Training the body and mind 1

Now Memphis had been able to master how to use magic. One day he was sitting in thought recollecting some of his memories back when he was on Earth. On Earth, He wasn't an exercise maniac like most young guys were because of his situation. Back in the gang, there were a lot of guys obsessed with keeping their body in shape. Memphis recalled a saying in his past world that a sound mind resided in a sound body. Thus, if he wants to become a great Mage, he must train both his body and mind.

For the training of the mind, practicing of meditation would be the sure fire way to train his mind. Also, the constant use of magic and spells served as training for the mind too. Memphis decided to make it a point to always have a two hour meditation session in the morning and a three hour meditation session in the evening, making a total of five hours. He had long noticed that after becoming a Mage, his eyesight, clarity of thought and senses had become stronger than before. He could now sense mana energies in the air.

For the training of the body, Memphis knew that it was a must. Mages mostly had weak bodies so they preferred to stand behind defensive lines to cast their spells but Memphis knew that it was not the best. He wanted to become a well rounded Mage whose body could also be used as a weapon. Unfortunately, modern day exercise equipment didn't exist in Balvan. Memphis knew that he had to go about it the non–machine way.

Memphis woke up around four in the morning. The weather was cold and he was shivering a bit from it. He circulated his mana through his body with a bit of fire magic so as to warm himself. Feeling better he got out of his room and went in to the underground training field.

He decided to begin with a jog around the perimeter to push his training regimen off. The training area was huge, being about the size of a modern football pitch. Thus, going around the field was proving a difficult task for Memphis and he was only able to go halfway before he was on the ground huffing and puffing. "I didn't know my physical strength was so weak," thought Memphis.

This firmed up his resolve to workout his body even more. After a few minutes of rest, he decided to do some basic stretching to relax his muscles. He got up and continued with jumping jacks for about 2 minutes, taking short 30 second breaks after each one. Now it was time for sit ups. "Huff! Huff! ugh," Memphis moaned as he slowly tried to raise his upper body from the ground and into a sitting position. He had to stop at three as he couldn't take it anymore. "This is hard," he blurted out. All those who have worked out before can testify to the fact that the first workouts were the hardest, more so especially for someone as young as Memphis but he persevered. By the time he was done, his body was sore all over.

His aunt Loyce came to check on him as he hadn't been present during breakfast. When she saw him, he was a bit worried and asked, "What's going on?" "Nothing much, aunty. I am doing physical exercises to train my body," replied Memphis.

His aunt nodded and took a look at his state. "Go to your room, I'll bring you food," she commanded. Memphis was too tired to reply and went. Sure enough, his aunty brought him a bit of the breakfast. "Yoi should go easy on yourself. Don't you know that physical exercises are a gradual process and shouldn't be done too extreme during the first workouts? You should rather start slowly and get used to it before you increase the tempo to avoid an incidence like this," cautioned aunt Loyce as she pinched his cheeks and rubbed his hair. "Yes aunty. I'll do that next time," said Memphis. What his aunt had said was very practical but Memphis wanted to push his body to the extreme.

When his aunty had left and he had finished eating, he sat up in a cross legged position to meditate. Closing his eyes, he channelled his mind to focus deeply on his elements, mana and magic in hope of gaining insight and increasing his mana capacity. Slowly he slipped into a trance like state and he found himself standing in a certain space. The space looked plain with nothing around. The only visible thing was a water body that seemed like a small river. "What is this place?" Memphis wondered. He noticed something bright in the distance and went closer to check. There were four balls giving of different colours. The first one was pure white, giving of a calming and soothing feeling. The second one was red, giving an aura of fierceness and domination. The next one was silver coloured and it seemed to resonate with the area as it made the space around it distort and the last one was a brown ball with the footprint of a beast on it.

"These are my elements but why are they here? I will have to ask dad or grandfather after this thought Memphis. He sat down on the ground beside his elements and started to circulate his mana inside him. He then channelled them into his elements and brought it out into his hands. Before he could do anything, the elements hovering in the area absorbed the energy he had pulled out of his body, surprising him.

When he was done with meditation, he rushed to his father's study.

*knock knock*

"Enter," said his father. Memphis entered and found his father cultivating. Cultivation was done by absorbing energy from Energy crystals to increase ones magic and breakthrough to the next level. Memphis had a weekly allowance of such crystals which he used to train. "Oh, Memphis it's you. We missed you during breakfast. Seema like you had quite the workout huh?" said his father with a smile. Memphis smiled sheepishly and told his father what he had experienced. His father's eye went wide.

"Wow. You are really improving fast. Where your meditation took you was your inner space. The inner space is inside your head and it is created when you awaken. That river which was flowing was your mana and those balls were your elements. The inner space is a Mages' special and personal place. You must protect it at all costs because if someone totally destroys your mana space, you will become a cripple. You have to continue training your mind so that when someone tries to infiltrate into your inner space, you can defend your mind and throw the person out," explained his father.

Memphis thanked him and went off thinking about his father's words.