Hunter unboxed the package he found outside his door and smiled. The small personal affinity recorder slid out onto his living room table. He held it in his hand. There was a small sheet of paper with instructions, which comprised an illustrated finger manipulating a small on/off switch along the side of the device.

  Hunter toggled the device on and held it in his hand. He felt the etherium move through him, and the device beeped.

  It still showed 5. He shrugged, not expecting much of a change. Learning how to focus and relax wasn’t the method, it was just the prerequisite. Hopefully, his session today would bear the fruit he’d been expecting over the week and a half of the training he’d been committing to.

  Hunter, ahead of his father’s suggested schedule, observed crucial signs of progress necessary for advancing to the next training phase.

  Today, he would begin discovering his etheric channels.

  He took out a notebook and recorded the date on the first page, and wrote the result which he’d received from the device. Then he set down his pen and got himself into a focused state of mind.

  His body relaxed, and let his mind settle over the course of 20 minutes. Then he brought his attention to his breath, following it as long as he could, noticing the space of thoughts so as not to get caught up in them.

  Inhale and exhale. Again and again. Over and over. The sequence of breaths transitioned into one single breath, time melting away. Then, all he knew was the inhale, forgetting it by the time he reached the exhale, until only the present moment remained - a continual flow of change.

  His stopwatch softly chimed. Hunter opened his eyes. He picked up the small drawstone he’d brought with him, lying just beside the affinity device. It was about the size of a large pebble, maybe half an inch at its widest. It would allow him to use it for longer, searching for the flow of ether.

  The first step his father recommended was to find the place where the etherium left the channels and entered the drawstone, then he could trace them out slowly. He could feel the etherium in the drawstone, in its default state, undistorted by a glyph. He could feel it dissipate from the drawstone, but lost track of the feeling after it wafted away, a millimetre from the edge of the stone itself.

  Hunter brought his attention back to the tactile sense of the stone in his hand, analyzing the space around that sensation, looking for some sign of etherium leaving his body.

  He got sidetracked by doubts for a moment. What if he didn’t actually have channels? What if this whole exercise was pointless because he was uniquely unqualified for practicing it? Then he realized they were just thoughts, and he brought his attention back to where he needed it to be.

  The stopwatch beeped. Hunter frowned. That had been an hour? He put the drawstone down, measured his AR, and recorded the result in the notebook.

  Still 5.

  The possibility of making no progress had been significant, but he still felt disappointed. He’d hoped that he would have more of an advantage in this exercise than his father had. Maybe he could bypass the month it took for his father to discover his own channels and reduce it down to a single session. After all, even his father had said that Hunter’s sensitivity was stronger than his own.

  Hunter boiled some water, already having put the coffee grinds into the press. He left the notebook, AR device, and drawstone on the table. It felt appropriate to make that the spot for practice. He could always move them out of the way if he had homework.

  Hunter had two classes that day: martial arts and artisanship. For a moment he considered skipping the martial arts class, but he shook his head. Something was telling him that the class was worth it, even if at the moment it felt more like an exercise in humiliation. But over the last couple of weeks, Hunter had noticed improvements. The worst of the embarrassment came just after he’d recovered from his injuries.

  Since then, he could run longer, do more pushups and sit-ups, and get through all the hundreds of repetitions of drills that the instructor demanded of them. Aera skipped tutoring on the days he had this class because she knew he would be too tired to focus after being exhausted from such an intense morning workout.

  Speaking of the sessions, he was grateful that Aera seemed willing to talk to him more. He realized that her harsh approach, while seeing to have an element of malevolence at first, turned out to be a genuine attempt to help him.

  It had taken this long to realize it; but she wasn’t typically a mean-spirited person. She was just incredibly driven, and cared deeply about her father and their family legacy. She had lost her mother when she was younger, much like Hunter had. Unlike Hunter, Aera actually remembered her mother, and her father had played a more active part in her life than Hunter’s had in his. Despite Hunter’s distance to his father over the last few years of his life, hadn’t he been his father’s biggest fan? What if his father had been more present?

