Damien was standing in front of mirror, deep in thought when his attention fell on the red line on his chest. And he moved his hand and his fingers traced along its length. "So, this is the mark of body arts." In his past life, he could not store the essence due to him being born with a weak heart. That was the reason he was sent to the mountain of exile, as he was considered insufficient to live in the kingdom.
As his fingers were tracing the red line, suddenly his eyes opened wide with curiosity and he looked for a flat surface and sat there in the meditation stance. Damien closed his eyes and moved his attention to his heart. There he could finally see thirty-five essence strands revolving around his heart. Each strand of red color. A smile could be seen on his face as he started to control and move these strands.
These essence strands were the indicator of one's power. In the beginning, when one wants to know, which arts should they devote their life to, they are asked to sit in meditation stance and try to consciously bring these strands to heart. When the strands are brought to the heart for the very first time, they would glow in a different color. These colors were associated with the art one should practice. Red color was for the body practitioners, blue color strands meant magic practitioner, green color strands meant healers, bronze color was for the blacksmiths and there were different colors for minor arts like cooking arts, farming arts etc.
There were institutions build for guiding the young art practitioners in every kingdom across the continent. Where they were taught everything from the art, they are practicing to, how to nurture and multiply these strands. Initially everyone's heart could handle about ten strands of essence. As they practiced and strengthened their arts, the strands also strengthened and multiplied.
It takes about fifteen years of practice to take these strands from ten to fifty and people who had less than fifty strands were called amateurs. After fifty strands it takes about ten years to take these strands to hundred and people having less than hundred strands were called trainees. To reach two hundred strands, it takes about 7 years. To reach three hundred, it takes about 5 years and to reach four hundred and five hundred strands it takes about 3 and 1 year each. As strands increased, power also increased and after 200 strands one could practice other arts also, but with less effectiveness.
After 500 strands nobody knew where the next stage was. Because till 500 strands people could feel the power difference between 50 strands and 100 strands. And also because of the noticeable change in the number of chest lines. But there was no change observed when old emperor of Trope, Mason had increased his strands from 500 to 600. Currently he had about 750 strands and still no change in lines. Most surprising thing in all of this was that, it was generally believed that time reduced as one had more strands, but it took Mason 5 years to reach 600 and 10 years to reach from 600 to 700 strands.
Since then, he had given up his throne to his son the current emperor Noah and had gone in seclusion with the goal of finding what lies next. It's been around ten years but he still had not come out of seclusion. It was formerly believed that after 500 strands they would be close to immortality, as essence has also increased the mortality of people. Now people lived up to 200 years. But this thing was only observed in people who had around 350 strands of essence.
After playing around with essence strands, Damien had opened his eyes and once again he went to the mirror and talked to his reflection. "I don't know how this happened, but right now all I feel is gratitude, that this happened. I always wanted to see and fell the essence. Thank you for whatever this situation is." And he looked upwards like in search of something or someone.
"Ayra" he called the maid.
"Yes, Prince" Ayra came inside and waited to hear the Damien's command.
"Bring me something to eat. I am hungry!" his stomach growled.
Hearing that Ayra bowed and left the room to bring some food for Damien.
"No wonder she looked familiar." Damien recalled some fragments of memory from his past life, when he lived in the palace. He was sent to the mountain of the exile at the age of five, when it was revealed that he could not gather essence. Living there, as the years passed, he could not remember much about the time he lived in palace. All he remembered, was some faces and that his mother had died while giving birth to him.
He recalled Ayra because of her resemblance to the head maid Lyra. She had looked after him until he was sent to the mountain and she also had a daughter of the same age as him. Seeing her as a maid was not surprising because more than fifty percent people were branded with the same-colored lines as their parents during first meditation. If someone's parents were body practitioner, chances of children also being body practitioners were high.
If a magic practitioner had children with body practitioner, children often times were initiated in the art of parent who had more strands at the time of conception. Sometimes they also awakened two arts but this added in no further advantage because they had to pick one art and practice it until they gathered 200 strands. Only way one could gain advantage over another was the wealth. The more wealth one gained, easier it was for him to afford a good practitioner of minor arts like cooking and nutrition. With the help of these minor arts, one could reach next stage a year earlier. Otherwise, it might take him more years depending on his capabilities.