Chapter 3

As instructed by his teacher Percy went to go sit down on the bed. Percy watched as the man took our different herbs mixing them together in a pot. Half a painful hour later Emilio had came back with a purple concoction in a glass cup.

He pushed it in front of Percy's face. "Drink it." Percy grabs the cup, before he even thinks about drinking it he sniffs it. The smell is so repugnant it almost makes him vomit there and then. Percy makes a choking sound, Emilio looks at the boy and shakes his head dissapointingly.

"What the hell is that? Are you sure this is even drinkable." Percy looks up at his teacher with a look that said are you trying to kill me? Emilio sighed loudly while pinching the bridge of his nose. He knew that Percy was going to act like this. So it made it even more difficult to put up with his childlike questions and responses.

"Lesson two, never question your teacher." Percy looks at Emilio with a pleading face. Percy wanted to be trained by Emilio with all his heart. He wanted to grow stronger to take revenge against those who burnt down his village. He had a feeling that those monsters were not be just alone it seemed like they were following orders of some kind.

So he had to do what he had to do, for the sake of getting revenge. Percy looks at the cup then at Emilio, then at the cup again. The boy grits his teeth before he downs the whole concoction.

Liquid fire. That's what the drink felt like when it flowed down Percy's throat. The drink tasted even worse, like stale bread and expired milk. "Gah!" Emilio watches in amusement as the kid tries not to puke the concoction back up.

Almost instantly the feeling of liquid fire spread across Percy's body. It travels from his throat to the part of his arm that was broken. The pain lessens a considerable amount making the movement of his arm almost bearable.

"What the hell did I drink?!"

Emilio crosses his arms and sits on a chair. "It's a drink to make you heal faster. That arm will probably heal in less than a month rather than the three months it would have taken it to heal without the drink."

Percy lifts up the cup right in front of eyes. He looks at the cup intently probably wondering how something so disgusting could do that. "So what now?" Percy puts the cup down. He looks at Emilio with a serious look on his face.

"Now I will teach you about the three constants of the universe." Emilio holds up his index finger. "Matter." Then his middle finger comes up. "Energy." The last finger, the ring finger goes up as well. "Anima."

"Anima?" That word catches the boys attention so he leans forward eager to listen. "What's Anima?"

" There is no real way to explain it, because we can only comprehend so much of it. Maybe its like matter and energy mixed? Anyway, Anima is present in anything though there is reactive and unreactive Anima. Those two are subcatagories from the three main types of Anima. Saecula, Humanum, and Infirma. The first type is Infirma, it the most vast of the two but is unreactive. It is inside everything like air, water, earth, glass, and animals. Saecula is the type that Gods have-"

"What?!" Percy loudly interrupts the man. "What do you mean by gods? Isn't there just one God?"

"There are many gods like Hindu, Egyptian, Persian, Greek, etcetera. There was at one point just one god but we'll get back to that later." Percy nods his head in understanding. "As I was saying, Saecula is the type that gods have. It is an infinite type of Anima, it can not burn out. I will explain this after I tell you the last type. The third type of Anima is called Humanum, it is what identifies us as human. See, we have a soul, and that soul is made of Anima. But because that anima is limited it can burn out so your soul creates a type of container in your body."

Emilio takes a deep breath then shifts into a more comfortable position. He sees that Percy is actually trying to comprehend what he's saying. Good, very good Percy. You will need to remember this for later, because I will not let you read the book.

"This container in your body is called an Anima core. All of the Infirma Anima that goes into the body goes through the Anima core to be converted into Humanum. I don't know the specifics on how the core does this, because there is no way to actually study the core without killing and destroying a persons body. Saecula is the opposite, because a god does not really have a body per say. The god manifests itself by making a " body" just like ours but since they can change it; it really has no definite shape. Since the Saecula is so dense there is no way it can burn out, unlike the Humanum. If a person would to become a god the process would be very painful. Because the soul itself would change its composition."

