From what I have read so far, it seems to me that mental energy was a lot harder to train than soul energy. Very few people even advance, and that was due to the fact that knowledge of mental energy has been lost for a long time. There were also no explanations for the last two realms. So in a nutshell if I'm lucky enough, and talented I can train for quite a long time and get to the third realm. But if my talent and luck is not up to par, then I was stuck in that first realm for the rest of my life. For a weaver that does not sound good.
I had no idea how weavers conduct their training with mental energy, so I can't say I know the average realm that's expected of a weaver. This book was tailored for mages, and for a mage to get to the second realm, that person would considered talented. But this was the only thing I had to work with, so I had to make the best of the options available to me.
A training manual was given in the book for the training of mental energy, there were other crafted and better techniques to be trained in, but this was all I had to go on with. The training manual was rather basic, in fact it was the most basic. Ironically it was the first official manual to be made about the training of mental energy, one of the few things to have survived the golden age of the mental classes.
According to the manual, to create mental energy, and advance into higher circles, pressure was required to be exerted on the brain and mind. Also it separated the brain and the mind into two different concepts. While they still had to deal with the physical part of mental power, whereas the soul dealt with the spiritual, the mind and the brain were not the same thing.
The brain is a physical organ in the body, while the mind is a manifestation of it's power, and potential. When a person say's what's on your mind, he's talking about the manifestation of your thoughts, the place where your feelings and memories are kept. Like I said you can't compare the soul and the mind. The soul is made up of memories, but where do these memories come from. They come from the mind which is in turn the manifestation or the workings of a brain.
A particular set of breathing exercises, and surprisingly enough physical exercise was required as a form of practice. To be honest it looked really ridiculous, I had to stand upside down with my hands. It's not required that I use my hands, I could just tie my feet up, the prime factor is that my head is upside down, and that blood circulated through it. Mental energy just like soul energy is not dependent on the ether, the cultivation of mental energy is mostly attributed to luck and a mental stimulation.
With nothing else to do, I put my hands on the ground and performed a handstand. I did it with such ease, that I felt as if I had done this a hundred times before. Then as the blood began to flow to my head I started breathing according to the instructions in the book. To be honest it was quite hard at first, being upside down and trying to pace my breathing was very hard, I had to stick with the rhythm and make sure every breath taken followed a perfect sequence.
Even for a vampire I have to admit that it was so damn hard, in no time at all I had a headache, and my lungs, and chest were burning in pain. I wanted to stop but, I had read somewhere in the book where it emphasized that perseverance was key in activating mental energy, as most students are not able to handle the pressure.
I began to take slow short breaths, fast ones, and then what I would consider medium intakes of air. Then after a few cycles I would have to hold my breath for as long as possible, then release it in short and equally fast breaths while clenching my stomach muscles in strange and complex ways.
After an hour, I began to feel a pressure building behind my ears, it might have been because of the blood rushing to my head, but I couldn't be sure. It got to a point that the pressure got unbearable, and with it was this terrible ringing that's just couldn't seem to stop.
It was as if there was a marching band in my head, and with each breath I took, they marched harder, hit harder and screamed louder. I could feel the pressure building in my head, it was rushing to the top of my head like a sea of flames cresting the waves of a fiery tsunami. It hurt, it hurt a lot.
I could feel my entire body shaking, and at that moment, I stopped feeling. I shook, but it was as if I was detached from my own body, experiencing my entire ordeal as if I was nothing more than a passing spectator.
It became difficult to breath, as my lungs strained to take in the air that was currently in abundance around me. I couldn't understand it, I was suffocating, I couldn't breath. I felt my fangs poke out of my gums, they ached so bad as if I had the mother of all tooth aches. My hair suddenly began to grow out, longer and longer until it was sweeping the ground below me. And then my finger nails began to grow, scraping against the hard earth, causing my finger nails to bleed in protest at their sudden growth.
Electricity danced through my body, making it's shocking way through every nerve in my body, electrifying every cell, tissue and organ within me. Then it rushed to the top of my head, making the pressure heavier and the ringing louder.
It got closer to the top of my head and every facet of my discomfort got worse, increased in intensity or had new effects added to it. My brown skin was glistening and soaked with sweat under the ultraviolet rays of the sun stones. My bones creaked and ached until finally the electricity reached the top of my head and then....
"POP!"
