My vision was entirely black.
I could still feel my limbs, but my eyes felt so heavy I couldn't even begin to force them open. I could feel my heart beating so fast it felt like it was going to jump out of my chest, when a tired, deep voice rang in my head.
'Boy if you're ever in trouble slam your left hand on the floor and say come out'.
'Trust me, you will need my help eventually', the voice said sternly, almost like he knew something I didn't.
Suddenly my eyes sprung open. I immediately glanced at my left hand only to see a black ring imprinted on the back of my hand. The black mark vanished as a door crashed open.
Looking up at the door, a short man stood there with some kind of bottle in his hand. The man grinned, "I was wondering how long you'd sleep for brat, about time you woke up".
Shifting back a couple of steps, I hesitantly responded, "Who are you? And where am I?"
The man settled down on a broken wooden chair and put the bottle down, "I'm Azz and you're in the Celestial Realm, any more questions?".
The Celestial Realm…
"Wait did I die!", I screamed.
Chuckling, the old man looked at me, "No of course not, as to why you're in the Celestial realm, I'm going to teach you how to control that power inside of you".
Power? Celestial Realm? this is all too much.
"Um Azz, how did I get here exactly? and what do you mean by power? What is the Celestial Realm?"
Picking up the bottle, Azz looked away, "Damn brat why so many questions", he complained despite asking me if I had more questions. Letting out a sigh, Azz looked back in my direction, "some black-haired beauty came here with you slung over her shoulder and said I'm supposed to train you. Emperors orders I guess, as for power and where you are, I'll explain so listen carefully".
"The power you have is called Celestial power, however, feel free to give it a nickname, not that its common but I've heard you humans like that stuff. This Celestial power is floating in the air in all 3 of the Realms."
"As for what the Celestial realm is, it's one of the 3 realms where gods live, then the Mortal realm where you humans live, then the Abyss realm where demons live".
Squinting, I looked at him unable to suppress more questions, "So if you're gods does that mean your omnipotent, omniscience beings?"
His eyes widened and he laughed again "No, no, no nothing like that, the Celestial Realm and the Abyss Realm both have millions of inhabitants with regular jobs the same as the Mortal realm".
"The whole all powerful God idea you humans think of technically isn't real, although some powerful people could pass as one. The closest being to it would most likely be the emperor, the ruler of the Celestial realm. The all-powerful all-seeing God you imagine is a convenient explanation for things you can't understand, and rather than attempting to understand you label it as a miracle", he explained, wiping a tear out of his eye clearly finding it hilarious.
I feel like this guy is mocking me.
"So how exactly are humans different to gods and demons?".
Sporting a grin, Azz stood and stretched out his hand, "we can do things like this".
A red blur flashed behind me. Azz was stood at the opposite side from where he just was, a ball of fire floating over his palm.
"Amazing!".
I could feel my excitement building. What did he just do some kind of magic? He said he was going to train me does that mean I can do that too.
"Azz, you said you were going to train me, how exactly are you going to do that? And how did I get this power?".
"From what that lass told me, the white crystal that flew into your chest contained large amounts of Celestial power leading to your body needing to adjust before taking it in".
That's what that white blur was! Good to know someone didn't try to kill me …
"But you said Celestial power is on Earth as well, right? How come humans can't use it?".
My suspicions were growing with every question answered. It was too strange of a situation to simply accept as if it were commonplace. This wasn't some simple dream, I knew that much, my entire life was changing right before my very eyes.
"It's spread ridiculously thin down there, whether that's due to the sheer number of humans, who knows. But I don't care, can we start training now? Take off your shirt!", Azz grumbled, his impatience reaching its limit.
"Pervert!" I shot back laughing, starting to kind of like this old man.
After Azz took another swig out of his bottle, I got curious and asked, "What's in there, some kind of magical liquid to help with stamina so we can get more training in?"
Azz grinned, "Oho it's a magical liquid alright and it puts you straight to sleep".
"Wow! what's it called? can I have some to try?", I asked, my naïve curiosity was getting the better of me.
"Booze, and no you can't, it's all mine brat", Azz slammed the bottle down.
Seriously! This old geezer is getting drunk, yet he's supposed to train me. Before I even got a chance to object, Azz placed his hand in the middle of my chest.
"Close your eyes and focus, it might be difficult but try to draw deep breaths in a relaxed manner".
Damn right that's difficult, hell is that even possible. Relaxing, I attempted the seemingly impossible task.
Drawing in the breaths, I felt my chest go tight, a feeling almost akin to heartburn. Damn this really is difficult. Calming myself down, I tried again.
Azz pulled his hand off my chest and sat back down in front of me, his head sinking, "Damn Emperor this is what happens if you force too much power into a kid", looking back up at me he shrugged his shoulders, "Brat, change of plans, you have way too much power for someone your age to handle, its why you collapsed".
I was growing more agitated than nervous, mainly because even though I had hoped something interesting would happen, I didn't ask to be nearly killed.
"Ok is there any way you can fix it?".
"You're going to need to learn to circulate it around your body similar to the way your blood does, it needs to be as natural as that", Azz mumbled with his head back in his hands. He was growing more stressed, and I didn't like that sight, not at all.