  Maybe he would feel the same way Aera had, if their roles were reversed.

  Upon reaching the change-room attached to the studio where his martial arts class would be held, Hunter realized that being an Oberon wasn’t so bad. Trey had been nothing but supportive in the short time he’d known him, and hadn’t treated him at all like a mere business partner.

  He didn’t like Aera, but he felt like he was seeing her as more than just a necessary evil. In fact, sometimes he even felt himself looking forward to their evening sessions. He was getting stronger, and he had a lot to learn from her. And if she continued to warm up to him, maybe he could do the same. Maybe one day they could even be friends.

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  Hunter finished his 8th pushup and collapsed just as he was about to finish the 9th. He lay with his cheek against the blue-matted classroom floor.

  It was an improvement, at least. He could barely do 3 when he first started training with Aera.

  “Alright, class! You know what time it is!”

  Hunter groaned. He’d watched as instructor Immanuel set his chair before the rectangular outline at the centre of the studio. It meant they’d be sparring. Hunter got up and joined the rest of the class as they congregated around the sparring area.

  “Sparring! Gather around. You know the rules, slackers go first,” the instructor grinned at Hunter. One of his classmates patted him on the back. Hunter hadn’t been expecting that, but he appreciated it. Glancing at the young man, he was certain that his name was Clark. He had short brown hair and blue eyes. He was one of the more visibly fit people in the class, and Hunter didn’t remember having any reason to take issue with him.

  Hunter gave him a nod as he stepped up to spar.

  “Emelia!” the instructor called out. A short and thin blonde-haired girl stood up from her spot while her friends snickered around her. Despite her stature, Hunter felt intimidated. She might have been a slacker, but it wasn’t because she was lazy.

  Truthfully, she didn’t belong in this class. She belonged in the more advanced one. She was a skilled fighter, and had destroyed guys in the class who were twice her size and bodyweight. Clark included.

  She looked at him with disinterest as she stepped into the ring. She gave him a bow, and Hunter returned it. They both bowed to the instructor, and he waved his hand, signalling for them to be ready. They both raised their guards and waited for the instructor to signal for them to start.

  Hunter remembered his last few sessions with Aera. She’d been reminding him to relax and pay attention to his opponent. Training his capacity to focus was paying off, and he was pleased about it. Being able to remain focused, while aware of what was going on around him, synergized pretty well with fighting.

  He breathed in and out, and let the space between him and Emelia be the only thing that held any meaningful existence to him. After relaxing his shoulders, dipping his head slightly, he prepared himself for whatever came.

  “Alright, let’s do 2 out of 3. Go!” the instructor called. Emelia launched herself at him, kicking towards his shin. He stepped back, careful not to take his eyes off of her. She moved her hands and her hips in a way that made him think she was going to go for another kick, aimed high. But she wasn’t leaning back nearly enough to support it. She would probably kick low, hoping to catch him off guard.

  She confirmed his guess a moment later, sweeping her foot once more at his shin, and Hunter sidestepped, prepared to jab at her chest to score a point.

  Then she fell, pivoting on her knee and kicking her other leg back, catching Hunter off balance. Recalling his training with Aera, he fell to the side and spread his body out to lessen the impact on any specific part. He lifted himself up as fast as he could as the instructor called out Emelia’s point.

  Hunter sighed, frustrated. He’d almost had her. He’d yet to win a single sparring match, and he doubted that he’d win this one, but scoring a point on Emelia would be huge for him.

  They set themselves back up for the next round.

  Once more, he relaxed and focused. An odd thought occurred to him; until now, he’d never considered making the first move. What did that mean? It meant that someone like Emilia—who would have been watching the people in the class in order to predict how they’d fight—would know that he wouldn’t make the first move. What if, this time, he did?

