The gate in front of me, or which I sensed to be in front of me looked majestic, ancient and it was giving me quite the strange vibes, it was currently opened wide and in this realm of darkness, only it seemed to be releasing some kind of light into this dim place .
The last time I didn't witness how it was open, I woke up and Lido was the one who informed me about how I had successfully opened it, as for how the process of opening it normally worked, he didn't say, seeing it in front of me, I understood why he kept on praising it .
Just standing near it, made my heart or at least I believe that what I sense pounding in this weird space was my heart, I also felt a chill like feeling down my spine as I thought about what I will need to do in order to master the first chapter of the Mind Nourishing Method .
Even though Lido hadn't give me the slightest idea about how to open that gate or even close it, the instructions was quite clear in the method I'm using, first I will need to re-establish a connection with the bronze gate in front me using my Mental Energy .
The first thing I needed to do was to re-establish a new connection with the gate through the use of mental energy, but here was the thing, my mental energy currently and even though they were swirling around me, there was no longer the distinctive familiar feeling between us .
I felt as if the Mental Energy around me no longer recognized me as its owner, which first give me a startle, then as I got startled, I was forced out of meditation like state and the next thing I know, I was back to the familiar yet unfamiliar room, my connection with my mental energy was once again re-established .
This was my first time doing such a thing as practice and I was already starting to miss the leveling system I had before, the problem with practicing is that even if a slight were to occurred, I would never know how much of a damage it might be able to cause due to the fact that I had no clue about how I should even be going around with it to start with, all my experience regarding practice and learning stemed from the time I spent in practicing Kendo back in my old world .
But there was no comparison now between the two, the consequences of failing to succeed in keeping my breathing steady and that state I was in, could be summarized in the current difficulty of breathing that I was now suffering from, my breaths was no longer as long as before .
They have become quite short and my breathing was now even accompanied by a strong coughs, but that wasn't all, my body felt a bit sore as well, as if it had went through a tough battle just now, my mental energy was consumed even though I didn't touched it, or it's more accurate to say that I wasn't even able to touch it, yet it was still consumed .
The third of my mental energy was already consumed, due to many factors like how it hadn't recovered completely from using so much of it already and with this experiment, the third was already missing and I have yet to even take the first step .
I find myself a bit depressed at this, I didn't expect myself to be a genius who could pull something like mastering the first chapter in a one single try, but I also didn't expect that my first try would still fail so miserably like this, it was a bit daunting.
How depressed I was currently seemed to be one of the consequences of failing as well, being depressed at failing once was one thing, but feeling so depressed like I no longer deserve any kind of happiness or to live even, was another level of depression .
Luckily the depression that came with my failure was a short-lived one, after a few seconds I came out of it, but my current predicament was whether to jump back into that state and try again or should I call it a day and focus on other things for now, like the Mana Refining Methods I have on hand .
Maybe even inspecting the weird Northern Devouring Star method that I still had no clue about if it was a Battle Aura Technique or something else entirely, everything regarding that method was just too obscured and I have little to no information about it, too many things that needed to be done, but no much time on my hands .
Speaking of time, what's going on with this rays of light, is it morning already, what's going on, I recall that there should be still some time in the night, how could it be morning already, could it be.... .
Was time working differently or passing more quickly in that mysterious space than it actually did in reality, well if that was indeed the case this would be quite an issue to deal with, I'm on a quite the tight schedule, something like realizing that I had lost days or even months while I spent less than ten minutes in that space, caused me to be a lot more guarded with how I deal with that method from now on .
I was tempted to try again, but before I do such a thing, I first went through the notes left by the family head again, but this time I was determined to try and gain some insights on what should I exactly do, it was nice to have a reference to go back to, the only problem was that there was never a situation like mine mentioned on the notebook I have in hand .
I couldn't help but start getting a headache, this time the side effects of failing had no link to it, this time it was all on me and my mind currently racing with thoughts about what was happening here, I was finding my matter difficult to understand .
The note didn't provide much support due to the fact that at most they had managed to Master the first chapter and the most talented among the whole Dorell family managed to get a glimpse of the second chapter, but that was all the most talented people this family gave birth to was able to achieve, the reference that I wanted to use as a basis for my own practice was of no use .
What now, I couldn't help but ask myself this question, a few profound answers came to my mind about how I should delay the matters here to some other time, but that was the thing, all that I hoped to achieve, had the success in practicing this damn method as the cornerstone .
I need to increase my Mental Strength and energy so that I can use it to absorb Mana faster and achieve more results, the same need goes for the power in my eyes, the same also goes for the Northern Devouring Star, every path that I might be even just thinking of taking, I find myself still need to increase my Mental Strength first .
So to give up now was out of question no matter whether I liked it or not, taking a deep breath and knowing what should I be doing next, I once again sat cross-legged on the bed, then started to enter that weird focused state once again, but this time I lit a candle nearby, wanting to try and find the difference in the time spent here and in that weird space, hoping that I would at least be able to .
