“Alhen, you are doing it wrong. You have to breathe from your essence, think of your body as energy, and find the place where most energy is concentrated," Edith began.

  "This will allow you to control your Luna Signum better and do things which are unknown to many," she finished.

  Alhen, who was on the ground meditating, was sweating buckets and felt as if he would faint any second now.

  It had been two months since he started training under Edith, and her training methods were brutal but also brutally effective.

  His strength went up a few levels, due to his constant fight with wihts, and he could feel himself on the verge of a breakthrough.

  Edith had told him that he would need to hunt a wiht or take down someone of a higher level than himself to rank up, and he felt almost ready to do it.

  When he had told her about his rare talent to absorb stronger energy than he should from fallen enemies and wihts, Edith had made him experiment with it.

  Throughout the month, he had taken out many small and medium wihts to make himself stronger.

  He was now training and working on using his Luna Signum more effectively, so it leaked less energy when using it, and he was able to hold it for longer.

  It would also allow him to directly control the energy of the sign and use it to achieve things that were deemed impossible by the common mind in this world.

  Top hunters, though, know that they are not.

  “You are almost there; keep pushing,” Edith commented on the side, watching his energy being condensed and refined in real time.

  He gritted his teeth; they were just outside the lake where Alhen had told her that he wanted to be taught by her.

  It had been his fifth time trying the energy refining process, but he had failed every single time.

  Refusing to let that demotivate him, he worked harder than ever.

  Recovering from doing what he was doing took a few cycles, which made him determined to succeed now; otherwise, he would have to wait a long time before he could try again.

  He felt himself tapping into the source and his essence, but that ambiguous description threw him off.

  “Alhen, you have to relax. Listen to me for once and relax!” she exclaimed.

  He gritted his teeth before trying to relax all of his body, feeling his control over the process diminishing.

  This had been the reason for his multiple failures.

  Every time he tried relaxing as Edith said, his control diminished, and he felt himself failing, causing him to become tenser.

  This time, however, he decided to fully trust Edith and her guidance, allowing his body to relax despite feeling his control diminishing each second that passed.

  Just as he expected, his control fully broke, and now he wasn’t the one in the front wheel of the process.

  His body started heating up even more, causing him to sweat more and start to lose sense of his surroundings.

  “Good, you are finally listening. Allow yourself to find it without looking for it,” she guided him, but Alhen, who was exhausted and on the verge of collapse, wasn’t able to hear her.

  She could only watch in silence as Alhen seemed to go into another state of consciousness.

  His eyes became dull but full of energy, and his expression fell, looking dazed and kind of in a hypnotic state.

  Edith could see the energy accumulating on the spot right under his belly button.

  She smiled lightly.

  This was the most progress she had seen in the past three weeks that he had been trying to harness this power.

  Alhen’s body started to glow with a deep blue color, and the ground under him started to melt. Edith took a few steps back and watched the process from afar.

  The more time passed, the more Alhen’s body glowed, and his physical body started disappearing.

  It was being replaced by energy, and that’s when Edith knew that he had finally achieved it.

  She waited for a few minutes until he stabilized, and when the energy returned to his essence, his physical body reappeared.

  A few seconds passed until he opened his eyes, confused about what had happened.

  “A-Another failure,” Alhen said, panting heavily and severely dehydrated.

  Edith smiled from the side as she approached him. “No, you have succeeded, and now you can truly be called my apprentice,” she said.

  Alhen could barely believe it; he had succeeded? “How did that happen?” he asked, as he hadn’t been conscious during the process.

  “Before asking any further questions, you have to drink some water; otherwise, you will pass out and die soon. Here,” she said before giving him a wooden cup full of water.

  Alhen didn’t fight it and downed the contents in a few moments. He took a deep breath and thought about what had happened.

  Although he didn’t remember, he could still feel the lingering effects of having achieved the integration process.

  “So,” Alhen began, “are you going to answer my question now?” he asked.

  “You are quite impatient, are you not? Very well, you managed to find your essence. As soon as you gave up trying to control it, it began a process so your body would be more in tune with it.”

  Alhen didn’t understand what she was saying very well, but it didn’t matter; he could feel the changes happening in his body, and that was enough.

  “I believed that this was not going to be possible because you are a hollow being, but apparently, you have an essence, which is weird,” she said.

  “I still don’t understand what a hollow being is; can’t you explain it to me?” he asked.

  “I have told you many times that even I do not know. All I know is that something is missing in you, but I have no idea what it is,” she explained, and Alhen ultimately sighed in defeat.

  Edith smiled and looked at him with a knowing look.

