The first rays of sunshine awakened Jake from his slumber. Opening his heavy eyelids, he inspected the small hut he was in. Like usual, the rest was already up and going. He was the one that slept the longest.
Heaving himself from his makeshift bed, he began with stretching his sore muscles from the training with Dennis yesterday. He was going to make sure to avoid him today at all cost.
Glimpsing through the cracks of the walls, he tried to spot Dennis on the small plateau and just as he was thinking that he could be out to gather water a head with dark hair popped up from below where he was looking. Startled, he yelped in surprise before stumbling back and falling hard on his butt.
“You didn’t want to avoid our training, did you?” Dennis asked with a deadpan expression, and brown eyes that were so dark they appeared black, under the shadow of the roof.
“N-No, why would you think that?” replied Jake with a nervous smile and thumping heart that didn’t seem to convince Dennis one bit. Luckily, he didn’t pursue the matter and left with the words, “I see you in one hour.”
After seeing him leave, Jake exhaled in relief before another voice from behind startled yet again, “What were you discussing?”
“Ahh!” furiously, Jake turned around. “For fuck's sake, could you all please stop sneaking up on me?!”
Throwing his hands up in defense, Jim just laughed at him, “Dude, you should just be more aware of your surroundings, there isn’t even that much of space to hide in.”
“That’s easy to say for someone who has a sixth sense,” Jake countered in annoyance. Why was everyone around him crazy, anyway? He was the only normal person here.
Sitting on one of the small stools that Dennis made, Jim turned serious again, “Look Jake I know it isn’t easy right now, but you seriously have to try if you want to survive. See the training with Dennis as a good opportunity to get stronger. I’m going again into the tunnels with Max to look for stragglers, we should be back in the evening.”
Having calmed down, Jake sighed in defeat, “You are right I will try my best, I’m just tired of this place, it’s time we get back to the city.”
“That’s for sure, just a little longer, and we are ready,” replied Jake while standing up and going to the exit before turning around. “Right before I forget, you have to gather the water today.”
Not even able to voice his annoyance, Jake just fell back on his bed in defeat. For a moment he just laid there before heaving himself up in one smooth motion. It was time to get to work, there was no time to laze around.
Sitting down beside a bowl, he grabbed a stick that was frayed at the end, which functioned as his toothbrush over the last few days. Wetting the frayed end with a little water, he rubbed it in a black powder.
Jake still remembered clearly how he almost chocked the first time he tried to brush his teeth with charcoal. By now he got rather proficient at it, not that it would help with the consistency that was just as bad as the first time, at least it didn’t taste like anything.
Using the water to thoughtfully rinse his mouth and wash his face, he threw the dirty water just over the edge of the plateau. The only good thing about this place was the heavenly view he got every morning.
Torn out from his admiration of nature was the sound of Clay doing his usual morning exercise. It left Jake still speechless where he got all the energy for all the exercise he was doing. When he was not fighting against ants, he was dueling with Chris or training his body.
Seeing Clay training was a usual scene on their little prison on top of the mountain. Just as the sight of Dennis carving something, while Chris drew in silence. The past few days, he tried to map the mountain out and was steadily making progress.
With a tired sigh, Jake grabbed one of their many prepared torches, lit it and began his way through the familiar route in the tunnels to gather their water.
He remembered clearly how much he stumbled and feel through the darkness to gather their water, when they didn’t have any torches prepared. Each additional day on this mountain they made their life a little easier, and by now they lived in quite the comfort.
Not that this would change Jake’s desperate longing for civilization. As much, as he liked Jim and the others, he needed space for himself from time to time, and that was really hard to get when you can see all the plateau no matter where you are standing.
With their hut being just big enough to provide all of them with shelter and beds, Jake had no privacy to relax or think. That was also the reason why he quite liked to walk through the tunnels to gather water.
It was the only time of the day when he was alone and could think for himself. This was especially true when he knew he had to spare with Dennis soon. Alone, the thought of this caused his muscle ache to flare to life.
He understood Jim’s worry and knew he needed to get stronger, but Dennis was just so ruthless during their training. From all the different fighting style Jake observed from their group, he could tell that Dennis had by far the most aggressive.
