Lesley's thoughts during the training session:
'He's taking longer than I imagined to harmonize his internal energy flow with his body.'
'What's the problem? It's been an hour, and he still hasn't managed it. How can someone so talented have so much difficulty? Is it because of the two different energies running through his pathways?'
'A slight shiver ran down my spine before he finally harmonized the energy with his body. Well, better late than never.'
'He's doing well. Two hours straight without a break. Unbelievable focus.'
'Okay, this is getting bizarre! How can an Awakened, on the first day, stay focused on internal energy control for three hours straight?'
'Glenn Hughes, who the hell are you? How did the empire never notice someone so extraordinary, especially from a family that lived in the capital? Any lord would have been delighted to spread rumors about a talented son. I really don't understand.'
'Six hours have passed. Damn, six hours! I'm really not qualified to be his energy control teacher. Good thing Her Majesty has already made arrangements.'
'Seven hours! How much innate energy does this damn guy have? Probably a lot, due to the two...' Her thoughts were interrupted by Glenn convulsing on the central rectangular platform.
"An energy collapse. His energy ran out," she whispered, quickly running towards Glenn, who was collapsing to the ground, convulsing.
She gently held his body and laid him on the ground, with his head resting on her lap. From one of her pockets, she took out a small pouch containing a mild recovery potion. She gently poured the liquid onto Glenn's lips.
"You suffered a shock from draining all the innate energy from your body," she explained.
My body was paralyzed for about ten minutes.
When I regained movement, Lesley held one of my arms over her shoulders and dragged me out of the training field.
We headed towards the hand-to-hand combat training field. Without questioning, she took me to the fifth section.
The place looked like a wedding cake, with four steps, each wide enough for me to lie down on.
"How much time has passed?" I asked, still disoriented.
"About seven hours. It's now 8:50 PM," she replied.
"Seven hours..." I murmured, incredulous.
I was so immersed in energy control that, to me, it felt like no more than an hour.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"You'll understand soon."
Lesley laid me down on the first level of the circular structure.
"Close your eyes," she ordered.
Obeying, I closed my eyes, believing I would quickly fall into a comfortable sleep. I was completely mistaken.
A mysterious energy invaded my body, coursing through every inch of my being, as if analyzing every part it touched. Until, finally, it entered my brain.
"Agh..." a groan escaped my mouth.
I opened my eyes to a scene that had happened hours ago.
"What's going on?" I questioned.
I was inside my own body, but I had no control over the actions. It was as if I were an observer.
My body was in a quick run around the training field. However, the time I saw everything was distorted. In the parts where I had faltered, time slowed down, as if indicating where I should pay attention.
'This must be some kind of meditation relic,' I inferred.
And I was right. In the parts where time slowed down, my brain slowly managed to form explanations about what had happened, the result, and what I could do to improve.
I was reliving my own day. "Interesting!"
Some parts were sped up, as if there was no problem with what was happening. This was the case with the weightlifting section.
"I must have done really well in that part," I assessed.
Soon, the hand-to-hand combat scenes appeared in my vision.
This part was incredibly long. A pause happened before even a second passed. Sometimes, several pauses in a single second.
"My body reacted with stimuli to push me with my right leg, and then with my left. But I just threw myself to the ground. If I had followed my instincts, I could have counterattacked that blow," I assessed.
I was reliving the painful hours of hand-to-hand combat I had with Lesley.
"This is a fundamental tool for harmonizing body and mind," I confirmed.
I don't know how much time passed in the outside world, but, in that internal world, the three hours of combat stretched into dozens of hours. With each pause, my brain assimilated things that would be impossible in a normal routine.
In this state, I could understand signals that my senses alerted me to. The wind of the sword, the slight shiver in my body, the desynchronized breathing, the wrong grip on the weapon, the misplaced step, the repositioning at the wrong moment, and the countless inconsistencies between thinking and acting.
Of the entire day, this was the moment I learned the most.
The hand-to-hand combat finally ended. A quick fast-forward movie passed through my eyes and focused on the moment I was sitting on the rectangular platform, trying to harmonize my energy flow.
At this point, it wasn't very useful, as everything happened inside my body, with my consciousness acting internally.
"I think it's a tool for harmonizing hand-to-hand combat."
Time sped up again until that entire sensation ended.
I woke up from my epiphany with a tremendous headache. Blood was dripping from my nose, and my mouth was extremely dry. I was alone in the training field; Lesley had disappeared.
I got up with difficulty. My legs refused to walk. I was in shambles, that was the reality. Every millimeter of my body ached, as if thousands of needles were piercing my skin.
Somehow, I managed to return to the ground floor. I passed through the kitchen, as I was very hungry. On the table, a hearty meal was steaming, with clear signs that it had been placed there just a few minutes ago.
I looked for Dália, but couldn't find her anywhere.
I swallowed everything I could, without worrying about what I was eating. I noticed a small hourglass that marked, on the sides of the glass, a time of twelve hours.
Its function was simple: every twelve hours, it inverted. At that moment, it marked something around 11:40. A curiosity: the day in this world also had twenty-four hours.
"It's already 11:40 PM. I spent three hours in that world of memories."
The food replenished my body with the minimum energy to return to my room. I was so tired that I don't even remember how I got to the bathroom.
With a simple fall, I threw myself into the hot springs, letting the hot water invade my body. A fearful look stared at the bathroom door, begging for a maid with beautiful black hair, firm breasts, and red eyes and lips not to enter naked.
"If she comes through that door naked, I'll die. I'm sure!"
"I don't even have the energy to get an erection!" I admitted.
By midnight, I was lying on the bed. My consciousness faded in a matter of seconds.
I had a strange dream. I was in my memories of when I was a slave. The executioners were in front of me, putting chains on my wrists and ankles. It felt so real that I felt the tightness in my joints.
The difference was that their faces were completely gray. There were no eyes, nose, or mouth. One of the executioners approached me, putting his hands on my worn shorts and pulling them off with a yank.
They put me on a kind of "X" cross, pulled the chains, and stretched my limbs.
Then, a figure walked towards me, reached out, and grabbed my dick.
"What?" I thought, conscious within my dream. "Why is he grabbing my..."
My eyes opened heavily. Lucidity didn't take long to return when I realized I was lying in my bed. A shy half-light from two lamps dimly illuminated the room. Slowly, I looked to the sides and saw.
"What the hell is this?" I murmured, still groggy. My arms were tied to the edges of the bed by a firm black rope.
"Gluuuup..." a sucking sound made me look down in disbelief.
"Dália?" I murmured, my voice hoarse and confused.
She was there, kneeling on the bed, her red lips enveloping my dick with an intensity that left me breathless. Her crimson red eyes shone with determination.
"What... what are you doing?" I shouted, trying to get up, but the ropes tying my wrists to the edges of the bed prevented me from moving. My heart raced, and a mix of shock, confusion, and something deeper began to rise within me. Arousal.