Having cleaned myself up and now wearing a tight formal dress, I am now sitting in front of Grace to discuss a contract.

“… As Chesnokov said, you’re interesting. I share his sentiment and find myself curious about just how far you can go; though not completely, you managed to fight the mindfray of an Emperor-class Psion with no training.” Said Grace, “Your latent psionic potential is utterly monstrous… You might even be able to surpass Legend-class on psionic power alone, not to mention that ridiculous physical recovery of yours.”

“… And therefore, you’re offering to train me for free? All I have to do is provide a base of operations for your group until the end?” I asked dubiously.

“Yes. You will also have to provide the materials and resources needed for your own training, but that is a negligible cost in the grand scheme of things. On a side note, we would like access to some form of training grounds.”

“Training grounds can be arranged. Aside from that, shall we finalize the contract?”

“Yes, lets sign on it and get started.”

“Immediately?”

“Yes. I would like to teach you the basics now so you can start exercising your abilities immediately.”

“Understood.”

A contract was brought out and we both read over it to confirm the contents before signing it. Once the paperwork had been concluded we stood up and headed towards the gym in silence. Once we arrived the first lesson begun.

Grace decided to begin with a short lecture.

“The essence of psi is to exert your will on the world. Psions achieve this by reaching out with something called “domain”. Everyone has a domain, it is a small portion of the world that belongs to them; the difference between Psions and the masses is in their ability to influence their domain. The world does not like to be tampered with however, and changing it takes vast amounts of energy; energy we do not have.

Psions overcome this hurdle by minimizing the area of influence. Rather than telling the world to ignite the candle, we reach deeper, we go all the way down to the molecules. Logically, it takes far less energy to make a few molecules shake faster than to do the same for the entire wick. It is all about precision; the smaller the portion of the world you try to manipulate, the easier it is.

Performing this task is far more taxing on the mind as you must comprehend the molecular structure before you do anything.

Let’s start with an easier trick: Telekinesis.

Telekinesis is one of the easiest tricks to learn as it does not require comprehension on a microscopic level.

Before you do try this, tell me, what is gravity?”

“Umm… it’s a force?”

“You’re on the right track. Define it further.”

“… A force of attraction?”

“Yes, it is a force of attraction between two things, that’s what it is generally defined as. But are we not being pulled towards the floor right now? Is that not also ‘gravity’?”

“… No?”

“Correct. ‘Gravity’ is used when referring to the primary downwards pull of a planet. What we are experiencing is generated by a centrifugal force, it is neither ‘gravity’ nor a general ‘gravitational force’ at all. It is simply another force.

‘Telekinesis’ is the art of applying a ‘force’ of your own. You do not nullify any forces that act on an object, you only create and sustain a new one.

Take this stone for example. It has numerous forces acting upon it. Try sensing these forces.”

A small stone was placed on the ground between us. I stared at the stone, trying to comprehend something beyond what I could see. This effort lasted fifteen minutes before I asked for help.

“I can’t sense anything.”

“Obviously, I haven’t explained how to.

Start by closing your eyes and meditating. Listen to me and I will guide you.”

I closed my eyes and tried to enter a meditative state.

“Good. The brain is composed of two hemispheres which are connected. In the middle, there is a part that connects them. Within that part is a control node. Try to find that node. It will feel like a portion of your mind that has been locked away.”

After a few seconds, I found the supposed node. After confirming the feeling that was described I nodded.

“Good. Try unlocking it by connecting it directly to your spinal column. Do not force the connection, that can only harm you.”

I focused on the node and reached out for my spinal column, it took a few minutes to find it. Grabbing the spinal column, I slowly brought the two together. As they connected, I felt the world around me come into sight despite my eyes being closed.

“Good. I felt the influx. You have achieved the connection phase. Do not lose focus, we are not done yet. You must start connecting this system to the rest of your brain and form a neural network.”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

I moved my focus and started wiring this system into my brain.

Dawn, can you optimize the network?

<( Not with my current knowledge or experience… rewiring it later should not be an issue though. I have already analysed some of the connections and it should be possible to reconstruct them. )>

I accepted and continued to build a neural network. The invisible world around me began to feel clearer.

“Good. Once you complete the neural network you can start connecting the rest of your nervous system to it.”

Once I felt the neural network set into place I began to add the rest of my nervous system into the mix.

This time, rather than the world around me becoming clearer, I began to understand my body in more depth.

“Once your entire nervous system is connected, rest for a few minutes and strengthen all the connections. Once you feel ready, gather energy into the node; fill it to capacity. Once filled, release the energy throughout the entire system, guide it down every path.”

I spent a good thirty minutes strengthening the connections, and eventually a sense of confidence appeared. Assuming this indicated that I was ready, I began to gather energy. When the node had filled completely I was assaulted by a sharp pain. I quickly released all the pent-up energy.

It was the most painful thing I’ve ever felt. I screamed in pain but dutifully guided the pulse of energy down every connection I had made. The process lasted no more than a minute, but it felt like an eternity to me.

Once it was done, I collapsed like a discarded puppet. My body was still, my breathing was weak. I couldn’t find the strength to push myself back up.

