Fragments of Alchemy: The Code Breaker

Chapter Fifteen ~ The Sensitive Type ~ Part I

Thea met Chadwick at the table, and he smiled as brightly as he could. She seemed to have perked up a bit, so he decided to ask about her lesson.

'I'd already had the lesson,' Thea said, 'And when I recited the history to my new teacher, she was really impressed that I remembered it all,' Thea explained. 'We had more time than she'd planned for me to practise making a cloud. I got it to work, even though I was so slow, and I practised making it fly around the room, though I decided to stay in the chair instead of ride around. Did you know that when you Convert, you leave parts of your Kundalini behind in the Conversions? That's what makes it possible to make your clouds fly.' She beamed at him.

'I did know that. Did you know that if you don't call those little bits of Kundalini back to you, they can get lost forever?'

Thea's mouth popped open in shock. 'What? Lost?'

'Yup! Little bits of your Soul, just gone! If you never recover those little bits, your Spiritual Essence can just go poof! Like a dried up desert oasis.'

'That's awful,' Thea said. 'Why didn't anyone tell me?' She made a horrified face, obviously worried for all the little bits of her Soul that she had been leaving behind.

Chadwick burst out laughing. Then he grit his teeth as his ribs complained. He hugged his chest with one hand, rubbed his bruises, and said, 'You're bloody gullible.'

Her mouth opened even wider, and then she went red in the face as she realised that Chadwick was only taking the mickey at her. 'You're a jerk!' she exclaimed, punching his shoulder with her fist.

'Ouch, Mentor abuse!' Chadwick called out to the Chemists sitting at the nearby tables in the Cardinal Rotunda. 'She's beating me up, and I'm too much of a gentleman to fight back.'

'Oh, stop!' Thea said, smiling brightly as she shoved him playfully. This time, she got him right on the bruises peppering his body. He tried to smirk, but it was more like a wince. He simply loved getting this sort of attention, and the pain only put a slight damper on things.

'How does it really work?' Thea asked.

'Your Spiritual Essence is connected to you, so when you Convert, it connects you to your Focus for as long as you keep the Conversion going. When you end the Conversion, your Essence returns to your Root Chakra automatically, but some of the Energy from your Chakras is lost. That's what you've been leaving behind.' Chadwick made a gesture with his hand, almost as though he were setting a little bird free. 'It's harmless really, just a bit tiring, is all.'

'Huh,' Thea said. 'So, when we meditate, we only replenish the Energy in our Chakras, not our actual Kundalini?'

'Yup,' Chadwick said, tilting his head and pointing at her. 'The earth takes back our Energy, and we in turn take Energy from the earth, in a sort of circle.' He held his hand up to indicate the world around them. 'We're all connected, because we all share this Energy. It ebbs and flows through us all.'

A strong blast of déjà vu hit Chadwick as he remembered his very first Alchemy lesson with Tajana, back before he'd even passed his Trial of Entry. This is how she had explained it all to him. But the words didn't feel natural coming from his mouth. Without Tajana's words, he'd certainly fail to explain anything properly.

'So we don't need to call back the Energy we use?'

'Thankfully, that's not how it works, or our Spirits really would dry up like the desert,' Chadwick said. 'I s'pose it's possible that every now and then, bits of Energy that I've used before may return to me again, but I wouldn't know any better. It's all the same to me.'

'Hmm,' Thea said with a frown. 'For a moment, I thought you were saying something rather beautiful. Then you just kind of ruined it at the end there.'

Chadwick tried to laugh. 'Thanks, I guess.'

She smiled. 'You know, you're a lot more sensitive than you let on. Maybe even more than you know.'

'Oh, really?' Chadwick said, suddenly feeling slightly awkward at the turn this conversation was taking.

'Yup! You really should allow yourself to be more open with this aspect of your personality.'

Chadwick couldn't help but snort. 'I'm sorry, you lost me.'

'I'm just saying, you don't have to be so insensitive all the time. It's okay for boys to be sensitive.'

Chadwick shook his head and said the first thing that came to his mind: 'Not when your dad's a retired pirate and you're destined to be the leader of the Shadow Faction.'

Thea opened her mouth to object, but Chadwick cut her off. 'Come on, let's just go to our next lesson. What lesson have you got?' Chadwick asked.

'Today's Monday so ... Venarius Houghton of the red Fragment, but it rotates every day.'

'Yeah, my schedule does that too. It's because we have too many Fragments to study all at once, so our upper lessons rotate through each Fragment over the whole week. It's a pain because we have lessons every day of the week, but at least we both have the same Fragment at the same time so we can go to the same Rotunda together.' He got to his feet, and Thea followed him.

'This is a long lesson, so I'll see you back here in about an hour,' Chadwick said as he started walking. 'Oh, Houghton is right over here,' he said, leading Althea along the ring of desks on the outer curve of the grand room. They stopped in front of a large man in red robes, who was sitting on his desk instead of in the chair behind it. 'Cheerio,' Chadwick said, and he continued on his way.

Thanks for reading! This was a nice short one for you. I hope you are enjoying the Code Breaker. Leave me a vote or comment please! It's always great to hear from my reader and feedback is always accepted here. See you soon for the last half of this chapter.

~A.C.