Thoughts kept running through my mind that I barely managed to pay attention in the lessons that followed. Word had spread through the whole school already of the Purgers' escort I had got when on my way to the maths class. I was having a hard time changing classes because of all the looks I was getting. It seemed now that the school was convinced that I would soon be joining them. There were the undeniable murmurs in the background of things like, 'what makes him so special?' 'I honestly don't see what Ryan is looking for' or things like 'I heard he is the new wide receiver and like crazy fast.' 'Yeah, maybe that's it.' I was also finally getting the hang of tuning it out of my head.
I was headed to Mr Bergstrom's room for our lunchtime training session dreading every second of it. But the attention I was attracting was even more of a concern and as such I arrived at his class earlier than usual. I got into his classroom and stopped time. "You're too early today," he sighed as if he was planning on finishing some work before I arrived.
"I had to get away from everyone. News travels fast and everyone has something to say about it," I summarised before taking a seat in front of him.
"Today you will learn to meditate," he said.
"Excuse me," I snapped once again today.
"You heard me right," he said while sorting through his papers.
"How is that going to help me? I'm not going to defeat a dark wizard by sitting still," I said.
"You'd be surprised," he said humourlessly with a sad expression, "how about this? You succeed in meditating for two hours today and if you still don't like it after that, then I shall never bring it up again," he said. It hadn't occurred to me that I had a choice in the methods of training that he chose, but something about this lesson told me I had to be attentive.
"Alright," I agreed. I got into a comfortable position and closed my eyes waiting for instructions.
"Keep your intentions in mind. With magic some spells have the same exact approach but the intention behind the can shape the nature of the spell. So you should be focused on only one thing. When you close your eyes, all your other senses become significantly better to compensate for losing sight," with that the professors voice went silent and so did his actions.
For two minutes nothing happened and I had the lingering feeling similar to your eyes adjusting to the lights being switched off. I felt the spot in my gut that I usually felt my magic pouring through open up. Magic began flowing through my body at an alarming rate. It was a good feeling, but for the first time I had no idea why the magic was there. The magic made its way to my skin and pulsed out of my body. My ears were becoming remarkably better at hearing. The magic pulsed out again and again each time I became remarkably aware of my surroundings. The gecko at the ceiling was frozen stalking an unsuspecting insect near the light bulb. At the back window a fly was frozen mid-flight probably about to strike the invisible glass again.
The teacher was using magic to make his movements silent but the more my hearing improved, the more it rendered his magic useless and I could hear his movement perfectly. His pen striking paper whenever he turned over a page.
As time progressed, I began to become aware of what was beyond our classroom walls. I could feel the students that were in the halls. Most of them with the intention of moving towards the cafeteria, a few were looking for teachers to consult. The magic that was sensing them was detecting even their very intentions. At first my mind created a shadowy mental image of what was around me.
I detected movement in one of the halls on the second floor and focused in that area. I couldn't exactly see what was going on, but rather I received signals of movement and sound produced in the area. I had managed to manifest a presence through which I could glide around the halls in as though I had got out my body. I projected the presence in the place I detected movement, but I still couldn't get any more information.
An idea ran across my mind making me smile evilly. I placed my presence into one of the frozen students and connected my magic to him and as I expected, it worked. I only wanted to use the boys eyes so that I could see exactly what was going on. I finally got to see who was moving about in the school. It was none other than Sonia Everglade. She seemed to be walking around aimlessly and waving in front of people's eyes until she came upon two Purgers. She started doing things that she knew she would never get to do in their presence if they weren't frozen. At first she made just silly faces and posed around them. Then she began dancing about them in a really silly way.
I burst into laughter. Little did I know that my laughter was not going to affect my actual body, but instead the body I had taken host in for the purpose of actual sight began to laugh and was also immediately released from my hold on time.
Sonia leaped back at the abrupt outburst. She quickly turned to me or my host in this case. "How are you moving?" she asked.
"Huh, I would ask you the same thing," I began trying to act like someone totally different. I began fabricating a fake story in my mind to tell her if she asked any further questions. I was a magic enforcer who had just found someone moving I the frozen time that Master Kevin had designated for his training and it was my duty to make sure no one was moving at this time. I was about to continue weaving the story when I noticed her squinting at me as though she had noticed something out of the ordinary.
'This girl is getting on my nerves now,' I thought as I could now detect that she was doing something. I just wasn't sure what it was, but it was definitely magic related, that much I could tell.
"Kevin!" she squealed excitedly. 'Just great, what's wrong with this girl?' I mentally screamed.
"Yes," I replied reverting to my bored tone. "You're no fun," I whined feigning disappointment.
"How are you in this guy?"
"Just found out how to do it?" I said.
"Oh, I see. How long is the school going to be frozen?" she asked.
"About two hours. I better get back to training," I said.
"Wait, you can hold time that long?" she asked and I noticed this appeared to shock her.
"Yes I can. By the way, how did you know it was me?" I asked her.
"Oh that. My ring showed me who was talking through that boy," she summarised,
"That ring is over powered," I grumbled before bidding her farewell and getting out of the boy's body. I watched as the body returned to its original position the more I withdrew my consciousness from him.
One thing was for sure, magic was still pulsing out of me and I knew I had barely scratched the surface of what I could while I was seated here. My scope of vision was still confined to the main school building for a while. So I increased my magic output. I needed to see the range of this ability. I began sweating from the effort and slowed down a bit. I shifted my concentration to the edges of my vision and detected a ton of magic damming up. I slowed my breathing to give myself a rhythm. With a slight push, the magic burst through the boundaries of the school building and expanded until the entire school was within my vision. It had been exactly thirty minutes since I began meditating and I knew the time accurately as though my mind was recording it.
I could feel the strain this ability was putting on my mind. But I had to persevere through it. I had a feeling this was why Mr Bergstrom had tasked me to do this for two hours. I waited for my mind to get used to it and it took twenty whole minutes. Even with what I had done I still saw everything in my mind in shades of black and white. With more magic pulsing out of me, the capability to add colour to my mental images became available. Soon enough I could see everything in the school. I refrained from spying on anyone at that moment. I knew that with time my awareness would become sharper, but something still felt odd. I knew I was aware of every thing's position in the school but it also felt like I was totally still, like I had been paralysed.
This was giving me an idea. I brought up an image of the bathrooms in my mind and willed the taps to open and they did so. Just as I had thought, I needed to try something else. I focused on the hallway that was right outside my room and willed a gust of wind to rush through. My suspicions were answered by the sound of doors banging shut and open. This realisation made me see just how dangerous this ability was. If I just decided to move a wall, there would be nothing stopping it from moving. With me in this state, I could just as well bring the whole school down with my mind.
Was this what Bergstrom had wanted me to learn? 'You'd be surprised,' his voice resonated through my mind. He had known the effect of meditating would be this tremendous. What made this even scarier was that all this was done while I was simply seated in Mr Bergstrom's office. I detected a presence on the third floor and manifested my consciousness there. I no longer needed to occupy a body to see and I was stunned seeing the last person I expected to see in the school.