Silently, Urn and Abrax moved down the long hall which awaited them at the end of the stairs; at the end of the hall was a sturdy iron door, wrapped from top to bottom in vine-like plants. The plants had thick black stalks, and bore several fruit which resembled and moved like eyes.

I wouldn’t say they’re pretty, but they don’t feel creepy either. Urn thought. In fact, the aura emanating from the plants seemed to be more comforting than anything else he’d sensed in the Temple, oddly. Two hooded guards sat in front of the door, playing a game of tic-tac-toe with chalk halfheartedly.

“So bored you guys didn’t even notice me?” Abrax grinned, and one of the guards raised her head, yawned, and dropped her chalk, searching through her pockets unenthusiastically.

“Yessir.” The guard mumbled and then turned her head to Urn, eyeing his locket. “Looks like things might be getting interesting soon though, right, kid?” She pulled a key out of her pocket and handed it to the second guard, who slid it into the keyhole, twisted it, and pushed open the sturdy door.

“I guess?” Urn said, slightly irritated by the cryptic simplicity of her words, and ignored Abrax’s chuckles, walking into the room. The walls were coated in the same mysterious plant which was on the door, yet these ones grew in much denser clusters. Wooden dolls adorned with cowrie shells hung from the stalks of the strange plants, shaking slightly as Urn stepped into the room. “What the fuck? You trying to teach me or sacrifice me?”

“HA! Who says it can’t be both?” Abrax joked, kicking the door closed as he passed through. “Seriously, though, what I’m going to teach you will serve as a basis for the rest of your path in magic. No more messing around from here on out; got it?”

“You know it.” Urn grinned, an unexplainable glee swelling up from deep inside him; finally, after so many years of yearning and dreaming, he was finally going to learn magic! This is gonna be great! I wonder what he’ll teach me- teleportation, or fireball juggling; whatever it is, it’s gonna be badass!

“Grab any of those dolls and hold it by the head.” Abrax instructed, and Urn untangled a doll from the grasp of the wall dwelling plants, yanking it out, and placing both hands against its head. As soon as he did, the doll’s face began to contort and shift, its eyes lowering and nose widening. Strands of string shot out from its head and wrapped around each other before gracefully falling down, and a peculiar looking locket which resembled his own appeared around its neck.

It looked just like him.

What the fuck? And I thought this couldn’t get any creepier. Urn frowned down at the locket, turning it around and inspecting it closely; and then he realized there was some sort of energy radiating from his hands. It cackled and jumped around his hands like lightning, vibrant blue in hue, and with further inspection, realized that the energy was coating his entire body. He felt a burst of vigor as the energy intensified, going from thin lines of crackling electricity to streams of radiant lightning, twirling around his body. His eyes lit up as he realized that the energy surrounding him was magical energy, the source of all magic.

Abrax stared blankly, his mouth hanging wide open as he saw the energy buzz around Urn’s body. Urn looked up from his hands, barely holding back another smile, and turned to Abrax. “This is magic energy, right? It feels just like the aura I sensed from all those magical gift prank thingies my grandfather would give me!”

“Yeah.” Abrax whispered, his voice cracking, and then realized that Urn was staring at him confusedly, and shook his head. “Uh-sorry, yeah! I wasn’t expecting your magic energy to look like…that. It’s a good thing though; a testament to your potential as a magician!”

“So it doesn’t normally look like this? Then what does it look like?” Urn asked, and Abrax held his hand out. Streams of green energy began to peak out from the pores of his skin, flowing into the air in a way which seemed to resemble the movement of water, rather than lightning.

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“Although it varies in color, the magic energy used by humans flows like water. We draw our magic energy from a vast space known as the Third Realm. The Third Realm is completely made up of magic energy, and we draw from that energy using our third eyes; but that magic energy has to be first weakened so it doesn’t destroy our bodies.” Abrax explained, and then took a step forward, grabbing Urn’s locket. Promptly, the locket opened up, its eye staring at Abrax intently. “But it’s different in your case.”

So that confirms my theory. “I get it. You mean that my locket houses and enhances my third eye, right?” Urn could feel the tenseness of the locket, the necklace slightly tightening around his neck.

“Exactly.” Abrax nodded. “Because of that, your locket can draw magical energy from the Third Realm, and houses it so your body is in no danger of being destroyed by the energy. And so your energy doesn’t need to be tuned down for your body’s safety; it remains at its purest, most potent state. And with that being said; try balling that energy up in your hands.”

Urn nodded, extending his palms and closing his eyes, imagining the gathering of energy in his palms…except nothing happened. The energy continued to intensify and grow at even faster speeds then before, spreading to nearly all corners of the room. Alarmed, Urn focused as hard as he could onto his palms, trying to recall it, yet the energy did not listen, continuing to grow and burst; and Urn felt the burst of vigor he’d felt slip away. Yet, just as the energy was about to envelop the plants tangled across the walls, the eye-like fruits seemed to stare into the mass of energy, and slowly, it began to shrink. The energy withdrew, its cackling shifting into a quiet buzz as it all returned back to Urn, slipping through the pores in his skin, and then vanishing quietly.

“I knew it was a good idea to plant those things!” Abrax chuckled to himself as Urn gasped for breath. “If your energy had grown anymore, you would have been dead by now!”

“Dead? So…if I… slip up whenever…I’m not surrounded…by a bunch of freakish plants… I’ll die?” Urn asked, winded, between deep breaths.

“Bingo! The thing is, as you are right now you won’t be able to control your energy, even if you go through the most grueling training. You could practice trying to control it in this room for your entire life, and you’d never be able to even get your energy to even flinch.” Abrax explained.

“I see…..so what’s the but?” Urn asked, scratching his head.

“There is no ‘but’. No matter how much resolve you have, you’ll never be able to increase your skill in magic simply by training.” Abrax said, plucking a doll from the wall, and then clenching its head tightly, grinding the thick wooden skull into dust. “ There is only one way to grow stronger in the field of magic; awakening.”

My sister…she used to always say that if I wanted to learn magic, daily meditation was the only way to. Urn grinned and shook his head. She really pulled out all the stops. “...But I’m already awake.” Urn joked.

“Corny.” Abrax mumbled, and then continued. “By passing a spiritual ordeal or test, your skills as a magician are vastly boosted, which is why we call it awakening. Usually, you can go through this spiritual ordeal by performing a really long, complicated ritual, but your locket simplifies it for you!”

“I see. So that’s another of the locket’s powers.” Urn clenched the locket. “Then hurry up and tell me how to wake up already. It doesn’t matter what sort of ordeal I have to go through it; I’ll clear it all the same.”

“I can’t tell you how to do it! The locket’s not mine; you’ll have to listen to it yourself.” Abrax shrugged his shoulders and tossed away the headless doll he held, putting his hands in his pockets and staring at Urn expectantly. Urn nodded, holding up the locket in his palm, and locked eyes with it, concentrating on the locket, and only on his locket. The room around him seemed to dim, the locket’s eye gleaming brightly as a faint humming sound began to emanate from it. Urn could feel his mind clearing, his thoughts all vanishing one by one, and leaving behind a blank canvas for the locket to paint on. As the locket’s will and his mind converged, he could begin to picture a faint white shape, not a circle, but more oval in shape.Slowly, the image began to clarify and strengthen, and Urn could see that it wasn’t just an oval-like shape, but a shape with a circle within it.

It was an eye.