Free Diablo 3: The Reaper of Souls by Elias Vandoren Page A

away. With smug condescension he asked, "And from this distance?"
     
    Mikulov glared at him angrily. "My bare hands."
     
    The movement of Vedenin's hand came more swiftly than his years should have allowed. The infinitesimally fine point and razor edges of a punch dagger passed so close to Mikulov's eyes he felt the blade slice the air.
     
    "Try it," Vedenin murmured, softly, his words reaching Mikulov alone.
     
    Humiliated though Mikulov had been by that lesson, he was acute enough to grasp its wisdom. His uncanny grace and balance soon made him formidable with this close-combat weapon, the sound of his exertions heard often on the practice field. In time, he found himself the dagger's master.
     
    Mastery of the mind and of the spirit, however, eluded him.
     
    True prowess came from more than incantations over arcane scrolls. No, the ancient order believed that the force of the gods was in all things, be they living or inert, and that power must therefore flow over everything in creation. Thus, practitioners within the Floating Sky Monastery spent their lives learning to sense that force wherever it lay and manipulate it to whatever purposes served the Patriarchs, the voice of the gods in Ivgorod.
     
    One day, when his punch dagger was a blur to those who watched it hammer the wooden post he used as a stand-in enemy, so unalloyed was Mikulov's concentration that he reflexively reached out with his mind, into the kinetic resonance of the gods' power. Though the action came about by chance, and though it harnessed only a fraction of the available force, his weapon struck the post with more than physical strength. A blue light crackled out of Mikulov's blade, and a shockwave knocked several onlookers off their feet. Ripples carried outward into the monastery's walls. Two stunned orphans ran, calling their wizened masters, though they needn't have bothered. Monks of the Floating Sky spent every day in rapt contemplation of their surroundings, waiting for signs from the gods. Such clear evidence of the divine could scarcely escape their notice.
     
    Mikulov, already proficient with physical weapons, had sufficiently mastered both his mind and spirit to do something extraordinary. His test, he knew, would likely be upon him soon. When the stern, unyielding face of Vedenin arrived and stared down into his own on the practice field, Mikulov grasped that the likelihood had just become a certainty.
     
    In the days that followed, Mikulov pushed himself to master this newly discovered ability so he could summon the power at will.
     
    The force came more rapidly and reliably when he concentrated entirely on the intended effect. His initial contact had been clumsy and awkward and so maddeningly brief—had it been a physical thing, he would have fumbled it through his fingers and dropped it—but it nevertheless taught him that he could draw forth that power and direct it, even magnify it.
     
    He devised his own drill and put himself through it relentlessly.
     
    Fasten your mind firmly on the need to release the power through the blade itself. Concentrate on that requirement. Focus your determination; let your yearning to release that energy flow outward from your mind to every fiber of your body and your spirit.
     
    After achieving a few further, if limited, successes, he learned that the key was not concentration alone.
     
    You must concentrate yet never hurry, move without haste but with fixed determination.
     
    He sought always to remember that because the power of the gods was a gift, rushing their largesse was vain and disrespectful.
     
    The gods will grant you what you need when you require it. Your duty is simple, to be focused in the instant the gods choose.
     
    Details of how the initiates' trials were composed remained among the monastery's most closely guarded secrets. Those who failed were immediately cast out, but the few who succeeded were sequestered in diligent study, often decades of it, no longer