Percy's eyes widen at the fact. "So gods can't die?" Emilio snorts, he had already known the boy would ask that type of question. "They can fade. But that is quite difficult to do, you would have to destroy their soul."

"But you said they didn't have one." Emilio shakes his head. "No, I said they didn't really have a " body but I never said they didn't have a soul. Their soul is the one that makes the body, it is like a never ending torch. And the reason Saecula is so different from the other two is because it has another separate form from the soul. This one is called Deus, it is the godly power of a god. Like Poseidon has sea Deus, that makes him directly manipulate the sea. Or Thor that has thunder Deus that let's him control thunder and so on and so forth. Deus also surrounds the gods body making it easy to identify who is who. It is the only Anima that can be stolen, gods can steal other gods Deus or a human can. So you can practically steal their powers."

"Where did this all come from? And what does this have to do with the eye thingy you can do?" Percy can no longer contain his enthusiasm. He wants to barrage Emilio with questions but decides to ask one or two questions at a time.

"When Alexander the Great had conquered Egypt he was offered many riches. In those riches was a book that the Egyptians translated just three pages of it. They knew it was old but from what they read from it they thought it was useless. Alexander brought it back to Greece so they could translate it. After many years of they had only managed to translate 4 pages. In those pages it had explained Anima, but before they could properly name the universal substance it was stolen by some Romans. Ironically it came into the hands of Constantine the Great. Roman philosophers let Constantine name the universal substance that is Anima. They had mistranslated though because the Greeks had described Anima as the soul and wasn't what made up the soul. So with that in mind Constantine named the substance Anima thinking that it was the soul."

Percy scratched his head confused on what this book was. Emilio looked at him and chuckled, he knew the boy was trying hard. But he knew that it might be hard to understand everything that he had just told Percy.

"Concerning the technique I use it's called Eternal Vision. It inables me to see all of the Anima in a type of aura from the world. Every type of Anima changed into aura has a different color, Infirma has a dull color. Saecula has as super bright color. Humanum into aura is a light color, but is unique to all individuals just like Saecula. According to the person who taught me this technique there will be a one in a million chance that you will be able to see Anima in its purest form. The Eternal Vision conforms to your imagination in a way, making it easy for you to understand what you are seeing."

Percy opens his mouth wanting to say something but is interrupted by Emilio. "I believe I know what you are wondering. Where did that book come from? Well according to the Egyptians, it was written by the first god to describe how he made everything. But what's even more astounding is that it descibes the first being he made. But the Egyptians only speculated this because of some drawings that the book had, because they didn't translate all of it to be one hundred percent certain."

"So what can Anima be used for?"

"Anima is the basis for Mana, Magic, Ki, Aura, Superpowers, Sorcery, etcetera. Humanum is the only type of Anima that can be used in those sorts of ways. Since Saecula has godly power and Infirma is unreactive humans found a way to weaponize Anima. So they trained and developed all of these abilities. Superpowers are the only ones that are different it is due to a mutation in Anima in the body giving the person some type of power."

"Hmm." Percy rubs his chin quizzicaly. He starts to tap his finger on his arm. "So what I did was an Anima thing?"

"No."

At this point Percy was even more confused. He wanted to scream at Emilio, questioning him on what that weird ability is.

"We'll talk about it tomorrow, you need to get to sleep." The boy hadn't noticed that outside the cave the sun had already gone done. The cave was supposed to be dark but was illuminated by the floating lights. Percy sighs loudly then nods his head.

Emilio gets up from the chairs and walks deeper into the cave. Percy lays down on the bed fave up, he carefully puts his broken arm on the bed. Then he pulls the sheets over his body. I guess until tomorrow.

Light shined in Percy's eyes. He felt the bed under him but it felt harder then yesterday. He pulled at the bed only to grab a hanful of something wet. His eyes quickly shoot open he looks to his side seeing grass next to him.

