Chapter 20: Chit-chat

Over the course of the next two days on a blank brown planet, nothing eventful happened. Safo Nur restored his health, earning his moving capabilities back. Once again forming two teams, A and B, where team A was O’rmon and Achraf, focused on reconstruction the ship. Rest, team B's job was to deliver crashed parts from 30 kilometers away.

Safo's training started with a 30 km run. Which he failed after the second kilometer.

Luna was acting as his motivator, cheering him all the way. So, after a short break, Safo resumed his marathon. It took him 15-20 small breaks and slow pace walking to reach the ship and more breaks were required to get back while carrying a heavy black box. It was a supply box of a rough mixture of nutrition, for food fabrication devices. O'rmon was about to fix it in the first place to produce milk for puppies.

5 trips, that was how many trips did Kutch while Safo Nur finished his first one. Dost took control over a metal spider to reach maximum efficiency. He was able to lift the heaviest parts.

They had to dig and search for many broken parts due to them being buried under the sand. It took them 7 days to gather everything from their old ship. Achraf and O’rmon worked hard with very little sleep.

Safo spent that time running with and without carrying a heavy object. Which made his stamina go up for many points if he had a system. Unfortunately, it wasn't the case, he struggled every trip and didn't feel any improvement whatsoever.

His bond with his roommate strengthened though, they talked about each other's past lives, dreams, and thoughts regarding all sorts of things.

On one of his waterfall sweating trips Dost caught up with him, Safo Nur stopped him right before the latter was about to run past him. Safo prepared some questions to ask.

After the interrogation, his knowledge expanded a little bit further. Dost was gladly responded and told everything he knew about the soul room and stones. Apparently, everything that is alive had its soul stone which had various shapes and forms as well as diverse sizes. Soul stone represented its owner in one's soul room. It was a place where the soul could relax and spend its afterlife.

Luna mentioned that her and Safo Nur’s soul stones looked like mini planets. The spherical form of soul stones was the most common as Dost stated.

{"I'm not sure, but if you want I can teach you to enter this room. I found some curious things on your soul stone, I wonder if they can make you stronger. I too want you to be strong and not die. Haha, sorry for being selfish, haha."} Luna covered her concern with a joke. She genuinely didn't want him to be in danger. She rooted for him to be a good king too.

"I'd love to. Let's do it right after I finish with this task." Motivated to meet Luna and his mysterious soul stone Safo Nur was even more determined.

“Another question Dost, what the hell is this? Can you help to get rid of it and reclaim my powers? Kutch said I have them but some defender sealed my abilities away. He mentioned to ask you because you have a similar resource of sealing stuff of sorts.” Said Safo Nur uncovering his still bandaged arm. It was the first time he saw his tattoo fully too.

His forearm displayed six small tattoos located in one straight line, starting with a closed flower bud at his wrist, and ending with a full open rose-like flower. Safo's knowledge was not profound in flowers names or types as well as their look, so he assumed that it was a rose. The tattoo showed how a flower bud blossomed to the fully blooming stage, each next flower was a bit more open than the previous.

“It is true, but unfortunately, sealing resource is very complicated. What I'm sure about is the lock always has its key. Seal and condition to free appear together. There is no way to know what condition our enemy cast on your seals. It can be time, action, place, a word, anything. I cannot help you unlock them. But I'm sure that one or two of the seals will open by accidentally reaching the predetermined conditions.

What I know is that you had not one but two resources, a very rare event for Psiora to have both at the same time. Usually, it takes almost a lifetime to open a second resource. Still, I witnessed only one of your resources, your sensing ability. It was one of the strongest I ever saw, I must say."

Dost boosted Safo Nur’s morale, declaring that he would make a good king with that ability alone.

Dost was interrupted by Luna who started to yelp inside Safo's head.

{"I can't believe this! They are six! Exactly six flowers. I know how to unlock your power! You have to enter your soul room."} It was the first time Luna saw the tattoos. Her excitement was beyond the limits. She found out the clew to unseal the abilities and contribute to Safo Nur's strength.

"What? What do you mean you know? How? Teach me how to get in." Safo told to Dost Luna's words for the latter's surprise.

Every night after work Safo Nur spent his time practicing the meditation method Luna told him. He sat down leaning his back on some metal spare part, closed his eyes, and concentrated his attention in between his eyes and eyebrows, the base of his forehead.

Many hours Luna explained to him what he was supposed to feel if he was on the right way to reach his soul room.

"It sounds a little fantastic to me, how is that possible?" But then he remembered that he was on a different planet with a 3-meters tall green lion and shorter but angrier tigress with a body that even human girls will envy. An immortal soul that was inside of the robot, a girl that talked in his head. Telekinesis abilities, super speed, force-shield, spaceships. And finally the invisible dogs.

"Oh, what the hell am I talking about?! Let's do it, let's try to enter my soul room."

{"Breathe in… and out. In...and out. Control your breath, measure it. Keep it constant. Listen to your heartbeat, sync your breath with it. Feel your lungs. Close your eyes, but look straight. Keep your eyes direct and focus your mind between your eyebrows…Focus… The soul room is there, try to penetrate it with your consciousness, go in there. It is your place, you own it, you control it. You have a right to be there, take it."} Luna turned out to be an excellent spiritual mentor for Safo Nur. She, herself walked that path when she was a little bedridden girl. All she did was practice meditation.

On the 7th day, Team B finished its task. With it, Safo Nur’s real dynamic training under Kutch's supervision began. Couple hours of physical training, with breaks for spiritual training and all over again.

"Hoo...hooo...my fuc*... why is it so hard?" Safo was huffing and puffing on the ground after 20 minutes of exercising.

"You sure use foul language a lot for your age, young man. Stand up, we didn't even start a warm-up." Kutch was a patient but strict coach. It was, really, only the basic warm-up, but Safo Nur was in worse shape than he initially thought. "Stand up, 10 more loops of running and we can proceed to push-ups. Come on, come on." The lion growled tapping the boy's shoulder.

"Argh… Why on Earth I can't have a system as an ability? It'd be so easy just to put a point on strength and stamina. They make it so easy in those anime, manga, and novels. The main character does all of those exercises and becomes strong in a couple of pages, while in reality, it is not such an easy thing to do. Fuc* those novels!" Safo was cursing everything in his mind, mostly because he was mad that he was weak. It was hard to accept that oneself was a weakling.

By the program that Kutch made for him, Safo is supposed to run 100 rounds across the ship.

He could do only 30 to 40. 15 out of 30 push-ups at one attempt. 10 out of 20 sit-ups. Frankly speaking, just half of everything and those numbers went down by every round. But that didn't damage his morale and determination. Cursing was his way to make himself stronger and endure more pain. Safo knew his physical state, it desperately needed to be upgraded. He knew that it could be accomplished only through exhausting training.

After another 10 days of hard work, Safo Nur reached a breakthrough.

Pitch black place, absolutely nothing, absentee of a light source made Safo Nur feel nervous. A mere seconds ago he was sitting outside so the sunlight lightened his vision even though the eyelids were shut. Focused on ripping off the fabric of his mental barrier he wasn't paying much attention to the light. Suddenly, the next moment everything went dark. He even opened his eyes to no avail.

"Is this what I think it is? My soul room? Luna said it will be a dark place first, so I expected this. But still scary. I can feel the floor though, I'm standing on the floor. I thought spirits would fly, disappointment." Safo Nur was too cautious to walk around, so he started to check out his vicinity using his legs.

It was empty for several steps from him, so he was calm at least. When a sudden force pushed his chest, his heart missed a beat.

"Aaaaaa…"