With me, there were three other boys, in my dormitory, one of whom I recognized as the one who was with me in the wagon. He was the one I spoke with all the time the ride lasted to the academy; he is open, and we became good friends over the first few weeks.

The other two were complete strangers to me, but at least they weren’t annoying and were rather quiet, laid-back, and chill guys. I didn’t evade them and even tried befriending them, but sadly with no success. At least it wasn’t my fault, as they didn’t even want friends and avoided speaking at all costs.

These two guys I only ever saw in the dorms late in the evening, as they both sat, in class, in the last row, behind the last possible corner—furthest away from everyone. No one even knows why they sit together, but neither someone asked them yet; they have already built up the reputation of being "outsiders." But this might be better for them, as they can concentrate fully on doing nothing without annoying dudes asking them dumb questions.

In practical classes, they only do the most necessary, as in everything they are doing. But still they aren’t the worst in tests. It seems like they are pretty similar to my old, good friend Nian.

I myself have had quite a nice time in the academy so far. I made some new friends: a guy—he sat himself beside me in a few classes so we became friends; then the one sleeping with me in the dorm; and a nice girl—I got to know during practical lessons. With my new friends I was a lot of my time, sometimes having fun, sometimes doing training. They were all humorous and gentle souls, I really learned to appreciate.

My new teachers and instructors are also to my likings, they are much more easy with us and give us much more freedom. I too like the fact that the lessons are far more practical, and that we train our body everyday. But the best part is that we have a lot of free time, after our hard school days. I use mine to train in the training areas, which are accessible all day long for all students. With this I am no exception a lot of students do the same.

All the lessons here are actually much better than back at my old school. I learned much more specific knowledge about war, strategies, signals, and more—all the things a good soldier must know. The exams also went significantly up in difficulty, but were still doable, but gave me the need to invest more time into learning. Trough my huge efforts I was still as good as ever in school and my grades were as good as ever. I was one of the best in my class.

The same was true for training lessons, where most of my classmates weren’t nearly on my level of strength, but the teacher needed to make the training lessons good for all, which made it way too easy for me. Even after asking the teacher to give me something really hard to do, he disappointed me by giving me some simple and easy exercises—in my opinion. But I didn’t mind it, and eventually began to do my own workout instead of the lesson; the teacher allowed it as he saw that he couldn’t teach me anything.

After I’ve awakened, I had began to train my mind up in my favourite place. But now that I was in the academy I needed to searched for a fine place onto the academy's "garden". A long search later I even managed to find a place resembling my old spot, but in miniature. There is a little mound, on which grows a seedling; besides the hill, there is a little flow making its way into a current and then into a little lake with fish.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Here I sat day after day, enjoying nature, hearing the wind sing, the water sprinkling, the insects buzzing, and the birds chirping. The environment was beautiful here, and I came into deep meditation in a few minutes.

As I was here for the first time, which was only a few days after joining the academy, I instantly fell in love with this place. So I began meditating, trying once again to find the sensation from back then—without success. But thereafter I felt really good and so I began to come here day after day and mediated for around an hour per day.

One day—not too long after beginning to regularly meditate—I managed it, it felt like back then in my strange dream, but without the white void around me. As I felt this warm sensation again, I began tracing it within my mind, but this time it didn’t feel like energy trapped in a little ball. It was more like a cluster, with a strong, energetic core emitting energy all around. But even though it felt much more clearer and present than the little ball before, it was far more complex and even further away from being perfect.

And so I began experimenting with the energy; I could, to some extent, control it within my body. I could move the core with much effort, but rather easily the emitted energy. Moving the core felt fruitless, as nothing seemed to be happening while it costs me much of my mental power. So I experimented with the energy. At first, I drew things for fun, but as soon as I lost concentration for a short time, the energy all was sucked back to its origin.

But doing so more often made the whole thing much easier, and so I did over the next few sessions. Until finally, after a week or so, I was able to draw images easily, at least easy ones, and even connect the figure from before to my core, which gained more movability. Having the energy flow connected back to its source, resulted in a steady energy flow, which strengthened me; but I couldn’t hold it up for long, even in mediation.

So I trained further, and finally, after a month, I made a huge breakthrough: I could finally feel the energy and slightly manipulate it even without meditating. Furthermore, I fully understand the energy now—at least I think so-–with it, I could make ways through my body, and everything in its way would be strengthened in all aspects. Furthermore, the shorter the way, the better the strengthening, while when the way is longer, the effect gets weaker. I found it out due to some little experiments. So to conclude it, I have a fixed amount of energy in me, which I can manipulate in quality, quantity and in its location. Doing so results in strengthening of the parts where the energy is.

So much to the theories, but even after more time passed I couldn’t use anything of it in real life; only while mediating could I completely manipulate the energy and reconnect the energy to the core. In real life, I was still in the stage of trying to make little figures or drawings with the energy. If I tried to reconnect the energy to the core, everything would just collapse.

Even after training constantly for week after week, I made only slow progress in terms of the energy, but even this little bit made me stronger. Because, I was stuck with my physical abilities, making me unable to improve much more, as I had reached my body's potential since years. This was also the reason why I trained my movability and quietness progressively more and improved my technique instead of doing as much physical training as before.

Back then, in my fight with Nian, as I managed to awaken, I didn’t immediately feel it, but later on, I realized that my physical strength had now at least twice the potential from before. Which made me, after I realized it, train my strength again. As I had more than enough time here and even trained after practical lessons daily for a long time, I improved rapidly.

I could never reach anywhere near my new maximum strength over the months in the academy, but after each time I meditated, I felt this goal going away further and further, which on one side made me a bit mad, as I wanted to be the best version of myself, but on the other side, I now could become even more of a beast. And what would happen if I could control the energy in real life, like in mediation? I couldn’t begin to fathom my potential and new strength.