Chapter 7

Trial of the Mind

Ornias sat on his bed with his legs crossed and his eyes closed. Breathing in and out systematically, he relaxed his mind and started to focus on the elements in his surroundings, beckoning them to enter his mind.

However, he was unable to initially sense anything. So he thought he went about it wrong and decided to pull out the memory from the book.

He began to recall the passage out loud to himself, “Within magic there are five principle elements that are known to the public. Out of those five, most magicians can only feel and grasp one or two of the elements.”

“It requires a very powerful mind to form connections with more than that. Since the total amount of elements that can be mastered is accordant to the power of the persons mind.” Feeling confident, Ornias rubbed his nose in a haughty manner and continued to read aloud.

“Each element requires significant mental power in order to understand it, which is the reason that magicians are limited to one or two elements. Therefore it’s a given, that only a couple elements are possible to be learned. So choose wisely. However please note, there also is a factor for how well the individual can understand and sense the magical aspects of the elements as well.”

After reading the text in the book mentally, he smirked and realized he would be one of those to have a powerful mind. Maintaining the relaxed state, he began to recall the rest without verbalizing it.

The remaining chapter of text mentioned the vast majority of magicians only being able to see specks of colored light corresponding to the element they are attune with. Yet more proficient magicians who have thicker bloodlines can see a stream of the prospective element.

Also to properly call out to the elemental essences, it is required for the Magician to enter a meditative state of consciousness. It is easier to form connection if there is a mental room created to view the elements in person.

Dwelling on this, he once again, tried to enter a state of consciousness through mediating. As he tried once more, the Divine Artifact within his body activated all the sudden. Unaware to the sudden change, white light began enshrouded Ornias.

With just a thought, a room within his mind was opened up through this method of meditation and assistance of the Artifact. Yet when he arrived in the room, darkness slowly started to engulf him, and the room in his mind became a room that had no light.

He was slightly frightened because he was in a pitch black space of consciousness. But shortly after entering, he could suddenly feel a coherent existence that seemed to be entering the space he created in his mind. Quickly following the sudden manifestation, several other existences began to also converging into the room.

Worry filled him since he didn’t know what those presences were. What that could enter someone else’s mind so easily. But he realized that there was no ill intent attached and came to the conclusion that he successful called out to the elemental essences.

With time he could feel the elements surrounding him. Faint wisps of colors started to appear in the darkness of his vision and gradually began to swim and circle around him.

Now that there was a place to congregate, the elemental essences were quite eager to meet in the room his mind created for them. At this moment he could even differentiate the elements since he could see several different colors surrounding him. They were vibrant bright colors. They speedily filled up the entirety of the once dark room, leaving him dumbstruck.

He sat in the middle of a vast ocean of colors flowing and swirling around him. It was almost as if he was drowning in an actual ocean. But this ocean was the elemental essences of magic, surrounding him in the forms of rivers.

It was rather apparent that he was not normal and for some reason. He was capable of seeing rivers of the elements, when most high tiered individuals could only see small streams. The connection he had with the elements was abnormally large somehow.

The closest element to him was a large dark forest green river swirling in the ocean of elements. This element was the essence of all nature. Reaching out, Ornias put his hand through the stream and instantly images of trees, plants, and small living thing flashed through his mind.

If he wanted to form a connection with this element he instantly knew that he would have to nurture living organisms to do his bidding. But this could definitely become a powerful magic. By gaining an understanding of living entities he could directly enforce his will into organisms, like trees, and create powerful Treefolk that would serve him.

He didn’t want to be hasty in his decision however and looked at the other rivers in the ocean of magical elements as well. The element of Earth was a river of a brown dirt-like color that made him feel sturdy and strong when touching his hand against it. This magic also held similar strengths behind the spells, like rock golems, but he retracted his hand once again.

A lava red river that blazed and turned with grace caused his heart to skip a beat, and reaching out he could feel heat, warmth, and power from this element of fire. It seemed like it could burn away everything in its path. But once again, he retracted his hand and decided to feel yet another river.

The sensation of the element of water and ice was a deep azure blue current which made him feel wet, heavy, and cold. He felt that the whole world was at his beck and call, since most of the world and living things carried water within them. But there were obviously restrictions to performing water magic on living things and disheartened he touched the last element in his immediate vision.

