Chapter 200

200 I Don’t Have A Choice

(Tom’s PoV)

Don’t tell me...

Did she drop it somewhere during the fight?

Her anxious expression then changed into a big grin. “I kept it in my bag.” She giggled.

I had a dumbfounded expression on my face, I was sure of that even though I couldn’t see it. Had she just tricked me? She still had the energy to do that?

I wasn’t the only one, though. Sanjaya had that look on his face, too. Well, seeing his dumbfounded look made me realized that my own dumbfounded look wouldn’t be better than him.

“Both of you should take a look at your expression in the mirror. Ahahaha....” Jane’s small giggled turned into laughter. Because she was too deep into her laughter, she forgot about her injuries.

Soon, she hissed in pain and as much as I loved her, seeing her like that after pranking me -us, I mean -made me smirked.

“Now you remember you’re injured? Rest well.” I rubbed her head before I went out from her room. Sanjaya also said goodbye to her and left her room.

.....

Outside her door, we exchanged glances. Without facing the mirror I knew that our expression had darkened at the same time.

She got hurt. If only we were stronger, this wouldn’t happen. Even when she played prank on us, we could track her down and save her before something like this happened again. It was a shame on us that we failed to protect her.

Personally, I was hoping that those injuries would not leave scars on her fair skin. It would be such a shame to see her fair skin had such an ugly scar.

No words needed to be spoken for we both had the same thoughts; train and train more. We needed to learn everything we could within a short span of time. Since we would be stuck here for the next two days, we would try our best to learn from Siji.

In the next hour, the house that we were living in was filled with the Elders and doctors. Sir Ahmad came the earliest with pale face and cold sweat on his face. Trailing behind him was a female doctor who looked humble and kind. To be honest, if she didn’t carry a first aid kit in her hand, I wouldn’t know she was a doctor. After all, she really didn’t look like one.

“Hey, do you know her?” I whispered at Sanjaya who was standing close by.

Sanjaya had a frown on his face but he shook his head. “I found her familiar, but I can’t remember. Maybe I’m wrong.”

It was too bad there was no signal here, otherwise we would have searched about this doctor and found out about her in less than an hour.

However, even though she didn’t look like a doctor, she really did her job meticulously. She was so calm and her sharp eyes had a professional glint in them. She looked different when she had just entered the house and when she started to check on Jane.

Maybe she really was a real doctor. Since there were some famous and talented people here, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were really a doctor. Maybe it was because her humble and low-profile attitude as well as her loyalty and submissive trait covered her talent and aura as a doctor. Maybe she might just have ordinary face. There were many factors that could make her didn’t look like one.

Anyway, that was not my business. If Sir Ahmad brought her here, it meant she had some skills.

However, minutes after that, several Elders came with some doctors; traditional and modern ones. I could only look at them discussing about the health of the ‘princess’ and how they would take turn to nurse her back to health.

Well, since her injuries were somehow bad, both Sanjaya or I didn’t have any complaints when they told us their plans. If Jane only got fever, we had ways to nurse her back to health, but dealing with flesh injuries were not our specialty. We might as well let the experts do their job.

As long as she could be as healthy as she was before, we would not interfere with it. We even ignored her pleading look when she was examined by those doctors. Our only hope was for them to be able to heal the injuries without leaving a scar.

After letting Sir Ahmad took control of the situation, we went to train ourselves. It was such a good thing that Siji didn’t really need to sleep. That way he could always be ready when we needed them.

We trained ourselves hard and Siji seemed to increase the difficulty in each training that we were doing. Physical training almost made me lost my breath, but I persisted through it. Even when I could only take short breaths while my energy was drained from my body, I wouldn’t give up. While physical training made me almost lost my breath, spiritual training almost made me crazy. My favorite was when I was taught how to recognize my own spiritual power and used it to my advantage.

It wasn’t easy. Truly wasn’t easy. But based on what Siji told us, Jane could grasp it faster than we did. As expected of my girlfriend!

“What are you smiling so smugly of?” Sanjaya eyed me with a frown on his face.

