Hello Readers!

It is a start of another chapter. This chapter will focus on meditation. I haven't decided just how in depth I will go concerning meditation, but for now, my intent is to at least cover the fundamental reason behind the meditation. I can't promise you much entertainment in this chapter, as things of meditation can be quite boring, but in exchange, I tried to at least make the description of certain things more clear to, certainly, bring out the "adventure in magic world" theme a bit more. I hope you will enjoy!

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As they started their way back up the mountain path, Taron started to explain to Calb what was actually happening during the battle at the market.

“You see Calb, that man you fought with, he had an advantage over you, and that advantage, to put it simply, is mana. When we first met, I noticed that you only had bare minimum of mana in your body, but ever since that phenomenon with your neck and the initiation of mana flow around your body, your body has been gathering and storing mana. Even now, as I sense mana in your body, the level of your mana increased tremendously. However, the level is still too low, as compared to other people in this world.”

Taron paused briefly before he continued again, “The fact that you had such a dismal amount of mana told me that, most likely, your manipulation of mana was also limited. So what does that mean? That man you fought had two advantages over you. First advantage was amount of mana that he had access to, and second advantage was that he was able to manipulate his mana to strengthen his body as well as his weapon.”

Looking at Calb, Taron asked him about the conflict with ringbo, “Do you remember what happened with ringbo when Serina threw her staff at it?”

“Yes, it was inflicted with heavy damage to its chest.”

“Now, look at Serina’s staff. Is there anything special about it, as far as you can tell?”

Serina, following the cue, handed her staff over to Calb. “I don’t see anything special about it. It looks and feels like regular wood.”

“So then, do you suppose wood, such as that staff, can damage a stone armor like it had to ringbo?” Taron looked at Calb to see hear his answer.

Shaking his head, Calb said, “No. I don’t suppose it can…, yet it did.”

“Exactly…. Even though it was a wood and wood shouldn’t be able to damage a rock, yet it did. So something has to have happened to the staff to make it much stronger does it not?” Calb nodded. “Just going by what we have been discussing, what do you suppose was the cause of the staff to become stronger than that rock?”

“Umm, I would have to say it was mana?” replied Calb.

“Exactly. It was the mana, infused onto the staff by Serina, which made it so much stronger. Now, you said the man that you fought parried your attack with so much weight right?”

“Are you saying that his parry was so heavy due to him infusing his mana onto his weapon?”

“That’s exactly what I am saying. He was able to deflect your staff away from your hands because of that fact. He made his weapon as hard as a stone and when your staff hit that stone, it jarred your hands and all that was left for him to do was for him to skillfully fling his weapon, thus making you lose grip on your staff. He did that at the moment of impact, and that was the reason why you lost your staff.”

Not wanting to be blunt, but not seeing any other way around it, Taron continued, “As for the rest of the battle, you lost because you simply lack the skill. Even though you said you were a soldier in your world, you obviously were not a fighter huh?”

Feeling treaded upon, Calb tried at his explanation. “Well, you see, like I was telling you yesterday, warfare in my world is very different. We don’t usually engage our enemies with our bodies. We fire what is called guns and rifles, and even those we don’t use often because we are in vessels that fly. Those vessels shoot condensed energy beams and they also shoot metals that explode to kill hundreds and thousands of people at once. When we have such weapons of mass destruction, there is no need for hand to hand combat. An example would be, if I attacked that ringbo with weapon that is used in my world, it can splatter a ringbo with one shot. Also, the vessels that I mentioned just now, it has weapons that can destroy Tarmea with one attack. So if we have such weapons, would there be any need for the military to train their soldiers in man to man combat?” Seeing surprised faces of Taron and Serina made Calb feel better, as if he had somewhat justified his less than average talent in martial arts, but it was short lived by the commencement of Serina’s tease.

“Wow, Calb, I didn’t realize you were a type of man that could tell such bold faced lie,” said Serina with big eyes, as if she saw him for the first time.

“Quit messing with him you little brat!” rebuked Taron. “Don’t you see that he lied in order to save his face?” Taron joined in on the fun.

