Once he finished eating, Gabriel stood up with the intention of returning the plate, walking out of the room he came upon the living area, it was a square room with a table, a mat was laid under the table made of cotton like material. From beyond the table he could see the kitchen through a gap in the wall with a door beside it. Moving past the table he located the door that would lead into that kitchen.

  As he came back through the modest parlour Gabriel scanned the wall on the either side, there were a lot of pictures. At the top of the wall on right there were four pictures, each with an elderly person, they included three males and a female picture. Among them was monk Chen’s picture, it was the last picture on the right, if Gabriel was to guess he would say the man was in his thirties then.

  Underneath those four were other pictures, group photos. Eighteen in total all. Each picture had five people in it and monk Chen was always at the middle in each photo with four or three or five different people, from the first at the top in his thirties till the last picture, the most recent as Gabriel had seen him. If Gabriel was to guess his forties.

  Gabriel hesitated on his way to the room and instead walked to the door which he suspected lead outside, he was to awake to rest anyways. Opening the door he saw monk Chen outside sitting in meditation on a stone platform.

  “You may join me” monk Chen said, his eyes still closed “If sleep is not on your mind.”

  Gabriel took him up on the offer and settled down beside him, the stone was cool under him and more comfortable than he expected. Closing his eyes Gabriel focused on his breathing. Empting his mind of all unnecessary thoughts, he noticed it, the aether flowing in and out of his body with his breathing. It was warm and comforting, he breathed in as much as he could in order to collect as much aether as he into his body and he held his breath for as long as possible even to the point of straining his lungs and allowing that warm feeling to travel through his body, according to his teachers to give his body enough time to absorb and transport the aether from his lungs to his core. It was all an instinctive process determined only by the capacity of his lungs and how long he could hold in his breath.

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  But something was wrong. Years of meditation had produce one Hotspot of warmness in him around the region of his stomach, that was his core. Normally once he began to meditate aether from his core would fill his body adding on to the one that would come in from his lungs, the released aether will go into his muscles and every part of his body strengthening it, once he finished his meditation, all the aether in his body would congregate into his core again including the newly gained aether, newly refined aether. As he was still in the third tier, he could not really will his cores yet, more like nudge it to dispense aether all around his body, while not in meditation. But now he couldn’t feel the hotspot that were his cores, the aether in his body didn’t increase and all aether he had strained his lungs to take in, all came back out after a while

  “I can’t feel my core” Gabriel muttered “I can’t feel my core” he repeated “something is wrong I can’t feel anything .”

  “Calm down kid, there is nothing wrong with you.”

  “Nothing wrong? I can’t feel my core and you say nothing is wrong?” Gabriel had a moment of inspiration and blurted out “You guys did something to me?”

  Gabriel narrowed his eyes, that explanation fit, uncle Zhao drugged him and brought him here and this guys did something to him. Uncle Zhao must have been part of them, maybe he was even the master mind, was running away from Samsara a lie? Was it all a play on his mind? Was his only friend in on it as well? Uncle Zhao had brought him to this monastery for what? Money? No it couldn't be, Experiments? More likely. Does father know? Maybe, this was why they adopted me in the first place."