Sometimes it seemed like Dennis wouldn’t care to harm his own body to kill his enemies. If the others didn’t stop him from fighting too much in the tunnels, Jake was sure that Dennis would have killed himself by now.
Shaking his head in frustration, Jake cleared his mind and went on with his task. He had to get back before the hour was up. The training was hard enough when Dennis wasn’t pissed.
***
Jake was panting when he finally returned and threw the filled water pouch into their hut. He was just in time as it seemed. Dennis just finished with the stature he was carving and readied his wooden sword.
Taking a moment to catch his breath, Jake was caught off guard when he noticed, in the corner of his eye, an object flying at him. Looking up, he was just in time to clumsily grab the wooden sword.
Not giving him the time to think, Dennis rushed in with a flurry of attacks, that Jake was barely able to block or evade. This went on for a short moment before a feint caught him off guard, and he felt the air getting knocked out of him as Dennis wooden sword was rammed in his chest.
Stumbling backwards, Jake was disorientated, while the only thing he heard was Dennis say, “You are dead, back to staring position.”
Shaking his head, Jake took a deep breath to clear his mind and focus. That wasn’t the first time this happened, and it seemed like it wouldn’t be the last. There was just so little time to think on what to do.
He could feel the rage in himself welling up and his breathing accelerating. It was always the same. Each day, he gets beaten like some fucking sand bag. Enough was enough! When Dennis wants to fight aggressive, then he gets aggressive!
For the first time since their training started Jake lost to his emotions and stopped thinking and before Dennis could start the new round he rushed in to be on the initiative.
For the first time, he was the one dealing a flurry of blows, as each of his attacks was fueled by the fury and annoyance that accumulated day after day. Hit after hit.
To his demise, none of his attacks seemed to connect as Dennis stepped back in a circular motion, while he avoided or blocked the predictable attacks.
Eventually, there was an opportunity that Dennis used to parry the sword of Jake away to the right side, which exposed his left side. Knowing what will happen, Jake froze as his muscles clenched to prepare for the incoming attack and his eyes closed in fear.
The moment of fury was completely washed away by the fear of the incoming pain that was so familiar to Jake, and he waited for what felt like an eternity for the pain that never came. Slowly opening his eyes, he realized that Dennis was just standing in front of him with a big smile stretching all over his face.
“W-What is going on?” Jake asked in bewilderment and residential fear from the thought that Dennis could attack him at any moment.
“It took you long enough, but you are finally making progress,” replied Dennis with the same smile on his face. Hearing this, Jake began to think before it dawned on him.
“You wanted me to attack first, to take the initiative?” Jake asked in a moment of enlightenment.
Nodding his head in satisfaction, Dennis explained, “That is the first lesson I wanted to give you; never hesitate. The moment you start to think too much, is the moment when you die. You have to trust your instincts and reflexes, because these beasts will not give you the opportunity to think for long. Always be the one in the initiative and the one to control the flow of the battle. Like this, you decide when you advance or retreat.”
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Never before felt Jake so stupid, then at this moment. All these days of training and severe abuse could have ended if he just had the courage to attack first. It was such a simple concept but because this was a spar Jake never considered taking the first step, in his mind it was always easier to wait for the opponent to attack first and then react according to what he does.
But such a thought process was fundamentally flawed, just like Dennis said the moment you let your opponent take the initiative you give him the opportunity to decide the flow of the battle and the one who decides this flow has a huge advantage.
“Do you want to go for another round?” Dennis asked as he broke Jake out of his thoughts. Hearing this, he gave Dennis a resolute nod. It was time that he took this sparring seriously.
***
Jim just came out of the tunnels with Max and parted with him before looking over their little plateau. Everything was as usual and just like he left it… no, there was one thing that was different; the sparring of Dennis and Jake.
Sitting down for a moment, he observed them before giving himself a satisfied nod and went to prepare the food. It seemed like Jake finally learned his lesson.
After their usual meal of smoked ant meat and berries found on the top of the mountain, they went to sleep, while Clay took over the first night watch.
