Kush slept for 1.5 days straight, then he woke up due to “Grrrr…..” hunger. A kid not eating this long would have made anyone upset, but the first thing he tried upon waking up was absorption of ether.

“Hup….” inhaling he stopped his breath and let ether enter his body. Unlike before when a tremendous amount of energy was entering his body, only a small weak stream was formed which was following the vein and flowing into the familiar spherical sack like object at bottom of his spine. “Heehhh..?” he exclaimed an called for his mother.

“Mmmoooommmm” he shouted. Fearing another accident Alicia rushed in through the door like the wind, seeing him awake she hugged him into her bosom “what happened she asked him?”

“Mom I tried absorbing eth….” Before he could finish, he felt a smack across the back of his head which sent him off his bed.

Alicia had a cartoon-esque cross on her forehead, face was red from anger and her arms were crossed in front of her bosom and she was gritting her teeth in anger. She was livid. Fear, yes it was fear he felt, it had been a long time since his mother was this pissed, she scolded him frequently.

“You idiot, do you think cultivation is a joke you can do whenever you feel like? Do you how much problem you put us in last time you tried that shit?”

She raised her hand to smack him again, but saw him cowering raising his own hand in front of his face. She hesitated but still proceeded to smack him across the face, but stopped mid-way and placed her hand on his cheek with love.

“Why do you behave so recklessly my son? Don’t you understand we almost lost you forever the day before” she said with her numb eyes.

“sorry mom, but I was too excited to see mana flow through me” calming herself she, she continued in a stern voice

“Son cultivation is not just steps to be followed by a person, the student has to be hand held from one point to the other slowly and steadily by an expert teacher. You do not have an expert teacher, all you have is me and your father who are teaching you based on our experience”

“But mom if you are strongest people in the world, why would I want to learn from someone else?”

“Because my idiot son, a teacher has experience teaching people of different aptitudes, different goals, backgrounds, resources and most of all characteristics. Your father and I for example do not have that”

“Like anyone has experience teaching a person like me”

This saddened Alicia a little she tussled his hair and then carried him to his bed.

“Sigh… so how many strings of golden strings did you manage to get”

Saddened by the question “Only one and we got so lucky getting so many golden strings”

“Sigh... Kush you wish for too much; it takes a person with excellent aptitude 2 years, to reach where you are right now, but remember this, you could have died, been paralyzed or sent in coma on three separate occasions hence be careful. Also remember what you achieved was because of perseverance, luck had no role to play in it.” Getting up from where she was sitting on Kush’s bed “We continue from where we left after you’ve rested a bit more, I will go get you something to eat”

Happiness knew no bounds for the boy who was in despair just a few days “Come on” punching his fist towards the ground “I am getting stronger; I am getting stronger. I am going to beat fate”

Kush did not realize that the toll his injured body had taken was large, mind was a mess too. He slept for three days straight eating a sumptuous meal. Once he was done they restarted working again

His injury had healed, to such an extent that the previous six months’ prognosis had now reduced to 4 months’ prognosis if left alone, but his mother had other plans. She wanted to use this opportunity speed up his training but, this time in measured speed.

“Ok Kush, coming to theory, today I will tell you about mana in your body close your eyes and feel I say. Mana is the most easily convertible form of ether hence that is how it is stored in your body, Mana can then be converted to life energy, magic power, mental energy etc. type of energies which require. The repair of body is done using life energy, what happened to you is a bit complex to explain right now but it was cause of suction created by your injury. Ether you absorb from the atmosphere can be absorbed at various location all over your body and are converted to mana using mana sacks present at the end of each mana vein. Each body has hundreds of mana vein, mana absorbed from atmosphere, collects at the Chakras in your body. Your body has seven Chakras in your body each having a different function, they are:

Mula: Base of spine Svadhi: on the spine parallel to Belly button Manipura: on the spine upper abdomen Anahata: on the spine parallel to the heart Visudha: Throat Ajna: Between the eye Sahasra: top of the temple

The function of Mula chakra is to accelerate regeneration of body. It takes a person with excellent aptitudes a few years to identify location of first chakra, a feat you achieved in 2 days. Based on this we may have a path forward. For now, I want you to regulate the amount of flow out of the Mula chakra, we will increase the dose of anesthetics to you. Also, I want you to revise the location of each mana vein, which means I want you to absorb ether through each mana vein in succession one after the other and follow the path all the way to the Mula Chakra, remember if you lose concentration the converted mana will dissociate in Mana veins turn back to ether in air. Only after it has entered the Mula chakra point that you can say it is yours.”

