Chapter 36. Seth was confused

Seth was confused when saw the stick in Gran’s hand. He didn’t expect to see Gran pull out a stick for meditation. He only came here because he was looking for Boss, and thanks to lucky coincidences he met Cobble that said he would train him.

It was during the stage preparations that they’ve got to meet. Seth asked a few questions about who were the demons that was chasing him to Henrick. Cobble overheard his question and felt apologetic and answered it was him and Pebble. They were preparing to scare the townspeople that’ll be flooding in soon, so they tested it on Seth’s group.

Seth finally realized that the villagers were all great, but weird people and forgave Cobble. They continued building up the stage and everything else that was necessary for the event until just recently. Once they were done, they continued talking, Seth talked about how he couldn’t ever feel his inner energy.

Cobble saw that Seth was a hardworking person and decided to help him out. Seth was also looking for Boss who took his meat and hoped to see him at the estate. He felt only those training with Gran and them could be that stupidly annoying.

However, never in his wildest dreams did he expect to see a stick being used for meditation. Both Riley and Mason never mentioned that for training. Gran saw the startled look on Seth’s face and assured him. “This is only to show you guys what you can do in the future.” Gran then looked at his two sons who were already sitting cross legged.

His steps were steady as he made his way to them. The two sons were already at peace with their eyes completely closed. He started off slowly waving the stick towards Pebble’s face. The moment the stick got near his face Pebble leaned back causing the stick to pass by.

Nodding in content with Pebble’s action Gran picked up the pace swinging the stick left and right, Pebble continuously dodged it by a hair’s breadth narrowly avoiding every attack coming from the stick.

Twenty swings later of Pebble dodging and ducking from every attack, Gran then walked over to Cobble and swung the stick directly at the top of Cobble’s head, the force was capable of splitting a normal person’s head down the center.

Crack!

Julie covered her face the moment she heard the crack. She expected something horribly wrong to occur. Michael whispered in her ear “Julie, look” She opened her eye and saw that the stick in Gran’s hand was split in two and both Pebble and Cobble remained still.

Gran turned around after his demonstration he looked at the little excited boy before him. “That is what you can do in the future.” Gran patted the boy’s head.

Moments later the two sons who were meditating opened their eyes again. They smiled at the people in the room. “What do you think? Cool huh?” Pebble spoke.

“Cool! Super cool!” Arthur’s excitement couldn’t be controlled as he hopped over and looked for markings on Pebble’s body. There was none, he immediately ran over and felt Cobble’s head. There was nothing there.

“You blocked that!?” Arthur shouted in surprised as he looked at Cobble. Cobble smiled and stood up. “Of course, I’m not a Defensive Power if I couldn’t block that.”

Seth’s mouth was agape when he saw the scene. Was Mason and Riley able to do what these two did? Of course they couldn’t, was Gran and them really expecting for these two little kids to be able to do that?

“The best way to become cool like us is through meditation.” Pebble said with a smug look on his face. “If everyone here meditates every day and found their internal energy before the enrollment for Lumiere and Naturelle arrive you’re guaranteed to get in.”

Enrolling for Naturelle and Lumiere already guarantees that students will get in, there has never been a situation for a child to be barred from enrolling and entering school. The reason Pebble said this is because of the divisions within the school for children who haven’t found their internal energy and those that do.

The more you stand out when you’re younger the more attention and prestige you’ll have, instead of listening to lectures in an auditorium of hundreds if not thousands of normal students, they could receive personal mentorships from the teachers.

Pebble meant this when he stated that they’re guaranteed to get in. They’re guaranteed to find a Teacher willing to personally train them.

“Can we meditate all the time?” Arthur asked. Pebble hopped to his feet. “You’ll get tired if you tried to meditate all the time, but you can if you want.” Pebble replied.

“Do you know why meditating is good?” Gran looked at the kids. The day before he didn’t bother asking and just went straight to training to see what the result would be.

Arthur shook his head. Shelly only explained it enough to entice Arthur into meditating. Gran saw the loss Arthur’s eyes and answered. “Meditation has a lot of benefits, especially at an early age.” He made a quick glance Shelly who already knew how to meditate and explained to Arthur.

“Meditation serves as the key for most people to find their internal energy. It is how one will find out where they belong. Meditation allows for a strong early growth and a smooth pathway for the future if you can harness it.”

“If you’re able to find your internal energy and unlock it yourself, you’ll be able to control your energy far better than anyone else.”

Arthur then gave Gran a confused look. “If meditation is the key to unlocking my powers early, why am I training? I’ll get hit until I figure it out.”

Gran, Pebble and Cobble laughed at Arthur’s question. He is right, he shouldn’t have a reason to train this way until he figured it out. Pebble waved his finger at Arthur “Tsk, tsk, tsk you don’t know anything do ya kid?”

Arthur tilted his head at Pebble’s question. “That’s right I don’t know anything.” His blunt reply caused Pebble to erupt with laughter.

Wiping away the tears from his eyes Pebble looked at Arthur. “There are two ways of unlocking your powers early. One is meditation, the other is under immense pressure.” Arthur nodded his head in understanding.

“So, what if we combined both meditation and forced you to feel pressured? That’s where the stick comes in, if you don’t wanna get hit you’ve gotta learn how to meditate.”

“You wouldn’t like the other strategy we came up with anyways.” Pebble stated.

Arthur couldn’t help but asked “What’s the other strategy?” Pebble walked over and patted the kid’s head. “How else do you put one under extreme pressure? We throw you into the wild butt naked and hope you live.” He laughed loudly as he walked over to Seth.

“Which do you want to do?” Seth gave Pebble a serious look. “I’ll take the stick.” There was no question this choice was better suited and safer.

