continued - 2/9

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Joe woke in the morning, stretching in the perfect peace of enough sleep and the perfect awakening that comes from slowly drifting and just becoming aware, the moment between sleep and awake lost in the perfect transition. Just, somehow, being awake and ready to face the day but not knowing how long you've been awake.

Joe allowed himself to just rest in the moment, letting time slip by until the perfect moment to rouse struck him. He felt a full body stretch hit him and he took in a deep breath before letting it out slowly and standing. Now.

It was the perfect time, and he sat up and looked around the room, then suddenly had to stifle a giggle when he noticed Garnedell and Zilnek crashed on Zilenk's bed. They looked like they had fallen asleep in the middle of a conversation, Zilnek with his head on his pillow and Garnedell laid out at the foot of the bed, both their legs and feet thrust to the other side of the bed, draping across each other randomly. Zilnek's foot was actually in Garnedell's face and Zilnek was spooning Garnedell's leg. Joe took several deep breaths to calm himself, then tore his head away and moved away to the corner of the room behind the door. Time to practice my mana stuff.

Joe sat down and once again began his mana release practice, his mind settling on what he needed and prepared to push hard when he suddenly stopped in shock as he watched mana flow from him smoothly, perfectly, and as easily as thinking about it. That's… that easy? It can't be that easy, right? Why am I?

Joe didn't fight too much with the sudden gift and quickly closed his eyes, sensing his body and what was happening. He started and stopped the process several times until finally he felt a strange twinge; an odd muscle group or some kind of conscious control he'd never noticed before deep in his torso just behind, or in front? Where is it? Joe couldn't quite place it, but could only recognize it as being around his heart. It was centered on his heart somehow, but just as he knew it was centered on his heart, he also knew that it wasn't his heart. It was something else.

He began once again accepting and releasing the mana continuously and soon was able to easily feel that 'thing' that was allowing him to do such. It's so… easy. He opened his eyes and watched the results, each tremor resulting in a fresh wave of mana or its cessation. Whatever had happened, he'd learned it pretty quickly and easily, which Joe found rather surprising.

For the first time in his mana practice, it wasn't physical exhaustion that ended his practice but actually running out of mana as it emptied out. Joe verified by flipping open his status and saw his mana at zero, but rapidly refilling. Joe watched his mana regenerating for a few moments, counting and thinking carefully before having found the timing. Huh… about five minutes to get my mana back, I guess. Well, that gives me time. Joe decided to use the five minutes to take a look at his new job as he'd not taken a look at it yesterday, completely distracted.