Only then I realized that I had been proudly grinning like a proud father hearing about his daughter’s achievements. Oh, whatever.

“Well, let’s do it again. This will be your twentieth attempt in recognizing both of your spiritual power. Even if you can’t identify other’s spiritual power, at least you have to know about your own well. Remember, you need to be one with the nature and yourself for you to be able to see it. Leave the worldly affairs behind your mind and start focusing on the universe. Feel the flow, see deeper inside...”

Siji guided us as we closed our eyes and fell deep into our meditation. His voice was getting further and further away, or it could be the other way around. It was my twentieth attempt in doing this routine. I had got used to it but still I couldn’t find the shape of my spiritual power.

Maybe this time I could find it.

I fell deeper into a bottomless darkness. My body swayed here and there and I couldn’t see anything. Where was I?

This feeling was different with my first attempt. I fell asleep at that time. I saw darkness and after that I was shaken by Siji to wake up. This time, however, it gave me different sensation.

This time, I could clearly feel that I was still sober. I wasn’t sleeping but I wasn’t sure either. I was well aware of what I was feeling from head to toes.

But, where was I?

I was still thinking when I finally saw a small light trying to penetrate the darkness and shone brighter and brighter to the point it lit up my whole surrounding.

As soon as I saw the place around me, my floating body was dropped down harshly only to be caught on some white strings like that appeared out of nowhere. Since they were so thin, I broke it and some others after that and fell flat on my ass on the ground.

“Ouch...” I grunted in pain. Pushing myself to stand up, I rubbed the painful area to soothe the pain. Even though the pain didn’t disappear completely, at least it wouldn’t be an issue later when I sat on a chair.

I looked up to inspect the thin strings like things floating in the air and around me. It came into several lengths. There were super long strings, around five meters long strings, and even one meter to fifty centimeters long strings. What were these?

I tried to touch them but my hand went through it. Also, where was I?

“You’re in your consciousness and those are your spiritual power. Now that you finally reached this level, come out so I can explain more to you.” I heard Siji’s voice echoing in this place he called ‘my consciousness’.

As soon as I heard him saying that, I was pulled by a strong force and by the time I opened my eyes again, Siji had stood in front of me -us, I mean.

“Congratulations! Now, tell me, what is the form of your spiritual power and what is the shape of it?”

“I’m not sure. I think it was grey and looked like thin strings.” Sanjaya answered with a frown on his face.

Thin string? “Mine is white, and looked like thin strings, too.” I looked at Siji, secretly hoping that he would properly explain about it to us.

“That’s a good form of spiritual power.” Siji nodded, much to my disappointment.

“Now get inside again and learn how to manipulate your power to be more useful to you. Don’t come out if you haven’t made any progress inside.” Siji waved his hand nonchalantly.

Damn him! I was waiting for more explanation, you know? However, he had gone before I could complaint, saying that he needed to finish some urgent business and would be back later to see at our progress.

“Well, I don’t have a choice.” I closed my eyes again and focused myself to enter my consciousness again. It was better and faster this time.

I stood there, watched those thin strings floating here and there. What did Siji mean by manipulating the power to my demand? How could I manipulate this kind of shape?

_________

[Intermezzo break]

Author: Hello, dear readers, shameless author is here again! Tonight we have another guest to accompany your night interview. Please, welcome to Thomas Putra Alamsyah!

Tom: Do you need something from me?

Author: Oh please, your current attitude has not even appeared in the story, what are you doing giving me this kind of attitude? *rolled eyes

Tom: *glare at the author

Author: Fine. I just want to ask you a question. Can I make a side story about you and Sanji doing... ehem, you know...

Tom: Are you tired of living?

Author: Jane won’t mind, you know.

Tom: *summon his chains.

Author: *run away

Tom: Just wait till I see you, damn author! I’ll tie you up and throw you into Death Volcano! *stand up and leave the studio.

Author: (whispering) is he gone? Phew, he is getting scarier and scarier as the time passes. It seems like there will be no side story about that. Well then, we will stop here. See you next time!