A yellow river was the element of air and he could feel a tingling sensational wind as it flowed around him. Wind was persistent and with speed and skill, it could overwhelm and chisel down anything in its way. It was also the magic create powerful tornados and storms.

Each river he touched flowed and mixed with each other moving in and out of other rivers, while continuously surrounding him. He was drowning in these magical elements that were so large that each river combined together, formed a complete ocean of elements.

Those were the five principle elements taught in the book of magic, yet he frowned and scrunched his eyebrows in confusion. “What are these other colors that are present in my ocean of elements?” He asked himself.

They were not as large as the rivers of flowing elements, and could only be considered small in comparison. But a pitch black and a bright brilliant white stream also flowed in his ocean of elements.

From the black stream he felt a smothering sensation of darkness and despair and the white stream was soothing and supporting. Almost like a mother’s love for a child. In comparison to all the other elements, he didn’t even notice a third, purple essence, in this ocean of elements.

While he could feel the presence of the white and black streams, the elemental purple specks that floated about, he could feel nothing from these. So they were completely unnoticed and he remained deeply puzzled and curious over what the black and white elements of magic were.

Unable to determine precisely what the white and black streams were, he decided to not pick any element to train in. Instead he shrugged off his puzzlement, and started to feel tired. Thus leaving the room of consciousness, he rolled over in his bed to sleep and ponder over this matter at latter time.

Several months passed by and he continuously tried studying the laws of magic to discover what those black and white magic streams were. However most the time he just slept during the nights, since he was too tired from the physical training with Azon.

His training throughout those months became harder and harder as Azon slowly started to challenge him to do harsher exercises. This progressively increased his muscles on his body and he started to form a well-built figure similar to his birth father.

Out of the exercises, he would now run with weights on of approximately two hundred and twenty kilograms. Wrist and ankle weights were strapped on him that gradually became heavier and heavier over the course of the months.

Each weight on his four limbs now each weighed a total of fifty five kilograms. But the worst part about his training was he had to keep these weights on him throughout every training exercise.

Just because he had weights on didn’t diminish his usual excruciating training. Consequently his training was also increased exponentially in difficulty. He would still run, do squats, and even do lunges around the encampment whilst carrying a bucket weighing a hundred kilograms in each hand.

For his arms, not only did the amount increase on the pushups, he also had Azon applying pressure on his back. There were no longer any boulders that were large and heavy enough to put the force of weight required. So Azon had to do it himself with his strength of a sixth rank warrior.

Not only that, but Azon also put pressure down on him when bench pressing with a hundred kilogram weighing buckets, causing him to only struggle and suffer. His hands also suffered as well, since the heat from the basin of coals was significantly hotter and the basin of sand was replaced over the course of training with iron ball like fragments.

Although, this allowed his hands, and fingers, to become perilously tough. Now he could poke a hole through wood with his index finger, like it was butter. However, the worst exercise of them all was that he had to walk on his hands with all his weights on and two buckets hooked on each foot around the encampment. This was beyond cruel for Azon to make him do.

Even the men from Fengle’s Grove started to think that Azon was a cruel slave driver to punish Ornias in such ways. But every time Ornias heard such claims he dismissed them by saying, “This is the training that I asked for.” or “I wouldn’t have it any other way, I need to push my limits.”

Actually, within the encampment, his fame quickly grew widespread as a young boy that could outrun, out lift, and out think any other man out of the bandits. In fact it was common for him to mingle with the bandits, when Azon had to leave on missions, and couldn’t supervise his training.

Be it chess, arm wrestling, or any other form of fun sporting competition, Ornias always seemed to come out on top of the other bandits. This caused all the men to grow a huge respect for him and he quickly became a heated topic within the camp.

Often men would wager on what he could accomplish when he grew up. If he could already surpass men within the second and third ranks of a warrior as an eight year old, what kind of figure would he become?

The training Ornias was now doing was that of a typical fourth ranked warrior, yet he still hasn’t ranked up. Yet, although many men speculated over his accomplishments, the person most baffled at his speed of development was Azon.

