius implemented by yours truly!” He says proudly.

‘I’m just going to have to accept that this guy’s clearly some sort of monster.’ I sigh mentally.

I pick up my blade and inspect it, it’s much the same as the outside world, but something feels… off. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but it’s there.

I look forward to see Solace wielding the same gigantic blade as I saw in the vision.

“You ready kid? Come at me!” He says confidently.

I oblige.