  “Alhen, I know that you have not forgotten. The whole reason you were trying to get in tune with your essence was to control the energy of your Luna Signum better."

  "Now that you can, you can try that which you were waiting for.”

  Alhen widened his eyes and remembered why he was doing this in the first place. A big smile painted his face as he stepped closer to the water.

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  He had asked Edith many times how he would manage to one day walk on water, and she had explained it to him multiple times, even though he wasn’t able to do it yet.

  He had internalized the explanation and was finally ready to put it into practice.

  Taking a deep breath, he focused on the area below his belly button where his essence lay and began dragging it up his body until it reached his head and spread through his arms and legs.

  The feeling of the energy moving through his body was magical and strangely pleasurable.

  He commanded the energy to travel down into the soles of his feet, and to his surprise, he was able to do it on his first try.

  Energy accumulated on the soles of his feet, and with a determined and expectant expression, he took a step forward, and adding to his excitement, it worked!

  It felt as if he was stepping onto solid ground, and when he noted that everything was as expected, he placed his other foot in the water and began walking through the lake.

  His steps were calculated and slow at first, feeling that he needed to keep the concentration of his energy if he didn’t want to accidentally retract it into his essence.

  Edith had told him that "essence" was what she called the energy that all living beings hold in their body at a deeper level.

  Combining that primal energy with the energy of the moon through a Luna Signum would allow anyone to access a powerful energy that, if harnessed and trained just like a muscle, would keep getting stronger until that person was a real threat.

  Just looking at Edith, he could tell that she was powerful, but after getting even a glimpse of her power, his perception of her changed drastically.

  She wasn’t just powerful; she was something else.

  Thinking about Father Vincent, his smile dropped and was replaced by a serious expression.

  He had taken the first step to realizing his dreams; now it was time not to get distracted and keep on getting stronger.

  ‘Father Vincent, I hope that you are awaiting my arrival with an open mind, because you might just be surprised by who you meet.'

  'I will learn how to control my blessing’s second ability, and then I will grow even stronger, killing him after a while just as planned,’ Alhen thought.

  Without realizing it, his concentration slipped from the energy he was accumulating on his feet, which caused it to loosen and go back to his essence.

  “Splash!” The energy under the soles of his feet dissipated, and he fell into the water.

  He felt the icy cold water burning his skin and almost making him go into a state of shock.

  When he brought his head above water, the first thing he heard was Edith’s laugh, which was uncontrollable.

  “Hahaha! What are you doing? Is it too hard for you?” she asked before laughing again.

  Alhen didn’t have the time or luxury to think about anything other than his survival right now.

  He got his wish of not being warm, but not the way he wanted it to happen.

  He tried swimming back to the shore, but it was too far, and he could barely move.

  That’s when, by pure survival instinct, he activated his essence and placed all his energy in the palm of his hands.

  Placing his palms on the water, he pushed himself up, distributing the energy and shifting it from his palms to the soles of his feet, and standing on water again.

  He wanted to be happy for his accomplishment, but couldn’t. The gentle wind hit his body and made it worse to be standing still.

  He rushed back to the shore, trembling, fearing that he would fall into the water again, and then it would be disastrous.

  “It seems like I will need to teach you how to heat your internal organs. Here, sit,” Edith said while pointing to the ground.

  Alhen didn’t question her, desperate to remove the cold that he felt.

  She told him to close his eyes and to relax his body, and although he found it difficult for half a minute, he was finally able to do so, although his body trembled from time to time.

  “Good, now I want you to breathe gently through the nose and exhale sharply and quickly. You should inhale air automatically after exhalation."

  "Do not focus on drawing air in manually, but allow your body to do it. Do thirty of these before stopping and drawing the now hot energy in your essence, spreading it through your body and warming it up.”

  He followed her instructions to the millimeter, doing everything she told him.

  When he was at the halfway point, he started feeling lightheaded and felt that his world was starting to shift due to dizziness, but he managed to finish the thirty repetitions.

  An intense heat formed in his organs and essence.

  Drawing the energy from his essence, he carried it through his body, and the cold was now gone; even the water that surrounded him evaporated in an instant.

  He opened his eyes and felt his worldview get shattered with his experience.

  ‘There are many things that you can do!’ Alhen thought, excited for the possibility of learning more about this mysterious energy and using it to become stronger.

  “Good, you got the hang of it fast. Now let us go home; Catherine is probably waiting for you.”

  Alhen agreed and nodded his head, standing up and following Edith to the cabin. Nothing happened on the way there; all the wihts avoided her like the plague.

  ‘I have to ask her how to project my energy outwards and how to sense it. That can wait for another time, however. Now I just want to throw myself into bed and pass out.’