He knew that an individual needed to be a warrior of fourth rank for most of these exercises, yet Ornias had passed the threshold of training again and again at his age. This made him nervous, but nonetheless increased his training to the next stage every time.

Four months ago, he even decided to take a trip with Ornias to a deeper part of forest twice a week. He would make Ornias stand underneath a waterfall that had an intense amount of water force press down on him. Ornias would stand still, as he would casually hit him with a stick and order Ornias not move or else he couldn’t eat dinner that night.

This method trained him in being able to hold his footing during fights, so that he could take a punch or a kick and not be knocked back. Azon was ruthless in hitting him and even used the strength of a sixth rank warrior to punish him.

Except for the last couple of months, twice a week, Ornias ended up not having dinner. But after a while he began to hold his ground and started to be able to withstand the blows completely.

Reaching another successful day of not moving while being hit by Azon, they were heading back from the forest when they had actually even encountered a fourth rank beast. It must be understood that although Fengle’s Mourning was indeed mostly devoid of beasts, occasionally one or two survived very carefully within the forest or migrated there from another area.

But unlike most regions of the world, this area had expert warriors constantly comb the forest and kill off any beasts stronger than the second rank. This was due to a cleansing ritual, organized by the Church of Ascension, every hundred years to kill them off, in memorial of the day humanity survived.

However, occasionally some second ranked beasts were able to achieve higher rankings over time, and once they did, they would be killed as well during the next purge.

So catching Azon and Ornias off guard, the three meter tall bear-like beast stealthily struck out against Ornias from behind. But fortunately due to his training he withstood the blow. The attack was still mighty however and tore through his clothes drawing blood against his backside.

Worried, Azon was about to kill the abomination but Ornias held his hand up in the air, and said, “Father, let me show you what I have been training every night!”

Smiling evilly, just like he was Azon’s son, he started to surge the thought of his arm becoming more powerful. He darted speedily next to the beast, using his powerful legs from the training up until now.

Then in an agile manner that even surpassed the fourth ranked beast’s speed, he arrived to the creature’s side. He hastily leaped into the air, contracted his muscles in his arm and punched out against the creature’s side of the head. The blow rippled in the air and the force of his whirlwind Technique was also applied.

His punching technique was still rather sloppy, but the power of the limb strengthening technique made up for the deficit. With a single powerful punch, blood was drawn on the beast, and it couldn’t help but shirk back, screaming in agony.

To make a fourth rank beast receive a blow that was powerful enough to draw blood was impressive. But it didn’t kill the beast and given time, the beast could in fact kill Ornias.

So Azon took the initiative and utilized the true power of the limb strengthening technique against the beast. The speed of his punch was so quick Ornias couldn’t see it, and the power was absolutely devastating. With one punch against its chest an explosion sounded and the beast’s innards ripped apart and blew out in every direction away from the initial punch.

Blood and tissue from the creature splattered everywhere and the beast became nothing but a pile of flesh and bones. After the single punch, Ornias couldn’t help but let his jaw drop. That was the power he wanted to have one day.

Upon seeing that display he turned to his foster father, and said, “Please teach me how to do that.” His eyes sparkled as he begged.

Laughing calmly, Azon looked over at the guts that were hanging from his son’s shoulder and he picked it up and chucked it off to the side. His face turned a bit stern, and he said, “Ornias, to do that first you need to learn to punch properly. Then you need to learn the basics of fighting stances. Only then can your power truly reach my stage.”

Eagerly nodding his head, Ornias, chimed happily, “I want you to teach me. I want to punch like you just did.”

Training in hand to hand combat was essential, so Azon decided to train Ornias like he did for Rana. Even though that incident took place two months ago, during the last couple months till now he first taught Ornias how to make proper stances and how to strike out properly with his fist.

After that he instructed him how to weave, dodge, parry, and use martial arts skills to their fullest. Again, Ornias soaked it all in like a sponge as always, and performed the skills flawlessly.

He was slightly surprised by how quickly Ornias adapted and soaked in the information. Not only did he start to punch properly he was able to fully utilize the stances.