“Careful now, if you don’t improve, that stick starts to hurt.” Pebble patted Seth’s back and exited the room. He was only there for demonstration and preferred to meditate by himself.

“Are you kids ready?” Gran asked everyone in the room. Cobble sat back down and entered a relaxed state.

Michael and Arthur gulped at the same time; they were 0 for 60 what makes today any different than yesterday? They haven’t improved at all yet!

Was it too late to say no?

“Alright, relax and good luck.” Those were the final words Gran had to say for the remaining hour as the training begins.

Knock knock

“Who is it?” The voice from behind the door asked. “It’s me.” A familiar voice could be heard from the other side of the door. Riley slowly opened the door only to see a familiar figure before him. He closed it immediately, however the foot of the person was quicker and blocked the door from completely closing.

“Ow, ow, ow.” The little boy hopped on one foot. “What did you do that for?” The kid was annoyed that Riley closed the door the moment the kid went to say hi. Riley rolled his eyes and asked. “What do you want this time, kid?”

“Nothing~ I’m just bored, my friends are busy right now.” Boss honestly replied as he made his way into the room. In the corner was both Gerald and Sampson cross-legged and eyes closed. “What’s wrong with those two?”

“What do you mean what’s wrong? They’re meditating.” Riley closed the door behind them.

The kid gave Riley a weird look, are you sure they’re meditating?

“What’s with the look?” Riley asked.

The kid didn’t answer and poked the head of Sampson, his head leaned over onto Gerald’s and they both began to snore. “Liar, they’re sleeping!” Boss pointed at Riley accusingly.

Riley was shocked when he saw this, his friends were motionless for a long time, so he thought they were meditating. Riley scratched the back of his head and laughed “Ahaha, well they were meditating. Thanks for those things earlier, they couldn’t have done this without them.”

“Oh! The two pills?” Boss asked.

“Pills?” Riley looked at the kid, didn’t he say it was some condense energy marble?

“Right, condense energy marbles. Same thing they’re small and round stuff.” Boss didn’t care much as he sat on the bed.

“Hey, do you have any snacks in this room?” Boss looked around the hunger in his eyes was apparent. “Tch, no snacks at all? You poor or something?” Boss’ tone annoyed Riley but he couldn’t do much it was just a weird 10yr kid sitting in front of him.

“There’s no food or snacks.” Riley walked over and sat on the bed in front of Boss. “It seems like those pills or whatever was really effective, how did you get it?” He bluntly asked.

“Oh those? I can give you more if you give me the same kind of meat.” Boss replied.

“You have more?” Riley caught onto Boss’ words.

“Only if you have more meat.” Boss replied back. He then changed the subject and looked at dull red-haired person before him. “You’re already stuck at a bottleneck?” Boss’ words pierced right through Riley’s chest causing him to look at the kid before him in disbelief.

“H-how do you know?” Riley asked. Boss pointed at Riley’s dull red hair and stated, “Your hair is dull, which means you’re stuck at a bottleneck and will probably die in a few years if you don’t advance.”

“Wh-aaaaaat?” Riley looked at the weird kid in front of him in disbelief. “What do you mean? My hair has been like this since it changed color, you’re a liar!” Obviously, the little kid was lying.

Boss shook his head. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Hey what’s your name?” Riley look at the boy. “Riley Samarian, yourself kid?”

“Riley eh, well you’re dying if you don’t do anything about it.” Boss completely ignored Riley’s question. He continued, “if you don’t believe me, why don’t you ask yourself? Boss brought a mirror within the room over to Riley and placed it before him.

Riley gave himself a serious look as he stared at his reflection. “Hello, Riley, I am you” Hearing his own voice coming from the mirror made Riley wide eyed and shocked. Boss mimicked Riley’s voice from the back of the mirror. “The boy is right; you’re going to die soon.”

Boss tossed the mirror away after saying that and looked at the disbelieving face of Riley. “See I told you, you’re gonna die.”

Riley snapped out of his daze and stared at the boy before him. “You’re a liar! My mouth didn’t even move in the mirror.” Boss rolled his eyes underneath the sunglasses and pointed at Riley. “The mirror is a reflection to your soul, does your soul have a mouth?”

Riley was dumbfounded by the kid’s absurd comment and didn’t know what to say.

“See, exactly, anyways you’re going to die if you don’t listen to me, I’ve seen this before in many other people.”

“Y-you have?”

The kid nodded his head. “Yep, and I’ve saved more than half of them already.”

“How!?”

“Riley, what are you most scared of?” Boss asked.

Riley thought for a long time, not having a lover, not reaching Tier 2, getting killed by being stabbed in the back, etc…

“Uh, losing my loved ones?”

“Bzzt, wrong!” The kid crossed his hand in an X formation. “What you’re most scared of is death, you dummy everyone doesn’t want to die.”

Riley nodded his head; death was one of the things he was most afraid of.

“Good, now if you want to break free from that bottleneck, go a dangerous place within the next 6 months and fight for your life.”

“Wh-where?” Riley asked.

“Anywhere dangerous! Just go and kill stuff!” Boss didn’t know where was dangerous in this planet, everything was cake to him. He continued, “If you want to not blow up from being stuck in this bottleneck, you should meditate like your sleeping friends over there right now.”

Boss comment made Riley rush over to the corner with Gerald and Sampson and begun meditating. Boss was inwardly laughing to himself as he fooled this idiot.

A few minutes later the door to the room opened again as a person with magenta colored eyes walked in.

“Oh? It’s you kid.” Mason looked at Boss and then at the three people sleeping/meditating in the corner.

“What’re you doing here?”

Boss smiled and pointed at Mason who entered the room.

“You’re already stuck at a bottleneck? If you don't follow my advice, you're going to die!”

"Eh!?"