“OH!? Is that what it was huh, grandpa?” said Serina, sending a grin in Calbs direction.

“If you two are not going to listen, then I won’t say another thing! You can make fun of me all you want, but nothing will change anything in that what I say is the truth!” retorted Calb.

“Ha..ha..haha..,” laughed Serina. “We believe you Calb…we were just having a little fun. Though I didn’t think that grandpa would join in on the fun. That must mean he likes you, oh honorable, disciple number 2,” smiled Serina.

Shaking his head at his granddaughter who manages to turn anything into a tease, Taron shook off his smile and looked seriously at Calb. “So, if it is like that, you have a much to learn in the next few weeks, but knowledge in mana cultivation and its manipulation comes first.” Looking around, he spotted a little tree sapling.

“Take a look at this sapling, Calb, and tell me what you know about how this little sapling matures into a tall and strong tree,” stated Taron.

“Well, the leaves from the tree gather energy from the light and it uses it for growth,” summarized Calb. Of course he knew much more than that, but he doubted Taron was aware of science terminology such as photosynthesis and krebs cycle so he just kept it to a bare minimum.

“So are you saying that they convert energy from light into mass?” asked Taron.

“Well, no. The mass portion comes from the nutrients from the ground.”

“So in a sense, this little sapling requires two main things in order to fulfill its potential and become a tree. One, light’s energy which is above the ground, and Two, nutrients within the ground, which in a sense, is below the ground correct?”

“Yes,” answered Calb.

“Good, I want you to reflect on that thought as we continue on our journey, but I also want you to think back on what I have told you about mana on our way to town yesterday. What you gain today will depend greatly upon how much you really understood of the definition of mana, as well as any additional insight you may attain as a result.” With that, the three continued up the mountain in silence.

“Grandpa, are we stopping at that spot up ahead?” asked Serina.

“Yes, I think that would be the best place for him to learn to sense mana on his own. It would have been better if we did this right after that mana flow of his, but who would have known he would be joining us? Surprisingly, after that mana flow incident, it seems like he had, again, lost the ability to sense mana, or rather, he only gained the ability to sense mana briefly at that moment. In terms of sensing mana, he is like a new born baby. He must learn how. Hopefully he can pick it up quickly considering it has only been a day since he had felt that massive mana flow.”

While Taron and Serina were talking about above, Calb was immersed in the two definitions of mana that was told to him by Taron yesterday. At the same time, he was thinking about the dream that he awoke with this morning. “It seemed like God timed his visit just in time for this new development about mana…, or was it the other way around?” thought Calb. “It could have been that God wanted me to learn how to sense mana, and thus left me on that boulder to be discovered by these nice folks? And what was it that he told me this morning? Something about getting in tuned with the nature?” his mind was filled with many questions.

After a while, they came to a narrow, chasm that seems to split the gigantic mountain into two equal parts. The walls on each side of the chasm were so tall and steep that the surrounding became at least three shades darker than what it was outside. Also, the whole mountain path was filled with weird noises caused by the wind blowing through the crack of the mountain. However, the noises caused by the wind currents weren’t the weirdest thing about the path. The lower section of the walls were carved inward to give a concavity throughout the whole length of the chasm, and in the concave surfaces were etchings of weird writings and intricate drawings, also, running throughout the whole length of the chasm. Basically, the overall view of the chasm is that of a very smooth circular tunnel with weird inscriptions and with a 2 feet crack running all the way up to the top of the mountain, revealing the sky.

“Wow, what an unusual mountain path,” remarked Calb. “This is truly amazing! Who could have done this? It must have taken ages to carve out a whole mountain path in this manner! How long does this go?”

“Oh, you haven’t seen nothing yet Calb,” replied Serina. “What you see here is only a fraction of the whole thing. You see, this is a part of one gigantic magic inscription.”

“What is magic inscription?”

