I concentrate as hard as I can, moving my spiritual energy throughout my body as fast as I can, while at the same time being as delicate as possible to prevent it from escaping.

It’s been close to twenty hours and at this point, I’ve managed to get close to one revolution, as I call it, every 5 or so seconds. That’s about five times slower than I need to be. Now if it was just that, I’d have no problem with it at all, but sadly…

“Ow!” I exclaim while a large wooden stick hits my head, “Do you really have to hit me so hard?”

I rub my head in pain.

“Pain is the mightiest of teachers, Rowan. You must find a balance between your opponent, and your ‘Aura Body’ as you call it. Quite the name by the way, I think you might have poetry in your future!” He laughs out.

“Thanks.” I say dryly. “Maybe you should lay off the stick and instead try the carrot, if you know what I mean. Some positive reinforcement goes a long way you know.”

“Ha! I had no clue the generations after me had grown so soft! If I was raised on positive reinforcement, I’d be nowhere near where I am now!”

“Whatever, let’s just keep this thing moving, we don’t have all day.” I sigh out.

“Right you are young Rowan! Right you are!” He says as he moves across from me.

I close my eyes briefly and collect myself, before I start churning spiritual revolutions.

One revolution, two revolution, three revolution, and finally, just as I’m about to begin my fourth, he swings, aiming directly for my ribs. Quickly, I bring my arm out in defense, somehow blocking the strike. At the same time as this is happening, my fourth revolution continues, marking the first time I was successfully able to multitask.

Before I can celebrate though, I feel a sharp pain on my forehead, and I almost immediately lose concentration. My spiritual energy flies outwards, escaping my body instantly.

“Ha! Good job kid! Don’t forget, you’re not supposed to stop once you get it!” Solace says while barking out a laugh.

I nod somewhat groggily.

“Okay, get up, no rest for the wicked, as they say!”

“Seriously, where the hell are you learning these Earth sayings from…” I mumble.

We continue like that for hours on end. With my head or stomach getting smacked on repeat every single time I fail.

As much as I hate to admit it, Solace was right that pain was a good motivator, as nothing is more motivating than preventing the harsh sting of the stick hitting my head.

After ten more hours, I manage to get my speed down to one revolution every three seconds, and I’m able to last almost ten revolutions with Solace attacks barraging me.

The next few hours bring slow, if unnoticeable increases. Seems like my rate of improvement has slowed down considerably. Most revolutions, I have Solace time me down to the hundredths of a second just to even track my gains.

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“Look at you kid! You’re a natural! You’re going much quicker than I did! To be fair though I didn’t exactly have this perfect training environment like you do, but still. I’m quite impressed all things considered.”

“There’s that positive reinforcement I needed!” I say jokingly.

“Don’t let it get to your head though; you’ve only got about eleven hours left in here. I’ll be pushing you hard the next 10 hours, so be ready. After that, I got a little surprise for hour last hour together.” He says somewhat ominously.

“Is it more training?” I say expectantly.

“Mmm, something like that. Anyway enough about that, get in your ready stance. We’ll be picking up the pace, so be ready.”

I nod seriously and begin to once again churn my spiritual energy. Compared to when I began, my revolution speed is at a lightning quick two and a half seconds!

Okay maybe it doesn’t sounds that impressive, but it is. Getting to that number took almost thirty hours of pure training in the perfect environment and teacher for said training.

Not that anyone could progress at my pace, were they given the same opportunity as me. Solace even said himself that my talent when it comes to spiritual energy control is in the ninety-ninth percentile.

One revolution passes, then two, and once again Solace swings his ‘weapon’, this time quicker than I should even be able to react, but I do. I somehow manage to throw my guard up to my head.

I’m baffled at this, as there would usually be no way I could react to an attack like this normally. Even if I was a tier 3 I would have trouble even tracking that attack, let alone defending against it.

‘Holy shit!’ I think as I continue the revolutions of my spiritual energy.

Solace smirks at my reaction and swings his stick once more, this time aiming for a low sweep at my legs.

I somewhat clumsily jump over the blow, as I try my hardest to continue focusing on my revolutions. Each second that passes only increases the strain on my mind, as I dodge and weave successive blow just barely.

I sidestep an overhead blow, deflect a sideways strike to my head, backstep a thrust towards my sternum. I enter a sort of flow state, as I maintain my concentration for as long as I ever have. One blow after the next seem to fly by instant after instant, with each coming closer and closer to reaching me.

Finally, I make a mistake, and Solace manages to land a clean strike at my ribs, causing me to lose my concentration and spill my spiritual energy into the air.

I fall backwards exhausted, not physically but mentally. It feels as though I just ran a marathons, but instead of my body being tired, it’s my soul that’s worn out.

Solace just stares at me, deep in thought. After a few moments he grins widely.

“How… how long was that?” I say in-between breaths.

“You know you don’t need oxygen here, right? Spiritual body and all that.”

“It’s a habit I guess, now answer the question!” I say excitedly.

“About twenty-three seconds, give or take.”

I frown at that.

“No way, that had to have been at least five minutes!”

“Nope, only twenty-three seconds, I promise.”

“How could that be?”

“Well, we were moving about double the speed we normally do.”

“What? That’s impossible. How the hell did I manage that?”

“I have a bit of an idea, I think. If it’s anything close to what I think it is, you’ll be a very happy camper when you get out of here my young successor, a very happy camper indeed!”

“What? What is it?”

“Not telling! Don’t want to ruin the surprise! Anyway, your aura body that round was great! I clocked you in at about a revolution every two point three seconds. A new best!”

I sigh.

“That’s cool and all, but I have no clue what just happened, or how it just happened. Can I do it again?”

“Most likely not.”

This causes me to deflate slightly.

“Don’t be so down about it. Think about it, now you have a benchmark of what your peak is! Now all you have to climb until you reach it again!”

“That’s a real nice way of saying my peak is behind me.” I say sadly.

“Oh please, quite being so negative. Anyway, let’s get moving!”

We once again continue the aura body practice.

Just as I thought, I have absolutely no clue how to reach that ‘flow state’ again, or even what triggered it.

My time go back down to two point five seconds per revolution, and I’m not lasting anywhere near twenty-three seconds, with my best being twelve, and that was at much more normal speeds.

‘Hopefully the system explains what happened when I get out of here.’ I think to myself.