In a daze, I kept looking at the words etched on the wall from my Teacher’s sword.

Meanwhile, Sia also turned around and, like me, fell silent as she took in the words.

Time passed.

Sia came out of her reverie first and dazedly turned around to speak only for Teacher to hold up a finger to his lips and shush her.

Nodding, she turned her attention back to the words and closed her eyes to remember the feeling that she had.

As for me?

I was lost.

I was lost in a world of darkness, broken only by the occasional sword slash at the speed of sound.

The emptiness filled me from all directions and the comfortable feeling of the darkness called out to me like the night to the moon.

Then I saw light, blazing, beautiful light the likes of which I’ve never seen before.

Wait, I have. My mother exudes that light, but it’s more subdued, way more subdued. If the light I’m immersed in is a bright sun, then the light my mother exudes is a shuttered lamp.

The light fills me with warmth and then everything changes.

I see myself exuberantly charging at ranks of enemies - as though fear was never in my dictionary.

I see myself tasting blood on my tongue but living to see another day and its joy.

I see the warmth of the darkness, but I disdain it for the heat of the sun.

“My path is that of a man who can walk in the shadows or the light, but I shall walk it with swiftness and purpose. I will stand for what I believe in and nobody can shake my belief in my path. I will forge ahead or perish!”

With a start, I came out of the trance that I was in and found that my body was feeling warm like a furnace, and with a start, I realized what was happening.

I had triggered my warforce.

But this time, there was no heart beating rapidly.

Rather, it felt like a vast river was raging within me.

Thundering in my ears and body.

The urge to let it flow out was so strong that unconsciously I clenched my fists and punched out!

Simple!

Unadorned!

Punches!

A Drayke roared!

The very air trembled, and the light refracted away from the places that the punches passed, as though there was a void within!

Black and gold spiral lines started running up from my fingertips to my wrists, but I noticed nothing.

I kept the rhythm of my punches.

Right foot forward, right fist punches out!

Left foot forward, left fist punches out!

Again!

Again!

But it wasn’t enough.

I let loose a roar and the walls of the prison shook!

The next second I felt mortal danger, and I immediately moved forward and ducked, sweeping my right foot from the side into a low kick.

Grunting, I made contact with an iron plate that shook my legs and Bal near broke my leg, but it didn’t stop me from leaping back to the right side with a push from my left leg and then regaining my balance, launching a furious onslaught of punches interspersed with kicks.

Sir Leonidas grunted with each hit, and with each block, his speed kept getting faster and faster.

But I was matching him with every blow and more, pushing him back across the floor.

Until suddenly, I wasn’t.

Try as I might, I could not push the man even an inch and, on the contrary, I was being pushed back, slowly but surely.

All the way until with one explosive grunt from Teacher, I was sent flying backward into the wall and as bright colors exploded and I fell away from the wall; Where I was caught in my teacher’s arms and then, along with a dull pain in my neck, everything went black.

“Quite incredible indeed, this little monster,” sighed Leonidas in relief.

“Any more and I would have had to use iron rank second-star abilities… and it hasn’t even been 4 months since he started training with me…”

“Here catch,” the Teacher said casually, as he tossed my limp body to Sia, who caught me deftly as though catching comatose people was her daily job.

“Take him back and the same old drill... potion an-”

Stuttering to a halt, he watched wide-eyed as the comatose person came back to life with a weak wave of his hand…

Knowing the drill, Sia dropped him like a hot potato only to find that there was no new mess to clean up but rather, the supine body was now in a half-sitting - half-lying position against the wall and murmuring,

“My path is that of a man who can walk in the shadows or the light, but I shall walk it with swiftness and purpose. I will stand for what I believe in and nobody can shake my belief in my path. I will forge ahead or perish!”

Like a tree struck by a lightning bolt, the Teacher quivered in shock.

Darting forward, he grabbed my shoulders and urgently asked me, “Repeat what you said!”

I obliged and repeated it, enunciating each and every word with the grandeur that the voice I heard had said it with, but I came up far short.

