Chapter 18

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"Breathe in and out, slowly." His raspy voice bore its way through my mind as I attempted to follow through with his instructions for the umpteenth time. Sitting here with my eyes closed was a lot harder than I could have imagined. I was itching to move around and do things, and sitting there trying to clear my mind wasn't cutting it. It only made me want to move around even more than before. Damn the constant need to always be doing something.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes once more to clear my mind. The darkness filled my vision, and I attempted to force all the extra thoughts out of my mind. "Good, now Im going to tap my finger; try to focus on the beat." His words tore through my brain, threatening to pull me away from my already tedious hold on relaxation. I bit my lip and nodded at him. Why did this have to be so hard? I forced my eyes to stay closed and slowly released a tightly held breath.

After a few seconds, I heard bone tap against a stone. Then another shortly after that. I focused on the sound and pushed the rest of the thoughts from my mind. I fought the desire to move my body. A few dozen taps later, I felt my mind spin, and a wave of vertigo assaulted me. I felt a creeping numbness start to fill my body as the sound of Kharon's tapping slowly faded into oblivion.

You have unlocked the auxiliary skill: Meditation I

Meditation: This skill severs your connection with your consciousness and allows you to interact with your inner self. This skill costs nothing to maintain; however, you lose access to all of your outward senses and your ability to move for the skill duration.


So I could still interact with my system even though I was like this. I turned my head around. All around me was encompassing darkness that clung to my body. Okay, Calixa, you need to be smart about this. Do nothing else without further instruction from Kharon. Now the next question, how do I get out of here? It's a skill. So what if I deactivated it? "Deactivate." The words echoed in the darkness, which quickly faded away like sand on the wind, revealing Kharon sitting before me.

Kharon was there staring at me unblinkingly as his fingers kept tapping into the stone beside him. "I did it. The skill is unlocked." I flexed my fingers and immediately felt different. It like I was more aware of myself and the layers that define who I am.

"Good. Now, this is the hard part. When you activate the skill again, you have to go as deep as possible into yourself to get to your soul. Once you get there, you have to fracture a piece off and drive it into an item." I reached out and grabbed my phone and placed my hand over its cool screen, and gripped it tightly.

"How much do I need to break off? Will it hurt?" Those all seemed like pretty rational questions to be asking in a situation like this.

"You only need to break off a small fragment. The soul is a powerful thing, and it will heal its self over time. As for pain, I won't lie to you; it will hurt." I toyed with the casing of my phone for a moment, picking at a well-worn spot. I hate feeling pain of any sort. Maybe this wasn't the class for me, but it wasn't like I could back down now.

"How do I fracture it?" I set my phone down on my lap and placed my hands over the top of it, and shifted my legs around to get comfortable.

"Once you are in your inner self and see your soul, you will find that it's malleable to you. So it shouldn't be too hard. Grab a portion of it and pull it out. Just be careful not to overdo it. As for the rest, that is up to you to figure out." I bit my lip and nodded my head. It seemed easy enough. I crossed my legs and got ready to reactivate the meditation skill.

"Thank you, Kharon. I will do my best." He nodded his skull, and I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and thought about the meditation skill. The familiar sense of falling overwhelmed and the darkness returned as I became numb.

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