Confronting Ornias after these last several months of training, he smirked, and said, “It is now time for you practice your sparing skills with me a little. I will throw out punches, and I want you to parry them or dodge them.”

Ornias bowing curtly replied, “Treat me well.”

Throwing out a punch and performing a mock battle, Azon held back only his strength and speed, but not his punching stances, and techniques. Punch after punch, Ornias tried to block and parry the blows. As he was able to stop more and more blows, Azon had to up the ante and move quicker.

During this time as they fought, Ornias was studying Azon carefully, and looking for any openings. He studied his patterns and started to plan out a proper time to strike. Thrusting out with a side hook, Ornias saw his opening, ducked, then lunged forward with a punch and landed it squarely on his chest.

This blow was not even enough to tickle Azon, but he was mighty impressed that Ornias was able to see an opening and take it. He had been caught off-guard because he didn’t see Ornias as a threat, but now he would have to reconsider his mindset.

But suddenly, after being able to devise and deliver that blow, Ornias fell on the ground holding his head as he screamed. An intense migraine he has never felt before hit him, and he began to feel weak, as his skin started to crawl, and his muscles started to ache.

Azon stopped and stared in confusion at the sudden change in Ornias and then a thought crossed his mind. But he shook his head and muttered quietly, “It’s not possible…”

Although, Ornias has far surpassed the typical training required to hit even the third rank of a warrior, he was just too young to consider that he would have his trial for the first rank of a warrior.

Constantly Azon thought Ornias was a monster, since his training already far exceeded that of a first ranked warrior. The speed of his advancement was too quick to be normal, yet Azon knew the signs for the first trial.

Ornias was suffering these exact symptoms, which could make or break most humans setting on the path of a warrior. So Azon knew he would have to help Ornias the best he could to pass them.

Concern entered his voice as Azon quickly spoke, “Listen to me Ornias, right now what is happening is you are about to start your trial of your mind for the laws of a warrior.”

His brows furrowed in worry as he quickly walked over to Ornias, supported him, and said softly, “You need to start mediation immediately and try to listen to what your mind and body are trying to say to each other.”

Pressing his head fiercely with his hand, Ornias looked up at Azon and nodded meekly showing he understood. He sat down on the ground with his legs crossed in a meditative position and started to use his breathing technique to calm himself.

Tightly closing his eyes, his face scrunched in pain as he got sudden convulses of painful migraines. But just as he closed his eyes to enter into a state of consciousness to comprehend his trial, the bright white light from his Divine Artifact started to shine around him.

This shocked Azon at first, but he came to the conclusion that the Divine artifact would now be used to help him proceed with his trial. Artifacts were used precisely for this reason and were devoured during the process. Just because Ornias was a living Divine Artifact, changed nothing, his artifact would do the same as a regular Artifact.

Keeping the appearance of Artifact secret still, Azon crouched down near Ornias and spoke supportively, “Ornias… every trial is different for each person. My trial for the first rank made my skin feel like ants were biting me everywhere. I don’t know what your trial will be like but you need to prepare yourself.”

He paused to let in a deep breathe, then exhaled, and spoke with a caring paternal voice, “Son, you must focus now. Think of your body transforming and learn what want your body wants to tell your mind. Listen to what it tells you and don’t give in to the tortures of the mind.”

Now he could only watch as Ornias started his trial, and he felt helpless that he had not helped Ornias prepare for this. He was worried that all the training was for nothing if Ornias couldn’t pass his first trial. But he had faith that with the Artifacts help he could pass through safely and unscathed.

Ornias kept his eyes tightly shut and tried fighting back the pain of the migraine. He could feel as body stiffened and became slightly unresponsive as his mind wanted to communicate with his body.

Using a similar mediation method that he did for magic, his consciousness arrived in a room with a large door in front of him, and he could feel that the body’s knowledge was behind that door. Yet it felt like his body couldn’t communicate through the door, so his mind was fiercely banging on a door that would not answer back.

The migraines were caused by the mind banging on the door and not being able to communicate with his body. He knew that in order for him to understand what his body wanted to say he had to open that door for his mind in order to communicate with his body.

However when faced with wanting to open the problem causing door, he could see eight other doors within the same room. A curiosity overcame him and he walked around in the room and found that behind each door whispering sounds came from beyond.