Lying uneasy in his bed, Jim was unable to sleep, his mind was too full. It wasn’t long before they could start their journey back to the city, as their preparations were almost completed, and it was this thought that scared Jim.
He wasn’t worried about their chance of being able to return, but more of what he would find once they returned. He didn’t want to think about it, but what if… Mia was dead?
Shaking his head frantically, Jim stood up to take a walk to distract his racing mind. He couldn’t allow himself to have such thoughts. It didn’t take him long to stumble over Clay, who was watching the surroundings.
Seeing him, he remembered that he wanted to ask him something. After watching Jake and Dennis train today, he wanted to confirm something.
Sitting beside him, he began with a casual greeting, “Hey, what's up?”
“Not much, it’s a calm night. What is with you, couldn’t sleep?” Clay asked back.
“Yeah, too many things on my mind. Now that we are alone for once, there is something I wanted to ask you.” Jim replied with a curious expression.
“Okay… that's a little ominous, but I can at least hear you out. If I answer depends on the question,” said Clay with a frown.
Nodding in understanding, Jim explained, “The thing is that I noticed over our past few excursions into the tunnels that you seem too, how should I put it…”
“Think too much,” helped Clay. “Yes exactly, compared to my first impression it seems like you don’t rely on your reflexes but more on your sense of aura. In our first duel, you couldn’t react to me throwing sand and in the tunnels you are almost blind to everything that hasn’t an aura,” explained Jim in confusion.
“I was wondering when someone would ask me about it, but you seem like you already understand it pretty well. The moment I noticed that I had this gift for sensing this aura, I trained it relentlessly because I felt it could guarantee my survival, and I was right. The only thing I didn’t know at that time was that one could hide their aura,” said Clay with a little frustration.
Still confused, Jim asked, “I mean, this sense certainly is very useful, but I still don’t understand why you are so unprepared for everything else?”
“That is because I don’t really use my senses.” Seeing the confusion that was written all over Jim’s face, he explained, “You see, I have some problems with my other sense. Not that they don’t work, they work just fine. The problem is that I can’t differentiate between sounds and that smell distracts me too much. Like you know in a fight it gets very quickly loud and bloody. To be able to fight, I need to ignore the heavy smell of blood and the loud sounds. The problem with that is that I often overhear was is said and that my reaction is slow to everything I can’t see.”
Hearing this, a lot of question Jim previously had about Clay were answered. Why he always seemed so absent-minded, why he reacted so late to sound, and why it seemed like he was unable to properly fight in a team.
Jim remained silent to encourage Clay to speak further. “You see these problems are nothing new to me, they were there long before the world went to shit, and already caused me in the past many problems. Discussions in a group were hard to follow, as everyone spoke over each other and I could only hear when I really focused on one person and ignored every other sound. With this unique sense of aura, I was able to focus much better. Instead of ignoring my smell and sound, I only focused on this unique sense, which is most likely the reason why I’m so good at it, but the more I focus on this sense the more I feel like my other sense are getting worse…”
There was a moment of silence before Clay continued, “My eyes still work relatively fine, but my smell, hearing, touch and even taste seem to get worse each passing day. I mean, I don’t even know when I last stopped using my aura, since we came here. I fear that the moment I stop using it, we are open for ambushes.”
Jim only grew more shocked as he listened, and only realized now what burden Clay had to shoulder all this time without him even noticing. This couldn’t go on, and he had to do something.
“Clay, how far do you spread your aura?”
Thinking for a moment, he replied, “About thirty meters, why do you ask?”
Jim remained silent for a moment before replying, “You know it could be that your sense didn’t get worse, but your brain is just overloaded. You said to me yourself that it is taxing for the mind to constantly control your aura, especially if it is this large.”
Clay had a dumbfounded expression on his face for a moment before he closed his eyes and began to retract his aura to a level that felt comfortable to him. After a moment, a slight smile appeared on his face. “I never thought the solution to my problem would be this simple, thank you, Jim.”
Hearing this, Jim let out a sigh of relief and felt happy to finally help Clay for once after all the things he had done for them. “No problem, I’m happy that I was able to help.”
