Chapter 7

Leo woke up with a headache... the first thing he thought was he was annoyed at the way he always ended up unconscious when something happened.

He could remember the cloud, and Andur dragging them far from it. He remembered the fear they felt, and their desperate decision. He could remember the collision, right before the pain. Pain for their mistake at first, pain in his soul after that, but nothing more. His mind was almost empty after that. Almost because he seemed to hear something, a kind voice whispering to him, telling him he had to learn the truth. But what truth? What was there he had to find out? Leo couldn't get that question out of his head... 

He got up from the bed, and walked out of his room. He found Andur there, with a worried face, but he didn't need to ask why.

- Good morning Leo, how are you feeling?

- Good morning, Andur. I'm fine, but I got a headache. I can't seem to remember anything after the cloud collided with the tear.

- I can't say I know. When the aura of the Tear and the cloud met, there was an energy explosion. The pressure made me faint. When I regained consciousness, I brought both of you here.

- Oh... So you don't know anything either. 

Leo then walked to the front door, wanting to go outside and breath some fresh air.

- Wait, Leo. There's something I need to tell you - Leo turned around wondering what could it be -. Please sit here.

Leo went back in and sat in the chair Andur told him.

- When I first saw your aura that day whith the doctor,  I was really shocked at the color. You should know by now that it is not a normal color for someone to have, so I asked the doctor to try to find information about it.

Leo nodded.

- He first tried to search in the medical archives (the doctors keep a record of everything they do and see), but the search wasn't successful. So then we decided to broaden the search to include also the historical information. While it didn't give results, one of the people that had the task to search about it said it reminded him of a tale from his homeland that included someone with a white spirit. He said he didn't remember the details anymore, but that was the only clue we have.

» The problem is the nearest place where they could know about it is the town/temple of Rhyen'dar, and they don't allow magic near them so we can't travel there using a portal. That means we would have to go all the way walking. So before deciding anything, I wanted to ask you. Do you want to know this? Do you want to find out the truth about you?

That last question flashed an image into his head. Too fast to see anything in it, but awakening his memories. He remembered that voice in his head telling him to go, telling him to find the truth about him. HE really wanted to, and even if he didn't, something told him it world have been worse that way.

- Yes, I do want to know. You know I don't really have much to do here, so I don't really care how far it is.

- I see. Then I will tell Ly once she's back. I suppose she will want to come too.

- Talking about Ly, where is she now?

- She went to the city to see some of her friends. After bringing you here, she felt bad about leaving you alone so she decided to stay here. Today she somehow decided she had to go see them, so she opened a portal and left.

- Oh, okay. I was going to the forest to train a bit my precision, if you or Ly need me, I will be there.

Leo left the house and walked in the direction of the forest. That day felt different than usual, and Leo was paying more attention to all what surrounded him. The flowers, the grass, the trees and the leaves on those trees. Also the animals, some small, like insects, and some bigger, like birds.

Then he reached the scar the black cloud left wherever it went through. Like a dry, empty road full of death and destruction. Leo had to cross that scar to reach the training place.

The moment he stepped on it, Leo's heart became smaller, maybe from the remains of the cloud's power which could still be haunting that scar, or maybe just from thinking of what could have happened if they hadn't been saved by the tear. Leo somehow had a certain feeling he was the one the cloud wanted to destroy, and wanted to know why. He knew that question would be answered when he knew the truth about himself.

After some hard steps, Leo reached the other side of the scar, and entered the inner part of the forest. He walked far enough from the scar so he could concentrate on his training without being distracted by the memories of the previous day. Training the precision was probably the hardest part of magic.

He followed the steps he had learned. Always the same steps, a routine he had to engrave in his body so he could do it without a thought, which was necessary to reach the level of concentration it required. First he sat in the ground with his legs crossed, in a place without anything space with at least one meter radius without any tree. Knew a spot from other times he had gone there, so it was easy for him to find it. Then he opened his eye, slowly, to avoid scaring the animals in the trees around him.

When the required level of activation was reached, he then created a thin energy barrier around him, like a bubble, making sure nothing from outside could disturb him. After that, he grabbed a leaf from the ground, one that fell from a specific tree that grew in that forest. And concentrated on it.

The rest of the training wasn't visible by the normal eye. He had to move his spirit eye to look at that leaf, and only that leaf. He had to progressively go near it, make it to the eye, until he could see even the smallest detail of the surface, then he went one step further, and watched at the composition of the leaf, he zoomed in until he could tell it was actually made of tiny cells. But at that level his spirit would have broken the cells if he tried to touch them, he had to go even more near, he had to see the cells one by one, so he tried, he tried to go even nearer,  but he couldn't. The at the best moment the cells were still like sand, too small to manipulate successfully.

Even if he was disappointed, Leo knew he was slowly improving. In one side a few days before he couldn't even notice the cells, so the improvement was obvious, and in the other side, Andur told him a normal person would need months, if not years to reach that level, and some people can't even reach it.

Having reached his limit, Leo felt tired. That training required so much concentration that he always lost track of time while he was in the bubble, so he zoomed out, wondering if Ly would already be home. When his eye was done zooming out his consciousness returned to his body and the sudden amount of information he received was like a shockwave hitting him all around his body, forcing him to take a deep breath.

Then he told his eye to undo the barrier, and the relief from stopping the spirit energy flow relaxed him to the point that even when he was sitting in the ground, he almost fell to a side.

-At last! - said a voice behind him - I was starting to wonder if you would ever come out of that bubble.

- Hey Ly, - said Leo - sorry to keep you waiting, this training makes me lose track of time.

- Don't worry, it's ok... - and then she lowered her voice like if she didn't actually want to say it -  and you looked kinda cute while you were so concentrated...

- What? - Ly blushed when she realized she said it -

- Eh, Nothing! I was just talking to myself...

- Oh... well, I'll stay with the doubt.

- So, say... do you really want to start traveling?

- Yeah... I want to know. I feel that if I didn't go I would regret it for the rest of my life.

- But there are so many things you still haven't seen around here...

- Hey it's not like if I would never be back... it will just be some time. By the way, will you come with us?

- I'm not sure what to do. I would like to go, but we don't really know how long will it take, and I would be leaving all this behind, without anyone watching it...