Percy looks up at the sun. Shouldn't I be inside the cave. Something hits the bottom of his left foot. "Get up." A familiar voice says in a serious tone. The boy looks towards the sound of the voice. A half naked Emilio is looking down on him.

Percy raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything. Putting his weight on his left arm he gets up. He reluctantly walks a few steps towards the half naked man. "So why am I outside?" Emilio doesn't answer immediately so Percy takes in the view.

Giant green trees as far as the eye can see. Lush green grass all over the ground. Slight rustles in some bushes give off the location of some forest critters. Percy had been to the forest before but this was totally different. The trees, grass, even the smell was ten times better than he had ever encountered before.

He immediately knew that this was far from his hometown. This place was nothing like the forest he's been to. "Follow me Perseus." Emilio began to walk into the dense forest. "Wait didn't you call me Percy yesterday?"

Emilio didn't turn around to answer his question."Yeah, I thought that Percy would be better than to call you Perseus. Perseus sounds to formal." They walk in silence until they arrive at a clearing. The clearing was filled with things. Dumbbells and gym equipment was scattered on the ground.

A spear and an axe were buried in the ground. 10 feet tall tree trunks with what looks to be scratch marks on it are standing vertically. A table filled with knifes was in the middle of the clearing. A few feet in front of it was a target with small holes on it.

"So what's up? Are you going to tell me what my ability is?" Percy asks with slight anxiety in his voice.

"No, we need to get training. If you want to get strong we need to start immediately." Percy grit his teeth. He wanted to voice his thoughts but decided that he was right. They needed to get started already so he can get strong as fast as he could.

"We will work on your stamina and reflexes." Emilio walked up to the table in the middle of the field. Suddenly a shiny object went straight past Percy sticking itself into the target. A stinging sensation can be felt by Percy on his cheek. He puts his finger on his cheek and checks the warm substance.

Crimson liquid. Whatever Emilio threw managed to graze Percy's cheek making a small cut. "What the hell?!" Emilio narrows his eyes at the boy. "What? Did you expect me to baby you and teach you as if you were a defenless kid. Well tough luck, that's not how it is."

5 knives suddenly appear on Emilios right hand. "If you don't dodge these, I won't promise that you will leave this clearing alive. Percy gulps loudly, then gets into a ready position.

"Alright then let's get started."

3 Months Later...

Sweat dripped of the body. The sound of metal cutting through air wisped by. Labored breathing revealed the stress on muscles. Clink! Clank!

Sounds of metal hitting against metal resonated loudly. Light and fast footsteps sounded as if someone was dancing. "You've gotten good Percy." A soft chuckle emanates from a boys chest. "You ain't seen nothing yet. The boy propels himself towards the shirtless man.

He swings a large broadswoard at the mans neck. The man ducks, then he spins and thrusts his rapier towards Percy's chest. All of a sudden a knife intercepted the strike. A huge grin appeared on the Emilio's face obviously pleased by the block.

Percy smirked then flicked his hand. Four knives shot out towards Emilio at lightning fast speed. The man dodged all of them perfectly. Running towards Emilio, Percy threw the knife in his hand. Using as a distraction he managed to get in close.

Before Percy could do anything Emilio had dissapeared. As soon as he tired to look for the man a blade had been pressed against his neck. "Fuck! I weild." The blade was taken off Percy's neck.

"You got better with your psychic power." Emilio said stating the obvious. "Obviously, you didn't tell me anything about it so I had figure it out on my own." Percy glares at Emilio, not happy with his ways of teaching.

Percy had to experiment with his power for 2 whole months before he even had a bit of control. At first he thought that his power was only limited to making objects to explode. But to his surprise it was easier when he moved things with his mind. Of course he could do other things like control lightning to a degree, fire, and water.