Suddenly, a deep frown appeared on Clay’s face, which concerned Jim. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah, it's just that your aura seems… strange.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I meant that your aura seems strangely bright for someone who just reached the fourth rank, how many ants did you kill again?”
Thinking for a moment, Jim replied, “I don’t know exactly, I didn’t count them, but it must have been over a hundred by now, but most of them were just of the second rank.”
There was a moment of silence and Clay seemed to be lost in thought before asking, “Since we met, and I explained aura to you, you have trained how exactly?”
“Like you know, I have my problems with controlling my aura, so I just started with trying to hold it close to my body, and that is what I did all this time,” replied Jim neutrally.
Clay’s eyes widened in shock before he suddenly started to laugh, which utterly confused Jim. “Why are you laughing, did I do something wrong?”
“No, the opposite, I just feel stupid for only noticing this now. You do realize that no one of use could hold their aura so close to their body, right?”
“What do you mean Chris and you can do it too,” replied Jim, with a deep frown. “How could you else hide your aura if you didn’t push it in your body?”
Momentarily at a loss for words, Clay exhaled. “It seems like I rushed the explanation of aura a little too much in the past, I mean there was a lot to do, but at least when we knew we were stuck here I should have clarified some things.”
Suddenly turning serious, Clay explained, “There are a few different uses of the energy that invaded our planet a few months ago, one is to burn it to strengthen your body, which is the method you used most of the time. You can also control the energy that naturally leaves your body to a certain extent, and this released energy is what we call aura. This aura has from what we know no other use than to sense the location of others who have this aura.”
During the explanation, Jim nodded along, as this was all information he knew and understood, so he continued to listen. “To hide your aura, you have to stop this energy from leaving your body, not pushing it closer.”
“What? Then what is the use of pushing it closer to your body?” Jim asked dumbfounded.
“That is the thing; I don’t know. I always believed that this aura could have a lot more uses, but the closest I could push it to my body was about a meter, which didn’t seem to have any effect, but you are able to push it as close as a few centimeters,” replied Clay with a smile.
Seeing this smile, a shudder ran over Jim’s back, it was the same damn smile he had when they first dueled.
“Don’t look like that Jim, we need to know what this does, and I have the premonition that an aura this strong could function as a shield. If this energy allows one to control fire, it should also allow one to protect from this fire, right?” Clay asked with a smile that only grew wider.
To preserve his own health, Jim quickly changed the topic. “You know, that’s cool and all, but shouldn’t we already name this energy we are always talking about?”
“Name it? Something like mana?” Clay asked, caught off guard.
“Exactly, but something that everyone can understand. I mean, what makes this energy special, what can it do?” Jim clarified while slowly shifting further away from Clay, while he was lost in thought.
“I mean, the one thing I can say for sure is that this energy needs some sort of anchor. Without a popper medium, it does nothing and can’t even be sensed. We can only sense the energy when it has an owner, a medium where it can travel trough, and that can guide it or even control it,” replied Clay while he was lost in thought.
Still slowly moving away, Jim said, “Medium that’s great, what else?”
“I mean other than that, it seems to travel through our body similar to blood and alters our body permanently in the process. This is especially true for animals, which we could observe first hand after all,” continued Clay.
“Okay, so we have medium and… This energy is in every one of us, right?” Jim asked further to gain more time.
“Yes, even plants have this energy, so you could say everything organic has this energy it's almost like…”
“Almost like it's our…” Jim replied as he suddenly halted in his attempt to escape from Clay. “Our essence! How about we just call it that? I mean, this energy is a part of us that can’t be separated, and without it, we die, so it’s our essence right?”
“Essence?” Clay asked, himself, for confirmation.
“Yes, essence, it’s an easy and understandable term,” replied Jim happily.
Repeating it a few times, Clay nodded satisfied, “You know what I like, that term. Let’s find out if your essence can protect you when it covers your body, shall we?”
A few drops of cold sweat dropped from Jim’s forehead, as his happy mood vanished as quickly as it came. “You know, I’m a little tired, I think I should go back to sleep…”
“No, you won’t”
Jim: “...”