“Calb, there are two categories of magic. Of course the duration of the casted magic is dependent on availability mana, but provided that the availability of the mana is not an issue, there are temporary kinds and then there are more permanent kinds. More times than not, the permanent ones tend to require what is called an inscription that sort of binds mana to whatever the inscription is written on so that the mana does not dissipate as quickly as if it was just left to chance where the mana can just drift away before it can be of use. Also, when the magic consumes a lot of mana, it is easier to cast such magic with an aid of inscription. How it works is, because mana is bound to the inscription, the inscription sort of becomes a container where mana can be temporarily stored while the magician gathers more mana. The significance of this is that if a magician is not capable of gathering and holding onto a required amount of mana for a specific spell, that magician can use an inscription to hold the required amount of mana that he or she can’t otherwise. Once combined mana of the magician and the stored mana equal that of the required amount for the spell, that magician can then cast that spell. You follow?” asked Taron.

“Yes sir.”

“Where we are right now is, actually, inside of a gigantic inscription that was carved onto this mountain range. The geometric shape of the interior of this mountain path is rounded like this for the whole length of this chasm. Actually, as you will see when we get a bit further, this place will resemble that of a maze in the canyon. As for the significance of this geometric shape, it facilitates these air currents that you feel right now to stay in the bottom section of the canyon rather than dissipate through the cracks up top, not that the magic placed on the whole canyon would allow that. However, every now and then, you will see that these carvings will extend upwards to the top of the canyon also. Anyway, just like there are 5 Continental Towers in this continent, there are, also, 5 of these gigantic inscriptions in this continent, near each of the towers.” Taron paused to look at Calb before continuing, “Now, from what little I’ve told you about inscriptions, what purpose do you think this mountain inscription hold?”

“Well, if you say that there is one of these near every tower, and the inscriptions can hold and store mana, an inscription that is this big will probably hold enough mana to power up the tower when it is activated right?”

‘That’s right.”

Taron started walking again while continuing, “Truth be told, the magic spell that was casted through this inscription is not that powerful of a spell, but what it is capable of achieving is so much more than what can be expected of the so little power utilized to make it work. It does that in a two step process. Do you notice how the temperature of the currents changes from warm to cool from time to time?”

“Yes.”

“In the very center of this inscription canyon, there are two magic statues that are responsible for these two different air currents. There has been a magic spell that was casted on those statues to blow warm and cool currents that will eventually fill this whole canyon. When these currents travel to fill, and thus trace, the whole inscription, a magic is activated to gather mana to this location. So, one magic sustains these two currents of air, and another magic stores tremendous amount of mana to provide power for the activation of the Continental Towers. Of course, very small amount of that gathered mana is also spent on sustaining spells that activated the two statues. It is a very efficient magic system.”

Calb was amazed at different patterns of the air currents. Once they got in the main part of the canyon, not knowing how the inscription was supposed to look, all the twists and turns, as well as the redundant loops of the inscription, really made Calb think of a gigantic maze. He experienced multiple different patterns of warm or cool currents, and in some locations, the two currents blew together synergistically, whereas in other, in opposing manner, causing miniature tornadoes to rise up through the vertical wind tunnels. Then, pretty soon, something started to change. The inside of the canyon was not as dark as it was previously. There were flickers of red and blue lights shooting outward in various patterns. At first, he barely saw them, but further along they went, more distinct the colors became, and they got brighter and bigger!

“We are almost there,” informed Taron. “Do you see the lights Calb?”

“Yes,…I do,” responded Calb, somewhat hesitant.

“Good! That is a good sign. I was worried you may not be able to see them. You see, these are not normal lights. They are not like others in that, though they seem to appear like normal lights, they have no illuminating property to them. It may seem to you that this section of the canyon has gotten a bit brighter, but that is only an illusion caused by the dispersing of the mana lights around the area. Yes, these are mana lights. As for the colors, mana does not have to be red or blue, as they can take on any color, but they are blue and red here because of the type of magic that is being dispersed throughout the canyon. Blue corresponds with coolness and red corresponds with warmness of the current, and because these currents are being produced by magic, mana surrounding this area is taking on characteristics of the mana that produced these currents. I’ve brought you here in order to help you sense mana, and I had hoped that you would be able to see these colors, as they will help you during meditation. Of course it was not a necessity that you would see them, but the progress achieved from added benefit is so much greater!” Taron was certainly delighted.

