The next day, even after a good night's rest, my body was still aching as I made my way to the dining area for breakfast.
When my parents, came for breakfast, Mum was glowing, while Dad looked haggard. Poor dad, Mum did not let him sleep last night, luckily I was too tired and fell asleep early.
While me and my grandparents knew what happened last night to make my dad lose out on sleep, that being angry sex, Charlotte innocently and energetically greeted Mum and Dad.
"Good Morning Mummy! Good Morning Daddy!" Charlotte said while waving.
"Good morning sweetheart." Mum replied with a smile while Dad replied with a groan of acknowledgment, which was swiftly followed by a swift hidden pinch from Mum.
That pinch perked Dad right up and he greeted his daughter properly "Good morning sweet peach."
"Daddy, why are you so tired?" Charlotte asked, but instead of Dad answering, Mum who still had a pinch hold on Dad answered, "Daddy is just tired from training with your big brother yesterday, Right Dear?" Mum said as she emphasized the 'Right Dear' to Dad while twisting the pinch.
Being the wise man that he is, Dad readily agreed with whatever Mum said as they sat down for breakfast.
After breakfast, Grandpa came along with me to the training ground to be on standby for healing. I met Dad at the training ground again but instead of the expected training, Dad was sitting cross-legged and asked me to join him.
After sitting facing him, I asked, "So what training are we doing today?"
Dad simply shook his head, "We will not be doing that training today, from yesterday's performance, you have demonstrated that your body's fitness is beyond anyone I have seen at your age, so I think your body is ready to safely attempt to train your aura."
My face brightens up with a smile, I will finally get to properly train my aura, and if I manage to have proper mastery of it, I no longer have to worry about my aura eating me alive.
"So how do we start?" I ask Dad excitedly.
"Well first things first, close your eyes and clear your mind." Dad instructed and I readily obeyed.
After a while of me taking a few calming breaths, he continued "Do you remember the exercise I taught you last time when we were trying to deprive your aura of energy?" I nodded in response, "Practice it now, shut off the supply of stamina energy, let your body feel weak, and then let the stamina energy refill your body again. Do it 10 times, let me know when you are done."
I did as instructed while pondering why the exercise to shut off my stamina energy did not work until I was forced to fully unleash my aura during the assassination attempt.
My current untested theory is that when Dad injected his aura into my body to dispel my aura when I was a baby, it was like a complex machine was improperly shutdown, leaving a leak of stamina energy to supply the still burning aura, and the way it was fixed was me releasing my aura and using the exercise dad taught me to do a "Proper Shutdown" of my supply of stamina energy.
When I was done with the exercise of turning off my supply of stamina energy within my own body, Dad sat closer to me and put his index and middle finger to my chest, "I am sure you know how to activate your aura, you may not remember it, but you did it as a baby. But just in case monitor the mana in my body."
Within Dad's body, a spark of mana ignited and what I know as his stamina energy flared into aura, after a few seconds, the vigorous flow was cut off and the aura was quickly brunt off.
Dad asked if I saw all that and I acknowledged with a nod. "Good, now it is your turn to try, after you ignite your aura, count to 5 and off it, if you don't off your aura by the count of 10 I will dispel your aura, and it will hurt."
I took a final deep breath and held it as I created the spark of aura and my stamina energy ignited. A familiar hot power flowed through my body, the euphoria of power almost made me forget to start the count, but luckily I quickly got my shit together and started mentally counting.
After the count to 5, I released my held breath and took in another deep breath to perform the exercise to off the flow of stamina energy.
By the count of 7, I felt the flow of stamina energy shut off and the aura in my body quickly burning out. The stamina energy remaining in my body was burnt through so quickly that I failed to catch myself and leaned into Dad's fingers touching the center of my chest.
Only when I was confident all the aura in my body was exhausted did I dare to let stamina energy refill my body.
"Well done son. Now it is time to practice. If you want to use aura effectively during combat, you will need to get the timing down. If you get the timing of releasing and shutting off your stamina energy, you will barely feel the weakness from having your body drained of its strength. So get to it, I will be here just in case." Dad said as he nodded to Grandpa and Grandpa took his leave.
"So there is no other exercise today? I just need to get the timing of deactivating my aura?" I asked.
"Yes, that is the only training for today." Dad replied.
Well, easy day! All I need to do is sit on my butt and get the timing of flexing my internal muscles, EZ.
Or so I thought.
By the time lunch came around, I lying on the ground panting with a stomach growling with hunger. I did not do any strenuous activity, but the feeling of weakness that flows through me whenever I release my stamina energy too late piles up over the many attempts leaving me feeling lethargic. And if I release my stamina energy too early, the newly released stamina energy will come in contact with the aura still active in my body and ignite all over again.
Seeing that I was too weak to move, Dad said, "Alright, this looks like all the training we are getting done for now." Dad slings me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and hands me over to the maids to get me washed up and ready for lunch.
As the maids are carrying my lethargic body away, Dad gives me a final training instruction for the day, "Do the same aura training before while you are in bed, it will help you fall asleep faster."
I could only groan in response. This training is more tiring than I thought, but I have to remind myself that this is all for my freedom to see the wider world without the fear of my aura going out of control.