CHAPTER 13 - Meditating

As Azyl sat down on the mat made of straw, the coarse feeling made him itchy. He started feeling restless and out of focus even before he had started. But that was to be expected after all. The idea that he had to sit like that for hours was already making him lose interest.

"Oh right, I haven't had my dinner yet. Let me fill myself up, then I will join you in meditation. Just wait for me here then." Suddenly Azyl got up, and before Woulf could object he went away.

In fact he really had not had his dinner yet as he had thought to first go and talk to Woulf after he had finished studying with Teacher Ren. Quickly moving in the direction of the Dining Hall, he thought about how he would pass the night. From the earlier experience, his chances of meditating through the night were as slim as him getting selected in the initiation. But there was no way out of it either.

And thus Azyl decided that he would learn to sleep while sitting cross-legged and upright.

After he was done with eating his fill, instead of going back to his dorm straight away, he chose to take a walk on the training ground. While walking around the grounds, as he looked at the different facilities that were arranged to be used by all the students, the silence around him suddenly reminded him of the time in the morning when he would sneak out to the fields sometimes on the rare occasion that he woke up early.

He would quietly move out of the house to the fields to sleep there in the cold and calm, only to find that his father would be working in the field. His father was a hardworking man, from whom Azyl inherited his silver hair. But unlike his father, Azyl never tried to maintain his outlook. His father was well received and very popular amongst the people in the village, so when he had proposed for him to get the quota this year, there weren't many voices against it.

Even thought many knew that Azyl was an irredeemable sloth, they agreed to give him a chance and allow him to study. Which was also why, he would hate to disappoint them all and above all his parents. He did not have any siblings, neither grandparents. But he treated the granny who taught him to play the flute as his own family. She lived at the end of the street they lived in and would sometimes catch him in the morning going to the fields.

As he reminisced about his village and everyone back at home, once more he regained some of his motivation and so he returned to the dorm.

Looking at Zewoulf who was already deep in meditation, he slowly sat down without disturbing him and then closed his eyes in focus.

They all had been taught the basics of meditating. The most important part was to feel prana first. And this was the part that usually took the most time. After that, you will have to guide the prana slowly through the origin path that was spread all over a persons body.

Origin path was the only meridian path that a person was able to sense easily from the start. But guiding prana through it was not easy as it required a lot of will power. Until now, Azyl had only felt prana once before, but it had been fairly easier for him compared to his class.

Sitting on the coarse mat made of straws, he calmed himself and then tried to find that feeling he had felt when he first felt the presence of prana. It had felt like coming into contact with a cool breeze. The breeze was fun and soothing when he had felt it in his body. But then the feeling disappeared as soon as it appeared as he had lost focus. Trying to remember the same feeling, time slowly passed for him.

After thirty minutes or maybe an hour, Azyl once again felt that cool breeze. It touched him at the center of his body and then started to spread all over. But remembering what he had been taught, he tried to pull this breeze all together at one point in him. He had not tried this before, but Zewoulf had told him that it was easily done as long as you did not lose focus and the feeling. And so Azyl was able to overcome this first step just like everyone.

Next came the part where he had to guide the prana that was now at the center of his body through the origin path. As the origin path for every person was different, the starting point that you would decide upon would naturally be different as well. People usually spent time deciding this and before they would realize, the prana would have dissipated. Instead, Azyl let his instincts take over and the first direction that came into his mind, he pushed the prana in that direction.

As he saw it flow through his lower limb and then circulate back to his torso, a cool feeling washed over him at every point the prana went over. But outside instead he was sweating. Even as he didn't realisze, the control was exerting pressure on him, but he continued. After some time, when he had finally circulated it through his head and the prana came back to his heart region a chill ran through his spine.

He had completed his first circulation and like how Zewoulf had told him, it felt refreshing. But strangely, he didn't felt that it was that difficult. Thinking as such, he once again went about trying to circulate the prana once he focused it in the center of heart. The second time, he felt a little resistance but he finished it. And like that, he finished a total of five circulation before he felt that he could no longer continue. It was as if all air had been sucked out from him for a moment when he tried to go for the sixth round. So he stopped there and slowly broke from his trance.

When he looked around, he saw that Zewoulf was still seated opposite to him. Looking from his posture, he seemed to have already begin another round of meditation.

And it was then that Azyl noticed all the sweat that was soaking through his clothes. He wore a normal pair of t-shirt and baggy shorts. Lightly getting up from his position, he moved to grab a towel and wipe himself clean. Only now he felt the amount of effort he might have put in this first session that he went through. After changing to a new set of clothes, he looked at the clock.

When he saw that it wasn't even past midnight, he felt a little deflated. But then thinking about refreshing feeling that overcame him every time he completed a circuit, he sat down to meditate again. He would once again try to breach the sixth circulation mark. From what he was taught, reaching ten circulations in one go meant that you had broken through to prana level 1. He was already halfway past. But he did not thought too much about it. As he had not paid attention during the class he was not aware what doing five rounds in first try meant.

His talent was certainly not average to be able to do that. Anyone would be surprised to know about this, but as it was Azyl this was not known yet.

And so Azyl continued like that.