But the first door he was in front of was the only door that seemed to be screaming out. So pushing the other doors aside Ornias arrived back in front of the first door and nervously opened the door at a distance.

A rush of information surged through his mind and he instantly unraveled many mysteries of his body. The skin that covered his body consisted of many separate layers. The Stratum Corneum technique he developed actually utilized the outer most layer of dead skin and changed it with accordance to the users will.

He never fully understood how this technique was used in conjunction with his body, but now he knew. With these sudden revelations, a hunger filled his eyes for more knowledge, and understanding of his body.

Glancing at the next two doors, a thirst for more power and knowledge urged him and he quickly open the second and third doors respectively. Sure enough more thoughts filled his head and bombarded him.

Although constant information of his skin was still coming through, he started to gain an understanding of his senses as well. Theories of increased hearing, sight, smell, tastes, and enhanced touch all came to him.

His knowledge of the anatomy of his body, and its full capabilities, started to expand even further, as concepts of muscular structure started to pour through his mind as well. With three different types of information suddenly converging, he buckled under the mental strain and collapsed on the ground.

But the knowledge of skin hit its final threshold limits and began to deliver the first trial just then. Even with him still sorting through the thoughts of muscles, and the senses, he had to face his first trial.

Instantly his face was wracked with pain as he felt his skin start to feel fiery hot and burn. He felt as if he had third degree burns all over on his skin. It itched like crazy and caused him intense pain with the sensation of his skin burning.

Rolling on the ground, he screamed in pain, but nothing he could do would take the pain away. The information of his senses and muscles flooded his mind preventing him from single mindedly being able to handle a trial that could have easily been overcome with the assistance of the Divine Artifact.

Alarmed, Azon looked at him and spoke sternly, “I need you to focus, Ornias. This is your first trial of the warrior. Your body and mind need to connect with each other and your body will deliver its secrets to you.”

Blisters and sores started to appear on his physical body as the skin felt like it was burning. Even though the trial was in state of unconsciousness, his body reacted to it. The skin started to peel and fester in areas. The likes of this has never happened before, and even Azon was puzzled over it.

Worry swept his face and he frowned deeply. Stroking the stubble on his face, he thought, “Ornias is way too young, and there has never been a recorded case of a child his age reaching the first rank of a warrior. Simply due to his age, his trial might be the hardest trial of the mind ever on the planet of Yeshir, which not even I can imagine.”

He stared at him with unease as he watched the boy’s face contort and perspiration roll down his forehead. Ornias was screaming in agony, and he could no longer maintain his breathing technique.

The skin on his body still burned but the information of his senses now hit its threshold as well and started the second trial while the first one was still in progress. The pain became simply unbearable at this point.

The flesh felt like it was rotting and all five senses started to only enhance his misery. If it wasn’t bad already, his sense of touch made it worse, and further enhanced the sensation of the burns. The addition of touch caused him to bleed badly where the blisters and sores were on areas of his body.

Muffled whimpers came of his mouth and for the first time ever tears streamed down the boy’s face. The excruciating agony he was enduring was rather too intense.

One by one his sense came to him. His ears started to hear really loud sounds at distances to far away for him to distinguish what they were. The constant bombardment of the sounds of nature and hearing Azon’s breathing and heartbeat caused his ears to bleed from the excess sound.

The sense of smell also became enhanced and was the only sense that didn’t not causes him excruciating pain. But the vivid smell of burning flesh seemed to fill his nostrils.

Although his eyes remained tightly shut, they began to transform with the knowledge available to him. A sickening squishing sound could be heard from his already enhanced bleeding ears as his eyes started to burn on the inside.

The eyes of humans used to have two layers of eyelids yet genetics removed the purpose of the second thin layer used to block excess light. This eyelid is a sideways eyelid and remnants of that lost genetic trait still remains today if looked at in a glass mirror.

Ripping and tearing itself out from the side wall and re-growing the second eyelid slowly formed as blood filled his inner eye cavities and seeped out. Usually trials would not access such traits that have been passed out by genetics, but this trial did.

