The sight of a new reality

A voice of a new reality was what Heltach said. Unfortunately for Dorsh, this stage demanded some physical sacrifices. First of all, he had to fast for approximately six days, sustaining only on water. Second, Dorsh had to carry extra weight on his shoulders and move through many wild areas using his barefoot, no shoes. Finally, Heltach told him that this phase of his learning would neither depend on his physical strength, nor in his psychological strength, but on something else. Dorsh immediately asked his teacher if this experience was going to cause him pain. Heltach said that hearing the voice of a new reality was a metaphorical manner to refer to the experience he was about to encounter. Yet, nobody could exactly describe this experience in quite the same manner as it manifests differently across humans. Then again, there exists a universal in this phase as there are two options: Either the candidate survives or dies. Dorsh felt uneasy after hearing that as none of his skills, whether physical or psychological would determine if he would pass or not.

Heltach told Dorsh he would have to meet him on a tower that was located two hundred kms from there. Although this distance did not appear much to cross in six days, the fact was that the road was extremely difficult as he had to climb a huge mountain and some valley full of dangerous creatures. If he did not get there on six days, he would immediately assume he was dead, so he would have to go back to the academy on his own without any help.

Despite Heltach told him this experience involved something else, Dorsh thought much of this task as a physical and psychological endurance. It was ridiculous to think that was not part of the task, but Dorsh later understood that it was not the main point of that test. After hours of climbing the mountain, Dorsh stopped trying to remember the books he had read. However, no matter how hard he tried to make sense of this task, nothing written could accurately describe what he was about to encounter.
While he continued climbing the mountain, he begin to feel the weight in his shoulders and decided to stop and check what was tha strange noise he heard from within. At first, he opened the bag, and discovered a very small knife together with a note that Heltach had written. 'Use just in case you need to ease your pain.' At first, Dorsh did not understand how a knife was supposed to ease his pain, but he made himself a belt to carry it on.

Everything Dorsh could feel while he moved was silence, everything he could hear was the sound of his own body, the sound of his knees, his ankles, his breath, and the very little cold wind that went across his veins. As a result of that, Dorsh gradually felt how his nose got full of mucus. Furthermore, due to climbing the whole mountain on his barefoot, Dorsh got blisters and decided to use the knife to let the blister bleed a little so they did not bother him while he continued climbing.

After two days of climbing, Dorsh finally made it to the top, in exhaustion, sweating, but a little relived as everything he had to do was to go down and get to the valley. However, just when he was about to get up and continue, he turned over as he heard somebody calling his name. Nobody was around, which immediately made Dorsh realise he had just imagined someone calling him. Moments later, he heard it again, and hours later, he continued experiencing that. Dorsh remained calm as perhaps the wind was confusing him. However, when he heard it again, he turned over and stumbled over a little rock and fell down to the ground rolling down the mountain until he stop. Dorsh was extremely hurt, he had hurt his left leg, particularly his ankle. Somehow, despite the great pain, Dorsh remembered the note that Heltach left and begin looking for the knife, yet he had lost it when he fell. After minutes which lasted an eternity because of the intense pain, Dorsh began to smell something which regardless of his pain, appeared to be familiar to him. He followed that smell and incredibly enough, he found the knife which he unconsciously put right through his leg, which instead of causing him more pain, relieved him from the pain. After realizing what had just happened, he closely looked at the knife and realized that what helped him get to it was the smell of his own blood that he had previously drawn while he treated the blisters on his feet. Despite washing it with water, he could still feel the smell of his blood very accurately on the knife. Yet, after realizing the wound on his leg did not hurt anymore, he looked closely at the knife again, this time in direction to the sun, he could see a bright red light that he knew he had seen before. 'This is it' he said. 'At last, I have seen you again' he added. The light he had just witnessed was what Dorsh had been waiting to see all his life; the light that had saved his life.