I awoke with the sun shining in my unaccustomed eyes, temporarily blinding me.

“Ah!” I softly cried with my dry throat, burying my head in the pillow.

I almost fell asleep again, if my dad didn’t cry “El! Breakfast is ready!”! I reluctantly climbed out of my bed. I washed my face with some cold water to jolt myself awake, brushed my teeth, and changed into a blue t-shirt and fairly baggy shorts. Wait a minute… the shorts had colour! I looked around. Everything else did too! How did I not notice! I could now see that my bed sheets were blue, and I could see the green leaves on the tree outside my window! Although I couldn’t recognise most of the colours I was seeing, I could now see the whole world in colour! I’m assuming it has something to do with my first entrance into my chroma center. Man, when Hermit finds out about this, he’s not gonna believe it!

“Well someone’s looking cheery today!” my dad exclaimed, sliding two fried eggs onto a china plate.

“Yep, just thinking about all the adventures i’m gonna have today!” I replied with an excited smile on my face!

Dad heartily laughed. “Well, you better get some breakfast before you go off getting into trouble, or you’ll be tired out!”

“Hah! Guess your right!” sitting down to eat my cornflakes and raisins as my dad gave me a noogie, and sat down to finish the shoe from last night.

After I finished my bread, eggs and milk, I washed the plate and the mug in our big water basin, and left them on the table to dry. Then, I picked up the cloth bag, and filled it with a pear from the ice basket, the three wooden figures that hermit gave me, and secretly put Tsara inside. This time, I noticed a thin green line running on the figures. “Maybe this is how your energy is supposed to flow to paint?” I figured. It seemed that the green line comes in and out of your limbs, and always runs through your lower abdomen before exiting your body. 

Well, that’ll be good to know for today’s training!

“Bye dad!”

“Have fun!”

And with that, I left for the forest.

This time, on the way to the forest, I went around the market. Well, not completely, I snuck a loaf of bread into my bag from the bakery stall, but my point is, I didn’t go straight through the market, just in case the fruit vendor noticed me. I arrived at the edge of the forest, followed the river downstream until I came to the gigantic tree, Hermit's house. It was really, really hard to miss, considering that this tree was significantly bigger than the others! I lifted the skin flap door and stepped inside. Hermit was there, carving something that looked like a plate.

“I’m back! And i’ve got some good news!”

Hermit looked up from his plate. “Ah! You’re here! So, what’s the news?”

“I can now see all the colours!” I proudly stated.

“Wha-how? You better not be pulling my leg boy!”

“Nope! Although I can only name blue and green, I can now see each and every colour! I think it has something to do with my first entrance into my chroma center when I was sleeping yesterday.”

“Hmm… chroma center… chroma center…” Hermit muttered to himself.

“Oh yes! Chroma center! I read something about that! Here, let me fetch some scrolls!” Hermit exclaimed in sudden realisation.

He stuck his tiny hermit crab head in one of the drawers, and rummaged around, checking the majority of all the drawers inside this tree (which was a lot). After a while, he had found two scrolls, and was proudly carrying them to me.

“Here you go! I knew I had something on chroma centers! Read up, and get those mind juices churning! And tell me what it says too, will ya, since i’ve never accessed my chroma center before!”

It took about 20 minutes for me to go through both the scrolls, and another 20 for me to explain everything to Hermit. The scrolls told me the usual, that chroma centers are where spirits lie, and blah blah, but I did learn that spirit channels, the channels in your body in which spirit energy/colour energy flow through (probably the thin green lines on the figures) can be used to access your chroma center, which is located in your lower abdomen.

What you do is you close your eyes, and let some spirit energy out, to become more aware of and recognise the colours around you. Then, eyes still shut, harness a very small fraction of the colour energy around you without harming the spiritual balance of anything, and focus all that energy into your lower abdomen, where your chroma center is. With enough concentration, you should be able to enter your chroma center. Holding your paintbrush can help. Some people can even do it without closing their eyes, and some people can do it very quickly, ironically, in the blink of an eye. They literally just have to blink to enter the chroma center. The trick is concentration, and practice. The more you practice using your spirit energy channels, the wider and more evened out your channels will be, allowing for easier energy flow, and less energy clogs. Your subconscious mind will also be more adept at using the channels, and any emotional or physical barriers in your energy channels with slowly dissipate.

I thought that was pretty cool.

“Alrighty! I nominate today, monday, to be our very first energy channel and chroma center training! Mainly because i’m excited to see what’s in my chroma channel!” Hermit announced, louder than needed.

“Okay then, let’s start!”

We both settled down to comfortable positions, me lying on my back holding Tsara, and hermit sitting on the wooden floor, holding his own paintbrush. I took a deep breath, and using Tsara looked inside myself, searching for my energy channels. I easily found them , since they were glowing with every colour imaginable! I let some energy out, flowing around barriers, as my mother had instructed. I mainly sensed one specific colour.

“Brown.”

Somehow, Tsara had told me! Quickly acknowledging Tsara’s statement and moving on, I willed a bit of the energy of brown into me through my arms and legs, and to my lower abdomen. I could feel spiritual energy flowing into Hermit as well. I focused on my lower abdomen, and the energy channels leading to it. Suddenly, I felt a floating sensation.

Success! I was in my chroma center!