It might have been because of the Divine artifact being used to enhance the trials effects to their upmost, but this simply didn’t help in the current situation. Instead it was causing more grief, because his mental powers were spread between the knowledge of skin, sense, and muscles.

His sense of taste was also becoming enhanced, and the stomach and tongue were both simultaneously becoming transformed. Blood gurgled from his mouth and his stomach hurt like someone had just stabbed him with a sword.

Poisons, toxins, and regular food would now be able to pass though his system unaffected. But this was not the only benefit since going to the bathroom was no longer needed. His body would almost always find a way to break down and use any form of substance and digest it.

By even being able to break down cell walls from plants that the stomach usually can’t, he was able to increase the amount of nutrients he could get drastically. Any substance that was not useful, the body would transfer it through the bloodstream, and out of the pores of his skin, since he already understood his skin perfectly to be able to do so.

His breathing was rather uncontrollably rampant and rolling around on the grass, his body still felt like it burned. But blood loss was quickly becoming a concern because of the trial of his senses since he was bleeding from his eyes, ears, mouth, the boils, and the sores.

In a regular trial this would be manageable since the individual usually has plenty of mental power to process the information and prevent the senses from being overloaded. But for Ornias he could do nothing to stop the overload since his mind was to spread thin soaking in information.

At that moment, Azon watched as Ornias was writhing in pain and bleeding. Surprise was not enough to explain how he felt when he discovered that Ornias was also going through the trial of the senses in addition to the trial of skin.

He didn’t want to interrupt the trials because that could be very damaging to the person undergoing the trial. If they were interrupted by someone during the trial they could be damaged mentally and lose physical capabilities, but he knew that he might need to intervene.

Even though they were not bound by blood, he truly considered Ornias his son. So seeing him enduring this much suffering was rather hard to swallow.

Leaning next to his son, he whispered, “If I need to… I will knock you out and end your trial. All I need from you is to tell me to stop it.”

Now that he told Ornias, that he could only put his faith in the boy. After all, even if he was undergoing two trials at once, he had the protection and guidance of a divine artifact. However what he didn’t know was Ornias was about to experience his third trial.

If Ornias wasn’t suffering enough, the information of muscles in his mind also reached their threshold. Sure enough he started suffering a torture of his muscles ripping and stretching in every single area of his body. It was as if someone had a strand of his muscle tissue laid in front of them and strand by strand they pulled it apart and stretched it.

The pain and concentration to not pass out was already reaching his breaking point. His breathing became very erratic. Then suddenly he lost all control as the pain he was experience became too great and the divine artifact shined began flashing very brightly.

Part of his mind drifted away and strange image started to pass through his mind. Things he saw he didn’t fully comprehend, but others he understood. The Artifact seemed to be giving him these images to preoccupy him his mind.

But with his mind side tracked and his concentration no longer focused, the trials started to take their toll on his body.

His body started to seize as his muscles tightened and he started to jerk around on the ground in a seizure. A whole two minutes passed by before his convulsing finally stopped.

Blood filled tears suddenly streamed down his face, and mumbling out loud, a single word was barely audible.

“Father…” he said, the image of the father he was calling out was not Azon however.

But true to his cue, and unaware that Ornias was not calling for him but another father, Azon quickly stepped forward and hit Ornias behind the neck. This caused Ornias to slump over and all the pain and misery he was feeling disappeared as he lost consciousness and entered a coma like state.

Dread filled his heart, and Azon picked Ornias off the ground and rushed into the house and laid him down on his bed. Sitting next to him, he griped his hand tightly and whispered, “Ornias… please wake up. Wake up!”

Tears streamed down Azon’s face, and he said meekly, “Please…”

Although in a coma with his eyes closed, the eyes of Ornias shifted around in the dreamlike state as images continued to flood through his mind. But he remained completely unresponsive in any way to Azon’s words.

This was the child he had attempted to raise as his own for eight years, and he treated him like his own son. It was unbearable to see his son, covered in blood, and in an unresponsive coma. The last word from his mouth was, “Father.” Even a grown man’s heart would shatter after that.

(*Author note* I will be posting any future updates on the delayed chapter post so if your curious on my status it will be posted there. Also please like on me on facebook. I hope you enjoyed the read!)