  His body felt drained, and his mind didn’t have the capacity to think about another thing that wasn’t rest at the moment.

  When they arrived at the cabin, Alhen entered and found Catherine waiting for them, sitting down on a chair.

  She was looking at the wall with such intensity that he thought something lay there, but she was simply bored, as there was nothing to do.

  “Alhen!” she called out when looking at them.

  “What,” Edith began, “you do not greet your mother anymore?” she asked, clearly disappointed in her daughter.

  “I am sorry,” she responded. “I was just excited to see both of you.”

  Edith rolled her eyes before heading upstairs and into her room, leaving Catherine and Alhen alone.

  Catherine went up to him to talk, but noticed the look in his eye and his body, which seemed to be devoid of energy to do anything.

  “Very well, I will let you rest,” she said with a sigh before going upstairs.

  Alhen sent an appreciative look her way before going to his room and closing the door.

  Now that he was being taught by Edith, they didn’t lock his door as they did before, giving him more freedom, although he could still tell that Edith didn’t trust him that much.

  He would have to be with her for far more time before that could happen.

  Alhen took his thuls and threw them on the floor before throwing himself on the bed. Taking a deep breath and remembering what had happened, a smile made its way to his face.

  He had achieved what he had set for himself and had been trying to do for three weeks.

  It was a liberating feeling that he could only describe as breathing fresh air after being locked in a closed space for a long period of time.

  Closing his eyes, it didn’t take long for him to fall into a deep sleep. It had been a while since he had a dream, and that night wouldn’t be the exception.

  He woke up, and his body was filled with adrenaline as soon as he opened his eyes.

  There was someone he didn’t recognize in front of him, and before he could scream, he felt the other person covering his mouth with his hand.

  Before Alhen could begin thrashing around and making a scene, he heard a familiar voice that caused him to become paralyzed.

  “Kid, calm down,” the person said.

  Alhen understood immediately that the person in front of him was Alaran, his mentor from the Kingdom of Yhia.

  Despite the darkness, he could recognize that voice anywhere, and there was only one person he knew who called him kid.

  Alhen stopped trying to make any attempts at resisting and simply let himself relax.

  Noticing his change of state, Alaran removed his hand before leaning against the wall.

  Alhen took out a match from underneath the bed and lit it, lighting a candle under the bed and illuminating the space.

  “Be careful,” Alhen began, “contrary to your last visit, the Sol-ranked hunter is here sleeping on the floor above.”

  “So, if you are here, then I would guess that you were successful with what you wanted to do; am I correct?” Alaran asked, ignoring his words completely.

  “Yes, I have become stronger and more informed under the guidance of that Sol-ranked hunter."

  "I have to say that I did not expect to see you here at all. Is there a reason why you came?” Alhen asked.

  Alaran smiled a little and then looked at him straight in the eye.

  “We have not seen each other in a while, and the first thing you do when we meet is disrespect me, your mentor,” he said with a playful tone.

  Alhen realized what he meant and couldn’t help but chuckle and scratch the back of his head nervously.

  “I haven’t forgotten about you, nor have I stopped considering you my mentor. I was just curious why you were here; you must have an important reason.”

  Alaran pushed himself off the wall with his back and said, “Well, kid, you are right. That old man wants to see you."

  "He says that you will be participating in the upcoming war between the Kingdom of Yhia and the Kingdom of Nurtria, which will be in a few cycles.”

  Alhen widened his eyes; this news was completely unexpected and threw him off his train of thought.

  He gritted his teeth, realizing that his time here was coming to an end due to something he had no control over.

  “Can you—”

  “No,” Alaran interrupted him.

  “But I didn’t—”

  “The answer is still no,” he interrupted again.

  Alhen sighed, thinking that his mentor couldn’t be swayed.

  He was going to ask if he could do something to help him, but it seems that Alaran could smell his intentions from miles away.

  Without having any choice, he asked, “When should I return?”

  “As soon as possible. Do you want to say goodbye to your mentor? Will she even let you leave? If not, then let us head out right now,” Alaran said.

  Alhen shook his head, telling him that everything was alright. “I will leave next cycle as soon as possible and meet Father Vincent in the church,” he said.

  “Very well, you'd better come, kid; this time there will be consequences, and I am in no position to help you any further,” his mentor commented.

  Alhen remained silent because as soon as Alaran said those words, he was already out the door and out of the cabin, moving with efficiency and speed.

  He sighed and lay back on his bed, probably being the last time that he would have a sleep this peaceful.

  ‘A war… Does he want me to die? Or is he impatient and wants me back as soon as possible, using the excuse of war to have me at the church? Who knows, guess I will see next cycle.'

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