But it was like my teacher had heard the most precious thing ever.

He turned pale, then ruddy, then pale again, before beaming with delight.

“Faustus, you’ve done me a great favor. A favor I can’t possibly repay but I will always keep it in mind.” He said, in the gravest voice I have ever heard him speak in.

“Huh?” I mumbled, still half dazed

“What did you say, Teacher?”

“You heard me! Now tell me, how are you feeling? Describe everything in detail, including what you felt when you saw those words.”

I fell silent as I tried to organize my racing thoughts.

Then I began speaking,

“I saw darkness and light... both were warm, but the light was like a fire heating you up while the dark was a long-lost friend giving you a hug. I saw blood, and I saw men fall. I felt pain, but I stood tall. Then I heard those words, and I lost control of myself... and then I woke up by hitting my head when you dropped me-” I finished as I looked at Sia resentfully, who shrugged at me.

Nodding his head in appreciation, my teacher pondered my words.

“Oh and Teacher, I saw sword strikes, very fast sword strikes - just like yours,” I said as I tried hard to remember more.

Excitedly, the Teacher asked, “And what else?”

I rubbed my head hard and thought before smashing a fist into my palm and yelling out, “Teacher! Why is your warforce so little? You only wrote one line and your warforce almost depleted by half!”

Bam.

The teacher fell over.

Getting up and dusting himself, he cursed, “You little rogue, do you know what these walls are made of?”

“What?” I asked innocently

“FIRMROCK! That’s right! firmrock itself!” He said in agitation.

“Ohhh, so that’s what it is. Here I thought it was just a really slimy wall made for a really slimy pers- prison,”

“Slimy? Good Bal boy!”

“So this firmrock, what is it?”

“...”

“You’ve never heard of firmrock?” He asked.

“Never.”

“Never ever?” He asked again doubtfully.

“Never ever, ever,” I replied confidently.

“Do you read, boy?”

Jumping up like a scalded cat, I yelled out, “of course I read, it’s the only thing I could do before you know. You- Don’t you say anything bad about books or else I’ll fight you!”

Making a calming gesture, he asked me what I read.

When I listed out all the fiction and stories that Mister Wagner, the bookstore owner, used to sell, - Sir Leonidas remained speechless for quite a good while before sighing.

“Tomorrow onwards, whatever books you’re given - you will read them.”

“I’ll also ask Count Drayke permission for you to read the books in his library, though you might still be too young, but ai, a little monster cannot be judged by ordinary means!”

“Now tell me, how are you jumping around so livelily after triggering your warforce?”

“Don’t tell me you’ve awakened or that would be the shortest awakening I’ve ever seen,” Teacher mused, dubiously.

“What! No, I haven’t awakened, or at least I think I haven’t. Let us spar and find out, Sia!”

A minute later, as I lay spread-eagled on the ground, almost out for the count, I confirmed three things.

One was that I had not awakened my warforce.

The second was that my vigor was surface level and my body was in fact in terrible shape.

The third is Sia. Does. Not. Know. How. To. Go. Easy. On. Me.

Bal.

I’m almost in tears at this point, but I’ve been through this situation too many times over the past four months to count.

Hup.

I gingerly moved into a sitting position before looking at an obviously distracted teacher.

Sidling closer, I could hear him mumbling “light” and “darkness” among other things before he noticed me.

Looking at him expectantly, I asked, “What next, teacher?”

“Next, next you go boil your head!” He said, impatiently.

“How rude!” I exclaimed, affronted.

“No, I meant, go boil your head in the potion bath along with your body. Then visit Thomas. I’ll give him a heads-up. I feel that he’s in for a rude shock today,” snickering at the misfortune coming Thomas’s way. Our teacher shooed us away.

Shrugging at Sia, we parted ways outside her room where she paused hesitantly, obviously wanting to say something but giving up on it, ran inside.

Puzzled, I made my way to my room and then from there to Thomas and by the time I left, Poor Thomas was practically prostrating himself in awe.

It’s good to be alive.