I felt like I was sinking in sand again and when my senses came back to me, I found myself in the familiar empty space, in front of the same mysterious bronze gate, then I began to sense the swirling energy around me, I tried to contact with it, to once again re-establish the connection that seemed to have been severed by me appearing here .
But it was easier said than done, my mental energy was treating me with indifference, it didn't care about me being here, but I should at least be glad that it hadn't started to deal with me like I'm sort of an enemy, so at least that was a good start .
Trying to re-establish the connection depended on trying to come in contact with that energy through my body, or whatever I was like currently, but every time I tried to do so, I felt that there was something here the repulsed me and prevented me from doing so, another obscure feeling that I had no clue about what it was and what to do about .
Time was ticking and I had already noted that I had came here for a minute already, a whole minute here might be a whole hour outside, it wasn't like that I had important thing to do outside, but I kept on reminding myself of the fate that waited this world if I wasted my time here .
I hadn't managed to achieve anything and that itself could be labeled as another failure, I shook my head from all these distracting thoughts and thought to myself that since trying to reconnect with the Mental Energy seemed to be a lost cause at least for now, I should try another approach .
Shifting my gaze towards where that gate was, I found myself unconsciously moving towards it, then I stood right in front of its opened doors, all I saw inside was lights of different colors, mixed together in what seemed to be a rainbow, but other than this, there was nothingness, I couldn't resist the temptations and sensing that there must be no issue with crossing the gate, due to not getting much of a threat from it .
But it seem that I had misunderstood with my interpretation of not being able to sense much of a threat, as I crossed into the gate, all that happened was me finding myself on the other side of the gate and nothing more .
I passed by the gate like a spooky ghost, or maybe it might have been the thing with the spooky ghost effect, maybe it didn't allow me to pass through, maybe it wasn't even there, or maybe it had something to do with me, another minute seemed to have passed and I was still looking at the gate trying to find any sign, any solution for all that was happening, but to no avail .
In the end I absentmindedly felt like I was in need of something to rest my head on for a while, I saw that the doos of that gate seemed corporal, so I couldn't help but touch them first to see if they can be touched or if they were similar to the gate .
They were corporal form indeed, I was able to touch them and as I put my head on one of the doors, I couldn't help but find that it was easy to move, then a crazy thought appeared in my mind, since I can touch them, then didn't that mean that I can close those gates without even having to use Mental Energy .
Already feeling at loss of what to do, then suddenly finding such a method, I directly tried to implement it, I tried to pull one of the gate doors and surprisingly it was indeed an easy thing to do, but then it was no longer as easy as before, as the left door was pulled almost completely, a sudden resistance began to push against me and for the first time I felt that the energy here seemed to show a sign of interacting with me .
It came to be a surprise, but a happy one, against the repulsive force that seemed not willing to allow the door to be shut, the Mental Energy was like a hammer that kept trying to nail the door shut, using my body as the hammer and it as the swinging force .
But even with this, there were still some troubles with trying to close the gate, it was mentioned that there was a need for closing the two doors, the one on the left and the right in the same time, but I was still finding difficult to reach the second door, without the one I'm holding be throwing back open .
I started to think of a way, then I found a bit unusual kind of plan, that indeed might be able to help me in this situation, the plan was to use the Mental Energy that was now more malleable to prevent the door, in best case this would give me a second or two to reach the door of the other side, as for whether this would actually succeed or not, I had no clue, all I have is a few more minutes max, so now wasn't the time to start doubting whether was this going to work or not .
I need to act fast, I was already beginning to sense that the Mental Energy of mine was being consumed at an alarming rate, so any hesitation will result in the whole process to fail and I'm already desperate for it to finally work, urging my Mental Energy, I was able to make it block the door from being reopened, then I went to the right side and after a second the two doors were now almost being pushed into closing the mysterious gate .
But there was a problem, after I held the two door and began to push them forward, the repulsive force acting on the doors seemed to increase even more and was now even more intense in resisting me closing it down .
I was beginning to feel more and more desperate this tug war seemed to be working in my favor on the surface, but actually it wasn't, this was the worst kind of war to take part in, the gate had more power than me who was already at my end, so the doors would be still be sent open and once again all my work would go to waste, it was nothing but a matter of time .
No, I'm not willing for it to end that way, I won't allow it to toy with me like this, I will be the one to prevail, through what I sensed to be gritted teeth, I start to push back with a newfound resolve and surprisingly strength as well, pushing against the force that kept on trying to stop me from shutting the door .
The struggle continued for a few seconds, with me and that gate getting engaged in a battle of wills, before the latter seemed to have finally lost its footing and instantly taking advantage of this, I put everything I can muster on one last push, finally forcing that gate shut .