At first I thought my head had exploded, because with that pop came a feeling of relief and clarity that I had never felt before. In my mind I could feel and envision a tree, and this tree was rather peculiar as it did not have any branches or leaves. There were just rings on its trunk, and it's roots stretched out and connected to every nerve in my body.
I counted twenty five rings on the body of the three, they we're divided into groups of five, each with a different color.
The first three groups of rings were red, yellow, and blue. The last two were black and white. The red colored ring group was right at the bottom of the tree, and one of its rings was lit up and pulsing. And with each pulse it released a red circle that spread through out the vicinity of the tree which just seems to be growing in a black void and its roots stretching down below to me.
"The first circle of the open mind realm!"
And with that said I crashed down straight on my head as my hand had lost strength after holding me up for so long. The floor was a little bit harder than I expected, I was out like a light the moment my face kissed the ground. But regardless I would say it was a much deserved rest as I drifted into the darkness.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When I woke up again, I was surrounded. From the look of things I might have overslept, which meant Nisi and co had enough time to find me passed out, and looking like an ancient guru who meditated for five hundred years. My fingernails were long, disgustingly so as they were almost a meter long and caked with blood drawn from the wounds they made as they grew out of my fingers.
My hair was so long and all over the place, it was as if someone carried a stack of hay and buried me under it. The only difference is that my black hair was silky smooth, very soft I might say. My fangs were sill poking out of my lips for some reason, and no matter what I did, I couldn't get them to retract. I must be hungry or something.
"Kael are you alright? What happened. I felt your pain, and when I saw you upside down with your hair and fingers growing I tried to snap you out of it, but you didn't respond."
I don't think Xaseah noticed the amount of worry in her voice, it was unsettling being worried over like that, much less when I could feel it. But it seems my idea of trying to train in secret fell through before I could even progress properly. The [Údāmá] is an unexpected complication.
"Are you alright!?"
I winced in pain, why did Teluna have to be so loud, I was right in front of him. But it was then I noticed everything around me was different. The sights were closer and clearer, the scents were sharper, the sounds louder and more diverse, the taste so much more vivid that I could even picture what it came from. And the feeling of my hand in Xaseah's was intense, I could feel the creases and calluses on her palms, the warmth and heat from her skin. And the flow of blood within her still body.
My sense were enhanced to a degree unprecedented and unreal. The book did not do justice to this feeling as it was the most amazing thing I have ever felt. My mental energy could be felt thrumming in my mind, dancing according to the pulse of the first circle. This was the first circle of the open mind realm, I could not begin to imagine what it would be like advancing to a higher circle or a higher realm. I shivered in excitement at the very thought of it.
At the same time everyone around me was asking me if I was okay, but I didn't say anything. I didn't feel the need to talk or answer, but I felt the need to revel in this new found feeling, and with it came a calling in my soul. There was a metal cup filled with blood right next to me, without even batting an eyelash I threw the blood out, much to the protest of everyone else, and brought the cup closer to me.
Then I lifted the index finger of my right hand, and closed my eyes. With my mental energy active the perception of my body had reached a whole new level, and because of that I could feel it. That spot at the bottom of my spine that seemed to hold power. It held chaos and creation and life and me. It was the first conduit in my spine that was filled to the brim with soul energy. The first circle of the coccyx realm. This made me ready to actively try and weave.
My finger lit up almost immediately with a deep blue light. It was dark almost black, and it had the same soothing polarizing feeling of hot and cold combined. I took my glowing finger to the side of the cup and with slow meticulous movement I wrote the Rune word for BREAK. I could hear the gasps of surprise from everybody, even Nisi who had seen something like this before. But it was just a rune on the cup, it was glowing, but there was no power in it. And I knew if left alone it would eventually fade.
Then I pushed my power into the rune, willing it into existence and letting it know my intention. I was giving it life with the intent to serve my purpose. But as I pushed so did nature, it was the backlash. I expected it, that pressure that would try to dissipate my soul energy and tear my mind apart. But it was weak, so weak that even if I didn't do anything it would not be able to harm me.
The first ring in my mind pulsed, and the pressure vanished like it was never there in the first place. Then I looked at the cup and cut off my supply of soul energy. With fascinated eyes I watched as the metal cup developed cracks as if it was made of glass, the cracks spread and tiny creaking sounds were heard from it as it submitted to the power of my soul. And when the cracks had spread across it's entire surface, the cup fell of my hand, bursting into numerous pieces on it's way down. Then I heard Nisi say.
"It Broke!"