“What happens after I fill the Chakra point”

“Heh, heh…” Let’s not get ahead of ourselves “just do what you are told and in due course of time we will come to that as well”

For the two and half months the boy followed a strict regimen of cultivating 16 hours a day, sleeping for 6 hours and 2 hrs for other things like food, flush and bath and leisure.

On the day cast was going to be removed, all four were gathered in the boy’s room. When the cast was broken, his legs as if involuntarily fell down, they should have hurt a lot and needed long time of physio to get his muscle strength back but, since he had already discovered and his Mula Chakra, he was fine and using the Mula chakra had sped up his recovery as well.

Walking and running would need a few days but his father had instructed, that it was time he started with physical training that afternoon.

In the open field Sagar instructed “Son, we are going to use a special regimen for you it will rough for you to follow but I know you can stick with it. You see son, there is another way to increase strength of a person, that is break and repair the muscles; muscles, tendons and bones repaired by mana are stronger and harder than they were before.”

“And does repair of these things, speed up ether absorption?”

“Yes”

“Then why doesn’t everybody do this”

“Everybody, does this to some extent, but ours will be a little amped up” said Sagar to Kush but to himself he said “Because I believe this can only be done by you”

“I want you run a lap around the field”. The lap was 6 km in circumference and Kush started off easy and swift. For the first 500 m he maintained a good speed, he had been training since young so he was very strong and fast for his age, seeing that he still had a long way to go and he had already started panting, he decided to slow down a little, after next 500 m his panting increased a lot, remember he was bed ridden for the past two and a half months. After the next 500 m the area right below his rib cage had started to hurt like hell and his speed dropped markedly, after the next 1 km his hips were starting to hurt, after the next 500 m his shin was starting to hurt and he increased the lateral span in his legs to mitigate the pain. But these were nothing to him a person born with endurance. After the next 1.5 km his stomach was starting to hurt and he bent his back a little, “Keep your body erect, keep your posture straight and increase your speed if you want to me to continue the regimen. This is pathetic display on your part!!!” shouted his father, listening to this fixed his posture and started to pick his pace, his stomach hurt and he could not catch his breath but he kept running. His lung capacity had increased due to his Mana training, but it was still doable. For the next 1 km he maintained his speed but slowed down a little for next 500 m. It took him 12 min to complete the lap and it was fairly evenly paced

“Now sit down and repair your body with mana” he allowed Kush to absorb mana for 3 min.

Now wear this on your body and complete 50 laps wearing these on your legs and hands as he threw 2 ankle braces, 2 wrist braces and body weight to be worn on his torso like a vest. Each brace weighed a kilo and the body weight weighed 5 kgs. Hearing this his mouth agape.

“What you have something to say?”

Hearing this he shut his mouth and shook his head

“Then whose marriage are you waiting for? Start running now!!!” he shouted and off went Kush.

His father sat in the center of the field in Padmasana practicing the something himself.

After the first lap itself, his stomach was hurting so he decided to slow down a little and breath through his mouth and decided to forget about any pain he was feeling. Soon after the fifth lap his knees were starting to hurt and his legs felt like jelly, his thighs were hurting, his throat was parched and lips dry. Fortunately, his father had not banned the water for this round so picked up a bottle and took a sip. He ran for what felt like another 16 lap, when his vision began getting blurry, his speed momentarily dropped which was followed by a shout “don’t drop your speed!!!” snapping out of it. He picked up speed. Now with another 15 laps under his belt, he couldn’t even with great determination, pick up any speed he could not hear anything nor could he see ahead of him, he just continued doing like a robot programmed to do what he could, his hands were down to protect what little energy he had, flapping around him as he was turning his whole body with each step he took.

At the field standing now were his mother and Rhodos too, his father took a pail of water and threw it at his face, “You want to beat others and be the strongest right? Then stop acting like an idiot and run!!”

Snapping out of his daze his eyes turned sharp again, any normal human, even a person with magic regen or regen itself would have dropped long ago, speed was no substitute to endurance and strength, toughness and agility were utterly useless in this test. Right, this was it, this was the test of endurance the only test for endurance, all characteristics were equal in this test except for endurance, he was perhaps the only one in the world who could perform this feat at 6 years age.