“Okay, in just few minutes, we will get to the spot I have had in mind. Then I will begin my lesson on meditation.

In the center of the canyon, where the mana lights were the strongest, stood a perfectly cylindrical pillar that was carved out of the mountain. Of course, the only way one was to see this pillar was to stand right next to it, as this cylindrical pillar was not standing by itself out in the open. On that pillar, there were two tunnels facing exact opposite of each other. From one of the tunnels blew out warm wind and from the other blew out cool wind.

“Okay, here we are,” said Taron. “Now we just have to open the door….” He walked around the pillar while he scrutinized every inch of the wall. “There is a spell that is casted on this pillar, as a safe mechanism, that moves the location of the door every so often. The only way to find the door is to look for a very shallow indention in a shape of a small pentagon. The indention is so shallow that you wouldn’t normally see it unless you are looking for it. Ah, there it is.” Taron finally located the pentagon, and just as he said, it was hardly noticeable to Calb.

Taron stood facing the indention and covered the pentagon with his right palm. He then concentrated to infuse his mana onto the pentagon, and soon, five straight yellow lines, like that of a crack in the rock, shot out in five pentagonal directions and started to draw boundaries of a door. When the entire door has been traced by the yellow lines, the whole door disappeared leaving a thin transparent barrier like screen where the door used to be! It was nothing like anything Calb saw in his entire life.

“Okay, let’s go in.” Taron stepped in, and all of a sudden, light came on inside of the room, which was big enough to hold 6 people comfortably. There was also a square table by the wall and four chairs, a set that can be found in any average restaurant. In the back wall, there was an unusual booth that was emitting blue light near the top and red light near the bottom. The lights were obviously mana lights, but unlike the mana lights from the outside, these were more gentle and continuous in nature.

“That is the reason for us coming here today,” informed Taron, pointing at the booth that Calb was looking at. “I am sure you have noticed the same two mana colors, in the booth, that you have been seeing from outside, and they are pretty stationary at the moment. However, once you go in the booth to meditate, the two lights will start to interact with each other, and with you sitting right in between the two lights, you will start to sense the motions of mana around you. Of course, how soon you will be able to sense the mana will depend on your aptitude, but because you are able to see the mana lights, your senses will be a bit more acute versus if you weren’t seeing them.”

“If said in another way, the light serves as a means for your mind to verify the motion of the mana that your body is sensing as either real or as a figment of your imagination. It is similar to how we sometimes create false sensation of bug biting us as soon as we realize that we are in an area infested with bugs that like to feed on humans. Similarly, when we are trying to sense mana, our mind kind of fools us into believing that we are sensing mana when, in actuality, we didn’t really sense the mana at all. Such occurrence happens more often to a person that is less proficient at sensing mana versus those that are experts. However, if you are able to verify what your body is sensing with your eyes, you will no longer be fooled by figments of your imagination, and thus, cutting down on time it takes to develop accurate mana sensing capability. Do you follow?”

“Yes sir,” replied Calb.

“So then, here is the basic of meditation…. Meditation is an effort to quiet the voices in our minds of our souls. Throughout the day, our minds are scattered, busily thinking and doing multiple things. What results from such multifaceted activities is spreading or directing of our mana in multiple directions, and thus, thinning out our mana core of its mana. Meditation is done to reverse that process…to refill our mana core. When our mana core is refilled, our soul power is increased, because our soul, then, have more mana to do bigger work, whether that work is enhancing our physical defense or enhancing our attack, and in case of magicians, increasing power of their magic.”

“Let’s look at this from military’s point of view. If you, as a commander, send few groups of soldiers in many different locations to accomplish small missions, you end up with fewer soldiers at your main camp right?” Calb nodded. “If an enemy attacks your main camp at that point, your means of defense is reduced and the same is true with your counter attack. In that sense, you are no longer capable of doing anything significant that your company is normally capable of handling. At that point, even though your company as a whole is accomplishing many things, it is accomplishing many of little things when in actuality your company, when all the soldiers are gathered in one place, is capable of accomplishing bigger and grander things.”

