Chapter LIII: To Become A God (9)

Previously

I kept my mouth shut, silently growing frustrated. I really didn’t want to ask for her help regarding my situation since I wanted to do it myself. 

Her eyes glowed, telling me that she might have caught onto me already.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Ivanka said. She swirled her fingers as her finished plate and cup floated back home. She really needed to teach me how to do that. 

I sighed. It looked like I’ll have to tell her the truth after all.

There’s only so much I could be stubborn about before I had to admit that I won’t be able to get past the first stage or the stages after that by myself. It was a shame since I really did think I would be able to fix my own problems myself. But well, as Ivanka had said, I or Willow was never meant to be a fighter so it was indeed pretty amazing I got through the tutorial stage even. 

“Alright,” I said. “I’ll tell you.” I finished up the last of her sweet pie and wiped myself with a handkerchief, knitted out of some fantastical beast’s pelt. “You remember that thing that came out of my body and nearly killed you? I’m going to call it [Anger], not very creative, I know.”

She didn’t seem to appreciate my humor to lighten the mood. “Go on.”

“Well, you see,” I tapped a finger nervously on the table. “It seems to be impeding me from obtaining chi. I-I can sense the energy, all around me-”

“Since when?” Ivanka asked, eyes slightly opened in surprise.

I looked confused. “Since. . .the first week after you put me in your training and taught me the fundamentals of absorbing and utilizing chi. Is there something wrong?”

She shook her head. “No, no. I apologize for cutting in, please go on.”

“It’s just a theory but well, we both know that Anger uses up my life force in exchange for the strength it provides, right?” I said. 

“Yes,” She said. 

“And, we also know that chi is basically the energy of life,” I saw her features brighten up in understanding. “So, my theory is that-”

“Your Anger is devouring chi before it can even get to you,” Ivanka said, breathlessly. “How could I not have foreseen that?”

“Well, at least I can feel the life-force it took, recovering a little,” I joked. 

“This isn’t supposed to happen,” Ivanka bit the insides of her cheek, staying quiet for a whole minute as her eyes flashed. Then, she looked at me and said, “I’ll need to see the process for myself.”

I nodded. She snapped her fingers and the table and everything was gone as I suddenly felt the nostalgic feeling of queasiness of her portalling us to. . .my meditating spot? It wasn’t anything special, just a small clearing within the vast forest possessing a furnished tree stump for meditating under a thick canopy of trees, providing me with a cool shade and an even cooler wind. 

My fingers lightly slid across my meditating stump, bringing back memories of how I had axed this little tree myself after like a hundred times of course. It was only the first day of my training, with literally no muscle built yet, and Ivanka had expected me to cut down a tree. Oh, the good old days.

“Sit,” Ivanka ordered, bringing me out of my reminiscence. 

Nodding, I quickly hopped onto the tree stump and sat, legs crossed, back straight in a meditative posture as Ivanka meandered behind me. It was amazing how she didn’t even make a sound despite the many seasoned leaves that had fallen and pooled around the ground. 

“Close your eyes,” Ivanka repeated the first words she had said to me when I didn’t know how to meditate. I did as she asked, closing my eyes and evened my breathing. When my chest started to rise and fall rhythmically, that was when in the darkness my closed eyes granted, I could see numerous, colored particles around me, different forms of energies but this wasn’t what I wanted to see. 

“Go deeper,” Her voice was like a whisper in my subconsciousness, guiding me to see past the veil and pushing me to witness the sea of energies. In this realm, the particles had turned into waves, different colored waves that flowed like sand around me, around the trees, around Ivanka, around everything. 

I had arrived. “Focus,” Ivanka whispered again. “See what you want to see.” I focused on trying to filter out all the waves of energies that I didn’t want to see as colors quickly disappeared from my mind’s eye. Perhaps a few seconds later, only one color remained. 

The primordial energy of life, the beautiful neutral color of silvery gray sparkled, it’s waves dancing around me as I had seeked it out. It seemed to ask me what I wanted. 

“Now take it in,” Ivanka whispered. 

‘You heard the lady’ I mentally said to the wave of chi as it sparkled energetically. Another thing I found out was that perhaps it was due to my constitution as the Maiden, I seem to be very compatible with everything light, life and positivity but of course, that wasn’t enough to gain myself energy belonging to the other chief god’s power systems. No matter how much the other energies loved me, they still had to obey the rules managed by their chief god after all.

I breathed in. Happiness filled me to the brim when the first wave of chi melded with my skin, infusing itself into my pathways so perfectly that my prana wasn’t even alarmed. I’d gotten better at this. I felt so full, so alive and just so happy. . .until my Anger struck again.

Then, it felt like I was losing my child, witnessing it being devoured by a monster as I was left with the sensation of loss and nothingness whenever my Anger ate away at my chi.

“Keep going,” Ivanka ordered into my head. My back must have been drenched with sweat as I really wanted to get out of my meditation, to do anything to escape this feeling of loss but my mind told me that I would have to do what Ivanka said if I ever want to solve this problem. 

So like a horrible mother, I just kept feeding chi into my Anger as my heart dropped everything it ate away at the energy. I swore I could have heard their cries of anguish as it ate them but I could do nothing but watch. I felt horrible, disgusting, pathetic and embarrassed all at the same time.

“Almost done,” Ivanka whispered. 

“Quickly!” Tears fell down my cheeks at this point. I could hear their cries of betrayal and with every little high-pitched scream, I felt my need to quit, to withdraw increase. 

Luckily however, before the need boiled off the cap, Ivanka finished her work, forcefully pulling me outside of my meditative state as I woke up with a deep gasp of shock. 

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