Chapter 6

I woke up the next morning feeling better than I had for years.

There was no gradual transition from asleep to awake, one second I simply was asleep the next, I wasn't.

A quick glance to my alarm clock showed that it was about five am. I frowned and grabbed my mobile phone from the bedside to check the accuracy of my clock only to be pleasant-ly surprised that it was indeed correct.

I distinctly remembered being awake until past midnight and yet less than five hours later I was awaking perfectly refreshed?

"Interesting" I muttered to myself.

The very last thing he had done before falling asleep the night before was find one of the easiest pieces of magic in the book and attempting it. The magic was described simply as 'The Restful Slumber'.

All he'd had to do was lie down and focus on visualising his magic wrapping his body in a cocoon and sending him into a deep slumber, and the next thing he knew was waking up feeling better than ever.

"No more oversleeping ever" I murmured with a smirk.

As many teenagers will know, despite my parents assertions to the contrary, I did not enjoy waking up to find I had overslept. It is all round an irritating experience. And simply get-ting up early is often worse, the constant feeling of lethargy caused by lack of sleep was almost worse than the sick feeling of having overslept and missed something.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't I guess.

Deciding that my first attempt at magic had been somewhat successful, I quickly flicked to the second piece of magic I had marked the night before. It was similar to the restful slum-ber spell in that it required very little skill and that it was little more than a parlour trick in the grand scheme of things.

Like the slumber spell, the 'Physical Harmony' spell was easy to cast as it only involved using a visualisation trick to coax my magic to alter the body's rhythms just slightly. I didn't have to directly use, alter or move my magic in anyway, simply let it know what I wanted it to do through sheer willpower. As such it was one of the easiest Magic's to do.

Like the Restful Slumber spell the book was sparse on details of what exactly would hap-pen, merely that through mental focus one could detach themselves from distractions such as pain or fatigue and make the body, mind and magic work together to get the most out of the body.

I quickly threw on a pair of shorts and a hoodie before slipping on my athletic trainers. I had always intended to take up jogging in the morning but I bore rather easily and as I have mentioned I have a nasty habit of oversleeping.

After checking the book a few times to make sure I had memorised the visualisation trick I would require to create the effect, I slipped the book in to the bottom of my pornography drawer. Sure that none would look there for anything interesting.

Quietly as I could I snuck down the corridor from my room to the wine cellar then through and into the room below the garage where I ascended the stairs and unlocked the side door and slipped out into the pre-dawn light of an October morning.

Glancing about nervously I exhaled slowly and tried to clear my mind of any extra thoughts, (much more difficult than you'd think. Try it!) Then I focused on the image of my magic now thundering through my veins along with my blood. I focused on how it would synchronise my muscles, calm my brain and make my heart and lungs work in har-mony.

After an indeterminable amount of time I felt my mind slip into a peaceful state and found I was much less conscious of the sensations around me.

Of course as soon as I achieved this I got so excited I lost the feeling so I had to start over.

Five minutes later I finally managed to set off at a brisk trot revelling in the feeling of my body working in prefect synchronicity while my brain idly turned over recent events.