“Going back to the matters of the soul… Throughout the day, our soul is thinning out its power by sending out mana in all different directions…because our minds are going in all different directions. What I am trying to say is that mana follows where our mind directs. You see, in an absolutely basic sense, mana does what our mind tells it to do. When we are thinking about walking, our mana is making that “thought” a reality by activating our body to do what we want it to do, and we DO many things throughout the course of the day. Even when we are casually scanning our surroundings, we are sending mana to where our eyes are focusing. For example, have you ever felt like someone is looking at you, and almost subconsciously you look in the direction where you “felt” someone looking at you, only, to see that someone shifting his or her eyes away from you, now that he/she has been ‘caught’ staring?”

“Yes, I’ve experienced it many times in my life.” Calb answered.

“What happened was that you felt the mana that was sent toward you by that person focusing his/her eyes on you, whether that person realize it or not. It was for that reason, why, you were able to pinpoint the direction of the stare from that individual. You see, the difference between a casual look versus a stare is the intensity of the stare where mana that is bombarding you through their eye sight is so much greater and noticeable whereas mana from a casual look is hardly noticeable. This phenomenon leads to another understanding relating to souls, but that is a topic for another time.”

“So when you meditate, you are pooling in all of your scattered mana resources, so to speak, to your soul where it can make better use out of it, and such are the basis for epiphanies and heightened awareness gained through meditation. I am not saying that meditation always brings about epiphanies or heightened awareness, but what I am saying is that meditation allows for that to happen more often than by chance, when all of your mana is scattered about around you. Of course, what we are trying to accomplish with meditation this time is enhancing your body’s mana detection, and eventually to its ability to sense mana flow. In other words, we are actively directing our mana to accomplish sensing of mana and mana flow. However, we are only focusing on mana detection for today.”

“Now, to start off, let’s have you go inside the booth and sit, facing the front, with your legs crossed. I want your hands spread open and have them facing up while you rest them on your legs. Try to find hand positions that allows you to somewhat open your arms.”

Calb did what he was told. “It is kind of weird, feeling warmth and coolness at the same time,” remarked Calb.

“It is because those two statues I told you about earlier. One of them is above you in the slot to your left and the other is below you in the slot to your right.” The statues were about the size of a chair. The statue that was making cool current was blue in color while the other was red, just like the mana colors. Surprisingly, they were simple looking statues. The blue one was rhombus while the red was a trapezoid. Only thing peculiar about the two statues was that they both were suspended in the air.

As soon as Calb sat down, as if the lights came to life, they started to move. The red ones moved horizontally, and the blue ones moved vertically. Then, as if reacting to Calb, the two lights started to move in erratic manner, and some even entered Calb’s body while others simply bounced off of his body and the surrounding walls.

“Okay, once you have settled down, I want you to take a closer look at the mana lights. See how they are all over the place? That is because, not only have you activated the intended magic by occupying that little space, mana from your body is contributing to the disruption of the mana flow. Once you settle down even more, and focus on relaxation, your internal mana flow will stabilize into something more predictable for the exterior mana to adjust accordingly. So one way of knowing whether you are doing the right thing in meditation is to take a look at these two mana colors to see how organized they are in their flow and, most importantly, the simplicity of their flow. Simpler the better. By allowing the mana flow to become simple, you are allowing your body to sense mana without too much distraction from multiple, chaotic mana flows. It is similar to how you have a greater chance of hearing me speak when few people are speaking at the same time versus when hundreds of people are speaking at the same time. Does it make sense?”

“Yes sir.”

“Oh, I almost forgot. The reason why you are able to see these mana lights now is because mana is very condensed in this part of the canyon. In actuality, mana is condensed all around this canyon, but they are condensed, the most, at the very center. That’s why I was glad when you told me that you could see them. If you weren’t able to see them even when the concentration of mana is this great, I might have thought you may never be able to see them, even if there have been some instances where someone that was not able to see eventually learning to see. Thankfully, that was not the case for you.” Taron smiled as he relayed his relief.