After some time passed, my strength began to slowly return and I sluggishly raised my body. Eventually I made it to my feet, and simply stood looking far into the distance, feeling enlightened.

After a few seconds, my trance was broken by the sound of clapping.

“That was truly impressive. People usually study for years before trying to perform a full activation. Most, however, simply perform the stages separately.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked, still feeling drained.

“Between what?” returned Grace.

“… between ‘full activation’ and separately?”

“Good that you asked. ‘Full activation’ is not a real term, but overall idea is that you have to manage risk vs reward.” She said informatively, “Unlocking everything in one go grants powerful returns but is not only incredibly risky, but also incredibly difficult…”

“Risky? What can go wrong?”

“Best cases, they stump the growth of their psionic powers for good. Worst cases… Paralysis, permanent loss of cognition, or simply death. By breaking the stages apart it’s possible to reduce the risks by letting some potential go. Separating the stages means slower development, less precision, and various other things.”

“Why does separating the stages reduce the potential power of a Psion?”

“If you allow the spinal column to set before you attach the nervous system, will the connections be a strong as if you were to attach them before they set?”

“I suppose not…”

“The same applies for each new portion of the system added. People generally attach the nervous system bit by bit, and then allow it to slowly acclimatise to the flow of energy, slowly adding the smaller and smaller nerve clusters to the system. This means that the different nerve paths have different synchronisations, resulting in inefficiencies appearing in the flow of power.

Not only did you survive a perfect ‘full activation’… but you regained consciousness in a matter of minutes. The most talented and powerful Psions in history all spent several months comatose after succeeding a full activation. As the pinnacles of power, they-” “I didn’t lose consciousness.” “Heh?”

“I didn’t lose consciousness… Only strength.” I repeated.

Grace stared at me with an open mouth and wide eyes. After a few moments, she regained her composure.

“Ahem. Let’s start by learning a few simple exercises to keep you busy.”

I nodded and we continued.

“Start by sensing the ‘forces’ acting upon this stone.”

I closed my eyes and began to explore my newfound senses.

After finding the stone in the invisible world I began to focus on it.

“The stone is stationary even though it is being pulled downwards… can you tell me why?”

“The floor is stopping it from falling.” I said with confidence, having discovered such in the invisible world.

“Not quite. The floor doesn’t ‘stop’ the stone from moving, it provides a force that perfectly counteracts the force pushing the stone down. This is usually called a ‘normal’ force. Can you explain what this ‘normal’ force really does?”

“… it pushes the stone upwards… in equal and opposite to what gravity does?”

“That’s better. So, what would happen if we added a new force that was half of gravity and acting upwards? Would the stone move?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because the upwards force would not beat gravity?”

“Correct. Can you explain why the upwards force would not beat gravity even though we’ve added an upwards force? Why would the normal force and the psionic force not overcome gravity when they work together?”

“… AH! It’s because they don’t work together! ‘Normal’ force is only a filler, by adding half the force of gravity upwards with a psionic force we have halved the job needed to be done by the normal force. If we wanted to lift the stone, we would need to use a force superior to gravity!”

“And if we wanted to keep it still?”

“We would need to use a force that is equal and opposite gravity… like a normal force.”

“Correct! This also works on the horizontal axis, you’ll learn more later. For now, practice lifting this stone, practice moving it up and down, explore moving – and stopping – the stone with your mind.”

“Um… How do I do that?”

“Will the effect into existence, I can’t explain the process better than that.”

I stared at her for a moment, but then resigned myself to figure the task out by myself.

I closed my eyes and focused on the stone again. After some time, I began to understand the forces acting on the stone. I struggled to apply a new force of my own, but after a few moments a new force appeared.

Grace was right in saying there wasn’t a better explanation, I simply ‘willed’ the new force to appear as one may will their arm to move.

Having figured out how to exercise my will upon the world I started to play with the stone. Upwards, downwards, sideways, and even spinning it, I quickly learned how to manipulate the airborne stone in a variety of ways. After some time, I started discovering new things about how forces worked, I even discovered inertia and a few of its simpler properties – an object will try to maintain its state of motion, be it stationary or moving, it will keep going the same way at the same pace unless you add a force that is not equal to the other forces, allowing it to speed up and slow down relative to the unbalanced force.

The discoveries were thrilling, even though someone beat me to the punch several thousand years beforehand.

After a while I began to feel the strain in the form of a splitting headache.

Dropping the stone I clutched my skull and sat in silence, hoping the pain will go away soon.

The pain receded after a minute and I opened my eyes. Grace was no longer in front of me.

I stood up and looked around, Grace was looking over a weapons rack stacked with training swords on the other side of the room. After a moment, she turned to look in my direction.

“Not bad for a first try. You lasted nearly fifteen minutes before the headache arrived… On second thought, you were doing quite a lot of advanced movements. Practice this every day, the strain will lessen significantly as you become progressively more proficient with your powers. For now, it’s quite late and you’ve had a long day, go get some rest… You’ve got a lot to do tomorrow.”

I nodded and headed up to my quarters. I didn’t even have the energy to grab a maid on the way.