With this he realized it was more of a manipulation of matter and energy then anything else. "I knew that it wasn't an Anima type ability, so I had to let you try to figure it out. It would have been impossible for to train you in that aspect because I don't use that type of ability nor do I have extensive knowledge on it." Emilio had a point, he was well versed in anything that regarded Anima but Percy's power was out of his ball park.

"Well what now? I've managed to pass your tests, what is their to learn?" This was true Percy had completed all of the archery, swordsmanship, hand-to-hand combat torture, and strategic tests that Emilio made for him. He managed to pass all except strategy with flying colors. Percy was a more act first ask questions later so it made it harder for him to think strategically.

"I'm going to teach you Anima manipulation." Emilio reached into his pocket and took out a black ring with red lines going through it. He flicked it at Percy, the boy managed to catch it and began to inspect the object.

"What's this for?" Percy asked not taking his eyes of the ring. Emilio watched as Percy hesitantly put it on his left middle finger. "I didn't tell you to put it one." Percy looked up at Emilio giving him a sheepish grin. He laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck.

Percy pulled on the ring. For some reason it stayed stuck on Percys finger. "What the hell?!" He pulled once, twice, and three times. Emilio stood their with an empassive look on his face watching the whole ordeal.

"You can't take it off without the magic word." Percy sweatdropped and sighed loudly. "Ok, what the heck is this thing?" Emilio walked up the boy and flicked him on the forehead. Percy's head flew back from the strong flick.

"That's for doing something without my permission." Percy began to curse under his breath while glaring at Emilio. "That is sort of a limiter. It helps you to control the use of Anima, because in your case if you unleashed your Anima you would probably blow up into little pieces."

Percy imagined himself blow up like a balloon, then POP! Thousands of Percy pieces scatter all of over the place. The kid shuddered at the mental image. "I will only teach you two moves. They are the only moves that I know that you use just Anima itself, but you can convert it into magic, kid, aura, etcetera if you want."

Percy waited patiently for Emilio to demonstrate the technique something that had happened many times before. Emilio closed his eyes, then after a second he opened his eyes revealing two neon green orbs. "This is eternal vision. Just like how I showed you the first time we met, it is to view the world around you in a different manner. It changes to your affinity, for example since I encountered Aura a long time ago when I first used Eternal Vision it changed into a Aura type view."

Emilio closed his eyes, and again opened them but this time his eyes were their regular color. "OK, try to feel a force within you. Then make it travel from inside you to your eyes." Percy nodded his head. The boy closed his eyes then concentrated. He began to breath deeply and focus on that "force" that Emilio talked about.

Suddenly Percy felt a spark light up in the middle of his chest close to his heart. I can feel it. With double the concentration he made that spark grow larger until it was all over him. The ring on his finger began to pulse a deep red. The ring was keeping Percy's Anima at bay, but even so the intense Anima started spilling out.

Percy made the "force" travel all over his body until it stopped at his eyes. He then hesitantly opened his eyes. "Woah!" The sight was amazing. Thousands of different colors flowed constantly around everything and everywhere.

The air itself had stream of white light with tiny light blueorbs in it. The ground under his feet was brown and green with multiple orbs of the same color floating into the air. Everthing was so breathtaking that Percy forgot to breath for a few seconds.

He turned around towards Emilio. Hi body was just like in the cartoons where you see the outline of a person and the rest of them is black. A green light was all over the outline of a body, tiny orbs of light green light flew up into the air. Something caught the eye of Percy in the outline of Emilios body, a small flicker of something like a white flame. Percy narrowed his eyes and focused on the spot where he saw the flicker.

Then a pure white flame had appeared. The flame stayed relatively the same size but was bright as the sun. Percy saw something else and looked lower, a white orb surrounded by a light green hue was pulsing slightly.

"That must be the soul and Anima core." Percy said loudly. The comment suprised Emilio, the fact that Percy could see Anima itself was amazing to the man. Percy looked around in awe, this was something he wished he could see forever. He blink a few times before the lights dissapeared and his vision became normal again.