“Oh, I am so glad my fellow disciple is not a “hopeless” case.” Serina winked at Calb with a smile.

“Okay, continuing on, the key to settling down, is to, First, take three nice deep breaths, and as you relax your lungs during your exhale, you also allow all other muscles to relax as well. Of course you don’t want to relax the ones that are keeping your body straight while sitting. Keeping your body straight is very important for internal mana flow. You must remember that.”

“Yes sir.”

“Second method of settling down is to focus on one thought only. Some people say to clear the mind of all thoughts, but it is not necessary. Once you advance through learning meditation, focus of your attention will shift to the point of it being like you have cleared all thoughts away anyway. So there really is no sense in trying to clear all thoughts. That is too hard in the first place for the beginners.”

“Now, as you sit there, imagine that you are breathing through your whole body rather than through your nose. That means you are breathing in through your body as well as exhaling through your body, as breathing is a two step process. More times than not, beginners normally feel the mana flow through palm of their hands first. Then, once they have gotten used to feeling it in the hands, they focus on feeling it throughout the whole body. Since this is new for you, this process may take a while. It may be that we will have to come back at another time, but even if we have to come back, we can still use this opportunity for you to pick up something for you to improve upon next time.” Taron turns to look at Serina and says, “Serina, since we will be here a while, why don’t you take this opportunity to meditate as well? We are in an area where mana is concentrated so you should benefit by meditating also.”

“Ok grandpa.”

Not wanting to take too much time in the canyon, they only stayed in the room for couple of hours. Of course another reason for the short stay was because meditation is very hard for a beginner. Even though all you do is sit still in one position, sitting in one position is harder than one can imagine. When meditating, one must sit straight up without moving. It may seem like it is not difficult, to sit in one position without moving, but what people do not realize is that we subconsciously move our bodies throughout the day in order to relieve stress on various parts of muscles. So the point is that even though we may be thinking that we sit in one position all day, we don’t, and we fool ourselves into believing that we sit in one position anyway, and thus, we then think that doing meditation shouldn’t be hard.

For example, when standing, people tend to shift from side to side or switch out the feet to alternate weight bearing from one foot to another. It is a means for lessening the stress of the leg muscles, and we do that subconsciously. Same thing applies when we are sitting. We either lean forward, hunch our backs, lean back, cross our leg, and etc. All of these change in body postures, as well as switching of the feet when crossing legs, shifts body weight and lessens the load on various different muscles.

However, when meditating, all of that shifting of body or repositioning or sitting in different manner is not allowed. That means all those muscles of sitting that have been getting relief by change in body mechanics throughout the day are no longer allowed such relief. The end result is aches and pain of those overworked muscles, not to mention aches on the legs from blood circulation being cut for a prolonged period of time.

Meditation is an art of patience and discipline. Just as it takes a while for one to get used to working out, same is true for meditation…because, in a way, it is a workout for the muscles of sitting. Not only that, it is a means for legs muscles to produce more blood vessels in order to counter the prolonged period of cut off from blood circulation to various parts of the leg. So when the body adapts by producing those extra blood vessels, overall efficiency of the leg improves, because our leg muscles has more blood vessels that can supply the muscles with blood and nutrients.

Taron and Serina’s residence was a simple hut just on the other side of the canyon to the right of the canyon exit. Beyond the canyon was a little meadow overlooking another larger meadow, bound by more mountains in the distance, and there was a little road that passed the hut and around the front garden to start a zigzagging pathway leading to the larger meadow, across a little bridge. There was a waterfall to the left side of the mountain that formed a decent sized basin big enough for a swim, and at the end of the basin was a little watermill that seem to have been made for some kind of use rather than for looks.

Sitting on the wooden platform in front of the hut, the three master and disciples began their discussion. “Calb, were you able to gain anything from the meditation?” asked Taron.