  Wouldn’t he need a plan? A lightning-flash of thoughts flew by. He barely understood what his mind was suggesting, but he followed the gist of it.

  “Go!”

  Hunter and Emelia both stepped towards each other. Emelia frowned and paused. He kicked towards her stomach, and she blocked it, the force of the block taking Hunter by surprise, but not enough to distract him. He stepped back, expecting a counter, and Emelia launched herself after him. Another kick to the shin, which missed him by an inch, a roundhouse to his side which he stepped into, once more catching Emelia off guard.

  He grabbed around her leg, and with his other hand, he grabbed the lapel of her gi. He hooked a leg behind hers and pushed her back, following her down. She seemed stunned by the move, and Hunter was just as stunned by how effective it was. He still had the presence of mind to notice that he had an opening to take advantage of. He jabbed towards her chest, and she didn’t react until it was too late.

  “Point, Hunter! There you go! I’ve been waiting for you to grow a pair!” Instructor Immanuel said. Hunter was beaming from ear to ear as he got off Emelia and helped her up. She shook her head.

  “I won’t let you do that again, Oberon,” she said, but Hunter didn’t hear any hostility in her voice. If anything, she seemed amused, if not a bit frustrated. He supposed he would be too, if he’d been caught off guard by the weakest kid in the class.

  Not that her reaction bothered him at all. It was the first point Hunter had scored in sparring. Her frustration was his pride.

  “Go!”

  Hunter tried to focus, but Emelia was already after him. He backpedaled, trying to come up with another split-second plan, but she was much faster than him. He realized he couldn’t let her have too much of an advantage and held his ground with a couple of feet of ring left to spare. The second he stepped out of bounds, it would be his loss.

  What if he won? All he would have to do was score a single hit.

  Following Aera’s training, he successfully blocked the hook thrown by her, retaliating with an uppercut to her ribs. Yet, she swiftly turned, grabbed his blocking arm, and unbalanced him.

  If he were bigger and stronger, he probably wouldn’t have anything to worry about. But despite his height, he weighed just as much as she did, and she had a lot more experience with fighting guys who were bigger than her. With Hunter off balance, she ducked under his arm and pushed him, forcing him to fall out of bounds.

  “The round goes to Emilia. Great initiative, Hunter! Alright, who’s next?”

  Hunter lost, but he felt like he’d won a minor victory during that fight. Emilia helped him up and gave him a strong pat on the arm.

  “Never seen you fight back before, Oberon. But don’t be too excited about beating a girl half your size,” she said. Hunter suddenly felt a lot less proud of himself.

  “Ah, don’t listen to her,” Clark said as Hunter sat back down. “Progress is progress. True, she’s a shrimp, but she’s a powerful shrimp. Hell, she’s thrown me on my ass more than once. Take the victory.”

  “Thanks, Clark,” Hunter said, still not sure about where the sudden friendliness was coming from. Maybe he noticed Hunter’s awkwardness, because he declined to say anything more, giving Hunter another nod of encouragement.

  Hunter allowed himself the opportunity to feel some sense of achievement. Sure, it wasn’t a big deal. He hadn’t won the match, and he was still pretty weak compared to the rest of the class, but a win was a win.

  If he could score one point, he could score more. He just had to use his mind.

  Again, Aera’s wisdom was bearing fruit. By breaking Hunter’s concentration, she was forcing him to approach his concentration in a new way. With his father’s exercises, he realized that relaxing and concentrating didn’t have to oppose each other, and when the balance was right, there was room for thought. It was a natural state of flow which Hunter had become intimate with over the years but had never consciously cultivated until he read his father’s journals.

  Without Aera, and without the exercises, he doubted he’d have come up with a plan like he had in a split second, like he had during that fight. Maybe he could finally handle himself in a scuffle with a thug from Seckina, at least for long enough to call for help.

  It wasn’t much, but it helped Hunter feel like he was starting to leave his old life behind him.