"What happened?" Percy looked at Emilio with a flabbergasted look on his face. "Did you really think you could hold that move for more than 5 mins without training yourself?" The boy knew that Emilio made sense he delusioned himself that just because he had passed the tests already that there was no real effort to use Anima.

Percy sighed loudly and ran his fingers through his hair. "Alright I'll train, now show me the next technique." Emilio dissapeared from Percy's view, a sudden tap on his shoulder made him jolt upward. "I hate when you do that." Percy could feel Emilio smirking at the back of the his head. "This is Spectre, a high speed technique that makes your body move ten times faster than it usually would."

"So I just become faster?" Emilio looked at Percy then pinched the bridge of his nose. "Wasn't that what I just said?" But the man was confused, Percy had appearantly dissapeared because he was no longer in front of him. In a matter of seconds Emilio was thrown on the ground by an unforeseen force. "I got you." Percy's cocky voice said above him.

Almost immediately Emilio had gotten up and drilled his fist into Percy's abdomen. "Gah!" Percy bent down cluching his stomach at the same time. "Don't ever do that, I might've killed you if not for knowing that you were the one that dropped me."

"This was easier than I thought. Actually both of the techniques seemed too easy." Emilio scoffed. "Naturally. Think back brat, what have we done?" Percy tapped his chin in a thinking manner. "I have trained you both mentally and physically. This was so the techniques I taught were easier to perform. You have learned to asses situations and try to think clearly. That's why you immediately tried to meditate when you activated eternal Vision. If I had taught you these techniques at the beginning your body wouldn't had been able to put up with it. According to how you were three months ago I would say right now you should be in a two week coma."

Percy rubbed his chin. "I see. Or maybe its because I'm so awesome that I managed to do the techniques." Right after saying that Percy's body gave in. The boy's body felt like jelly making him fall onto his knees then on his face. Unable to move he laid on the forest ground with his body sprawled. His chin was rested on a piece of hard wood, his eyes were looking directly at Emilio's boots.

"Why can't I move my body?" Emilio rolled his eyes at the dumb question. "Didn't I tell you that the techniques I just taught you put a strain on your body? I told you that you should be in a coma but you're not, so not being able to move for a couple of hours is the next best thing."

Emilio turned around and began to walk into the forest. "Wait were are you going?" Percy said half yelling. "I'm going to come back in a couple of hours obviously."

"Don't you dare! You can't just leave me here!"

"..."

"Damn you!"

2 hours later a woozy Percy managed to get up from the ground. He shook off everything that got stuck to his clothes. Wood, grass, and dried up bird poo fell off his shirt. Percy began to curse loudly as he began to stretch. Joints popped as Percy pulled his right arm.

"OK." Percy got up then walked up to the rack of swords. He picked up a large two-handed broadsword, turning around he began to swing it rhythmically. "One...Two...Three..." As the minutes went on the boys body started to burn. His muscles flexed at full force from the massive sword.

After another hundred swings he dropped the swords with a loud thud. He dropped down then started to do push ups. The boy didn't notice that the forest had gotten very quiet. Too quiet. Something eerie started to emanate from the woods.

A knife flew out of the forest into the clearing straight at Percy. In a split second he managed to throw himself to the side dodging the knife. Percy stood up in a defensive stance on full alert. Five more large knifes shot out towards Percy, the boy picked up the large sword then swiped the knifes out of the air.

Silence. The air was still and tense. Percy scanned the part of the forest where the knifes came from. His sense were at their peak he watched and listen intently. Three robed figures all of a sudden walked into the clearing. Percy's face scrunched up while scanning the figures.

"That was good." The figure on the left said. The figures voice sounded high and smooth like a women's. "Mediocre at best." The figure on the left side said. This figures voice was very deep and menacing like a male wrestlers voice. "Boy where is the defector?" The figure in the middle also had a mans voice.