“Well, I am not sure. I felt like I’ve spent more time thinking about the aching back and leg muscles to really get the hang of meditating. It was very difficult for me to keep still and settle down. My mind wondered about quite a bit as well. I feel like I didn’t accomplish anything today,” said Calb, as he scratched his head in shame.

“Well, meditation is not as easy as it looks. Those that meditate on a regular basis are able to do it because they have done it for a long time, and thus, their body is used to it. They do not feel the aches and pains of sitting in one position unless they meditate for longer than usual. It takes discipline and dedication to meditate on a regular basis, and your duty from today on will be to meditate everyday for at least an hour for five days, 2 hours for one day, and 1 day of rest from meditation. This cycle will continue for rest of your stay here. Of course you would benefit by meditating as much as possible so I encourage you to do so.”

“As for martial arts,” said Taron, grabbing Serina, “Serina will be your instructor on basic martial arts, and you will accompany her on her hunts once a week for now, to eventually progress to everyday. Of course this is just the tentative plan for now. Much will be changed depending on how fast you progress with your training.” Taron seemed like he was done with the briefing, but upon looking at Serina, he hastily looked at Calb, and said, “One last thing, this little brat has a tendency of giving other disciples her chores…be sure you don’t get tricked into doing her chores. I’ve lost many disciples because of her schemes!”

“Ugg..hmmpf! Oh grandpa I am heartbroken! I can’t believe you would say something so terrible about your own granddaughter. I wouldn’t do such a thing to Calb. I like Calb. Don’t you know that your other disciples were just plain bad and lazy? I’ve done you a favor in getting rid of them for you, you know.”

“Troyst was a good disciple!” Yelled Taron. “He was disciplined and he had the most talent of all of the disciples I have had in the last ten years, but he left because you kept on bullying him!”

“Grandpa! That trash was just that, a trash. He only pretended to be diligent when you were around to make himself look good in your eyes, but when we went out to hunt or do other work that you assigned us, he always tried to do little as possible. You should be glad that I got rid of him for you!”

“That’s just your story, and besides,” said Taron, turning to look at Calb. “You did hear it from the cat’s mouth didn’t you Calb? She’s a mean one. So you better watch out! You saw how she roughed up that poor ringbo didn’t you? Did you think that was a correct method of handling ringbo? No Sir! No sir indeed. She beat that poor ringbo to a pulp because she liked it! That’s how she chased away all the other disciples, being rough with them!”

“Grandpa! That is not true!” Looking flustered, she looked back and forth between the two men, and finally looking at Calb, she said, “Calb, don’t listen to this old geezer! He is lying!” She then sharply turned to her grandpa to defiantly stick her tongue out. Then she stomped her way into her room.

Taron silently laughed and pulled Calb over to talk to him quietly. “That is how you handle a woman like her, you better remember that.” Taron giggled to no end, and in the middle of his giggle fits, he said, “You better get some rest tonight. Starting tomorrow, your day may seem like living hell! Heh heh heh.” Taron continued his giggles and waved Calb to his room.

Calb listened to Taron and went in his room, and not a second went by, that face that was uncontrollably giggling just a second ago changed to a frown. Something was on Taron’s mind. “I guess things are about to start to turn sour soon. I had hoped I would be lucky enough to not have to deal with what is about to come, but I guess I was hoping for too much. Do I have enough time to train him before the worst gets here?” He looked at the stars and silently sighed in contemplation.

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There you have it folks!

Taron is thinking of something unpleasant. I do not know whether you have noticed or not, but Taron do not always provide "all" of the info on things. He sometimes gives just basic, minimum amount of info or sometimes gives half truths....

He was obviously hiding something from Calb and Serina. It may be that much of what Taron knows will never be revealed to the two until they.....

I didn't want to reveal too much before things happen :). However, next couple of chapters (I don't know how many segments the two will have, but....) will have some surprises. Truth/secret about Calb will be revealed in these two chapters. I think many readers will appreciate what will be revealed....

Until next time!.............

-----MooShoo-----