Rhodos said “Ma’am this is torture, even if you quote the shedding of my scales as an example, the power I gain from that is the un-imaginable power of the ocean, the power the break the earth and split the heavens”

Listening to pride in her voice for the first time, Alicia looked at her and said nothing, cause it was almost time to show what they were working towards.

On the 47th lap his eyeballs had moved up into his eyes and his muscles in his legs had torn up too much blood was starting to come from the tears in his skin, his nose and ears were bleeding. His speed was slowing down, but Sagar did not interrupt, his speed was starting to slow down to almost a crawl, when his face was splashed with cold water again, it did not pull him out of near death state, but like an involuntary reaction he sped up. On the 48th lap they had slap him with cold water 5 times and on the 49th Lap he was slapped with cold water 17 times till it stopped working entirely. Once his speed reduced to a crawl, his mother shouted “Son listen to me, this is an important time for you and only you can pull this miracle, so listen to me son for sure. Right now feel the tingling in your skin and muscles…”

When Rhodos understood what they were trying to pull she exclaimed “That is advanced level technique. Even double mana regen mermaid people need atleast a decade of training to pull it off”

Alicia ignored her and continued to shout “Kush your muscles and tendons should be like humongous suction pumps, trying to pull Ether from air, I want you to feel the ether in the air next to you right now”

Rhodos was too shocked to believe what they were trying to pull, she closed her eyes and concentrated on his mana and circulation system.

Alicia continued “Kush!! Just feel the ether separating from the air”

Kush in his delirium was in an unconscious state of mind trying his best to do what his father instructed. In his unconscious state he was again sitting in padmasana in his endless white expanse of his mind where he heard his mother. At once he started to see the black gooey liquid separating from air, he was now an expert in this process, but now the amount of black gooey oily thing was increasing in quantity a whole lot more than he normally sees. His running speed slowed in order to concentrate on the ether.

“Kush if you can feel the ether now, slowly let your muscles and skin absorb the ether. Use the mana veins from your skin to Mula Chakra, remember them now and let the mana flow in. Remember you need not use all of them, all you need is on point”

Kush in his inner white expanse slowly pulled the ether towards his mana duct just above the center of his thigh. But to concentrate on this and he let his body slow down even more.

The couple had already noticed him slowing down. This defeats the purpose but while he was still moving they had to get him to finish the exercise.

Slowly a small quantity of ether entered his vein through his thigh and kept on moving towards his chakra point. It was small insignificant packet of mana, but the movement was only possible because of the tremendous suction from his broken muscles asking for repair. All three of them realized this was not the what they desired but, for now this would do. As it was about to enter his chakra, Kush lost his concentration and it dissociated, the legs which felt like lead too stopped all movement and he tripped, fell before completing his 50th lap.

“Sigh… expecting it to happen in the first try was too much to ask for anyway”

What the couple were attempting to do was make him absorb mana while moving. The first rule of beginners for absorption of mana is they have to be stationary. Many beginners during their first few days aren’t able to achieve stationary motion, which makes them more than unlikely to learn mana absorption. Maintaining a state of stasis is like half the job to learn cultivation for beginners. But experts in order to sustain long battle and arduous journeys need to continuously be able to absorb mana despite their already humongous mana pool. Normally for a person with normal aptitude it would take more than a century to achieve such a state but what Kush achieved today was nothing short of miracle.

Rhodos replied “What do you mean too much to ask? The kid is a monster… monster I tell you and guys are daityas, rakshasa to expect so much from him. People don’t even start cultivation before eight to let the child grow a bit more, but this monster has achieved feats which even the great heroes could only dream about”

Alicia said “What he has achieved if not followed up with persistence will only be a line in sand”

Sagar said “You don’t get it do you Rhodos, he doesn’t have a characteristic power nor does he have a Karmic power. All he will amount to in a battle will be bait for ………” he paused in his speech while looking towards his son “Monster, truly a monster ahahahhahahahhahha. He is my son, so he should atleast be able to do this much”

Realizing what he was referring to, both the women observed Kush and were shocked cause he done the unimaginable yet again. He was cultivating while unconscious. This was another expert skill which needed atleast 20 years for a person with normal aptitude to pick up.

Rhodos fell on her butt on realizing what she saw and said “I need to up my game as well”

The couple started laughing when they heard this “hahahah hhahahaha”