Percy was confused, he didn't know anybody named defector. Honestly he didn't care at this point he knew that fighting these people was inevitable. Percy's body shock with fear and excitement. Fear of getting in an actual life and death fight, excitement from actually being able to fight with his life at stake.

"It seems he cannot understand or he doesn't want to answer. Kill him." The figure in the middle said. Percy stayed still, he watched all of the figures without blinking. A sudden movement triggered everything. The women voiced person shot forwards toward Percy. In a matter of seconds the figure was right in front of the surprised Percy.

A roman short sword shot out from the hooded person's sleeve. The boy ducked under the stab then swung his sword upward. Twang! Surprisingly the figure was fast enough to stop the massive sword. Percy's eyes widen at the sight, he could not believe that a person was strong enough to stop such a huge sword with a tiny blade.

A searing pain quickly enveloped his chest. Wamn liquid stated to pour down his chest staining his shirt. Percy didn't need to look down to know that somehow the figure moved faster than he could see and slashed his chest.

The boy dropped down to his knees. Clutching his wound he looked up at the person, said person pointed the short sword close to Percy's neck. Moving the blade forward the tip began to cut into his jugular opening up another wound on his body. "I thought you would've lasted longer." The wrestler sounding figure began to laugh loudly. "He's just a boy, cut him some slack."

"You're disgusting." The feminine sounding person spat out with venom. The wrestler laughed once more before staying quiet once again. The "women" turned around, suddenly Percy dissapeared from in front of the person.

A whooshing sound followed by a blade piercing through the figures chest. "H-How?" Coughing loudly the person began to spit out blood. Percy pulled the sword out of the chest then kicked the person into the ground.

"Alright who's next?" Both of the other people wear slightly surprised. They didn't expect the boy in front of them to move that quickly and take down the comrade. "Guess it's my turn." The wrestler sounding figure cracked both its neck and knuckles. In a blink of an eye a giant war hammer was slung over his shoulder.

The figure proceeded towards Percy in a slow manner. Both of the warriors squared off they stood in front of each other sizing each other up. The difference in their appearance was evident the figure was a towering 6' 3" and Percy was a small 4' 7". The "man" began to slightly chuckle then pulling his arm back he put the hammer behind him. At an inhuman speed the hammer came barreling towards Percy. He barely managed to parry the swing before another swing came at him. The swing was so strong that it had almost made Percy let go off his sword.

The boy jumped back managing to dodge the blow. Unfortunaltly the force behind it pushed him back knocking him on his butt. What the hell is this guy?! He's so strong! Percy sidestepped dodging once again. He swung his sword right at the "mans" head. At the same time the person put his hand out. To Percy's horror the person managed to stop the massive sword with his bare hand.

The figure pulled the sword out of Percy's hand and kicked him away. The boy was sent flying, his body didn't stop until he hit a tree. Everywhere was aching, his wound was starting to affect him even more. His vision started to get blurry and small black dots appeared in his view. The figure walked slowly swinging its hammer.

A slight glint of something shiny caught Percy's eye. Looking at the object Percy formulated a plan. Percy got up slowly, heavily breathing he stood still staring down his assailant. He started to run towards the person. The "man" grinned under the hood. Once a foot away the figure swung its hammer towards Percy. The boy dropped down and slid between the wrestlers legs.

Picking up the knifes that were on the ground Percy sliced the leg of the person. The wrestler grunted in pain as he fell to one knee. Then Percy took the knife in his other hand and slit the persons throat killing him instantly.

"Those two were stupid. They underestimated you, but I will be different." A hand wrapped around Percys neck lifting him up into the air. The boy began to lose oxygen into his lungs. The last person clutched the arm that was holding the sword and broke it. Percy shouted in pain, what the fuck! Another broken arm!

As his consciousness faded Percy could only see as the person watched him Percy drift into an eternal sleep.